Harmonie Ensemble

When was the last time you visited a classical music concert?

I am leaving you space to answer the question...

Proceed with reading this post after you know when it happened to you, as now I will write my case.
It was yesterday when I listened for the last time to classical music through live performance, and also I will go today for another one. But the concert I will be talking about in this post happened a few days ago, well, on Sunday. The weekend was full of activities, so many other things also happened, but they will come in their time. First things first, a classical one in a true sense, from the setting to musicians to the type of music.

Every year before Easter, the city of Altea organizes concerts in its hermitages. Every day is a different place, with other musicians. It is a series of daily music doses for music lovers. Usually, the hermitages are small so the audience is outside, listening through the speakers (I stop here as it will be a spoiler then for some next posts). The Sunday concert was held in the big, main church of Altea, so both musicians and the audience were inside. It was this parish: Our Lady of Consolation.

The concert started at 6 p.m. and the sun was still shining even after the event. Although the temperatures were not so warm when I came out of the church, a normal spring Sunday afternoon was what greeted me back to reality. The music seemed to take us to another time... back to the past and other places. Harmonie Ensemble, this small string orchestra brought us the sounds of Serenade for Strings Op.22 by A.Dvorak in an amazing way. They played so elegantly.

Tuning the instruments before playing:

Ready, steady, prepared? Let's play some music:

The conductor, Francisco Javier Gutiérrez was a very funny one. While they played Dvorak, they were serious but I was very close to them, I saw his facial expression. He is encouraging his orchestra with his smiles and mimicry, his gestures and hand movements. The musicians have to know the person who is conducting them, as every director makes it differently. You have to read well his/her gestures to know how you are expected to play. The dynamic, the pace, rhythmical finesses, or the phrases, all had to come from the conductor. The musicians are his instrument.

Happy feelings after a successful performance:

When the ensemble finished and packed their instruments, I took some photos of the harp and the double bass. I have never played or been so close to a harp to see the pedals. Don't ask me how they work (though I had to know all that back in my school days, now I can forgive myself for not remembering the details).

The double bass is a more common instrument, I had more opportunities to be close to them. One of my good friends from secondary school played it... well, one has to be very tall to fit well the instrument :)

I hope you pressed the play button of the video at the beginning of this post as the video lasts for some time... around 14 minutes I think. I recorded the first and the second movement of the Dvorak Serenade (the first is Moderato and the second movement is titled Tempo di Valse - starting at minute 4:30 in the video). I am sure you will all recognize the tunes. The last piece that they played as the encore (starting at minute 11:22 in the video) was a fast one, but the conductor didn't tell the name of it. He told an anecdote before they started to play it, that he is from Sevilla and that these days there is a lot of life on the streets and the people are already celebrating the holidays before Easter. Hence his choice of that fast and uplifting piece. If anyone knows what is the title of it, let us know :)))