Hellendaal “Cambridge” Sonatas

Hellendaal “Cambridge” Sonatas 1 2 Johannes Pramsohler violin Pietro Giacomo Rogeri, Brescia 1713 Gulrim Choï cello J. Simpson, London (mid 18th century) Philippe Grisvard harpsichord Matthias Griewisch, after Pascal Taskin (1769) 3 “Cambridge” Sonatas Pieter Hellendaal (1721–1799) World premiere recording Sonata No. 2 in A Major 11:08 1 Adagio 02:18 2 Allegro 02:17 3 Affettuoso 04:00 4 Allegro – Andante – Allegro 02:31 Sonata No. 3 in D Minor 10:23 5 Largo 01:11 6 Allegro 05:20 7 Pastorale 03:50 Sonata No. 4 in D Major 13:14 8 Adagio 04:09 9 Allegro 06:31 10 Andante 02:32 4 Sonata No. 1 in A Major 08:27 11 Largo 02:32 12 Allegro 03:02 13 Allegretto 03:00 Sonata No. 5 in C Major 13:58 14 Adagio 04:12 15 Allegro 04:49 16 Allegro 04:55 Sonata No. 6 in D Major 11:08 17 Largo 03:01 18 Allegro 03:16 19 Andante affettuoso 03:18 20 Tempo di Gavotta moderato 01:31 Total time: 68:40 5 Hellendaal’s “Cambridge” Sonatas England was always a country that welcomed artists from the continent with open arms, well aware that their creative work not only enriched the artistic and cultural scenes on the island, but – with fresh injections of positive creative energy and new perspectives – could also influence and guide them. When the German virtuoso Thomas Baltzar arrived in London in 1655, he caused such a sensation with his polyphonic violin playing and the use of the entire length of the fingerboard that he soon advanced to the position of concertmaster of the royal “Four and twenty fiddlers.” Some twenty years later, the Italian violinist Nicola Matteis made an extraordinary impression on the English audience that marveled at his incredibly sweet sound and his apparently superhuman skills on the instrument. The violin was by no means an unknown instrument in seventeenth-century England. Yet, due to its loud and gruff sound, it was more at home in pubs and at dance events. England was the land of staid, introverted music-making and intimate chamber music on instruments of the viola da gamba family in small, private circles, into which the immigrant musicians brought considerable agitation. Suddenly, the manner of holding the violin and the bow was intensively discussed, and various violin methods purported to initiate even gentlemen amateurs into the mysteries of the art of violin playing. The blossoming of the violin reflected that which one could observe also in other areas of the art: the triumph of the Italians. The greatest innovation was the replacement of the French manner of holding the bow by the INTRODUCTION – English 6 Italian: the frog was no longer held with the thumb on the hair of the bow, but rather the fingers were all placed on the bow stick, which allowed a more elegant change of bow direction (the carte de visite of every violinist) and infinitely more possibilities in terms of articulation and modification of sonority. And thus that what came from the continent overshadowed anything previously seen. Trained professional musicians, with their affectations and their flamboyance, took over the playing field. The violinistic wave of immigration continued uninterrupted also in the eighteenth century. London was a magnet for artists and a cosmopolitan city in which it was in any case worth the effort to try one’s luck. A reasonably reliable springboard for a career was a good contact to the greatest English musician, George Frideric Handel, who was likewise someone with a migration background. Thus, for example, Francesco Geminiani played violin sonatas, accompanied by Handel, at the royal court, and Francesco Maria Veracini appeared during the intermissions of opera performances in the Queen’s Theatre. Pieter Hellendaal was the last of the continental violinist to settle in late-Baroque England. Born in 1721 or 1722 in Rotterdam, he went to Padua in 1740 in order to perfect his violin playing in the very exclusive and cosmopolitan master class of Giuseppe Tartini. After a short sojourn back in Holland (he is documented as a student at the University of Leiden in 1749), he went to London in 1751. There he played between the acts of Handel’s Acis and Galatea, but somehow could not (or did not want to?) settle down. His violin playing was indeed praised in Oxford, but he did not receive the position of conductor of the local orchestra. He was subsequently appointed successor to Charles Burney at St. Margaret’s Church in King’s Lynn. In 1762 he settled in Cambridge, where he spent the rest of his life as an organist and teacher. INTRODUCTION – English 7 Unfortunately, Hellendaal numbered among those musicians who practiced their art discreetly and remote from the main musical centers. However, the few preserved works show a composer of astonishing quality. His Six Grand Concertos, op. 3, rank among the best of the genre and can easily stand the comparison to those by Handel. Hellendaal’s music displays substance in the melodic lines and intelligence in the dramatic structure. In any case, at work here was a composer and violinist with very solid skills. The eleven sonatas, which are preserved in a manuscript in the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, far surpass those in the collections published as op. 2 and op. 4. For this recording, we decided on the first six sonatas. In spite of their heterogeneity in terms of movement structure, they represent a stylistically relatively congruent cycle. Numerous sketched-out cadenzas, ornamentations, alternatives, and acrobatic bowing marks make them an important document of historical performance practice. In particular, it is fascinating to see how Hellendaal exploits the entire technical arsenal of bowing technique: spiccato, bariolage, hooked bowings, chords, rapid sixteenth- note passages, and long, sustained lines. Hellendaal’s teacher Tartini was a master of bowing technique – and found in Hellendaal are again those maxims that lent the Italians their great artistic superiority: “Your first study should be the true manner of holding, balancing and pressing the bow lightly, but steadily, upon the strings.” While working on these sonatas, the pedagogical aspects in Hellendaal clearly emerge. Did he compose them for his advanced pupils? Or are they perhaps sketches for the sonata collection announced in 1778, but never published? In Sonatas 2, 4, and 6, the slow introductory movements were for me models for improvised embellishments in “arbitrary manner,” so that I left hardly a single note untouched. For a violinist, the endless fugues are all real test pieces in which INTRODUCTION – English 8 the Corellian model is carried to the extreme with chords and passages in the highest positions (and marked piano!) The fugues of Sonatas 3 and 4 as well as the first movement of Sonata 4 conclude with large, written-out cadenzas that are reminiscent of Locatelli’s Capricci. It is entirely possible, by the way, that the two violinists had met in Amsterdam. Hellendaal can undoubtedly be considered a conservative composer, although in his Cello Sonatas, op. 5, he definitely demonstrated that the more recent stylistic developments had not failed to influence him, and that he unquestionably possessed the necessary compositional know-how and ingenuity to deal with them. The English literary agent John Sainsbury described Hellendaal as “a man of undoubted attainments in musical science.” Moreover, in the last of the Cambridge sonatas, Hellendaal extended his feelers in the direction of the Classic – admittedly very tentatively – at the very moment when composers in London, such as Johann Christian Bach, Carl Friedrich Abel, and the young Mozart, were already following the new trend. Perhaps exactly because of his indeed solid, yet – let’s call it – nostalgic manner of composition, Hellendaal had found in Cambridge the most suitable place. For the clocks have always ticked differently on the island, and in the province just a bit slower still ... Johannes Pramsohler Paris, November 2019 INTRODUCTION – English 9 10 11 Johannes Pramsohler Born in South Tyrol and now living in Paris, baroque violinist Johannes Pramsohler has in recent years become one of the most versatile representatives of his profession. As artistic director and first violin of the Ensemble Diderot, which he founded in 2008, he brings to life unknown repertoire with a keen sense for significant rarities. As concertmaster, Johannes has collaborated with The King’s Consort, Le Concert d’Astrée, Concerto Köln, the European Union Baroque Orchestra, the International Baroque Players, and as a guest of the Berlin Philharmonic with its early music ensemble Concerto Melante. As soloist and increasingly also as conductor, Johannes is regularly engaged by baroque orchestras and modern symphony orchestras. A desire for artistic independence even in the recording studio led Johannes to found his own CD label in 2013. The catalog of Audax Records is largely made up of first recordings, many of which have been awarded prizes including the Diapason d’Or and the German Record Critics’ Award (Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik). As a sought-after pedagogue, Johannes has been responsible since 2011 for the strings of the French Youth Baroque Orchestra, teaches at the Summer Academy of the Festival du Périgord Noir, and is regularly invited to give master classes at the Chinese Culture University in Taipei, the Shanghai Conservatory, the Norwegian Academy of Music, and the Instituto Superior de Arte del Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires. Johannes studied at the Conservatory “C. Monteverdi” in Bozen, at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, and at the Paris Conservatoire BIOGRAPHY – English 12 CRR with teachers such as Georg Egger, Jack Glickman, and Rachel Podger. He is currently a doctoral student at the Royal Academy of Music in London.

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