This preview has been provided by Chamber Music Wilmington.
Artists
Nicolas DUCHAMP, flute
Barbara McKENZIE, piano
Adela PEÑA, violin
Andrew WILLIS, harpsichord
Nancy KING, Soprano
Jacqui CARRASCO, violin
Sheila BROWNE, viola
Stephanie VIAL, cello
Paul SHARPE, bass
Program
Sonata No. 5 for flute and continuo in E minor, BWV 1034 (ca.1717-1724)
III. Andante
IV. Allegro
Partita No. 3 for violin in E major, BWV 1006 (ca.1720)
III. Gavotte en rondeau
Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 in D, BWV 1050 (ca. 1720)
I. Allegro
II. Affettuoso
III. Allegro
Intermission
Cantata No. 100, Was Gott tut, das ist wohlgetan, BWV 100 (1735)
III. Soprano Aria: “Er wird mich wohl bedenken”
Keyboard Concerto No. 1 in D Minor, BWV 1052 (1738)
I. Allegro
II. Adagio
III. Allegro
The Music
This evening, for the first time, we devote an entire concert to the Father of Us All, one of the half-dozen greatest creators in all of Western art and the first modern musician, Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750).
Comings and goings of historical eras are usually hard to identify, but the end of the Baroque era can be precisely defined: 28 July 1750, the date of Bach’s death. Bach perfected and codified the High Baroque styles, and no other creative artist is so completely identified with the age. Scholars are unanimous in that definition of the end of the era.
And yet, by the time Bach died, the classical era was well underway. Even his own sons regarded his art as hopelessly out of date. Regarded by his contemporaries as the greatest of his age, held in reverential awe by professional musicians ever since, he fell completely out of public favor for almost a century.
Thus, history teaches no more comforting lesson to artists who struggle with obscurity than that of Sebastian Bach. It wasn’t until Felix Mendelssohn publicized and performed the St Matthew Passion eighty years after Bach’s death that the public started to realize what it had been missing.
Bach’s undeserved reputation of being a big-wig fuddy-duddy, together with the well-deserved but needless awe with which we hold him, is an obstacle to enjoying a relationship with Bach the human being. (Try to imagine JS Bach taking out the trash, for example — but no doubt he did.)
In fact, Bach was a first-class mensch. Bach is one of the few creative artists you would want your daughter to marry. He loved life. He loved God, he loved his family, he loved his work, he loved to kick back with a few beers on Saturday nights, he loved to play the fiddle, he loved to sing with his family and friends.
And . . . he really loved to dance. Dance is seldom far below the surface in Bach’s music. This is best exemplified by the countless dance suites he wrote for solo instruments and ensembles, but is exuberantly clear in his concerti as well.
This evening’s concert features a variety of Bach’s styles, but the Brandenburg Concerto No. 5, written when Bach was about 35, best calls our attention to his humanity.
Can you imagine that Bach was ever 35 years old?
As you listen to the Brandenburg this evening, imagine Bach not as sitting on a pedestal but as a young professional man, mourning the recent death of his wife, wondering how to take care of his kids, and concluding he should send unsolicited examples of his work to a prospective employer. (The music notes on the Brandenburg will explain this further.)
It almost makes Sebastian Bach seem human, yes? And you thought he was some kind of a god!
Sonata for Flute and Continuo in E Minor, BWV 1034 (ca.1717-1724)
This jewel of a sonata was probably composed when Bach was Kapellmeister for Prince Leopold of Cöthen (1717-1723), although there is some evidence that it was written slightly later, after he became Cantor of St Thomas in Leipzig. The usually well-organized Bach wasn’t all that good about dating his work.
It was written for an early version of the transverse (horizontally-held, cross-blown) flute, which at that time was coming to supplant the traditional recorder. This developmental instrument, usually made of wood, was awkward to play because like a recorder, its pitch was determined by stopping holes, rather than pressing key-operated valves. This required the player to use the traditional cross-fingering of a recorder but with outstretched arms. (Readers who are competent on the recorder will realize how difficult this must have been.)
As usual, Bach wrote out the continuo part for any instrument or ensemble. All but purists would agree that a modern piano does the job perfectly. But in this sonata the keyboard instrument plays more than a continuo role: the music is very much a dialogue between the flute and the left hand of the piano, with the right hand providing harmony and decoration.
The sonata’s four movements are slow (minor) — fast (minor) — slow (major) — fast (minor). Tonight’s performance features the final two movements, a musically very satisfying combination.
Recommended recording: Maxence Larrieu (Philips)
If you like this, you’ll also like: The other Bach flute sonatas, BWV 1030 through 1035, or for that matter, any of the other Bach sonatas for solo instruments and continuo, BWV 1014 through 1040.
Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 in D minor, BWV 1050 (ca. 1720)
Who wrote the best Italian Baroque concerti? Albinoni? Locatelli? Vivaldi? My money is on a German Protestant: J. Sebastian Bach.
To call Bach the best isn’t entirely fair, because Bach owed so much to Vivaldi. In fact, young Bach was smitten by Vivaldi’s music: he copied out several of Vivaldi’s scores — the best way for a creative artist to learn, and the highest possible honor for the copy-ee — and he re-scored about a dozen of Vivaldi’s concerti for other instruments.
The six Brandenburg concerti are so called because they were presented in 1721 to Christian Ludwig, the Margrave of Brandenburg, with a disgustingly obsequious letter of introduction, in an unsuccessful attempt to get a job. They were not written for the occasion — Bach simply selected six of the best and most varied examples of his work.
Bach’s effort was triply futile — not only did he not get the gig, but the concerti were never played in the Margrave’s court, and the Margrave wasn’t even kind enough to write Bach a thank-you note.
Who knows why the Margrave dissed Bach so rudely? Maybe he just didn’t go for new music. (Alas, that happens in every age.) Whatever the reason, the Margrave’s loss was our gain — the Brandenburgs are among the most enduring and endearing of Bach’s creations, and are undoubtedly among the finest orchestral works of the high Baroque.
Bach chose carefully: each of the Brandenburgs is quite different from the others. What sets number five apart is its modern (for Bach) style. More than the other Brandenburgs, it looks forward to the galante style of his son Johann Christian Bach, who in his turn greatly influenced Mozart. The use of the solo flute, in particular, looks forward to Quantz and Stamitz.
It is also, in a sense, the first keyboard concerto, in that the harpsichord not only does its usual job as a continuo instrument, but also takes a solo role, notably in the virtuosic first-movement solo cadenza. (Scholars believe that Bach wrote this concerto to show off a magnificent new two-manual pedal harpsichord, and that he may have played in the premiere performance.)
The concerto is in the common fast-slow-fast structure of the Italian concerto, with the affecting slow movement being an elegant trio of the three solo instruments.
Recommended recordings: Karl Richter (Deutsche Grammophon), a big-band version with modern instruments; Christopher Hogwood (L’Oiseau-Lyre), a chamber version with original instruments.
If you liked this piece, you’ll also like: All the other Brandenburg Concerti, the Keyboard Concerti for single and multiple instruments, the three Violin Concerti.
Cantata No. 100: Was Gott tut, das ist wohlgetan, BWV 100 (1735)
III. Soprano Aria: “Er wird mich wohl bedenken”
Was Gott tut, das ist wohlgetan,
Er wird mich wohl bedenken;
Er, als mein Arzt und Wundermann,
Wird mir nicht Gift einschenken
Vor Arzenei;
Gott ist getreu,
Drum will ich auf ihn bauen
Und seiner Gnade trauen.
English Translation:
God does is well done,
He will think well upon me;
He, as my doctor and miracle-worker,
will not offer me poison
in place of medicine;
God is faithful,
therefore I will rely on him
and trust in His grace.
Keyboard Concerto No. 1 in D Minor, BWV 1052 (1738)
During his lifetime Bach was known not so much as a composer, but as the foremost organist of his day. And like all organists, he was a techie. Think about it: in the early 18th Century, the organ was not only the king of instruments, it was the king of technology.
Small wonder that Bach wrote so much solo and ensemble music for keyboard instruments. Of course, the harpsichord was the instrument of choice for home music-making in Bach’s day. But in the early part of the 18th century, Bartolomeo Cristofori and other instrument makers were changing keyboard playing forever, by introducing a hammered keyboard instrument which could be played loudly (forte) and softly (piano). Naturally, it was called a fortepiano.
By the time Bach wrote his six canonical solo keyboard concerti BWV 1052-1057, the fortepiano had reached a respectable degree of maturity. There is no evidence that Bach owned one, but plenty of evidence that he played them. Andrew Willis, this evening’s performer in the Brandenburg Concerto No. 5, has persuasively defended the thesis that Bach composed his keyboard concerti not for the harpsichord, as commonly supposed, but for the fortepiano.
In the past, purists have disdained playing Bach’s music on a modern piano. But Bach’s music is of such pure content that it sounds good when played on any instrument, ranging from the banjo to the Romantic-era pipe organ and everything in between. And since Bach both embraced new technology and loved powerful instruments, it is practically certain that he would be thrilled to hear his music played on a modern pianoforte.
Willis’ research, all but proving that Bach wrote these concerti for the modern piano’s immediate predecessor, suggests that the purists’ disdain is misplaced, and that those of us who have always preferred hearing these pieces on a piano rather than a harpsichord actually got it right. But whether performed on a harpsichord, a fortepiano, a pianoforte, or even an electronic keyboard, no other keyboard concerti of any time come close to the brilliance of Bach’s.
The date 1738 is assigned to No. 1 because there is a working draft in Bach’s own hand bearing that date. But Bach, like many composers, reused and reworked the same material many times. BWV 1052 was reworked from an organ concerto of 1728, movements of which appeared in two of Bach’s cantatas. The organ concerto is thought to have been based on an early violin concerto which, alas, has been lost.
As in the Brandenburg No. 5, heard earlier this evening, Bach un-self-consciously demonstrates his debt to Vivaldi in structure, harmony, and virtuosity in this concerto. But, just as with the Brandenburg, this piece is pure, pure JS Bach.
Recommended Recordings: Robert Levin, harpsichord (Hänssler Classic); Murray Perahia, modern piano (Sony).
If you liked this piece, you’ll also like: All the Keyboard Concerti for single and multiple instruments, the three Violin Concerti, the Brandenburg Concerti.
Pat Marriott
WHQR-91.3fm Public Radio
Wilmington NC
Artist Profiles
Violist Sheila BROWNE has performed in many of the world’s major halls as soloist, chamber musician, and as an orchestral principal. Ms Brown has soloed with the Juilliard Orchestra, Kiev Philharmonic, New World Symphony, in Carnegie Hall with the New York Women’s Ensemble, South African International Viola Congress Festival Orchestra, and the Viva Vivaldi!, Reina Sofia and German-French chamber orchestras, among others. She is a member of the newly formed, dynamic flute-viola-harp Fire Pink Trio. She has recorded concerto, solo and chamber works for numerous labels. Ms Browne is a graduate of the Juilliard School, MusikHochschule Freiburg and Rice University. She has been a member of the Arianna, Gotham and Pellegrini string quartets, and has an extensive festival and master class resume. She is an Artist-Professor at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, has served on the faculty of New York University, and is the first viola professor ever to teach in Iraqi Kurdistan at the National Youth Orchestra of Iraq. Ms Browne has served on the Executive Board of the American Viola Society.
Violinist Jacqui CARRASCO is a member of the Carolina Piano Trio and the Carolina Symphony Chamber Players. She was the violinist of the acclaimed contemporary music ensemble Cygnus and has recorded contemporary chamber music with a number of labels. As a noted performer of Argentine tango music, Ms Carrasco has appeared with cellist Yo-Yo Ma in concert and on television, as soloist with the Philadelphia Orchestra, and with the New York Buenos Aires Connection at Lincoln Center’s Midsummer Night Swing. She has also been active as a jazz violinist, and her versatile skills have been featured in commercial, film and theater music, as well as on her CD Since We Met with the Jazz Strings Project. Ms Carrasco received her BA, magna cum laude, from UCLA, and her MM and DMA from SUNY at Stony Brook. Having previously taught at Princeton University, she is now an Associate Professor of Music and Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation Fellow at Wake Forest University.
Flutist Nicolas DUCHAMP is principal flutist for the French national Opéra Comique since 2004, a founding member of the Gaubert Vivant ensemble, and a founder of Cap Musique, a company that presents classical music programs for children in public venues and schools in Europe and North America. Mr Duchamp has performed as a soloist with leading chamber music ensembles and orchestras in the US and France. He has private teaching practices in Paris, New York, and Wilmington. He attended the Conservatoire National Superieur, where he studied with the world-acclaimed Maxence Larrieu. In 2003 his musical excellence was formally recognized by the French Senate.
Soprano Nancy KING is an active performer, teacher, guest lecturer, and Coordinator for Vocal Performance at the University of North Carolina Wilmington. She has performed widely as soloist and ensemble member with the Toronto Classical Singers, the Wilmington Symphony Orchestra, the Bach Festival Chorus of Eugene OR, the Minnesota Opera Theatre and the University of Minnesota Orchestra. She also presents The Singer’s Workshop: Freeing the Mind, Body and Voice for Optimal Performing, along with pianist Patricia Ainspac, and frequently tours with her Duo Sureño partner, guitarist Robert Nathanson. She is active as a consultant and Teaching Artist, creating and leading professional development workshops for the North Carolina Arts Council cARTwheels tours, including Piedmont Opera, the Keowee Chamber Ensemble and the John Brown Jazz Orchestra, and UNCW’s ARTworks. Ms King holds a Bachelor of Music degree from the University of Western Ontario, a Master’s Degree in Voice Performance from Boston University, an Opera Diploma from the Longy School of Music, and completed her doctoral residency (ABD) in Vocal Performance at the University of Minnesota.
Pianist Barbara McKENZIE is founder and Artistic Director of the American Music Festival, Chamber Music Wilmington, and Music Among Friends at Tryon Palace, and is Artist in Residence for those organizations. A lifetime chamber musician, with a career spanning several continents, she is a founding member of the Carolina Piano Trio, the Magdalene Ensemble and the Gaubert Vivant ensemble. Ms McKenzie has a Bachelor of Music Degree from the Peabody Conservatory of Music and Master of Music Degree from the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD, where she studied under Leon Fleisher and Walter Hautzig. She was selected as a North Carolina Woman of Achievement for her outstanding contribution to the arts in North Carolina.
Violinist Adela PEÑA is a founding member of the Eroica Trio and can be heard on numerous recordings with the Trio on the EMI label, including two releases that received Grammy nominations. She currently tours the US, Europe and Asia with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, for which she has served as concertmaster. Ms Peña has appeared as soloist in the Beethoven Triple Concerto with notable orchestras worldwide, including the Chicago, San Francisco, Seattle, Cincinnati and Pittsburgh symphonies, as well as the Hong Kong and Budapest Philharmonic and Prague Chamber Orchestra. As a soloist and recitalist she has played with the English Chamber Orchestra, performed at Carnegie Hall and the Sorbonne, and toured England, Italy and South America. Ms Peña has participated in many summer festivals, including Ravinia, Caramoor, Bridgehampton, Monadnock and Central Vermont.
Bassist Paul SHARPE maintains an international profile and career in a variety of roles as a soloist, chamber, and orchestral double bassist. Recent performances and engagements include recitals and master classes at the University of Iowa, Cleveland Institute of Music, World Bass Convention (Wroclaw, Poland), University of North Texas, University of Michigan, Interlochen Arts Academy, and Brazil’s Sixth International Double Bass Encounter in Pirenopolis, Brazil. Recent ensemble performances include the Lubbock Symphony Orchestra and the Dallas Chamber Orchestra, the Fairbanks Arts Festival Orchestra, and the Dallas Chamber Music International concert series, the Fort Worth Symphony and the San Antonio Symphony. He received a BM degree in Performance from Northwestern University, and an MA degree in Music from the University of Iowa studying with Diana Gannett. He is on the faculty of UNC School of the Arts and has held faculty positions at the Texas Tech University, the University of North Texas, Augustana, and the Preucil School of Music. He serves the professional journal Double Bassist as a regular reviewer of new publications and editions of music.
Cellist Stephanie VIAL is an adjunct faculty member at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is a sought-after lecturer, soloist, and continuo player. Co-director and principal cellist of the Vivaldi Project, she has also performed with such groups as the Atlanta Baroque Orchestra, Apollo Ensemble, Les Violons du Roy, and the modern period chamber ensemble, Arcovoce. As a Baroque cellist, she has recorded for numerous labels. Fanfare Magazine, in a review of the Naxos recording of Quantz flute sonatas, gives “a particular bow to Stephanie Vial, who manages to make each cello intervention a delight to the ear.” Ms Vial graduated from Northwestern University, followed by a Master’s Degree at Indiana University. Her DMA dissertation was awarded Cornell’s Donald J. Grout Memorial Prize, and led to her publishing the book The Art of Musical Phrasing in the Eighteenth Century: Punctuating the Classical “Period.”
Harpsichordist Andrew WILLIS is a leading exponent of early keyboard instrument style and technique, and has performed in the US and abroad on keyboard instruments of every period. He is a past president of the Southeastern Historical Keyboard Society. In addition to his commitment to early music, he has also recorded Schubert lieder and Rossini songs with soprano Julianne Baird and early Romantic song cycles with soprano Georgine Resick. At UNCG, where he joined the keyboard faculty in 1994, Willis directs the biennial Focus on Piano Literature, for which he commissioned, premiered, and recorded Martin Amlin’s Sonata No.7. Mr Willis is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music, Temple University, and Cornell University, where his mentors included Mieczyslaw Horszowski, Lambert Orkis, and Malcolm Bilson.
Did You Know?
The Bach family was of importance in the history of music for two centuries, comprising over 50 known musicians including several notable composers, of whom Johann Sebastian is of course the best known. So numerous were Bach musicians in the region of JS Bach’s birth that musicians there were known generically as “Bachs” even after the real Bachs had all moved away.
JS Bach was a religious and genuinely modest man, who (like Handel and Haydn) inscribed most of his works “Soli Deo Gloria” (Glory to God alone). He once said, “I was obliged to work hard. Whoever is equally industrious will succeed just as well.”
Bach was what we would today call a “coffeeholic.” (Just another part of that general love of life discussed in the music notes.) He celebrated his love for coffee by writing a delightfully humorous secular cantata on the subject. The premiere of the Coffee Cantata (BWV 212) took place, naturally enough, in a coffeehouse.
In his youth, Bach was something of a wild man.
When he was 20, Bach took a leave of absence from his first job, at St. Boniface’s in Arnstadt, to meet the great Dietrich Buxtehude, who was the church organist and Kapellmeister in Lübeck. (He walked and hitch-hiked the distance, about 250 miles each way.) Bach’s official leave extended through November, but in Lübeck he learned about Buxtehude’s Advent vespers performances. That was too good to miss, so Bach simply stayed – in fact, through the following February. His employer was not amused. But the visit was worth it – Buxtehude became one of the greatest early influences on the mature Bach’s organ playing and oratorio composition.
At about the same time, Bach insulted a bassoonist by likening his playing to the braying of a goat. The bassoonist challenged him to a duel, and Bach accepted. Evidently both survived, but Bach was officially reprimanded by his employer for the undignified nonsense.
Bach was finally fired when he was caught “making music” in the organ loft with his future wife, Maria Barbara.
Bach may have stayed overlong in Lübeck because he wanted the 68-year-old Buxtehude’s job. Buxtehude was ready to retire, and was seeking a suitably talented successor. Unfortunately, he insisted that his successor marry his unattractive older daughter. (An odd benefits package, to say the least.) The deal had already been offered, unsuccessfully, to George Friderich Handel and Johann Mattheson. Bach turned it down too.
Speaking of Handel: despite being born in the same year and only 80 miles apart, Bach and Handel never met. Both went blind in old age, and both died in part from the incompetence of the same quack eye doctor.
