Akademie für AlteMusik Berlin

the william t. kemper international chamber music series

saturday, march 18 • 8 pm • carlsen centera co-partnership with the jccc performing arts series

Foreign AffairsTELEMANN (1681-1757) Ouverture in B-flat Major, “Les Nations” TWV 55:B5 Ouverture Menuet I; Menuet 2: Doucement Les Turcs Les Suisses: Grave; Viste Les Moscovites: Grave; Viste Les Portugais anciens: Grave; Les Portugais modernes (Viste) Les Boiteux Les Coureurs

HANDEL (1685-1759) Suite from Almira, HWV 1 Ouverture Chaconne Courante Sarabanda Bourée Menuet Rigaudon Rondeau Ritornello

—Intermission—

VIVALDI (1678-1741) Concerto in D Minor for 2 Oboes, RV 535 Largo; Allegro Largo Allegro molto

BACH (1685-1750) Brandenburg Concerto No. 4 in G Major, BWV 1049 Allegro Andante Presto

REBEL (1666-1747) Les Caractères de la danse: Fantaisie Prélude; Courante; Menuet; Bourrée; Chaconne; Sarabande; Gigue; Rigaudon; Passepied; Gavotte; Sonate; Loure; Musette; Sonate

(performed without pause)

This evening’s program is called Foreign Affairs: Characters of the Baroque. Surveying music by French, German, and Italian masters, the repertoire comprises the familiar and the foreign in 18th-century musical culture. The Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin has graciously provided the following introductory overview to the music they perform.

The 18th century was an age of great travel and the discovery of other cultures. The arts illuminate the hitherto unknown, transport information, and characterize the foreign. Music not only captures the sounds and rhythms of regions from far away, it also captures one’s own culture which is carried out into the world, sometimes even with ironic mutations. The opening work of tonight’s program by Telemann is an excellent example of such imaginative travel: character sketches with rhythmically Westernized evocations of culture and temperament, both imagined and real.

Using his Western European music language, Handel explores the Moors of the Orient. Vivaldi and Bach represent the opposite poles of Northern and Southern European perspectives, while Rebel’s joyous and popular compilation of various dances is both an original and a unique composition. A dance fantasy, Rebel’s suite epitomizes the French style that was spreading rapidly through Europe at the beginning of the new century.

– Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin

Ouverture in B-flat Major, “Les Nations” TWV 55:B5Georg Philipp Telemann (1681-1757)

Posterity views Bach and Handel as titans of the Baroque era. During their lifetimes, however, Telemann all but eclipsed them both. He was regarded as the finest German composer of his day and was unquestionably the most successful commercially. Telemann’s career followed a dizzying path, starting with the Leipzig Opera which he directed one year after he matriculated at Leipzig University. Subsequent appointments included his appointment as organist at Leipzig’s Neue Kirche, Kapellmeister to the court of Count Erdmann II of Promnitz at Sorau, Kapellmeister in Eisenach (Bach’s home town), director of music in Frankfurt, and Kapellmeister at Gotha. In all these places, he wrote staggering amounts of sacred and secular music. Telemann’s longest and most significant professional position was in the northern city of Hamburg. From 1721 until his death, he was the guiding light of Hamburg’s musical life. His official title was Kantor of the Johanneum. In that capacity, he directed musical activity for the city’s five principal churches as well as civic musical events for ceremonies, holidays, and festive occasions. He also oversaw weekly public concerts by the Collegium Musicum and, from 1722 to 1738, served as music director of the Hamburg Opera. With a finger in every conceivable musical pie, Telemann was Hamburg’s de facto concert manager for an extraordinary tenure of 46 years. Telemann composed more than 200 Ouverturen – multi-movement instrumental suites, mostly modeled after French tastes. The chronology of the suites is uncertain, because few of Telemann’s manuscripts bear any dates. The Ouverture TWV 55:B5 was probably written before 1723. It falls into a sub-category of those multi-movement works in which Telemann named individual movements after various countries or nationalities. Precedents existed in Jean-Baptiste Lully’s comédie-ballet Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme (1670) and André Campra’s opéra-ballet L’Europe galante (1697), as well as German works by Georg Muffat and Johann Heinrich Schmelzer. Telemann assigned descriptive subtitles to some of his “international” suites. This one is known as “The Nations” (Völker Ouverture in German), but the label is not Telemann’s. He did label the individual movements, however, hinting at the character of the music – or the composer’s perception of the character of those nationalities. Such samplings of international

Georg Philipp Telemann, c.1754Herzog August Bibliothek Wolfenbüttel ➤ 2016-17 season 75

styles were popular in Germany in the early 18th century. Telemann’s overall organization in such works is consistent: A French overture followed by a pair of minuets, three ‘national’ movements, and a concluding dance or two not associated with any one particular country. Les Nations opens with a textbook-perfect French overture: a slow introduction with dotted rhythms, moving to a brisker central allegro set in a fugal texture before a brief return to the slower chordal material which closes the movement. Of his internal movements, ‘Les Suisses’ and ‘Les Boiteux’ are notable for being in G Minor rather than B-flat Major. Normally, all movements of a suite would be in the same key. Les Moscovites plays games with cross-rhythms, and slips by in a scant 45 seconds. Another noteworthy feature of this suite is its two fanciful closing movements. Les Boiteux (The Lame Ones) is followed by Les Coureurs (the runners, or the fleet of foot), to contrast with the lame. Telemann scored Les Nations for strings and continuo.

Suite from Almira, HWV 1Georg Frideric Handel (1685-1759)

Handel was a cosmopolitan and an international figure among Baroque composers. He was remarkably well traveled, especially in comparison to his best known German contemporaries, Telemann and Bach. By the time he was 21, Handel had been invited to Italy by a Medici prince where spent four years in Florence and Rome, mastering the Italian style of opera and sacred music. After returning to Germany, he was appointed Kapellmeister in the Electoral Court of Hannover, a position that allowed him considerable latitude, permitting him to travel. He journeyed to England in 1710, spending much of the next three years there. Eventually he settled permanently in London, performing as an organist and composing Italian opera. Later in life, he turned to sacred oratorios, reinventing himself to adapt to the tastes of his adopted homeland, which preferred oratorios to operas. While opera was not a popular art form in England throughout his career, Handel demonstrated a remarkable gift to absorb new styles or fashions, making them his own. That gift surfaced early. Most listeners are unaware that Handel was already active as a composer in Hamburg during his teenage years where he played violin for the opera house. At the time, Hamburg was the most successful opera center in all of Europe. Handel later recalled that he had “composed like the Devil”

during this period. Almira was his first opera, produced in late 1704 or early January 1705. He was nineteen. The opera is a Singspiel, a German genre that intersperses musical set pieces with spoken dialogue (like Mozart’s The Magic Flute). Handel used a libretto by Friedrich Christian Feustking based on a Venetian version from 1691 by Giulio Pancieri. One may infer a good deal about the plot from Almira’s full title: Der in Kronen erlangte Glückwechsel, oder: Almira, Königin von Kastilien (The Vicissitudes of Royalty, or: Almira, Queen of Castile). Dance music plays a major role in Almira’s first and third acts. Act I includes a coronation scene and a ballet that is presented to the Spanish Court. Act III comprises a set of international dances called “The Masque of the Continents,” (another manifestation of the German fashion for such surveys during the early 18th century). Almira is important because it is Handel’s only complete opera from these early years to have substantially survived. There is no autograph; however, Georg Philipp Telemann revived Almira in 1732 in Hamburg. Most modern performances are based on Telemann’s 1732 version. Handel was influenced by Reinhard Keiser, the most successful composer of German opera during this period. Nevertheless, clear marks of Handel’s developing musical persona are present - along with his thorough understanding of French and Italian styles. That he was able to compose such accomplished instrumental music at such a tender age is a thrilling portent of his mature genius. The Suite is scored for two oboes, strings, and continuo.

Concerto in D minor for Two Oboes, strings, and continuo, RV 535Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741)

No composer is more closely associated with the Baroque concerto than Antonio Vivaldi. This prolific Italian composed more than 450 concerti during his lengthy career. Almost 90% of the surviving concerti feature individual soloists; however, Vivaldi also composed works that featured pairs or even trios of instruments set against the larger ensemble. For most of the years between 1703 and 1740, Vivaldi served as a combination music-master, composer-in-residence, and conductor at the Seminario musicale dell’Ospedale della Pietà in Venice. This institution was a combination girls’ orphanage, school, convent, and conservatory. Vivaldi wrote most of his instrumental compositions for the talented girls under his tutelage at the Ospedale. Judging from the

astonishing variety of solo instruments featured in these works, Vivaldi’s students excelled on virtually every instrument that was in common use during the early 18th century. Though his music is not so contrapuntally complex as that of his younger German contemporary, J.S. Bach, Vivaldi brought the Italian instrumental concerto to a new level of refinement and sophistication. The piece on this evening’s program is one of three that Vivaldi wrote for two solo oboists plus string orchestra and basso continuo. The solo oboes dominate, either paired in parallel thirds or in dialogue, always as equal partners. They exchange some figuration with the violins, but the oboes mostly dominate the material. Most of Vivaldi’s concerti are in three movements arranged in fast-slow-fast order. This one breaks from that tradition, opening with a Largo section before proceeding to an Allegro suggesting a four-movement layout consistent with the Baroque sonata da chiesa (church sonata). All of the movements are in D minor throughout the concerto, underscoring its serious demeanor. Sequences, echo effects, and lively dialogues between the soloists and the orchestra abound in the two Allegro movements. In the second movement, marked Largo, lovely suspensions – pitches used in a strong metric position against the movement of another voice, creating a temporary dissonance – adds to the music’s expressivity. The finale opens with a bold unison statement in the orchestra. This brisk conclusion shows how a minor mode can be lively, energetic, and upbeat. The score calls for two oboes, strings, and continuo.

Brandenburg Concerto No. 4 in G Major, BWV 1049Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)

Of the six concertos that Bach dedicated to Margrave Christian Ludwig of Brandenburg, the Fourth is the best example of a true concerto grosso. Its small group, the concertante, consists of a violin and two recorders. The larger group, called the ripieno, or the accompanying group, is made up of strings and basso continuo. A lively dialogue between soloists and ripieno develops the simple motivic material in a most ingenious manner. Bach’s uncanny sense of variation and balance makes all three movements a delight. Bach used the term flauti d’echo (echo flutes) in his autograph. Perhaps because they draw melodic reinforcement from each other, the flutes tend to dominate over the solo violin in the first movement, with the exception of one brilliant violin passage in

The Bradenburg Concertos

The town of Cöthen is approximately 60 miles north of Weimar and west of Leipzig. During the early 18th century, it was the political center of the wealthy house of Anhalt-Cöthen (pronounced AHN-halt KUR-ten). Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Cöthen (1694-1728) was a great music lover who played the viola da gamba, violin, and harpsichord; he also sang bass. Upon reaching his maturity in 1715, he set about improving his court orchestra. When Johann Sebastian Bach joined Leopold’s staff as Kapellmeister in late 1717, the young prince employed 18 musicians. That may sound modest to us, but Cöthen’s orchestra was then one of the largest and finest in northern Europe.

Early in 1719, the prince sent Bach to Berlin, probably to negotiate the purchase of a new harpsichord. Scholars believe that Bach encountered Margrave Christian Ludwig of Brandenburg on that journey. The Margrave, uncle to the the Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm I, evidently collected concertos, for there were nearly 200 in his private library at his death. After hearing Bach play, he asked him to compose some concertos to add to his library.

At this early stage in his career, Bach was known primarily as a performer. He had, thus far, composed almost exclusively for solo instruments and for small ensembles. The six concertos he sent to Christian Ludwig in 1721 may have been his first instrumental works scored for larger numbers. Though he never had the works performed in his own court, Christian Ludwig earned himself a measure of immortality through Bach’s dedication.

The letters “BWV” stand for Bach Werke Verzeichnis, or “Catalogue of Bach’s Works,” by Wolfgang Schmieder (1901-1990), a German music librarian who first undertook an exhaustive bibliographical study of Bach’s compositions and compiled a comprehensive thematic catalogue identifying every known work. Each of the Brandenburg Concertos has a different BWV number. Sometimes these numbers are referred to as a “Schmieder listing,” after the catalogue’s author.

– L.S. ©2016

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32nd notes. It is the lovely E minor Andante, however, that presents us with the best sense of expressive echoes, with the flutes providing intimate asides after each phrase. Listening to this movement, we can understand more easily how Baroque audiences were moved to tears by the affective power of music. The slow movement concludes on an indecisive cadence, harmonically analogous to the mysterious two chords separating the outer movements of the Third Brandenburg (both cadences are in the ancient Phrygian mode). This time, however, the chords are more clearly transitional and the ensemble proceeds attacca (without pause) to the finale. A long, imitative tutti (full ensemble) section opens the last movement. The violin is the first soloist of the concertante group to enter, and, indeed, it takes the lead for most of the movement: this is the solo violin’s opportunity to shine. Bach’s dazzling violin cadenza reminds us–if we needed reminding–what superb players he had available to him in Cöthen. The Fourth Brandenburg is scored for two recorders, strings, and continuo.

Les Caractères de la danse: FantaisieJean-Féry Rebel (1666-1747)

The Rebels (pronounced Ruh-BELL) were one of Baroque France’s great musical dynasties. Beginning with Jean-Féry’s father Jean (1636-1692), members of the family served among the king’s musicians and in the royal opera for more than a century. This was France’s golden age. Music flourished under Louis XIV and Louis XV, who between them reigned from 1643 to 1774. Jean-Féry’s sister Anne-Renée was a singer in Jean-Baptiste Lully’s operas and married the composer Michel Richard de Lalande. Rebel’s son François (1701-1775) was a violinist, theorbist, conductor, composer, and opera director who would succeed his father in the prestigious 24 Violons du Roy. Jean-Féry Rebel was trained as a violinist and harpsichordist. Jean-Baptiste Lully, the King’s powerful master of music, taught Rebel violin and composition when Rebel was in his teens. Beginning in August 1705, Rebel was a member of the Vingt-quatre (24) Violons du Roy, eventually becoming the ensemble’s batteur de mesure (conductor/leader) in 1715, and chamber composer to the king. Unlike most of his contemporaries, Rebel did not gravitate to opera. His sole opera was not a success; however, his secular music was enormously successful. He wrote a considerable amount of chamber music, and, significantly, was one of the first composers of

sonatas in France. However, it was with dance music that Rebel was most in his element. Dances at the French court were enormously popular. Louis XIV, in particular, enjoyed dancing and often performed as a dancer in operas composed for his court. Consequently, French operas were filled with many dances that could considerably extend the length of the opera. Rebel was a pioneer in writing symphonies that were choreographed. These works were independent of stage works like operas. In Les caractères de la danse, Rebel effectively devised a new form that embraced all the popular court dances of the day. Jean-Baptiste Lully had introduced this concept in Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme (1670). Rebel’s pastiche presents the dances without pause so as to constitute one extended composition. The subtitle Fantaisie reflects the caprice of his unusual structure. After the opening Prélude, the individual dances unfold rapidly; the Courante is only 8 measures, and the longest movement in the collection - the Chaconne - is only 36 bars. It is easy to hear when one dance ends and the other begins, since the shift to each new dance calls for a meter change, and often a key change. Toward the end, Rebel incorporates two brief Sonates, unusual early instances of this form in French music. The most celebrated dancers in Louis XV’s court performed Les caractères de la danse, including Françoise Prévost (for whom it was probably written) and Marie Sallé. Marie-Anne Cupis de Camargo, later known throughout Europe as La Camargo, made her début at the Paris Opéra in Les caractères in 1726. Rebel’s score survives in reduced form only, with only a few of the dances specifying instrumentation. Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin performs it with two oboes, strings, and continuo.

Program notes by Laurie Shulman © 2016

Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin

“From the delightfully sprightly Allegro of the Overture, the Berlin period band gave a predictably enjoyable, accomplished performance:

polished, rhythmically spirited and supple.” (Gramophone)

Founded in 1982, Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin began as a courageous display of musical sovereignty against the East German socialist regime. Now, over thirty years later, it is lauded as one of Europe’s greatest musical success stories. The ensemble, which performs regularly in Europe’s leading musical centers, tours worldwide with concerts in Asia and North and South America. Since the reopening of the Berlin Konzerthaus in 1984, the Akademie has enjoyed its own sold-out concert series in Germany’s capital, and since 1994 has been a regular guest at the Berlin Staatsoper Unter den Linden and at the Innsbruck Festival of Early Music. Starting with the 2012-13 season, the Akademie has presented its own concert series at Munich’s Prinzregententheater. The Akademie appears at Wigmore Hall in London, the Palais de Beaux Arts in Brussels, the Theatre des Champs‐Elysees in Paris, Tonhalle in Zurich, Musikverein in Vienna, and other major concert halls in Europe. In more than 100 concerts each year, ranging from small chamber works to large-scale symphonic pieces, the Akademie performs under the artistic leadership of its concert-masters Midori Seiler, Stephan Mai, Bernhard Forck, and Georg Kallweit. Numerous guest conductors and soloists have worked with the Akademie. For over 25 years, its partnership with Belgian countertenor and conductor René Jacobs has produced many celebrated opera and oratorio productions. Most recent of these is the release of the recording of Mozart’s The Magic Flute, which the BBC hailed as “spine tingling.” The Akademie has extended its artistic boundaries to work together with the modern dance company Sasha Waltz & Guests for innovative productions of Henry Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas and Medea. With its visually dramatic, staged concert of 4 Elements - 4 Seasons, the Akademie demonstrates yet again its international reputation for being creative program innovators. The ensemble has received numerous awards for its re-cordings, including the Cannes Festival Award, French Diapason d’or, Dutch Edison Award, British Gramophone Award, Tele-mann Prize, and a Grammy Award nomination. The ensemble records exclusively for Harmonia Mundi. In 2014 the Akademie became the first ensemble to be awarded the prestigious Bach Medal by the city of Leipzig.

The Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin is represented by International Arts Foundation, In., 121 West 27th Street, Suite 703, New York, NY 10001.

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