Concerto Köln Allegro Yves Bertin, Bassoon
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CAL PERFORMANCES PRESENTS PROGRAM Saturday, November 3, 2012, 8pm Vivaldi Concerto for Bassoon and Orchestra First Congregational Church in E minor, R. 484 Allegro poco Andante Concerto Köln Allegro Yves Bertin, bassoon PROGRAM Dall’Abaco Concerto for Strings and Continuo in D major, Op. 5, No. 6 George Frideric Handel (1685–1759) Concerto Grosso in G major, Op. 6, No. 1 Allegro A tempo giusto Cantabile Allegro Ciaccona Adagio Rondeau Allegro Allegro Allegro Georg Philipp Telemann (1681–1767) Concerto for Concerto for Recorder, Transverse Evaristo Felice Dall’Abaco (1675–1742) Concerto for Two Flutes, Strings, and Flute, Strings, and Continuo in E minor Continuo in E minor, Op. 5, No. 3 Largo Allegro Allegro Adagio cantabile Largo Presto assai — Adagio — Prestissimo — Presto Adagio — Cordula Breuer, recorder Largo Marion Moonen, transverse flute Passepied I and II Antonio Vivaldi (1678–1741) Concerto for String Orchestra and Continuo This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. (Concerto a Quattro) in G minor, R. 156 This publication reflects the views only of its author, and the Commission cannot be Allegro held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein. Adagio Allegro Concerto Köln gratefully acknowledges the generous support of MBL High End Audio and TÜV-Rheinland. Vivaldi Concerto for Sopranino Recorder and Orchestra in C major, R. 443 Allegro Largo Allegro molto Cal Performances’ 2012–2013 season is sponsored by Wells Fargo. Cordula Breuer, sopranino recorder INTERMISSION 10 CAL PERFORMANCES CAL PERFORMANCES 11 ORCHESTRA ROSTER PROGRAM NOTES Concerto Köln George Frideric Handel (1685–1759) that could be used either as intermission features Concerto Grosso in G major, Op. 6, No. 1 or for independent performance. The Organ violin i Concertos, Opp. 4 (1738) and 7 (1740), were Mayumi Hirasaki Composed in 1739. intended specifically for his own performance Monica Waisman between the parts of his oratorios. The Concerti Maren Ries It has been given to few composers in the history Grossi, Op. 6, of September–October 1739 of music to make a fortune from their works. could serve a similar function (they did so dur- violin ii Handel made two. He first arrived in London ing Handel’s oratorio series later that season) or Jörg Buschhaus in 1710 after stocking his artistic cupboard they could be played by anyone who acquired Bettina von Dombois with the most popular operatic conventions of the music. Handel, in fact, made the Op. 6 Gabriele Steinfeld the day, learned during his Italian apprentice- Concerti Grossi available for general purchase ship. More than his compositional competitors, by subscription, the only of his instrumental viola however, Handel brought to these practices a compositions to be so published. The works be- Wolfgang von Kessinger seemingly inexhaustible talent for rapturous came popular so quickly that Walsh, Handel’s Claudia Steeb melody and dogged entrepreneurship. Soon his publisher, reported the following April, “[They] operas became all the fashion among elegant are now played in most public places with the violoncello Londoners, even though the audience could un- greatest applause.” Werner Matzke derstand hardly a word of the Italian in which Handel wrote the twelve Concertos of his they were sung. Handel got rich. Op. 6 with astonishing speed—September 29 contrabass By 1728, however, the locals were having to October 30, 1739—most of them appar- Rüdiger Kurz doubts about what Samuel Johnson called this ently completed in a single day. These won- “exotic and irrational entertainment” that were drous pieces, coming some 20 years after Bach’s flute brought on in no small part by a wildly satiri- Brandenburg Concertos, were old-fashioned for Cordula Breuer cal parody that became a smashing success: The their day. They used the concerto grosso form— Marion Moonen Beggar’s Opera. The taste for stage works in utilizing a small group of soloists rather than English blossomed and the old Italian opera an individual player—that had been developed bassoon went into decline. Handel tried valiantly to sus- in Italy during the last half of the 17th century Yves Bertin tain interest in the superannuated form, and he and perfected by Arcangelo Corelli with his continued to compose and produce Italian op- Concerti Grossi, Op. 6, published in Rome in harpsichord eras for another decade. His proceeds slipped 1714. Handel’s entourage of soloists comprises Gerald Hambitzer as the public’s enthusiasm waned. By 1738, the two violins and a cello that compete/collaborate fashion for Italian opera in London was virtually (the term “concerto” implies both simultane- defunct, and, along with it, Handel’s first for- ously) with a string orchestra bolstered by harp- tune. Several years before the final crash of his sichord. The movements, four to six in number, operatic stock, however, Handel had begun ex- generally alternate in tempo between slow and perimenting with a new musical form, a hybrid fast, with some imitative writing spicing the that he concocted from his luscious operatic style quick sections. Handel’s strength, however, was and the old German and Italian works based on melody, and these Concertos are less densely Biblical stories. The first of his English-language packed with complex counterpoint than are the “oratorios” was Esther in 1732, and when opera Brandenburgs. In expression, though, they are no longer provided an income of sufficient heft, in no way inferior to Bach’s masterpieces be- he poured his considerable energy into this new cause of Handel’s unfailing thematic invention, form. It was not long before his popularity (and sense of tonal balance, harmonic ingenuity, and his exchequer) reached unprecedented heights. invigorating rhythms. Of the Op. 6 Concerti Between 1738 and 1740, when Handel was Grossi, Percy M. Young wrote, “In these works beginning to commit his attention fully to ora- it is tempting to see the peaks of Handel’s cre- torio, he produced a series of splendid concertos ative genius. Elsewhere the flame of inspiration 12 CAL PERFORMANCES CAL PERFORMANCES 13 PROGRAM NOTES PROGRAM NOTES may leap momentarily higher, but nowhere else his service to him, using the time in France and Antonio Vivaldi (1678–1741) organ, the oboe, the violoncello, the bassoon, has the consistency of imaginative thought so the Low Countries to acquire both a firsthand Concerto for String Orchestra (Concerto a the lute; in short, there is no instrument big triumphal a progress.” knowledge of that region’s music and a Dutch Quattro) in G minor, R. 156 (P. 293) enough to scare them. They are cloistered like The Concerto No. 1 in G major opens with bride. When Maximilian was finally restored as nuns. They are the only executants, and at each a majestic processional that is, by turns, pomp- Elector in 1715, he rewarded Dall’Abaco with Pure musical inspiration began with Beethoven, concert about forty of them perform. I swear to ous and tender. It leads to a jolly Allegro full of appointments as concertmaster of his orchestra or perhaps Mozart. Before 1800, almost all mu- you that there is nothing so pleasant as to see bounding, high spirits. The third movement, and councilor to the court. Dall’Abaco spent the sic was commissioned—written for a special a young and pretty girl robed in white, with a in slow tempo, brings a touching pathos at the rest of his life in Munich, serving Maximilian purpose—for a court or a church or a civic body garland of pomegranate flowers in her hair, con- central point of this Concerto that balances the until the Elector’s death in 1726 and then his with which the composer usually had some reg- ducting the orchestra and beating time with all exuberance of the outer sections. A fugal move- son, Karl Albrecht, until advancing age and the ular affiliation. It was, in other words, music on imaginable grace and precision.” These young ment and a whirling dance in 6/8 meter bring evolution of a new musical style that he found demand. Vivaldi and all other Baroque compos- ladies became the object of much attention in this robust work to a close. uncongenial precipitated his retirement in 1740. ers lived quite happily under this system, which Venice, and the most gifted among them were He died in Munich two years later. was responsible for the vast quantities of music even the regular recipients of proposals of mar- Dall’Abaco’s legacy comprises some 65 they produced. Though Vivaldi worked for a riage. The beauty and charm of Vivaldi’s music Evaristo Felice Dall’Abaco (1675–1742) works, all instrumental, most gathered into six number of employers during his life, his main undoubtedly played no little part in the success Concerto for Two Flutes, Strings, and collections published between 1708 and 1735. position, and the one for which he composed of the graduates of the Ospedale. Continuo in E minor, Op. 5, No. 3 Like Corelli, he took great care to polish these most of his concertos, was with a girls’ orphan- Among Vivaldi’s more than 400 concer- pieces before they appeared so that they are con- age in Venice. tos, there is a group of some forty “orchestral Composed around 1719. sistently of excellent craftsmanship and often Vivaldi obtained his first official post in concertos” or, as the composer variously called display an inventive flair, especially in the use September 1703 at the Pio Ospedale della Pietà, them, “Concerti ripieni” (i.e., “full” concertos) The life and music of Evaristo Felice Dall’Abaco of French dance forms within the framework of one of four institutions in Venice devoted to the or “Concerti a Quattro” (“Concertos for Four bespeak the internationalism of his craft and the the traditional Italian genres of sonata and con- care of orphaned, abandoned, and poor girls.