EMS "Ensemble Augelletti: Parisian Charm" 2/2/2025

[AuntDaisy]

Next Sunday's EMS looks interesting, 5pm 2nd February 2025.

Ensemble Augelletti: Parisian Charm
The Early Music Show

Hannah French is joined by Olwen Foulkes and Carina Drury of Ensemble Augelletti to present their latest studio recording as part of the Radio 3 New Generation Baroque Ensemble scheme.

The music has a Parisian theme, inspired by the 300th anniversary of the first Concert Spirituel series in the city.

"I seemed to breathe another kind of air, to be living in another element", wrote a teenager as they looked upon the golden platform of Paris’s first public, non-subscription concert series - the Concert Spirituel. In this programme Ensemble Augelletti performs glittering instrumental chamber music by Vivaldi, Corelli, Telemann, and Leclair which inspired the young listener to exclaim "the sound practically lifted me out of my seat! I was overcome with giddiness...I was unable to imagine I could reach this height of pleasure through the music’s charms".

Photo from here.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0027d9z

[oddoneout]

The instrument Toby Carr is holding(theorbo?) looks as if the neck has a hinge in it. Transporting such instruments has become even more difficult in recent years so folding necks can be desirable.

[AuntDaisy]

The instrument Toby Carr is holding(theorbo?) looks as if the neck has a hinge in it. Transporting such instruments has become even more difficult in recent years so folding necks can be desirable.

Well spotted. Must play havoc with the strings.

Here's a zoomed in image...

[vinteuil]

.
... that folding theorbo looks a scary proposition.

As indeed is this -

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folding_harpsichord.

[MickyD]

A flat pack harpsichord, an early equivalent of IKEA?!

[oddoneout]

Well spotted. Must play havoc with the strings.

Here's a zoomed in image...

Several modern makers are addressing the 2 issues - needing a folding neck for transport and dealing with a potential cats cradle. Two here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKmAFg2BfYE

https://www.niskanenlutes.com/index.php?g=foldable_theorbo

[AuntDaisy]

Thanks vinteuil & oddoneout, fascinating links.

Nisikanen Lutes also have an interactive lute designer - which was interesting to try out (esp. in 3D view).

[vinteuil]

Thanks vinteuil & oddoneout, fascinating links.

Nisikanen Lutes also have an interactive lute designer - which was interesting to try out (esp. in 3D view).

... thank you for that, Daisy. Big memories - i have just recovered from my brother the very detailed Diaries of our late father covering 1969-1983. In this time he was making lutes and vihuelas (he would so have loved the 'interactive lute designer' site), endless accounts of trips to the V&A to take measurements of lutes, trips to specialist wood suppliers etc. I particularly liked one entry when he and my ma went to the local butcher's and he bought bones (6p - he always mentioned prices) - twice boiled - to be part of the bridge of the lutes he was making...

To put it in context, here is the full entry -

Saturday 14 September 1974
"A lovely sunny morning. Cut lute rose between 9:45 - 11, then mowed top lawn with the mower box on, then packed up picnic lunch - pâté sandwiches, home-brew beer, home-grown figs, for a lovely sunny picnic at our secret place on Beacon Hill. Walk round the Roundway Down circuit (widdershins), then down to Melksham. Bought beef thigh bone from Poulsom's for 6p. Boiled, took out marrow to add to spaghetti bolognese, & boiled again to prepare bone for use on bridge of future lutes. Visited Melksham flower show."

Sometimes I think my pa's Diaries are worth preserving - like Parson Woodforde's or Kilvert's ...

.

.

[AuntDaisy]

... thank you for that, Daisy. Big memories - i have just recovered from my brother the very detailed Diaries of our late father covering 1969-1983. In this time he was making lutes and vihuelas (he would so have loved the 'interactive lute designer' site), endless accounts of trips to the V&A to take measurements of lutes, trips to specialist wood suppliers etc. I particularly liked one entry when he and my ma went to the local butcher's and he bought bones (6p - he always mentioned prices) - twice boiled - to be part of the bridge of the lutes he was making...

To put it in context, here is the full entry -

Saturday 14 September 1974
"A lovely sunny morning. Cut lute rose between 9:45 - 11, then mowed top lawn with the mower box on, then packed up picnic lunch - pâté sandwiches, home-brew beer, home-grown figs, for a lovely sunny picnic at our secret place on Beacon Hill. Walk round the Roundway Down circuit (widdershins), then down to Melksham. Bought beef thigh bone from Poulsom's for 6p. Boiled, took out marrow to add to spaghetti bolognese, & boiled again to prepare bone for use on bridge of future lutes. Visited Melksham flower show."

Sometimes I think my pa's Diaries are worth preserving - like Parson Woodforde's or Kilvert's ...

Thanks vinteuil, fascinating. Clearly a very talented renaissance man. Did he also play the lutes?

(MRJ on textiles found in old diaries... seems apt)

[vinteuil]

Did he also play the lutes?

... yes - it was because you couldn't easily buy lutes in the 1950s that he set out to learn how to build them.

(Incidentally many errors in that wikipedia stub - I should get round to correcting it... )

.

[vinteuil]

(MRJ on textiles found in old diaries...)

..oooh, thanks for that : not an MR James I had read, and quite as 'orrible as one might expect...