Counting down

The singers assemble for performance, at their backs are five large screens which displayed sometimes confronting images of war. Pictures by Dagmar Titsch

Mary-Jane Richmond has been in Berlin for four days, rehearsing with a choir of 1500 singers from 26 different countries for a performance of The Armed Man, A Mass for Peace. It’s nearly concert time . . .

The last time I had sung The Armed Man, A Mass for Peace was on Anzac Day in 2015, with the Gisborne Choral Society, at the official opening of the refurbished War Memorial Theatre.

It was the same for Mark Peters, a colleague who had joined the choir for that performance. He also came to Berlin for this landmark occasion.

In 2015 it had been 100 years since the Gallipoli campaign. Three years later, it was the centenary of the end of World War 1, and Rondo Media organisers in Wales had conceived the idea of staging a Concert for Peace in Berlin, with a world choir, accompanied by the World Orchestra for Peace. The Armed Man, the most performed work by any living composer, was to form the second half of the programme.

It was to be the first time the composer, Sir Karl Jenkins, had conducted the work in Germany, where it has been performed many times. In the programme notes, he dedicated the concert to “the search for tolerance between nations and faiths, and to the pursuit of peace”.

We had rehearsed on Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons under the baton of lively chorus master Nicol Matt, with Alexander Koller accompanying on piano, and sometimes taking over to conduct us. These were in the Verti Music Hall, next to the arena.

But on Thursday we were in the arena, and on the dais to conduct us was Sir Karl. We applauded his entrance and waited for him to lift his baton, signalling our start.

Here was a different beast from our friends Nicol and Alexander; Sir Karl was quietly spoken and sported long white hair and a generous droopy moustache. He was preoccupied, necessarily so, with making sure the different movements of the work matched up with the images showing on five massive screens behind the choir. He wore an earpiece which presumably connected him with the sound and vision technicians. All the orchestra members also wore earpieces.

The images — some of them quite confronting — on the screens behind us were specially commissioned war archive film reinforcing the narrative of the work; the build-up to war, war itself and the consequences of war.

Sir Karl was a man of few words, issuing brief instructions where he felt we hadn’t quite got the sound effect he wanted. He was impatient if we talked, which was fair enough.

We had two rehearsals with him on Thursday, one with just a keyboard and the other, in the evening, with the full World Orchestra for Peace.

Some recordings and performances of this work open with the sound of marching feet, becoming gradually louder. But after we tried this a couple of times, Sir Karl abandoned the idea; we were too ragged, the sound not precise enough. So the start was the ratatat of the drum, joined soon by a piccolo. Then the sopranos and altos start, singing in unison but an octave apart, the opening movement, a reworking of the 15th century hymn L’homme Armee. After six bars, the basses and tenors join in and we are all still in unison.

The blaring trumpets arrive after this first verse, then we all sing again, in harmony this time. The drum taps on. Halfway through this verse, the mighty double basses join in. The momentum builds through the third verse then drops back as the fourth verse starts. The orchestra is suddenly silent, and the sopranos sing the first line unaccompanied. Soon they are joined by the altos, then the tenors, then the basses, as if singing a round, but resolving on the same note — at which the orchestra comes back in all its magnificent glory and the movement ends on a resounding triple fortissimo.

The joy of singing in a choir comes back to me every time I come to perform in a work we have been rehearsing; that coming together of voices in harmony, bringing to life something meaningful created by the likes of Bach or Beethoven or in this case Karl Jenkins.

And here I was in Berlin, experiencing that sense of wonder in the massive Mercedes-Benz Arena with singers from around the world, and a world-class orchestra.

Then it was Friday, and our performance loomed. We had to be at the arena, in our concert clothes, at 1pm for the dress rehearsal. We had been instructed to wear black (not grey) trousers or skirt, and white (not ivory) long-sleeved blouses or shirt. For the men, no ties or jackets.

The dress rehearsal finished at 5pm, and we were expected back at the stadium by 7 for the concert. Rather than go back to my hotel — the Upstallsboom with its legendary breakfasts — in my choir get-up, I walked the short distance to a huge shopping mall that had opened next to the arena the day before our concert, and chose a tasty meal from one of the many options in the food hall on the top floor. It was mild enough to take my food to a table on the wide deck outside.

We took our seats well before the concert began so were able to watch the audience trickling in. Gradually the seats on the floor filled up, and the banked seating on either side. I have read that the audience numbered some 5000.

The concert was in two halves, with our contribution scheduled for after the interval. The first half featured a variety of items, opening with Aaron Copland’s Fanfare for the Common Man and including two Karl Jenkins compositions, Palladio Allegretto and a Lament for Syria.

Then it was our turn, that familiar ratatat drum began and we were off.

As the last notes of the gorgeous final hymn “God Shall Wipe Away All Tears” faded all was silent. Then the applause started. Sir Karl was recalled several times and by the time he left, the audience were on their feet, the ultimate accolade.

I joined Mark who had arranged to meet his sister Kate and her partner Jake Goretzski in a nearby bar. They had flown over from London, where they live, for the concert and Mark was going back with them to spend a few days in the UK before flying home.

On our way out we saw Nicol Matt and Alexander Koller and did the fan thing, hijacking them with a handshake and greetings from New Zealand.

We said how much we had enjoyed our rehearsals with them. Nicol told us he was heading to Australia in the new year for work — he is in demand internationally for his expertise in choral and orchestral conducting. Like almost everyone we met, he said how much he would like to come to New Zealand, he had heard what a beautiful country it was.

We made our way down to the East Side Gallery, that remaining remnant of the Berlin Wall covered in murals now. Kate and her partner were in a bar on the other side of the River Spree, and to get there we had to walk across the Oberbaum double-decker bridge, considered one of the city’s landmarks. It links Friedrichshain and Kreuzberg, former boroughs that were divided by the Berlin Wall, and has become an important symbol of Berlin’s unity.

We found Kate and Jacob and their friend Michael, who lives in Berlin and had come with them to the concert, in a crowded, smoky (smoking still allowed) bar just over the bridge. Mostly what I remember about this is thinking here I was sitting in a bar in Berlin, dressed in a white shirt (with pearls!), and black trousers, having a beer, at midnight, enjoying good company and lively conversation. It was a bit like an out-of-body experience. The fact that I hardly seemed to sleep all week (jet lag and the melatonin didn’t work) probably contributed, plus the adrenalin of performing. It was a good way to end the concert experience. Except for the smoke. A Google search tells me the bar was probably the Oberbaumeck, which seems to sit pretty high on the list of cool places to go.

Culture and conversationThe next morning I caught the U-bahn (the underground) into Alexanderplatz, the biggest public square in Germany, dominated by the Fernsehturm (TV tower).

There I met up with Mark and his sister and her partner, and we made our way slowly down the Unter den Linden to the Brandenburg Gate. This wide boulevard, lined with linden trees (hence the name), passes Museuminsel — an island home to five world-class museums, the Berlin State Opera, Berlin Cathedral and Humboldt University. It was busy with tourists on this Saturday in early November. Through the Brandenburg Gate — often a site for major historical events and today considered not just a symbol of the tumultuous history of Europe and Germany, but also of European unity and peace — and a block to the right, is the Reichstag, where the German Parliament meet.

To the left of the Brandenburg Gate is the Holocaust Memorial. The monument is composed of 2711 rectangular concrete blocks, laid out in a grid formation, organised into a rectangle-like array covering 1.9 hectares.

It was my second visit to this memorial. Five years before I had been unnerved by the feeling of disorientation walking among the dark grey pillars, and I have read that that is not uncommon. It is a small nod to the terror Jewish victims in the Holocaust must have felt. Others have likened the concrete slabs to coffins, or a graveyard. I was surprised this time to see children and teenagers, and even young people in their 20s, playing hide and seek games among the pillars, with little sense of the events that gave rise to this stark monument.

We went our separate ways after this, and agreed to meet up that night for dinner.

I decided to be adventurous and give Uber a go. I know, it has been around since forever (actually 2009) but I hadn’t been anywhere where I needed it. This was the perfect chance. And it worked perfectly. My Uber driver dropped me outside the bar where I was to meet Mark and co. This night we were joined by Australian Ollie Perkovich and his partner Rhianon Bader, a Canadian. Skateboarder Ollie is behind Skateistan, an award-winning international non-profit organisation he founded in 2007 that uses skateboarding and education for youth empowerment.

With this sort of company — Mark’s sister is the managing director of Beyond Retro, an independent vintage fashion company in London, her partner Jake speaks five languages and is a designer, and Michael (from the previous night) is developing his own business as a cinematographer — an entertaining evening was guaranteed.

The restaurant where we ate was in trendy Kreuzberg, and was called Parker Bowles. And yes, it is that Parker Bowles, who might be the next Queen of England. The restaurant is her son’s. And right next door is the Prince Charles nightclub.

I Ubered safely back to my hotel at the end of the evening, delighted to have had the opportunity to spend time with such interesting people.

The next day, my last full day in Berlin, I made my way by U-bahn and bus to Potzdamer Platz and from there I walked to the complex of art galleries, concert halls and library, called Kulturforum.

This was an inspired choice; few people were around and I wandered through the Gemaldegalerie soaking up its wonderful collection of six centuries of European art. I enjoyed lunch at the café here, and then visited the Museum of Decorative Arts close by. Here was Bijoux Bijoux, an exhibition of masterpieces of costume jewellery dating from 1930 to 2007. The museum had paired these pieces with fashion from their own collection. Coco Chanel was the only name I recognised but this was a beautiful collection of beautiful things. The second part of the exhibition was dedicated exclusively to the creations of the House of Dior and featured, decade by decade, brilliant sets of matching jewellery pieces from the mid-1950s to 2007.

I returned to my hotel, via bus and U-bahn, and enjoyed a last meal in the restaurant. The next afternoon I was due to fly direct to Leeds, on the regional UK airline jet2, out of Schoenfeld, Berlin’s other main airport.

But before I left, I paid a last visit to a coffee house I had discovered a few days earlier, called Books and Bagels on Warschauer St. It is actually a branch of Shakespeare and Sons, the famous Paris bookshop. Bagels aren’t my favourite but the coffee here was the best I could find in Berlin (they had a Kiwi barista), the bagel was actually very good, and there was a great selection of books, contemporary and classic. Perched on a stool at the counter in the window of this welcoming place, I looked out on Berlin and Berliners passing by and counted my blessings for having had the chance to be here.

The Armed Man was commissioned by the Royal Armouries Museum for the millennium celebrations, to mark the museum’s move from London to Leeds, and it was dedicated to victims of the Kosovo crisis. It is essentially an anti-war piece and is based on the Catholic Mass, which Jenkins combines with other sources. Guy Wilson, then master of the museum, selected the texts for the mass. He sang in the choir with us on November 2, and was sitting with the basses in the same row as Mark for the performance. Wicked, I can hear Mark saying.