Interview with Dame Emma Kirkby
You were performing and recording at the beginning of the Early Music revival - how easy was it to blend with historical instruments? Who was helpful in terms of guidance?
From the start I was outside the mainstream singers' box in that I did very little singing with the piano; it was either choral music or madrigals at school, and more of that at university, where I was lucky to be a member of the wonderful ‘Schola Cantorum of Oxford’. That has its 50th birthday celebration on May 1st this year and is still going very strong, though I'd say the members I coached at a session in Oxford recently were probably further on technically than we were. Excitingly, the new generation of singers are what I would call "bilingual" - that is, they can balance beautifully in a group with clear and intense singing lines and precise tuning, but also turn out a sophisticated solo aria when required. In my last two years at Oxford I was part of a small early music group, singing everything from Josquin/Dufay to Dowland, Monteverdi and Purcell; we were two singers with a handful of instruments including lutes, harpsichord and wind. To me it was heaven and I found myself duetting happily with these colourful but relatively slender sounds; I think the "blend" was instinctive, more of a reaction, barely passing through the brain! I wish more young students had the chance to sing in such a context.
In particular the lute is a delight to sing with, besides being an ideal training tool for singers - this beautiful instrument distills sound into silence all the time, leaving the singer both inspired and exposed! You really have to confront the core of your sound, since everything is heard. At the same time no striving is needed to balance loud and sustained sounds such as you get from the highly developed modern piano.... the lute carries better than one might think, since its plucked sound is very clear; no need to feel inhibited by it so long as one adopts a speaking level, rather than the refined shout that is so often needed for more recent vocal music; and from that speaking level there is the chance to use all levels down to a whisper. Add to that the very high level of most of the lyrics and the chance to share with the audience a rhetorical and emotional journey through universal human experience - as they say nowadays, "what's not to like?"
I think today's young singers and instrumentalists have had the chance to hear a huge variety of approaches to early and especially baroque music, and at the highest standard; so they can genuinely choose which styles to adopt. Of course the standard approach has always had its brilliant exponents, but alongside them when I started there were just a handful of pioneers who caught our ears with their exciting and individual sounds. Nigel Rogers was very important to all of us with his musicality, wit, command of languages and ability to sing the fastest craziest coloratura passages in a way that still made musical sense; but he needed the instruments to be there for him first - he could not have managed all this with only the piano for company. (Though for the earliest pieces that should be played on a piano, Haydn/Mozart/Schubert etc., the appropriate instruments, that we now call "fortepianos" are also a wonder to work with, full of colour and special effects but all at roughly half the dynamic of their modern counterparts.) Other inspirations were the instrumentalists who sought voices to balance their sounds, and the scholars who provided us all with information about style and historical context. On the whole instrumental treatises were easier to use as source material since they made precise points about physical technique, pitch, temperament.... singers' treatises of necessity dealt in simile and metaphor, as to some extent they've done ever since, until our current instruments were developed for imaging vocal cords, brain and so on. So what players discovered when they played the newly reconstructed instruments percolated through to the singers; and then they professed to be following the advice of the treatises and imitating the singers, so we strove to be worth imitating!
Most people would associate you with music of the Renaissance and Baroque - is this the repertoire that you feel most at home with?
Broadly, yes, but I've dipped my toe in other areas; I tend to feel at home in chamber contexts, with the sort of intimate sounds I've described above.
Are there other genres of music which you particularly enjoy, or dislike (!), listening to?
Plenty - let's stick to the positive.. Indian singers, Bobby McFerrin, viol consort music, sarangi, any good musicmaking especially live - I've had marvellous evenings in the last few years listening to the Brodsky, Badke, Endellion quartets, to Lars Ulrik Mortensen doing almost anything, to James Lisney.... I don't get to nearly as much as I would like, especially the theatre - though I did see Antony and Cleopatra two years ago with Patrick Stewart and Harriet Walter - fantastic! One of my luckiest times for listening has been Dartington Summer School each year, with a broad spread of marvellous performers and music I might not have heard otherwise.
You have spent decades performing around the world - how are you able to give fresh, top-class performances after long-haul travels?
I try to arrive seriously early, never never singing straight off a plane; get as much humidity everywhere as I can, otherwise all obvious things, sleep, eat sensibly, seek for silence, beware of talking in a hubbub, especially after a concert!
With your busy schedule, do you have time for any non-musical activities?
Nothing dramatic - walks, meals with friends, go to things - most recently the Van Gogh at the Royal Academy, completely overturned my ignorant ideas of him! When touring, unfortunately I rarely have time or energy for proper tourism, so it's a boon if I get a morning free somewhere to wander around.
In Hong Kong you will be performing with Simon Over (as conductor and pianist) - have you enjoyed previous collaborations with him?
Yes, twice so far I think; once was a delightful Messiah with the Parliament choir - a very interesting lot as you can imagine! And once he persuaded me to sing some Poulenc and Debussy with him. I was pretty scared at the idea but Simon was right and I really enjoyed it. He's an excellent director and lovely pianist so I'm looking forward to working with him when he's wearing both hats....
