CENTRUM PRESENTS

“CLASSICS IN CONTEXT” - 2013/14 CHAMBER MUSIC SERIESPHILHARMONIA CHAMBER PLAYERS: BAROQUE TREASURES

March 14, 2014 - Wheeler Theater - 7:30 p.m.

Centrum’s Baroque Treasures concert is generously sponsored by Leah Mitchell and Nancy McLachlan

PHILHARMONIA CHAMBER PLAYERS

Sherezade Panthaki, soprano / Stephen Schultz, flute / Marc Schachman, oboeKati Kyme & Lisa Weiss, violins / Anthony Martin, viola / William Skeen, violoncelloHanneke van Proosdij, harpsichord

BAROQUE TREASURES:BACH, HANDEL & VIVALDI

Georg Phillip Telemann (1681-1767)Trio Sonata in E minor from Tafelmusik II Affetuoso - Allegro - Dolce - Vivace

Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741)Concerto for Flute Op. 10, No. 3 in D major, “Il Gardellino” Allegro - Cantabile - Allegro

Benedetto Marcello (1686-1739)Concerto for Oboe in D minor Andante spiccato - Adagio - Presto

George Frideric Handel (1685-1759)Trio Sonata Op. 5, No. 4 in G major Allegro - A tempo ordinario - Allegro non presto - Passacaille Gigue: Presto Menuet: Allegro moderato

- I N T E R M I S S I O N -

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D major, BWV 1068 Air

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)Cantata “O! angenehme Melodei!” BWV 210a

Length of performance is approximately two hours. Latecomers will be seated during suitable intervals in the program. The use of cameras or recording devices of any kind is strictly prohibited. Please turn off your digital alarms or cellular telephones before the performance begins.

At first glance the sequence of pieces in today’s chamber music program suggests a pleasing assortment, a chocolate box of Baroque favorites, offering a miscellany of familiar composers to sample. But there is a hidden ingredient linking the pieces you will hear, derived from the cosmopolitan nature of the musical styles of the early 18th century and how they were ab-sorbed and combined by the greatest musical confectioner of them all, J. S. Bach.

Bach was an omnivore. Not for him to limit his taste to one cuisine—French, Italian, or German. In spite of this broad interest in foreign musi-cal styles he was not a traveling man. True, as an ambitious 20 year old he had walked the 500 mile round-trip from Arnstadt to Lübeck to meet and hear the famous virtuoso Buxtehude. This adventure earned the young musician a rebuke from his employers for overstaying his leave. Sebastian spent his entire adult life in central Germany where his fore-bears had been career musicians for generations. He did visit nearby cities to evaluate organs, to see friends, and hear performances, but he made no visit to Italy like Handel’s, none to Paris like Telemann’s. A 120 mile trip, this time in a carriage, to Berlin near the end of his life was a big event, resulting in the Musical Offering to Frederick the Great. Bach was confined to Leipzig by his official duties as a performer, composer, and conductor, as well as domestic duties to his many offspring for whose education and welfare he was responsible. Regardless of what he might have wanted to do or where he might have wanted to go, getting any extended time off to travel was not possible.

But travel in time was something that Bach did perhaps more than most of his contemporaries. It helped him to connect with his family’s past that he came from a long line of practical musicians. It is said that in some parts of Thuringia in the late 17th century the word “Bach” was generic for musician because it was so com-mon for a Bach to be playing or writing music for the church or town festivities. Sebastian throughout his life collected and compiled an Albachisches Archiv (Archive of the Senior Bachs), including compositions by previous generations of his family. Such a regard for the music of the past is characteristic of his universal appetite for learning.

The strength of his family ties certainly came to Sebastian’s aid when he was orphaned at an early age and consequently taken in by his elder brother Johann Christoph, a student of the renowned organist and composer Johann Pachelbel. There is an un-substantiated story that tells us much about Bach’s self-education. It is said that Johann Christoph had forbidden his little brother access to a certain manuscript of organ works that Sebastian wanted to see. Undeterred, he managed to extract it from its locked cabinet night after night and copy it by moonlight for his own use. This apocryphal story illustrates two aspects of how this young

Bach

man became the monument that continues to impress us three centuries later—his determina-tion to improve himself and, perhaps even more important, the methods he used.

The pilfering of the forbidden manuscript and that 500 mile walk—imagine the roads in the ear-ly 18th century and the weather in late autumn in North Germany!—are evidence of an indomita-ble drive for self-improvement. But it is the copy-ing of the organ works (by hand! by moonlight!) that is key. In our lifetimes we have seen pen and ink give way to photocopying and scanning, and live performance now uneasily competes for our attention with music experienced privately via electronic means. In previous times, music existed only in performance, heard either directly or privately while reading it or writing it down. The copying of music by hand is far more than a means to reproduce its notation. It is a way to study it, its construction, its flow of thought and argument, and its utilization of the instruments or voices it is writ-ten for.

The music that Bach reportedly copied by moonlight was for his primary instrument, the organ. But Bach was also a capable string player. According to his son Carl Philipp Emanuel, “he liked best to play the viola…in his youth, and until the ap-proach of old age, he played the violin cleanly and penetratingly.” According to his first biogra-pher, Johann Nicholas Forkel, “his ardent genius was attended by an equally ardent industry, which

incessantly impelled him, when he could not yet succeed by his own strength, to seek aid from the models existing in his time. At first Vivaldi’s concertos af-forded him this assistance…He studied the chain of the ideas, their relation to each other, the variations of the modulations, and many other particulars. The changes necessary in the ideas and passages composed for the violin, but not suitable to the keyboard, taught him to think musically.”

In Vivaldi’s Il gardellino, a flute concerto published after Bach had made his keyboard transcriptions, we can hear clearly the first movement’s open-ing material punctuating the solo instrument’s various bird calls and flirta-tions with the violins in the open air. And true to form that music returns to bookend the movement. In keeping with the outdoorsy mood established in the first movement, the second presents a pastoral serenade for the solo flute, accompanied by just the cello and harpsichord. Birds return in the last movement to remind us of the concerto’s nickname, “The Goldfinch”.

Not just Vivaldi’s concertos were reworked by Bach. We are particularly for-tunate that Bach also turned his attention to an oboe concerto by Ales-sandro Marcello. The composer, ever respectful of the performer’s collab-orative share in the creation of an effective performance, wrote a simple and rather plain slow movement as an opportunity for the oboist to show off his improvisatory abilities. However, even as a young man Bach was supremely confident that his own skills of invention could match any virtu-

Bach’s manuscript of Branbenburg Concerto No. 1

Antonio Vivaldi Italian composer Antonio Vivaldi is widely recognized as the master of the Baroque instrumental concerto, which he perfected and popularized more than any of his contemporaries.

oso’s. His elaboration for harpsichord of Marcello’s line for the solo oboe is a demonstration of what might happen anytime Bach sat down at the keyboard. For-tunately Bach’s ornaments can be readapted to the oboe, so that we get to hear Bach as it were unseating Marcello in the intricately wrought Adagio.

That Bach could and did match his impromptu artist-ry with other composers’ worked-out compositions is attested to in this description from his son Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach:

In musical parties where quartets or fuller pieces of in-strumental music were performed and he was not otherwise employed, he took pleasure in playing the viola. With this instrument, he was, as it were, in the middle of the harmony, whence he could best hear and enjoy it, on both sides. When an opportunity offered, in such parties, he sometimes also accompanied a trio or other pieces on harpsichord. If he was in a cheerful mood and knew that the composer of the piece, if he happened to be present, would not take it amiss, he used to make extempore, either out the figured bass a new trio, or of three single parts, a quartet.

A propos quartets made from trios, we have a four part version of the Trio #4 from the set of 7 Trios, Op. 5 by George Frideric Handel. However, this is not a case of Bach adding a part to his distinguished contemporary’s composition. Although Bach was a great admirer of Handel’s music, the two men never met, even though they came within a few miles of each other on a couple of occa-sions. According to some partisan opinion in the 18th century Handel had pur-posefully avoided meeting Bach since he was perhaps his only worthy rival in organ playing. Perhaps so, but the two men inhabited entirely different worlds. Handel, the traveller between Germany, Italy, and England, was primarily a man of the theatre, whereas Bach the homebody was a man of the church.

But to return to Handel’s Trio: it was issued in a set hurriedly cobbled together to satisfy the London publisher of his previous set of trios, which had sold very well and so required a sequel. At the time Handel was busy with opera and oratorio and organ concertos, so he used recycled and repurposed works to satisfy the demands of his publisher.

The Baroque flute is made of wood, of which the most commonly used are box-wood, ebony, and grena-dilla. It has a conical bore that is wide at the end with the embouchure hole and tapers to become signifi-cantly more narrow at the bottom.

One of these things is not like the other...Comparing period and modern violins

The way that violins are made today are very different than when the instruments were made in the Baroque pe-riod (1600-1750 or so), but only a few of the differences can be seen right away. One of the first things that most people notice is that a baroque violin has no chinrest. Invented around 1810, the chinrest is a wooden device much like a shallow cup or bowl that allows a modern violinist to support the violin with the chin and shoulder. The baroque violin is held differently – with the left hand and the collarbone – so no chinrest is needed. Another thing many people notice is that the fingerboard (the piece of wood which runs under the strings) is shorter on a baroque violin than on a modern violin.

If you were looking at these instruments in person, you might also notice that the strings are different: three of the four strings on the baroque violin are plain sheep’s gut and the G string (the lowest one) is made of silver wire wound around a core of sheep’s gut. On the modern violin, the lower three strings are made of metal wire wound around cores of either gut or an artificial material and the highest string is a plain strand of steel wire. The high E string also has a special fine-tuning device visible on the tailpiece (the piece of wood near the chinrest to which the strings are attached). More difficult to notice (but very significant) is the differences in the necks of the violins. On a baroque violin, the neck is attached to the

body in the same plane as the body, and the fingerboard sits on a wedge of wood on top of the neck. On a modern violin, the neck is tipped back at an angle to the body, and the fingerboard is attached directly to the neck. While watching today’s players, the first thing one might notice is that the baroque violin is held differently. The end of the violin rests on the player’s collarbone at one end and is sup-ported by the player’s left hand at the other, rather than being held between the chin and the shoulder like a modern violin. The result is that the player’s head is free to assume a natural, relaxed position while playing. Another important difference lies in the way energy is transferred through the bow and onto the strings. Modern technique (using a modern bow) involves (to a certain extent) a ‘levering’ motion with the wrist and fingers of the right hand to press the hair of the bow against the strings. To do this ergonomically, the right elbow is characteristically held at about the same height as the wrist. In con-trast, a baroque violinist thinks more about using gravity to transfer the weight of the right arm through the bow and onto the string. As a result, again for ergonomic reasons, baroque violinists tend to play with the right elbow noticeably lower than the right wrist.

Heads of three violin bows: (upper) modern transitional (F. Tourte), swan-bill head of a long 18th-century model, pike-head of a 17th-century model.

Like Handel, Georg Philipp Telemann was well-travelled and worldly. Like Bach he was primarily self-taught, and like Paul Hindemith in our time he could play every instrument for which he wrote. He was a kind of one-man music industry, the composer of an enormous amount of music, some of which he engraved himself for sale from his house, the music director for several churches as well as director of an opera house, and also a music theorist.

The Trio that opens our program is good example of Telemann’s stylistic inclusiveness. First he introduces the melody instruments as if they were characters in dialogue on stage, the oboe mournful, the flute encouraging, eventually each taking the other’s part, fusing and parting several times before coming to an agreement, a “clinch” like two opera stars whose em-brace never loses sight of the audience. The “tempo” mark Affettuoso does not indicate how fast the piece is to be played, but rather that it is to be played “emotionally” with all the sighs and longing of the early Romantic poets expressed not in words but in tones.

After the brief survey of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Italian influences and German contemporaries, we come to music of the Leipzig cantor himself. Perhaps uncharacteristically, but appropriate to a chamber concert, here is nothing sacred. Like much of the first half, this is music that comes to us directly from the theater. But Leipzig, unlike the Hamburg where Telemann worked, or the London where Handel lived most of his life, or the Venice of Vivaldi, had no permanent opera establishment during Bach’s time there. For whatever reasons, economic or ideological, Bach had no direct expo-sure to opera at home and thus no stage for which to provide dramatic works.

Yet opera was the (un)Holy Grail of all composers. A successful opera was the key to fame and riches. And beyond that, opera was the incubator of musical innovation. Simply put, the invention of opera in 16th century Italy led to music as we know it today. To be excluded from hearing or writing opera was to be excluded from the leading edge of musical education and experience. How then did Bach acquaint himself with the latest develop-ments in the opera house and elsewhere in an age before the internet, even before recorded music? How did he create the large body of works vocal and instrumental, sacred and secular, that incorporate all styles of all nations?

Whereas Bach could study the instrumental works of Ital-ian or French composers by obtaining their part books and copying their music by hand, it would have been impossible to obtain all the performance materials for an opera in the 18th century. But Bach had Big Ears! In 1738 Johann Matthias Gesner wrote a description of Bach leading a performance in Leipzig:

…if you could see him either playing the harpsichord with all the fingers of both hands, or running over the keys of the organ with both hands and, at the utmost speed, with his feet produc-ing by himself the most various and at the same time mutually agreeable combinations of sounds in orderly procession, if you could see him…not only singing with one voice and playing his own parts, but watching over everything and bringing back to the rhythm and the beat, out of thirty or even forty musicians, the one with a nod, another by tapping with his foot, the third with a warning finger, giving the right note to one from the top of his voice, to another from the bottom, and to a third from the middle of it—all alone, in the midst of the greatest din made by all the participants, and, although he is executing the most dif-ficult parts himself, noticing at once whenever and wherever a mistake occurs, holding everyone together, taking precautions everywhere, and repairing an unsteadiness, full of rhythm in ev-ery part of his body—this one man taking in all these harmonies with his keen ear and emitting with his voice alone the tone of all the voices…

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Such a man had but to attend an opera and listen to learn all that could be of use to him. And so he often went to Dres-den, only 70 miles distant from Leipzig, in the company of his son Wilhelm Friedemann, to visit friends and to hear the celebrated Dresden opera company, perhaps the best in Germany and in the most up-to-date Italian style. Thus Bach was no stranger to the latest trends in opera, and it is not surprising that they found their way into his music.

The Aria from Bach’s third orchestral suite has been familiar for over a century as the “Air on the G String”, a blunt reduc-tion of its four-part string texture to an over-ripe violin solo with discreet piano accom-paniment. In its original form it displays the characteristics of an operatic aria, with a long note to begin, to show off the singer’s breath control, standard procedure in an opening aria, and interplay with the instrumental ac-companiment, over a walking bass line. What is particularly Bachian about this aria is the contrapuntal involvement of the entire tex-ture—it is not merely about the soloist, but each line makes its own melodic contribution to the whole.

And finally, the real thing! Any doubts about the operatic origin of Bach’s cantata are settled by the sequence of musical events: five pair of recitatives and arias. In opera the recitative is the simple narrative engine that drives the plot forward, that tells the story. It is moves quickly and has very little repeti-tion or doubling back. Arias, on the other hand, represent a kind of time warp, in which a moment’s feeling is magnified and explored at length while the action goes into suspended animation. Many of us have had the experience at a moment of extreme emotion (fear, or exaltation, or grief ) where time has seemed to drag slowly in comparison with our thoughts, our regrets, our anticipations. For the past five centuries the

operatic aria has been the prime tool for artists—writers, com-posers, performers—to explore these heightened psychologi-cal states. On stage, nothing happens while a character, within her- or himself, faces the consequences of the action just ac-complished, or being contemplated. Words and phrases are repeated compulsively, even hypnotically, entire sections of the poetic text return, so that the aria seems closed in on it-self. After the dream state of the aria the signal that time has resumed again is the resumption of the telling of the story, in recitative.

Bach’s cantata is not an opera, but with its single singer and small ensemble it uses the main tech-niques of opera, the forward-moving narrative of the recitative and the static reflection of the aria, to make its points. The paradoxical thing about this cantata is that much the same music in much the same sequence was used repeatedly by Bach to serve markedly differing functions at various times. With adjustments to the text it honored a couple of political bigwigs and also celebrated a wedding, but the version heard today is in praise of certain Patrons of Music, very likely the audience of the Leipzig Collegium Musicum, of which Bach was the music director in the 1730’s. Information and perfor-mance material have been generously supplied to the Philharmonia Chamber Players by Joshua Rifkin, who prepared the reconstruction of this version of Cantata 210 for his group The Bach Ensemble.

– Anthony Martin

Anthony Martin is a founding member of Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, as well as many other period-instrument groups, such as Orchestra of the Eigh-teenth Century, Artaria Quartet, Novello Quartet, and New Esterházy Quartet. He teaches Baroque violin at Stanford University. Martin lives with his wife, Titia, a music therapist from the Netherlands, and their three children on the Hayward Fault near Wildcat Canyon in the East Bay.

1718 - New Orleans is founded by the French.

1720 - The population of American colo-nists reaches 475,000. Boston (pop. 12,000) is the largest city, followed by Philadelphia (pop. 10,000) and New York (pop. 7000).

1729 - Benjamin Franklin begins publish-ing The Pennsylvania Gazette, which even-tually becomes the most popular colonial newspaper.

1731 - The first American public library is founded in Philadelphia by Benjamin Franklin.

RezitativO! angenehme Melodei!Kein Anmut, kein Vergnügenkommt deiner süßen Zaubereiund deinen Zärtlichkeiten bei.Die Wissenschaften andrer Künstesind ird’nen Witzes kluge Dünste:du aber bist allein vom Himmel zu uns abgestiegen,so mußt Du auch recht himmlisch sein.

ArieSpielet, ihr beseelten Lieder,werfet die entzückte Brustin die Ohnmacht sanfte nieder; aber durch der Saiten Lust stärket und erholt sie wieder.

RezitativIhr Sorgen, flieht,flieht, ihr betrübten Kümmernisse!Ein singend Liedmacht herbes Grämen süße,ein kleiner Ton tut Wunderwerkeund hat noch mehr als Simsons Stärke,weil er, wenn Schwermut oder Bangigkeitwie ein Philisterheersich wider unsre Ruh erregt,die Qual zerstreut und aus dem Sinne schlägt.

ArieRuhet hie, matte Sinne,matte Sinne, ruhet hie! Eine zarte Harmonie ist vor das verborgne Weh Die bewährte Panacee.

RecitativeO pleasing melody! No grace, nor pleasurecomes close to your sweet magic charmand your caressing gentleness. The knowledge in art’s other branchesof earthly wit are clever vapors:but only you came down to us from heavenand so must be of heaven born. AriaPlay on, you soulful songs,cast down the enchanted breastinto gentle swooning; but using the strings’ delight, strengthen and revive them again. RecitativeYou troubles, flee,flee, all you afflicted sorrows!A tuneful songmakes bitter grieving sweeter,a single note works wondersand has more than Samson’s power,for it, if sadness or anxiety like hordes of Philistinesrise up to disturb our rest,dispels and drives the torment from our minds. AriaQuiet now, weary minds, minds so weary, quiet now! A gentle harmony is for any hidden woe the proven panacea.

The Bachs’ life was not without personal trag-edy. Between 1723 and 1737 Anna Magdalena went through no less than twelve nine-month pregnancies (with the exception of the years 1729, 1734, and 1736).

Eight of the twelve children died at ages vary-ing from an hour to five years. Of the remaining four children, one was seriously mentally-hand-icapped (Gottfried Heinrich). The last child was born in 1742, when Anna Magdalena was 41 (and he 57).

Bach’s professional life was not entirely satisfac-tory either. It was among his official duties to teach Latin to the schoolboys and to train the choirs. Bach did not want to teach Latin and had to pay a replacement from his own pocket. Moreover, the school turned out to be in chaos, lacking in discipline and with the musical level at an all time low (due to the weak disciplinary regime of the nearly seventy year old rector Johann Heinrich Ernesti).

Bach’s official salary was only a fourth of his Köthen salary and he was much dependent on extra earnings from musical services at funerals and weddings. In “good” years, his church choirs had to sing at one funeral a day, but in his letter to Georg Erdmann (1730), Bach complained that due to mild weather his income was fre-quently reduced.

RezitativWiewohl, beliebte Musica,so angenehm dein Spielso vielen Ohren ist,so bist du doch betrübt und stehest in Gedanken da.Denn es sind ihr’r viel,denen du verächtlich bist;mich deucht, ich höre deine Klagenselbst also sagen:

ArieSchweigt, ihr Flöten, schweigt, ihr Töne,klingt ihr mir doch selbst nicht schöne,geht, ihr armen Lieder, geht hin,weil ich so verlassen bin.

RezitativDoch fasse dich, dein Glanzist noch nicht ganz verschwunden und im Bann getan!Ja, wenn es möglich wär,daß dich die ganze Welt verließeund deine Lieblichkeit verstieße,so komm zu unsre werten Gönner,in ihre Gunst und Neigung her.Sie wissen allein,wie Wissenschaft und Kunst zu schätzen müsse sein.

ArieWerte Gönner, alles Wissenfindet Gunst bei euren Füßen,ihr stehet denen Künsten bei.Aber unter denen allenliebt eur’r gütiges Gefallenein’ angenehme Melodei.

RezitativGeehrete Gönner, so bleibet fernerweit

RecitativeAlthough, beloved Musica,your playing is so pleasing toso many ears,you are so very depressed and lost in thought.For there are many who despise you;I seem to hear your lamenting,thus even saying: AriaHush, you flutes, hush, you tones, even to me you don’t sound pretty;go, you wretched lyrics, hence, for I am so forsaken! RecitativeGet ahold of yourself, your fame is still not yet entirely gone and sent into exile!Yes, even if it were possiblethat the whole world would abandon youand your loveliness be banished, come to our worthy Patrons,to their care and favor.They know alonehow knowledge and art should be valued.

AriaWorthy Patrons, all knowledgeFinds favor at your feet, you have kept faith with the arts. But among them all your kindly appreciation loves a pleasing melody. RecitativeHonored Patrons, may your goodwill thus

Unlike the Flemish and French harpsichords, the baroque German harpsichord was a heavier, more solidly-built instrument with deeper sonority. The organ chorale, and organ music generally, played an important part in German religious life, and in terms of sonority the baroque German harpsichord could almost be considered as a domestic organ. Indeed Gottfried Silbermann, famed Saxon organ-builder, friend and contempo-rary of Bach, also built harpsichords in his Freiberg workshops.

Harpsichord built in 2010 by John Phillips, Berkeley (CA); based on one built in 1722 by Johann Heinrich Gräbner, Dresden

der edlen Harmonie mit eurer Gunst geneigt!Solange sie noch Kinder schöner Stimmen zeiget,so wird sie allezeiteur’r Lob und eren Ruhm besingen;und, wenn es ihr erlaubt,vor eur’r beständig Blühnsich itzt bemühn,ein wünschend Opfer vorzubringen.

ArieSeid vergnügt, werte Gönner,werte Gönner, seid vergnügt! Ein ewige Lust bestelle die Wohnung in euerer Brust, bis diese das Singen der Engel enzückt.

evermore be inclined to noble Harmony! As long as she still gives children lovely voices,they will constantly be singing your praise and your fame; and, with your permission,for your continued prosperityshe will make the effortto offer her good wishes. AriaBe happy, worthy Patrons, worthy Patrons, be happy! An eternal joy Prepares to dwell within You, Enchanting even the singing of angels.

NEXT PERFORMANCE

Sunday, June 22, 2014 - 2 pm Wheeler Theater

Tereza Stanislav, violin; Robert Brophy, violaJohn Walz, violoncello; Lucinda Carver, piano

Centrum is honored to welcome four of the most heralded chamber mu-sicians of Los Angeles for the closing performance of its 2013-14 cham-ber series. Artistic Director and Associate Dean of the Thornton School of Music at the University of Southern California, Lucinda Carver, has assembled a “dream team” of colleagues to comprise her piano trio for this illustrious affair, including two leading members of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra and one from the Los Angeles Opera orchestra.

“Carver makes musical thought manifest.”Los Angeles Times

City of Angels

Ensemble

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Piano Trio No. 1 in B-flat major, D. 898Sonata for Violin and Piano in E minor, KV 304Piano Quartet No. 1 in C minor

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