Pasadena Central Library 2018

The 19th Century Musicale is alive and well in Pasadena

Cello at Tuesday musicale On the first Tuesday every month at 12:30 p.m., you can travel back in time to an experience that would have been familiar to Jane Austen, Queen Victoria and other ladies throughout the 19th Century.  Members of the Tuesday Musicale of Pasadena perform classical music in the Wright auditorium at the Pasadena Library in a free recital. They even offer a modest ‘tea’ afterwards.

If you close your eyes, you can imagine refined ladies in long pastel dresses sitting around a drawing room while their talented friends–singers, pianists, cellists–perform works by Mozart, Bach, Offenbach and others.

I am marking this up as a once-in-a-lifetime experience, mostly because I am not a particular fan of soprano solos.

Cat duet by Rossini
Ruth Ridenour and Maria del Pilar Gomez performed a comic duet composed by Rossini, the same composer who brought you the theme song for the Lone Ranger.

This recital is one of several free concerts given monthly around Pasadena. I particularly like the concerts held on the third Saturday at 4 p.m. at the Methodist Church because it often features organ music which I like. The Presbyterian Church also offers free noontime concerts as well as evening ones.

Pasadena has from almost its beginning back in 1874 prided itself on being a cultural center. And, as I discovered in a corner of the main hall on my way to the recital, the Library has a longer history than I knew.

Pasadena Library model
Tucked into a corner in the main hall of the Pasadena Library is this model made by Rex Perry of an 1887 version of the Library. The current Central Library was built in 1927.
Back entrance Pasadena
Technically this is the back of the library but most people enter it from this parking lot.
Pasadena Central Library
The main hall of the Pasadena Central Library. All the doors on the left lead to the fiction stacks. It is a beautiful building–much better than that Victorian one above.
Donald Wright Auditorium
The Wright Auditorium where the monthly recital is held.