As a fiddler, I like to take a little time now and then to listen to other fiddlers, lest I become too complacent or put on too many airs thinking I’m really good at it (translation: get a dose of reality). I took just such an opportunity June 12, 2009 when I found out that friends of mine were hosting a house concert featuring musicians Grey Larsen and Cindy Kallet. I was somewhat familiar with the work of Larsen, more as a flautist and member of the group Metamora, but was completely unfamiliar with Kallet, except having heard the name.
The setting was the Dwyer-Frattalone house in Woodbury. It sits up a long tree-lined driveway, for the most part out of view of the road. The house looks pretty much hand-built, supported by massive hardwood mortise and tenon joists that hold up each floor. A spiral staircase that goes from basement to second floor lends a spacious quality that bespeaks of the love that went into building it.
Anyway, the subject is music, not real estate.
Grey Larsen played a wooden flute that he said is 150 years old; a concertina which he had purchased over forty years ago; a harmonium, which he explained is a lap-size hand organ that found great use during Britain’s colonial period when missionaries sought to bring church music to natives in India and New Zealand. The player squeezes the bellows with one hand and fingers the keys with the other. (Despite its history, I can’t hold it against the instrument, as its quite a feat of musical engineering.) He also brought along his fiddle, which accompanied Kallet’s fiddling and acoustic guitar.
Together they played two sets of songs covering a spectrum from plaintive soul-searching to whimsy. Kallet’s song, If You Say Yes, concerns the things modern media tells us about protecting ourselves from each other (Somebody says, you gotta lock the car, draw the shades, bolt the door, but if you say yes, where will it lead, where will it lead, where will it lead you?) reminds us that we only have to think on the positive, the yes, and not dwell on the negative. This song would be ripe for the annual Vermont Peace Song Contest, a little do I’ve been putting on for the past three years.
The high point for me was when the two of them played a fiddle duet composed by Larsen on the occasion of his 52nd birthday. Before continuing I’d better explain some music theory here: maybe 75% of Euro-extracted fiddle tunes follow a pattern of having 32, 48 or 64 measures that consist of some equation involving repeated sets of eight measures and time-signatures such as 2/4, 4/4, and 6/8. This tendency relates to the centuries’ old history of choreographed dances that relied on having music that would fit the pattern. Dance musicians have been playing tunes like this for so long that the M.O. is truly ingrained in our collective psyche and it is hard to go outside that box.
Back to the tune: it consisted of 52 measures with a time signature of 13/8. Grey explained that number 52 is significant, because it now meant he was “playing with a full deck”. In fact that’s the name of the tune. Sounds rigged to me. Because a deck has four suits of 13, it was a logical extension of thought to make a time signature involving the number 13. Larsen and Kallet played it in the Scandinavian style of melody and counter-melody, which fit the mood of the tune to a T. A tune like this would travel well in eastern Scandinavia, where traditional music frequently bursts the Western European standard. The audience of around 20 was held in rapt attention, mouths frozen in astonished smiles as the twin fiddles filled the room with their ethereal quality. At times I could hear that 13th beat, but for the most part I was lost in the pattern of the tune.
As well as Larsen and Kallet performed together, the evening would not have been complete were it not for the opening act. Sixteen-year-old Kate, whose family owns the house, is a fine gifted fiddler in her own right. It was largely due to Kate’s attendance at a local music camp, where Larsen, Kallet and many other renowned musicians teach, that the intimate concert was held at her house, just before the start of camp week. She opened the evening with one of her favorite fiddle tunes, Sally in the Lane. She also accompanied herself on guitar with two songs, one of which she wrote. Both of these and more appear on her debut CD, which is so new, the disc has a handwritten label. Look for more from Kate Dwyer-Frattalone in the future, and for now stop in at her dad’s store in downtown Montpelier, Katie’s Jewels, and snag your own labeled copy.
