The Proslogion (Latin: Proslogium, lit. 'Discourse') is a prayer (or meditation), written by the medieval cleric Saint Anselm of Canterbury in 1077–1078, serving to reflect on the attributes of God in order to explain how God can possess seemingly contradictory qualities. This meditation is considered to be the first-known philosophical formulation that sets out the ontological argument for the existence of God.

Wikipedia

Marc Destrubé - my music mentor

Before I proceed to writing about the 4pm concert this coming Saturday at St. Anselm’s Anglican church I would like to point out former CBC Radio man Bill Richardson’s 2004 radio program Bunny Watson (Katherine Hepburn’s name in the 1957 film Desk Set) in which Richardson would introduce two or more themes with no apparent connection and then find them by the end of the program.

I was raised as a Roman Catholic in Buenos Aires and studied at Catholic boarding school in Austin, Texas from 1958 to 1961. It was there where I was taught to read music and I played the alto saxophone for the school marching band and jazz band. My musical education ended there.

At that school we found out that St. Augustine (the Bishop of Hippo) and St. Thomas Aquinas were noted Christian philosophers. How was I to know that the Burgandy-born  St. Anselm (1033/4–1109) was the first man and philosopher to write about the proofs for the existence of God?

And I could not proceed here without pointing out that my Argentine father was an Anglican and all that I possess of him is his King James Bible? In that bible, St. Luke (22:19 records what I think is the most beautiful sentence in any language:  this do in remembrance of me.

It was in past November that I attended my first concert at St. Anselm’s. Marc Destrubé played Johann Sebastian Bach - Partita for solo violin Nº 2 in D minor, BWV 1004 known as the Chaconne.

What made that concert special is Destrubé's way with words in explaining what he was going to do. This is the sort of performance that if one is lucky one will hear it live perhaps once in a lifetime. I had heard it once before played by Monica Huggett.

On Saturday, this amateur music critic can reveal that I have had a musical education of sorts by no less than the man I first heard in 1991 at Ryarson Church play in a concert featuring my fave Vivaldi, his Gloria RV589. I was there with a stopwatch to find out how fast (the faster the better) they would play the work with a difficult trumpet part.

Since then Destrubé has gently educated me with his easy to understand explanations to this neophyte. I know for example that violin bows are made with hair from male horses as female horsed urinate on their tales and this renders the hair not good. And he did tell me that Louis Spohr invented the violin chin rest sometime in the 1820s. Few here might now that Destrubé is the leader of the Smithsonian-based Axelrod Quartet that plays on beautifully filigreed Stradivarius instruments. It was with his locally based Microcosmos Quartet that I heard all of Bartok's and Britten's quartets. Who but Destrubé would allow me to be on my back under a harpsichord during a rehearsal?

Enough with all that. 

I predict that this Saturday, the work by Heinrich Ignatz Biber ( Stráž pod Ralskem, 12 August 1644 – Salzburg, 3 May 1704)  will be played first or last. Why?

Biber was one of the pioneers of something called scordatura. I asked Destrubé to send me a paragraph explaining it. His answer was that he has lots on his plate and could not do it by today Thursday. My Portland baroque stand-up bass player Curtis Daily said that scordatura is playing a violin that is detuned.

When I sent this good Youtube video explaining scordatura Desrubé answered:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=At0VNSx0pq0

Hi Alex,

Glad you found that.

I should just say that the particular scordatura in the video is a very exceptional one (with the strings crossed); the basic message is right-on though, that the retuning of the strings makes for different sonorities than usual, generally much more resonant ones for playing in a particular key.

Marc

And so I look forward to Saturday’s concert and those lovely moments after with goodies.