PBO, Curtis Daily, Patricia Hutter & Two Basses On A Date
Tuesday, November 18, 2014
The Pacific Baroque
Orchestra is presenting this program on Friday November 28 and on Sunday
November 30.
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| Curtis Daily in my garden |
A curious fact is that
perhaps because the program includes two composers (besides that of 17th
century Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber von Bibern) of the late 18th century,
Luigi Boccherini and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart a rare instrument and its owner
are traveling from Portland to play in it. Curtis Daily and his baroque bass
are both participants and members of the Portland Baroque Orchestra. Those who
know will tell you that since the orchestra is headed by violinist Monica
Huggett, the standards of the orchestra are as high as they come. If anything
that also tells you that the demands of Pacific Baroque Orchestra Musical
Director and virtuoso harpshichordist, Alexander Weimann are as high. Daily is also a member of the Seattle Baroque Orchestra
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| Patricia Hutter & Nicolo |
Interesting too is
that Daily and his bass have a date on Athlone Street, Saturday November 29 at
12:30 PM with my near neighbour Patricia Hutter (formerly a bass player for the
Vancouver Symphony Orchestra) and her Italian bass called Nicolo.
Of his bass Daily
wrote me this:
Just a thought for
Alex, I would really like to take some photos of both of the old Italian basses
when we visit Patricia.
My bass was made in Venice, Italy,
circa 1770, so it's pretty old now, but probably not as old as Patricia's. My
bass was most likely commissioned from the shop whose name is associated with
it, Ignacio Ongaro (one of the big violin shops in Venice at the time), by a school or church.
Its dimensions were probably roughed out by a boy, then finished up by somebody
that knew what they were doing. I can show you the tool marks where the
apprentice went too far.
The bass was still in Venice in 1906, which I
know because of a repair label inside it from a well known Venetian maker,
dated 1906 for repairs that he had made to it. At some point after that it made
it's way to Oakland California in the Italian 20th century Italian migration;
likely in pieces because that would be simpler given the horrible conditions
that many of them travelled to the US in. The person I bought it from found it
in a violin shop in Oakland
in the early 60s in pieces. He bought it and eventually had it restored. He was
the principal bassist in the San Francisco Symphony for many years, and has
just in the last decade retired.
I am looking forward to perhaps finding ou, when Daily, Hutter and the two basses meet, if Daily has a name for his Venetian instrument. And perhaps, too, he might explain to me the difference (if there is one) between a baroque bass and a violone.
I am looking forward to perhaps finding ou, when Daily, Hutter and the two basses meet, if Daily has a name for his Venetian instrument. And perhaps, too, he might explain to me the difference (if there is one) between a baroque bass and a violone.
Death by mushrooms and auto-erotic asphyxiation Or Schobert and not Mozart
