George Frideric Handel Lived from 1723-1759
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BIOGRAPHY THE BROOK STREET BAND takes its name from the London street where composer George Frideric Handel lived from 1723-1759. The Band was formed in 1996 by baroque cellist Tatty Theo and rapidly CONWAY established itself as one of the UK’s leading Handel specialists, winning grants, awards and broadcasting opportunities from various organisations including BBC Radio 3 and the Handel Institute. Eighteenth HALL century chamber repertoire has always been the Band’s driving passion, focussing particularly on SUNDAY Handel’s music. However, in recent years the Band’s activities have also expanded to include regular collaborations with conductors, choirs and venues on larger-scale Handel vocal works. It is currently CONCERTS involved in several long-term projects with the London venue St. John’s Smith Square, exploring Handel’s chamber repertoire and performing Handel’s oratorios. The Brook Street Band regularly broadcasts for BBC Radio 3 and its extensive discography for AVIE has Patrons - Stephen Hough, Prunella Scales CBE, Roderick Swanston, been singled out to critical acclaim; the Band’s debut CD “Handel Oxford Water Music” was selected as Gramophone Magazine Editor’s Choice, as was its “JS Bach Trio Sonatas”. Of The Band’s most recent Hiro Takenouchi and Timothy West CBE recordings, BBC Radio 3 Record Review had this to say about “Handel Trio Sonatas Opus 2”: “ These are Artistic Director - Simon Callaghan grown-up performances from The Brook Street Band. Finely balanced, deliciously spiced, infectiously musical!”. Early Music Today wrote “an impressive recording and some infectious music-making from two performers who clearly take great pleasure in playing together” about “JS and CPE Bach Sonatas for Viola da Gamba (Cello) and Harpsichord. Sunday December 11th 2016, 6:30pm For more information on the Brook Street Band please visit www.brookstreetband.co.uk. BROOK STREET BAND NEXT AT CONWAY HALL BAROQUE FLUTE LISETE DA SILVA Sunday December 18th 2016, 6:30pm LONDON MOZART PLAYERS CHAMBER BAROQUE VIOLIN FARRAN SCOTT ENSEMBLE BAROQUE CELLO TATTY THEO Mozart Divertimento in D K136 HARPSICHORD CAROLYN GIBLEY Schoenberg Verklärte Nacht Tchaikovsky Souvenir de Florence Op. 70 We are hugely grateful to the CAVATINA Chamber Music Trust for their support in providing free tickets for those aged 8-25 Please follow us on Facebook and Twitter to stay updated about concerts and news. Conway Hall Sunday Concerts are an integral part of the charitable activities of Conway Hall. Please turn off all mobile phones and electronic devices. Conway Hall’s registered charity name is Conway Hall Ethical Society (n o . 1156033). No recording and photographing allowed at any time. PROGRAMME PROGRAMME NOTES BACH TRIO SONATA BWV 1038 IN G (1860) Bach composed only a handful of trio sonatas, and these date from his time in Leipzig. In 1723 Bach was appointed Cantor of the Thomasschule at Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) Leipzig’s Thomaskirche. Apart from his teaching duties and obligations to compose cantatas for the church, Bach was also involved in regular performances given by the Leipzig Collegium Musicum, hosted at Zimmerman’s Kaffeehaus. Bach directed the concert series from 1729-1739, with weekly Friday night concerts. Many of Bach’s chamber (and some orchestral works) were composed for performance there. One such piece might well have been the trio TRIO SONATA BWV 1038 IN G (1732-35) sonata BWV1038, which shares an identical bass line with the violin sonata BWV1021. The same bass line appearing in different works is not as remarkable as it might initially seem. It was perhaps a ‘stock’ or study bass line, which Bach used for teaching purposes. Students might extemporise a melody part I. Largo II. Vivace above it. This particular sonata also has one of Bach’s most comprehensive sets of figures added to its continuo bass line, which supports this theory; Bach leaves no ambiguities as to the harmonic direction the melody should take. The four-movement sonata follows the typical ‘da-chiesa’ pattern, alternating III. Adagio IV. Presto slow and fast movements. It’s highly ornamented and beautiful Adagio leads to a fast moving second movement, Bach pitting the continuo part fairly equally against the violins. An anguished and impassioned Largo forms the emotional centre of the work, before the concluding Presto, a joyous fugue. George Frideric Handel (1685-1759) HANDEL CELLO SONATA IN G (0000) CELLO SONATA IN G HWV365 (1725-6) Handel was clearly one of the eighteenth century’s ultimate re-heaters of musical material, finding uses for good melodies in many different guises and incarnations. This wasn’t sheer laziness on his part. In the eighteenth century, performed music often had a very short shelf life, sometimes of no more than ten years. A hit from an opera in the early 1720s might be completely forgotten by the 1730s. Handel also managed to avoid composing for solo cello I. Larghetto II. Allegro during his long and extremely varied compositional life. The reasons for this must remain a mystery - it certainly wasn’t due to the cello’s lack of popularity for it was the most popular string instrument in England for most of the eighteenth century. There are no Handel cello suites or sonatas, however tonight’s III. Larghetto IV. A tempo di Gavotti V.Allegro ‘cello’ sonata is taken from a recorder sonata, composed c. 1725. This is the sonata HWV365, originally in C Major, and its re-heating by The Brook Street Band is a move Handel probably would have condoned himself. Handel reused musical material from this sonata in Scipione (1726), and music from the 3rd movement also appears in the sonata HWV363a (for oboe) and HWV363b (for flute), although this pre-dates the recorder or ‘cello’ sonata. Jean-Marie Leclair (1697-1764) L’AINÉ DEUXIEME RECRÉATION DE MUSIQUE D’UNE EXÉCUTION FACILE OP. 8 IN G MINOR (1737) LECLAIR L’AINÉ DEUXIEME RECRÉATION DE MUSIQUE D’UNE EXÉCUTION FACILE OP. 8 IN G MINOR (0000) Leclair is widely considered to be the founder of the French violin school, responsible for fusing the Italian baroque sonata style, with written out I. Ouverture II. Sarabande ornamentation and notes inégales representing refined French taste. He was famed for his virtuosic capabilities and brilliant ability at performing multiple stops, and was widely travelled both as a student and performer. His violin sonatas were at the time described as ‘...[appearing] at first a kind of algebra capable of rebuffing the most courageous musicians...’. Through his appointment as Ordinaire de la Musique du Roi to Louis XV in 1733, Leclair was at the III. Menuet IV. Badinage centre of musical life in Paris. His life was extremely colourful as was his death - he was murdered in his home in a seedy area of Paris, probably killed by his own nephew, a jealous rival. Leclair composed two Récréations de Musique, the first in 1736 and scored for 2 violins, and this second one c. 1737 in a key V. Chaconne VI. Tambourin clearly suited to the flute. In fact the title page specifies two flutes or two violins, so in true eighteenth century style, we have combined Leclair’s suggestions. The ‘facile’ of the title is misleading, the various movements of this typically French dance suite requiring great skill on the part of the performers. INTERVAL HANDEL (15 mins) TRIO SONATA IN B MINOR OP. 2 NO. 1 (1733) Although the Opus 2 trio sonatas are known as a set, the dating of the six works and their compositional chronology is not at all straightforward. The sonatas don’t fit neatly into a particular period in Handel’s life, nor are they associated with a city where he was living. No manuscript copy survives, so the starting point for all detective work is the first printed edition published c.1730 under the imprint of Jeanne Roger in Amsterdam. However, Jeanne George Frideric Handel (1685-1759) had died in 1722 and the actual publisher was John Walsh, in London. One can only speculate about the reason for this deception. After the ‘Roger’ edition was published, Walsh issued his own ‘corrected’ version in 1733; perhaps the whole exercise was merely to force Handel to publish something in London to generate income for Walsh. Handel enjoyed renewed popularity in the 1730s thanks to the success of his English oratorios, and it seems likely TRIO SONATA IN B MINOR OP. 2 NO. 1 (1733) that publishers would want to capitalise on this. The Sonata No.1 specifies ‘traversa’ for the top part, and Handel uses the wonderfully melancholic key of B minor, so perfectly suited to the Baroque flute. The gentle opening Andante leads to a quasi-fugal Allegro ma non troppo, where the flute and violin I. Andante II. Allegro ma non troppo share the dialogue, and the continuo occasionally refers to the theme. The third-movement Largo is one of Handel’s most beautiful and serene melodies, presented by the flute over a gently undulating chordal violin accompaniment, with harmonic support from the continuo. This ‘aria’ actually appears in an III. Largo IV. Allegro extended, developed and transposed form in Handel’s 1709 opera Agrippina. The final Allegro should be recognisable to Handel-lovers as its opening musical material appears (in a much slower version) in the 1717 Handel Chandos Anthem ‘As pants the hart for cooling streams’. Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683-1764) RAMEAU PIÈCE DE CLAVECIN EN CONCERTS NO. 1 (1741) Rameau’s background was musical, with his father a church organist. Rameau too followed that career path for a short time in various provincial churches, PIÈCE DE CLAVECIN EN CONCERTS NO. 1 (1741) although ultimately settled in Paris from 1722. This move coincided with publication of the first of his treaties, earning him a considerable reputation both in France and further afield.