Evensong and Zwolle

Sunday January 23

Today Choral Evensong in The Hague, always a joyful occasion. In spite of the absence of quite a number of sopranos – out of voice due to all the wet blessings from above –, it sounded really good. Probably because Christina our choirmaster and Lucy, a conservatory  student,  accompanied the Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis on respectively a beautifully decorated harpsichord and a cello. They also prevented us from slowing down, so the basses were almost out of breath. They could not indulge in admiring their own voices, which they seem to do most of the time. Just as well. So the rather simple music kept its dancing rhythm.

A pity the Evensong was not very well-attended. We should really advertise more, but even in church Evensong is only mentioned as an afterthought. Quite in contrast with the youth services which take place on Sunday evenings. Is choral evensong considered just a hobby of the choir? We seem to be relics of the past, almost fossils. Ebdon may not be my favourite composer, but it was a joy singing both his Preces and Responses as well as his Canticles. At least we knew the music well, better than the cantor – the priest or priest to be, taking the service -, who had difficulty singing just an "a". And to me it is far more uplifting than all the Praise songs which have mostly no musical merit whatsoever and are often quite sentimental in the bargain. Whereas the beauty of the words of the Magnificat and the Nunc Dimittis are timeless.

Saturday

A free travel pass, free museum entrance, and a blank day in my diary, what better excuse does a girl need for a day out? So I took the train to Zwolle.

It is sad to see how the original Dutch landscape is gradually being erased and obscured by endless business parks which spread like an ever growing cancer along roads and train tracks. One still gets occasional glimpses of thatched low-roofed farmhouses, sheltered from the wind by trees. Of fields and arable land. Small country lanes dissect the landscape. The bare branches of the trees lining the roads form a beautiful pattern against the sky. But more and more this idyllic picture is disappearing. Church spires and windmills are blocked by cubic, uninteresting sheds and industrial buildings. If one went for a bike ride, surely one would see that a lot of the hamlets and villages are still unspoilt, but why this urge to build along train tracks and motorways? To discourage tourism?

Zwolle is an old "Hanze" town, one of the towns around what once was the Zuiderzee (zee=sea),  and which is now a lake. A quote from Wikipedia:

"The Hanseatic League (also known as the Hanse or Hansa) was an economic alliance of trading cities and their guilds that dominated trade along the coast of Northern Europe in the later Middle Ages. It stretched from the Baltic to the North Sea and inland during the Late Middle Ages and early modern period (c.13th–17th centuries). The Hanseatic cities had their own legal system and furnished their own protection and mutual aid, and thus established a sort of political autonomy and in some cases created political entities of their own."

The Hanze towns were rich, and the many interesting and varied gables,  gable stones and decorations are a living proof of that. Zwolle is still surrounded by water, although there is no connection to the open sea any more. Apart from the pleasure yachts, there are still many working river barges moored around Zwolle.

I had chosen Zwolle because of the exhibition in "Museum de Fundatie", Neo-classicism and Biedermeier, art from the collections of the Prince of Liechtenstein.  According to the blurb, this is considered to be one of the most important private art collections in the world, collected during the past four centuries. The collection was kept hidden during the second world war, but the family had to sell a large part of it after the war. They now try to buy art back at auctions. It has been on display in Moscow and Prague, and after Zwolle will be permanently housed in Vienna. Enough reason to go and see the exhibits, mainly paintings and china. The paintings are very colourful, very detailed, smooth, with no visible brush strokes. The portraits show healthy, rich children, princes, little princesses, a whole royal generation. The paintings and the china don't leave much to the imagination. Especially the china, which has extensive and detailed views of Vienna painted on cups and saucers, saucers which are very deep with a high rim. It would be easy to pour hot fluid from the cup into the saucers and drink from the saucer, a habit which country folk might have had but which seems unimaginable at such an elegant court.

Zwolle is very busy on a dull and dreary  Saturday in January, a market day at that. One of the two biggest churches, called the "Peperbus" (Pepper salver, so called because of the shape of the "spire") is open. It has an interesting history and goes back to medieval times, originally built between 1399 and 1454. It began life as a Roman Catholic church, and is now a Roman Catholic church again, since the end of the 20^th century even a "basilica minor", after centuries of vicissitudes, neglect and misfortunes. There are a few medieval objects left. The abundant  decorations in the choir, as well as the stages of the cross, are all 19^th century embellishments. We have to thank one mid 19^th century priest for that, who could not live with the bare walls, the result of iconoclasm and later further abuse of the church.

There are many medieval remains and ruins in Zwolle, former chapels of monasteries and nunneries, a city gate, and many more interesting buildings which, after centuries of neglect, are now being restored and preserved if possible. But much has been destroyed and is lost forever.