Emotion & Warmth In The Age Of Enlightenment
Monday, July 28, 2014
In 1962 when I was 20, I listened to the music of an Italian composer called Frescobaldi in a baroque church in Mexico City. The music was unlike the music my mother, a pianist, loved, Grieg, Chopin, Beethoven and Rachmaninoff. To this day baroque music sounds as inventive, fresh, and as new as if I were listening to it for the first time. Baroque music is New Music of the past.
With the likes of our
very own Early Music Vancouver in the swing of their annual Summer Festival
(2014 Vancouver Early Music Festival) chances are that, indeed, what you will
witness in performance will be brand new. Brand new in the sense that you will
probably have never ever heard it live. And more so now that Early Music
Vancouver is putting emphasis in the baroque music of the 17th century.
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| Ellen Hargis & Matthew White |
The baroque period that spans the 17th and the 18th century paralleled the Age of Enlightenment. This age was ushered in by scientists like Newton and Leibnitz and by explorers that embarked on their wooden ships to find new worlds. Galileo and Copernicus took found new worlds elsewhere.
In this age of
precision where man could do anything imaginable by reason there would seem to
be no room for emotion. This, to me is the lovely paradox of baroque music. It seems metered,
precise and yet if you happen to look at the faces of our performers you will
note their smiles of pleasure.This can be contagious.
This was not more
evident than on Sunday night at the Roy Barnett Recital Hall at the UBC School
of Music.
I will be blunt in stating here that although I am crazy about baroque music I usually pass on the French variety. Worse still is French Baroque for the harpsichord (and yes that's Couperin). In a recent past I could not abide by the harpsichord so I was happy that most of the time it was inaudible, usually drowned out by the louder instruments that I could appreciate.
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| Natalie Mackie, Christopher Bagan, Marc Destrubé & Ellen Hargis |
I will be blunt in stating here that although I am crazy about baroque music I usually pass on the French variety. Worse still is French Baroque for the harpsichord (and yes that's Couperin). In a recent past I could not abide by the harpsichord so I was happy that most of the time it was inaudible, usually drowned out by the louder instruments that I could appreciate.
But thanks to the Pacific
Baroque Orchestra’s Artistic Director and virtuoso harpsichordist Alexander Weimann I have learned to appreciate
the harpsichord.
Tonight the little trio
of Marc Destrubé, violin, Natalie Mackie, viola da gamba and Christopher Bagan,
harpsichord, took care of that second prejudice with more Rameau than I have ever
heard before in one sitting.
The trio played two Jean-Philippe
Rameau (1683-1764) Cantatas (Ellen Hargis, soprano and Sylvia Szadovszki,
mezzo-soprano) and two Pièces de Clavecin, the Deuzième concert (Second Concert
in G major) and the Cinquième concert (Fifth Concert in D minor).
I approached Marc
Destrubé after the night’s performance and asked him, “Why was that Second
Concert so complex, elaborate, interesting and wonderful?” He answered, “Because
Rameau was complex, elaborate, interesting and wonderful.” I then asked him, “Why
was the Fifth Concert so charming?” His answer was short (I would believe that
Destrubé must have had ancestors who were scientists in the French
Enlightenment), “Because Rameau was charming and perhaps because his fifth was
his last.”
The harpsichordist Christopher
Bagan (if you have never seen him before) has a penchant for wearing very slim
black pants and with his short hair and youth you might suspect that he is the
page turner. This is not the case as he has a doctorate and is a professor.
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| Sylvia Szadovszki |
Natalie Mackie our expert (and passionate, too) viola da gambist (or is that violist da gamba?) chose to sit stage right. I had to ask as the continuo section of any baroque orchestra is always on stage left. She was there so she could connect with Bagan, while Destrubé took care of everything centre stage.
Since I am no music
critic I can only attest to the fact that the instrumental music of the evening
was excellent and that I will now appreciate those Frenchie composers much more.
It was the cantata
section of the concert that was the most interesting, thanks to the pre-concert
chat between Ellen Hargis and Early Music Vancouver Artistic Director Matthew
White.
White know his singers
as until he went on a sabbatical he was one of the best countertenors in our
nation and good enough to have sung in Versailles even though the Sun King was
not in attendance.
It seems that White
last year spotted mezzo-soprano Szadovszki (who has been banned from inserting
her name in Scrabble) performing at the opera. He approached her and asked her
if she had ever sung French Baroque. Her negative was countered by an offer that
we the audience are extremely glad she accepted. It seems that opera
singing and singing a baroque cantata are not quite the same thing. There might
be a parallel here similar to the subtlety of a baroque violin and the power
and loudness of a modern violin.
Szadovszki learned
fast and learned from the best. The best is Ellen Hargis who has been coming to
perform (Early Music Vancouver Summer concerts) and teach baroque singing performance at UBC also in the summer for many
years. I have been told that she is an excellent teacher and Szadovszki’s
stellar performance attests to it. But I must add that of all the sopranos that
I have heard and hear, my all-time favourite is Hargis.
I asked baritone and
lutenist Ray Nurse tonight why this is the case that Hargis is so good. His
answer floored me as it was an unexpected one. It was particularly unexpected
in that I love Hargis because her singing is full of emotion and sweetness. Nurse
said, “It is because of her phenomenal intelligence.”
Again that is another
indication that the Age of Enlightenment, the Age of Reason could and did accommodate
emotion, too.
Hargis sang Rameau’s Orphée (ever so sweetly)
and Szadovszki his Diane et Actéon.
This coming Tuesday,
July 29, also at the Roy Barnett Hall, Alexander Weimann and Lucas Harris will
play a bit less French baroque music (alas!) but some Strozzi, Rossi, Bach,
Couperin, Piccinini, Robert de Visée and
if some of these are not known to you, surely you will have heard of Sylvius
Leopold Weiss. He and Bach were up to something. What you ask? Find out on
Tuesday.
Addendum: You might note the beautiful harpsichord in my photographs. It was built by West Vancouver's Craig Tomlinson for Bruce Wright. The painting on the harpsichord cover is by Colombian painter (lives in Vancouver) Marco Tulio.
Addendum: You might note the beautiful harpsichord in my photographs. It was built by West Vancouver's Craig Tomlinson for Bruce Wright. The painting on the harpsichord cover is by Colombian painter (lives in Vancouver) Marco Tulio.
