But what about the time machine?
From my regular pre-trip research, I’d reached a reasonable conclusion regarding the reason the tour organizers had chosen to include Château de La Roche-Guyon in our itinerary. What I didn’t expect to see was
a time machine.
As it turns out, the château was the setting for one story in a Belgian comic book series created by Edgar P Jacobs called Blake and Mortimer. Philip Mortimer is a scientist and his friend Captain Francis Blake is an MI5 officer. (MI5 is responsible mainly for domestic protection in the United Kingdom and is more akin to the American FBI than it would be to the CIA whose British counterpart would be MI6 – James Bond’s employer.) Together, they fought the notorious Colonel Olrik in every volume of the original series but one. That one was called Le Piège Diabolique (The Time Trap) and it is that volume that is set in the Château de La Roche-Guyon. It was the ninth book in the series and appeared in 1962. If you’re interested in the plot according to Wikipedia, follow the link I’ve provided.
If you’d like to look at my pictures of Château de La Roche-Guyon which I linked in a previous entry, this will eliminate a need to revisit that post.
Meeting Tim and a second Perf Chat.
When I was driving across Montana last year and first heard Fred promoting this trip, one of the elements that attracted me was the notion that it would feature a world class musician. As it turns out that musician was cellist Timotheos (Tim) Petrin – Performance Today’s Young Artist in Residence.
In November, we received an email from the trip’s organizer, Earthbound Expeditions, with this musical biographical sketch about him:
Praised by critics for creating a sonority that “elicits the audience’s most visceral reaction”, Greek-Russian cellist Timotheos Petrin has performed as a soloist, recitalist, and chamber musician across Europe, Asia and North America. He is the winner of the 2015 Astral Artists Competition and a frequent participant at music festivals and music series such as, Chamberfest Cleveland, Ravinia Festival Steans Music Institute, Chamber Music Society of Fort Worth, Jupiter Chamber Players, Moritzburg Festival, Dimitria Festival. He made his debut performance with the Kansas City Symphony Orchestra. He has also appeared as a soloist with the Athens Symphony Orchestra, the Thessaloniki State Symphony Orchestra and the Kenneth Square Symphony Orchestra. He continues to give chamber music recitals in major cities in Germany, Russia, Greece, Taiwan, Korea, Hong-Kong. A 2017 graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music, Mister Petrin is a scholarship recipient and fellow of the Onassis Foundation and currently studies at the New England Conservatory under the tutelage of cellist Laurence Lesser.
Friday night, Fred introduced us to Tim using the same mechanism he’d used with Jie in Paris two days earlier, the Perf Chat. We learned that Tim was born into a musical family in Thessaloniki, Greece. Both his parents are pianists and his older brother plays violin. Tim began playing the piano at age six but after a year or so of study his mother suggested he try the cello. Tim was uncertain whether this was a reflection on his ability as a pianist or if it was simply to provide the family the opportunity to play as a chamber group.
We learned about his hometown which sits in a nook in the northwestern part of the Aegean Sea and about his relationship with his cello. The one he used on our trip was on loan to him and if one could describe someone as having a cello attached to his hip, this would be such an instance.
Whether he had or hadn’t shown talent for the piano, Tim obviously felt a match with the cello and, at age 18, gained admission to the prestigious Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. Now, in addition to being Performance Today’s Young Artist in Residence, he is studying for his master’s degree at the New England Conservatory.
Of course, in addition to the biographical sketch the Perf Chat also includes performances. And in this instance, Tim performed compositions by Eugene Ysaye the Sonata for Solo Cello and the Prelude and Minuet from the Solo Cello Suite Number 5 by Johann Sebastian Bach. As a bit of an encore, Jie joined him but I have no notes regarding the pieces they played.
As you can see in the video below of a different performance of the Ysaye sonata, Tim’s performances extend beyond musical virtuosity alone. He’s far from staid and stiff. In fact, I was inclined to see his physicality as almost attacking the music with his body. The result intensifies not only the emotive expression in his play but also the experience of his audience by engaging them more fully – particularly in an intimate setting such as the one on the ship.
Next stop, Rouen.