Last night’s concert of La Modestine (the name of the donkey that accompanied Robert Louis Stevenson’s trip through Europe) was held at a small concert hall much the size (I believe) of one owned by Duke Eszterházy in the 17th century. Being on the first row last night I felt like a duke.
Program notes and musician biographies at the end of this blog.
Some time ago I called up CBC Radio arts reporter Paul Grant and asked him, “How would you like to interview a grown man baritone who sings in falsetto?” I took a just arrived to Vancouver countertenor Matthew White to the CBC. Grant apologized that he was going to do the interview on a bench outside as he could not get a sound room. He ran the Wednesday interview the next day and on Friday the Pacific Baroque Orchestra concert featuring White sold out. Grant retired and moved to Moose Jaw. His position was never taken by anybody.
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| Natalie Mackie |
It is a shame that in Vancouver, with a moribund media, there is now no way that the arts, be they painting (photography?), theatre, dance or music can be publicized. I believe that publicists are obsolete.
My friend, graphic designer Graham Walker and I went to a concert last night at an intimate venue, Hodson Manor on 7th Avenue featuring the La Modestine Trio with Marc Destrubé on violin, Natalie Mackie on viola da gamba and Marco Vitale on harpsichord.
The room, not very big, was sold out. Why? Marc Destrubé is smart so he has carefully worked on an email list so he sends announcements of concerts featuring his La Modestine and another group of his called The Microcosmos Quartet.
Microcosmos Quartet They play Benjamin Britten, Bartók and new music.
Now few, if any concerts, get either previews or reviews now. In the case of last night’s concert there will be this blog. I caution anybody who has gotten this far that I am an amateur. Yes, I met Marc Destrubé in 1992 and I have attended many of his concerts. But I am an amateur. Still I feel that this blog has some sort of saving grace in that I include photographs I took last night.
My camera is a Fuji X-E3 that has a noiseless electronic shutter. I turn off the light of the back LCD screen and the smallish zoom lens makes the camera almost look invisible.
I believe, the amateur that I am, that when I listen to music by composers, whose names I have never heard before, (in last night's rosters they sound like mafiosos) this is akin to going to a concert of new music. New music need not be music of the 21st century.
The music we heard last night, baroque music of all Italian composers of the 17th century, was partially what is called Sytlus Fantasticus and one of its pioneers, Girolamo Frescobaldi (an organist in the Vatican) was featured in the concert.
Viola da gambist (not violist da gamba perhaps?) Natalie Mackie gave us an interesting talk on how the composers of the 17th century experimented with swooping changes of time in composing very fast and very slow. She pointed out that Alessandro Stradella (1643-1682) was an example of that method. I looked him up, and found out that he was murdered in Genoa by three brothers called Lomellini, whose sister he had seduced.
I took slow shutter photographs that I hope somehow convey the idea of stylus fantasticus.
I cannot stop here without mentioning that Palermo- born harpsichordist Marco Vitale explained how a harpsichord works and that its plucking mechanism depends on gravity for the sound to happen. He told us that a harpsichord would not work on the moon!
In Girolamo Frescobaldi’s Toccata per Spinettina e Violino F.8.49 from Cansoni Libro 1 (1968) he apologized that it would have been imposible to bring a spinet harpsichord to the concert. He told us he was going to play the composition at a one octave higher.
As for my stellar moment with a harpsichord, some years ago at a rehearsal of the Pacific Baroque Orchestra held at the St. James Community Centre on 1O Ave I asked Destrubé if I could lie on my back under the harpsichord during the proceedings. Imagine that!
