Day 341 Love Music

Wednesday 15 July 2009

Music was resurrected from the dead tonight in Piura; the Orquesta Sinfonica Municipal De Piura conducted by Maestro Manuel Cuadros Barr is back in business with a 7th anniversary presentation. They evidently were able to get Caja Piura, a local bank, to cough up some money to keep them afloat (pay the musicians) for awhile longer. We learn from the Maestro that this orchestra started in 2002, it is the only city-supported orchestra in Peru, and this is their 365th performance. The music program is eclectic with Handel, Elgar, Haydn, Williams (Vaughan), Saint Saens, and Offenbach. A guest violinist, María Elena Pacheco plays the lead in Elgar’s Salut d’Amour, Williams’ The Lark Ascending, and Saint Saens’ La Danza Macabra. María has an astonishingly soft touch on her violin and her technical mastery is evident in all the pieces, but especially in Salut d’Amour. Maestro Barr recounts the charming story of this melodic piece of music, Elgar’s first published work—this love music.

In 1881, Edward Elgar and Alice Roberts were romantically involved and Elgar decided he needed a vacation with an English friend. Before he left on his trip Alice presented him with a poem she wrote for him titled Love’s Grace. While on vacation, not to be outdone, Edward wrote a short piece of music for her titled Love’s Greeting, which later became Salut d’Amour. When he returned to Worcester, England he presented her the music and asked for her hand in marriage, which she gave him. The Maestro asks us to imagine being presented with such a gift; after listening to the three+ minutes of music and not seeing a dry eye in the auditorium—I can only imagine how many tears Alice Roberts shed upon hearing this ‘greeting’ for the first time.

Because of how sweet this music is, especially the last part, I find the score online when I get home. It’s in the Key of E (four sharps) and in 2/4 time. The final 16 bars of the piece are solo violin in pianissimo that start at E and the notes rise in four pairs of slurred-note bars to a high-C and then to the final note, a high-B, that María Elena Pacheco holds for seven and a half bars or 15 beats (15-20 seconds) with the last two bars in pianississimo (extremely soft); she absolutely pulls my heart up into my throat and when that final note sweetly fades to nothingness I have to swallow to quash a sobbing sigh of release. How did Elgar know the last note ‘had to be’ seven and a half bars and not eight, or seven, or six? The score ends with a quarter rest—wow!

After the show we get most of the way across the street in front of the Teatro Municipal heading to La Fogata (The Bonfire), the restaurant we like, and we see pouring out the front door a 10-12 person La Tuna Estudiantina, a musical group dressed in medieval costumes and playing folk music on period instruments. Teri hails them in Spanish and so, of course, they have to play a song for us (and we, of course, have to give them a few coins when they are done); we stand in the parking lot and listen as other symphony patrons flow around us on foot and in cars—it’s lovely music, but it’s not Salut d’Amour music.