The Return of Smoke & Blisters
Michel Blavet was regarded as the most brilliant flute virtuoso in France, and arguably in all of Europe. His concert debut at the newly formed Concert Spirituel in 1726 produced many reports of the effect of Blavet’s playing the audience, and that his “exciting, exact, and brilliant” style of playing made the flute even more popular in France. It is ironic that his published pieces are in the easiest keys and were intended for amateurs, although they demand some technical skill in the keys of G-sharp major and c-sharp minor. A famous and well-traveled virtuoso, Blavet’s reputation was known throughout Europe.
The biographical information on Giuseppe Vaccari will be brief because it is, unfortunately, essentially non-existent. We are left with a discussion of the manuscript in which the Concerto in C is found. Known as the Dalla Casa Manuscript, after its compiler), it contains mainly music for solo archlute, but it does contain five pieces for mandolin with continuo by the archlute (or theorbo). The music is written in staff notation and not in tablature, and the music itself is typical of the style galant, that is, lyrical, straightforward, and without any bizarre harmonic twists found in the music of CPE Bach and his contemporaries.
Johann Joachim Quantz was one of the first professional flute players in 18th-century Europe. He is known primarily for his treatise on playing the flute and the prevailing performance practices in 1752. Quantz’s Sonata in D from Opus 1 is typical of the solo sonata in the late baroque period. The new standard of movements was that of a slow movement followed by two fast movements of contrasting character. According to Quantz, the first movement, Grave e sostenuto, was the absolute slowest tempo of the day, and allows performers great freedom to be expressive. The second movement, a Presto in ¾ meter, is described by Quantz as the absolute fastest tempo of the day. All three movements provide the listener with a range of three vastly different emotions. Quantz points out that the tempos at the court of Frederick the Great were generally faster than those with the same indications in the rest of Europe, but the tempos in Dresden were faster still.
The defeat of the Turkish army at the Battle of Vienna (1683) marked the beginning of the decline of the Ottoman Empire. Still, the 18th century was probably the most fertile period in the development for Ottoman court music, when musical elements from the provinces captured by the empire were fused into a codified musical language that influences Turkish music to this day. In his Mizrap Kaydirma Etüdü, the Turkish composer Mutlu Torun (b. 1942) captures the spirit of 18th-century Ottoman court music. The lute in tonight’s performance is fitted with additional frets to be able to realize the microtones required in by the two makams, or modes, quoted in this piece: rast and uşşak. The Etüdü is preceded by an improvised taksim, or prelude, which presents the tonal material.
Western art music is what it is now because of Johann Sebastian Bach. For all of his musical genius, Bach was just a regular guy with a family to support and whose trade was that of musician and teacher. He was perhaps not the nicest guy, or the easiest for whom to work or to employ, and was once put in jail for trying to take a better job without first getting permission from his current employer. The Sonata in e, BWV 1034, comes to us in two slightly different manuscript versions and was likely composed sometime in 1724 (and recopied/revised in 1726-27) not long after Bach arrived at his final post in Leipzig. The music reflects Bach’s new interest in the flute after making the acquaintance of the Dresden-based virtuoso Pierre-Gabriel Buffardin (Quantz’s flute teacher). Before this time flute parts in Bach’s cantatas were simple; after working with Buffardin the technical demands on flute music for the remainder of his career increase substantially.
Jean-Marie Leclair achieved fame throughout Europe as a violinist, teacher, and composer. As a player he was a master of both the Italian and French musical styles and his compositions reflect this. His work as a ballet master took him from his native Lyons to Italy, before returning to France to settle in Paris, where he entered the royal service in 1733-37. He was murdered with an engraving tool in 1764. Some say the murderer was his nephew, also a violinist or his wife, who was his engraver. The Sonata VII, Op. 2 puts the viola da gamba in the role of soloist on equal footing with the flute. The solo material demonstrates the respective strengths of each instrument, occasionally dipping into the idiomatic techniques of the other.
January 12, 2013
Breaking Baroque: Diminutions, Divisions, & the End of the Renaissance
Jacques-Martin Hotteterre belonged to an illustrious family of woodwind makers who made significant contributions to the development of woodwinds in the 18th century. Known primarily for his 1708 tutor for flute, recorder, and oboe, he also composed solo and chamber music for the transverse flute, and an invaluable instruction book on how to improvise in all the major and minor keys. The Airs et brunettes of 1721 are settings of French popular songs. Hotteterre added ornamentation in the form of Doubles to several of the songs, and arranged others in the collection for 2 or 3 flutes without bass.
The period of the Cavalier poets extended from the early years of the 17th century up to the beginning of the English Civil War. Royalists all, Thomas Carew, James Shirley, Robert Herrick and others represented the last years of a decadent period in English verse. According to Robin Shirley, "They accept the ideal of the Renaissance Gentleman who is at once lover, soldier, wit, man of affairs, musician, and poet, but abandon the notion of his being also a pattern of Christian chivalry. They avoid the subject of religion, apart from making one or two graceful speeches. They attempt no plumbing of the depths of the soul." Their poetry was set to music in the new Italian declamatory style that seemed to express the fleeting emotions they relished. In tonight's performance the flute takes the part of the voice, and with subtle shadings of tone, captures the emotions of an absent text.-- a.d.
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 life of Giovanni Battista Fontana is a musicological enigma. Very little of his life is known, and the bulk of this information is found in the posthumous publication of Sonate a 1. 2. 3. per il violino, o cornetto, fagotto, chitarone, violoncino o simile altro istromento (Venice, 1641). The works in this publication contain six solo sonatas and 12 ensemble sonatas. The sonatas may be harmonically conservative, but are technically demanding of the solo instruments. An examination of the entire collection shows that they contain compositional processes found in the prevailing genres of the early 17th century: canzonas, dance music, florid passages and diminutions. They also contain progressive techniques such as a nascent arch form in some of the sonatas, and the use of an instrumental monodic style typically found in vocal recitatives. These pieces demonstrate that Fontana, along with Marini, was a leading composer in the development of the early sonata.
Spanish composer and organist Juan Cabanilles was highly regarded by his contemporaries. Through a wide distribution of his music in manuscripts his fame extended beyond Iberia and into Italy, Holland, Germany, and France. His music is contrapuntally more complex than his contemporaries who wrote in similar genres.
A member of the famed Florentine Camerata at the end of the 16th century, Giulio Caccini claimed that his time with this group significantly increased his knowledge of counterpoint. The Camerata also inspired Caccini in his development of the solo song, which we see manifested in his two collections of monodic songs, Le nuove musiche and Nuove musiche e nuova maniera di scriverle. In these two collections are found two types of poetry: madrigals and strophic canzonettas. Musically speaking, however, the two types of pieces are stylistically similar. In Torna, deh torna, the improvised ornaments described in great detail in Le nuove musiche are written out in great detail.
Claudio Monteverdi was essentially the most important musician in late 16th- and early 17th-century Italy. Except for purely instrumental music he made significant contributions to all of the major genres of his time. His madrigals incorporate the best of the Renaissance Madrigalists and are infused with his innovative compositional techniques of the early Baroque. These new criteria helped him use the experiments of the Florentine Camerata as a foundation to create his unique musical dramas. His main collections of liturgical and devotional music contain a wide array of compositional techniques; his blending of text-painting with contrapuntal activity is particularly noteworthy.
Giovanni Bassano was a wind player and composer, and one of the six instrumentalists placed directly under the authority of the Venetian doge. He also served as head of the instrumental ensemble at the St. Mark’s basilica from 1601 until his death. Today Bassano is primarily known for his instruction book (1585) and for his examples of embellished motets, madrigals and chansons by Willaert, Clemens non Papa, Crecquillon, Lasso, Rore, Striggio, Palestrina and Marenzio (1591). It is interesting to note that Bassano’s collections contain no pieces by his Venetian contemporaries. His ornaments, however, are similar to those found in the florid works by the St. Mark’s composer Giovanni Gabrieli (c. 1554-1612).
Its name implies a connection to Rome, but the earliest surviving examples of the Romanesca are found outside of Italy. The first pieces to use the title Romanesca come from Spain (Alonso Mudarra, 1546, Romanesca, Guárdame las vacas) and Flanders (Pierre Phalèse, 1546). The melodic-harmonic formula itself is a flexible framework for composition, and a scholarly debate exists as to whether it is an ostinato bass or a descant melody. It serves both as a vehicle for real-time instrumental composition and for the singing of Italian poetry, particularly those composed in ottava rima stanzas. We’ll be taking the instrumental approach.
Conde Claros, or the Romance of Count Claros of Montalván, is a Spanish ballad of over 400 lines published in the Silva de Romances (1550), and probably dates from the 15th century. Over time one particular tune became associated with the singing of Conde Claros; this melody became a tool for real-time (improvisation) and written compositions.
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 also made important contributions to the development of the German sonata and suite.
May 4, 2012
Battle of the Bands: Le Roi Soleil and Sanssouci take on the Dresden Hofkapelle
May 4, 2012
Battle of the Bands: Le Roi Soleil and Sanssouci take on the Dresden Hofkapelle
At the courts of Louis XIV, Frederick II (The Great), and Frederick Augustus I (The Strong), the cities of Paris, Berlin, and Dresden were regarded as among the finest musical establishments in Europe during the years 1660-1760. Musical establishments have operating expenses, and these expenses are met through an organization’s economy; the greater or more flourishing the economy, the better the musical establishment. The economy is affected by an organization (or any government geographical entity) and the relationships it maintains with its neighbors. Our concert presents music from three different musical centers in eighteenth-century Europe, and each composer reflects in one way or another, the underlying personality of their respective establishment. The musical personalities of each establishment changed over time, in part because of geopolitical events, in the form increased conflict with other empires. With the leaders of these establishments occupied with maintaining peace or acquiring more territory, they spent less time overlooking the artistic aspects of their respective domains. Musicians were and are, in a sense, diplomatic ambassadors. At the professional level they have a common currency that will get them accepted in many parts of the world. In some cases, if their currency is highly valued, it can get you out of jail, or at least gainfully employed in another country. Professional musicians also have a built in networking tool. In even a cursory reading of composer biographies in modern sources, it is easy to make connections in the manner of six degrees of separation (often fewer than six). For example, we can connect François Couperin to Johann-Joachim Quantz, even though they never met, through Johann Sebastian Bach and his two oldest sons, Wilhelm Friedemann and Carl Philipp Emanuel, both of whom knew Quantz and between the two of them worked in both Berlin and Dresden, and Quantz spent some time in Paris where he likely heard Couperin’s music. Between Frederick the Great’s penchant for French culture and Frederick the Strong’s Italian-based musical establishment, when the two Frederick’s met in Berlin in 1728, the Dresden contingent included Heinichen, Hasse, and Quantz, among others. Heinichen also worked briefly in Cothen at the same time as J. S. Bach. And pretty much every musician in the eighteenth century knew of Michel Blavet. Thus most of the musicians connected through their musical currency, regardless of the respective political climates in which they worked.
Wilhelm Friedemann Bach had the enviable position of J. S. Bach as his primary music teacher. As a musician the younger Bach clearly absorbed his father’s teachings. Like his father he was highly regarded as an improviser. A formidable gauntlet, in retrospect, is the body of works written by the elder Bach as “teaching” pieces for his son. This music includes the Klavierbüchlein für Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, parts of the French Suites, the two-part Inventions (modern music students continue to be subjected to these pieces), the three-part Sinfonias, the first volume of the Well-Tempered Clavier, and the six Trio Sonatas for organ. Outside of music the younger Bach had difficulty with life in general, found himself in less-than-ideal working situations, and made some bad financial decisions. I hasten to add the he did not hold a monopoly on these particular aspects of life. His musical output clearly shows not only his outstanding teacher but that the student was diligent, learned his lessons well, and was able to put forth his own personality in his compositions.
Johann-Joachim Quantz’s Sonata in e from Opus 1 is typical of the solo sonata in the late baroque period. The new format was that of a slow movement followed by two fast movements of contrasting character. Quantz is remembered today as the author of a treatise or essay on playing the flute. This essay is much more than a book on how to play the flute. Flute-specific material comprises only three of the book's eighteen chapters. The treatise is a significant primary source for our study of historical performance practices in the first part of the eighteenth century. Quantz gives specific instructions for how, and with what character, to play fast and slow movements, and what types of ornaments to employ. He also includes detailed guidelines for just how fast or slow to play these respective movements. The character of each movement should be emotionally different from the others. In addition, Quantz points out that the tempos at the court of Frederick the Great were generally faster than those with the same indications in the rest of Europe, but that the tempos in Dresden (where Quantz worked when he wrote the sonatas from his Opus 1) were faster still.
Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach’s Sonata in a, H. 555, was written in Berlin before he moved to Hamburg. CPE Bach’s chamber music is often overshadowed by his keyboard and orchestral music, but it is by no means inferior. The solo sonatas in particular demonstrate the transformation of late -eighteenth-century music from the Baroque polarity between melody instrument and continuo to the early classical/ gallant style. Terms such as “empfindsamer stil” and “sturm und drang” are often used to describe the music of CPE Bach. The former term is characterized by the need for the music to produce a wide variety of emotions available. The latter term has been conscripted by musicians from eighteenth-century German literature and essentially refers to a passion and energy, or an energy and rebellion in the music. “Storm and stress” are only a small part of the musical meaning. The sonata is written in the typical layout of the mid-century: a slow movement followed by two faster movements of contrasting character. The final movement is a set of two variations.
Marin Marais worked his entire career in Paris, and most of that time was in the service of the king. He was appointed an Ordinaire de la Musique de la Chambre du Roi in 1685, and maintained the position throughout the reign of Louis XIV and through 1725 under the Regency and Louis XV. His contemporaries recognized him as an outstanding performer and composer and his compositions for viols and the opera were known outside of France. The Suite from Pièces de violes, IIIe Livre is typically French in style and in the movements. This piece shows but one side of Marais’s flexibility as composer. He was clearly aware of compositional styles from other countries, as seen in his “Suitte d’un gout Etranger” (“Suite for Foreign Tastes”), from his IVe Livre (1717), which contains pieces in a very clear Italian style to one so-called “frontier tune” entitled “L’Ameriquaine.”
Michel Blavet was regarded as the most brilliant flute virtuoso in France, and arguably in all of Europe, in the first half of the eighteenth century. Self-taught on many instruments, he eventually settled on the flute, which he played left-handed, and the bassoon. His concert debut was at the newly formed Concert Spirituel in 1726, with what was then an avant-garde compositional form, the concerto. There are many reports of the effect Blavet’s playing had on his audience (all good), and that his “exciting, exact, and brilliant” style of playing made the flute even more popular in France. Before Blavet the instrument had previously been played in a less-than-exciting manner. Also of note was his extremely accurate intonation even in difficult keys. It is ironic that his published pieces are in the easiest keys and were intended for amateurs. It must be noted, however, that some of these amateurs must have been pretty good players, particularly when fast passage work appears and in remote keys such as G-sharp major and c-sharp minor. A famous and well-traveled virtuoso, Blavet was acquainted with many well-known composers throughout Europe, including Telemann, with whom he played the latter’s famous Paris Quartets, and the legendary Mr. Quantz, whom he met when Quantz visited Paris in 1726.
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.
21 January 2012
Journey to the Center of the Baroque
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.
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.
21 January 2012
Journey to the Center of the Baroque
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.
17 September 2011
Feast of Hamburgers
The city of Hamburg is not the only unifying element of our program. All of the eighteenth-century composers on our program knew each other personally or by reputation. Telemann was friends with JS Bach and stood as godfather to CPE Bach, Scheibe admired Bach’s work and met him when he auditioned for a job as an organist, and Scheibe was also friends with Mattheson. All musicians working in Hamburg knew Telemann, and anyone who wandered into Hamburg for the opera knew Mattheson. Handel became friends with Mattheson while he worked as a violin player in the Hamburg opera house, and Handel, a close friend of Telemann, subscribed to some of Telemann’s publications, while Telemann performed Handel’s operas as well as his own. Telemann’s poetry is found in two of Mattheson’s publications, and both Mattheson and Scheibe, in the roles as music critics, wrote favorably about Telemann’s music, referring to his works as compositional models for future composers. And, finally, CPE Bach’s reputation preceded him when moved from Berlin to Hamburg.
There were other composers of significance in Hamburg, to be sure, but our crew here may certainly be seen as the upper crust. Few composers were as highly regarded in their own lifetime as Telemann, Mozart referred to CPE Bach as “the father of music,” Handel was also well-known and highly regarded in his lifetime, as was Mattheson, and JS Bach was famous as a keyboard virtuoso. Of the group, Scheibe was the only one not well-known as a composer or performer, even though he wrote large quantities of music to go along with his many theoretical writings. If you were looking for a place that had a good music scene, Hamburg would have been on your short list.
The Trio Sonata in b, TWV 42:h4 is one of twelve trio sonatas found in Telemann’s seminal publication Essercizii Musici. The collection contains twenty-four total pieces; the other 12 sonatas are for various solo instruments with continuo. The collection is representative of the German sonata in the 1730s. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries words such as Essercizii or Übung were usually associated with collections of pieces that were for didactic purposes. Telemann leaves us in the dark by not providing the usual dedication or preface that similar collections have. These front pages typically explain what is to be learned or gleaned from the music. Based on a comparison of other didactic works by Telemann, we can put the pieces found in the Essercizii Musici in that same category. Telemann considered his trios to be his finest works, which makes calling this, his last publication, instructional pieces, more enigmatic.
Handel’s Sonata for Viola da Gamba and Basso Continuo in g, HWV 364b, is really a violin sonata (HWV 364a), with just a brief indication at the bottom of the first page of Handel’s autograph that it may also be played on the viola da gamba. This is a special piece because Handel wrote only four pieces for viola da gamba solo. Two of them are in operas (La Resurrezione, HWV 47, Giulio Cesare, HWV 17) and the other one is in a cantata (Tra le fiamme, HWV 170).
Scheibe’s Sonata I in D for flute and obliggato harpsichord gives an interesting perspective on Scheibe. Modern scholars have essentially ignored both his compositions and theoretical writings because of some published remarks he made about Johann Sebastian Bach (without actually referring to him by name). Yes, Bach was one of the examiners for an organist job that Scheibe did not get, and yes, he did say that Bach’s style was “confused” and that he cluttered up the beauty of his music with “excess art,” and that by writing out his ornamentation Bach took away a significant part of the performance process, but he said these things, 1737, at a time when there was a significant shift in musical tastes and compositional style, one which was, in theory, supposed to be based on an imitation of nature and persuasive melody, rather than a dense contrapuntal style. Scheibe’s writings are full of admiration of Bach, and he stated that Telemann, Hasse, and Graun were writing the best music of the day. The thematic material in the first and third movements of our sonata here are remarkably similar to the thematic material found in the first movement of J S Bach’s Sonata in b-minor, BWV 1030, for obbligato harpsichord and transverse flute. How could using Bach as a model for your own compositions be anything but flattery? Just because you do not like fugues because they have gone out of style is no reason to have your entire life’s work shunned by modern scholars.
Speaking of admiring Johann Sebastian Bach, the Aria and improvisation from BWV 988, just a small part from a larger work commonly known as the “Goldberg Variations.” Johann Gottleib Goldberg (1727-1756) is widely believed to have been a pupil of Bach’s, and Godlberg himself claimed that he was also a student of Wilhelm Friedemann Bach (1710-1784). Both of these claims are subject to speculation. Also of significant doubt is the anecdote that the Aria and 30 Variations, BWV 988 was written for Goldberg to play for his patron, Herman Karl von Keyserlingk, Russian ambassador to the court of Saxony. The length of the piece was supposed to have comforted Keyserlingk as he suffered from insomnia. What is true, based on contemporary accounts, is that Bach had exceptional skill as an improviser. Since the late fifteenth century the concept of improvisation is connected to creating music that lies outside of the expected or written composition. Professional musicians in Bach’s time were trained in many aspects of music other than proficiency on an instrument, and being able to improvise in an organized manner or on a theme or harmonic pattern was just another part of their work. Bernard and Gus will be taking the aria and then improvising on the bass line; this bass line and chord progression is on which the entire written composition by Bach is based.
Tim Risher writes about his piece, River: “I have composed many works for early instruments, which includes the Baroque Northwest and the Palladian Ensemble. The timbres created by these instruments brings up a whole new set of challenges which are quite different from modern timbres; I don't simply write a composition and assign it to whatever instrument is handy! "River", for baroque flute and harpsichord, was composed in 2009. The harpsichord sets up a pulsating figuration, with the flute flowing around the figures, starting at the low range of the instrument, slowly working its way up to the top and ending with the original line. It was written for Kim Pineda.”
The Sonata III in A, from Brauchbare Virtuoso (literally, “useful virtuoso”), was written by someone who was regarded as enormously talented in his own life. A child prodigy, performing as an organist and singer at age nine throughout Hamburg, trained in several instruments, and . . . sent to study law by his family (Handel and Telemann were also sentenced to law school in their youth, and you see what happened to them). Because of his singing prowess he spent fifteen years working in the Hamburg opera. As a singer he became acquainted with Handel, and later became friends, singing in Handel’s opera productions, even after an unpleasant encounter in which Handel’s life was spared from Mattheson’s sword by a large coat button. Until recently Mattheson’s place in the history of music has been largely based on his detailed critical and theoretical writings. These are important because we now have an incredible description of eighteenth-century musical culture at a time when it was making the shift from what we call Baroque to Classical. During this time tastes and styles changed significantly and we are now able to see this thanks to Mattheson’s (and others) writings. Much of his music was thought destroyed in World War II but it was merely hiding safely in Armenia. In the last 25 years we have been able to examine more of Mattheson’s music and see a larger picture of his contribution to opera, oratorio, and chamber music.
Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach’s Sonata in G, H. 554, was actually written in Berlin, before he moved to Hamburg. We can speculate that if his Berlin employer, Frederick the Great, had allowed him to leave when he first asked, many more of Bach’s chamber music would have been written in Hamburg. Often overshadowed by his keyboard and orchestral music, CPE Bach’s chamber music is by no means inferior to the other, more well-known genres. The solo sonatas in particular demonstrate the transformation of late-eighteenth-century music from the Baroque polarity between melody instrument and continuo to the early classical/gallant style. Terms such as “empfindsamer stil” and “sturm und drang” are often used to describe the music of CPE Bach. The former term is characterized by the need for the music to produce a wide variety of emotions available. The latter term has been conscripted by musicians from eighteenth-century German literature and essentially refers to a passion and energy, or an energy and rebellion in the music. “Storm and stress” are only a small part of the musical meaning. The sonata is written in the typical layout of the mid-century: a slow movement followed by two faster movements of contrasting character.
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