The full title of the program was "The Genteel Companion," an evening of vocal and instrumental music and dance by the students and faculty of the International Baroque Institute at Longy. It was Saturday night, July 26, at the Longy School.
And it was pleasant and genteel. In the first half of the concert, a number of small ensembles played the music of Henry Purcell, Peter Phillips, Handel, and other composers we didn't recognize. We liked it, but found it a little too much andante. Maybe I was still tired from my insane hour and fifteen minutes of running in the 90 degree sun in the middle of the day.
Hey, the food during the intermission was terrific. Marilyn had a memorable piece of pound cake. The strawberries were some of the best I'd eaten all summer.
The second half was livelier, with dancing, faster pieces, and comedy. One dance number (by Jean-Baptiste Lully) brought two "French Country Gentlemen" onto the stage to cavort with two ladies. The two country gentlemen, it turned out, were themselves women wearing breeches, and Three Musketeers-style hats with feathers. At first I thought this was a statement of some kind, based on someone's dissertation: "Gender Transactional Role-reversal in a French Medieval Village", or something like that. But then it seemed more likely that they just didn't have any male dancers enrolled this year. They all looked great in their costumes, and they danced beautifully.
A hilarious bit from Thomas Arne's "The Judgment of Paris" had us laughing. A flock of sopranos attempt to get the attention of guy reading a newspaper in a cafe ("Turn toMe Thy Gentle Youth"). One soprano did some very funny things with a roll of toilet paper.
We liked it all. But there could have been half an hour less.
And we found a parking ticket on our car. The only parking tickets I have ever gotten in my life have been in Cambridge.
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