Camerata Variabile — Musketeers

Don Bosco Basel
Saturday, 02 November
19:30

Alexandre Dumas made the three friends and their motto "one for all, all for one" world famous with his 1844 novel. It is perhaps the kind of community with which the Camerata Variabile most identifies. If you try to explain to someone how different it feels to play in a chamber music group than in an orchestra, you will be most likely to be understood if you say that the orchestra is set up more like an army, whereas a good chamber music group is similar to the musketeers. Despite all their differences in character, their unwavering loyalty to one another, their unconventional genius, which always takes sides against power structures and intrigues, as well as their agility and self-responsibility, rightly made them legendary. All of this made the musketeers a force to be reckoned with despite their small numbers.
The program begins at the court of King Matthias with a dance suite by the Hungarian composer Ferenc Farkas. He was a teacher of György Kurtág and György Ligeti and left behind over 700 works when he died in 2000.
The program then refers to the Swiss tradition of mercenary service: for 400 years, Swiss soldiers served in foreign armies. This included almost all of Europe, from Great Britain to Italy, France, and the Habsburg Empire. They were famous and notorious for their bravery, and military documents in France noted that they deserted for only two reasons: either they were not paid, or they heard someone singing a “Zäuerli” (traditional yodel song). This made them so homesick that they became ill and had to return home. This is why singing these slow yodels was forbidden in military service. In this context, Camerata Variabile play their favorites from the cycle "Verliebt i Züri" by Fabian Müller. Swiss dances and melodies can be heard again and again in it, sending a little greeting from our time to the Swiss Foreign Legionnaires of that time.
André Caplet's “Légende” for eight instruments was later (1905) arranged for saxophone solo and orchestra. The composer was often inspired by stories (including those of Edgar Allen Poe), and so this work is also a musical tale full of splendid impressionistic colors.
The concert ends with the five-movement Grand Nonet by George Onslow. It is a veritable battle horse of large-scale chamber music, giving each instrument the opportunity to show its best qualities and greatest virtuosity in friendly competition—because that’s the meaning of the word “concertare.” It was written just four years after Dumas' novel.
Tickets are CHF 40 for adults and CHF 20 for students and youths under age 18.

Website
camerata-variabile.ch/musketiere/

Where
Don Bosco Basel
Waldenburgerstrasse 34
4052 Basel

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