La musique ancienne

There's a great following for early music over here and with such a choice of historic buildings as venues, the settings for each concert is as interesting as the programme. Over the next three weeks there are three music festivals, which are either totally focussed on early music or the programming includes one off concerts featuring some exceptional musicians and composers.

We went to a concert this afternoon over at the Abbaye de Seuilly. It's a lovely building and site, now used for exhibitions and concerts. We go over there fairly frequently. But this visit was a last minute thing really, having spotted the leaflet late on in the week. We were intrigued and being early music fans decided to go. It was in fact a presentation of music from 1540 - 1696, by a group of about twenty musicians, led by professionals who perform together as L'Ensemble La Rêveuse. I've chosen this particular you tube link for several reasons but will come to those later.  There were four different viole de gambas, two different lutes, a théorbo and a couple of baroque guitars. Composers were a mixture of English: Holborne, Byrd, Campion, Dowland; French: Lambert, Boësset and one Italian -Falconiero. There was a mezzo-soprano and a tenor. They played for about an hour or so. It was really lovely. Such a gorgeous sound, seemingly so simple in construction but actually technically sometimes very demanding. We were so pleased we went. 

The reasons for the particular you tube link are all inter-connected. The composer being played is Marin Marais who is very highly thought of over here.  There is a wonderful French film called Tous les matins du monde. Beautiful film which is based on the life of Marin Marais, although not a huge amount is known about him so it's mostly a fictional interpretation. There is a you tube link but it simply doesn't do the film justice. The film is being shown at the Wiltshire Music Centre in Bradford on Avon in November so we're urging our music friends and francophile friends to go. We're over in the UK then, so may even go ourselves, although we have it on DVD.  The musician who played all the music for the film and is one of the top Viole de gamba players in the world is the Catalan composer, conductor and player - Jordi Savall. For the third year running he is playing in the Richlieu Music Festival, which takes place in three weeks time. It's just a thirty minute car drive up the road. This year he is giving two different concerts on the final evening of the festival. We saw him the previous two years, but can't this year.  

The next concert we are able to get to is again taking place in Seuilly, but this time at the Château du Coudray-Montpensier. It's a late afternoon concert with a guided tour of the gardens and place beforehand. So will be very interesting again and for different reasons.