BY STEPHANIE ESLAKE
Dark Mofo has grown notorious for its explorations into sex and death, and this week’s concert promises nothing less morbid.
Australian mezzo soprano Lotte Betts-Dean will sing a series of “baroque orchestral meditations on mortality and sin” in the Hobart Town Hall. It’s as unashamedly heavy as it sounds, and it’ll be backed by Tasmania’s own Van Diemen’s Band.
After all, with a program named My Heart Swims in Blood, what else would you expect?
In this story about all things gory, we chat with Lotte along with VDB’s founder Julia Fredersdorff. They tell us how to confront the darkness (and why it makes for a particularly intriguing concert experience).
Let’s talk about My Heart Swims in Blood. How’d you find yourself…well, at the heart of it?
LOTTE: The wonderful Julia Fredersdorff from Van Diemen’s Band approached me about this project, and I immediately jumped at the idea!
I’ve worked with VDB a few times now; most recently, we did a Tasmania-wide tour of baroque music including Vivaldi, Scarlatti, Handel, and Purcell, just last week. And each time, it is very musically (and socially!) rewarding. I really enjoy working with this brilliant ensemble, and loved the idea of the program.
The centerpiece of the program, Bach’s solo cantata BWV 199 Mein Herze schwimmt in Blut (‘My Heart Swims In Blood’) is an extraordinarily powerful and moving piece — one of my favourite Bach works ever. And the opportunity of singing it again was just too good to pass up, especially in the unusual and electric setting of Dark Mofo, which I have been wanting to experience for years!
The underlying theme of this event is one of “mortality and sin“. How so?
JULIA: All of the works revolve around dark themes — sin, shame, sleep, and ultimately death — which is what makes it a suitable program for Dark Mofo!
The earlier works on the program were written in the aftermath of the Thirty Years’ War in Germany — a really dark time in German History. The works by Tunder and Johann Christoph Bach (who was the first cousin once removed of JS Bach) contemplate the idea of life being a torturous existence for the sinner. In the cantata by Tunder, for example, the text is a supplication to the angels to take the subject towards death and ultimately to heaven. The J.C. Bach lament is a devastating text which begins, ‘Oh, that I had water enough in my head and that my eyes were springs of tears, so that I could bewail my sin night and day.’
The final work is J.S. Bach’s powerful solo cantata Mein Herze schwimmt in Blut, which is also about sin, death, and forgiveness. The opening text, ‘My heart swims in blood, because the brood of my sins, in God’s holy eyes, makes me into a monster’, introduce a work of yearning and desperate sadness. You see there is an underlying theme here!
The Icelandic works are linked to the theme by representing the repetitious beating of the heart, the passage of time, the breath of a sleeping child, and the fragility of life. Whilst being from a completely different genre, these works have a dark forboding quality as well.
I see some strong correlations between Tasmania and Iceland with its wild rugged climate and stoic people, and these echoes really interest me programatically as well.
So, what’s the deal with Maria Huld Markan Sigfusdottir’s works? It’s reasonable to assume most audiences wouldn’t have heard this new music. What’s it about, and what should they expect?
J: These are really interesting pieces because they are actually composed for baroque instruments.
Clockworking is for three-piece string ensemble with a backing track. The piece is conceived around old footage of a chain gang at work, and it has a kind of hypnotic heartbeat that drives the work from beginning to end, with the strings playing syncopated rhythms over the top.
The other work, Sleeping Pendulum, is a beautiful piece reminiscent of the sound of a Hardanger, or Nordic fiddle. This piece was inspired by the breathing of Maria’s sleeping child. The backing track has close mic’d sound effects and chords played on baroque violin, and the effect with the live playing over the top is really stunning.
These atmospheric works will tie in really well with the baroque works, providing a really interesting juxtaposition of styles.
Lotte, the last time I saw you in Tasmania was in 2018 when you were singing in A Tasmanian Requiem. But beyond this, you have quite a history of selecting interesting concerts to be involved in. How has your music taste altered your career? And are you sending a message through the events you choose to sing in?
L: That’s a great question! I think my musical taste has definitely been the most important factor in shaping my career so far. I am drawn to many styles of music, classical and non-classical, and this has really informed the direction I have chosen to head in career-wise.
I want to be able to engage in as many of my favorite styles as I can on a regular basis, so it has been a very conscious decision to focus on concert singing, rather than on opera singing. This is not to say I don’t want to sing opera — I do love opera. But I want to be able to find specific operatic projects that interest me and that are more in line with my musical taste.
I’m less drawn to some areas of mainstream opera, so it makes sense not to focus on that in my career. I like to have a more freelance attitude about it and sing music that really excites me. A lot of young singers choose to enter young artist programs at opera houses, which is of course an incredible experience and provides a lot of support, but therefore they are often more or less told what to sing. I have certainly chosen a potentially harder road, in that I may not have the support network of an opera company, but therefore I have the freedom to follow my musical interests and forge my own path. This is entirely fueled by my musical taste!
On a more micro-level, it also influences my own concert programming, which in turn can impact career in a larger sense and develop my artistic identity. I’m a big believer in breaking down barriers of ‘genre’ when it comes to programming, and love combining all sorts of repertoire. I think when classical and non-classical music — or even old and new classical music — are placed side by side in a program, it can help both audience and performer to view or hear each work in a different way. It encourages us to find not only the differences, but also the similarities between them.
This program is no exception, combining baroque German works with contemporary Icelandic works. I think they will complement each other beautifully.
So with such conscious decision-making when it comes to your career path and performance strategies, how have you felt about dedicating your professional time to Van Diemen’s Band?
L: Working with VDB has been incredibly rewarding and musically fulfilling.
Programming, especially for the most recent tour, was very collaborative, which I really appreciate. It gave me an opportunity to bring some works to the table which they may not have considered, and I was able to discover some works I’d not come across either. Especially for lesser-known repertoire that I may not have yet performed, having the opportunity to learn and perform these alongside such exceptional and generous musicians is a singer’s dream, really.
It’s always a lot of fun, too: the band are all such lovely and hilarious people. We do a lot of laughing, and the process is always so enjoyable, even if we don’t have a lot of time to pull a program together. When you work with people over years, you are able to communicate well and develop similar ideas with musicality, and this makes the process really efficient.
I’ve known Julia since I kicked off my career during my first degree, around 2011, and she has been so supportive ever since. I’m very lucky to call her a friend and colleague!
This event is so overtly reflective of the “sinful” festival that is Dark Mofo (according to some religious communities that have petitioned against some of the art!). Why do you feel audiences need to engage in art that takes them right into the heart of mortality and human experience?
L: Some of the most beautiful music in the world was written about mortality; it’s not something to be shied away from. It’s a fascinating theme in terms of programming, as every single style of music under the sun has so many treatments of this theme. There are songs about death in every genre and subgenre. It’s a universal theme which has inspired some of the most honest music-making ever, and is something that should be looked at directly, unflinchingly. It’s a huge source of inspiration.
I think looking at death through the lens of music, especially varied styles, helps us to demystify the darkness or sadness inherent to it. Beneath this, there is an extraordinary beauty in the mystery, in the emptiness, in the inevitability of it. It’s a celebration of life, really.
J: Without meaning to brush over this reasonably divisive discussion, for VDB, the Dark Mofo theme enabled us to come up with a program that one would never put together in the context of a regular concert, which is really exciting. To explore the ideas of mortality and human experience without any relief will make the evening an extremely intense experience, but also a cathartic one.
Reflecting on why this is, I would say this: By time travelling back to the 17th Century, we can ascertain through this music that human experience and emotions are completely unchanged. We still feel the same feelings they do, and we still feel them in exactly the same way. And what better way to express this than through the most powerful and emotive medium we have — music?
See Lotte, Julia, and the full Van Diemen’s Band perform My Heart Swims in Blood as part of Dark Mofo. There’ll be two concerts on 22 June in the Hobart Town Hall.
(Credit: Dark Mofo/Jesse Hunniford, 2019, courtesy Dark Mofo.)
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