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.
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