Bass For Bach & A Manly Apollo
Saturday, March 19, 2016
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| Douglas Williams - bass-baritone , Curtis Daily - bassist |
In the past my feelings would have rejected any
admiration to a good looking and very manly man, Douglas Williams, baritone.
My Argentine/Mexican macho approach to everything began
to crumble when I photographed local punk guitar virtuoso and songwriter Art
Bergmann and I noticed that what I thought was a hidden female side of me
suddenly came forward and I found Bergmann attractive as a man from a female
point of view. I must say it was liberating to abandon my machismo.
It got better (worse?) when I attended a performance (5 years ago) of the Arts Umbrella Dance Company and someone I knew asked me why I was there. My answer, “To see the boys,” put him off and he wandered away.
So I must then point out most vehemently that Friday
night’s Apollo & Dafne at the Vancouver Playhouse had me with eyes only for
the tall, handsome bass-baritone Douglas Williams whom I had seen before here. In
the pre-concert talk his voice projection was marvellous and I could only think
that he could never have been hired by the CBC as he had no speech impediment
or lisp.
Douglas Williams was the perfect Apollo and Yulia Van
Doren, soprano was a most believable Dafne who in the end feels sorrow for her
rejection of the macho god. This was not a staged little opera but the two
singers with gestures and facial expressions and Williams’s ability to raise
his left eyebrow and the right one at will, too provided all I needed to be
immersed in the story.
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| Alex Weimann Artistic Director PBO ,Yulia Van Doren soprano & Douglas Williams bass-baritone |
But it was in the first part of the program, Johann
Sebastian Bach’s Orchestral Suite No. 1 in C major, in the Ouverture where from
our seats, third row and slightly stage left, that I noticed a sound I had
never heard before. It was a wonderful rumble of bass sound.
Now, I am not a fan of the modern obsession with enhanced bass. I have always had a preference for what I call accurate sound. This Bach Orchestral Suite was just different and a most pleasant surprise.
Now, I am not a fan of the modern obsession with enhanced bass. I have always had a preference for what I call accurate sound. This Bach Orchestral Suite was just different and a most pleasant surprise.
I could not believe the depth of sound which contrasted
with the lively (almost trumpet-like) sounds of Matthew Jennejohn and Curtis
Foster’s oboes and the upper register of the violins. And not to be overlooked is young oboe virtuoso Curtis Foster. His tocayo confirmed my amateur appraisal. I wondered about John Lenti's theorbo. I finally know that the difference between his instrument and the already long archlute is an extra half foot (at least).
At the interval I was chatting with EMV donors Vic and
Joan Baker. My friend (and house guest) Curtis Daily, Portland Baroque Orchestra member “seconded”
to the night’s performance to play his baroque bass showed up. I introduced him
to the Bakers and Vic Baker said, “I have never heard such a bass sound in Bach.”
After the concert I snapped pictures of Daily and
Williams in Williams’s dressing room. I had to sit him down because of his
height. I mentioned his rising eyebrow. I was rewarded with, “My mother has
told me that the first thing she noticed when I was born was my raised left
eyebrow.”
There was one more notable male in the program besides
Daily and Williams. This was Craig Tomlinson’s harpsichord (a single-manual
one) which was recently purchased by EMV and this was its inaugural concert. I
asked Tomlinson if the instrument was a woman or a man. He immediately
answered, “It’s a man.”
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| Apollo |
But before I leave you to Curtis Daily’s explanation on
the bass sound I heard I have to reveal the presence of a couple of notable
women. Daily’s bass is called Emelia. I have no idea if Natalie Mackie’s
violone is a guy or a gal but I can assure you that Mackie is one hell of a
woman. In Daily’s essay he mentions the interaction between his bass and Mackie’s
violone.
Alex asked me to write about the sonic relationship of
the violone and contrabass for his blog post about the concert that PBO
performed Friday night at Vancouver Playhouse.
I had a lot of time to think about what I might write
about during the long drive back to Portland and a couple of things stuck in my
head; my first year music theory class, and peanut butter and honey sandwiches.
I know Alex is going to write something about enhanced
bass with regards to this concert, so I’m going to use this opportunity to
first offer a brief commentary about the luxuriously large bass group.
I have to state first that the musicians of PBO are among
the best anywhere and it’s an incredible joy to make music with them. In the
PBO bass group there were seven instruments in all, in three sub-groups; two
chordal instruments with different timbres (theorbo and harpsichord), two
different types of bass instruments that play the bass line at actual pitch and
usually play single notes (cello and bassoon), also with different timbres, and
last but not least, two lower bass instruments (small violone pitched in G, and
contrabass) that play all or most of their notes an octave below what is written
in the music. Strictly speaking, the contrabass is also a violone and the
violone is also a contrabass, but for the sake of clarity I will use the
familiar names. These two instruments also have different timbres. I’ll explain
about timbre below for those readers who aren’t familiar with the term, but
what this means for the listener is that the various combinations of bass
instruments in the PBO continuo group can offer a wide variety of sonic effects
in the bass register, depending on how they are combined. Usually there is
nothing specific written in the music about how to combine the instruments, so
we make these decisions ourselves in order to best emphasize the emotional
qualities of the music.
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| Craig Tomlinson's harpsichord, Natalie Mackie & Curtis Daily |
On to the essay….
I attended Mt. Hood Community College in Gresham,
OR, for two years beginning in 1979.
In addition to schooling students in auto body repair and
other practical skills, MHCC had an excellent music department. This is where I
learned how to play the contrabass, studying with Mr. Zgonc. Mr. Zgonc also
taught music theory and I attended his classes. Among the many interesting
things I learned there were “The Four Properties of a Tone”. These are Pitch, Intensity, Duration, and
Timbre. We’ll look at these properties
with respect to the relationship of the violone and the contrabass.
Pitch:
Pitch is the frequency of a tone in cycles per second.
When the violone and the contrabass play together, they
play a note of the same pitch and almost always in the same octave. Because the
violone has frets, its pitch is fixed. Therefore the contrabassist, lacking
frets, always tries to match the pitch of the contrabass to the pitch of the
violone, and that tonal unity creates a strong foundation for the rest of the
orchestra to place their pitches.
Intensity:
The intensity of a tone is mostly about volume. Due to its
smaller size, the violone can play more quietly than the contrabass, but cannot
play as loudly.
Duration:
Duration is how long a tone lasts. Both the violone and
contrabass have the ability to play very long and very short tones when using
the bow, as well as short, more percussive tones that naturally decay, when
plucking the strings with the fingers.
Timbre:
Timbre refers to the sonic personality of a tone, and is
the heart of the matter for this essay.
Though they look similar, the violone, because of its
relatively small sound box, gut frets, and low string tension, has a distinctly
different timbre than that of the contrabass, with its large sound box, high
string tension, and lack of frets.
The small sound box and gut frets of the violone create a
sound that has more high overtones than the contrabass, What this sounds like
to the listener is a highly focused and direct bass sound with a distinctly
vocal quality.
The contrabass, on the other hand, with its larger sound
box, highly tensioned strings, and fretless fingerboard, produces timbres that
are very deep and often boomy when played loudly. It does not have a distinct
vocal quality except when heard at close range, and in many halls it only
sounds deep, lacking a distinct timbre.
When both instruments are played simultaneously, a range
of timbres can be produced due to their complementary characteristics. In loud
passages the violone still has a pointed and distinct sound while the
contrabass offers a deeper timbre. When they play quietly the violone retains
its clear voice while the contrabass voice takes on a velvety quality.
Among the many things I look forward to when playing with
PBO, one is that I will be playing with Natalie Mackie, a wonderful
multi-instrumentalist who usually plays her violone in PBO performances. When I
play with Natalie, I have freedom to use the contrabass for what it is best at;
emphasizing the rhythmic parts of the bass line, and using the more powerful
sound to add dramatic effect at times. Ideally they will sound like one
instrument that has the best qualities of both.
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| Natalie Mackie |
To occupy part of the 7 hour drive home, I was trying to
come up with a simile that might assist the reader in appreciating the
relationship of the small violone and contrabass. This is probably just going
to seem silly, but for me it is something like a peanut butter and honey
sandwich. The violone is the honey and the contrabass is the peanut butter.
They have some similar qualities and I like both well enough by themselves, but
they are especially nice when stirred together.
