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REVIEW: TALES IN MUSIC: THE PIGEON AND THE ALBATROSS: Little Baroque Company

November 13, 2017

TALES IN MUSIC: THE PIGEON AND THE ALBATROSS

Little Baroque Company

The room was full of rows of expectant children and the parents in a semi circle everyone excited. The room was lovely and warm. The musicians were wearing feather wigs, bright colours, looking resplendent in their outfits and engaging and interesting. I took along my five year old niece and her mother (who snoozed appreciatively throughout the show while First Born and I enjoyed this fun production). I asked niece to help me write this review.

As the music starts we are invited to explore the story and this thrilled the younger members of the audience.

A nightingale tells the story of an ordinary pigeon that wanted to see new horizons and reach new skies. He didn’t want to live a pigeon’s life and asked the mother to let him go (“I have wings you see, you have to let me go”). And off the bird goes on several adventures. Different composers and set musical pieces being used to represent these adventures, place and time. These summoned up nicely with different pieces from the music of Telemann, Handel, Vivaldi and Biber offering up differing but complimentary visions. Once he found a majestic bird, a stunning peacock & although amazed he kept comparing himself to that lovely bird and felt depressed, we’ve all been there I thought as the music played on.

The musicians used the instruments and music to expertly convey his flying somewhere or to express his state of mind. Meanwhile……. the pigeon was crying and the albatross (that was inside a cage – zoo? Crippled by self esteem issues, nasty feather farming, prison for revenge murdering an ancient marina I got a bit confused…) and since she could not get away from her cage she asked the pigeon to save her egg. Pigeon saves the egg, takes it to safety and hatches the egg. And then off they go on several adventures around the world. Ah, thank goodness, a happy ending with Pigeon expanding his cartography skills and they return home safely.

I think the moral of the story was a journey led by curiosity and the dream of not being ordinary leads to great adventure but is not without its trails, but whatever the meaning the children enjoyed themselves a lot and we all left very happy with this enjoyable, accessible and fun afternoons adventure. I was bombarded with questions later in the day about harpsichords, the odd lady in the green wig and why the pigeon had a map in its head. Education can be a dangerous thing and when combined with such fun story telling and expertly played music, it’s intoxicating.

Well done Little Baroque Company, what a creative and innovative afternoon.

Full Details of the event here. 

Learn more about the Little Baroque Company.

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