Brugge 9: La Simphonie du Marais

My final concert (not counting the competition finals today!) was more of a spectacle than a concert. It was held in the Saint Jacobs Church (Sint-Jacobskerk), literally yards from my hotel room; you can see the church behind my hotel in the picture.

These churches are deceiving: many of them don't look particularly impressive on the outside ("impressive" being a relative thing: any one of them would be impressive in San Diego, even a major attraction!), but each has a unique layout for the interior. They all seem to have lots of clear glass windows, very ornate interiors, and have paintings of religious scenes hanging everywhere. However, dimensions and layout vary tremendously. Sint-Jacobskerk is currently under renovation and seems to be one of the larger ones with a lot room in both length and width to seat a large audience comfortably. I imagine that each of these churches must have functioned as the ecclesiastical equivalent of a country club in America and I wonder if membership was open.

Once again the venue was packed. It seems to me that a significant portion of each audience has been the local crowd: I have heard much more Flemish spoken than French and the little English I have heard has been usually used as the lingua franca, not a native language. If so, I have to commend Flanders for doing such a good job at supporting the Arts.

The spectacle itself was lost in translation for me. The ensemble leader, Hugo Reyne, made loud proclamations in French that were somewhat difficult to hear, in any case. The ensemble of nine, including oboes, flutes, a bassoon, several trumpets and a percussionist, marched around, danced as they played, and had fun positioning players in different parts of the church to startle the audience when they played. The music was by Lully and Philidor, shorter pieces well suited to the show, but not a sit-down-and-listen-seriously nature. The performers were pretty good and certainly seemed to enjoy themselves. I fear that after 45 minutes my inability to follow any story caused me to lose concentration--and that is the start of the inviting and deadly path to slumber! I decided that I had heard enough and didn't want to risk embarrassing myself yet again, so I retired to my room only yards away.