Joseph Bodin de Boismortier Sonata No. 3 in D, Purcell, Suite No 4, Bach Cello Suite No 1, Francesco Barsanti, Sonata in C, Scarlatti, sonata in F, Nicholas Antoine Bergiron. Claire Babington, baroque cello, Amanda Babington, violin, recorder, musette, and David Francis, harpsichord
Baroque in the North has been developing strategies to improve accessibility to and knowledge exchange via live music – for schools, amateur players and “an initiative to take live music (and tea and cake!) to small rural communities in the North West” – hence this concert.
I heard them in Castleton a couple of years ago, when just the two women were playing, and it was good to hear them again, this time with the addition of a harpsichord. As I listened to the music, I was asking myself why, on an equally murky and wet day, this concert was more uplifting than the very similar sort of concert I heard in Buxton three days earlier. I think it was a combination of:
- less tuning problems!
- personable and informative introductions to each piece
- some top drawer works included (Purcell, Bach, Scarlatti), along with the more obscure pieces
- a more varied set of instruments, particularly the recorder and the musette (small bagpipes like Northumbrian pipes)
- perhaps linked with the bullet above, a more varied sense of mood in the pieces, from the near folk dance of Bergiron (with the musette) through the cheerful recorder sounds of Barsanti to the high seriousness and inwardness of Bach
This was an enjoyable and well planned concert -I’m glad I went………..
John's musical journey 