The day started poorly — I spilled orange juice at breakfast on my wireless keyboard then Carl tipped over his wine glass at lunch, not only spilling the wine but also breaking the glass. And this was at our favorite restaurant in Boston — Legal Seafoods!

Our first concert of the day was at Emmanuel Episcopal Church, known for its Bach cantata series. It was very dark inside — I don’t know if they were trying to conserve electricity or what. A woman sitting next to me said that the church had recently had a fire and they were in the process of cleaning it up.

The bright light of the afternoon, though, was the stellar and virtuosic playing of Philippe m Perlot, bass viol, accompanied by Lorenzo Ghielmi on the harpsichord. Talk about fireworks — Perlot’s fingers were simply flying across the fingerboard, especially during the works by Bartolomeo Selma y Salaverde (1613-1638) and Marin Marais (1656-172 r, including Bach’s Sonata in D major, BWV 1028

The evening concert was called Handel: From England to Italy and was performed by an international cast from Italy, Spain and Chile, called La Risonanza: two violins, cello, harpsichord and soprano. Although they played well, they just didn’t “connect” with the audience and so it was the first concert at this festival for which there was no standing ovation.