CULTURE IN COPENHAGEN

This weekend my wife and I went up from the country to the big city. The reason was a beginner's course in tango dancing with Linus, two hours on Saturday and two hours on Sunday. When we lived in Tanzania, we learned how to do salsa, and this would be similar. Not the European tango, one of the five "standard" dances in ballroom dancing, all stiff arms and jerky movements (think Arnold Schwarzenegger and Tia Carrere in True Lies); but the Argentinian variety, slower and more relaxed, with somewhat dreamy violin music. The best word to describe it is languid. Though it still requires hard work; I fell asleep in the car as soon as we had finished.

We stayed in the city with friends, who also go to tango; apparently it is all the rage in Copenhagen at the moment. He is a conductor; and by chance, Saturday night was the 20th anniversary concert of one of the choirs that he conducts, an all-women choir that only sings Bulgarian music. Now, if you think that Danish women singing a capella Bulgarian songs in Bulgarian sounds a bit, well, weird, then you are right. They were very, very good, and the performance was at times spectacular; but I have to admit that the music was not my cup of tea. Talking with him afterwards, I found out why. He said that a lot of balkan music is written in complicated tempi such as 7/8, 11/8 and 13/8; for an unreconstructed 3/4 or 4/4 man like me, the beat just doesn't sound quite right. I am reminded of the gala performance for Margrethe II's birthday (see blog of 16 April), which the television commentator said would give the Theatre Royal the opportunity to enlighten the general public about the joys of opera. However, by choosing excerpts from Wagner, Richard Strauss and a modern composer I had never heard of, they probably put Mr and Mrs Denmark off completely. What about easing them in with a bit of Mozart or Verdi?

So, you won't find me rushing off to join a Russian all-male choir any time soon. Argentinian tango, on the other hand, is a distinct possibility. I'll get back to you.

Walter Blotscher