March 25, 2019.  Composers, performers… This is another overabundant week.  Franz Joseph Haydn was born on March 31^st of 1732.  And one of the most important composers of the first half of the 20^th century, Béla Bartók, was born on this day, March 25^th of 1881.  The second half of the last century is also represented, by none other than Pierre Boulez, born on March 26^th of 1925.  And then there are two composers from previous eras: the 18^th century Johann Adolph Hasse, born 320 years ago, on March 25^th of 1699, whose opere serie were, for a while, some of the most popular in all of Europe – that, given that among his competitors were the young Handel and still very active Italians of the older generation, from Alessandro Scarlatti to Petri, Bononcini, Caldara, and Porpora.   And from two centuries earlier, one of the most important composers of the Spanish Renaissance, Antonio de Cabezón, who was born on March 30^th of 1510.  (We’ve written about all them several times, for example here, here, here, and here).

March 18, 2019.  Johann Sebastian Bach was born on March 21^st of 1685.  Last year, while celebrating his birthday, we focused on the period of mid-1730s, when Bach was living in Leipzig and was involved with Collegium Musicum, an association of professional musicians and students, which was created by Telemann in 1702 for the purpose of producing regular public concerts.  During Bach’s tenure, the summer concerts took place on Wednesdays between 4 and 6 p.m. in the coffee-garden “near the Grimmisches Thor (gates)”; during the winter time – on Fridays between 8 and 10 p.m. in Zimmermann’s coffee-house.  Many of Bach’s works were performed during these concerts, some old and some new.  The famous Harpsichord Concerto in D minor, BWV 1052 was one of them, and so were the other six concertos, BWV 1053 through BWV 1058.  Also performed were his orchestral suites, violin concertos and other pieces.  He played the music of other composers as well, and, according to his son, C.P.E. Bach, all famous musicians passing through Leipzig played for him.  

Going back to the harpsichord concertos: while they sound original, most of their music had been written by Bach earlier.  For example, here is the first movement of the Harpsichord Concerto no. 1, BWV 1052, the recording made live by Glenn Gould in 1957 in Leningrad during his historic tour of the Soviet Union (the Leningrad Academic Symphony Orchestra is conducted by Ladislav Slovák).  And here is the first movement, Sinfonia, of Bach’s Cantata BWV 146, Wir müssen durch viel Trübsal (We must [pass] through great sadness), composed either in 1726 or 1728.  As you can hear, it’s the same music but arranged for a slightly different orchestra, with the keyboard being the organ rather than the harpsichord.  The very dynamic organist in the Sinfonia is Howard Moody, the British composer and keyboard player.  John Eliot Gardiner conducts the Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists.  The second movement of the concerto was taken from the second movement of the same BWV 146 cantata, except that in this case Bach had to work harder, as converting a choral line to keyboard was not such a straightforward task.  Here’s movement II, Adagio, from the concerto, and here – the second movement from the Wir müssen durch viel Trübsal cantata.  The third movement of the concerto was also taken from an earlier-written cantata, but in this case, from the first movement of the cantata BWV 188, Ich habe meine Zuversicht (I have [placed] my confidence).  Here’s the final movement of the Concerto, and here – the first movement of the Cantata Ich habe meine Zuversicht.  

March 11, 2019.  Ariodante and Telemann.  Just two weeks ago we celebrated Handel’s birthday, and a couple days ago we had a chance to listen to (and, unfortunately, watch) his masterpiece, the opera Ariodante, presented by the Lyric Opera of Chicago.  At about 3 hours of pure music (four hours with intermissions) it’s a bit long, but it was written when the public didn’t consider an opera performance a semi-religious event to be experienced in motionless silence – this attitude was acquired a century later – and mingled, talked, played cards and enjoyed themselves as much as they could.  Were Handel to write it today, he’d probably cut about a quarter of it out, but even as is, with too many repeats, the music is absolutely gorgeous.  The libretto is absurd, but most of the operas then (and since then) had silly storylines..  The characters, all with Italian names and singing in Italian, are placed somewhere in Scotland where two lovers, a prince and king’s daughter, are almost driven to death and madness by a villainous duke, but of course everything ends well: the duke is punished, and the lover happily marry.  The premier took place at the Covent Garden; it was the first opera ever staged in the newly-built theater.  The role of protagonist, prince Ariodante, was sung by the famous castrato Carestini, who replaced Senesino, for many years Handel’s favorite, after they parted ways and Senesino joined the competing Opera of the Nobility.  The bad Duke Polinesso was sung by a contralto, Maria Caterina Negri.  At the Lyric, the genders were reversed: Ariodante was sung by a mezzo, while Polinesso – by a countertenor.  Both were wonderful.  Alice Coote, a prominent interpreter of Handel’s music, needed some time to warm up, but her famous Act II aria, Scherza infida, was superb (here it is in the performance by the countertenor David Daniels, which probably sounds closer to what Handel had in mind).   Iestyn Davies was wonderful as Polinesso: his voice is not very big, but it is very focused, projects well and has a remarkable agility.  The rest of the cast was excellent.

Unfortunately, the production, shared by the Lyric with the Festival d'Aix-en-Provence, the Canadian Opera Company, and Dutch National Opera in Amsterdam, was unattractive, silly and in parts, offensive.  Placed into a religion-obsessed 1960s Scottish village, it turns the story into a morality play with Polinesso as a rapist-priest and Ginerva, the princess, a victim who rebels, quite awkwardly, at the very end of the opera.  Visually boring, its only interesting feature was skillful puppetry which replaced Handel’s ballet numbers.  In the absurd finale, while Handel’s glorious music celebrates the marriage of Ariodante and Ginerva, the princess slips away unnoticed and hitches a ride, presumably into a better future.  But in the end, this production was just an unfortunate distraction from an otherwise hugely rewarding musical experience.

March 4, 2019.  Plethora.  Nine composers and a conductor were born this week.  The farthest removed from us, but still sounding unorthodox and fresh is Carlo Gesualdo, a great composer, a nobleman and a murderer.  Prince of Venosa, he was born in that southern Italian city on March 8^th of 1566 (you can read more about this fascinating person here).  His music is quite remarkable in its use of chromaticism, as you can hear in this recording of Itene, o miei sospiri, a madrigal from Book V, published in 1611.  It’s performed by the Italian ensemble Delitiae Musicae under the direction of Marco Longhini.

Antonio Vivaldi was born more than 100 years later, on March 4^th of 1678.  While Gesualdo’s music bridges the late Renaissance with the early Baroque, Vivaldi was writing when the Italian Baroque was at its peak.  We know him best for his concertos (the Four Seasons being by far the most popular), but he also wrote church music, as, for example, this Canta in prato, from Introduzione al Dixit.  The Scottish soprano Margaret Marshall and the English Chamber Orchestra are conducted by Vittorio Negri.

In addition to the two above, five more composers were born in Europe: Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach on March 8^th of 1714, Josef Mysliveček – on March 9^th of 1737, Pablo de Sarasate – on  March 10^th of 1844, Maurice Ravel – on March 7^th of 1875, and Arthur Honegger – on March 10^th of 1892.  CPE Bach and Mysliveček were fine representatives of the early Classical period; Sarasate was a Romantic, Ravel – an Impressionist, and Honegger – a member of Les Six, who were both influenced by and rejected Impressionism.  By the end of the 19^th century European classical music tradition spread over the American continents, and two of our composers were born there: Heitor Villa-Lobos, in Brazil, on March 5^th of 1887, and Samuel Barber, in the US, on March 9^th of 1910.

February 25, 2019.  Chopin.  Frédéric Chopin was born on March 1^st of 1810.  Here’s a brief sketch of Chopin’s first 20 years.  He was born in Żelazowa Wola, not far from Warsaw, in what then was the short-lived Duchy of Warsaw, created by Napoleon three years earlier (the Duchy would disappear five years later, following Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo, with that part of Poland reverting back to Russia).  His father, Nicolas Chopin, was French, his mother, Tekla Justyna Krzyżanowska, – Polish.  The first 20 years Frédéric lived in Poland, mostly in Warsaw, where his family moved when Nicolas received an appointment at the newly-established Warsaw Lyceum.  Frédéric was a child prodigy (“Second Mozart,” the local press called him), both as a pianist and as a composer: a lithograph of a polonaise he wrote at the age of eight, survives to this day.  He studied composition and the piano with the composer Józef Elsner, then entered the Warsaw Conservatory, where he also studied the organ.  The organ played its role, even though Chopin never composed for this instrument: at the time, several attempts were made to combine the organ and the piano; one of these hybrids was called the “aeolopantaleon.”  Young Chopin played this unusual instrument at a concert attended by Tsar Alexander I of Russia; the Tsar was very impressed and presented the 15-year-old Frédéric with a diamond ring.  Even though the Chopins were well established, Frédéric felt stifled: compared to the European capitals or St.Petersburg, Warsaw was musically quite provincial.  In November of 1830 he went on a European tour; the first stop was in Vienna.  One week after his arrival he had learned of the Warsaw uprising against the Russians.  Frédéric stayed in Vienna for half a year; in July of 1831 he left for Paris which would become his home for the rest of his life: he was never to see Poland again.  By then, Chopin’s reputation as a brilliant pianist had been firmly established, but his creative genius was to flourish in France.

February 18, 2019. Handel.  February 23^rd is the birthday of George Frideric Handel, one of the greatest composers of the first half of the 18^th century.  A couple years ago we posted an entry describing Handel’s move to London and his first years there, covering the period roughly between 1709 and 1719.  In 1719 Handel was living in Cannons, a home of James Brydges, the Duke of Chandos, about 13 miles northwest of London’s center.  The Duke, Handel’s patron, was a musician himself and maintained an orchestra of 24 players.  Handel’s stay at Cannons was comfortable and productive: he composed, among other things, Chandos Anthems (eleven in total), and the first English oratorio, Esther.  (Here is Chandos Anthem no. 11, "Let God Arise."  It’s performed by The Sixteen, directed by Harry Christophers).  In 1719 an opera company, called “Royal Academy of Music” was organized.  The Academy was set up as a joint stock company; the original issue was oversubscribed, so many people wanted to get involved.  The funding partners were members of the nobility, well-traveled and familiar with opera, often amateur musicians themselves.  Their goal was to create a permanent home for Italian opera in London.  Handel was tasked with finding the singers, for which he traveled to Germany rather than Italy, but the singers he engaged for the Academy were all Italians, the famous castrato Senesino among them.  Upon returning to London Handel was appointed “Master of the Orchester with a Sallary.”  The first opera season was short, though Handel produced a new opera, Radamisto; it premiered in April of 1720, the performance attended by King George I and the Prince of Wales, the future George II.  Originally the role of Radamisto was sung by a soprano, but during the next season, in a revised version, it was Senestino in his first year in London.  That season saw the premier of Handel’s Floridante, very successful and revived in the following seasons.  Again, Senesino sung the title role.  It’s interesting that the singers were considered much more important than composers and commanded much higher salaries (Senesino’s salary the first year at the Academy was above £2000, an enormous sum).  Handel was known to quarrel with the singers often, even with his favorite Senesino: eventually they broke up and Senesino joined the rival Opera of the Nobility.