A weekend in Brussels packed with music, excellent company, very nice places to eat with good food.
I went to see the Cathedral on Saturday, but couldn't really walk around because masses were said there one after another, as it was the first weekend of Lent. I entered during a mass said in Dutch. Surprisingly there was a very long sermon. During the intercessions the priest did not only pray for the many victims of the dreadful earthquake and following tsunami in Japan, but also against the restaurant owners of Bruges, who had apparently complained that substantial losses for their restaurants were expected this summer, as the Japanese might not come in such great numbers as usual. The priest thought they had to be kicked "in the * ", and became very agitated. I am sorry I could not really see details of the pulpit, which is a wonderful work of art. But the enjoyable thing was that the organ postludium was a piece by Bach beautifully played by an apparently very accomplished organist. It was a free concert. Besides, the singing of the priest in his loud and sonorous voice was also a joy to listen to. And meanwhile I could rest my feet. I could only take pictures of the organ from an angle, which was a pity. It seemed modern, and the organist , who was sitting very high up, had a canopy over his head formed by shiny Spanish trumpets.
Here is a picture of the Grenzing-orgel . It's inauguration was on Octber 2000. It has 4300 pipes, 63 stops, four manuals and a pedal. It was built by the German organ builder Grenzing and his Spanish colleagues from Barcelona. The organ case is a design of the English architect Simon Platt.
That day I also visited the Church of St. Nicholas, the patron Saint of Brussels. Small houses are built with their backs against the church, a phenomenon not unusual for big medieval churches in Holland (e.g. Leiden: both the Hooglandse Kerk and the Pieterskerk, the church of John Robinson of the Pilgrim Fathers). The most unusual thing is the choir which is bent at a slight angle, and the beautiful shrine with the relics of the Martyrs of Gorkum. Also the brightly coloured window between the two organ parts over the entrance door is impressive.
Another church worth visiting is the Church of Notre Dame du Finistère, because of its beautiful organ, and the amazing Baroque pulpit.
In the evening I was invited to attend a concert at the the Bozar, the Centre for Fine Arts in Brussels. The Sea Symphony by Ralph Vaughan Williams formed the main part of the programme. Around 1900 Vaughan Williams composed this ode to the sea. Originally this was intended as a cantata, but it grew into a symphony for choir and orchestra. The texts used are poems by Walt Whitman. Two choirs, the Brussels Choral Society and the Philharmonischer Chor Köln, performed the symphony, together with the Ensemble Orchestral de Bruxelles. It is a symphony which lasts some 70 minutes and really taxes the singers. With a combination of two choirs and around 170 singers (I counted them!), it could not be an easy task to make this into a success. I enjoyed it, but when asked later if I could characterise it in one word, the only appropriate answer was: tsunami! Loud, overpowering, sweeping us away. I suppose it might grow on me in the end, and I also suspect it would be a really enjoyable challenge to sing it. But beautiful? I don't know yet. An experience? Yes, definitely.
On Sunday I joined my friend for a service in St. Andrews, the Scottish Presbyterian Church, and was immediately enlisted in the choir, which was a very joyful experience with a lively and sparkling choirmaster, a very relaxed service and an interesting, intelligent and entertaining sermon about English bible translations and translators, not the least of them King James. He seemed to have been an unpleasant, rude and not very clean man, but he achieved something wonderful and priceless. Also the differences between Luther and Calvin, and thus between Calvinists and Lutherans, were touched upon. It was very interesting, and very clearly expressed. It made my Sunday very special, as so many other things did too.
To mention one of those was a visit to a former English department store, now the Museum for musical instruments, with a very nice restaurant on top in the cupola offering wonderful views of Brussels. It is a very unusual building, built of iron, a bit like the Eiffel tower, but in Art Nouveau style. The cupola or dome, now a restaurant, is also made of very ornately worked iron, with lots of glass. The Sunday buffet served there was delicious, and we had a table with a fantastic view in three directions, thanks to my kind and very generous host.
That brings me to the other good things, restaurants and food.
Lunch on Saturday not long after arriving in Brussels was in the Fallstaff, a beautifully Art Nouveau building decorated in the spirit of Baron Horta. The food was good, but the best thing was the atmosphere, the building itself with the coloured glass, which some of the ceilings were also made of, well-worth a visit. On weekdays it is said to be packed at lunch time, but it being a Saturday and on the periphery of the pedestrian tourist and shopping area, it was nice and quiet.
Dinner was in a pleasant establishment in the Market Square, with Belgian specialities. A busy place where we were in luck and found a small table just opposite the fire. The food was nice and kept us going till after the concert. The choirs and orchestra members plus their friends were supposed to get together for drinks after the concert in a restaurant/bar/cafe with enough room for some 500 people, but the space was totally inadequate so we retreated to the Market Square again and found a small table on the first floor of a medieval building, now a restaurant. We were lucky to find a window seat and so we had a marvellous view of the Market Square with the ornate buildings lit by floodlight looking like intricate lacework, the background for fairytales. The glass of wine and respectively beer tasted even better because of the wonderful view.
Even breakfast on Sunday morning was a pleasant surprise. I hate hotel breakfasts as they are so impersonal and far too expensive. Even if they offer a lot of delicious food, what more does a person need in the morning than some coffee and a roll or a piece of fruit? So my friend took me to a pleasant bakery cum lunchroom on the Place du Grand Sablon (or de Grote Zavel), where they were in the process of setting up the weekly antiques market. When we arrived it was still rather quiet, but soon the place filled up with happy families, babies, toddlers and grandparents included. The lovely crisp breads smelled delicious, and the croissants and strong and hot coffee were a delight to the taste buds. It is wonderful to enjoy a leisurely breakfast on a Sunday morning, instead of just drinking a cup of tea at the kitchen sink in a hurry before rushing off to church. I could get used to this sort of life very quickly. Just as well the antiques shops were closed as they looked very interesting but very expensive as well. I only indulged in one single chocolate in the city of pralines!
A wonderful weekend visit, thanks to a very kind, interesting and thoughtful friend.
Being able to share pleasures is lovely. I am afraid I was less good company, still feeling a bit dead inside after a few life changing and emotional happenings in recent months. But it was great to be away and treated with such kindness and consideration. Balm for the soul.
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