Pierre Akendengué & Hugues de Courson
Lambarena - Bach to Africa

"Lambarena" was presented to me as "Black musicians playing Bach."

"Tenderfoots!" exclaimed Aunt Clotilde as she adjusted her gold-rimmed glasses on her sharp, spinster nose. "The last time I heard something like this was the little singers of King Baudouin, forty years ago."

And my incredulous sarcasm froze on my face when she pulled out, from the orderly rows of her antediluvian LPs, a "Missa Luba" by Les Troubadours du Roi Baudouin, labeled Belgian Congo and dating back to circa 1960. Which, in the comparison with "Lambarena," does not come out as the loser.
Aunt Clotilde calls me narrow-minded. It is a point of pride for her to contradict me. The joints of this particular ship, to me, creak everywhere, and I told her:

"Listen to the African taste for improvisation..."
"...complementing the composure of Bach's inspiration?,"
she finished, sensing that to me, they blended like a curdled mayonnaise.
"No, the African dimension is earthly, horizontal, social..."
"...and so the entire clan is uplifted by the unstoppable ascensional drive of the baroque fugue?"
"No, the African voices evoke primitive tribal rituals around the shaman, and Bach's cantatas..."
"...in the Obamba language are very heartfelt by the group, aren't they? They put their heart into it, don't you think? Tenderfoots! Eh, in these thirty years, religion has become democratic too: here they sing in their language while "Missa Luba" is in Latin: now everything is closer to the people, right? It's more natural."
"To me, however, an organ in Africa seems as appropriate as a load of fertilizer in the Arctic."
"But then you're not just biased, you're also deaf! Can't you hear how everything is punctuated by local percussion?"
"Indeed... like the disco base they put under famous classical music pieces in Donna Summer's time. It makes me want to vomit, indeed. Be serious, Aunt: who will buy it? Who could be interested in..."
"...listening to Bach fused with ritual chants? Those who listen to ethnic music, that's who. This too is an experience."
"What an experience!", I retorted. " 'It's the word with which one refers to one's mistakes,' Oscar Wilde said."
"You don't understand a thing about music; how do they publish your nonsense on DeBaser? The CD is dedicated to Albert Schweitzer, the recording is crystalline, the project is innovative, and they are excellent. Tenderfoots!."
"Aunt... shall we trade it for the record of the Little Singers of King Baudouin?"
"My turntable won't play that little plastic thing, you can keep it and buy me the vinyl edition for aficionados, because I like it that way."
"Then, Aunt, look: I'll leave it for you as an ashtray."

Always at odds, her and I...