Celebrating la fête nationale...lentement

A set of pieces from Book Two of Francois Couperin's (1668-1733) Complete Works for Keyboard, this one (as usual) with an enigmatical title: "The Calotins and Calotines" (members of a secret order) "or The Piece for Everyone."

Today, St-Jean-Baptiste Day, means that summer has officially begun. It's felt like "vacation" began for a lot of people at the beginning of this week though, with fewer and fewer cars each day in the parking lot at our studio. On Wednesday we went to the park for a picnic with a friend, and saw large crowds of people, just hanging out, playing music, smoking, talking, drinking wine. The party of friends relaxing on a blanket next to us included a tiny baby -- less than a week old -- and the baby tote bag on their stroller had a photo of Che Guevara on it. Beyond them, a young woman serenaded her boyfriend on the guitar, and a Slavic-looking young man searched vainly in the grass for his lost keys.

What's going on? we asked. Why so many people out so early? Our friend said, Oh, today is a slow day. What's that, we asked? You know, she said, a day when you go to work but no one does much.

An official "slow day" in other words. Never heard of such a thing, we hopeless Americans.

But we're trying. We were out late last night at a surprise birthday party for a close friend, and still in bed at 10:00 am this morning when we heard the bells from Eglise St-Jean-Baptiste, far up rue Rachel toward the mountain, calling the faithful to join the Cardinal and his retinue for the annual celebratory mass. Later there will be a big parade, starting a few blocks from us, but this year, with the Parti Quebecois so severely routed in the last election, and most of its leaders resigned from their positions, the hardcore separatists may be pretty subdued. But I'm with the blue-and-white flag-wavers who see this national day as a community celebration of French culture. Montreal would be an entirely different city without its French history, ambience and language, and I doubt we would live here or love it the way we do. And the French, who know how to enjoy life, are teaching me something about going slower, at least once in a while.

So, on this rainy cool morning it seemed right to begin with coffee and the courtly rhythms of Couperin at the keyboard. Maybe, later, we'll melt into a little Ravel...

Francois Couperin, Les Barricades mystérieuses ("the mysterious barricades"), Carlos Rodriguez, harpsichord

Comments

[Jean]

God, I love Les Barricades Mysterieuses! And this arrangement by Thomas Ades:
http://soundcloud.com/alistairappleton/les-barricades-misterieuses

[marly youmans]

It makes lovely pre-evening-walk music too...

[Marja-Leena]

I think Quebec must be the only province in Canada that celebrates St-Jean-Baptiste Day. Called Juhannus in Finland, it's an official holiday (day off work) there tied in with Midsummer and the start of summer holidays, a mixture of pagan and Christian and whatever one wants it to be. Hope summer has started there! We're still shifting back and forth here...