There is no Frigate like a Book (1286)

By Emily Dickinson

There is no Frigate like a Book

To take us Lands away

Nor any Coursers like a Page

Of prancing Poetry –

This Traverse may the poorest take

Without oppress of Toll –

How frugal is the Chariot

That bears the Human Soul –

I believe that Emily Dickinson was right in far more ways than she could have imagined. A book may take us lands away. So will music and particularly Pietro Antonio Locatelli’s Sinfonia in F Minor played by Monica Huggett’s PortlandBaroque Orchestra (an Early Music Vancouver presentation) at the Chan last Friday, May 1. The music took me lands away to the home of mayonnaise and from there to a ship-of-the-line

I have read all of Patrick O’Brian’s 20 Captain Aubrey/Stephen Maturin novels twice and the first one Master and Commander many times. In Master and Commander a young Lieutenant, Jack Aubrey meets Stephen Maturin for the first time. The latter becomes Aubrey’s secretive ship’s surgeon and an intelligence agent during the Napoleonic war. You may certainly skip the novel’s startling first chapter below. They meet at a concert that features a Locatelli Quartet and once Aubrey and Maturin become friends through the 20 novels they sometimes play together (the captain, the violin, the surgeon, the cello)  and their favourite music always features something by Locatelli (1695-1764).

When I returned home I had to get Master and Commander and I read (a part of that first chapter):

Patrick O'Brian - Master and Commander

Chapter One

The music-room in the Governor's House at Port Mahon, a tall, handsome, pillared octagon, was filled with the triumphant first movement of Locatelli's C major quartet. The players, Italians pinned against the far wall by rows and rows of little round gilt chairs, were playing with passionate conviction as they mounted towards the penultimate crescendo, towards the tremendous pause and the deep, liberating final chord. And on the little gilt chairs at least some of the audience were following the rise with an equal intensity: there were two in the third row, on the left-hand side; and they happened to be sitting next to one another. The listener farther to the left was a man of between twenty and thirty whose big form overflowed his seat, leaving only a streak of gilt wood to be seen here and there. He was wearing his best uniform – the white-lapelled blue coat, white waistcoat, breeches and stockings of a lieutenant in the Royal Navy, with the silver medal of the Nile in his buttonhole -and the deep white cuff of his gold-buttoned sleeve beat the time, while his bright blue eyes, staring from what would have been a pink-and-white face if it had not been so deeply tanned, gazed fixedly at the bow of the first violin. The high note came, the pause, the resolution; and with the resolution the sailor's fist swept firmly down upon his knee. He leant back in his chair, extinguishing it entirely, sighed happily and turned towards his neighbour with a smile. The words 'Very finely played, sir, I believe' were formed in his gullet if not quite in his mouth when he caught the cold and indeed inimical look and heard the whisper, 'If you really must beat the measure, sir, let me entreat you to do so in time, and not half a beat ahead.'

Jack Aubrey's face instantly changed from friendly ingenuous communicative pleasure to an expression of somewhat baffled hostility: he could not but acknowledge that he had been beating the time; and although he had certainly done so with perfect accuracy, in itself the thing was wrong. His colour mounted; he fixed his neighbour's pale eye for a moment, said, 'I trust… ',and the opening notes of the slow movement cut him short.



The ruminative 'cello uttered two phrases of its own and then began a dialogue with the viola. Only part of Jack's mind paid attention, for the rest of it was anchored to the man at his side. A covert glance showed that he was a small, dark, white-faced creature in a rusty black coat – a civilian. It was difficult to tell his age, for not only had he that kind of face that does not give anything away, but he was wearing a wig, a grizzled wig, apparently made of wire, and quite devoid of powder: he might have been anything between twenty and sixty. 'About my own age, in fact, however,' thought Jack. 'The ill-looking son of a bitch, to give himself such airs.' With this almost the whole of his attention went back into the music; he found his place in the pattern and followed it through its convolutions and quite charming arabesques to its satisfying, logical conclusion. He did not think of his neighbour again until the end of the movement, and then he avoided looking in his direction.

The minuet set Jack's head wagging with its insistent beat, but he was wholly unconscious of it; and when he felt his hand stirring on his breeches and threatening to take to the air he thrust it under the crook of his knee. It was a witty, agreeable minuet, no more; but it was succeeded by a curiously difficult, almost harsh last movement, a piece that seemed to be on the edge of saying something of the very greatest importance. The volume of sound died away to the single whispering of a fiddle, and the steady hum of low conversation that had never stopped at the back of the room threatened to drown it: a soldier exploded in a stifled guffaw and Jack looked angrily round. Then the rest of the quartet joined the fiddle and all of them worked back to the point from which the statement might arise: it was essential to get straight back into the current, so as the 'cello came in with its predictable and necessary contribution of pom, pom-pom-pom, poom, Jack's chin sank upon his breast and in unison with the 'cello he went pom, pom-pom-pom, poom. An elbow drove into his ribs and the sound shshsh hissed in his ear. He found that his hand was high in the air, beating time; he lowered it, clenched his mouth shut and looked down at his feet until the music was over. He heard the noble conclusion and recognized that it was far beyond the straightforward winding-up that he had foreseen, but he could take no pleasure in it. In the applause and general din his neighbour looked at him, not so much with defiance as with total, heart-felt disapprobation: they did not speak, but sat in rigid awareness of one another while Mrs Harte, the commandant's wife, went through a long and technically difficult piece on her harp. Jack Aubrey looked out of the long, elegant windows into the night: Saturn was rising in the south-south-east, a glowing ball in the Minorcan sky. A nudge, a thrust of that kind, so vicious and deliberate, was very like a blow. Neither his personal temper nor his professional code could patiently suffer an affront: and what affront was graver than a blow?

As it could not for the moment find any outward expression, his anger took on the form of melancholy: he thought of his shipless state, of half and whole promises made to him and broken, and of the many schemes he had built up on visionary foundations. He owed his prize-agent, his man of business, a hundred and twenty pounds; and its interest of fifteen per cent was about to fall due; and his pay was five pounds twelve shillings a month. He thought of men he knew, junior to him but with better luck or better interest, who were now lieutenants in command of brigs or cutters, or who had even been promoted master and commander: and all of them snapping up trabacaloes in the Adriatic, tartans in the Gulf Of Lions, xebecs and settees along the whole of the Spanish coast. Glory, professional advancement, prize-money.

The storm of applause told him that the performance was over, and he beat his palms industriously, stretching his mouth into an expression of rapturous delight. Molly Harte curtseyed and smiled, caught his eye and smiled again; he clapped louder; but she saw that he was either not pleased or that he had not been attending, and her pleasure was sensibly diminished. However, she continued to acknowledge the compliments of her audience with a radiant smile, looking very well in pale blue satin and a great double rope of pearls – pearls from the Santa Brigida.

Jack Aubrey and his neighbour in the rusty black coat stood up at the same time, and they looked at one another. Jack Aubrey and his neighbour in the rusty black coat stood up at the same time, and they looked at one another.

Jack let his face return to its expression of cold dislike – the dying remnants of his artificial rapture were peculiarly disagreeable, as they faded – and in a low voice he said, 'My name is Aubrey, sir: I am staying at the Crown.'

'Mine, sir, is Maturin. I am to be found any morning at Joselito's coffee-house. May I beg you to stand aside?'

For a moment Jack felt the strongest inclination to snatch up his little gilt chair and beat the white-faced man down with it; but he gave way with a tolerable show of civility – he had no choice, unless he was to be run into – and shortly afterwards he worked through the crowd of tight-packed blue or red coats with the occasional civilian black as far as the circle round Mrs Harte, called out 'Charming – capital – beautifully played' over heads three deep, waved his hand and left the room. As he went through the hail he exchanged greetings with two other sea-officers, one of them a former messmate in the gun-room of the Agamemnon, who said, 'You are looking very hipped, Jack,' and with a tall midshipman, stiff with the sense of occasion and the rigour of his starched, frilled shirt, who had been a youngster in his watch in the Thunderer; and lastly he bowed to the commandant's secretary, who returned his bow with a smile, raised eyebrows and a very significant look.

Tanya Tomkins - Said Death to Passion
Four Seasons at the Chan - A Coda by Curtis Daily 
Four Seasons at the Chan - Barking dog included 
A Phenomenal Four Seasonal Fenómeno 

That listening to Locatelli could have transported me to Port Mahon at the turn of the 19^th century while sitting with my Rosemary, my daughter Hilary and granddaughter Lauren was most amazing even though the evening had begun is a sort of laughing stress.

I had instructed my granddaughter, 12 (she had the temerity four years ago to tell her mother she wanted to learn to play the violin) to bring along her violin and violin case so that I might take a few snaps back stage with the star of the evening, Monica Huggett.

As we were about to sit the head Chan usher (pleasant but dogged in her pursuit of imposing restrictions of all kinds and I have had altercations with her many times) pleasantly told my Lauren, “You might want to check in your violin case or I could guard it in this corner.” I pleasantly but firmly told the woman that no musician in a right mind would ever relinquish her violin to anybody else for safekeeping. I told her that while Lauren’s violin was not a Guarnieri she had to learn now and fast the musician’s rule to keep the instrument near at hand.” The formidable woman ceded with a smile and even offered some humour, “Put it under you seat between your legs. I am glad you do not play the cello.”

Later on this very woman attempted to prevent us from going backstage to meet up with Huggett. She went to get a clarification of the rules and seconded an ineffectual man to take her place. We marched past him. He did not protest.

My daughter, who loves Vivaldi’s Four Seasons had never seen a baroque orchestra’s version of the Venetian chestnut. I had taken her to a performance of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra with violinist Cory Cerovsek. The performance had followed all the “rules” of the 20^th century orchestra. The first violinist tunes the orchestra; the Musical Director (alas conductors have been relegated to trams) comes in to applause. Then soloist enters, to applause and shake hands with the Musical Director and with the first violinist (the Concertmaster).

Hilary was not prepared for a smallish orchestra (13). They all played standing up with the exception of the harpsichordist, the two cellists, the bassist and the theorbo player. Hugget made eye contact with us, She smiled and moved around like a heavy metal guitarist on Quaaludes. The smiles and apparent ease in how she played did not hide her virtuosity nor her special ornamentations (my fave was her subtle ornamentation for the Winter Largo.

Simply put at the Symphony they play up there to us who are down here. In fact the Symphony could have played those Four Seasons like the recent baseball game in Baltimore, in an empty stadium.

The Portland Baroque Orchestra made it evident that without us they would have packed into their mini-buses and gone home.

My usually reserved and introspective Lauren smiled at me. She was delighted and I knew that Huggett would inspire her to stick to her guns and someday my snaps in the dressing room will reinforce a memory that will always be there.

Huggett’s over the top theatrics (she mimicked being asleep in Autumn [To enjoy a sweet sleep]) helped us all understand that serious music is not so, that classical music and baroque music can entertain, be fun and make us laugh.

And here I found out that you can add new music, to the mix.

"As  your attorney," Hunter S. Thompson would have said, I would advise you to get into the O’Brian novels and experience how Jack Aubrey and his faithful surgeon go from frigates to ships of the line while reading books, and yes, playing some Locatelli and chomping toasted cheese.