Category: bemf 07

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.

In general, if you’ve been to the exhibition before, you know whether you should go again, because it’s quite similar. Some long-term exhibitors didn’t make it this year (OMI and Courtly Music are two that I miss). There are a lot fewer keyboard makers with a room. But there are chances to play most of the instruments you’ll hear this week, and to buy a lot of good music.

The thing I like about going on Wednesday is that it’s usually the least crowded day, and the vendors aren’t anything like as tired of dealing with the public as they will be later in the week. I usually save my serious purchases for Friday or Saturday, so the only thing I actually bought was a piece of recorder music which I’m currently working on from a borrowed copy. Mostly I just wandered around and played instruments that I have no intention of buying, but wanted to see what they were like to play.

Early brass is better represented than it has been at some festivals. “Musikinstrumentenbau Münkwitz”:http://www.trumpetmaker.com/ let me play a baroque trumpet. It’s actually no harder to play the in between notes on trumpet than it is to play the hard notes on a serpent. And the good notes slot better than anything slots on a cornetto. So if I had anywhere to play one, I would be lusting after one. And Lynn Elder has a cornetto, two sackbuts, and a serpent, as well as lutes, hurdy-gurdy’s, crumhorns… Unfortunately, I can’t play any of those instrurments, because I don’t do sackbut, and the other ones are all designed for people with bigger hands than I have.

“De Luna Harps”:http://www.delunaharps.com/ has a nice selection in a wide range of styles and price ranges. After I fumbled through the one piece I know by heart on 3 or 4 of them, I was starting to remember it better. The Camac pedal harp is definitely too high tension for a casual player, even if the player were rich enough to afford a pedal harp. I enjoyed hearing what a small harp the size of my harpsicle but costing 5 times as much sounds like.

The “Wolkenstayn”:http://www.wolkenstayn.de/ portativ organ was fun to play. It’s small enough to hold and work the bellows with one hand while you play with the other, or you can do what I did and leave it on a table with one person working the bellows and another person playing with both hands. There are ingenious little clips to hold down a key if you want it to be a drone.

h3. Facilities

The most obvious problem is the elevators. For some reason, although there are many vigorous people who would be much happier taking the stairs for a few floors than waiting 10 or 15 minutes for an elevator, which is then overcrowded when it comes, the Radisson Hotel does not allow non-emergency access to its stairwells. There are four elevators and they go up and down in sync, so if you hit the wrong time in the cycle, you can wait a long time.

This is more of a problem for the people who want to go to the 9th floor. The Mezzanine is accessible without elevator. There are an extra two elevators that go only as far as the sixth floor. Unfortunately, you have to call them separately, and it’s hard to keep an eye on all six even when all six have been called for the direction you’re going it. I expect the cooperative spirit of BEMF attendees will evolve a system for dealing with that problem, though.

I’m committed to:
* Judith Conrad Cabanilles concert at 10 AM in the Paulist Center.
* Orlando Consort at 5 PM at Emannuel Church
* Carolyn Sampson concert at 11 PM.

I will probably get to some or all of the Viola da Gamba masterclass at 3 PM at the Goethe institute, because I have a friend playing there.

I’d like to hear Ellen Hargis’ lecture at 1:30 PM at Emmanuel Church.

I want to get back to the exhibition, but may leave that until Friday.

h2. Dog walking, etc.

I’m posting this now before running off to the Wednesday evening concert because I clearly won’t be able to do all my blogging in the morning and get to a 10 AM concert. So I’ll probably come back home after that, and then go to the afternoon stuff. So the dog will have a very odd schedule, with his afternoon walk early and his evening walk late, and his bedtime walk either before the 11 PM concert, which is a normal time, but won’t be bedtime, or after it, which is quite late.

I didn’t get any practicing done today, and will likely do little or none tomorrow.