ABS Off to the Hunt 2018 Program
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th THE 30 SEASON 2018–2019 Jeffrey Thomas Artistic Director Johann Sebastian Bach Two Brandenburgs & The Hunting Cantata October 19–22, 2018 Belvedere • Berkeley • San Francisco • Davis Program AMERICAN BACH SOLOISTS & AMERICAN BACH CHOIR Hélène Brunet soprano (Pales) • Julie Bosworth soprano (Diana) Derek Chester tenor (Endymion) • Mischa Bouvier baritone (Pan) Jefrey Thomas, conductor Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750) Two Brandenburg Concertos & The Hunting Cantata The 2018–2019 Season is sponsored by an anonymous donor. The Jefrey Thomas Conducting Chair is underwritten by an anonymous donor. This program is sponsored in part by Kwei & Michele Ü. • Brandenburg Concerto No. 1 in F Major, BWV 1046 [Allegro] Adagio Allegro Menuet–Trio–Polonaise–Trio Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 in G Major, BWV 1048 [Allegro] un poc’ Allegro (transcribed from Organ Trio Sonata No. 4 in E Minor, BWV 528) Allegro - Intermission - Was mir behagt, ist nur die muntre Jagd, BWV 208 (“Hunting Cantata”) Birthday Cantata for Prince Christian von Sachsen-Weißenfels (1713) Text by Salomo Franck (1659–1725) Sinfonia: Allegro from Oboe Concerto in F Major, BWV 1053 Recitative (Diana) - Was mir behagt, ist nur die muntre Jagd! Aria (Diana) - Jagen ist die Lust der Götter Recitative (Endymion) - Wie, schönste Göttin? Wie? Aria (Endymion) - Willst du dich nicht mehr ergetzen Recitative (Diana, Endymion) - Ich liebe dich zwar noch! Recitative (Pan) - Ich, der ich sonst ein Gott in diesen Feldern bin Aria (Pan) - Ein Fürst ist seines Landes Pan! & Hunting Cantata Brandenburgs Recitative (Pales) - Soll dann der Pales Opfer hier das letzte sein? Aria (Pales) - Schafe können sicher weiden Recitative (Diana) - So stimmt mit ein Chorus - Lebe, Sonne dieser Erden Duet (Diana, Endymion) - Entzücket uns beide Aria (Pales) - Weil die wollen-reichen Heerden / Trio Sonata in F Major, BWV 1040 Aria (Pan) - Ihr Felder und Auen, laßt grünend euch schauen Chorus - Ihr lieblichste Blicke, ihr freudige Stunden 23 The Musicians & Their Instruments Violin Oboe Elizabeth Blumenstock (leader) * Debra Nagy * Andrea Guarneri, Cremona, 1660.* Randall Cook, Basel, 2004; after Jonathan Bradbury, London, circa 1720. Tatiana Chulochnikova ** *** Joseph Hollmayr, Freiburg, Germany, circa 1760. Stephen Bard Joel Robinson, New York, New York, 2003; “Saxon Model,” patterned Tekla Cunningham (principal 2nd) on various builders from Dresden & Leipzig, circa 1720. Sanctus Seraphin, Venice, 1746. David Dickey ** Katherine Kyme Randall Cook, Basel, 2009; after Jonathan Johann Gottlob Pfretzchner, Markneukirchen, 1791. Bradbury, London, circa 1720. Noah Strick ** Celia Bridges, Cologne, 1988; after Nicolò Oboe da Caccia Amati, Cremona, circa 1640. David Dickey ** Jude Ziliak ** *** Joel Robinson & Stephen Hammer, New York, New York, 2005; Anonymous Italian, circa 1730. after Johann Heinrich Eichentopf, Leipzig, circa 1730. Violino piccolo Recorder Elizabeth Blumenstock * Debra Nagy * Friedrich von Huene Workshop, Boston, Massachusetts, Violino piccolo: Anonymous, German, 18th Century. 2002; after Thomas Stanesby, Jr., London, circa 1725. Stephen Bard Viola Levin & Robinson, New York, New York, 1996; after Saxon Models. Ramón Negrón Pérez ** Jay Haide, El Cerrito, California, 2016; after Giovanni Bassoon Paolo Maggini, Brescia, circa 1580. Nate Helgeson ** Cynthia Black ** Guntram Wolf, Kronach, Germany, 2011; after Jason Viseltear, New York, New York, 2010; after “HKICW” (maker’s mark), Germany, circa 1700. Brecian School models (Gasparo da Salò & Giovanni Paolo Maggini, early 17th century. Horn Tekla Cunningham Paul Avril Gary Vessel, Salt Lake City, Nevada, 1996; Richard Seraphinof, Bloomington, Indiana, 1997; after Nicolò Gagliano, Naples, 1756. after J. W. Haas, Nuremberg, early 18th century. Todd Williams Violoncello Richard Seraphinof, Bloomington, Indiana, 2002; after Johann Leichnambschneider, Vienna, circa 1720. William Skeen * Anonymous, Northern Italian, circa 1680. Harpsichord & Organ Gretchen Claassen ** *** Anonymous, German, 18th century. Corey Jamason * Willard Martin, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, 1990; after François Alexa Haynes-Pilon ** Blanchet, Paris, circa 1730. John Morrison, London, circa 1800. John Brombaugh & Associates, Eugene, Oregon, 1980 Violone grosso & Contrabass * Academy Faculty Steven Lehning * ** Academy Alumnus Hammond Ashley Luthiers, Issaquah, Washington, *** Jefrey Thomas Award Recipient 1977; after 17th-century models. Daniel Turkos ** The 1660 Andrea Guarneri violin played by Ms. Blumenstock is made available to her Anonymous, Bohemian, mid-19th century. through the generosity of the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra Period Instrument Trust. 24 Program Notes n 24 March 1721, a few days after his thirty-sixth birthday, J. S. Bach signed the dedicatory preface to a meticulously prepared and beautifully penned manuscript of Concerts Oavec plusieurs instruments (“Concertos with several instruments”), an ofering to the Margrave Christian Ludwig of Brandenburg, who lived in Berlin. Bach did not compose these concertos specifcally for this collection; indeed, the set can be seen as his selection of the best concerto movements he had written over the previous decade, as he encountered, emulated, and fnally assimilated the concerto style of Vivaldi and other contemporary Italian masters. Early defnitions of the concerto as a musical genre alternatively (and ambiguously) translate the term as “disputation” and “agreement”—scarcely a sign of terminological clarity! Nevertheless, this contradiction does give a useful sense of the formal rhetoric of the concerto: the very diferentiation of instrumental forces into tutti and solo groupings generates an immediate sense of opposition, or disputation, but the composer’s task is to render this opposition productive and agreeable. Bach and the composers of his day used the term “concerto” quite promiscuously: it is, for example, one of Bach’s customary generic titles for the works we now call “cantatas”—an acknowledgment of the contrasts between instrumental and vocal, or solo and choral forces, all functioning in “concert.” Bach’s frst essays in emulating the Italian concerto took the form of keyboard transcriptions, or arrangements, of published concertos by Vivaldi and others. The transfer of the idiom from the orchestral originals to keyboard, whether organ or harpsichord, radically narrowed the range of contrast possible between the opposing sonorities, but it still aforded ample experience in Portrait of Margrave Christian Ludwig of Brandenburg-Schwedt manipulating the formal and technical devices of the Italians. (1677–1734) by Antoine Pesne (1683–1757), 1730. Most important among these was the use of ritornello form as a structural principle. (In this type of form, a memorable block of music returns in various guises at strategic points in the sonorous agreement of all the instruments in the Sixth, to the highly piece as an audible musical marker, simultaneously establishing developed contrasts of the Fourth, with its distinctive recorders, shape and coherence through repetition, and generating or the Fifth, with its three independent soloists, we can hear Bach considerable musical tension by being recalled in various keys.) experimenting with diferent realizations of the concerto idea. This principle later informs not only Bach’s grasp of the concerto proper, but virtually every genre in which he composed. Eager perhaps to ofer a collection which would efectively compliment the Margrave’s excellent orchestra, Bach’s aims Bach’s concerto transcriptions for keyboard arose during his in revision and compilation seem to have been to present six employment as organist, and later Kapellmeister, at the ducal court entirely disparate solutions to the concerto genre, which was of Weimar. Upon taking up duties as the Kapellmeister to the Prince by no means fxed and which could imply many instrumental of Anhalt-Köthen in 1717, Bach was expected to compose regularly combinations. Never, in fact, was he to better his achievement for the court orchestra, and he transferred the concerto style back to here, and each concerto seems exhaustively to exploit a diferent its native, orchestral habitat, now in music of his own composition. aspect of the genre: no two share the same instrumentation. Thus by the time he copied out the manuscript for the Margrave, he would have had several years’ supply of orchestral works from — John Butt, Alan Lewis, & Kristi Brown-Montesano which to draw. This may account, at least in part, for the diversity of style and instrumentation in the collection: from the smooth, continued… 25 Program Notes Brandenburg Concerto No 1 in F Major, BWV 1046 contains little of narrative interest—only Endymion’s fear of Diana’s desertion provides a moment of drama—it is easy to imagine how n early version of the frst Brandenburg Concerto (without the duke would have been fattered by the sumptuous tributes from the violino piccolo) contains only the frst two movements the ancient characters and by the sheer variety and extravagance and the minuet. In the later version, the added third of Bach’s music, perhaps his most ambitious project to date. The Amovement helps transform the music from a sinfonia into a work would doubtlessly have begun with some orchestral sinfonia concerto form. This Allegro later appears as a choral movement in that has since become separated from the cantata score; here it is Cantata 207, which could imply that it might have originated as a tempting to speculate that the early version of the frst