Listen to the same music as the French aristocrats

The French court of the 1700s defined luxury, even to this day, but a pair of local music enthusiasts are more interested in finding what type of music the upper and leisure class of the day listened to.

Susan Adams and Clive Titmuss will present a program of music with the harpsichord, lute, theorbo and baroque guitar from the Court of Louis XIV, also known as the Sun King.

Their performance takes place at 2:30 p.m., Nov. 19 at the Kelowna Forum, 1317 Ethel St. at Cawston.

Tickets at $22 for adults and $20 for seniors and students are available at Kelowna Tickets Orchard Park, Annegret’s Chocolates and brownpapertickets.com.

The instruments are intricately decorated and so is the music, say the early-music enthusiasts in a news release.

“Though the underlying melodies and harmonies are simple, almost like folk music, the way that they are worked out is elaborate, almost to the extent that refinement comes close to being the point of the music’s existence,” the release says.

“The instruments of the day, which will be played at the concert, are a little different than current versions. French-style harpsichords have not one, but two keyboards mounted on top of one another.

“They have not one set of strings, but three sets, and four ranks of plucking jacks. The number of combinations and the sheer complexity gives musicians and tuners nightmares.

“Similarly, the French played the then-novel guitar, and they made and played fancier guitars than anybody else did at the time, edged with inlays of ebony and ivory, made from the most prized woods. They revelled in the largest and smallest lutes: the theorbo and the mandora. The mandora is a miniature lute, which children, with their tiny expressive fingers, could play easily.”

For more information, go to earlymusicstudio.com.