The quest to program the last main chamber concert in our series is underway... and it is one of cross-disciplinary concerts. This time, we are pairing Shakespeare Sonnets with our Baroque Music... and the speaker/actor has chosen his sonnets, with some interesting backgrounding, both historical and personal.

We will meet with him tomorrow to plan the ordering of the sonnets to create an narrative and emotional arc that would work for the concert... and then we start to pair the music to the ends of the sonnets. Ideally, we are looking to have a similar atmosphere to start each music block compared to the end of the sonnet, so that they can flow smoothly from one to the other.

Have quite a batch of music shortlisted now that we know the sonnets... and from here it is matter of culling it all down into a decent musical arc that will fit into the length of the concert. That is all also constrained by the ability to find the music itself... lots of it is still only in manuscript or facsimile forms... which does make us happy to read and play from... however, the incomplete and contradictory records can lead you down some interesting but time-devouring rabbit holes as you poke around searching for the piece of music that you want!

One particular example was finding two little Solfeggi... that ended up being hidden amongst about 200 other solfeggi in a collected work of multiple composers from the period... a sort of workbook for some Baroque collector/performer!

... and then the other constraint is the fact that my wife really dislikes playing ground bass things... and of course, most treble players love them! I also think that the audiences love them too... but the the funny thing, despite them looking outward simple (think Pachelbel Canon) for the
bass... well, it is only simple if you go into robot mode and contribute little and drag the performance down (which most people do...)...

... and like most things, the most simple things demand the most attention, skill, and musical intelligence, to bring out interest and maintain a contributing aspect... but sadly, most musician default into robot. But wife always refuses to do that... and so, she spends a great amount of time crafting a great and interest continuo line that just makes the performance pop!

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