La Fête de la Musique

After yesterday's disappointing solstice weather, today was lovely, sunshine and puffy white clouds. Fête de la Musique events tend to be pretty one-note round here -- middle-of-the-road French pop. But T told me about a mid-afternoon classical concert in the church in Ribaute. I definitely thought this was worth encouraging, so I went with her and her partner S.

It's a dinky little church -- I don't think I've ever been in it before. Pity the violinist had to perform in front of a painting of St. Sebastian riddled with arrows. It was an hour of Bach for solo violin.I have to admit the violin is not my favourite instrument, on its own even less so. He started with the first movements of three sonatas. I wasn't familiar with them, but they sounded a bit modernist in places. Pianist and former music teacher T reckoned it was because he was slowing the tempo on the ornamental bits, and I reckoned there were a few wrong notes. Then he played a chaconne, more lively and much appreciated by most of the audience. They gave him a standing ovation at the end -- we thought this was unwarranted, so we stayed seated, apart from S who stood to ease his sciatica.

Afterwards we went back to S and T's for coffee and chat on their terrace. Before we knew it, it was 6 pm, off home to feed Mystère and water the plants.

Our village's Fête de la Musique takes the form of a meal and live music in the place de l'église. The bar is set up directly below our window -- uh-oh. I heard the duo warming up earlier and they are ... not great. I might go out for a short while later, but for now I'm snuggling with Mystère and a book.