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Home , Alceste (Handel), Henry Purcell, John Playford, Lorenzo Magalotti

CREATIVE TEAM 2019 Paul Dyer AO Artistic Director Yaron Lifschitz Artistic Director, Circa CANBERRA INTERNATIONAL Benjamin Knapton Associate Director MUSIC FESTIVAL Libby McDonnell Costume Design Llewellyn Hall Peter Rubie Lighting Design Thursday 2 May 7:30pm Yaron Lifschitz, Libby McDonnell, Richard Clarke Set Design SYDNEY This Production premiered on 2 May 2019 at Llewellyn Hall as part of City Recital Hall the Canberra International Music Festival. Wednesday 8 May 7:00pm Friday 10 May 7:00pm CHAIRMAN’S 11 Saturday 11 May 2:00pm Proudly supporting our guest artists. Saturday 11 May 7:00pm Concert duration approximately 90 minutes with no interval. Please note Wednesday 15 May 7:00pm concert duration is approximate only and is subject to change. Friday 17 May 7:00pm We kindly request that you switch off all electronic devices during the performance. MELBOURNE Melbourne Recital Centre Saturday 18 May 7:00pm Sunday 19 May 5:00pm

BRISBANE QPAC Tuesday 21 May 7:30pm

A wig: Paul Dyer’s first inspiration image for the series.

ENGLISH BAROQUE WITH CIRCA 1 Magical Spell of the Night English Baroque with Circa

PRELUDE Alex Palmer English

SCENE ONE – THE COURT Curtain Tune from , Z 632 Behold a Wonder Here from The Third and Last Booke of or Aires Henry Purcell Overture from , Z 628 Henry Purcell Aire from King Arthur, Act II, Z 628 Henry Purcell Hornpipe from King Arthur, Act III, Z 628 Henry Purcell How Blest are Shepherds from King Arthur, Act II, Z 628 Henry Purcell 3 Parts Upon a Ground, Z 731

SCENE TWO – THE BEDROOM Henry Purcell Overture in C minor, Air in C minor, The Triumphing Dance from & , Z 626 Henry Purcell Ritornelle in D minor, Thanks to these lonesome vales, Dance in D minor from Dido & Aeneas, Z 626 Gentle Morpheus, son of night from Alceste, HWV 45

SCENE THREE – THE CHAPEL grosso in , Op. 6, No. 4: Adagio, Allegro George Frideric Handel De torrente in via from , HWV 232 George Frideric Handel Organ concerto in , Op. 4, No. 3, HWV 291: Adagio

SCENE FOUR – THE FAIRGROUND Nicola Matteis Ground after the Scotch Humour Traditional (arr. Alex Palmer) Scarborough Fair Traditional Wallom Green Henry Purcell Curtain Tune from Timon of Athens, Z 632 Traditional (arr. Alex Palmer) The Gartan Mother’s Lullaby Traditional Hole in the Wall Traditional The Virgin Queen Traditional An Italian Rant Traditional Paul’s Steeple

ENGLISH BAROQUE WITH CIRCA 13 Set Design

English Baroque v3 Elevation Render CRH Sydney

1:50 @ A3

14 AUSTRALIAN BRANDENBURG ORCHESTRA Costume Design

ENGLISH BAROQUE WITH CIRCA 15 Facsimile of tablature from an original copy of Dowland’s Third and Last Booke of Songs or Aires Program Notes Scene One — The Court

HENRY PURCELL (1659-1695) was the greatest Even then, it was predominantly a pastime for the English of the Baroque era. He was wealthy upper classes. Plays, on the other hand, born into a family of professional musicians, attracted people from all walks of life (King Charles II and from the age of seven or eight his uncle was a regular attendee). arranged for him to be trained as a chorister The music did not drive the action, and often served in the , where from 1674 he would purely to entertain or divert the audience’s attention study under the direction of another great English during elaborate scene changes which occurred composer, . In 1677, when he was eighteen, in full view of the audience. A ‘curtain tune’, such Purcell was appointed ‘composer in ordinary’ for as the ‘Curtain Tune on a Ground’ from Timon of King Charles II’s string orchestra, the ‘Twenty- Athens, was played while the curtain was being Four Violins’. Further royal appointments followed raised directly after the overture. A ground is a short including organist at Abbey in 1679, repeating melody in the bass of a composition, on a position he would hold for the rest of his life. which successive variations were based. This simple During the 1680s Purcell was fully occupied with device allowed infinite scope for melodic composing and sacred works for the and rhythmic variation, as we can hear in the edgy Chapel Royal and various kinds of ceremonial music dissonances and extraordinary over for the courts of Charles II and his brother James II. the relentless, angular ground bass. The more austere reign of William and Mary which JOHN DOWLAND (1563-1626) is now regarded followed saw a decline in royal patronage of music, as the finest English composer of lute music and and the court lost its place as the centre of musical lute songs, and in his own time he was one of the life in London. While Purcell remained on the court most famous players in Europe. His talent went payroll as one of the forty ‘musicians for the private unrecognised by the English court until the final music’, the focus of his writing became the public years of his life, partly because he was associated theatres in London. with a circle of English Catholics in Italy who were From 1690 to 1695 he composed music for nearly suspected of treason. ‘Behold a wonder here’ comes fifty plays. Some of them, such as The Fairy Queen from The Third and Last Booke of Songs or Aires and King Arthur, contain so much music that they (pictured left), and is thought to be part of an were called semi-, however no fully sung entertainment bythe Earl of Essex for Queen work was heard on the London public stage until Elizabeth I. Dowland was able to match poetry the introduction of Italian early in the next to music so precisely that many of his songs are century. Combining music, dialogue, and dance was considered masterpieces in miniature. a long-held tradition in the English theatre, catering “Before the Comedy begins, that the audience to an audience who wanted plenty of music but not may not be tired with waiting, the most ‘that perpetual singing’ as opera was described by delightful symphonies are played; on which The Gentleman’s Journal in 1692. Opera took much account many persons come early to enjoy longer to capture popular taste in than in this agreeable amusement.” continental Europe and did not become established until the arrival of Handel in London in the . LORENZO MAGALOTTI 1669

ENGLISH BAROQUE WITH CIRCA 17 Program Notes Scene One — The Court

King Arthur was Purcell’s most successful stage Purcell’s music is effortlessly melodic, his part- work and was often revived during the eighteenth writing always interesting, with a characteristic and nineteenth-centuries. Its overture has a slow juxtaposition of the poignant and the witty. At one majestic opening section followed by a lively Allegro. moment his music is full of startling harmonic Like all of this period, it does not introduce changes and daring chromaticism, at another any musical ideas to be heard later on in the play. breezy and tuneful. French influences can be heard Spectacle was an integral part of every show, and in his gay and elegant melodies, however his later as mechanical devices became more and more instrumental music bears traces of the new Italian ingenious, incidental music was needed to fill in style then becoming fashionable throughout Europe. the time needed to manually operate the stage Above all, Purcell was an idiosyncratic and highly machinery. The ‘Air’ from the second act, for example, original composer who followed his own style. was “played while Merlin [a wizard] descends in a Purcell died at the age of only thirty-six, probably Chariot drawn by Dragons” according to the stage due to tuberculosis, and not as a result of being directions written in the script. Songs and dances, locked out of his house in the pouring rain by his wife like the cheerful ‘Hornpipe’ from Act III, based on an after he came home late, as some have suggested. English country dance, and the pastoral ‘How Blest are Shepherds’ from Act II, enhanced the mood His death was announced in a London newspaper of a particular scene but had little to do directly as that of “Mr Henry Pursel one of the most with the plot. Although it had a serious sub-text Celebrated Masters of the Science of Musick in (English patriotism), King Arthur was meant to the Kingdom, and scarce Inferior to any in Europe’’. be pure entertainment, and it was full of double- He was buried in – the funeral entendres, bawdiness, flashy special effects, music was the work he had composed for the funeral and rollicking and affecting music. of Queen Mary earlier in the year. His epitaph reads In 1694 Purcell wrote that “Composing upon a “ Here lyes Henry Purcell Esq. who left this Ground’ was ‘a very easie thing to do, and requires Life and is gone to that Blessed Place where but little Judgement …[however] to maintain only his Harmony can be exceeded.” Fuges upon it would be difficult”. Three parts upon a Ground is exactly this, a virtuosic example of ‘Composing upon a Ground’. Commonly ‘divisions’ or ‘variations’ on a ground were for one instrument, but as the title suggests this is for three solo instruments. The ground bass in this piece consists of only six notes repeated twenty-eight times, over which the three violins play increasingly complex variations.

18 AUSTRALIAN BRANDENBURG ORCHESTRA Program Notes Scene Two — The Bedroom

Dido and Aeneas is an anomaly among Purcell’s GEORGE FRIDERIC HANDEL (1685–1759) was one works as it is his only true opera, with no spoken text. of the most famous and successful opera composers The most famous of his works today, surprisingly in the Baroque period, and he wrote forty-two Italian little is known about why, or for whom it was written. operas in all, including and It is known to have been performed privately (Julius Caesar). He also produced an enormous at a ‘Boarding-School at CHELSEY, by young number of works in every musical genre of his time, gentlewomen’ in 1689, but it is possible that it was however his work on Alceste was the only occasion performed earlier at the court of King Charles II. when he wrote music for the theatre other than This would explain why the opera contains parts opera. For reasons that are not entirely clear but for men. probably financial, Handel agreed to compose the incidental music for the play Alceste by the writer is a work of unsurpassed pathos Tobias Smollett which was to be staged at Covent and concision. It tells the story of Dido, legendary Garden early in 1750. Handel composed a substantial Queen of Carthage, who is in love with the Trojan amount of music, and even re-wrote some of it, so hero Aeneas, mythical founder of Rome. that the beautiful ‘Gentle Morpheus, son of night The malevolent Sorceress and her accomplices, exists’ in two versions. In the end, however, the play two witches, conjure up a storm to trick Aeneas into was never performed. Not one to let good work go to leaving, and the opera ends with Dido dying of grief. waste, Handel re-used the music in some of his later All this is achieved in a series of very short scenes oratorios including The Choice of . (the opera is only about an hour long) and displays Purcell’s absolute mastery in setting the English language to music and his ability to immediately establish emotion and character.

ENGLISH BAROQUE WITH CIRCA 19 Program Notes Scene Three — The Chapel

By the age of only twenty-three, ARCANGELO Handel grew up in the German city of Halle and CORELLI (1653-1713) was already one of Rome’s moved to in 1703 where he played violin foremost violinists. His playing was described as in the opera orchestra and where his first operas ‘learned, elegant and pathetic,’ although it could were performed. When he was twenty-one he also be intense: one witness commented that when travelled to Italy and spent four years there, working he played he appeared ‘half mad’ and that ‘it was as a composer and immersing himself in the then usual for his countenance to be distorted, his eyes fashionable Italian musical style. In Rome he was to become as red as fire, and his eyeballs to roll as taken up by some of the most influential people if in an agony.’ Corelli’s six published volumes of trio in the city who were also lavish patrons of the arts, and were enormously influential the Cardinals Ottoboni, Pamphili and Colonna. across Europe for many years after his death, and in Although Handel himself was Lutheran, he England his works developed almost a cult following composed a number of sacred works for Catholic among professional and amateur musicians. church services under the cardinals’ patronage His compositions and compositional style were and apart from one or two minor pieces all his much imitated, often without acknowledgement; church music in Latin including Dixit Dominus indeed, nine trio sonatas published in 1730 as dates from the same year, 1707. ‘Corelli’s Opus 7’ were not by Corelli at all. Although it is clear that Dixit Dominus was a Corelli’s landmark Opus 6 set of twelve concerti commission, probably for the Colonna family, grossi was published posthumously in 1714. nothing is known about its first performance or Corelli’s concerti grossi were written for festivals indeed if it was ever performed during Handel’s in Rome for which huge orchestras of sometimes lifetime. He composed it when he was only twenty- more than one hundred players were assembled. two, long before his more famous oratorios such Contemporary accounts indicate that Corelli was as , yet in many respects it shows that his an exacting orchestra leader: he insisted not only skills in writing large-scale works were already fully on accuracy of pitch but that the bows of all players formed, even though the only compositions of any should synchronise exactly with each other. size he had written before this were two operas. Corelli composed slowly, polishing and revising his The text is Psalm 110, the first psalm in the liturgy of works until he considered them fit for publication. Vespers, the evening service of the , The first movement of Concerto No. 4 opens with a as it was given on Sundays and major feast days. very short slow introduction, followed by a lengthy ‘De torrente’ provides the only moment of reflection fugal Allegro, in which two solo violins continually and lyricism in the work, the upper voices having the chase the melody between them, with the occasional melody underpinned by an almost mystical chant. interjection by the accompanying instruments.

20 AUSTRALIAN BRANDENBURG ORCHESTRA Program Notes Scene Three — The Chapel

From the time that Handel arrived in London from Germany in 1710 his reputation and income had been centred on the composition and production of Italian operas, and he had been phenomenally successful, with thirty-six operas staged between 1711 and 1737. At the start of the 1730s, however, he sustained heavy financial losses when audiences were lured away by a rival company. Having only English singers at his disposal and sensing that the London public was beginning to lose its taste for Italian opera, Handel began to introduce oratorios in English into his subscription season of Italian opera. Such was their success that by 1739 his season contained only works in English and no operas at all. Similar in structure to opera but with sacred subject matter, oratorios were cheap to mount because there was no staging and no sets or costumes. Opera goers were used to an evening’s entertainment at the theatre which lasted five hours, but to get around the fact that there was not as much music in oratorios as operas Handel composed instrumental works such as organ concerti to perform in the intervals to pad out the evening. This way, audiences would not go away feeling short-changed, and Handel could perform the solo organ part himself. The Op. 4, No. 3 (HWV 291) organ concerto was one of two organ concertos that Handel first used in this way, during intervals of the oratorio at Covent Garden in March 1735. His friend and supporter Mrs Pendarves wrote: “[Handel’s] playing on the organ in Esther, where he performs a part in two concertos … are the finest things I ever heard in my life.”

ENGLISH BAROQUE WITH CIRCA 21 Program Notes Scene Four — The Fairground

NICOLA MATTEIS (fl. 1670, d. after 1713) was born in Wallom Green is an English country dance tune and arrived in England as an unknown around which is found in the 1686 edition of The English 1670. He had apparently been living in obscurity in Dancing Master: or, Plaine and Easie Rules for the London for some time when the diarist John Evelyn Dancing of Country Dances, with the Tune to Each heard him play in a private concert in 1674. Dance. The first edition was published in 1651 by , a prominent music publisher who “I heard that stupendious Violin Signor was active in London in the second half of the Nicholao (with other rare Musitians) whom 1600s. He was a friend of poets and musicians: certainly never mortal man Exceeded on Henry Purcell composed a ‘Pastoral Elegy’ on his that instrument: he had a stroak so sweete, death in 1687 and was one of the beneficiaries of & made it speake like the Voice of a man; his will. & when he pleased, like a Consort of severall Instruments: he did wonders upon a Note: The Dancing Master was a manual with dance was an excellent composer also … nothing instructions and music for a collection of English approch’d the Violin in Nicholas hand: country dances. Each dance consisted of a series of figures designed to fit particular music, danced he seem’d to be spirtato’d & plaied such by a group of people in couples. So called country ravishing things on a ground as astonish’d dances were popular as an entertainment from the us all.” seventeenth to the mid nineteenth-centuries. Ground on the Scotch Humour is a set of virtuoso They often feature in novels by Jane Austen and ‘divisions’ or ‘variations’ for the violin with lively, Charles Dickens and are still performed today. Scottish influenced rhythms. The Dancing Master was so popular that Playford (and his heirs) published several editions, adding Scarborough Fair is a traditional English ballad. new dances, and it forms an important record of Like most folk songs its origins are obscure and English traditional music which may otherwise have there are many different versions of both melody been lost. The printed music consists of only the and lyrics. The impossible tasks to be performed melodic line; it is up to the performers to decide by the lover (‘tell her to make me a cambric shirt how it should be played. without any seams or needlework’) are similar to ones mentioned in an obscure seventeenth-century The Gartan Mother’s Lullaby is a traditional folk Scottish ballad, The Elfin Knight, but references melody from County Donegal in Ireland, with words to a market (or fair) in the English seaside town by the Irish poet Joseph Campbell added in 1904. of Scarborough only appeared in versions which The mother sings to her child, summoning up date from the nineteenth-century. The version characters from Gaelic mythology such as Aoibheall, best known today is the arrangement recorded queen of the northern fairies, and The Green Man, by American singers Simon & Garfunkel in 1965, harbinger of doom if he appears at night. which was featured in the movie The Graduate.

22 AUSTRALIAN BRANDENBURG ORCHESTRA Program Notes Scene Four — The Fairground

Abdelazer was a bloodthirsty Restoration tragedy An Italian Rant appears in the 1657 edition of from 1695. Its author was Aphra Behn, whose The Dancing Master, but the melody belongs to a plays were very successful on the London stage popular Italian from the sixteenth century when (Nell Gwynn, mistress of Charles II, played the lead in it was known as Il ballo di Mantova or La Mantovana, one of them). Behn was one of the first professional which translates as ‘A dance from Mantua’. female writers in England but her work was The tune became popular throughout Europe in lampooned because of the frequent use of sexual the seventeenth-century, and it may sound familiar: subjects. Purcell wrote one song and ten items of it is the main theme from The Moldau, by Smetana. instrumental music for . The Hornpipe While the dances were for entertainment, some became a popular country dance tune known as of them also recorded significant events in the Hole in the Wall. community. Paul’s Steeple or St Paul’s Steeple Because country dances were part of an oral may have come into existence as a ballad in 1561, tradition, many of the tunes had more than one when the steeple of Old St Paul’s church in London name. The Virgin Queen, probably a reference was struck by lightning and burnt down. to Elizabeth I, was also known as Bobbing Joe. As Bobbing Joane it was used in several ballad operas in the early 1700s.

PROGRAM NOTES & TIMELINE © LYNNE MURRAY 2019

ENGLISH BAROQUE WITH CIRCA 23 Facsimile of ‘The Virgin Queen’ from the fourteenth edition of Playford’s The Dancing Master

Performed in Scene Four – The Fairground Behind the Scenes

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Series Three Handel’s Anthems & Fireworks A joyous and jubilant concert of crowning glories by master composer George Frideric Handel. Handel Coronation Anthems, HWV 258-261 Handel Concerto for No. 3 in G Minor, HWV 287 Handel Music for the Royal Fireworks, HWV 351 24 JULY – 4 AUGUST

Series Five The Four Seasons From a biting winter to a summer storm, join acclaimed soloist, Shaun Lee-Chen, in a bold re-imagining of this much-loved classic. Telemann Concerto for 4 Violins in G Major, TWV40:201 Telemann , TWV 55:C3 Vivaldi The Four Seasons, Op. 8 28 AUSTRALIAN BRANDENBURG ORCHESTRA 1 – 15 NOVEMBER GREAT SAVINGS Subscribers save up to 15% off single ticket prices and receive a 10% discount on additional ticket purchases.

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Series Four Next Generation Baroque Introducing audiences to four electrifying young artists who have glimpsed the future with a program to include: Halvorsen for Violin and after Handel Handel Tu del ciel ministro eletto from Julius Ceasar Vivaldi Violin Concerto in E Minor, Op. 11, No. 2 11 – 22 SEPTEMBER

Series Six Noël! Noël! This immensely popular series is not just carols but a mischievous affirmation of life that fuses the modern with the ancient. Filled with many special surprises and timeless musical treasures including O Come All Ye Faithful and Stille Nacht.

ENGLISH BAROQUE WITH CIRCA 29 7 – 18 DECEMBER