What Fine Fauré!

Dear Musicians and Music Lovers:

I thought I would share some news from last night’s Community Music Monday, March 7, 2011 – although I am somewhat distracted by Prof. Peter Shickele’s voice in my head repeatedly intoning “Report from Hoople!”

Was it Fabulous Fauré or the weather (no rain, sleet, hail, snow, etc.)? Whatever the reason, we had quite a good turnout last night on both the audience and musician front. Of course our most faithful fan, Haruki, anchored the listener contingent. Pianist Peter Basquin returned to join our Trinity Chamber Players for a reading of the Piano Quartet No. 1 in C Minor, Opus 15 by Gabriel Fauré. What a thrilling piece of music! We’ll have to reprise it sometime next year for those who missed it.

We had eleven musicians on hand to play the Handel Concerto Grosso in A Minor, Opus 6 No. 4. Always a crowd-pleaser, that Handel. Once we finished we all wished for more, so we went back to the top and played it again!

With so many musicians, I calculated we had the forces required to cover all 9 parts (omitting the bass part) of the Bach 3^rd Brandenburg Concerto, so we threw the remainder of the planned program to the wind. I had a spare viola in the building, and Philip, our TCP violinist, was kind enough to join Annebeth and me in the viola section. Yuri and Nick joined Christine on cello, and Anne-Chris, Leo, Catherine and Amy covered the violin parts. Given proper forces, we’ll give it a whirl again on Bach’s birthday, March 21, when we’ll also play the Bach double violin concerto and more.

Stay tuned for news of our next Community Music Monday on March 14.

Let’s Play!

Jim (the violist)