Author: Laura Conrad

BEMF opening Gala at French Library after the opera. We started an hour before the guests were to arrive, assisting the caterer by carrying baskets of food, bowls of sauces, arranging cookies and breads. An unexpected question: “Can you arrange flowers?” Not my specialty, but for a time I cut and positioned papyrus reeds, orchids and geraniums in vases to decorate the banquet tables.

Soon the curtain dropped at the opera and people started to arrive. And arrive, and arrive, until the rooms were near capacity. There were conversations in French to be heard along with other languages, not all of them familiar. Old friends met, new acquaintances made. Ample amity and enjoyment went on in all the rooms.

Tenor J_M_ who usually sports a fine beard was seen bare-chinned, the reason? “Can’t have a beard when you play a girl“, which he did in several different roles in Psyche.

More trays of food to carry up the stairs, cups and plates to collect and carry down the stairs, until the Librarie manager blinked the lights. Final cleanup, then a slow process of leaving, as the evening merriment continued in the vestibule, on the stair, and a milling throng on the sidewalk. It was at least an hour into the next day before home and rest.

It has been said that there are three kinds of people:
(1) Some people MAKE things happen,
(2) Some people WATCH things happen, and
(3) Some people say “WHAT HAPPENED?”!

In reverse order, yes, as significant an event as this is to us, there are those who have no idea that this festival is taking place in their town. It just does not grab the Press or other media like a Shriners’ convention or MacWorld.

In the second place there are the patrons and audiences who enjoy the performances and make it possible to pay the bills. Enjoy the festival, we try to make it a good experience for you.

Then, to make the festival happen, there are of course the artists — instrumentalists and vocalists and instrument makers, and the like. Add to this the staff who attend to management of all the details that keep things running smoothly. There are also the volunteers, that cadre of people who set aside time from their daily tasks to carry, check, fold, sell, guide and aid the staff and attendees in whatever way is needed. You will see us around, we are the people in the blue polo shirts.

I haven’t had time to write this, but here’s the “Boston Globe review”:http://www.boston.com/ae/music/articles/2007/06/16/early_music_pilgrims_show_their_devotion_at_festival/?rss_id=Boston.com+%2F+A%26E+%2F+Music+-+CD+and+music+reviews%2C+news+and+clips of the Thursday evening concerts. Feel free to leave a comment.

I haven’t had time to write this, but here’s the “Boston Globe review”:http://www.boston.com/ae/music/articles/2007/06/16/early_music_pilgrims_show_their_devotion_at_festival/?rss_id=Boston.com+%2F+A%26E+%2F+Music+-+CD+and+music+reviews%2C+news+and+clips of the Thursday evening concerts. Feel free to add your comments.

h3. You too can play this music.

We don’t have the actual arrangements they sang, but there’s a three part version of “Changeons Propos”:http://www.laymusic.org/music/sp/html/pieces/234.html, which they sang in the four-part version. It’s also in the “Drinking Songs”:http://www.laymusic.org/drinking.html book.

The program was entirely music by Juan Bautista Cabanilles (1644-1711), so we talked about whether the galliard would actually have been danced “on the altar” at Corpus Christi. I thought Ken Pierce would have enjoyed dancing the galliard he did on Monday on top of the altar.

We also discussed whether the Tiento‘s de falsas, which are similar to Frescobaldi elevation tocattas would have been played at the elevation. The performer thought that they went on pretty long for a priest to hold his arms up, but then remembered a story about the priest dropping the Santo Caliz, and decided maybe it was the organist’s fault for playing too long.

The playing, like a lot of playing at the festival suffered at the beginning from the performer having had inadequate time to warm up, but was fluid and engaging by the end.

Audience

The Paulist Center Library was comfortably full — people came and went a bit, but there must have been at least 30 people. There seem to be keyboard geeks who come to the festival and don’t bother with much that isn’t keyboard playing, so I never see them except at these concerts. In any case, they were quiet (important at a clavichord concert) and seemed interested.

Disclaimer: Judith Conrad is my sister.

Since I’ll have all next week to catch up on the blogging, I’ll go to the American Recorder Society breakfast (9:30) and playing session. Then in the same building there’s the ??Royal Wind Music?? concert.

At 8 PM, there’s the ??Artistic Directors’ Performance and Pub Recommendation?? at Jacob Wirth’s pub on Stuart St. It was a good party last year. I think I’ll eat before going, and maybe just have dessert there, since it was crowded enough to make the service pretty slow, and I enjoy drinking that much beer better on a full stomach. I think they close at 10; last year someone still needed food, so a bunch of us went on to the ??Rock Bottom brewery?? up the street, which stays open until a more reasonable hour.

Basically, I have concluded that if I don’t do this blog in the morning, it doesn’t happen, so I’m not planning any morning stuff. if I have unfinished business at the exhibition, I’ll go there before the “recorder masterclass”:http://www.bemf.org/pages/06fest/concur.htm at 4 PM at Emmanuel Church.

I also have tickets to both the 8PM ??Le Poème Harmonique?? concert and the 11PM ??Tragicomedia and Friends?? concert.

I rode the train back after the concert with Martha Bixler, and she told me how much she likes getting music from “laymusic.org”://www.laymusic.org, and that she often used the “Morley Canzonets for two voices”:http://www.laymusic.org/can2v.html with her students.

I’ve stopped pretending I’m going to get to concerts I don’t have specific commitments to. So it will be:
* Recorder relay at the Cathedral of Saint Paul. It starts at 9, but I won’t kill myself to get there on time, but will try to be there before 10.
* Judith Conrad Labyrinth concert at 3:45 at the Paulist Center.
* Ensemble Clément Janequin at 11 PM at Emmanuel Church.

I’ll probably spend some time at the exhibition between the recorders and the labyrinth.

They’re even better than I remembered them from 6 years ago. One friend said he thought they have more energy in live performance than comes across in their CD’s. Of course, I know a lot more about the music than I did then. And I think Jordan Hall might be a slightly better acoustic for them than Emmanuel Church; I’ll be able to tell you more about that after tomorrow’s 11 PM concert.

The “staging” of the concert was really nice; instead of cowering behind music stands or notebooks, they sat around a table littered with papers. They new the music well enough that they only needed to glance down now and then, and their faces were free to connect with the audience and their hands were free (in the director’s case, to keep the tactus with a green pencil).

The subtitle of the concert was “A palindromic banquet of Franco-Flemish music”. A woman in the ladies room wanted to know what a palindrome was; the two examples we were able to come up with were “Madam I’m Adam” and “A man, a plan, a canal: Panama”. I liked the program’s structure:
* A Prelude introducing the subject
* A grace before the meal
* Songs (and one lute solo dance) about the hunt (for women as well as beasts)
* A lament
* Intermission
* Another lament
* more songs about food, drink, and women
* Prayer after the meal

They used either the lute, the small organ, or both to accompany most of what they did. Obviously they’re capable of singing without it, and it wasn’t making a very large contribution to the sound of the group as heard by the audience, but it gave a sense of security that was among the many things that allowed the connection with the audience to be as good as it was.

As I remember it, 6 years ago Dominique Visse, the director, beat the tactus less than half the time; this time he was doing it all the time. I’m sure that was part of the amazing rhythmic flexibility they acheived, but I did find it a little bit distracting sometimes.

h3. Audience

It wasn’t the solid, whole audience rising as one, standing ovation I’ve experienced on a couple of occasions, but well over half the audience (including this reviewer) were standing at the final ovation. And the comments I overheard on my way out seemed to include a lot of words like “marvelous” and “fantastic”.

For reasons that are entirely obscure to me, Jordan Hall was half full or maybe even less. One recorder player I talked to hadn’t been coming to BEMF 6 years ago when they were here last, and I guess neither of those concerts then was particularly full, either. But it’s a shame they aren’t better known.

h3. You too can play the music.

This is a repertoire “my group”:http://www.laymusic.org/windband.html really enjoys, but hasn’t yet done as much of as will probably will soon.

But one of our members has requested that we sing “La Deploration de la morte de Johannes Ockeghem”:http://www.laymusic.org/music/sp/html/pieces/189.html at her funeral. We joke that that is one of many reasons we hope that event will be far in the future — it’s going to take a long time to learn that one. We also have it in a “transposed version”:http://www.laymusic.org/music/sp/html/pieces/118.html, for groups with good low basses and no sopranos.