I would like to caution anybody reading
this that I am not a musical critic, therefore I have no qualifications to
indulge with anybody why it is that you should pay a moderate sum of money to
attend a concert of 17th century music brought to us by Early Music Vancouver.
All I have going is an enthusiasm of many years of listening to this fantastic
music.
 |
| One of my desert island CDs with Monica Huggett |
The Vocal Concerto
17th-Century Cantatas
for Bass
Friday evening, 11
April 2014 at 8:00 pm | Pre-concert chat with host Matthew White at 7:15 pm
Vancouver Playhouse | Queen Elizabeth
Theatre complex, 600 Hamilton Street, downtown Vancouver
This is the line-up of
musicians:
A PORTLAND BAROQUE ORCHESTRA PRODUCTION:
Monica Huggett
artistic director & violin
Harry van der Kamp
bass soloist
Stephen Stubbs
chitarrone (guest artist)
Erin
Headley viola da gamba (continuo)
Carla Moore
violin
Josh Lee
tenor & bass viola da gamba
Elisabeth Reedbass
viola da gamba
Curtis Daily violone
Jillon Stoppels Dupree
organ
I might explain to you
what exactly what is a chitarrone. You might be vague on violones and a tad confused
on the difference between a cello, a baroque cello and viola de gamba. But I am
not. There is always Google. As for a detailed explanation of the works being
played and of the musicians Early Music Vancouver has the policy of putting its
programs (with detailed notes) on line. Friday’s notes are here.
Here are composers, whose names, some quite fresh and new to me, are not in your usual households!
Nikolaus Bruhns (1665-1697), Johann Michael Nicolai (1629–1685), Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber von Bibern (1644-1704), Dietrich Buxtehude (c.1637/39-1707), Romanus Weichlein (1652–1706), Johann Christoph Bach (1642-1703).
Baroque music spans the early 16th century and is sort of ends with the ascendance of Bach’s son, Carl Philip Emanuel Bach who ushered in the early classical period.
Here are composers, whose names, some quite fresh and new to me, are not in your usual households!
Nikolaus Bruhns (1665-1697), Johann Michael Nicolai (1629–1685), Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber von Bibern (1644-1704), Dietrich Buxtehude (c.1637/39-1707), Romanus Weichlein (1652–1706), Johann Christoph Bach (1642-1703).
Baroque music spans the early 16th century and is sort of ends with the ascendance of Bach’s son, Carl Philip Emanuel Bach who ushered in the early classical period.
What is important to
know is that this Early Music Vancouver concert features music from the 17th
century. This century was privy to a terrible religious war, The 30 Year’s War, Spain
lost its Peruvian and Mexican gold and silver in Flanders
and Louis XIV pretty well invented ballet.
But there were two
events in that century that pretty well changed it and ushered us into a modern
era. It had all begun with grown men arguing a variant of Zeno’s paradox where
Achilles is never able to overtake the slow tortoise. The variant posited the
apparent problem of the dimension of a point in geometry. A point by definition
is a place that has no dimension. But then these grown men argued, why was it
that when you lined the up they formed a line that indeed had a dimension? And
if you joined this line with two more at the ends (a triangle) you ended up
with a measurable area. Three more lines and you had a three-sided pyramid
with a measurable volume.
The answer to the
problem came with the simultaneous but independent invention of the calculus by
the end of the 1680s by Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz. They brought to the
language of the time the word infinitesimal. Unfortunately with knowledge of
the calculus and with Newton’s
discovery of gravity, this combined to give warfare a real improvement to kill
more. The calculus and gravity for the first time made it possible to know how
far and where a cannonball would fall. It revolutionized ballistics.
At the same time
composers of that early baroque period were having the times of the lives. Some
of those established rules that came into effect by the 1730s had no validity
yet. And so these composers experimented with all sorts of things and
particularly to this jazz aficionado (me) those delightful odd or blues notes
that appear in the compositions of Thelonious Monk creep up here in there!
While I happen to have
several of the works of the composers of Friday’s concert I must assert here my
principal reason for going – Monica Huggett.
If my house were to
burn down I would save my wife and cats and then remove three CDs for what now
is obviously my short-lived posterity as I am an old man.
Two of the CDs are
(Archangelo) Corelli’s Violin Sonatas
Opus 5 with the Trio Sonnerie & Nigel North on archlute, theorbo and
guitar.
Monica Huggett plays the violin. She plays a baroque violin. The term baroque to describe music that had an approximate span of 150 years is a modern 20th century term. My mother had some baroque (she pronounced the word ba-rock) pearls that were not round but irregular in shape. Baroque churches are never plain. They have intricately busy altars. Perhaps baroque music can sound to some intricately busy!
Until the beginning of the 19th century when classical composers like Beethoven could fill large venues with paying patrons, music had been music of a small elite or in the congregation of a church. Instruments did not have to be loud. This was the era of those subtle instruments like the harpsichord, the lute (and that chitarrone related to the theorbo and the archlute). Stringed instruments weren’t loud
These “old” instruments not being so loud achieve a warmer tone and violinists and violists who play them do not have chinrests (the were invented by a contemporary of Beethoven, Ludwig Spohr).
Monica Huggett plays the violin. She plays a baroque violin. The term baroque to describe music that had an approximate span of 150 years is a modern 20th century term. My mother had some baroque (she pronounced the word ba-rock) pearls that were not round but irregular in shape. Baroque churches are never plain. They have intricately busy altars. Perhaps baroque music can sound to some intricately busy!
Until the beginning of the 19th century when classical composers like Beethoven could fill large venues with paying patrons, music had been music of a small elite or in the congregation of a church. Instruments did not have to be loud. This was the era of those subtle instruments like the harpsichord, the lute (and that chitarrone related to the theorbo and the archlute). Stringed instruments weren’t loud
But come the 19th century these violins, violas and cellos were
beefed up for strength so that strings could be installed that had more
tension. These modified instruments, louder instruments, became the norm. Those
Guarnieri, Amati and Stradivari that now exchange hands for many millions of
dollars are old instruments that have been modified to be modern.
There would be few of these stellar string instruments in their original condition. This means that baroque musicians that play period instruments usually have instruments that are made much later or are replicas of those violins (not beefed up) of old. The paradox then is that modern violinists play (the ones that can afford them) play very old instruments and Monica Huggett probably plays a more recent acquisition.
There would be few of these stellar string instruments in their original condition. This means that baroque musicians that play period instruments usually have instruments that are made much later or are replicas of those violins (not beefed up) of old. The paradox then is that modern violinists play (the ones that can afford them) play very old instruments and Monica Huggett probably plays a more recent acquisition.
These “old” instruments not being so loud achieve a warmer tone and violinists and violists who play them do not have chinrests (the were invented by a contemporary of Beethoven, Ludwig Spohr).
The third CD, another
desert island CD with perhaps a Gerry Mulligan My Funny Valentine, is Bach’s fifth movement , the Chaconne from his Partita
in D minor for solo violin (BWV 1004). I have it played by Huggett. She played
this in Vancouver
in 2000 while appearing with a baroque group of the time, the Burney Ensemble. The
recording was made by the brilliant but now retired recording engineer Don
Harder. My CD was given to me by a producer at the CBC for services rendered. When I play it very loud in my living room Huggett is with me. I can feel her presence.
Now that new music can
be heard in countless energy and insurance TV ads featuring Philip Glass what
new music can possibly sound exciting?
This is what the music
of the 17th century is all about. The musical period is sometimes
called the fantastic period. Many of the pieces that you might listen to this
Friday if you go because you might have read this will be pieces so new from
composers that are not in our memory. Best of all (but worst perhaps) you will
listen to them and never again in a lifetime unless you buy the CDs. Sort of
like good modern dance. Only the memory of the movements will remain.
And lastly, consider
that this 17th century music was played in small salons, the
salons of Dukes and Kings. It is intimate, it is close (I always sit first row)
and you can hear each individual instrument. These musicians, smile at each
other, they play together and with you so close you can imagine that you are
one of them. With but a little of imagination you can be a king or a queen.
And you will notice
Monica Huggett. And then you will understand my preference.
Monica Hugget and Corelli's Opus 5 Follia
Monica Hugget and Corelli's Opus 5 Follia
More about the
fantastic period:
Buxtehude and the boys
Early Music Vancouver's fantastic can of V-8 Juice
Buxtehude and the boys
Early Music Vancouver's fantastic can of V-8 Juice
