We have a splendid Consortium Aurora Borealis concert coming up for you, as we return to our very favourite period of music, the Baroque! People think primarily of Bach, Handel, and Vivaldi, the chief and best-known representatives of the later stages of this period, and we do have a surprise by Vivaldi at the end of our concert. But it is the fascinating earlier years, full of fancy and eloquence, which have captured our imagination as performers on this occasion. We wish to introduce you to the delights of an exciting type of music as a brave new style emerged, with new forms and techniques, moving away from the balanced principles of the Renaissance to the drama and passion of the Baroque. Our musicians are violinists Katie Stevens and William Sirois, cellist Peter Cosbey, and myself on harpsichord, along with violist Patrick Horn, who will play in the last three pieces.
We celebrate 17th-century instrumental music for strings from Venice to Vienna. In so doing, we present music by Italian composers, predominantly Venetians, by those who were transplanted to Italy from the north, and by those who were influenced by Italians moving across the Alps. Baroque musical style originated in Italy around 1600, most notably in Venice and the Veneto, but a movement carried its influence northward, beyond Italian borders, towards Austria and Germany, and this is what we will follow.
Our concert includes fanciful and sonorous string sonatas by Italians Biagio Marini, Antonio Bertali and Dario Castello, and by German-born, scandal-ridden Johann Rosenmüller who worked at San Marco, Venice but transmitted Italian style to the north. We also present compositions by northern virtuoso violinists Biber and Schmelzer, and on a lighter note, lively, joyous Italian dance music by Falconieri, Merula and Uccellini, which will have your toes tapping and make you smile! We conclude with an energetic sinfonia from the opera Farnace by ever-popular Vivaldi, who was born in Venice but died in Vienna, with his Farnace manuscript close by. Let us now look at the personalities responsible for this interesting repertoire.
We begin with two captivating works from the 1640s by virtuoso violinist-composer Marco Uccellini, whose surname means “little birds”. Although educated in Assisi and worked in Modena and Parma, his music was printed in Venice, where his Opus 5 from 1649 was the first music published for solo violin and continuo. Opening our concert is Uccellini’s playful ‘Aria sopra La Bergamasca’, a set of animated variations over a repeated four-note bass. It originated as a 16th-century circle courtship dance mocking the rustic manners of the people of Bergamo; it’s performed as a clownish dance in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Next, Uccellini’s Sonata for two violins and basso engages the upper parts in imitation, frequent tempo and metre changes, delicious harmonies, dancelike rhythms, rapidly-cascading notes, and much idiomatic violin writing, for which Uccellini was famous. The ending is fiery!
Two works from 1629, by Biagio Marini and Dario Castello follow. Like Uccellini, Marini was an innovator in virtuosic violin technique. At 18 he was hired as a musician at Venice’s Basilica of San Marco under the illustrious composer Monteverdi. Marini’s perky ‘Sonata sopra La Monica’ from Opus 8, with its beautifully-paired violins and chains of suspensions and syncopations, was my own memorable introduction to performing early 17th-century instrumental music with virtuoso violinist Jeremy Bell back in 2002. Marini’s work took him to many far-flung locations, with appointments in his home town of Brescia, Parma, Milan, Bergamo, Ferrara, Vicenza, Brussels, and Düsseldorf, dying in Venice. As an insight into his personal life, he was married three times and had seven children.
Venice was an important centre of music printing in the early 17th century onwards, especially of instrumental music in the new style, as espoused by our next composer, Dario Castello, who also performed at Venice’s San Marco under Monteverdi. He was noted for his inventive and challenging ‘sonate concertate’; we perform a particularly gorgeous one with two violins and basso, written in the same year as Marini’s Opus 8. He referred to his works as being in the modern style. His life was brief, dying at 29 from the plague.
Antonio Bertali is the prime example of an Italian from the Veneto heading to the north, and carrying his musical influence with him. Born in Verona in the early 17th century, he was hired as court musician in Vienna by Emperor Ferdinand II, later becoming Kapellmeister, in charge of all things musical. He brought Italian-style opera to the Hapsburg realm, and spent the rest of his life in Vienna, dying there in 1669. Bertali’s music was lavish and virtuosic, and nothing exemplifies it as well as his luxuriant Sonata in G with our two violinists playing incredibly difficult passages in very rapid notes throughout extended passages, which truly sound improvised. This was a mark of the so-called Stylus Fantasticus, a free and unrestrained style of composing, intended to be performed with fantasy rather than adhering strictly to the notes, as if one were improvising. This is a work which will dazzle you!
Part One concludes with two lively ciacconas, a favourite 17th-century dance, originally regarded by some as scandalous when danced. Ours are by Andrea Falconieri and Tarquinio Merula. Regarding Falconieri, the head nun at the convent in Genoa where he was working caused him to leave his teaching post after she denounced him for “teaching and performing music that was too distracting to the other nuns.” He later died of the plague. The two violins of his short and fun Ciaccona romp over the bass, which changes in rhythm. Syncopation is evident from the start. Merula, on the other hand, after succeeding someone important who had died of the plague, was fired one year later for “indecency towards some of the choir boys”. He was a progressive and influential composer, and was also organist at the prestigious St. Mark’s Basilica in Venice. His ciaccona is likewise lively, with syncopation and virtuosic playing. The cello even gets a crack at the fast action!
Austrian-born Heinrich Schmelzer was the first non-Italian Kapellmeister at the Vienna’s Habsburg court, but died of the plague shortly after his appointment. He was renowned as a virtuoso violinist, in a world dominated by Italian musicians, Bertali among them. A German diarist in 1660 called Schmelzer “the famous and nearly most distinguished violinist in all Europe”. He was also the top Austrian composer of instrumental music of his time, and was highly influential. He was music tutor and friend to Emperor Leopold I, who was a great patron of the arts as well as a composer. In fact, the Emperor composed a Requiem Mass for the funeral of his first wife. Schmelzer directed the music for his coronation. Katie Stevens opens Part Two with a ravishing sonata from Schmelzer’s Sonatae unarum fidium of 1664, the first collection of sonatas for violin and basso continuo to be published by a German-speaking composer. This virtuosic work presents lengthy variations over a four-note repeated bass pattern, and the structure becomes sectional as the piece moves along. It is a brilliant example of Stylus Fantasticus.
Johann Rosenmüller, Schmelzer’s contemporary, is represented by two ensemble sonatas, part of a collection of twelve two to five-voice sonatas for strings, with the possibility of winds being included. It was published in 1682, two years before his death. These represent his best work, are a fusion of Italian and German styles, and are very original. Sonata Seconda is scored for two violins and continuo, whereas Sonata Settima includes a viola part, and employs a cello part which is often independent of the harpsichord basso continuo line. It is full and rich. Its slow, calm opening, with its chromatically-ascending independent lines entering imitatively one by one, is reminiscent of music for a consort of viols. Later, the slow melodic lines change direction and descend stepwise. Typical of sonatas of this middle Baroque period, the work is broken up into short sections, with varying tempi, rhythms, types of melody, and character, with pauses in between the sections. The High Baroque extended the length of these sections, reduced their number, and contrasted their character more strongly, giving us the independent, separate movements with which we are so familiar today. The piece ends very slowly, quietly, and almost mournfully.
Sonata Seconda, which precedes it, is similarly very sectional, even more so at the beginning, and often sounds improvisatory, as much 17th-century music does. The performers are not to be bound strictly to the notes as they appear on paper, but are to call upon their imagination, playing in a supple fashion, often ornamenting at will, so that each rendition sounds fresh. The sonorities between the two violins are sumptuous, as they often move in close parallel action.
As for Rosenmüller, he had a somewhat chequered and cosmopolitan career. Born in Saxony, he studied theology and music at the University of Leipzig, became organist at the Nicolaikirche, and oversaw music at several other important Leipzig churches because the Thomaskantor, who usually did this was unwell. He was subsequently given a provisional promise of becoming the Thomaskantor, Leipzig’s prime musical post and a position later held by J.S. Bach. He was also granted the directorship of the Altenburg court in absentia. He was clearly moving up in the world.
However, his bubble burst in 1655 when he and several choir boys were accused of homosexual activities. Rosenmüller was imprisoned, but managed to escape. He fled to Venice, and was engaged as a sackbut player at the prestigious Basilica of San Marco by 1658. I was privileged to spend many hours in that same music gallery, amongst the glittering gold mosaics, where Rosenmüller, Monteverdi, Biagio Marini, Tarquinio Merula, and Giovanni Gabriel performed. In recent times it was the forty-year workplace of my mentor, Maestro Roberto Micconi, whom I brought to Thunder Bay in May 2003 to perform two organ concerts for Consortium Aurora Borealis! A few years later Rosenmüller secured a teaching post at Venice’s Ospedale della Pietà, where Vivaldi later was employed. He continued to compose, displaying Italian musical influences. These works were circulated in Germany, to which land he returned in 1682, becoming court composer and Kapellmeister at Wolfenbüttel in Saxony. He died there two years later, coming full circle. Telemann is said to have modelled works on Rosenmüller, and one musicologist in Germany claimed that he was “the greatest master of German instrumental music before Bach and Handel”.
Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber, a Bohemian-Austrian virtuoso violinist and composer, was influenced by Schmelzer’s advances in violin technique, as well as by the works of Uccellini. The 20th-century German composer and musical theorist Paul Hindemith surprisingly proclaimed Biber to be “the greatest composer before Johann Sebastian Bach”. Charles Burney, the foremost music historian in late 18th-century England, wrote in his General History of Music of 1789 that “of all the violin players of the last century, Biber seems to have been the best, and his solos are the most difficult and most fanciful of any music I have seen of the same period.” His music has been described as “wild, improvisatory, fantastical”. I would encourage you to read up on this most innovative composer, because time and space do not permit me to go into his accomplishments here, especially since the work on our programme is in a different, slightly simpler vein.
It is Biber’s Mensa Sonora, literally Sonorous Table, Tafelmusik, Musique de table, or music for aristocratic dining. It was dedicated to the Archbishop of Salzburg for his delectation, and consists of six suites, and we are playing the third, “Pars III”. Out of its five short movements, three are courtly dances (Gagliarda, Sarabanda, and Ciaccona, a dance we met at the end of Part I of our concert), with an Aria as its third movement and a Sonatina as its fifth. The suite is sonorous indeed, with a viola included to provide extra richness beyond just the violins. It opens with a repeated arpeggio, strongly reinforcing the key of A major. Continuing, we have a sense of dance throughout, and it is a pleasant accompaniment to a meal, but preferably not one to be talked over. It is a truly delightful little gem, and is a nice light note on which to end our 17th-century segment.
It may seem strange to include Antonio Vivaldi in a programme of 17th-century music, but the point is that he exemplifies perfectly our “From Venice to Vienna” theme, for he was born in Venice but moved briefly to Vienna near the end of his life. We include the dynamic second Sinfonia from Act I of his opera Farnace, first performed at Venice’s Teatro Sant’Angelo in February 1727. In three sections, this sinfonia is written in the typical Vivaldi fast-slow-fast pattern. People may recognize the middle andante movement as used in the Heath Ledger 2005 film Casanova, which was filmed mostly in Venice, with much authentic music from the period.
One year after Farnace’s Venetian premiere, Vivaldi met Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI in Trieste. The Emperor adored his music, bestowed a knighthood upon him, gave him a gold medal, and invited him to Vienna. Two years later, in 1750, Vivaldi and his father undertook that visit, armed with the score to Farnace. The opera was performed in Vienna and Prague with great success, garnering six revivals. Vivaldi possibly wished to join the imperial court as composer, especially since his compositions were already falling out of fashion at home.
Vivaldi moved to Vienna in 1740, intending to serve Charles VI, but the Emperor unfortunately fell ill after a wet hunting trip and died shortly after Vivaldi’s arrival, leaving the composer penniless and without employment. Unfortunately, Vivaldi grew ill and died one year later. He was given a simple funeral, at minimum expense, but not a pauper’s burial, as is often reported. It is the trail of the opera Farnace and its travels from Italy to Austria, accompanied also by Vivaldi, which led me to program this vibrant sinfonia as the appropriate finale to our ‘From Venice to Vienna’ concert!
I look forward to seeing you in person on Saturday, November 16 at 7:30 p.m. at St. Paul’s United Church, as I return to perform in our costumed concert, “An Elizabethan Gala”. You will hear Renaissance music from the time of Queen Elizabeth I and William Shakespeare. It will be performed on recorder (Rob Van Wyck), violin (Madonna Lee), harpsichord (me), and soprano (Krista Hansen). Krista, of eleven-seventeen.com, is the graphic designer who created our gorgeous 46th Season Brochure for us. Please pick up a copy and share our offerings with others, or click on the link on our website to view a digital copy. As ever, many thanks to everyone for their great support!
Warmly,
Elizabeth
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