La Gracieuse Pièces de Viole by Marin Marais
Robert Smith viola da gamba
Israel Golani Baroque guitar & theorbo
Joshua Cheatham viola da gamba
Olivier Fortin harpsichord (1656–1728) Suite in A major Suite in F-sharp minor Marin Marais 1. Prélude [2:31] 23. Prélude [3:21] La Gracieuse: 2. Bout ade [1:39] 24. Allemande [2:56] Pièces de Viole 3. La Gracieuse [3:10] 25. Courante [1:31] 4. Gigue à l’anglaise [1:57] 26. Sarabande [2:17] 5. Rondeau ‘moi é pincé’ [1:38] 27. Gigue [2:05] 6. Fantaisie [5:07] 28. Menuet [1:18] Robert Smith viola da gamba 29. Rondeau [2:10] Suite in E minor Israel Golani theorbo & Baroque guitar 7. Prélude [2:44] 8. Fantaisie [0:58] Total playing me Joshua Cheatham viola da gamba [66:13] 9. Sarabande à l’espagnol [2:39] Olivier For n harpsichord 10. La Matelo e [1:35] Adrián Rodríguez Van der Spoel percussion 11. Rondeau paysan [1:39] 12. La Biscayenne (Tambourin) [2:07] Instruments: 13. Fugue gaie [2:47] Viola da gamba: Colichon model, Pierre Bohr Baroque guitar: A er Giovanni Tessler, Ivo Magherini Suite in G minor Theorbo: A er seventeenth century Italian models, Klaus Jacobsen Viola da gamba: Barack Norman model, François Bodart 14. Prélude [2:20] Harpsichord: Flemish, Thomas Power 15. Caprice [0:50] 16. Sarabande [3:35] 17. Gigue La Chicane [2:08] 18. Plainte [3:16] 19. Menuet fantasque [2:02] 20. Fugue gaye [1:41] About Robert Smith: 21. La Georgienne dite la Maupertuy [2:10] 22. Fugue gaye (Double) [1:49] ‘Smith masterfully blends introspective sonorities with bold virtuosity, capturing the very essence of the fantasia genre’ Early Music
‘Whatever the mood, this is playing of exceptional quality. Robert Smith navigates each piece with clear-eyed musicality, always weaving a beautifully sonorous, coherent line’ The Observer Holding a passion for the music of Marin by Marais (thanks not in the least to the Marais is one thing, and deciding which film Tous les Ma ns du Monde) and they handful of his 600 Pièces de viole to record really do deserve their place in the hearts on an album is quite another. I started by of viol players. However, I think it vital to playing twice through all of Marais’ five keep looking for the forgo en gems lurking volumes of music for viol and basso con nuo amongst the pages of Marais’ thick tomes from start to finish. This in itself was quite of viol music since there is so much to learn a marathon but it was also a journey of and be enjoyed from all of his music. discovery. It was surprising how clear it was to feel in my own fingers how Marais’ © 2019 Robert Smith wri ng for the viol changed from when he was thirty years old, to when he was La Gracieuse: Pièces de Viole forty-five, fi y-five, sixty-one and sixty-nine by Marin Marais years old – his respec ve age when each of his five books were published. One can As a central figure in the French school of viol feel the vigour and impa ence of youth playing in the eighteenth century, Marin in the earlier books from someone who Marais holds a special place in the pantheon was not afraid to take a difficult path in of French baroque composers. His name order to prove his skill. And how interes ng now – as was the case during his life me – that, in the later books, the increasingly is virtually synonymous with the bass viol. wise composer appears to succeed in Together with his younger contemporary, crea ng sublime musical results with much Antoine Forqueray, Marais represented the less effort. I got the feeling that somewhere pinnacle of the French school of viol playing, along the line Marais achieved a complete as the instrument was gradually giving way understanding (an enlightenment to Italian imports in form of the violin family. perhaps?) of how the viol works. In fact, only twelve years a er Marais’ death, in 1740, the viol was already losing the Through this survey of Marais’ output for ba le, so much so that a French abbé by solo viol I was able to put together a the name of Hubert le Blanc deemed it programme that both reflects his musical necessary to publish a trea se (Défense de la development and sheds light on some of his basse de viole contre les entreprises du violon hitherto less well-known composi ons. et les préten ons du violoncelle) defending Marin Marais by André Bouys (1704) There are a number of much-loved pieces the viol ‘against the enterprises of the violin and the preten ons of the cello’! Comparing in order to profit from the master’s playing. the viol playing of le Père Marais, with that This did not last long as Marais was discovered of Forcroi [Forqueray] le Père, le Blanc by Sainte-Colombe and barred from his concluded that Marais ‘played like an summer residence. Regardless of the angel, and the other played like a devil.’ veracity of this anecdote, the two viol (Both composers fathered viol player sons players evidently held each other in high who also became famous: Roland Marais esteem. Upon Sainte-Colombe’s death in and Jean-Bap ste Forqueray.) 1700, Marais published his Tombeau pour Monsieur de Sainte-Colombe (1701) as a Not much is known about the personal life tribute to his revered master. of Marin Marais. Born in Paris in 1656, Marais lived all his life in that city and died Around 1675, Marais joined the orchestra of there in 1728. As a young boy, he entered the Paris Opéra as a viol player. He thus came the choir school of the St Germain-l’Auxerrois under the tutelage of the greatest composer parish, where he studied with François of the period in France, Jean-Bap ste Lully. Chaperon. According to Le parnasse Thanks in part to Lully’s support, Marais françois (1732), the biographical chronicle rapidly made headway in his career, of French ar sts and poets by Évrard Titon earning the tle of ordinaire de la du Tillet, Marin Marais studied the viol musique de la chambre du roi in 1679. with Monsieur de Sainte-Colombe, the Having studied composi on under Lully, greatest viol player at the me who has Marais published his first collec on of been credited with adding the seventh pieces for viol in 1686 and dedicated and lowest string to the bass viol. As Titon it to Lully. A er Lully’s death in 1687, du Tillet narrates, Marais’ studies with Marais published four tragédies en musique Sainte-Colombe did not last long. in the style of Lully. Subsequent to the Apparently jealous of his talented student’s failure of his Sémélé, performed in 1709, advances in viol playing and fearing Marais gradually withdrew from public Marais surpassing him, Sainte-Colombe life while con nuing his publishing dismissed his student a er half a year on ac vi es. He re red from his court the grounds that he did not have anything ac vi es in 1725 and died three years new to teach the young boy. As a result, later on August 15, 1728. Titon tells us, Marais used to hide under his master’s summer me pavilion, Hailed as ‘an incomparable French viol player in Paris, whose works are well-known all different orders and create custom-made any other piece on this recording. In line The Suite in E minor is comprised mostly over Europe’ in Johann Go ried Walther’s suites. The four suites recorded here present with the freedom implied with the tle of of pieces from the fourth book but finishes Musikaliches Lexikon (1732), Marais is different stages of Marais’ composi onal the piece, the movement’s formal structure with a daun ng ‘Fugue gaie’ from the second considered the most prolific composer of development. The suites are arranged blends aspects of fugue and passacaglia. book – typical of the younger Marais for its viol music. Between 1686 and 1725, he according to tonality (A major, E minor, The opening A major sec on exhibits density and technical difficulty. Although published a total of five books (livres) of G minor, and F-sharp minor) and contain almost all characteris cs of a fugue, but Marais probably never travelled outside of pieces for one, two, and three bass viols, pieces from all five livres. Marais’ soon the dark clouds cast by the A minor his milieu in Paris, the suite is replete with known as Pièces de violes. (Of the 598 composi onal style evolves no ceably sec on yank the music towards a references to foreign places and people pieces contained in these five volumes, from the early books to the later ones. passacaglia with an os nato lament bass of the country: ‘Sarabande a l’espagnol, 559 are for solo viol and con nuo.) All His first two volumes are characterized in regular four-bar units. Although the Rondeau paysan’ (peasant rondo), ‘La five collec ons were published in part- by dense textures and virtuosic wri ng return of A major breaks away with the Matelo e’ (a dance origina ng from books and included both pieces with o en involving double stops and chords, os nato bass a er a while, the regular French sailor culture), and ‘La Biscayenne’ tradi onal suite tles (prelude, allemande, whereas the later suites are technically four-bar phrase structure remains almost (a tambourin dance tradi onally featuring gigue, etc.) and pièces de caractère (’Le much more efficient and feature more intact to the end. In this piece, Marais a prominent drum in duple me and Labyrinthe’, ‘L’Arabesque’, ‘Les Voix melodic wri ng in both the viol and strikes an admirable balance between referring to Biscay, a historical territory Humaines’, etc.). Each of the five books con nuo parts. music of the past and the present – of the Basque region) all invoke aspects of solo parts (and the basse con nue part deploying the harmonic idiom of the early of plebeian life outside of Marais’ familiar to the first book) is supplemented with a Fi een years a er the first book, Marais eighteenth-century while pping his hat circle. prefatory note (aver ssement) in which published his second book of viol pieces to the old masters of the seventeenth Marais explains the nota onal peculiari es in 1701, a volume dedicated to the century by using their favourite form. Dedicated amicably to ‘the public,’ the employed by him as well as ma ers of music-loving Duke of Orléans. third book was published in 1711. As performance prac ce. The Suite in A major contains six pieces The most diverse and pedagogically-oriented Marais points out in his preface, the from the second book, preceded by a of all the books, the fourth book was abundance of short and easy pieces in The individual pieces of all the books are prelude borrowed from book four. In published in 1717, without a this volume made it suitable for amateurs. arranged into suites according to key. this suite, the frolicking ‘Boutade’ is dedica on. The book is divided into three It is this collec on from which the major Marais’ suites o en depart from the usual balanced by the tenderness of parts: the first (from which most of the part of the Suite in G minor is derived. order of suite movements (allemande, ‘La Gracieuse’. Similarly, the brief E minor suite is taken) for ‘those who prefer The lament bass with which the ‘Prélude’ courante, sarabande, gigue which had and deligh ul interplay of pizzicato and easy, singing pieces with few chords to begins, imparts a lugubrious affect to the been established decades before him arco passages in the ‘Rondeau’ comes difficult ones’; the second for ‘those movement, indeed to the whole suite. by Froberger) generally with a greater in contrast to the varied texture of who are advanced on the viol…who do not The rhythmic vigour and contrapuntal number of pieces than is prac cal to the unusually lengthy ‘Fantaisie’. like easy pieces’; and the third consis ng finesse of ‘Gigue La Chicane’ reflects its perform in one si ng. This leaves room Marais’ composi onal competence of pieces for three viols, which as Marais nickname – an eighteenth-century term for for the player to arrange the pieces in shines through in ‘Fantaisie’ more than remarks, was unprecedented in France. a dispute or argument s ll used in modern day Quebec. An elegant and fanciful dance tles, hark back to tradi on. ‘Menuet fantasque’ is then followed by its Marais’ character pieces that prevail in his ‘Double’ – a typically French designa on for later volumes of viol works are highly ornamented reprises. Harmonically conspicuously absent in this suite. as well as contrapuntally complex and experimental, the ‘Fugue gaye’ is perhaps Perhaps nothing concludes a discussion of the gayest display of virtuosity in this suite. Marais’ viol works be er than Titon du The character piece ‘La Georgienne dite Tillet’s accolade of the composer: la Maupertuy’, from the fi h book, gives ‘one can say that Marais has taken the us some respite between the fugue viol to its highest degree of perfec on, and its ‘Double’. In this case the solo and that he is the first to make known all part of the fugue is le unchanged and its extent and beauty by the numerous the varia ons are applied, rather excellent pieces he has composed on generously, to the furious bass part. this instrument, and by the admirable manner in which he performed them.’ The viol part of the first book was published in 1686. The basse con nue part, however, © 2019 Siavash Sabetrohani was only published three years later in 1689. In addi on to the bass parts to the pieces in the first book, the part-book included ten new works in the appendix, printed unusually in score format. The Suite in F-sharp minor is found in this appendix and is the only suite on this recording performed in its en rety—partly possible due to its rela vely compact length. Marais, as we know, dedicated the first book of his viol pieces to Lully and seems to pay tribute to his late master in this suite. The ‘Prélude’ is composed in the manner of Lully’s so-called ‘French overtures’, while the following movements, bearing the most typical Robert Smith (viola da gamba) broadcast by BBC Radio 3, Deutschlandfunk Kultur and worked as a soloist for the Royal Robert Smith is a viola da gamba and cello Concertgebouw Orchestra. In 2017 Robert player from Yorkshire in the north of released of one of the first ever recordings England. Since winning the Bach-Abel of Telemann’s newly discovered Fantasias Viola da Gamba Compe on in for solo viola da gamba, which The Observer Köthen in 2012 Robert’s life as a reviewed as ‘playing of excep onal quality’. basso-con nuo player and soloist has taken him down many interes ng and varied paths. He has regularly criss-crossed Europe from his home Acknowledgements in Amsterdam to play Baroque music with many leading ensembles and I humbly thank all the very kind people who orchestras. Robert is a member of the supported this recording through the Voor Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra and with de Kunst crowdfunding campaign. Without his own ensemble Fantas cus he has you, this recording would simply not be recorded cri cally acclaimed recordings here. Very special thanks are due to the for Resonus Classics. following: Klaus Tiedemann, Keiko Shichijo, Peter In music as in life Robert likes to get off the Oosterbaan, Chris na Siegfried, Mar n beaten path. His albums o en feature Seto, Juul & Frans Muller, Mary & Jim previously unrecorded repertoire such as Oppel, Mar n Smith, Hugh Young, Bob the lyra-viol music on Tickle the Minikin Silver, Robert Huet, Mar n Runnacles, and the virtuoso Jenkins duets, with his Misaki Yamada, Andreas Fallscheer-Schlegel, former teacher Paolo Pandolfo, on The Christopher Leather, Marian Boucek, Excellency of Hand. He enjoys exploring Jillian Johnson, Pierre Bohr, Josef Prochazka, different genres of music and working with Ferran Pisa Gaia. ar sts from other disciplines. This has led I am also indebted to the great friends who to interes ng performances such as gave up their me to support me prac cally playing Metallica songs for death-defying x Giacomelli and ar s cally: Tymen-Jan Bronda, acrobats in historical circus tents.
Annelies Berends, Dionne Clow, Rie Kimura y: Ale
& Israel Golani. aph As a solo player Robert has had live concerts Thank you. ogr Phot More titles from Resonus Classics Joshua Cheatham (viola da gamba) taught harpsichord and chamber music at the Conservatoire de Musique de Québec, G.P. Telemann: Fantasias for Viola da Gamba From the treble viol to the ‘viole de gamboes and currently teaches at the Tafelmusik Robert Smith of extraordinarie greatnesse’, Joshua Summer Ins tute in Toronto. RES10195 Cheatham performs the challenging seventeenth and eighteenth century Israel Golani (theorbo & Baroque guitar) ‘[...] the expression which [Smith] brings to these attractive pieces together with a feeling for rhetoric repertoire shared by both melody and bass and an accomplished technique deserve to win many instruments. Whether in the viol consort Since gradua ng cum laude in Musicology friends. The sound is excellent and Smith has literature, the virtuoso works for solo viola at Tel-Aviv University, Israel Golani has provided an elegantly written introduction’ da gamba of Marais, Forqueray and Bach, or become one of Europe’s most acclaimed BBC Music Magazine (5 stars) orchestral double bass playing, he has lute, baroque guitar and theorbo players. become a welcome member of the His skills as a con nuo player have led to The Excellency of Hand: English Viola da Gamba Duos chamber music and orchestral scene in performances with many leading European Robert Smith & Paolo Pandolfo Europe. He is the recipient of the 2006 orchestras, including the Royal RES10186 Capriccio Stravagante Prize, founded in Concertgebouw Orchestra, MusicAeterna 1998 to recognize and support excep onal and B’Rock. Israel has featured on recordings ‘A delightful surprise […] their interplay is absolutely individuality and talent in the fields of of both Renaissance as well as Baroque wonderful throughout […] a huge smile on my face Renaissance and Baroque music. repertoire. His debut solo album, Raclerie listening to that again this morning’ Universelle, was released in 2013 and was BBC Radio 3 Record Review Olivier For n (harpsichord) a result of a passion for seventeenth- century French guitar repertoire. More Olivier For n is a harpsichordist in demand recently Israel has collaborated with as a soloist and chamber musician, touring renowned conductor Teodor Currentzis © 2019 Resonus Limited and recording throughout the world with in crea ng basso-con nuo accompaniments è 2019 Resonus Limited groups such as Ensemble Masques, for Mozart’s Don Giovanni and La Clemenza Recorded in the Lutherse Kerk, Groningen, The Netherlands on 6–8 March 2019 Capriccio Stravagante and Tafelmusik. He di Tito. Producer, engineer & editor: Adam Binks Session photography © Resonus Limited performs together with Skip Sempé and Recorded at 24-bit/96kHz resolution Pierre Hantaï in programmes of music for Cover image: Detail from Flowers, Shells & Insects on a Stone Ledge by Balthasar van der Ast (1593–1657) two and three harpsichords. Olivier For n is the founder and director of the RESONUS LIMITED – UK Ensemble Masques. In 1997 he was [email protected] awarded top prizes at the Montreal Bach www.resonusclassics.com Compe on and the Bruges Fes val. He RES10244