1+1=3

I'm late to write up this weekend of Musica da Camera concerts but it was busy and varied in style and takes some consideration.  Mainly because our director was John Ma, lively expert in an earlier period of Western music and one that was quite a challenge for me at least.  The composers? Campra and Locatelli, Boccherini and Fischer and Dauvergne.  The themes? Love around Europe; tears of Adiadne; the sounds of streets of Madrid; the famed saltworks of Luneberg (!?); a finish on a bit of refined French style.  John led us in stylistic forms of our own, how to phrase to a key bar, or how to spell a phrase to gel with others, bowing for swift passages and dirty hammers, how to sit on a beat so as not to drag.  Not to drag is common to all musics but some other approaches are earlier, of a different era from classical, so a learning experience.  And John has a way as a director-audience-communicator, introducing the works with generous and humourous backgrounding, then often a few words to set each movement.  So that Euro lovers were French, Italian, Spanish, Turkish and the movements matched to ears of the time.  Thus also with the the bells or rosary in Madrid or those tears or hammers.  And there's that pleasure in performing twice, so the reticence of the Saturday resolves with the performance of the Sunday.  The full day commitment of the drive to Gunning, our take on a tour, is part of that.  So I mention some aspects from behind the music stand, but the proof is in the smiles and satisfaction of the drive home.  So much of a period and a style and a very worthy memory.  And why 1+1=3?  Because the reprise is always so much more comfortable and satisfying.

John Ma (violin, director) led Musica da Camera in Cook and Gunning to playing Campra, Locatelli, Boccherini, Fischer and Dauvergne.