Penelope Appleyard & Angela Hicks, Fair Oriana

Hello and welcome to feature Classic Women Awards with me, Stefania Passamonte on women's radio station, the program where we search for the most amazing new female artists on the classical panorama. This is our second episode in lockdown here in London. And guests of future classic Women Awards are the opera duo Ferroriana with soprano Angela Ickx and Penelope Appleyord, A duo that mixes their passion for early music with a hint of theater, and in certain programs, a dash of folk, medieval and jazz influence. Good morning, Penelope and Angela. Good morning. Hi. Good morning. So where are you spending your lockdown after you, Penny? Oh, well, I'm at home in Hampshire where it's currently actually just started snowing. Oh, wow. Yeah, so I'm with my husband yesterday. Yeah, with your husband. Nice. And the cat. Yes, and the cat. And I'm in East London and I'm on my own. Oh, wow. So how is it spending the lockdown in your own. This is already the first week, right? A week has gone. Yeah. One week down. It's quite hard to be on your own, actually. But I think, you know, with keeping in touch with friends and, you know, keeping busy, doing creative things and. Yeah, everyone's turned to the Internet, passing the time in that way. Yeah, yeah. My screen time just told me that I've been on my phone or on my iPad for five hours yesterday, so. Oh, my goodness. Yeah, it's dreadful. But I suppose there's nothing else to do, really. Well, is our window to the outside. Exactly. The crazy thing is that we never had anything like that. And it's a bit like being at war. We just don't have to bomb our head. Basically. We're at war against an invisible enemy. Yeah. And a war where we're being asked to fight it. We're being asked to sit on the sofa. Yes, absolutely. Well, we do have our warrior and our soldiers that are all the nurses and doctors and everybody else, all the key workers risking their life going out. I suppose while we have this opportunity, we should say a big thank you to these people as well. Absolutely. That's our job. That's the only thing we can do, really, staying home, being safe and trying to support them morally as much as we can with our very strange times, our music. Yeah, but, yeah, it's not easy. I mean, I have other friends that are alone and some of them, they actually got sick with the virus and it's not. It's not nice when you're alone at home and also when you know that your friends are in, you know, they need help and you can't go and help. Yeah, yes, of course. So my parents had the virus. My dad brought it back from a ski resort in Austria. Wow. And that was quite hard knowing that they were, they were sick. Although they had each other in that time. They're better now. Yeah. But they managed to recover completely or they are still under the. I think my mum's still slightly under the weather, but she got, she got it second, so. But very much on the road to recovery, so. Oh, that's great. That's great news. Yeah, it's a scary thing. I mean, you can, you can hear on the newspaper some incredible stories of people that they didn't survive and they were young and others. For example, example, we had the guest last week and that is actually gonna be live today because we're recording these episodes and then they go live the following week. And so she's in lockdown in Bologna since February. And just last week we had a 95 years old lady who recovered and went home on her own legs, you know. Oh my goodness. Yeah. So she had such a strong spirit. So really it's a question of being. Staying healthy as much as possible. And the spirit, you know, keeping your spirit high. That's something that helps. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, yeah. In the past we interviewed an opera singer called Katerina Mina, but not only her other singers as well, that they had cancer and they were saying that they were so depressed that the chemotherapy wasn't working and then having instead psychological help through the hospital under the advice of the doctors. Then finally they managed to find the strength to fight it and they actually came out of it. They managed to recover from cancer. That's amazing. That's incredible. So, I mean, in this future Classic Women Awards, we talk about music, we talk about our career, but as women and as human being, actually part of our career is also everything else that happened in our life that means the lockdown, that means having a family or being alone and. And anything that goes with the music. So I'd like now to go to a better, more cheerful subject. So I'd like to ask you, why is it called your duo Fair Oriana? Fair in the sense of beautiful Oriana or. Yeah, Fair Oriana because it was a nickname, I suppose, for Queen Elizabeth I. Okay. And the madrigals that we have used, quite a lot of the triumphs of Oriana are all about her and are dedicated to her. And at the end of each one of those madrigals, it ends with the line, long live Fair Oriana which we sort of use as a hashtag on our social media as well. So that's where we got the name from. Fantastic. So this is baroque music. Can we explain what is Baroque music and, you know, the specific, specifically the type of the madrigal that are songs that they were composed at the time and, you know, why do you have a passion for the madrigal? I think the madrigal. The influence for the madrigal could have come from, or did come from Italy. Yes, it did. It was the way that the Italians do it. They actually do it by setting verses. So English madrigal actually has a sort of slightly more. Sort of a bigger arc of music throughout the madrigal, which I find really interesting. And the music, especially of Morley and Blow, who you'll hear later, is really quite complex and the. The lines are really, really expressive, I find. Yeah, absolutely. How did you get this passion for the baroque music compared to, for example, I mean, you say in your biography that you also like theater and folk music and jazz influence. I think, in a way, jazz is something that has to do with improv, is the way that some of this early music was actually performed. Yeah, definitely. I think both of us have always really had this passion for early music. When I was younger, as I started off as a flautist, and always actually preferred. My favourite composer, I always used to say, was Handel. And I always preferred playing music, early music, as opposed to the newer music. I don't know why. Sort of a romanticized view of it, I think. But then always really enjoyed singing that, too. I think there's a freedom as well. There's a freedom in the way that you can ornament as well, that in a jazzy way, can really sort of squish against that harmony. Yeah. There's so many similarities between the two. I think there's a lot of. You can be very creative with how you perform early music in a very similar way to how you can perform jazz music. So whether we're performing, you know, Renaissance music like the. These madrigals, or baroque music like the Blow later, as long as you stick sort of within the boundaries and the rules that were set out by those time periods, you can be very, very creative within that. It's a huge freedom. Yeah, yeah. That is something that you don't always think about, because, you know, when you think about classical music, baroque music, you know, you think about something that is quite elitarian as well. And instead, these were quite popular at the time, isn't it? They were something that was quite widely performed. And the way you're performing it is a way that is accessible for everybody. Yeah, absolutely. That's the idea. The creativity, that way of being very creative when you're performing is something that Angie and I both really have in common. That's something that we both particularly love about singing and performing. So that's sort of one of the things that ties us together and I think works particularly well now. It's quite rare, if I can say, to see a duo made by two sopranos. Normally you have two different register of voice, isn't it? Yeah. So how did you decide to. To make this duo? Well, we met coincidentally, quite a few times in about. Over about three or four months, wasn't it, Penny? Yeah. And so first of all, we were doing some Purcell duets for Brighton Early Music Festival, and then we were booked by a friend of Penny's, although not as a duo, to do some Couperin. Yep. These were gigs where we were booked as soloists and just happened to be alongside each other. These amazing duets of just this absolutely gorgeous harmony where the voices are really, really close to one another. It creates these wonderful dissonances. And we both sort of thought, do you know what? This is rather good. Like, we've got a real sympathy going on here, not just in terms of interpretation, but in the colour of the voice. And so over these chance meetings, I think there were three or four of them, actually. Each time we thought, do you know what? We should really do something about this. And then eventually we did. So enter Fair Oriana. Yeah. Just sort of worked very naturally. Yeah. Wonderful. Now we're gonna listen to a piece by Thomas Burleigh, Goyemai Canzonette. So this is a secular madrigal. So the difference between the sacred. How do you say in English, Sacred. Sacred. Sorry, madrigal at the secular is the secular we're having talking about something that had to do with the everyday life. It wasn't something to do with the church. So either at the time, you had two type of music. The one commissioned by the church, the one commissioned by the king, the rich families for parties that they were having at the house, etc. So would you like to talk about this first madrigal? Yeah. Thomas Morley was actually the most famous composer of secular madrigals at the time, I think. So he composed many songs like this. And this is one of the 12 cantonnets for two voices. He also wrote some for three voices. And this is one of the most famous couple from this set of songs, I think. Yeah. And it's one that we've recorded these madrigals, all 12 of them. And this is one of our favourites, I think. Yeah, I'd say so. Okay, so why don't we listen to it then? Let's listen to it now. Sa. How beautiful this was. Thomas Marley, Goyama Cantonet with Angela Hicks and Penelope Appleyard. Now, this sounded like two angels basically singing, having their voices. Yeah, absolutely. You know, needling to each other in a wonderful arabesque. So it's also quite rare to hear. I mean, for the normal audience. That's what I'm talking about. So far, you're my first but okan duo that is singing acapella. Acapella means with no instruments. How hard it is to sing without an accompaniment, without music behind you. I think I find that with. With Penny, it's very, very intuitive. Yeah, I would agree. Yeah. Yeah. The music's so text led that I think you could miss the sustained element of a bass or something like that. But I really love the toing and fro ing that we get with no accompaniment. Absolutely. I would say also that as a genre in early music, we get quite used to singing in a way that's very exposed because we both sing a lot of lute songs. We both sing in Emma Kirkby's group Dowland Works. And in that, the way when you sing with a lute, all the instruments that we're used to singing with, they don't sustain very well, they don't have pedals, the sound doesn't carry on. So you get used to singing in a very clear way where everything can be heard all the time and it is very exposed. And the same with harpsichords and those kind of instruments. So that clarity is very important. Now, I have to say, there is a big difference between the madrigal and the opera, even the baroque opera that have been composed. So in the opera, normally you have a larger ensemble that is accompanying and sustaining the voice of the singers and the way the singers as well have to project their voice, it's much more powerful, maybe. What would you say? So there is a difference between opera and madrigal, particularly one a capella. What would you say is your favorite? Well, that's our favorite. Oh, gosh. Favorite Magical. Oh, gosh. Do you know, there's so many. If we narrow it down to favorite from the Triumphs of Oriana, because honestly, I think we'd need six shows to cover. I really, really like All Creatures Now Are Merry Minded. Yeah, yeah. I love the way it whizzes around and, you know, the parts just weave around each other. The text is just so lovely. Yeah. So we also, in that one, get to sing sort of. We get to sing lines about nature and about birds, which, speaking for Angie and myself, is something. We spend a lot of time singing birdie lines and trilling and doing, you know, that kind of thing about nymphs. Nymphs and shepherds and dogs. Arcadian Paradise. Yeah, exactly. That's all over. So we like that one a lot. Sparkly Arcadia. There we go. Yeah, that's us. Did you have any role model or inspiration when you decided to start with your career as baroque singer? Well, Andy, do you want to go first? Yeah, I suppose we'd have to answer that separately, really. And I assume Penny as well, have taken a great amount of inspiration from Emma Kirkby, because she taught me. And actually, I remember seeing her on the TV when I was. I don't know how old I was, but she was with a lutenist. And her voice is light and pure, but it's also virtuosic and soloistic. And it taught me that, because I knew even then that I wouldn't have a big operatic voice in the sort of romantic sense. But you can. You can be virtuosic with a. With a smaller voice. And small doesn't necessarily mean not loud as well. Yes. Yeah. Because these things. These things carry in. Yeah. So there are singers like that, and, I mean, there are lots more besides. But people like that really, really have influenced me and inspired me. For me, it was. I was given a CD of Emma Kirkby singing Haydn's Creation, actually, and listening to her singing with Virgie Clad, which ended up. I just played it on repeat. And I found it very exciting because I hadn't heard a voice that was that agile and doing all those ornaments. And I listened to it and thought, that's what my voice can do. It's very flexible as well, and I hadn't heard that before, so. So, yeah, she's been a big inspiration for me and Catherine Bott as well. Yeah. Because coming through music college and things, you get quite a lot of people who sort of maybe don't believe in you at that stage because you don't have the warm, operatic voice that a lot of your peers have. So you really have to stick to it. And I'd say to anyone who has that kind of voice, just, you know, really persist because it's wanted, it's cherished, and it's needed in the. And embrace it, definitely, because you can I've. I had a similar experience in. At music college. You can be sort of pigeonholed into being that. But it's okay to be that pigeon. Like, it's okay to be pigeonholed because it's, you know, it can really do wonders for you if you have a niche and you can sort of be proud of that and use it to your advantage. Absolutely. So let's say when you were little, did you like. I mean. Or even now, do you still like the romantic opera? I love listening to it. Yeah. I've grown into it as I've got older. I'm probably about 10 years later than my peers in terms of. In terms of singing things. I've just started about a year ago, singing leader and things like this in earnest. I mean, I did do it at music college, but. Yeah, Yeah, I love going to the opera. Absolutely. Yeah. But, you know, to be honest, I mean, there is something I remember, you know, I grew up, I'm Italian, so of course, the Italian opera is big part of our. Although we also have a very big tradition for baroque music, so Vivaldi and all the. Of course, the Madrigal. So there is both. But the one that is more in your face somehow. It's the big Verdi, Puccini. Yeah. That I remember I listened for the first time and when I was, I think. Or. Yeah. And there is this area. And I was crying and crying. I couldn't believe it. Because you don't need the big double bass to fill into your stomach or any. Yeah, it's just. It was so pure and direct. That was just piercing through their heart. It was incredible. So I think there are incredible baroque opera at the same time that are as powerful as the romantic one. Wagner, Tchaikovsky, whatever. You know, I think you just have to insert the same passion into it as you would anything, really. But it's also true that the majority of. Of the audience and also of the professors in the music college. I mean, it depends. There are some colleges that they have a specific department for baroque music where they understand the power of baroque music and they put it at the same level as the most common popular classical music, in a way. But it's a question of finding the right place, isn't it? The right place, the right teacher, the right. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for sharing that. That's very important, you know, for the young listeners that, you know, they are on our show, because this is what we want. We want to bring our experience and, you know, help even not only the audience but also the aspiring musicians to see what they can do with their career. There is so much that can be done within music, isn't it? Yeah. And it's so important to have. Because it's a competitive industry, it's important to have that something that's a little bit different to what's out there and, you know, have your unique thing and run with it. Now, the next one that we're going to listen to is Thomas Morley live. Now. Mine eyes. So I found the lyrics that translate in the modern day, the madrigal, and it says that leave now mine eyes Lamenting your tears do but argument these Mine lamenting death come down relief me Alas, to leave a forsaken dust don't grieve me. I see now where light. Yeah. Then fire will fall Sunkind fire die Flora. Yeah, not sure about that. So what would you. What would you do when you have. You see you are two singers singing at the same time? Do you repeat the same words? And so you have the two words crossing each other or you say different verse when you're singing this type of madrigal. In this instance, we actually have a viola di gamba playing the second part. Yeah. And so it's quite interesting, I was saying before about a sustained bass. He tries to sort of imitate the emphasis as the same as the singer who is actually me in this. We don't always. Yeah. We sometimes take solos in these programs to break up. Yeah. So actually the other line in this particular song is a tenor vocal line. So as was done a lot at the time, we sometimes use an instrument to fill in another vocal line. You know, it can be a voice or an instrument, and it just provides a little bit of variety on a disc as well as being quite historically, you know, accurate. Something they would have done, I think, with repeating words as well. It's nice to sort of bounce off each other. And that's how also things can develop, you know, musical ideas. Penny and I are quite responsive to one another. So if she will do an ornament, I'll sort of one up her and do another one and then she'll one up me and, you know, it's really good fun. Yeah, we have fun. Yeah. Now, before we start listening to this song, I want to ask you, is there any very funny magical in this collection or. They're all kind of in the same mood, apart from this one that is particularly sad. Yeah. There's one about being. There's one about being down a. Down a dark, close alley, isn't There, Penny. Yes. Which one's that one about being wantons. Yes, wantons in the. In the close alley. I can't remember which one it is off the top of my head. I go before my darling. Yeah, that's it. Yeah. And that's got some quite entertaining words. And we try to paint the words in a sort of. In an entertaining way. All right, well, let's listen then. Thomas Marley Live Now Mine Eyes. So that song by Angie, if I understand right, by Angela Ickx and Harry Buck and Harry Buck and Viola Da Gamble. Okay. Leave now mine eyes Lamenting your tears, your tears do but augment. Augment this my lamenting Leave now mine eyes Lament. Do but augment this my love ending. This my love ending. Death, Death comes. Death come thou really. Death come thou really. Leave me Alas. Totally forsaken us doth grieve me O see nowhere he lies O see see nowhere he lies, he lieth Then farewell falls unkind Farewell thy floor dieth Death doth come thou death come thou release. Death comes though really. Forsaken the doth grieve me O Sinow where he lies, He lies. Beautiful. And this was Thomas Marley Live Now Mine Eyes sang by Angela from the Ferrariana duo. Now I would like to talk about your career in general. What would you say was the most exciting moment in your career? A couple of really nice things recently, I would say one of the things that we've done that was really exciting was going to the concert house in Vienna. Beautiful place. Yeah. We got booked to sing there in the Mozart Sal, where we performed a different program about Robin Hood and probably also the handle that we did. But I'll pass over to Angie to. Yeah, the handle was a wonderful opportunity. We got to work with some really fantastic musicians. We worked with Opera Settta Cento, directed by Leo. Leo Duarte. Was it Duarte? Duarte. I think Leo Duarte. And we dressed up in historical costume and we worked on a whole thing about baroque gesture, collaborating with a music critic called Brian Robbins, who's been very supportive of us. How wonderful. Yeah, so that was really, really interesting. What's the difference between the baroque moving on stage and a normal concert moving if really involved. We spent months and months learning about this and about the way that you move. And it's very elegant and very sort of stylized. Highly stylized. Highly stylized and everything. The difficulty is when you learn how to do it is making it seem natural on stage. And that's what we were really trying to. The idea of doing this production was to Sort of bring it back in a more natural way and bring it back for modern audiences, because the problem with it is that it also. It often looks very affected and for modern audiences, find it difficult to watch. So it's everything down to how you have your fingers, when you. How you move your eyes, everything means something, even your eyes. Wow. Yeah. Well, the eyes are the. What is it? The eyes are the mirror to the. To the soul. The window. Sorry. Yeah. So I think. And everything. Things, you know, the way that the eyes are lit can portray. Can portray so many different things, really, all the emotions. And the idea is that nothing should be symmetrical, so you should always have, you know, one of your hands slightly higher than the other, your chin slightly raised. You shouldn't be square onto the audience because that means unless in a very specific circumstance, you should be slightly sideways, legs should be uneven, you know, feet slightly. One turned out more than the other. So. Because the idea is that that's more beautiful and elegant. Well, we've scratched the surface, but only just. There's so much more to look at in all of that. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. I had no idea. It's an incredible. Very, very interesting. All right, now, the most challenging moment in your career that you can recall. Most challenging, I think. I don't know if it's a moment, but in terms of keeping everything, the momentum of things going, I think that's. I find that quite a challenge because you feel, you know, you've sort of achieved one thing and then. And then you realize that you have to keep going. So I don't know. That's. That's always quite hard. I mean, you should stop and sort of pat yourself on the back when. When you've done well with something or something's done well. But really. Yeah, for me, it's the. It's the. It's the momentum of keeping going, I think, for. For a specific sort of moment or event, I would say this Handel cantata that we've just been talking about, which was Aminta e Filidae by Handel. It was such a huge project because there's only two sopranos in it, there are only those two characters, and it's a whole cantata. So it was not only the memorizing and the getting into the baroque gesture and all those things and putting it all together, that was a really challenging thing to do. We did props and we did. Yeah. The sort of lighting and everything. Felt it. And all of those arias, they're very, very sort of challenging arias to sing. And all the recitative. But then so that, obviously, because it was challenging, also led to it being one of our favorite, most exciting, wonderful things that we did as well, so. Absolutely. So would you say that in Vienna that was your. I mean, not necessarily, but which one was the most beautiful place to perform? Oh, definitely. I think Vienna, they're very different, but. But Vienna felt like a real, kind of a real occasion. Yeah, quite believe that we were where we were and you know, it was. It was great. It was great. It was very exciting. Yeah. And part of, you know, the resonance and festival as artists in our own right. It was lovely. We were so proud to be there as. Yes. With an ensemble that we've co founded and that we co. Manage to. We, you know, we've both sung in venues such as that with other groups that are more established and famous, but to go there sort of under our own steam was amazing. Now, if I can ask you, without mentioning, of course, the venue, but which one was the worst venue to do? You have one where it went horribly bad. I think we've been quite lucky, haven't we? I mean, we've performed in all sorts because we've performed in churches. We've performed one venue which was a very, very casual venue. Totally different. We actually had to change our repertoire a bit. But because we. Because we accepted the acoustic that we had. I think the concert then went as well as another concert. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So, yeah, we've been quite lucky. I think in general, I think churches, they would have a fantastic acoustic for baroque music. What would you say? That's right. And also a really lovely use of the space because you can sort of hide behind pillars and emerge. Yeah, we try to be location space, don't we? Yes, yeah, yeah. So. And if you had to say in general, what would you say are the pro and cons of a career of a baroque singer or a musician in general or a woman? As a female musician. As a woman. Gosh. I think a pro has to be that we get to do what we love doing the most every day. Well, not quite every day at the moment, but these are different circumstances. But yeah, as a career, to be able to do that, we feel very lucky. A pro of being a woman who has their own duo ensemble, as two women. Sorry, is that we can present ourselves in a way that we want to without anyone telling us or informing us, which is always a lovely thing. And to be able to support each other in what is quite a competitive, very competitive industry and competitive voice type as well, as they're always more sopranos than Anything else in the world. So it's nice to sort of team up and sort of pool our resources and be on the same side is lovely. And support each other, you know, in terms of what we're doing outside of Fair Oriana as well. Yeah, exactly. I know that, you know, I've got sort of Penny waving a little flag in the corner and I'm also waving a flag that says Penny. It's a big flag. It's not a little flag. Yeah. The cons, Gosh, I think it's a big learning curve to be co managing a group. And I think as musicians, you have to put on so many different hats as you know and learn to do, to have all these different skills in order to just do our main job, you know, we had to learn how to build websites and how to be admin people and administrator as well as. Gosh. And all the technology skills that we didn't have and had to very quickly sort of learn how to do. Yes, yeah, yeah. And Tor managing and, you know, finding. Oh, my goodness. It's hard. It's hard when you suddenly have to be sorting out how to get a Theorbo case on a plane and things like that that, you know. But then you get there and you think, okay, now we have to sing the concert. Yeah. Yes. You do all that. So that's, in theory, the easy bit. Shifting fake foliage in an Uber, which we were doing last year, and then having to actually sing the concert is. Yeah, it's challenging. Penny and I, just. Before we end up doing something, we sort of say to one another, like, how have we ended up doing this? This is. This is mad. But, you know, the more adventure, it's great. It's just like the other thing. The more adversity, the greater the reward at the end. So. Absolutely. They're not really cons, are they? That we've said, because we actually end up really enjoying ourselves. Yeah, no, that's it. I think it's a challenge rather than a con. Yeah, yeah. Now, you know, there is a lot going on about the fact of the lockdown, the coronavirus, not allowing people to go to concerts. And it looks also that that's gonna go on for a longer period. What are you thinking about that? How are you dealing with this? I dealt with it by dyeing my hair vivid pink. Yes, it is. Wow. It's amazing. If I wasn't going to be performing, I may as well have pink hair. Absolutely. You have to send us a picture so we can put it next week for the radio. Show. Yeah. And in the serious question, you should do it. You should go green. We've been doing a little. We found the app Acapella, which means that although we don't get the benefit of actually being, you know, next to one another, we can still sort of sing together. So we've been releasing little snippets of. Of these canzonets and a couple of folk songs. We've been calling them the Lounge Sessions and releasing them on social media. So we can. We've built up a little community online and it's nice to be able to still share things with people. Very good. It'd be really interesting further down the line to know what people, you know, what we could do, especially as we're separate. But a few of my friends have hosted concerts in their living rooms, but I think we need to be together for that, really. I don't think that technology would allow for us to. It's very interesting when we've been recording these things remotely, to sort of feel how much we take for granted, when we can actually stand next to each other, being able to feel each other's breathing and just intuition that we rely on and to try and do that remotely. It's a bit of a challenge, but hopefully it's the next best thing. So are you also planning already maybe concerts for the summer, for example, for when hopefully this is all over, or. We have. We have. We've been selected for a sort of showcase in the summer. Yeah, the International Young Artists Presentation in Belgium. I suppose, assuming that that goes ahead at this stage, we are looking into perhaps doing a little tour around that, but at this stage, it's hard to know. Yeah, we may have to do some more online things. We do have a couple of gigs in the diary at St Martin in the Fields and we've got the Three Choirs Festival in Worcester. So those are really lovely engagements that we've really got our fingers crossed that we can do. If not, I hope they'll just be postponed rather than cancelled, but maybe we can do some. If those do get postponed, we can do some online instead. Yeah, we are working. We're working on a new collaboration with a storyteller at the moment called Matthew Crampton. Very, very early stages of devising a new spooky program. Supernatural. Yeah. Narrative and songs, Folklore. England has a very rich tradition of. Of wonderful stories and we're going to try and include baroque music and folk as well. Yeah, that's going to be fantastic. Yeah. And that is to sort of launch when we. When we're Ready. As opposed to. Sorry, when the world is ready. When the world has healed itself of the pestilence. Absolutely. Well, let us know when that's on, because I would like to invite you back so we can listen to this. Definitely. Now, the next song we're gonna listen to is Eric Schultz, Paratum Cor Meum Deus from the Symphonie Sacre. So this is the first book of the Symphonie Sacre. So that's definitely passing from the secular madrigal. So from the madrigal with the text about everyday life to something specifically to God. God and the church and everything. Basically saying, my heart is ready and I will sing your pray praises. You are merciful and, you know, we. We praise you with our harps and sultries. Yeah. This is one of the most famous. Is it. It's not madrigal. It's called a motet. It's a blow motet. It's one of the most famous motets. So let's listen to it with both of you. Right, yes. Fantastic. And we have James Bramley on the theorbe. On the theorebe. Yeah. On the field. Okay. Sa. Sa. And this was Paratum Cormium Deus by Eric Schutz. Moteto with. Sorry, it's. Sorry, it's by. It's by Blow. John Blow. John Blow. All right. Sorry. No, that's all right. I found another one with the same exact title, so I thought it was that one. Gorgeous as well, by John Blosso and Botteto. So the different. The difference between the madrigal and the moteto is that the moteto normally was polyphonic, so had different voices at the same time. So in this case, our three voices is Penelope and Angela. And can you remind me of the name of the James Bramley on the theories on the field bow? So can you tell the filbo is a sort of. We might say is a sort of a guitar. Yeah, it's like a. It's like a sort of a giant lute, essentially, with wonderful ringing lower notes. Yes, those big, big. They're sort of. What do they call it? They call it the giraffe of the. Of the older. Tay has often put little sort of knitted woolen hats on the top of their instruments to stop them from hitting the ceiling. All right, okay. Fantastic. Because they're so tall. That's happened in Harvard recently. Yeah, it was lovely. Oh, so sweet. But, yeah, they're wonderful, magical instruments, I think. Yeah, absolutely. Now, this is time for the Odd questions. This is the last part of our interview and the first one is, do you have any strange hobby, apart from maybe dyeing your hair pink? That's something I've always, always wanted to do. It just took a pandemic to, you know, make it happen. What do we have? Hobbies, rituals or superstitions? I know that before we do a concert, we like to sort of. We take a good while to sort of get ready. And we sort of have our fair Oriana image, which is this lovely long hair that we like to sort of style for each occasion. And every. Every concert has a different look, which I really enjoy putting together, personally. It's very, you know, it's really fun. So you don't have any favorite. Yeah, I wish I were more. Yeah. Superstitious? No, alas. Pretty. Pretty chill in that way. Superstitions, I don't think. No, we're pretty chilled, aren't we? Before concerts, we're quite chatty as well, doing our makeup and hair. That's perfect. Hobbies away from. Away from singing and music. This is a bit of a strange one, but I play table tennis, so I play league table tennis, which I have done since I was a kid and played in the juniors. Oh, wow. So that's sometimes a bit of an odd one that people don't expect. Luckily. I love that. Well, I have. I'm not very good at it, but I enjoy recreating medieval illuminations. Oh, with lights, you mean? And like light. Oh, sorry. So illumination was the sort of doodles and the beautiful drawings that monks did in manuscripts. So it's those beautiful gold gilding and the lovely pictures. I'm dreadful at it, but I enjoy it. Wow. That's very special. Right. And do you have any funny or embarrassing moment that you could remember? I remember once singing some Purcell on stage and it was a very. It was from the Tempest and very emotional aria that I was singing and I was. I was sort of lying on the floor to sing it and then couldn't get up again because I got my heel caught in my dress and couldn't stand up properly. And that was at some big concert hall in Europe. So that was a little embarrassing, I remember. Not. Not fair Oriana as well, but I am. No, that wasn't fair Oriana. It was my first concert that I was booked as a professional. I was booked by my old college to come and represent the early music department. And we were singing Strike the Viol and I was performing from memory and I thought I knew the piece, you know, I Was really. I was confident. I got to the end of the A section and just went completely wrong. But this happened three times. The music ground to a halt until a quiet voice just said, should we just go from the B section? And then. But the thing is, at the end of the concert, everyone was clapping and being really supportive. And the encore, we decided was going to be the same piece. So I marched off stage, I went and found my music and I sang it and I nailed it, but only with the music. I've never sung that piece and we'll never sing that piece again. That's Purcell as well, isn't it? We've got a thing about Purcell. We have a funny thing as well between the two of us that whenever we take a really, really dreadful photo. I mean, you can call some Spectacular Faces when you're singing. We have a little photo album of all the. So I call it Fair Oriana Guns. And I love looking through that just to remind us what we actually look like when we sing without, you know, without the photographer. Exactly. This is the reality of it. There's just some cracking, absolutely cracking pictures in there. Yeah. One day we'll do a collage. I can't wait. Maybe on April Fool's next year. That's a good idea. The next song we're gonna play, it's Un Monsieur Departure. And this is actually attributed to Queen Elizabeth I, so it was a mediation on the failure of her marriage negotiation with Francis, the Duke of Anjou, but also attributed to her alleged affair and love of the famous Robert Dudley. So we don't know which is which. And, you know, it's all conjecture, really, at this point, we'll never know. But it fits beautifully with our Trials and Triumphs program. Yeah. All about Elizabeth. So it fits in there perfectly. It's actually quite interesting, I mean, to see. I mean, I think is pretty rare that you find a queen or a king writing lyrics, then they are turned into music and that she performed today. I mean, you wouldn't sing a song written by Queen Elizabeth II if you like. Quite a good idea. She's written anything, though. Yeah. I do wonder if she's written anything or. I don't know. Yeah, well, a lot of. So Fraser Wilson has written the music for this, but he's also set. Was it Psalm 118, which translates as, this is the Lord's doing and it is marvellous in our eyes. We also have a little snippet of text that we haven't had set yet, but I love. And what is it? Elizabeth said in her Tilbury speech, I may have the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and a king of England too. So they're not always sort of poetic. It's not poetic language that we. We always want to set. Although this is a beautiful poem on Monsieur's Departure. But the idea is that it really shows her public and private faces, which is what the program is about. And this song phrase has really sort of captured her more emotional side and how she has to hide that, which we find really interesting. Yeah. So Penny sings the main song and I come in as a sort of wistful ghost halfway through. It's her sort of not being able to escape from her worries and her shadow. And Angie's voice comes in as the shadow halfway through. So he set it really beautifully, Very thoughtfully. Let's listen then on Monsieur Departure with fair Oriana. And this is Sam Brown playing the lute. Fantastic. Thanks. I grieve and dare not show my discontent. I love, I love and yet am forced to seem to hate. I do, I do, I do yet dare not say I am. I seem stuck mute. But inward need you pray I am and naught I fail and yet I'm bo. Since from myself another sa. My care is like my shadow Door in the sun follows me flying, flying flies wise When I pursued stands and and lies my needle. No means I find no means I find to read him from my breast. Till by the end of things it be suppressed. Some gentle passion slide into my mind For I. And made of melting snow O people and so be kind. Let me off lo sing behind. O let me live with some more sweet content. Sa. Why? And so forget what love? What love? What love? How beautiful. And this was a message departure with the Ferruriana with Angela Ickx and Penelope Appleyard. Sorry. Well, if you have any questions that you would like to ask to our guest or nomination for our future Classic Women awards, please email presentersomensradiostation.com or tweet us @womensradiostn. A big thanks to our guest Angela Hicks and Penelope Appleyard from the duo Ferrariana for the great chat and the beautiful music played today. Thank you so much for having us. Thank you. It's been lovely, it's been a pleasure and we are looking forward to your next project to listen to it. Absolutely. That'd be great. Thanks. Now, you've been listening to future Classic Men awards and women's radio station live every day at 10am and 10pm London time. If you would like to listen to it again or catch up on our previous programs, please head to my presenter page. Stefania Pasamonte Future Classic Women Awards on womensradiostation.com thank you for listening.