We
have long been captivated by the story of Orpheus,
and in fact, Ensemble Chanterelle grew out of
collaborating together almost thirty years ago
in performances of Monteverdi's and Peri's operas
on the myth of Orpheus and Euridice. Our program
opens with a virtuosic strophic variation aria
by Carlo Milanuzzi which celebrates Orpheus.
The metaphor of the virtuosic singer who moves
the listener as Orpheus moved his listeners is
embodied in every aspect of the piece. Milanuzzi
was a member of Monteverdi's circle and spent
much of his career in Venice. “Tien del
mio cor” is from his 9th book of songs,
published in 1643. Both of the excerpts from
Monteverdi's Orfeo are sung by Orfeo
(a tenor role, originally sung by the singer-composer
Franceso Rasi) in Act II, and they juxtapose
the sharp contrast between Orfeo's joy in his
love for Euridice and his grief as he laments
her death. “Vi ricorda” is a lively
strophic aria with an instrumental ritornello
with a wonderful alternation between triple and
duple meter. “Tu sei morta” is a
stunning example of Monteverdi's skill with the
new expressive recitative style.
Giovanni
Girolamo Kapsberger (also known as Johann Hieronymus
Kapsberger)
spent most of his career in
Rome in the service of Cardinal Francesco Barberini.
Kapsberger enjoyed a rich musical and artistic
environment with many eminent colleagues, including
Girolamo
Frescobaldi, Luigi Rossi and Stefano Landi. A noted
performer on the lute, guitar and theorbo, the
New Grove Dictionary describes him as “seminal
in the development of the theorbo as a solo instrument.” His
music was widely praised by his contemporaries. Toccata
Arpeggiata is possibly one of the few written
out examples of what may otherwise have been an
improvised
practice. The style appears in short segments in
the Kapsberger Chiacone also on our program. In
some ways, the Toccata foreshadows the first prelude
in
the Well-Tempered Clavier, especially in its steady
harmonic rhythm. While on the surface it appears
to be just arpeggiated chords, the fingering for
the theorbo is actually quite complex. The lovely
eponymous piece on our program is a set of variations
in G major over a ground. It is possible that the
chord progression was one that Kapsberger was hoping
other composers would pick up, such as the "Ruggiero," and
that he named it for himself so that it would remain
identified with its creator. The chacona was considered
a rather lewd, immoral dance with roots in the
New World and Spain. When it spread throughout
Europe,
it was nearly banned by the church. Kapsberger's
Chiachone is written out in tablature rather than
in a chord-strumming formula and is a more refined
version of the earlier dance, while echoing its
origins.
One
of our dreams as an ensemble is finally being
realized today-it has been a long
journey, but we
are thrilled to finally be able to encourage
and present new music for old instruments. When
we
first spoke with James Blachly about
the possibility of
his writing a piece for soprano Sally Sanford
and Ensemble Chanterelle, we envisioned performing
it in just the sort of program we are
presenting
this
afternoon. We wanted a piece in German (because
it is Sally Sanford's favorite language
to sing in),
and we wanted an extended piece that could balance
a dramatic lament such as Lanier's Hero and
Leander or Monteverdi's Lamento
d'Arianna. He could not
have selected a more wonderful text than
the penultimate
poem of Ranier Maria Rilke's Orpheus Sonnets.
Composed during a flurry of intense creativity
in February
1922 (and what would be his last period of creativity),
the Orpheus Sonnets is a collection of 55 poems
dedicated to the memory of Vera Knoop,
a dancer and childhood
playmate of his daughter. Vera had tragically
died at the age of 19 several years before the
sonnets
were written. Rilke's poetry is highly metaphorical
and lyrical. As Orpheus travels between the earthly
realm and the underworld, so Rilke's poems seek
the connecting middle between the spiritual
and the physical
and call us to find our own transcendence. While
he was writing the Orpheus Sonnets, Rilke had
a drawing of Orpheus by Cima da Coneligano
(around 1459-1518)
over his desk.
Rilke's
poetry became quite popular during the 20th century,
so much so that it is
surprising
that composers
have tended to shy away from setting his texts.
Schoenberg, Berg, and Webern each set one or
two. Perhaps the
most well-known Rilke setting is Paul Hindemith's
cycle Das Marienleben. Very few settings
exist of poems from the Orpheus sonnets. Five
sonnets
were
set in 1956 by the Finnish composer Einojuhani
Rautavaara. More recent Orpheus settings by
Peter Lieberson and
Richard Danielpour use English translations
and not Rilke's original text. James Blachly
is the
first
composer to set the sonnet “O komm und
geh” in
either language.
We
turn these notes now over to James
Blachly for
his comments:
At its best, the commissioning process
is like an upwards-arching spiral. The composer
is entrusted with a sacred task: to write
specifically
for a performer or set of performers, and
their request for music to come through one
is like
opening one end of a cylinder: it demands
that the other end be opened as well, and
for music
to flow through. One is challenged to write
for an ensemble that can achieve anything
imaginable; and the ensemble, in turn, is
charged to bring
to life something new, something that grows
them. Like a reinforcing cycle, or, if you
like, a dance.
Sally
Sanford was for several years my voice
teacher, and that in itself
is already an
ineffably strong bond. In our work together,
it was she
who 'rescued' my voice-she transformed what
had become a dreaded experience into a pleasure.
To 'teach someone voice' is really to open
them, and Sally did this for me. In the process,
she asked some good questions. One in particular
was to have a profound effect on my work.
We were singing a Dowland song which speaks
of "my
music...." and she turned to me and
said, "what
would your music be like?"
Later in our
time together, I played her a CD of my
compositions, and she immediately
began hatching a plan to commission me
to write for her and Ensemble Chantarelle.
With
a performing
history in Early Music and being a gambist
myself, it seemed a good fit. Few composers
write for period instruments, but it is
only natural that as these instruments become
more commonplace (and necessary), composers
would
turn to them for their unique and irreplaceable
timbral qualities and expressive capabilities.
Historically-informed vocal techniques,
similarly,
have opened (or re-opened) beautiful aspects
of that most human of instruments.
I'd like
to meditate for a moment on the idea of
a young dancer, a beautiful young
dancer
who died too young, who remains in one's
mind as a fleeting glance of rapturous
beauty-the
human body revealed as poetry, but frozen
in time. One imagines a statue, perhaps:
inherently
expressing motion, but unable to move.
How do we imagine her dancing? Rilke's
extended
metaphor for Orpheus that involves this
young girl speaks to the very nature
of creation.
We create, in part, to speak to depths
of feeling that can find no other channel.
We sing, in
part, to bring life back. And we are
reminded that in love, we cannot turn back,
we cannot
doubt so much as to require proof; we
have to trust that the lover is walking silently
with us.
What a joy! |
Nicholas
Lanier is credited with introducing the “stylo
recitativo” to England, having been exposed
to the Italian style on visits to Italy to purchase
art works for Charles I. Inspired by laments such
as Monteverdi's Lamento d'Arianna, Lanier
composed his lament of Hero, “Nor com'st thou yet,” shortly
after his return from Italy around 1628. Lanier
manages to adapt the new Italian recitative to
the English language, borrowing Italian word rhythms
without sacrificng the dramatic and emotional content
of the English text.
Lanier's
scena is devoted entirely to Hero. The work is
divided into four large section.
The scene begins
with Hero waiting expectantly for her beloved Leander.
She wonders why he is late and lustily urges him
to hurry to her. Leander has promised to swim to
her if the sea is calm, provided she shine a torch
to guide his way. In the second section, Hero gives
vent to jealous rage, thinking that Leader has
taken another lover. In the more lyrical third
section,
Hero realizes that her fury has gotten away with
her and, showing her real love, tries to reassure
herself that he is truly hers. She prays to the
winds to speed him to her. The final section
begins with
the sudden storm that will take Leander's life.
Hero cries out to Leander to back only to find
that her
light has blown out. As the storm abates and the
first light of dawn arrives, Hero thinks she sees
Leander. To her horror, she realizes that it is
his corpse floating toward the shore. Hero, choosing
to die with her beloved, throws herself into the
sea.
Martha
Bishop writes about her pieces for solo viola
da gamba:
The
Preludio (1998) is a rather brooding
piece centering on d minor which allows
for
use of the 7-string viol's low A string.
Double and triple note chords make use of
the viol's “guitar-like” tuning,
as do arpeggiated passages. Harmonics occasionally
give atmosphere. The Passacaglia has a 9
bar chromatic theme which receives many variations
idiomatic to a solo bass viola da gamba,
and in a style both baroque and modern.
|
Henry
Purcell wrote over 250 secular songs. They exhibit
a remarkable variety in structure, mood, melody,
and bass line. The three songs we have selected
for our program today all center on the theme of
music and music's power to move the listener. The
text of the florid “Tis Nature's Voice,” from
the posthumous collection Orpheus Brittanicus,
outlines the English version of the doctrine of
affections while also presenting the conceit of
the virtuoso singer as the modern Orpheus. His
famous “Music for a While” from Oedipus,
originally for counter-tenor, shows Purcell's fluid
use of a ground bass. The text of the Purcell's
third and highly virtuosic setting of “If
Music be the Food of Love” is based on Duke
Orsino's opening lines from Shakespeare's Twelfth
Night. Purcell changes the words and turns the
piece into a stunning celebration of the power
of music to touch the heart.
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