Duo Zeitlos - de Bingen, Hersant & Telemann - 07/19/25

Hildegard de Bingen: Ave Maria Philippe 

Hersant: Caprices 

Georg Philipp Telemann: Various 

Georg Philipp Telemann: Turkish Tune 

Duo Zeitlos 

After a voluptuously romantic concert in Dieulefit on Saturday night (We Drômois sure know how to party, don’t we?), late on Sunday afternoon my mom and I kept our momentum going and headed to the hilltop village of Le Poët-Laval, another beloved member of Les Plus Beaux Villages de France (The Most Beautiful Villages of France) Association that has been one of our favorite local spots since we first set foot in it, about a quarter of century ago. 

And what’s not to love? Besides being located an easy 10-minute drive–or one-hour walk—from Dieulefit, Le Poët-Laval is the sort of apparently dormant medieval village that is home to many unexpected treasures such as an insightful museum dedicated to the protestant movement in the Dauphiné region, an imposing castle, cool art galleries, fascinating artists’ workshops, charming restaurants, and the popular Centre d’Art Yvon Morin, whose permanent closure last winter thankfully has turned out not to be so permanent after all. 

And it was in fact the art center’s small outdoor amphitheater with a sweeping view that was our destination on Sunday as it was going to host a program-less concert by the free-spirited ladies of Duo Zeitlos (or “Timeless Duo”, for the non-German speakers), namely cellist Anne-Charlotte Dupas and violist Chloé Parisot. We had had the chance to sample their talent in one of Dieulefit's cafes a couple of years ago for Bastille Day and we were looking forward to another informal concert in a slightly more formal venue, especially once the rain stopped and the sky cleared up, about one hour before the concert’s starting time. 

The two musicians are well-known and well-liked for being not only extremely talented, but also endlessly adventurous. And they proved both points on Sunday afternoon when they started their performance with their own engaging take on Hildegard de Bingen’s “Ave Maria” and easily conquered the somewhat sparse but highly dedicated audience that had assembled with bated breath. 

The main part of the concert would be another out-of-the-box exercise consisting of interspersing French contemporary composer Philippe Hersant’s Caprices, which Dupas aptly described as “musical haikus”, and various movements by German Baroque and Early Classical composer Georg Philipp Telemann. And lo and behold, this unexpected Franco-German alliance mixing styles and periods worked seamlessly, the wide variety of moods evoked by Hersant and the hand-picked contributions by Telemann creating exciting contrasts within a surprisingly meaningful whole. 

The short concert was concluded with more Telemann, including a fun Turkish Tune and another light-hearted treat conjuring up a tambourine. All in all, this cool musical break al fresco was a wonderful way to wrap up our afternoon and start our evening, and we would not have had it any other way.

Journées Musicales de Dieulefit - Trios en folie - 07/18/25

Felix Mendelssohn: Piano Trio No. 1 in D Minor, Op. 49 

Johannes Brahms: Piano Trio No. 1 in B Major, Op. 8 

Trio Arborescence 

The Festival Mozart dans la Drôme is dead, long live the Journées Musicales de Dieulefit! Fact is, this year again, those annual “Musical Days” lived only three days, but it was better than nothing, and, most importantly, the concerts took place in Dieulefit, which was a most welcome change from the Festival Mozart, which had my mom and I drive at least half an hour each way every time we wanted to attend a performance. Manageable? Yes. Convenient, no. Worth the hassle? Definitely. 

So it was with immense pleasure that we got to downtown Dieulefit in five minutes by car and then hiked up a short cobblestone street to the charming little Église Saint-Pierre, which hosts Journées Musicales’ events every year. This year, however, we really had to grit our teeth and bear it as the association in charge of the event was even more disorganized than usual—which says a lot—with lost tickets, cascading miscommunications and utterly confused volunteers, all of which was blamed on computer glitches, of course, except that it was pretty clear that no computer had ever been used (if only). 

Eventually everybody got to their seat, or at least a seat, never mind the seats that had been double-booked. To make things a little bit more challenging, the one and only upper window that was supposed to open and give the musicians and the rest of us some reprieve from summer and body heat never did, so basically all we could do was to be grateful that no heat wave was going on and that the space was not completely packed. 

Nonplussed by all the logistic turmoil, which did not really affect them, and the stifling environment, which would affect them a lot, the Trio Arborescence, made of Journées Musicales’ long-time artistic director, as well as pianist and teacher, François Daudet, returning violinist Rachel Koblyakov, and newcomer cellist Florimond Dal Zotto, valiantly took the stage for what would be a promising-sounding evening of “Trios en folie”. 

The first episode of that “Trio Madness” would be the Piano Trio No. 1 in D Minor by Felix Mendelssohn, a composer whose name IMO does not appear in concert programs as often as he should these days, except for his staunchly ubiquitous violin concerto. Although he died unfairly young, his œuvre is amazingly wide, varied and worth listening to, as the thrilling take of his Piano Trio we heard on Friday night proved without a doubt. Overflowing with endlessly rollicking melodies and sweeping romantic waves, the beautifully crafted piece filled the space with Mendelssohn’s enchanting music and spontaneously lifted everybody’s spirit up. 

It was seamlessly followed by another highly regarded trio of the chamber music repertoire in Johannes Brahms’ Piano Trio No. 1 in B Major, which first came out in 1854, a few years after Mendelssohn’s work, before being revised much later in 1889. Fortunately, the older and even more pernickety Brahms was smart enough to preserve the original version’s youthful exuberance and glorious lyricism. A couple of new themes, deeper contrasts and subtle fine-tuning made the composition even more exciting, and we all happily benefited from it on Friday night thanks to the assured performance by the Trio Arborescence. 

After all had been played and done, the official program still felt kind of unfinished. For sure, calling it a night at that point would have been totally fair considering the two trios’ size and complexity, not to mention the less than conducive working conditions. The popular church is blessed with attractive decorations and excellent acoustics, but large audiences like ours quickly make it feel cramped and stuffy, and there’s only so much water the musicians can drink to be able to carry on. 

But apparently Daudet had decided to maximize the trio concept by adding a third substantial trio, not just a mere encore, with Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Trio élégiaque No. 1 in G Minor. Composed as a single long movement that displays striking similarities to the first movement of Piotr Tchaikovsky’s Piano Trio in A Minor, this wonderful surprise was yet another foray into gorgeous Romantic territory, which the ensemble brought to life with the same amount of impeccable technique and emotional commitment as they did for the two previous pieces. And just like that, our Trio Madness experience concluded on an exquisitely soothing note.

Festival Mozart dans la Drôme - Bernold & Friends, Feu d’Artifice Musical - 07/13/25

Johann Christian Bach: Quintet in C, Op. 11 No. 1 

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: String Quartet No. 14 in G Major, K. 387 (Spring) 

Ludwig van Beethoven: Variations on “La ci darem la mano” from Mozart’s Don Giovanni 

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Oboe Quartet in F Major, K. 370/368b 

Luigi Boccherini: Flute Quintet in E-Flat Major, Op. 17, No. 6 

Luigi Boccherini: String Quintet in C Minor, Op. 45 No. 1 

Franz Schubert: Adagio from String Quintet in C Major (D. 956, Op. posth. 163) 

Quatuor Elmire 

Philippe Bernold: Flute 

Gabriel Pidoux: Oboe 

Raphaël Pidoux: Cello 

After a couple of well-deserved engagement-free nights, on Sunday evening, for our last, but definitely not least, concert of the Festival Mozart dans la Drôme, my mom and I went all the way to Grignan. Of all the event’s locations, even the ones we did not get to, Grignan is probably the most famous. Its magnificent Renaissance castle, who was the home of the letter-writing aristocrat Madame de Sévigné, one of the most prominent icons of 17th-century French literature, is rightly a major local attraction, and no doubt helped Grignan become a member of Les Plus Beaux Villages de France (The Most Beautiful Villages of France) Association. Its picture-perfect cobblestones, art galleries, boutiques and restaurants took care of the rest. 

Titled “Bernold & Friends, Feu d’Artifice Musical” the musical fireworks-promising program was probably a nod to the Bastille Day’s celebrations that would take place the next day, and in fact included quite a few festive gems by Mozart, of course, but also by 18th-century Italian composer and cellist Luigi Boccherini, whom the festival's artistic director Philippe Bernold seemed to hold in particularly high esteem, and the ubiquitous Franz Schubert, with the sublime Adagio of his String Quintet in C Major, which needs no introduction. 

Even better, after a couple of evenings that had kept us on the edge weather-wise, Sunday was the perfect summer night to attend an outdoor concert in the courtyard of one of the region’s historical treasures. Our seats may have been a bit too close to the stage to my taste, but then the music started, after a couple of acceptably long speeches, and all was forgotten. 

The youngest of Johann Sebastian Bach’s 22 children (Apparently the man did not keep busy just writing music), Johann Christian Bach turned out to be a composer that probably made his father proud, even if the infectious light-heartedness of his Quintet in C, Op. 11 No. 1 is quite a departure from his father’s often stern exactness. For the occasion, Philippe Bernold and Gabriel Pidoux joined three members of the young but highly competent Quatuor Elmire at, respectively, the flute and the oboe, and all formed a seamlessly cohesive ensemble that delivered an effortlessly uplifting performance. 

Next, the entire Quatuor Elmire showed up for the String Quartet No. 14 by Mozart, one of his most ambitious and accomplished works that he dedicated to Joseph Haydn, a close friend for whom he also had the highest respect. Undaunted by the challenge, the Quatuor Elmire impeccably rose to the occasion and made sure to convey not only the “Spring” quartet’s inventiveness and brilliance, but its humor and heart as well. 

Mozart was still in the air with the next number, which was Ludwig van Beethoven’s set of variations on “La ci darem la mano”, one of the most beautiful arias of not only Don Giovanni, and of the entire opera repertoire as well. The three musicians tasked with this delicate mission were Philippe Bernold with his flute, Gabriel Pidoux with his oboe, and Raphaël Pidoux, his father, with his cello, and then a fourth unexpected guest showed up in the form of a strong and cheeky wind that would not leave Bernold’s paper score alone, and ultimately forced the man to stop the performance and ask for help. 

As we were all waiting for the situation to be resolved, Bernold decided to put on his conductor hat and led the whole audience into a tentative but quite respectable, all things considered, sing-along of the aria, with a little help from his two colleagues. A member of the Quatuor Elmire eventually showed up and became a last-minute page holder and turner, allowing the show to go on, and maybe teaching Bernold a thing or two about the convenience of digital tools when it comes to sheet music and outdoor performances. 

This fun little episode was followed by more Mozart with his Oboe Quartet in F Major, which he wrote for his friend, the brilliant oboist Friedrich Ramm. On Sunday evening, it was Gabriel Pidoux who joined the Quatuor Elmire, quipping in passing that no more surprises should be expected since they were all working with tablets. And sure enough, everything went off as planned, the extra guest boldly displaying the multi-faceted capacity of his instrument throughout the three-movement composition that often sounded more like a mini oboe concerto than a quartet. 

At long last, Boccherini made a short appearance with his Flute Quintet in E-Flat Major, whose two movements came off flawlessly, and then a much more substantial one with his String Quintet in C Minor, for which Raphaël Pidoux joined the Quatuor Elmire, bringing the number of cellos in the ensemble to two. The opening elegiac Adagio was a remarkable feat of beauty and imagination, and just when I thought it could not get any better, the restless Allegro assai, the atypical Tempo di Menuetto, and the stormy Finale. Presto showed me that at least it would not get worse. 

I was originally kind of miffed when I saw that only the Adagio from Schubert’s String Quintet in C Major was included in the program, but then again, beggars cannot be choosers, and it is admittedly the most memorable movement of the piece. By then darkness was surrounding us, tasteful lights were illuminating the castle, and a light breeze was gently blowing, all creating a memorable tableau totally worthy of the virtuosic performance that was steadily unfolding. 

Schubert rarely wrote adagios, but when he did, the result would come second to none. On Sunday night, the exciting complexity of the composition, the fascinating combination of tranquility and chaos, and the delicious voluptuousness of those endless lines that seemed to be rising straight to heaven made the moment truly unforgettable. 

And then we were done. The hour was getting late, and what can you play after this Adagio anyway? Moreover, wrapping up our Festival Mozart the same way we had begun it, with Schubert, of all people, allowed us to come full circle nice and neat while feeling grateful for so many opportunities to enjoy unfailingly terrific music and already making plans for next year.

Festival Mozart dans la Drôme - Mozart, de Milan à Vienne - 07/09/25

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: String Quartet No. 4 in C Major, K. 157 

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: String and Flute Quartet from the Trio in E-flat Major, K. 498 (Kegelstatt) 

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Clarinet Quintet in A Major, K. 581 

Quatuor Fidelio 

Philippe Bernold: Flute 

Patrick Messina: Clarinet 

After two slightly chilly, but still richly rewarding, outdoor concerts as part of the Festival Mozart dans la Drôme, and a most welcome night off, on Wednesday evening my mom and I were back on the road and heading to Montboucher-sur-Jabron, another nearby medieval village whose close proximity of Montélimar and lack of special attractions, except maybe for the madonna and child statue overlooking the main street from the top of her tower, make it feel more like a suburb than an independent entity. But we were not there to play tourists anyway, and this time at least, the concert would take place in the safe environment of the main local church at the totally civilized time of 7:00 PM. 

The irony was that, once there, the weather was so gorgeous that we had no desire to be stuck in a closed space for a couple of hours, and only the perspective of hearing an all-Mozart feast titled “Mozart, de Milan à Vienne” (Mozart, from Milan to Vienna), which could only appeal to the die-hard purists in us, made us step inside the large and beautifully renovated church, and take our seats among another tightly packed audience. 

After the usual welcome speeches, the concert started with Mozart’s String Quartet No. 4 in C Major, which the composer wrote in 1773 when he was still a teenager traveling through Italy, including Milan, with his father. It is in fact a delightfully sparkling piece, bristling with the insouciance of youth and the mastery brought by early artistic maturity. The young ladies of the Quatuor Fidelio looked barely older than Mozart was then, and they readily displayed the same considerable amount of talent, poise and ambition in playing as he did in composing. 

Unlike too many other speech makers, the festival’s artistic director Philippe Bernold never wastes anybody’s time. And he did not on Wednesday evening either as he explained how he had painstakingly tracked down the score of Mozart’s String and Flute Quartet from the Trio in E-flat Major to an old printing press in Germany, which has since become a music instruments store while still keeping its original setup upstairs, and had it printed on fancy paper like in the good old days. It was an expensive endeavor, for sure, but, as he rightly pointed out, anything for Mozart. 

And since he had the bright idea to include the piece on Wednesday’s program, we had a chance to hear it by three members of Quatuor Fidelio and Bernold himself. The Kegelstatt Trio, which features the unusual combination of piano, viola and clarinet, was inspired by an obviously very enjoyable outdoor bowling game in Vienna on August 5, 1786, which the now four musicians vividly described in all its unadulterated merriment. It was particularly nice to see Bernold put on his flutist’s hat and to hear that, besides his other jobs as artistic director, conductor and professor at the Paris Conservatory, he remains a musician at heart. 

After intermission came another work written by Mozart, although this one came out in 1789 in Vienna, when he was at the top of his game and churning out masterpiece after masterpiece. Even though I am not particularly fond of the clarinet, I’ll be the first to admit that the Clarinet Quintet in A Major is a dazzling achievement. And then, of course, when you have a soloist as accomplished as Patrick Messina, the Orchestra National de France's long-time principal clarinetist, play it in front if you, well, all you can do is sit back and enjoy, and I did. 

In his speech, Bernold had also mentioned that if the official program was all-Mozart, the encore would be up to us, kind of. So we loudly asked for it, and we eventually got to relish an exquisitely gentle Shostakovitch treat that had the merit of involving all the musicians that had played for us, and of ending the evening on a wonderfully soothing note.

Festival Mozart dans la Drôme - Renaud Capuçon & Guillaume Bellow - Mozart, Beethoven, Debussy, Elgar, Schumann, Massenet, Kreisler & Morricone 07/07/25

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Violin Sonata No. 33 in E-flat Major, K. 481 

Ludwig van Beethoven: Violin Sonata No. 7 in C Minor, Op. 30, No. 2 

Claude Debussy: Clair de lune 

Edward Elgar: Salut d’amour 

Robert Schumann: Romance No. 2 

Jules Massenet: Méditation from Thais 

Fritz Kreisler: Liebesleid 

Ennio Morricone: Nuovo Cinema Paradiso 

Guillaume Bellow: Piano 

Renaud Capuçon: Violin 

Having gained a certain level of self-confidence and, let’s face it, cockiness, after the rain miraculously stopped right before the start of Sunday evening’s outdoor concert in Saôu’s Château d’Eure, my mom and I optimistically figured that we would be just as lucky for Monday evening’s concert of the Festival Mozart dans la Drôme, which was going to take place deep into Saôu’s impossibly lush forest, a magnificent background that would make even the most risk-adverse person go for it, at the equally hard-to-resist time of 7:00 PM. 

Reaching the stage, which was set up in the usual clearing right by the historical Petit Trianon-inspired Auberge des Dauphins museum, was a long journey that had to be made by car first, and then by foot, but it was totally worth the effort, especially since an impressive army of volunteers provided help along the way. Plus, what wouldn’t we do to go hear the wonderful violinist Renaud Capuçon and his long-time partner in music, the equally wonderful if slightly less famous, pianist Guillaume Bellow? 

On Monday afternoon the weather remained challenging with strong winds and black clouds threatening to spoil our fun, which it in fact temporarily did when we had to cool our heels in the dry (this time) grass while the piano was being retuned at the last minute because the wind had swept some pine needles into the unsuspecting instrument. But all was well that ended well, with particularly good seats and essentially no rain. 

Because of the late arrivals, the five (5!) speeches (A big thank you to the festival artistic director Philippe Bernolt for keeping his short, sweet, and to the point), and the still uncertain weather that could turn downright uncooperative at any moment, the planned intermission was scratched, and things got finally going at 7:20 PM in front of a packed and eager audience. 

Unlike the concerts we had attended the three previous evenings, the first piece on the program was not by Schubert, but by, logically enough for a festival named after him, Mozart. His not so well-known but undeniably commanding Violin Sonata No. 33 in E-flat Major has everything we love about Mozart’s music, including complexity, finesse, energy, wit, and savoir-faire. Having two accomplished musicians such as Capuçon and Bellow tackle it with the sort of authority that comes with a healthy dose of experience, understanding and sheer virtuosity was a true privilege. 

After Mozart’s poised Classicism came Beethoven’s exalted Romanticism with his Violin Sonata No. 7 in C Minor. Longer, more inventive, and certainly more turbulent that Mozart’s work, it started gently and ended tempestuously, with a thrilling wild ride in between. The musicians sounded like that had a ball with it and so did we, and so did the voluble bird that insisted on celebrating a passing sun ray by joining in during the second movement. 

The second part of the program was a set of notable short pieces for violin and piano from a wide but not totally unexpected range of composers. Debussy’s “Clair de lune”, Massenet’s “Méditation” and Kreisler’s “Liebesleid” were the evening’s big hits. Elgar’s “Salut d’amour” and Schumann’s “Romance No. 2” were two lovely contributions. And the excerpt of Morricone’s famous soundtrack for Giuseppe Tornatore’s 1988 Nuovo Cinema Paradiso was a nice nod to nostalgia lovers everywhere. 

Needless to say, the performance was a huge success, and after Capuçon used the onstage mike to explain to the purists that the sound had to be amplified to be heard past the third row, he bestowed upon us two unusual encores, both from movie classics, “Smile” from Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times and Stéphane Grappelli’s waltz from Bertrand Blier’s Les valseuses. Therefore, the evening ended on a truly magical, kind of cinematographic note, with the stage beautifully lit up in the now semi-dark forest, never mind that the temperature that had gone down and the humidity that had gone up made the puffy coat I had brought just in case more indispensable than I had planned.

Festival Mozart dans la Drôme - Chants d’amour pour violoncelle and piano - 07/06/25

Franz Schubert: “Du bist di Ruhe”, “Im frühling”, “An die Musik” transcribed for cello and piano 

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: “Deh, vieni alla finestra” from Don Giovanni transcribed for cello and piano 

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Pamina’s aria from The Magic Flute transcribed for cello and piano 

Franz Schubert/Franz Liszt: “Der Doppelgänger” transcribed for piano 

Frederic Chopin: Nocturne No. 20 in C-sharp Minor, op. posth. (Lento con gran espressione) 

Johannes Brahms: “Feldeinsamkeit”, “Wie Melodienen zieht es mir”, Wiegenlied”, “Minnelied” transcribed for cello and piano 

Johannes Brahms: Cello Sonata No. 1 in E Minor, Op. 38 

Pascal Amoyel: Piano 

Emmanuelle Bertrand: Cello 

After two fabulous off-the-beaten-track all-women concerts on Friday and Saturday nights, my mom and I were ready to move on to our annual rendez-vous with the annual Festival Mozart dans la Drôme, formerly known as the Saôu Chante Mozart, ou Saôu sings Mozart(’s praises), which after humble beginnings in Saôu in 1989 — Hence the original name — has been steadily growing to encompass nowadays a respectable number of concerts and other events featuring Mozart and many other worthy composers in various towns and villages of the Drôme region. 

On Sunday evening, however, we were going back to where it all began, in Saôu, another lovely nearby village that, with its almost 600 inhabitants, almost felt like a bustling metropolis after Colonzelle and Manas. The concert was titled “Chants d’amour pour violoncelle and piano” (Love Tunes for Cello and Piano) and starred highly regarded cellist Emmanuelle Bertrand and pianist Pascal Amoyel, a couple on and off stage, who would be performing in the beautiful courtyard of the smallish but regal Château d’Eure. 

Rain started to fall intermittently on Sunday afternoon, but it thankfully subsided by 8:15 PM, just as we were considering heading for Saôu’s church, which was the back-up plan in case of inclement weather, for the 9:00 PM concert. On their ends, the festival’s leadership had stuck to the original location, maybe because they had more faith in Mother Nature than we did, maybe because they simply could not be bothered with the hassle of moving everything and everyone to a much smaller space, and, lo and behold, they were right. 

Once the rain had stopped, the remaining hurdle was the last-minute clean-up of the seats and site, which meant that we had to cool our heels in the wet grass outside the door for an inordinate amount of time, find our seats in the packed and chaotic courtyard, and then sit through a couple of unavoidable and mostly inaudible speeches before the music finally started, at the truly ungodly hour of 9:30 PM. 

One part of the speeches that was audible informed us that the playlist had been reorganized, and that consequently the arrangement of Franz Schubert’s lied would be performed first, making it the third time in a row that our evening would start with Schubert, but who could argue with that? Nobody, especially after hearing the exquisite transcription for cello and piano of “Du bist di Ruhe”, “Im frühling”, “An die Musik” that Bertrand and Pascal gorgeously played for us. 

But this was Mozart’s festival after all, and the transcriptions for cello and piano of both “Deh, vieni alla finestra” from Don Giovanni and one of Pamina’s arias from The Magic Flute turned out to be a clever homage to the Viennese master in large part thanks to musicians’ easy-going rapport, which felt firmly based on mutual trust and admiration. The cello’s scrumptious chocolaty sounds made a wonderful substitute for the human voice, and the piano proved to be the perfect reliable accompaniment for it. 

There’s no wonder Franz Liszt came up with a particularly atmospheric transcription for cello and piano of “Der Doppelgänger”, Schubert’s piano and tenor voice composition from Heinrich Heine’s otherworldly poem, the story certainly oozing enough darkness and mystery to appeal to him. On the other end, there’s plenty of quiet introspection in Frederic Chopin’s moody Nocturne No. 20 in C-sharp Minor, whose deceptive simplicity hides many conflicting emotions. Amoyel found himself alone on the stage for those two pieces, which is not an unusual situation for such an in-demand soloist, and readily delivered poignant performances that undisputedly demonstrated that less is indeed more sometimes. 

The official program wrapped up with the return of Bertrand for two works by my dear Johannes Brahms, first a nice short lied, and then his ambitious Cello Sonata No. 1 in E Minor, whose three distinct movements brilliantly look backwards while resolutely moving forwards. The Allegro non troppo was tumultuously Romantic, the Allegretto quasi Menuetto was classically refined (Hello Mozart!), and the Allegro was an exciting nod to The Art of Fugue (Hello Bach!). For this very special occasion, the duo reconnected seamlessly and treated us to a superb interpretation that even a couple of raindrops during the first movement could not spoil. 

Truth be told, since we all had kept the faith and showed up ready to attend the concert regardless of the weather or venue conditions, we kind of felt entitled to an encore, which the artists provided without too much pleading on our part, wrapping up our evening with a soulful take on Sergei Rachmaninoff’s ever-popular “Vocalise”. Even better, we made it back home by 11:30 PM.

Les Dames de Pique - Schubert, Britten, Piazzola, Fitzenhagen, Vilvadi, Ridoux, Morricone, Metallica, Handel & Nougaro - 07/05/25

Franz Schubert: Serenade (Arrangement by Antoinette Illes) 

Benjamin Britten: Simple Symphony – Final movement (Arrangement by Anne-Sophie Perroux) 

Astor Piazzolla: Winter (Arrangement by Marie-Françoise Nageotte) 

Wilhelm Fitzenhagen: Ave Maria for 4 Cellos, 41 

Antonio Vivaldi: Concerto for Two Cellos – First and Second movements (Arrangement by Marie-Françoise Nageotte) 

Laurence Ridoux: Danse elfique Slavic Tune (Arrangement by Marie-Françoise Nageotte) 

Ennio Morricone: Outrages (Arrangement) 

Astor Piazzolla: Oblivion (Arrangement by Marie-Françoise Nageotte) 

Metallica: Nothing Else Matters (Arrangement) 

George Frideric Handel: Sarabande (Arrangement) 

Claude Nougaro: Le jazz et la java (Arrangement by Marie-Françoise Nageotte) 

Emilie Hannart: Cello 

Antoinette Illes: Cello 

Florence Kressmann: Cello 

Marion Laine: Cello 

Adeline Le Grix de la Salle: Cello 

Marie-Françoise Nageotte: Cello 

Anne-Sophie Perroux: Cello 

The flyer for last Saturday evening concert first caught my attention in one of Dieulefit’s cafes, and I was about as intrigued by the name of the ensemble, les Dames de Pique (The Queens of Spades) as by the program, which promised works pertaining to a particularly wide range of periods, places and styles, including Vivaldi, Metallica and Nougaro. It did not take long for my mom and I to figure that after spending Friday evening with a fearless woman playing the piano at home, we could do worse than spending Saturday evening with seven fearless women playing the cello in a church, so off we went. 

After accidentally arriving a half hour early, we decided to explore the tiny village of Manas, which turned out to be unquestionably pretty, with its rustic stone houses, blue shutters, pink oleanders and various murals, and spookily quiet, except for the very few cars passing by on the one and only road. The leisurely stroll took about 15 minutes, and then we waited on a bench right outside “downtown”, where we were unceremoniously assaulted by the relentless screaming of countless cicadas. So much for bucolic summer nights in the South of France's countryside. 

After a little while, the official starting time thankfully came around, and we happily took our seats in the attractive little blue and white church, a model of tasteful restraint after the many profusely decorated churches I had visited in Northern Italy, which was discreetly buzzing with the steady flow of excited concert-goers who would eventually fill up the space. 

On Friday evening, the performance had opened with one of Schubert’s Impromptus, and on Saturday evening, the performance incidentally opened with Schubert’s forever popular “Serenade”, whose arrangement for seven cellos sounded as wonderfully esoteric as expected, even if the church’s acoustics did the music no favor. Not only was this new version as irresistibly appealing as the original, but the seven ladies proved to be a remarkably proficient and cohesive ensemble too. You go girls! 

The final movement of the resolutely modern Simple Symphony by contemporary English composer Benjamin Britten’s and the tango-flavored “Winter” by contemporary Argentine composer Astor Piazzolla may not have seemed like obvious choices to place after Schubert’s Romantic earworm, but all those brilliant arrangements ended up creating a dazzling bouquet of musical gems that kept us wanting for more. 

And more came our way with 19th-century German cellist Wilhelm Fitzenhagen’s beautifully elegiac “Ave Maria”, which was originally written for four cellos, followed by the first two movements of Baroque Italian composer Antonio Vivaldi’s highly melodic Concerto for Two Cellos, but who was counting anyway? 

Next, contemporary French composer Laurence Ridoux’s engaging “Danse elfique”, written especially for les Dames de Pique, and an anonymous Slavic tune, whose infectious rhythms exploded in the best Bohemian tradition, were two additional widely different and equally delightful nuggets that further confirmed that the endlessly versatile ensemble could handle anything and everything with utmost virtuosity. 

Contemporary Italian composer Ennio Morricone made a short appearance and left a lasting impression with an excerpt from his eloquently somber soundtrack for Brian de Palma’s 1989 film Casualties of War, and so did Piazzolla with his hauntingly melancholic “Oblivion”, which he wrote for Marco Bellocchio’s 1984 film Enrico IV. 

Amazingly enough, the piece I related to the most was probably American heavy metal band Metallica’s “Nothing else matters”, which brought me back to the Los Angeles Coliseum about three decades ago, when I heard the band perform the original song during one of their live concerts. That said, even without this unexpected opportunity to relive my youth, I would have totally enjoyed this pared-down and yet incredibly complex take on it. Eat your heart out, Miley Cyrus! 

Eighteenth-century German-British composer George Frideric Handel’s “Sarabande” brought us back to more classical sounds and another enchanting little foray into the Baroque realm, before we got plunged into the French popular culture of the sixties with a short but delicious version of one of Claude Nougaro’s biggest hits: Le jazz et la java. 

The program was over, the ovation was huge, and nobody wanted to leave, not even the hard-working musicians, who had valiantly soldiered on throughout the intermission-free performance in the increasingly stuffy space. In the end, they kindly treated us to two memorable encores, Camille Saint-Saens’ ever-graceful “Swan” and Dmitri Shostakovich’s ever-hypnotic Waltz No. 2, making sure to remain uncompromisingly eclectic until the very end.

Le petit palais de Chaillot - Rebecca Chaillot - Schubert & Bach - 07/04/25

Franz Schubert: Impromptu No. 3, Op. 90, D. 899 

Johann Sebastian Bach: The Goldberg Variations, BWV 988 

Rebecca Chaillot: Piano 

After a few weeks filled with decadently rich and surprisingly almost crowd-free traveling experiences in Italy and France — never mind the persistent heat, the occasional hideous scaffolding and the time-honored Italian railroad workers’ strike — as I was working my way North from Naples, I at last made it to my final summer destination of Dieulefit, Drôme Provençale, in late June to spend most of summer with my mom. 

By then I was ready for some good, or even just decent, live music, the only thing I sorely missed throughout my many exciting peregrinations, especially in Modena, where I wistfully passed the Pavarotti-Freni opera house in Modena and serendipitously met the legendary soprano’s delightful grandson, and in Parma, where the presence of Giuseppe Verdi, who was born in nearby Roncole, which is apparently close enough, is felt at every corner. 

And then, before we knew it, we had four concerts lined up for the extended following weekend, starting last Friday evening, which happened to be the Fourth of July (AKA Independence Day) in the United States, even though there is obviously little to celebrate about the good old U.S. of A. these days. 

That’s when adventurous French pianist Rebecca Chaillot had scheduled one of her high-quality, pay-what-you-can recitals inside the intimate courtyard of her beautifully restored home that doubles as a performance space in Colonzelle, a sleepy little village in which the glorious sounds of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Goldberg Variations would soon resonate on this perfect summer evening. 

As we took our seats among the small but dedicated audience, I could not help but notice that the background noises, a relatively small price to pay for outdoor concerts, came from a wide range of sources: A few vehicles discreetly whizzing by outside the gate, many loquacious birds that would not be denied, gravel shuffled under the feet of concert-goers, and the creaking sound from the rusty steeple compass of the church next door, which was regularly manifesting itself according to the intensity of the otherwise welcome breeze. 

And still, after the bells of said church had rung 7:00 PM, our hostess and entertainer for the evening had greeted us with her usual warmth, and we heard the first notes of Schubert’s Impromptu No. 3, Op. 90, all else became insignificant detail as we got pulled slowly but surely into the limpid clarity, tender embrace and meditative power of the piece. Right before starting to play, Chaillot had confessed that she loved Schubert, and sure enough, now she was proving it in spades. 

She had also informed us that she would transition into Bach’s hypnotic Goldberg Variations right away, so we all remained quiet as she silently switched gears and then confidently took us on their extraordinary journey with impeccable technique and refined expressiveness. Even the ubiquitous feathered singers eventually gave it up to the human competition. I was lucky enough to have a close and personal view over her hands as they were working the keyboard with incredible dexterity and unabated stamina, and I found the visual display to be truly as dazzling as the music itself.  

There was no encore, and none was expected, because, seriously, what can you play after such a masterful performance of such a masterpiece? There was a respectful silence, a grateful ovation, and the ringing of the nearby church bells at 8:00 PM as we were walking towards the gate. Not your typical Fourth of July party, just a much better substitute.