Midweek Early Music Concert with Bonus Sunset

 

This evening I went to a faculty concert put on by the instructors at the Madison Bach Musicians' workshop. I have never been to this workshop, partly because for years I was already taking a week off to do the Early Music Festival workshop, and partly because I am very self-conscious about my violin playing. The woman who is the violin instructor is incredible, and she played a D Minor violin concerto by Handel that seemed very familiar, like maybe I learned it once many years ago. It's not burned into my brain like the Vivaldi Concerto in A Minor that I learned as a very young girl, so maybe I just heard it before at another concert. There was also a double harpsichord concerto by Bach, and his music always seems so inevitable, like it had to exist. The concert was at a Presbyterian church on a hill overlooking the lake (in the spot where the castle once stood), and at intermission a lot of us went out to enjoy the sunset.

There were some pleasant but less interesting pieces by lesser-known composers, and a beautiful Spanish song that was the only vocal piece, and then in the second half there was a lively recorder concerto, and they finished with everyone (but the singer) on "La Folia," by a guy I hadn't heard of before. Now "La Folia" must be the original jazz piece: it's just a chord progression, but all sorts of composers, including Vivaldi and Corelli, have written pieces based on it. This was one was rocking - they even had percussion! According to Wikipedia, it is one of the oldest European musical themes and is always in G Minor. Sometimes in English it is called the Follies of Spain or the Follies of Portugal, so presumably it has an Iberian origin.

Not apropos to music, but relating to my other great love, of language: I won the Diamond Tournament on DuoLingo!

I didn't actually "win," in that I didn't come in first place, but the top fifteen people won the tournament, and I believe I was #11. What does this mean? Why, it means I get to have a little opalescent trophy next to my avatar on DuoLingo! For how long? I presume until the next tournament. Why they are always putting me in leagues and tournaments, I couldn't tell you. They are also always putting my aunt and me together into some kind of quest, but we just kind of go about our DuoLingo lives and somehow fulfill it. It's usually to get so many perfect lessons. I used to get more perfect lessons because I could "buy" a perfect lesson boost with "lingots," which are these gems you can win, and then I would get double credit for each perfect lesson. Now they have taken that item out of the shop, so I don't have as much of an impetus to get perfect scores on my lessons. So look for my aunt and me to fail our next quest (which I believe has already begun), and for me to not make the tournament next time. Been there, done that, and it's not that exciting.

Famous Hat