Yes! The Concert is still on!

Hello Everyone,

The weather may have looked grim a day or two ago, but it is now mutating into plain old rain. We've been out on the streets in Seattle today and they are clear, full of cars, and we expect good, rainy weather for tomorrow night. No more ice, snow, or slippery streets.

Hope to see you all there.

7:30 PM

Trinity Parish Church, in the Sanctuary.

Pre-concert event at 7:00.

Journey to the Center of the Baroque

21 January 2012

Before 1800 or so, popular music and art music were not as separated as they are now. In the days before classical and folk music parted ways, classical composers stole from folk musicians, who in turn swiped classical licks (such as triplets, descending scale passages, anticipatory notes, and chordal figurations). Dance music and art music were equally important, and each informed the other. Poland, Austria, Holland, and even France have historically been areas of cultural
pluralism, places where royal patronage invited artistic influences from all over Europe. There are not many examples of music from 17th-century Poland, owing to its tumultuous history. We are fortunate to share the music of two early Polish composers. All of the composers on the program were fluent in music played in courts all over Europe, but were able to incorporate specific regional musical motifs.

Adam Jarzębski (ca. 1590-1649) was a Polish composer and violinist who figures prominently in Polish music history. He is known to us primarily by the manuscript Canzoni e concerti (1627). He served as a violinist in the chapel of the Elector of Brandenburg in Berlin (1612-19). He spent a year studying in Italy, and later brought Italianate trio-sonata textures to Warsaw, where he served in the Royal Chapel for thirty years. He transcribed works of Palestrina, Lassus, Claudio Merulo and Giovanni Gabrielli, adding new compositional elements such as dance rhythms and lavish ornamentation. In Warsaw he held a post at the court (1616-17), tutored senators’ children, and advised on building the royal palace at Ujazdów. The trio Diligam te Domine (I will love thee, O Lord), appears to be loosely based on the chant by the same name. The chant melody may be found in at least eight different sources beginning in the mid-11th century. It seems the chant melody received the same treatment of elaboration from Jarzębski as his transcriptions of the composers named above.

Mikołaj Zieleński was a Polish composer, organist and kapelmeister to the primate Baranowski, Archbishop of Gniezno. Zieleński's only known surviving works are two 1611 liturgical cycles of polychoral works, the Offertoria/Communes totius anni. This collection of vocal music contains, amazingly, three instrumental fantasias. The few pieces in which he uses a pre-existent melody are based on the melodies of Polish songs. Zieleński's music is the first known Polish music set in the style of the Baroque.

The Codex Caioni is considered the most valuable of the few 17th century manuscripts from Transylvania, of and it perfectly illustrates the cultural companionship of folk and western art music. Compiled 1634-1671, and named after Joannes Caioni, (1629/1630-1687), the codex is a compendium of every kind of music heard in 17th century Transylvania: folk tunes, Romani dances, sacred pieces, court dances, ballets, and compositions by well known composers such as Heinrich Schütz, and Andreas Hammerschmidt. The Codex was safeguarded in a monastery for three centuries, and then disappeared during WWII. In 1985 it was discovered in a monastery wall. The numbers in [brackets] in the program indicate the page of the Codex on which the particular pieces are found.

Johann Heinrich Schmelzer was one of the most famous violinists in Europe, and played in the orchestra of the Habsburg court. He also played cornet and advised Leopold I on his own compositions. In 1679 Leopold appointed him Kapellmeister, but he died the following year of the plague in Prague, where the court had fled from the great epidemic in Vienna. His compositions include secular dramatic works, chamber music, and ballet suites for allegorical pageants. The first to adapt the tunes of the Viennese street musicians and Tyrolean peasants to the more sophisticated instrumental styles of the court, he is often regarded as the true father of the
Viennese waltz. He made important contributions to the development of the German sonata and suite.

Johannes Schenck was a Dutch composer and viol player of German descent. Through his wealthy patrons in Amsterdam he was able to publish first class editions of his music. His publications helped establish him as one of the more significant Dutch composers of the second half of the 17th century. The music for viola da gamba constitutes a significant contribution to the repertoire for the instrument. It reflects important stylistic changes taking place in northern Europe at the time. His music for viol culminated in Le nymphe di Rheno and L'echo du Danube.

Georg Muffat considered himself a German, although he was born in France and his ancestors were Scottish. A prominent composer of instrumental music, his importance in music history is because of the large part he played in introducing the French and Italian styles into Germany. He studied with Jean-Baptiste Lully in Paris, worked in Strasbourg, Vienna, Prague, Salzburg, and finally Passau. While in Salzburg in the 1680s he took a leave of absence to go to Rome to study with Bernardo Pasquini (1637-1710). The Sonata in D is not only Muffat's only known autograph score but also his only known composition before his visit to Italy. It is sectional
in form, virtuosic in style, highly chromatic and harmonically daring.

The Program

Adam Jarzębski (c.1590-c.1648)

Concerto Terza, from Canzoni e concerti (1627)

Mikołaj Zieleński (birth and death dates unknown)

Fantasia II, from Offertoria/Communes totius anni (1611)

Adam Jarzębski

Diligam te Domine, from Canzoni e concerti (1627)

Dances from the Codex Caioni (17th century)

Anonymous Chanson:

“Bon iour de almor” [236-238]

Regional Dances:

• Mikes Kelemen. Tancz [261]
• Mas Tancz Apor Istvan [262]
• Apor Lazar Tancza [266]
• Tancz [267]
• Tancz: Az en agyam czak [253]
• Nyiri Tancz [257]
• Tikha vgordonaczka/Hammerschmidt ritornello [144]

Johann Heinrich Schmelzer (c. 1620-1680)

Sonata Quarta, from Sonatae unarum fidium (1664)

Intermission

Johannes Schenk (1660–1712)

Sonata VI, Op. 9, from L'Echo du Danube (1706)

Improvisations and Variations on the Bergamasca

Georg Muffat (1653-1704)

Sonata in D, 1677