happenstance

I was very nearly late for the performance of the Collegium Vocale Gent this evening but managed to get to the door just as they started ringing the final bell and unhooking the auditorium doors from their hooks. Hopefully the two bottle-rattling posh bastards to my right were offended by my resultant sweatiness in pre-emptive revenge for them rattling bottles and talking shit in loud voices at any break in the performance. There was a little bit of speaking and rustling from some codgerwomen in the row behind though not in the first and best piece, entirely instrumental as opposed to the majority of the rest of the gig which comprised various forms of accompanied and unaccompanied singing. I've no idea what the exact words were as they were mostly in echoing Latin (the visiting-father went back home this afternoon so was not on hand to offer any explanation or attempted translation) and were swamped by the dodgy acoustics but they seemed to consist almost entirely of various vacuous religious-speak (albeit pleasantly-sung vacuous religious-speak with odd parpy wind-music in the background) and it was different again from the other sorts of music listened to so far this year. Not sure that I'd go and see this lot again; if you're after interesting-sounding old-style dirgy choral stuff then the Dufay Collective have released a few discs thereof, sometimes with lyrics which make sense and usually with extensive use of pleasantly reedy wind instruments.