Sperenza nova

After much procrastination, we finally went along to the Corsican choir which has started at the lycée. There are four or five teenage girls, a gangly boy, a man who plays the guitar and sings the female parts in falsetto, and a fat, blonde teacher who has a lovely Corsican accent and seems genuinely happy that we came. It was awkward the first time, as we really couldn’t sing along in Corsican without the lyrics written down and the guy playing the guitar gave us somewhat hostile looks. But we went again this week and, as they are writing a new song for a composition competition, there were no words to sing and we coped pretty well.

I love watching people conjure music out of the air, playing with melodies and layering harmonies. I like the fact that the French for tune is ‘air’. Gifted musicians do make it seem as effortless as breathing – the fat woman opens her mouth and her beautiful voice spools out of her in ululations and catches and reels. It was strange to be standing in this stuffy, battered classroom, still smelling like the adolescent boys who had just left it, gathered around a mobile phone to record the song which sounded old, although it was new. One of the girls asked if my parents were French, because of my accent, and I then completely failed to understand her next sentence or produce a coherent sentence explaining that they weren’t. It is a bit disheartening that my French is still so bad, apart from the freak accent. Another girl, Maddalena, has the clean, pale face of a Botticelli Madonna, and a limp, and seems very friendly - not too irritated that English girls have turned up and are massacring Corsican music. The next time we came, they had written some words. The new song is all about youth and the seeds of hope being harvested.