Christmas, Hanukkah - and Tabaski

Much has been made of the coincidence of the Christian and Jewish holidays today. In the name of interfaith peace and goodwill, I also wanted to go back to 25 December 2007, when we happened to be staying with our enterprising friend Sophie in her (then) new mud hotel in Djenné, Mali, and Tabaski, African Muslims' version of Eid al-Adha, shared the same day as our Christmas. Thus the photo of Djenné's men in their finest boubous praying outside the adobe wonder of the Great Mosque, which I take the liberty of repeating from one of my earliest blog entries back in January 2008.

It's a reminder, too, to get on with my reading of the Quran, which so far - two-thirds of the way through Book One - has revealed nothing but tolerance and welcoming of other religions on the grounds that we all share the same God. Plus some liberal ideas on divorce.

Owing to a postponed operation - one of the many in the current NHS crisis - Sophie is still with us in London, and later we'll be heading over the parks via other chums in Bayswater to share the big lunch with her and former attendees of her Tuesday soirées at another mutual friend's.

Salaam, and here's a medieval Virgin and Child from the east window of Merton College Chapel, taken after an Oxford Lieder Festival concert which we attended with Sophie's godmother Juliette (she's actually younger, a bit), her partner Rory and her mother.

K'an bεn, Keita

Oumar Keita and Sophie Sarin photographed by the great Malick Sidibé at Hotel Djenné Djenno, 2007

Gone far too soon, but Keita lived longer than anyone ever expected since his second wife and loving partner of 10 years, our Sophie Sarin, went to the ends of the earth to find cures and stavings-off of the myeloma that gradually, with remissions, wore down his resistance. She was trying, with expensive medication from India, to the last. A French drug wrought miracles for about a year.

I trust Keita's Malian family, including his first wife by whom he has two children (update - three, Sophie tells me below, proving how much time has passed), realises all that. For one thing especially they owe Sophie eternal gratitude - that the treatment she sought out in Casablanca got Keita walking again. His mother lived to see that, and to have hope, before she died.

I wish I could find that first photo I took of Keita in his workroom at Djenné's hospital - that would have been Christmas/Tabaski of 2005. Communication wasn't always easy given my far from perfect French, but the last time we spoke, over the phone while Sophie was here for supper on her last visit, was unforgettable for his big, deep laugh at something I said. We also spent quality time together in Meknes, Morocco, when they both joined us at the Riad Lahboul for a couple of nights. Above, the two in the main square; below, in the Riad, Keita in his most splendid boubou.

I know that Keita was the rock Sophie needed, both in her life generally and during her time (ongoing, of course) in Djenné - his presence smoothed over difficulties and allowed her to be her usual outspoken self. He'd always have wise judgment to give in conflicts with staff and locals. I never knew a gentler yet more manly, natural soul.

We have yet to hear from Sophie of that no doubt harrowing but - I hazard a guess - still extraordinary week by his bedside at the hospital in Bamako (he became unconscious on Good Friday and died on Easter Saturday). Hope we can be of support to her when she returns. Meanwhile, our thoughts are with her. Echoing the last line of her latest blog entry: Rest in Peace Oumar Keita, Mandé Massa.

TIME lauds our Sophie

And the chocolate slipper award goes to the indomitable Sophie Sarin, seen here chez nous in an age when the parrot still sat guard at the window. TIME Magazine has just named her Djenne Djenno blog  one of its top 25 this year. An amazing accolade well deserved, especially since following the onset of war in Mali Sophie's was the ONLY reliable source of information as to what was going on (it still is).

This award of sorts also honours her singular brand of philosophy and humour, with a succinct introductory text, though the comments of sour aspirants who think they should have been preferred make dismal reading. What, more deserving than a woman who has helped, and continues to help, the blind to see by funding annual cataract operations in Djenné, among countless other community projects she's instigated?  I love this picture of what in biblical times would have been called a miracle.

As Sophie's example was the reason why I took up what is outwardly at least far less adventurous blogging back in 2007, I'm delighted to homage the Blogmother. In not too long a time we'll be bathing with her in a Swedish lake, and in the meanwhile may Mali choose its leader wisely.

Deller, VW and the Melodians

That's acclaimed artist Jeremy, not late countertenor Alfred, and his masterly fusion of music and image in the 'English Magic' film which is currently part of his British Pavilion exhibit at the Venice Biennale*. I'm indebted to old friend and frequent commenter Howard Lane for drawing my attention to it. Howard and his daughter Rowan headed to Venice as part of the amazing Melodians, an English/Trinidadian steel band from south London whose talents Deller engaged for his genius selection of British sounds and sights. Here they are on a wet Abbey Road zebra crossing having recorded the soundtrack in an appropriately famous UK institution.

I could hardly believe my ears as the film proper got underway with the mystic chords of the Romanza from Vaughan Williams's Fifth Symphony rippling on steel. That's another one in the eye for the Ukippers who would claim VW and Elgar as their own. It not only sounds exceptionally haunting in that arrangement by the Melodians' conductor Anne Hornby, but it somehow fits with the two other choice transcriptions, of 'Voodoo Ray' by A Guy Called Gerald and 'The Man Who Sold the World' by David Bowie.

There's no need for me to interpret for you the haunting juxtapositions Deller finds between birds of prey and VW, claws of natural and mechanical kinds, the timely exuberant human bounce on an inflatable Stonehenge or the selective images of the Lord Mayor's Show to the Bowie (title not irrelevant - and did you know the army paraded tanks through the City on that day? I didn't). Just watch the 14 minute film here (the Vaughan Williams for the birds begins one minute in). Then watch it again. A little masterpiece, and the EP might be worth buying

Howard commends Jeremy Deller as a Thoroughly Good Bloke who was happy to share the Venice limelight with his steel banders. Here they all are outside the Pavilion. Howard is peering over shoulders at the back; Rowan - how she's grown since I last saw her - is third from the right of the sitters.

Hearing the Bowie again serendipitously coincided with a delightful blog entry from dear Sophie in Mali, who has been getting hotel staff turned bogolan workshop assistants Baba and Papa dancing to Bowie - and they are very choosy, I know, about what non-Malian imports they will embrace (the DVDs we took of Fawlty Towers had them in stitches about their very own irascible hotelier). This photo of our Sophe wearing her MaliMali designs (of course, never the one to miss an advertising opportunity, for I can't believe she drifts around the hotel in that ensemble) jigging with Baba belongs to her blog, but if I put it up here too, it will make me jolly just to look at it.

This is irresistible to dance to, too: Lulu's Bowie-approved cover version of 'The Man Who Sold the World'.

 A couple more YouTube specials to make you smile. I have a feeling that if Austria had entered 23-year old Martin Piskorski, ex-Vienna Boys Choir member currently training at the European Opera Centre in Liverpool, for the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World Competition, there might have been a tenor in the final. The below, his moment in the sun, was THE goosebumps moment of the diplo-mate-facilitated Europe Day Concert 2013 at St John's Smith Square, with Laurent Pillot conducting the great European Union Youth Orchestra.

To celebrate the Irish presidency, some rarities had been unearthed, including the Overture and an aria from Stanford's Shamus O'Brien. Who knew? The Overture is a gem worthy of Sullivan at his absolute best -  I hope not to demean Stanford by saying so - and I'll probably put it up on another post. And young Piskorski has the money note in the big phrase towards the end of 'My heart is thrall to Kitty's beauty'. The instant 'bravo' at the end comes from my guest Debbie York, and she knows what she's talking/singing about.

I could kick J as much as myself for not finding out more beforehand about last night's concert to inaugurate the Lithuanian presidency, also at St John's. 'Some accordionist', he'd said when I asked who was performing, not knowing more - this is THE accordionist of the moment with his charismatic band, Martynas Levickis, just signed up to Decca. Whether he is more than a good player - ie up to the standards of the phenomenal Mythos Duo whose Petrushka transcription is my CD of the year so far - I can't yet tell, but he certainly has musicianship and charisma. This is such a moody picture of him duetting with the band's handsome violinist yesterday, courtesy of the Lithuanian Embassy. And I missed it!

Levickis sprang to fame, unlikely as it may seem, on Lithuania's Got Talent in 2010, competing alongside  the likes of a man who played tunes on his teeth. He baffled the half-witted audience and judges by playing Piazzolla's Libertango, but readily played something more obviously crowd-pleasing, and of course much less interesting, on request. 'This is more like it' gurn the lardier versions of Ant and Dec from the wings. Anyway, he won.

*And I'm afraid it's usually been a 'his': only two female artists in 40 years. Shame on you, British Council.

Sophie Sarin, screen goddess

Of course she takes to the camera like a duck to water; how could she not, after her early years as a model in Paris? But our dearest Sophie achieves a crowning glory as the Australian Broadcasting Company gives her over ten minutes' worth of guiding in its excellent Foreign Correspondent two-part documentary Mali - The Road to Timbuktu.

As readers of this blog will know - and, I repeat myself, Sophie's djennedjenno was the prompt - the latest and perhaps the most enduring of her multiple incarnations has been as hostess of her own specially mud-built hotel in the central Malian town of Djenné, a place of culture and history which as she points out in the film is a hundred times more beautiful than Timbuktu. There she is above with husband Keita snapped by the consummate - and ever-modest - Malick Sidibé when he came to Djenné.

The route taken by the film crew is the one formerly travelled by many visitors like ourselves, including the toughest leg by four-wheel drive across the Sahel and ferry across the river Niger to Timbuktu.

But circumstances are now, of course, very different. The French have essentially driven out the Islamic extremists but incursions remain; the night after this film crew left Timbuktu 11 people were killed in an attack on the hotel where the ABC folk had been staying. It hardly needs adding that the Al-Qaida affiliated insurgents' extreme brand of Islam is one nearly all Malian Muslims reject.

Ridicule is one answer: the film shows walls of Timbuktu shops in which the faces not only of humans but also of camels have been painted out. Malians, moderate and tolerant in their religious practices, simply can't understand it. The peaceful scene below was prayer time at Djenné Mosque during the religious festival of Tabaski, with which we happened to coincide on our Christmas visit.

I like documentary presenter Eric Campbell's good humour as well as his instinct for getting the right facts and talking to the right people. His cameraman, David Martin, captures much of the indestructible treasure of Mali as well as the horrible legacy of the recent past (some of that also featuring on surprising wartime footage). And let's not forget they were travelling at considerable risk, despite the armed guards. Anyway, they arrived safely back in Bamako, where the film ends with coverage of Sophie's 'surreal', once-postponed fashion show. Her chunk of Part One, which can be seen - I link once again - here, runs from 11'56 to 19'27.

You'll surely agree she comes over very well indeed, and  the range of what she's done for Djenné is well represented, from the weaving to the invaluable work in the British Library-funded manuscript library. The upshot is good business for malimali.org from Australia, and certain proposals, she says, from several Sydney businessmen (Keita can see them off).

In the meantime I withdraw again from the Malian scene with a memory of one of the best stretches - a moment of post-dawn bliss on our two-day pinasse journey down the Niger from Timbuktu to Mopti. That's not an experience anyone will be repeating again in the foreseeable future.

A Mali without music?

Unthinkable, isn’t it? And yet that would certainly have happened if the Islamist extremists, having taken Konna the other Thursday, had been able to plough on to Bamako. There have been well-reported programmes on the World Service filling us in on the situation in Timbuktu and elsewhere in the north: no sounds of music allowed, not even on the mobile phone. The Festival in the Desert has, of course, been a fatality, though by the sounds of it that had been corrupted from its original Tuareg base to an international event for very well-heeled tourists featuring a lot of crap bands from abroad who wouldn’t have been tolerated anywhere else. Sophie tells me that part of the set-up now reassembles at Segou between Bamako and Djenné.

Just how relaxed the music scene in free Mali is can be seen from these photos, which I apologise to those with a long enough memory for repeating from 2009. Yes, women singing, playing and dancing: something not tolerated in Iran or any of the more extreme Muslim states. It only goes to show the easy-going nature of Mali’s sufi-based religion. We caught the good women of Diabolo (not to be confused with Diabaly, much in the news of late) performing for their village when we took a horse-driven excursion with Sophie from nearby Djenné, and they were quite unfazed by our presence, OKd by the local headman. True, they were performing for tourists the following week, but the crust-earning seemed well deserved.

I’ve been listening to the great, late Ali Farka Touré, guitarist-vocalist ‘king of the desert blues’. The booklet for his last solo album, recorded at Bamako’s famous Hotel Mandé by World Circuit , is exemplary (and unusual in the so-called world music scene) in giving us notes by The Man with translations of the songs. I’ve chosen this one about Beto, the river god of neighbouring Niger, because the text is appropriate: ‘Beto, will you share with us this special day of the new year? Yes, Beto, indescribable Beto, Beto, speak, we are listening. Beto, tell us…are the ancients angry?’

The special sound on the next track, Savane, is that of two ngonis, unusual west African stringed instruments.

The famous Basseko Kouyaté is one of the players, and (27/1) was playing at the Barbican last night when I was duty bound to hear Elgar's The Dream of Gerontius over at the Royal Festival Hall; see Howard Male's review on The Arts Desk. The rest of the photos, by the way, obviously aren't mine.

Ali Farka Touré also recorded a Hotel Mandé session with Mali’s most celebrated exponent of the lovely 21-string harp called the kora, Toumani Diabaté.

It was, as AFT explained, an unusual conjunction ‘since I am from the Songra/Peul culture in the north and he is a Mande from the south. It’s rare that musicians meet like this from different cultures’.All too familiar contrasts between music’s hand of friendship and more common daily hostilities has just been strikingly illustrated by intelligence well documented by Amnesty and in the Guardian that the Malian army, whose fighters are mostly from the south, has been committing atrocities against the Fulani people of the north.

Anyway, the result of the meeting between guitarist and kora-player is, to our ears, pretty basic – improvisations on two chords in each number – but beguiling thanks to the sonorities of the two instruments. This is 'Monsieur le Maire de Niafunké'*.

Meanwhile the Bach cantata for the week is ‘Meine Seufzer, meiner Tränen’, BWV 13, composed for Leipzig performance in January 1726. The Gospel reading for this second Sunday after Epiphany treats of the Marriage at Cana where Christ miracled water into wine (detail below from Veronese’s vast canvas of the scene; the musician on the left is believed to be a self-portrait). 

The subject-matter and the prevailing musical mood of Bach's cantata, however, could hardly be further removed from the expected. Only two lines deal with the happening – ‘God can with ease/Turn bitterness into joyful wine’ – and the rest is numberless tears, groaning, the sickness of sorrow, in other words the earthly misery to be transfigured. John Eliot Gardiner writes that in the opening aria only the tone of the oboe da caccia we met two weeks ago, intermediary here between the tenor and the two recorders, softens the dissonances.

The bass lament at the heart of the piece has to be one of the bleakest numbers ever composed (the Germans have a word for it I found applied by Hofmannsthal to Elektra: ‘lichtlösigkeit’ or ‘light-less-ness’). This time the recorders double the violin obbligato at the octave, wraith-like; the soloist only partly fills the chasm between them and the bass line. Even when the central portion of the text speaks of solace and joy, there is hardly a sliver of light. Detail below from Rogier van der Weyden's Deposition.

On the other hand, the alto’s earlier chorale, crying out to God in vein, is wreathed in joyful strings, as if to contradict the hopelessness with a promise of better things. Otherwise, this is a stark revelation of the human condition, and I marvelled at Gerald Finley’s restrained performance of the big number in the Gardiner Bach Pilgrimage performance. Once again, there's a slightly less special alternative on YouTube, part of Masaaki Suzuki's Bach Collegium series:

We had extremes of joy and despair in last night’s bumper LPO/Jurowski Strauss concert launching the Southbank’s much-touted The Rest is Noise festival, including a revelation of mighty Richard's death haunted symphonic poem for voice, violin and orchestra Notturno. Read all about it on The Arts Desk - a long review for a very densely packed programme. Ambitious though it was, I got more consistent enjoyment out of the execution in John Adams’s LSO spectacular three days earlier, as recounted here. Much more to come now that the concert season is back on the boil.

*STOP PRESS The ever vigilant Sue Scheid has alerted me to a wonderful video of Mali's great musicians uniting to plead for peace. I can't say I know them all, but if anyone can tell me who's who among the terrific lady vocalists, I'd be grateful. Though Sue has the links below, I'm posting it here for easy access. I believe it's our kora-ist, Toumani Diabaté, kicking off.

Three seasonal suggestions

1. If you’ve planned a trip to Mali, don’t cancel completely because of what you’ve read in the news. I’m not trying to drum up more business for our dear Sophie’s fabulous mud hotel in Djenne if I say that you should perhaps think of following Foreign Office advice and not venture north to Timbuktu – as we did a couple of years ago (Sankore Mosque pictured above) - or to the annual music festival in the desert, but instead spend time (if you hadn’t already planned it) chez Sarin at the Hotel Djenne Djenno. I imagine the singular Maison Rouge at Mopti would not be out of bounds either.


Weirdly – and I’ve no idea on what intelligence these things are decided – the FO’s danger line seems to include Djenne in the no-go area. But the fact is that the recent debacle which happened in Timbuktu only has one other counterpart south of the Niger, in Hombore, and the circumstances of that kidnapping are dodgy, I’m told. As Sophie points out, the isolated situation of Djenne and the fact that it has to be reached by ferry would make it difficult for would-be terrorists to make a quick getaway.


I wonder if the favourite part of our trip (apart from staying with Sophie in Djenne, of course) – a journey down the Niger on a pinasse from Timbuktu to Mopti, scene from which pictured above – would be ill-advised these days. Shame; but bigger shame on the extreme Islamist movement which is decimating Mali’s fragile tourism. One plus is that you might see less of the haughty French tour-groups who ruined our time in Dogon country. The whole France-Mali relationship has long been highly dubious with respect to the way that the French consulate seems to have been punishing its former African colony by advising its citizens not to go; but it’s true that Mali needs to take a tougher stance on harbouring terrorists.


2. Sophie’s equally inventive artist-friend, and one of our most loyal, the wondrous Cressida Bell (pictured above with the selection of designs, and choice, for the cover of the latest London Review of Books), has just hosted an open-studio weekend along with other artists in Hackney, always a treat. The neighbouring shops proudly put out a flyer saying ‘as seen on TV’; you know what that means. But I enjoy a jaunt to Clarence Mews and get a kick from the vibrant fabrics; so in this instance my advice, rather than plea, is to take a look at Cressida’s online shop for a few gift ideas. In case you're wondering, the below shot was taken after close of business on Saturday, when many of the silks had been sold. But it still looks very colourful.


3. There are plenty of non-seasonal events still to absorb – I’m going to a string of master-recitals this week – but by Wednesday 14th, if you’re in London and free, you might feel sufficiently in the mood to attend an event organized by another dynamic friend. It’s ‘a celebration of Christmas’ at St Botolph without Aldgate (not to be confused with the one without Bishopsgate), adjacent to Aldgate tube station, a splendid place for a concert.


The event is in aid of the very worthwhile charity Maytree, which provides a London sanctuary along with counselling for the suicidal. Check out the charity’s website.


Star, keynote speaker, call her what you will, of the proceedings is actress Adjoa Andoh, who featured in Clint Eastwood’s film Invictus and may be a familiar telly face from Casualty, Eastenders and Dr Who. Other artists include the Belair Wind Quintet, the Hawthorn Singers and a team of hand-bell ringers. Audience participation, wine and mince pies included; 7.30 start, tickets a bargain at £10 on the door or online here. Hope to see some of you there.

Djenne Djenno comes to London

She's here, the Grand Sophy(ie) aka La Sarina, godmother to this blog when she set the example by putting her own much more exotic life as a Malian hotelier on line. A couple of weeks ago she was excurting on her beloved Maobi to one of the villages near Djenne we didn't see on our trip


and only last week stroking mythical horn-less unicorns on a riding course in Seville.


And there she is up top, our remarkable Sophie Sarin, happily blasted by Gergiev's Stravinsky (stunning Mariinsky disc of Oedipus Rex and Les noces) at home here as she settled down for a good read. The book is on the master masons of her town by a chap who left just before she arrived. He has an exhibition of photos at RIBA which we must go and see.

Today London decamps to Glyndebourne and Seaford while Djenne Djenno stays put. I linger on the airwaves via four minutes' chinwag with kindred spirit Jonathan Swain on Mahler 7 (available on the iPlayer until next Monday - chat comes after David Matthews's beautifully orchestrated, substance-wise take-it-or-leave-it Seventh Symphony at about 30'40) and on Saturday at 6pm at long last they're broadcasting Prokofiev's The Gambler - the Royal Opera performance in which Andrew MacGregor and I sat in a box and chatted quasi live. I'd put up a pic of the production but the Royal Opera's ludicrous ban on using photos on blogs - inconsistently applied - forbids.

Should just mention that this is being flagged up as part of the big BBC opera season. Don't miss Pappano's telly programmes on Italian opera starting next Monday - those should be rare quality - though do what you like with S Fry and slebs. One amusing outcome was that splendid Dame Kiri, the Beautiful Voice of the late 20th century alongside Margaret Price and hosting what sounds like a well-backed voice competition on Radio 2, has been speaking common sense on S Boyle, A Bocelli and the like in interview. This is badly written up and trails a load of illiterate, venomous trolls in its wake, but the lady spoke wisely, I think.