Elizabeth Jacquet de La Guerre: Sonata No. 1 in D Minor for Violin and Cello
Maria Theresia von Paradis: Sicilienne in E-flat Major
Sophie Lacaze: Histoire sans paroles (2024 version for Violin, Cello and Accordion)
Sofia Gubaidulina: Silenzio for Violin, Cello and Accordion
Pascal Contet: Accordion
Saskia Lethiec: Violin
David Lowerse: Cello
After a short week in Auvergne filled with family bonding via eating, drinking and sight-seeing, not to mention talking, I got back to Dieulefit just in time to attend a concert whose intriguing program titled “Femmes d’esprit, jardins secrets” (Spirited women, secret gardens) included remarkable women composers from the 12th to the 21st century, as part of the three-day Festival Classic au Jazz, which for the seventh year in a row had been organized by the intrepid Pradel Association and its fearless leader Pascaline Dallemagne, in nearby Le Poët-Laval.
Although I was disappointed that the performance would not take place in the sidehill village’s small stone amphitheater with the panoramic view, I was excited at the thought of enjoying women-celebrating music under the stars in the small courtyard in front of the castle, a location which would be used for the first time on Sunday evening—at the ungodly but admittedly cooler time of 9:00 PM—by the still young but fast-growing festival. I was in fact so much looking forward to it that I had even decided to temporarily put aside my natural dislike of accordion music for the occasion.
My mom and I briefly worried about the size of the audience when we noticed that the nearby parking lot was not as packed as usual, but the courtyard eventually filled up with a sizable group of about 50 music lovers, which unsurprisingly included quite a few regulars. And while the event logistics was still a work-in-progress, with missing music stands and insufficient light for the cello’s sheet music (violin and accordion having joined the digital age), not to mention cooing pigeons and chirping crickets, everything eventually fell into place at about 9:15 PM (Not that I was counting or anything).
At that point, we quickly discovered that the program, which was further described as “An ode to women’s vitality and creativity”, had been concocted by, low and behold, a man, an enlightened one, obviously, who turned out to be prominent accordionist Pascal Contet, who was also the new musician on the block on Sunday evening, violinist Saskia Lethiec and cellist David Lowerse being familiar faces in and around the area in summer. And he forever endeared himself to us throughout the concert, first with his superior musicianship, and then with countless insights into the composers, the works, and the fascinating history of the accordion.
He was also the one who kicked things off with a digital recording of 12th-century German composer and philosopher Hildegard von Bingen’s Canticles of Ecstasy, which was progressively joined first by the accordion, and later by the strings just as the darkness of the night was falling upon us. Although I generally do not see the point of having recorded music during live concerts, I’ll be the first to admit that the ethereal beauty of the taped medieval chants subtly enhanced by the live instruments created an experience that was as unique as it was memorable.
We then fast-forwarded about five centuries, and turned our undivided attention to Elizabeth Jacquet de La Guerre, one of the very few highly esteemed women musicians and composers during the reign of Louis XV. Of course, being born in a musical family and marrying an organist did not hurt, but being a child prodigy-turned-pioneer is not always all it’s cracked up to be, and even a veteran such as Lowerse admitted that neither he nor Lethiec had ever heard of her. That did not stop them for delivering a brilliant performance of her genuinely attractive Sonata No. 1 in D Minor for Violin and Continuo that had been adapted for the cello.
About a century later, Viennese native Maria Theresia von Paradis made a name for herself as musician, singer, composer, as well as music school founder and teacher. Although she went blind at a very young age, that did not stop her from learning from Salieri, palling around with Mozart, successfully touring Europe, and contributing to the creation of the braille writing system. Her most famous work, Sicilienne, may or may not have been composed by her, but regardless of its origins, we all relished the piece’s wonderfully Schubertian quality, even if we heard a partially compromised version of it, the wind having decided to wreak awoke upon Lowerse’s carefully organized score for a few agonizing seconds.
After having jumped forward two more centuries, we arrived in our modern era with French composer and teacher Sophie Lacaze. A friend and colleague of Contet’s, she did not hesitate to write a new version of her Histoire sans paroles for Violin, Cello and Piano that allows the accordion to take over the piano’s part. Originally written for the Australian Association, the score boasts the uncanny ability to transport its audience straight to the Land Down Under with an engagingly tribal first movement followed by an eerily dreamy second one (Desert mirages, anyone?). And that’s just what happened on Sunday night, with a little help from Lowerse’s wife too, who found herself working not as a page-turner, but as a page-holder, for her husband for a little while.
We remained in the present time with Silenzio for Violin, Cello and Accordion by superstar Soviet-Russian composer Sofia Gubaidulina, who is still going strong at the wise age of 92. A born out-spoken experimenter, which means that Dmitri Shostakovich was a big fan, and the Soviet government not so much, she possibly owes her life to Contet’s accordion teacher, who decades ago helped get a literally starving Gubaidulina out of Russia and into Germany, where she still lives. Her convoluted life clearly never hampered her adventurous spirit though, and on Sunday evening, her resolutely dense and intimate Silenzio captivated us with its endless exploration of the ever-elusive border between sound and silence. As they say, the journey is indeed the reward.
We got to the end of the original program in just over an hour (I swear I was not counting), and after a hearty round of applause, the trio decided to treat us to an encore to which, let’s face it, we were totally entitled. And that’s how we got to groove to von Paradis’ delightful Sicilienne one more time, without the momentary disappearance of the cello this time. Even better, this thoroughly terrific concert reconciled me with accordion music, as long as it does not include any of that oh so grating popular French music that is.
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