A New Year’s Day Concert
Heliconian Hall,  35 Hazelton Ave. Toronto
Jan. 1, 2PM   & Jan. 2, 8PM, 2015

Sonata Op. 1 No. 1                  Arcangelo Corelli (1653-1713)
Grave – Allegro – Adagio – Allegro

Rorate Caeli from Concerti Sacri Op. 2  Alessandro Scarlatti (1660-1725)

Sonata Violino e Basso                  Alessandro Stradella (1632-1689)
Andante – Allegro – Adagio – Vivo – Adagio – Allegro

Sonata Prima from Sonatae Unarum Fidium  Johann Schmelzer (c. 1620–1680)

Sinfonia à 2 Violini e Basso                  Stradella
Grave – Allegro – Andante – Allegro – Allegro

Intermission

Sonata 2:a        Giovanni Zamboni (1664-1721?)
Alemanda – Current – Sarabanda, Largo – Giga

Serenata con Violini          Scarlatti
Sinfonia – Recit – Aria, Largo – Recit – Ritornello & Aria – Recit – 
Aria, Andante – Recit – Aria, Largo – Recit – Recit Accompagnato

Program Note
Few composers have been as famous and influential in their own lifetimes as Arcangelo Corelli. His trio sonatas, solo sonatas and concerti grossi were the model for all composers who wrote in those Italianate forms. Corelli’s Opus 1 and 3 trio sonatas come with partbooks labeled ‘violino primo, violino secondo, organo’ and ‘violone o arcliliuto’ when printed in Rome. The archlute, then, is a substitute for the bowed bass, though the violone (what we would call a cello, but maybe a biggish one) and archlute book has the same figures above the notes as the organ part. Some latitude was used in the scoring in the bass as the sonatas spread across Europe. The title page of John Walsh’s London edition of the early 18th century says the ‘through bass’ is for ‘ye organ harpsichord or archlute.’ The archlute is a chordal instrument then.

The rather dissolute life of Alessandro Stradella would be best expressed, not in a short program note, but in an opera, which, indeed, it has been. At least two operas of the singing kind have been composed, but perhaps the soap variety would be even better. A minor nobleman, he moved to Rome to compose for Queen Christina of Sweden and the church. Some of the church’s money, though was found ‘resting in his bank account’. He fled to Venice where he was installed as music teacher to a nobleman’s mistress. She and Stradella ran off together and his former employer (the nobleman, not the church) had hitmen stab him to death in the piazza.

Schmelzer seems to have been a rather less excitable fellow. He worked all his life at the court of the Holy Roman Empire, where not only was Italian music on tap (the Neapolitan Giovanni Felice Sances was Schmelzer’s predecessor as Kappelmeister, and the list of musicians was full of Bertalis, Valentinis, Caldaras and Contis) but Italian was the main language spoken day-to day.

Printed in Lucca in 1718, the Sonate d’intavolatura di leuto Zamboni, a Roman who was lutenist at Pisa Cathedral, represents the swansong of Italian solo lute music, though the instrument continued to be used as a continuo instrument and as an obbligato instrument in operas and oratorios till the end of the baroque.

Alessandro Scarlatti was also a very prolific composer of cantatas both with just continuo and with other instruments a much under-performed genre considering what a large slice of so many composers’ works it comprises. Very often the cantata’s text is a description of the joys or sorrows (usually the sorrows) of an amorous shepherd, in the kind of perfect love only possible in the pastoral tradition. The pains of this shepherd are usually reported by another shepherd looking on. This all sounds terribly mannered to us today, but the pastoral tradition was used for centuries to demonstrate how perfect political entities might work, how the perfect host might behave, and, in the case of song, how the perfect lover might feel. Is it any less mannered than a present day hospital drama or cop show? Throughout the cantata we see Scarlatti deploy the tricks used by a composer of operatic ‘music-drama’, moving seamlessly between speech-like declamation and arioso passages in the recitatives as the emotions of the shepherd swirl. The arias, with their infectious melodies, each narrow the focus onto one ‘affect’ of the spurned lover.

Translations

Motet: Aria  Rorate Caeli

Scatter your dew heavens, Let the sweet dew fall in drops.

Let the day be joyful and happy, let the sun grow bright without fog, illuminate the whole world.

Sinfonia 

Recit - As the sun hastened toward its beloved Western horizon, his chariot star, the lazy Arcturus, was already with glittering flames turning to the sea. As the star’s glimmer dispersed the still night, revealing it as one of the most beautiful, the white Goddess arose, blushing and radiant from her pastoral bed with gleaming rays in her cheeks, and Love showed what secret flames she hid for the shepherd. It was the time when the year rejuvenates itself through the bosom of the flowers, instilling joy in the heart; when the lonely Daliso, leaning his weary side at the foot of a stone from which flowed a babbling silver spring, vented his tears and sighs, mingling them with the waves. He remained alone with his silent troubles. And from his cheeks cruel Love pitifully wiped the pearl-like tears, distilled from the sorrow of his heart. Finally, exhausted, his limbs entwined in the grass, tortured with love and gaze fixed heavenwards, sobbing, he unburdened his torment to the breezes and the wind thus:

Aria: Dark shadows that hide the glimmer of light from me, even if you should be the faithful friends of sorrow all that I now desire is that you weep for my tears.

Recit: Curilla, my soul, joy of my afflictions, if you go, I will die, my love. Ah! weep for me, my friendly stars. I ask you to shield me from these harsh tidings.

Ritornello & Aria: Fresh hoar frost so compassionate, revive these roses, kiss the tips of the flowers. Ah! fallen and pale, you turn into little tears to weep at my sorrow!

Recit: Faithful but senseless plants, who stayed the flight of the winged singer, you take from the earth only drops of bitterness because of the sorrow that is killing me, and now that Curilla has gone, you weep with me for my lost love. When her beautiful face beamed with happiness and laughter, we were transported to Paradise.

Aria: Beloved idol, tormentor of my heart, if only this harsh occurrence would betray my love. I suffer the sorrows, I hide the pains of our separation, O my love.

Recit: But you - sad eyes - tell me, what will you do when you are deprived of her radiant beauty? Ah! unhappy Daliso, know your destiny. Know that it is Love’s desire to burn in flames of grief and for the heart to bleed!

Aria-Largo: Beautiful waves, mercifully refreshing these meadows, you listen and are saddened by my mournful murmurings. Ah! you are weeping for my tears.

Recit: Curilla, my soul, ah! come and weep with me. Oh my beauty, adored light of my eyes, now I despair of all hope. But go happily wherever you are guided, my Curilla, and if spiteful fortune should take you far, it shall be far only from my eyes, not from my heart, my darling; and even if I feel the pain, I will delight in your happiness and desire only to set my love in your heart as a remembrance of me. Go, go happily, my heart. As the faithful lover I will accompany you for ever with my grief. Curilla, my soul. Curilla, farewell ...

Accompagniato: Daliso wished to say more but suddenly, from immense sorrow, he fell unconscious; and Love cried for him.

Guests:

Christopher Verrette has been a member of the violin section of Tafelmusik since 1993 and is a frequent soloist and leader with the orchestra. He holds a Bachelor of Music and a Performer’s Certificate from Indiana University. He contributed to the development of early music in the American Midwest, as a founding member of the Chicago Baroque Ensemble and Ensemble Voltaire, and as a guest director with the Indianapolis Baroque Orchestra. He collaborates with many ensembles around North America, performing music from seven centuries on violin, viola, rebec, vielle, and viola d’amore. He was concertmaster in a recording of rarely heard classical symphonies for an anthology by Indiana University Press and recently collaborated with Sylvia Tyson on the companion recording to her novel, Joyner’s Dream.

Patricia Ahern has a BA and BMus from Northwestern University, MMus from Indiana University, and performer diploma from the Schola Cantorum in Basel, Switzerland. She taught baroque violin at the Freiburg Conservatory and Oberlin’s Baroque Performance Institute, and has given masterclasses at McGill, Wilfrid Laurier, York and Grand Valley State Universities, and the Universities of Windsor, Wisconsin and Toronto. She has concertized on five continents and performed with Milwaukee Baroque, Ars Antigua, Chicago Opera Theater, Kingsbury Ensemble, Aradia, I Furiosi, Newberry Consort, Musica Pacifica, and the Carmel Bach Festival. Tricia has recorded for Sony, Naxos, and Analekta, and joined Tafelmusik in 2002.

Borys Medicky has appeared as solo harpsichordist and continuo player in the United States, Canada, and Europe.  Resident in Toronto, Canada, he is active as a freelance performer, having appeared with major ensembles in Toronto and beyond.  He enjoys co-directing (with lutenist Lucas Harris) the Toronto Continuo Collective, an all-continuo ensemble dedicated to fostering an increased interest in the stylish basso continuo accompaniment of seventeenth-century vocal and instrumental music.  From 2006-2014 he was the artistic director of the Kitchener-based Nota Bene Baroque Players.  He serves as organist of the Fifth Church of Christ, Scientist in Toronto.  In addition he builds harpsichords and carries out harpsichord maintenance duties for institutions and private clients in the Greater Toronto area.

As well as being a founding member of I Furiosi Baroque Ensemble, baroque cellist and viola da gambist Felix Deak showcases his career with orchestras and chamber ensembles, including Toronto's Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra, Montreal based Les Voix Humaines, and Opera Atelier. Felix teaches music in the TDSB and instructs private students in and around Toronto. He can be heard on CBC Radio Two in performances, and has made recordings for various labels at home and abroad.

New, Very Elegant Songs and Dances

New, Very Elegant Songs and Dances

Nov. 15, 2014, 8PM

Heliconian Hall, Toronto

John Edwards - Lutes

Petite fantasie dessus l'accord du Leut   Adrian Le Roy (c. 1520-1598)

Pavane est il conclud/Gaillarde est

il conclud/Passameze

Fantasie                                             Albert de Rippe (c.1500-51)

Benedicta, a Six/Secunda pars,     Josquin de Prez (d.1521)/Rippe

Per illud ave/Tertia pars, Nunc mater                 

Les commandemens de Dieu/Jubilate  Genevan Psalter, arr. Le Roy

Deo omnis/Nunc dimittis/Ecce Nunc                 

Preambulo Secundo          Giulio Cesare Barbetta (1540-1603)

Ungay Bergier                    Thomas Crecquillon/Barbetta

BonJour mon Ceur            Orlando Lassus/Sixt Kargel (d. c. 1594)

Madonna mia pieta             Lasso/Kargel

Passamezo Zorzy/Il suo salterello   Kargel

Intermission

Sanserre, Basse dance/Pavane P.B./   Pierre Blondeau? (fl. 1520s)

Gaillarde/Branle gay                 

La Magdalena, Basse danse P.B./      Blondeau?

(Tourdion)/(Recoupe)

Prelude                                      Blondeau?

Secoures moy                              Claudin de Sermisy/Blondeau?

Tant que vivray                           Sermisy/Blondeau?

Jouissance                                      Sermisy/Blondeau?

Pavane la Milanoise/Gaillarde/  Guillaume Morlaye (c. 1510-c. 1558)

Gaillarde piemontoise/Gaillarde                 

Fantasia                           Jean Paul Paladin (fl. 1540-1560)

Anchor che col partir      Cipriano di Rore/Paladin

Premier Branle de bourgogne/Second       Le Roy

branle/Tiers branle/Quatreyesme branle                  

Program Note

In the 18^th century Johann Matheson joked ‘if a lute player lives to be 80 he has surely spent 60 years tuning’. Adrian Le Roy, a lutenist at the French court, makes this joke 175 years earlier with the Fantasie with which we begin. Beside his court job Le Roy formed a publishing house with Ballard, printing chansons, and from 1551, several books of lute and guitar music and a lute method surviving only in a contemporary English translation. The decorated repeats of the Pavane and Gaillarde that Le Roy gives us are marked ‘plus diminuée’ or in the English version of the Passameze, ‘more shorter’.

Albert de Rippe, born Alberto da Ripa, was another Royal lutenist, who came from the lute-mad territory of the Marchesa of Mantua, Isabella d’Este. At the end of the dense polyphony of the first part of his heavily decorated version of Josquin’s six-voice motet he realizes the lute can’t compete with a choir imitating the Archangel Gabriel saluting the Virgin Mary, so dazzles with a flurry of notes rather than full throats. Josquin thins out to two voices for the second part and brings all the voices back at the end of the third. After this Le Roy’s busy versions of tunes from the Genevan Psalter, in use by French Protestants and still in the hymnbook today, seem like pop music. Le Roy sticks close to the chords of their first harmonizer Claude Goudimel, but puts the Psalm tune in the top voice and avoids decorating it in the main, keeping the ‘more shorter’ notes in the other parts.

Pierre Attaingnant published a book of dances in 1521, the first printed lute music in France. Many of the dances are by a ‘P.B.’, probably Pierre Blondeau, a lutenist active at the time who may have been his editor. The book contains some of the new Pavanes and Gaillardes, but also many Basse Danses, an older dance form which are audibly more ‘medieval’ sounding with their uneven phrase lengths and less tonal melodies and harmonies. In 1529 Attaingnant printed a book of chansons arranged for one voice and lute from 4 voice part originals and, overleaf from each song, lute alone. The Branles are formalized versions of rustic dances but not so domesticated as to have the phrases ironed out into squares.

Morlaye was another publisher/lutenist and we can never be sure if he is editor or composer of the music in his books. The fantasy by Paladin (the Milanese Giovanni Paolo Paladino, publishing in Lyon) is unattributed in one of Morlaye’s books.

Pity Nicholas Sarkozy. You can still see him on YouTube saying ‘it’s nice to be here in Germany’ while visiting the French Region of Alsace, the capital of which is Strasbourg, where Barbetta and Kargel’s books were printed back when it was in Germany. Even the French President can’t keep straight what country it’s in.

Motets with Symphonies

The Principal’s Music Series at St. Michael’s College 

Sing Praise Upon the Lute and Viol

The Musicians In Ordinary for the Lutes

and Voices

present

Motets with Symphonies

Fr. Madden Auditorium, Carr Hall

St. Michael’s College

Oct. 24, 2014

Lecture 7:30PM, Concert 8PM

Sinfonia Terzo Tuono from Op. 22                 Biagio Marini (1594-1663)

Stabat Mater                         Giovanni Felice Sances (c.1600-1679)

Sonata Prima                                      Giovanni Batista Fontana (d. c. 1630)

Preludio 2do                               Giovanni Girolamo Kapsberger (d. 1651)

Vocem jucunditatis                   Alessandro Grandi (c.1580-1630)

Canzon Seconda                                Giovanni Gabrieli (1557-1617)

Preludio 3zo                                      Kapsberger

O Quam tu pulchra                          Grandi

Canzon Quarta                                  Gabrieli

O vos omnes                                    Grandi

Canzona II from Op. 8                   Marini

Sinfonia Quinto Tuono from Op. 22 Marini

Confitebor tibi ala francese            Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643)

The Musicians In Ordinary

Named after the singers and lutenists who performed in the most intimate quarters of the Stuart monarchs’ palace, The Musicians In Ordinary for the Lutes and Voices dedicate themselves to the performance of early solo song and vocal chamber music. Soprano Hallie Fishel and lutenist John Edwards have been described as ‘winning performers of winning music’. A fixture on the Toronto early music scene for over 10 years, in 2012 MIO became Ensemble in Residence at St. Michael’s College in the University of Toronto. They have concertized across North America and lecture regularly at universities and museums. Institutions where MIO have performed range from the scholarly to those for a more general public and include the Shakespeare Society of America, the Renaissance Society of America, the Shakespeare Association of America, Grinnell College, the Universities of Alberta, Toronto and at California at San Diego, the Kingston Opera Guild, Syracuse, Trent and York Universities and the Bata Shoe Museum. They have been Ensemble in Residence at Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania.

Christopher Verrette has been a member of the violin section of Tafelmusik since 1993 and is a frequent soloist and leader with the orchestra. He holds a BMus and a Performer’s Certificate from Indiana University and contributed to the development of early music in the American Midwest as a founding member of the Chicago Baroque Ensemble and Ensemble Voltaire, and as a guest director with the Indianapolis Baroque Orchestra. He collaborates with many ensembles around North America, performing music from seven centuries on violin, viola, rebec,vielle and viola d’amore. He was concertmaster for a recording of rarely heard classical symphonies for an anthology by Indiana University Press and collaborated with Sylvia Tyson on the companion recording to her novel, Joyner’s Dream.

Patricia Ahern has a BA and BMus from Northwestern University, MMus from Indiana University, and performer diploma from the Schola Cantorum in Basel, Switzerland. She taught baroque violin at the Freiburg Conservatory and Oberlin’s Baroque Performance Institute, and has given masterclasses at McGill, Wilfrid Laurier, York and Grand Valley State Universities, and the Universities of Windsor, Wisconsin and Toronto. She has concertized on five continents and performed with Milwaukee Baroque, Ars Antigua, Chicago Opera Theater, Kingsbury Ensemble, Aradia, I Furiosi, Newberry Consort, Musica Pacifica, and the Carmel Bach Festival. Tricia has recorded for Sony, Naxos, and Analekta, and joined Tafelmusik in 2002.

 

Eleanor Verrette began her studies on violin in Toronto with Gretchen Paxson and Aisslinn Nosky, going on to study viola in Montréal with Pemi Paull and Anna-Belle Marcotte at McGill University. She graduated from McGill University in 2012 with a Bachelor's in viola performance.  She appears regularly with the Musicians In Ordinary, and is featured on recent album releases by acclaimed folk-rock artists Lakes of Canada and Corinna Rose. She has also performed with Aradia Ensemble and Montréal singer-songwriter Ari Swan, and plays vielle as a founding member of the Pneuma Ensemble.

 

Kerri McGonigle is the Artistic Director of the Academy Concert Series. Recipient of the Margarita Heron Pine String Prize and the Beryl Barns Graduate Scholarship, Kerri graduated with a Master of Music degree in cello performance from the University of Alberta. While studying in Paris, she won Premier Prix with unanimous distinction in violoncello and chamber music from the Gennevilliers Conservatory. Having completed an Advanced Certificate in Baroque Performance with Tafelmusik through the University of Toronto, Kerri is based in Toronto and performs regularly as a soloist, recitalist, chamber musician and orchestral cellist. Kerri spends her days running after and cuddling her beautiful 16-month old son, practicing cello while he naps – thankfully he is a great sleeper!

In 1620 Monteverdi wrote to his opera librettist explaining why he couldn’t possibly get away to Mantua. Apart from his duties at St. Mark’s Church, Venice…

‘there is the Most Illustrious Primicerius, for whom every Wednesday, Friday and Sunday, I make music in a certain oratory of his, to which half the nobility come.’

This ‘Primericus’ was Marc’Antonio Cornaro, from a family that included doges, queens and cardinals. Between him and the ‘half the nobility’, had Monteverdi applied to the Toronto Arts Council for these exclusive performances he would not have been ticking the boxes to obtain extra points for promoting art music in ‘at-risk neighbourhoods.’

In 1628 the governing council of the Church of Santa Maria Maggiore in Bologna, where Alessandro Grandi, formerly Monteverdi’s second-in-command at St. Mark’s, was now maestro di capella, issued a memo that tells a different story.

‘Since in winter Vespers of feasts are sung at a time when few can attend, the majority still being at dinner, music is made to an empty church; the deputies propose that winter services should be put forward half or three-quarters of an hour to give the nobility and the townsfolk time to be able to come; it would be a good thing if the whole of Vespers were sung, with some motet to draw the people in and uplift them to devotion, particularly as so much is spent on the music that it ought to be of profit to all.’

The governing council seems to have been eager, then, to disseminate the spiritual benefits to be reaped from listening to music. However, upon his arrival at his new gig Grandi did an inventory of Santa Maria’s music library which has survived. Though they liked Grandi’s music enough to hire him, the library is full of Palestrina generation ‘da capella’ music rather than the new small scale and drama driven baroque style with and without instruments. Did Santa Maria engage Grandi to update their music program or were Grandi’s books of motets for one to three voices ‘con sinfonie’ composed more for and consumed more by the great and the good at their ‘certain oratories’? Or perhaps both as the great and good on the church council wanted to give to the townsfolk the spiritual thrills and chills that the baroque style shared with opera and which they had access to.

The peripatetic Biagio Marini did much to spread the baroque style north of the Alps on his constant search for a better job. He worked as a bass singer and violinist under Monteverdi at St. Mark’s for a time and much of his music was printed in Venice. We insert one of his Sinfonie as a ritornello into Sances’s Stabat Mater, also published in Venice. Marini may have studied violin with Giovanni Battista Fontana whose sonatas were also published there after his death.

Monteverdi’s Confitebor tibi ala francese has at the top the suggestion ‘for five voices, or if you like, with four violins, leaving the soprano voice solo’, which we do this evening. 

Translations

Pianto della Madona – Stabat mater

The sorrowful Mother stood

beside the cross weeping

while her Son hung there.

She whose grieving soul,

compassionate and sorrowful,

a sword pierced through.

O how sad and afflicted

was that blessed

Mother of the Only-begotten!

She who mourned and grieved

and trembled to see

the punishment of her glorious Son.

Who is the man who would not weep,

if he beheld the Mother of Christ

in such suffering?

Who could not feel sorrow,

contemplating the devoted Mother

suffering with her Son?

For the sins of His people

she saw Jesus in torment

and subjected to scourging.

She beheld her sweet Son

dying forsaken

as He gave up His spirit.

O Mother, fount of love,

make me feel the force of sorrow,

that I may mourn with you.

Make my heart on fire

with love of Christ God,

that I may please Him.

Holy Mother, grant this:

fix the wounds of the Crucified

firmly in my heart.

Your wounded Son,

who deigned to suffer so much for me:

share with me His punishment.

Make me truly to weep with you,

sorrowing with the Crucified,

for as long as I live.

To stand with you beside the Cross,

and willingly share

in your mourning, this I desire.

Virgin of Virgins most renowned,

do not be bitter to me now.

Make me mourn with you.

Make me bear the death of Christ,

make me a sharer in His passion,

and recall His wounds.

Make me wounded with His wounds,

inebriated by this cross,

for the sake of your Son’s love.

Inflamed and kindled

by you, Virgin, may I be defended

in the day of judgment.

Let me be protected by the cross,

safeguarded by the death of Christ,

and nurtured by His grace.

When my body dies,

grant that my soul may be given

the glory of paradise. Amen.

Vocem jucunditatis

Declare it with the voice of joy, and make it known, alleluia.

The Lord hath delivered His people, alleluia.

Christ has ascended on high. He has led captivity captive. He has given gifts to mankind, alleluia.

O Quam tu pulchra es

O how beautiful you are, my love, my dove, my pretty one. Your eyes are like a doves. Your hair is like a flock of goats.

Your teeth are like a flock of ewes ready for shearing. Come from Lebanon, come my love, my dove, my pretty one. O how beautiful you are, come. Arise my bride, arise my delight, arise my immaculate one. Arise and come, for I am sick with love.

O vos omnes

O all ye that pass by the way, look and see if there be any sorrow like to my sorrow.

Be astonished, O ye heavens, at this; and ye gates thereof be very desolate.

Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth, and be astonished because of this.

I reared children, but they have rebelled against me, those I fed with manna in the wilderness, they gave me gall for my food, and the water of salvation I have given them, they, however, in my thirst, they gave me vinegar to drink.

Take heed, therefore, and see if there be any sorrow like to my sorrow.

Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth, and be amazed at this.

As for the sons I exalted them, but they have rebelled against me.

I have opened the sea before them, and they have opened my side with a spear.

I scourged the Egyptian side on their account, and they scourged me and handed me over.

Take heed, therefore, and see if there be any sorrow like to my sorrow.

Confitebor tibi Domine

I will praise thee, O Lord, with my whole heart; in the council of the just: and in the congregation.

Great are the works of the Lord: sought out according to all his wills.

His work is praise and magnificence: and his justice continueth for ever and ever.

He hath made a remembrance of his wonderful works, being a merciful and gracious Lord:

He hath given food to them that fear him. He will be mindful for ever of his covenant:

He will shew forth to his people the power of his works.

That he may give them the inheritance of the Gentiles: the works of his hands are truth and judgment.

All his commandments are faithful: confirmed for ever and ever, made in truth and equity.

He hath sent redemption to his people: he hath commanded his covenant for ever. Holy and terrible is his name:

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. A good understanding to all that do it: his praise continueth for ever and ever.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit.

As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.