July 14, 2009: Commemorating Bastille Day with pre-Revolution composers

The Bastille Day program for the Noontime Concerts™ series at Old St. Mary's Cathedral was rather anomalous.  Of the six compositions, all by French composers, four definitely pre-dated the French Revolution;  and the one that may have been written after the Revolution was by a composer who fled France in 1790 (figuring that would be the best way to keep his head on his shoulders).  Thus, the only real "celebration" of Bastille Day involved a sort-of fantasy on "La Marseillaise" (which was not composed until 1792), somewhat in the style of a "battle composition" depicting the Revolutionary struggle.  This all added up to a rather weak ensemble of celebratory gestures.

Equally weak was the performing ensemble, consisting of Katherine Heater, harpsichord, Heidi Wilcox, violin, and Farley Pearce, playing the earlier works on viola da gamba and the later ones on cello.  There was very little to stimulate the ear in any of the performances.  Indeed, in a somewhat counter-revolutionary fashion, the music most closely resembled all that tedious baryton music that Joseph Haydn had to compose to keep his royal patron, Prince Nikolaus Esterházy, happy.  At best this was a painful reminder that those who put the most energy behind the French Revolution cared little for music and that any composer of repute during the Reign of Terror was probably destined to fall to the guillotine.