By Lauren Sager Weinstein, assisted by daughter Erin age 10

Every year a dedicated group of musicians, younger and older, convene on a Saturday morning to create music as part of a Béla Bartók Centre of Musicianship (BBCM) workshop. The event is a culmination of a year’s worth of musicianship study, where students led by our BBCM maestro, Agnes Kory, present a programme of passionate (and, of course, technically proficient) pieces. This year was glorious as always, and we would like to share with you our highlights of the event.

To set the scene — a beautiful sunny summer’s day in a lovely West Hampstead home converted into our performance space. We start with a catchy piece, the Cuckoo song ‘Erwacht, Ihr Schläfer drinnen!’; Carl Gottlieb Hering’s German text set into a three-part round by Italian composer Giacomo Gotifredo Ferrari.

The workshop started with a polyphonic introductory tune in major in three parts, to which even the smallest kindergarten children contributed. Then switching to minor scale, we sang the all-time children’s favourite Hungarian ‘Mosquito’ song. The Kindergarten children impressively led the Kis Kacsa (Hush Little Baby) song, accompanied with a second melody (composed by Lajos Bárdos) by the rest of the BBCM children.

The kindergarten class served as the cuckoos as we performed the round, which is a rousing morning song, encouraging the listener to awaken to the lines “Do you see the sun glow? Awake, awake!”
Later on in the morning, we’ll have a chance to listen to a rousing rendition of this piece in Hebrew by Israeli performer Uzi Hitman (with the surname pronounced as Chitman), accompanied by a children’s choir. Erin notes a highlight of hers is “seeing if we could listen to a different version of a song and seeing if we recognised it.”

Next we all performed our beloved Mosquito song. This Hungarian folk song is a BBCM classic, which Agnes has used to teach us to identify music in a minor key. The melody uses five notes (from la to mi), and we all perform the melody (la-ti-do-ti-do-ti-la etc.) in a four part round.
Then another Hungarian folk song, The Candlelight, and this time the youngest (kindergarten) class takes centre stage. They have learned this song as part of a game, and the children are so proud to perform this in front of all of us. It is lovely to see the pride and enthusiasm that the kindergarten class has for their candle song.
Later in the morning we hear Bartók’s choral composition set to the same text.

One of the special things about the BBCM workshop is the chance to hear family traditional music, and we’ll have a chance to discover several cultural pieces. First we hear a Turkish lullaby, performed by Amber. Amber is one of our BBCM parents who was a BBCM student herself growing up, and is now taking her own children to learn from Agnes: from generation to generation! Erin writes, “We heard an amazing lullaby…”
Then we have the chance to discover some Bulgarian music. Boyan, one of our students, has brought a recording of two Bulgarian folk songs, ‘Ergen Deda’ and ‘Moma Tudoro Tudoro’ performed by Le Mystere des voix Bulgares. In Bulgarian pieces the meter shifts frequently, and these songs introduced us to this, and we all listened intently and felt the rhythmic impact of this musical technique.

Then we were in for a treat — Agnes had a special guest, Misi Berecz, for us to perform several pieces. Misi’s performance was spectacular — another workshop participant raved, ‘out-of-this-world’ and we agree. Misi played the first two pieces from Bartók’s ‘Six Dances In Bulgarian Rhythm’ from Volume 6 of Mikrokosmos. He also performed Bartók’s ‘Allegro Barbaro’. Agnes explained to us, that “much to his dismay, this was Bartók’s most popular composition in his early years. Composed in 1911, the influence of Arabic folk music is evident.” We were all spellbound by the powerful, passionate playing. Just incredible and so inspirational for our young musicians.

We then moved on to the Purcell section of the programme. Henry Purcell was an English Baroque composer, whose operatic work, Dido and Aeneas, tells the story of Dido, Queen of Carthage’s love for the Trojan hero Aeneas. We hear Clara and Juliette, two members of our advanced class, perform an excerpt from the opera – sung by Belinda and the Second Woman in the story – accompanied by cellist (and former BBCM student) Hester. Watching Clara, Juliette and Hester perform Purcell together is deeply moving; they are wonderful role models for showing what can be done with musicianship, technique and commitment. We (the advanced and intermediate class) have the chance to perform the piece as well.
We then have the chance to hear a former student of Agnes, Helen, perform Dido’s Lament. Helen’s stunning voice is accompanied by the advanced class vocalising the five-bar bass ostinato which underpins the aria.

We then moved on to our Johann Sebastian Bach section of our workshop. As any chorister knows, singing Bach Chorales is the pinnacle of performing. And to have the chance to sing Chorales from St Matthew’s Passion, well that’s an amazing opportunity for a young musician. We sang ‘Wenn ich einmal…’ and ‘Wer hat dich…’. They were glorious. Erin explains that she enjoyed, “Singing some of Bach’s chorales all together— these where very pretty to listen to and even more pretty to sing!”
Following our Chorales, Misi performed for us the Corrente from Bach Partita No. 6, BWV 830. Corrente translates to ‘run,’ and I found Misi’s performance of this Bach piece both exciting and relaxing, and a wonderful way to end our Bach section of the workshop.

Nearing the end of our performances for the morning, we then turned towards George Frideric Handel’s Judas Maccabeus. Clara and Juliette sang the ‘Chorus of the Virgins’; we sang the ‘Chorus of the Youths’ and then the ‘Chorus’ all together. How glorious to sing Handels’ chorus. (And when we were practicing at home before the workshop, our mother/grandmother immediately recognised the melody. She had sung this as a girl many years ago!).

We then had the chance to, as Erin notes, “Listen to the beautiful voices of the oldest class performing a few amazing Bartók pieces.” The advance class performed ‘Ne Meni El’ and ‘Játék’

In between the stirring music that we performed, Agnes had a treat for us, a letter that one of her former students wrote to Agnes 16 years ago. And that student is now grown, and with children of her own who attend class. The teen student’s wise words, thanking Agnes for her musicianship teaching and reminding us all of the friendships that we’ve made over the years through the music classes brought tears to our grownup eyes.

We had a stunning family number by Konni and her daughter Juliette. Konni explained that whilst travelling in Moscow, she came across one of her favourite pieces, ‘Outside my window’, musically notated in the iron grill of a window. Konni spotted this musical joke and realised that she and Juliette could perform this song as a surprise family number for our workshop. The Russian poem, ‘U Moego Okna’ (Outside my Window) by poet Glafira Galina is set to music by Sergei Rachmaninoff. Konni sang the piece, with Juliette accompanying her on the piano.

We then lastly finished up with the theme of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, ‘Ode to Joy’ which is a traditional end to our workshops at BBCM. And Friedrich Schiller’s text, with Beethoven’s glorious music, echos the themes of friendship and music that we celebrated all morning. We sang in German: “Freude, schöner Götterfunken, Tochter aus Elysium…Alle Menschen werden Brüder, Wo dein sanfter Flügel weilt.” It was a stirring end to our brilliant workshop. (Erin notes: “We also sang ‘Ode to joy’; I enjoyed this as I learnt to play this on the piano; so I had extra practice for the workshop!”)

We finished by thanking our gracious hosts, Clair and Mog, who year after year open up their house and garden to us. And thanking our wonderful teacher extraordinaire, Agnes Kory. And we said goodbye to each other for the summer holidays, carrying the memories and tunes of music-making with us.

P.S. by Agnes Kory
This was the Israeli version of the Cuckoo song which we listened to at the workshop:
https://youtu.be/RsfH_NXldGQ
Young Israeli conductor/musicologist Nir Cohen-Shalit writes:
The singer in the link you sent is Uzi Hitman. He was quite famous as a singer songwriter in the 1980s and 1990s, mostly for children songs and TV shows. He used to accompany himself on the guitar on TV specials and such.
He passed away in 2004 of a heart attack. I never met him in person, but I have colleagues who worked with him and with his nephew, who is also a successful singer-songwriter.