Mallorca Dulce y Picante
Mallorca Dulce y Picante |
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I’ve grown up hearing the music of the celebrated composer Bartolome Calatayud, 1882 to 1973, of Palma de Mallorca, Spain. My father was a student of his in the early 1960’s and played his music for me countless times while I was growing up. When I began to play the concertina in the style that I do now, he thought that I would enjoy playing some of these same pieces. It was sort of like a homecoming for me. His music fits my personality sort of like spaghetti goes with Italy, (which happens to be my favorite food.) My father remembers that after his lesson, the old Maestro (who was at that time already in his eighties) would pick up his guitar, close his eyes, and with a black tobacco cigarette drooping from the corner of his mouth and his beret cocked to one side, he would play. The pieces were new and composed at that very moment. These were songs that had never been heard before, and perhaps they would never be played again.When he finished, he would set the guitar down hand say “when you’re a guitarist, you’ll be able to do the same.” |
He was very genteel and afterwards he would invite my father to sit around the “brassero” (a table with a charcoal burner in the middle at your feet and a large heavy tablecloth that hung to the floor that you placed over your legs to warm you) and together they shared a Mallorcan aperitif called Palo. He remembers that at the door of the Maestro’s apartment was an enameled plaque that read “Successor de Tarrega” referring to the great Spanish guitarist and composer with whom he had studied as a young man. The Maestro and his wife had a country home in the village of Valldemosa which is famous for being the home of Fredrick Chopin and George Sands when they lived in Mallorca. There was a folk dance group in Valldemosa that put on displays for the tourists. Much of Calatayud’s music was inspired by the folk music of Mallorca, a trait which is so common among great composers. I love playing this music on the concertina as I feel it is as expressive an instrument as the beautiful classical guitar, but in a unique way and so it adds a new dimension to music that is already wonderful.
This album is dedicated to my special niece “Alia”, who is a Sevillana.
I recorded the pieces on two instruments, a Wheatstone Baritone and a Wheatstone Treble, each from the 1920’s. After listening to the two recordings, I felt that the difference was too great to make a decision of which one to offer to listeners. So I have produced this album on two separate CDs or as a CD set so that those who wish, can listen, compare and make their own choice.
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I am very happy to offer you “JULIETTES BACH’S OF TRUFFLES”. The “Chaconne from the Violin Partita in D minor” was written by Johann Sebastian Bach. I recorded three renditions of this piece. I understand the Chaconne to have been written as a tribute and celebration of the life of his first wife “Maria Barbara” in 1720 after her sudden and unexpected death that year. When my father first handed me the music for the “Chaconne”, I had not heard it before and it was some time before I heard a recording of Andre Segovia performing it. The more I played the “Chaconne”, the more it grew into my soul. I cannot play it without feeling very moved and now I usually start my day playing the “Chaconne” before I do anything else. |
“Chaconne La Naissance” is played on a Tenor-Treble concertina. This version is dedicated to my birth mother, Marilyn, who died when I was three years old, but who I often remember holding me on her lap and singing to me as a small child. I was very lucky to be raised in a home where Art and Music were at the center. The next several pieces are from Bach’s second wife’s collection known as “Anna Magdalena Bach’s Note Book”. These are what I call “Les Truffes”. I play the “Chaconne La Vie” on a Bass-Baritone concertina which is tuned an octave below the Tenor-Treble concertina. Chaconne Life is dedicated to my mother Vicki who Marilyn, on her death bed, asked to raise me, which Vicki did with very special love and generosity. We are great friends today and I’m certain we always will be. This is followed by another set of Truffles from the “Anna Magdalena’s Note Book” played on the Bass-Baritone.
“Chaconne La Mort” is played again on the Tenor-Treble concertina. This version I dedicate to my father who has nurtured me and his entire family with wonderful instruments, interesting food, humour, life experiences and mostly his love. He told me he dreamed of hearing me play the Chaconne as he passes from this life. I therefore played this last Chaconne especially for him.
I play this music with heart felt thanks to “Sir Charles Wheatstone” the maker of wonderful concertinas and Johann Sebastian Bach, the greatest composer, who have given me a chance to express my own feelings and appreciation for the gift of life.
The three versions of the “Chaconne” were all recorded in succession on the same morning. It was a very rewarding, emotional experience for me. The recording is completely natural and there are no editing changes of any kind. If you were in the Templar Church of Courtiex at the time, you would have heard each piece exactly as you hear it on this recording. What you hear is one instrument being played.
I hope you will enjoy listening to me as much as I love playing.
The two concertinas used are a Wheatstone 64 button Aeola Tenor-Treble made in about 1905 and a Wheatstone 64 button Aeola Bass-Baritone, made in 1928.
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This album is a mix of several different types of music, from Renaissance to Baroque, to Romantic and Modern 20th century. I have the good fortune to live in a part of France that is still very old and primitive in many ways. The Templar Church, in which the album was recorded, dates back to the 11th century. It was very kind of the villagers of Courteix to allow me the use of their Church and I played for their presentation of Icons to show my appreciation. Courteix is located in northern Correze not far from the border with Auvergne. This is the part of south central France that the first crusades originated from and also the center of the most intense French Resistance during the last Great War. Here in the mountains of the “Massif Central” there are thousands of gorges, caves, tunnels, and deep ancient forests of huge knarled and twisted trees where man and beast can hide and live, perhaps a life time, without ever being discovered. |
Here, there are ancient castle and temple ruins dating from the time of the Druids and before. It is only a short distance from where I live to the site of the famous prehistoric cave paintings. People here love flower gardening and most every house and every village have large displays of the most beautiful Roses, Hortense, Pansies, Poppies, Dahlias, and the fields are filled with all the pastels of Monet’s garden. At this very moment, as I’m writing this, the mushroom hunters are bringing baskets of Cepes de Bordeaux from the moss carpeted pine forests. My mother yesterday returned with a basket of fresh ripened black berries. And I just ate some of her wonderful preserves on hot Fresh bread with “Beurre de Normandie”. This is a place that, like so many places in the world, has known great suffering, but, as France is a land of extremes, especially this part of France, it also knows great riches and abundance. My own life has known these extremes as well. It is from this “source” that I offer you my playing, with the hopes that you will feel some of what lies in my heart and that it will give you both pleasure and solace in your day. I offer the fruit of my labor to you with the most humble sentiment and with the hope that my God inspired playing will bring joy and love to you from me.