FROM THE HEART

T owards the end of May, Winchester Cathedral in the UK released a homemade, self-isolating-style video to commemorate one of its former musicians, the tenor Tim Pride, who had recently died (bit.ly/2CdkdPM). It was a performance of William Harris’s motet Bring Us, O Lord God, sung by 25 singers from their own homes - many of them Pride’s colleagues. The sound was constrained, the blend uneven, the ensemble shaky, the consonants all over the place. But it was a performance that contained more expressive depth than many recorded in pristine, live conditions by singers in the same room. This was partly connected to human reactions to Pride’s death. But it was also born, surely, of the feeling of singing after days of silence.

In the lockdown, musicians have learnt fast how to make videos like this one. Some of the results have provided welcome sustenance and thrown curious new light on music we thought we knew. Others haven’t fared so well, for which their novice perpetrators can hardly be held responsible. But they have given musicians voices, and linked them over space and time, when the alternative was silence.

Most musicians want to get back to live concert-giving as soon as possible. In some territories it’s already happening - the green shoots of rebirth are sprouting across the world as audiences and musicians are reunited in concert halls and opera houses. Will all that homespun material produced by bedroom editing programmes have a lasting effect on the way music is made in future? Not only did it awaken us to the fact that with the internet, musicians in different parts of the planet can perform together (one venture saw a pianist in Reykjavík play a concerto live with an orchestra in Bergen: bit.ly/2MZtrBk), it also served as a potent reminder, just when we needed it, that a soulful performance trumps a perfect performance every time.