Sunday, February 23, 2020, 3pm Hertz Hall Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin Xenia Löffler, oboe Georg Kallweit, solo violin and concertmaster

Secrets of the Baroque

Francesco Maria Veracini (1690–1768) Ouverture No. 6 in G minor for two oboes, strings, and basso continuo Allegro Largo Menuetto Allegro

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25 Unico Wilhelm van Wassenaer (1692–1766) Armonico No. 5 in F minor for strings and basso continuo Adagio – Largo Da cappella A tempo comodo (con sordini) A tempo giusto

Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (1714–1788) Oboe Concerto in B-flat major, Wq. 164 Allegretto Largo e mesto (con sordini) Allegro moderato Xenia Löffler, oboe

INTERMISSION

Georg Philipp Telemann (1681–1767) Sinfonia Melodica, TWV 50:2 for two oboes, strings, and basso continuo Vivace assai Sarabande Bourrée Menuet en Rondeau Loure a l’unison Chaconnette Gigue en Canarie

Alessandro Scarlatti (1660–1725) No. 5 in D minor Allegro Grave Gigue: Allegro Minuet

Antonio Vivaldi (1678–1741) Violin Concerto in D minor, Op. 4, No. 8 (from La Stravaganza), RV 249 Allegro – Adagio – Presto – Adagio Allegro Georg Kallweit, violin (1685–1759) Concerto Grosso in D minor, Op. 3, No. 5, HWV 316 for two oboes, strings, and basso continuo [without indication] Allegro Adagio Allegro ma non troppo Allegro

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Francesco Maria Veracini works. Veracini passed his last years in his na- Ouverture No. 6 in G minor tive Florence, directing the musical activities of for two oboes, strings, and basso continuo the churches of San Pancrazio and San Michele “Veracini was regarded as one of greatest mas- agl’Antinori and occasionally concertizing. ters of his instrument that ever appeared; and When Veracini learned that the music-loving his ability was not merely confi ned to the excel- Prince Friedrich August of Saxony was visit- lence of his performance, but extended to com- ing Venice in 1716, he composed for him the position, in which he manifested great genius Six Ouvertures for Oboes, Strings, and Con- and science…. Veracini was so foolishly vain- tinuo as a petition for a job at the court of the glorious as frequently to boast that there was young man’s father in Dresden. Th e tactic was but one God, and one Veracini.” Th us did the a success and Veracini joined the music estab- peripatetic English chronicler of late-18th- lishment of the Elector August of Saxony early century music describe Fran- the next year. Th e Six Ouvertures, as that title cesco Maria Veracini, known from Rome to indicated in the 18th century, are suites that mix as one of the foremost violinists and abstract movements with varying dance types. of his day. Th e last one, in G minor (though oft en erro- Veracini was born in Florence in 1690 into a neously listed in B-fl at major), gives suffi cient musical family and received his fi rst instruction prominence to the oboes that it also takes on from his uncle Antonio, a noted Florentine vir- the character of a concerto. Th e fi rst and fourth tuoso and . (Veracini’s father, one of movements (both Allegro) follow the typical the few unmusical members of the family, was Baroque model for the concerto, with solo oboe a druggist and undertaker.) Francesco studied episodes surrounded by orchestral refrains. Th e with other local musicians (the legend that he second movement (Largo), also with solo pas- was a pupil of Corelli is without foundation) sages, is lyrical and plaintive. Th e Menuetto before moving to Venice in 1711, where he ap- (which is sometimes heard as the fi nal move- peared frequently as soloist at San Marco and ment) is extraordinary, entirely in unison and the church of San Maria Gloriosa dei Frari. deriving its substance from Veracini’s sense of So highly accomplished was his playing that it melody and instrumental color rather than har- is said the aspiring violinist mony and counterpoint. fl ed from Venice to Ancona aft er hearing him perform for a period of solitary meditation and Unico Wilhelm van Wassenaer intense practice. Veracini gave a well-received Concerto Armonico No. 5 in F minor series of concerts in London in 1714, and he for strings and basso continuo spent the following year as a court musician in In 1740, there appeared in Th e Hague an anon- Düsseldorf. He then returned briefl y to Ven- ymous publication of six fi ne Concerti Armoni- ice before joining the musical establishment of ci (i.e., “harmonized”) for strings and basso Elector August of Saxony in Dresden in 1717. continuo. Th e publisher was listed on the title Frictions with the German musicians quick- page as Carlo Ricciotti (ca. 1681–1756), a con- ly developed because of Veracini’s preferen- ductor, violinist, and impresario then active in tial treatment and high salary, but he left his the , who dedicated the volume to post only in 1723, aft er hurling himself out of his former pupil, the rich and infl uential Count a third-story window to escape what he was Willem Bentinck van Rhoon, with the wish that convinced was a plot on his life. For the next that nobleman would accept the works since decade, he was active as a violinist and com- they came from an “illustrious hand”—“Illustre poser of sacred music in Florence. He spent mano”—that was known to and highly regarded most of the years between 1733 and 1745 in by Bentinck. Early evidence for the provenance London, performing, producing his four op- of the was appended to a manuscript eras with considerable success, and overseeing copy of the music made sometime around 1830 the publication of some of his instrumental that identifi ed Giovanni Battista Pergolesi as

27 PROGRAM NOTES the music’s author; Pergolesi was cited as the fi rst violin. I permitted him to make copies composer of the concertos until the middle of of them one aft er another. When the half- the 20th century. Further investigation of the dozen were completed, he asked my permission manuscript, however, revealed that the cov- to print them. Upon my repeated refusal, he er page attributing the music to Pergolesi had called on Mr. Bentinck van Rhoon for support, been pasted over another one inscribed with and it was the forceful persuasion of the latter the name of Handel, thereby fueling consider- that fi nally caused me to yield, however only able debate as to the true composer. Th e pub- on condition that my name under no circum- lisher Ricciotti was himself mooted as a possi- stance should appear on the works and that he bility, as were such little-known musicians as [Ricciotti] might set his own name in its place, Johann Adam Birckenstock, , which he did. He wanted to dedicate them and Fortunato Chelleri. to me, which I absolutely refused, whereupon It was not until 1980 that the Dutch musi- Mr. Bentinck suggested that he dedicate them cologist Albert Dunning discovered the solu- to him [Bentinck]. In this way, these concertos tion to this intriguing mystery. In the archives were published against my real intentions. In of Twickel Castle in Delden, a town near the them, one fi nds some passable things, some German border directly east of Amsterdam, mediocre, and some bad. If it had not been for Dunning came across an 18th-century manu- the publication, I might have corrected some of script of the Concerto Armonici that contained the mistakes, but other commitments left me a remarkable and revelatory preface, written no time to busy myself with this; also, I would in French: “Score of my concertos, printed have done the publisher an injustice.” Th ese by Mr. Ricciotti. Th ese concertos were writ- lines were written by Unico Wilhelm, Count of ten at various times between 1725 and 1740. Wassenaer, Lord of Twickel. I brought them one by one, as they were fi n- Dunning gave the following account of Was- ished, to the concert society in Th e Hague, senaer: “Unico Wilhelm, Holy Roman Imperial which was founded by Mr. Bentinck, myself, Count of Wassenaer-Obdam, Knight Banneret and several foreign gentlemen. Ricciotti played of Wassenaer, Baron of Lage, Lord of Twickel,

Members of the Violin 1 Double Bass Worldwide Management Georg Kallweit Walter Rumer Uwe Schneider, manager Kerstin Erben Lübecker Straße 22 Th omas Graewe Oboe 10559 Berlin Germany Xenia Löffl er www.akamus.de Violin 2 Michael Bosch Yves Ytier North American Lorena Padrón Ortiz Bassoon Management Irina Granovskaya Rebecca Mertens International Arts Foundation Viola Lute 16 W. 36th Street, Suite 1205 Clemens-Maria Nuszbaumer Miguel Rincón Rodriguez New York, NY 10018 Anja-Regine Graewel www.internationalarts- Harpsichord foundation.org Violoncello Raphael Alpermann Jan Freiheit

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Obdam, etc. was born on November 2, 1692 at Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach Twickel in Delden. Almost nothing is known of Oboe Concerto in B-fl at major, Wq. 164 his youth. In 1710, he was enrolled as a law stu- Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, Johann Sebastian’s dent at the university in Leiden. Around 1720, fi ft h child and his third (second surviving) son, he came into contact with the young Willem gained fame with his contemporaries as a com- Bentinck van Rhoon, with whom he shared a poser in the most advanced style of the time, love of music. We know of evening musicales a keyboard player of unsurpassed ability, and that were given alternately by Bentinck and the author of an important treatise on contem- Unico Wilhelm in a townhouse in Th e Hague. porary performance style, as well as a man of Although we do not know which instrument wit, broad education, and winning personality. Wilhelm Unico played, his affi nity for music Emanuel could hardly have avoided the musi- must have been unusually strong. In a doc- cal atmosphere of the Bach household as a boy, ument from 1725, we fi nd the fi rst report on and he learned the art directly from Johann Wassenaer the composer, this in the form of a Sebastian. Aft er three years as a student at Leip- good-humored warning by his brother Johan zig University, he enrolled in 1734 to study Hendrik that ‘he should not exhaust all his law at the University of Frankfurt-an-der-Oder, mental capabilities on music paper, but rather where he earned a meager living giving keyboard exchange his notes for words.’… Unico Wil- lessons and composing, and leading works for helm played an important political role in the special occasions. In 1738, leaving behind the Republic of the Seven United Provinces. In for- legal profession but immeasurably enriched by eign aff airs, he served his country through dip- the excellent general education it had brought lomatic missions in 1744 and 1746 to the French him, he joined the musical establishment of king (negotiating a peace treaty) and to the Elec- Frederick the Great of Prussia in Potsdam, near tor of Cologne. On November 9, 1766, Unico Berlin. Many of his greatest keyboard works, Wilhelm died in Th e Hague, and was buried in notably the Prussian and Württemberg , the St. Jacobskerk there.” Musical composition date from the years in Berlin, as does the Essay for such a highly born nobleman could never on the True Art of Playing Keyboard Instruments, be more than just a hobby, and might even be an indispensable source for understanding viewed askance in certain quarters, so he chose 18th-century performance practice. anonymity to notoriety. Virtually no composi- Emanuel Bach was not completely happy tions by him other than the six Concerti Armoni- in Berlin. Th ough he found the atmosphere of ci are known to exist (a motet for two sopranos the court stimulating and valued his circle of and bass shows him to have been infl uenced cultured friends, including the poet Lessing, by early-18th-century French music), but these he left when Georg Philipp Telemann, director handsome creations, written in the expansive of music for the city churches of Hamburg and idiom of the late Baroque, mark Wassenaer as a Emanuel’s godfather, died during the summer of genuine and fully formed talent. 1767, and Bach was appointed to take his place. Th e Concerto No. 5 in F minor follows the In Hamburg, Bach’s position, in which he was model of Corelli in its four-movement struc- responsible for the music in fi ve churches, was ture grown from the old “church ” (sona- similar to his father’s in Leipzig. As in Berlin, he ta da chiesa): slow–fast–slow–fast. Th e opening collected a circle of respected and well-educated Largo is in the nature of a carefully measured poets, dramatists, philosophers, clergymen, and processional of almost Handelian breadth. Th e musicians as close friends, and was renowned skillful contrapuntal weavings of the second for his hospitality and the sparkling quality of movement are worked out in quick tempo. Th e his conversation. He died in Hamburg in 1788. third movement has the easy motion of a pas- C.P.E. Bach’s Oboe Concerto in E-fl at dates toral. Th e bounding fi nale is an ingenious de- from 1765, during his last years of service as velopment of the movement’s opening theme. harpsichordist to Frederick the Great. Like all of

28 PROGRAM NOTES his non-keyboard concertos, this piece was de- some of his talented university friends in a local rived from a concerted work for harpsichord, a coff ee house to give concerts of instrumental musical category virtually invented by his father music and was also appointed organist and Ka- that Emanuel carried into the second half of the pellmeister of Leipzig’s Neukirche. A year later, 18th century with splendid inventiveness and Count Erdmann von Promnitz lured Telemann musicianship. Th is concerto, one of two Bach to his estate at Sorau, a hundred miles southeast wrote for oboe, follows the three movements of Berlin, to become his music master. In 1708 customary in the Classical model of the genre— or 1709, Telemann was appointed court com- fast–slow–fast—and tempers his characteristic poser at Eisenach, Sebastian Bach’s birthplace, idiosyncratic manner with more gallant ele- and in 1712, he moved to the post of city music ments. Th e opening movement, reminiscent director in Frankfurt-am-Main. Nine years later, of a courtly gavotte, is based on a main theme he was named director of music for Hamburg’s with distinctive dotted rhythms (i.e., the usual fi ve main churches. During his tenure, he also pattern is reversed so that the short note comes headed the municipal opera house and oversaw fi rst) and a long, smooth line oft en in triplets. the city’s fl ourishing concert series. He com- Both ideas are worked out at length before their posed with staggering prolifi cacy for the rest of recapitulation and a solo cadenza round out his days, being slowed only in his last years, like the movement. Bach’s personal idiom, with its Bach and Handel, by problems with his eyesight. quirky rhythms and phrasing, sudden dynam- He died of (probably) pneumonia in 1767 (Mo- ic contrasts, and expressive harmony, is more zart turned 11 that year), and was succeeded in evident in the minor-mode central movement his Hamburg post by his godson, Carl Philipp (Largo e mesto [sad]). Th e fi nale is rooted in the Emanuel Bach. old Baroque procedure of sections alternating Th eSinfonia Melodica is actually a suite of between orchestra and soloist, though here their seven short movements in varied styles. Th e exchanges are more frequent and conversation- opening Allegro assai, with its bustling motion al to allow for a mutual development of themat- and prominent part for two oboes, provides the ic material in the clearly structured manner of suite’s overture. When the sarabande emigrat- encroaching Classicism. ed to Spain from its birthplace in Mexico in the 16th century, it was so wild in its motions and so Georg Philipp Telemann lascivious in its implications that Cervantes rid- Sinfonia Melodica, TWV 50:2 iculed it and Philip II suppressed it. Th e dance for two oboes, strings, and basso continuo became considerably more tame when it was tak- With the condescending pronouncement, “Since en over into French and English music during the best man could not be obtained, mediocre the following century, and it had achieved the ones would have to be accepted,” City Councilor dignifi ed manner in which it was known to Platz announced the appointment of Johann Telemann by 1700. Th e Bourrée, of French or- Sebastian Bach in 1723 as Kantor for Leipzig’s igin, is joyful and diverting in character, and, churches. Platz’s “best man” was Georg Philipp when danced, was begun with a brisk leap, Telemann, then the most highly regarded com- which is mirrored in Telemann’s quick upbeat poser in all Germany. Telemann’s association pattern. Th e Menuet was originally a quick with Leipzig went back to 1701, when he left his peasant dance from southwestern France, but hometown of Magdeburg to enroll at the city’s had became more stately and measured by the university; he was soon receiving regular com- early 18th century; “en rondeau” indicates a missions from the Leipzig City Council for new musical form with frequent returns of its open- service music. In 1702, he became director of ing theme. Th e Loure was derived from a 17th- the local opera house, and began churning out century country dance accompanied by rustic specimens of that genre to fi ll his own stage. Two instruments. (“Loure” is an obsolete French years later, he started a Collegium Musicum with name for the bagpipe.) Th e Chaconnette, a

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“little chaconne,” is based on a repeating three- given fi rst at the Viceroy’s palace before they measure chord progression. Th e closing Gigue, were transferred to the Teatro San Bartolomeo modeled on an English folk dance, is written for public consumption, as well as a nearly end- in the style of a canarie, which was intended less stream of serenatas, oratorios, and cantatas. to evoke an exotic locale and the supposedly When the War of the Spanish Succession of savage natives of the Canary Islands (which, by 1702 made Scarlatti’s position in Naples pre- Telemann’s day, had been a Christianized colo- carious, he headed north to Florence, where he ny of Spain for almost four centuries). hoped to receive an appointment from Prince Ferdinando de’ Medici, who had eagerly pro- Alessandro Scarlatti moted productions of his operas throughout Concerto Grosso No. 5 in D minor Tuscany. Th ough Scarlatti was received warmly, Alessandro Scarlatti was among the musi- no job was forthcoming in Florence so he went cal paragons of his day, the author of perhaps back to Rome, where he was named assistant as many as 117 operas (about 50 are extant), music director of San Maria Maggiore at the end nearly 700 cantatas (the secular Italian variety of 1703. He created many fi nely craft ed orato- for solo singer and continuo, comparable to a rios and cantatas in Rome, but he was frustrated single opera scene, rather than the sacred Ger- by the lack of opportunities to produce opera in man species familiar from the music of Bach), that city occasioned by the closing of the local two dozen serenatas (short dramatic, usual- theaters in 1700. When he was invited by the ly pastoral, pieces written to celebrate special new Austrian Viceroy of Naples, Cardinal Gri- occasions), some 40 oratorios, 85 motets, 13 mani, to return to his earlier position in 1708, he complete or partial Masses, a few keyboard com- accepted. Aft er going back to Naples, Scarlatti positions and madrigals, and a small amount of resumed composing operas, though it became instrumental music. Scarlatti was born in Pal- clear during the following decade that the pub- ermo on May 2, 1660 and was sent to Rome lic’s taste was moving away from the old opera when he was 12 to be cared for by relatives, a seria of which he was the acknowledged master practice not uncommon among impoverished to the lighter, comic style of musical theater that Sicilian families to improve the lot of their off - was the earliest harbinger of musical Classicism. spring. In Rome, he may have studied with the He tried his hand at instrumental music with noted oratorio composer Giacomo Carissimi or some modestly scaled sinfonias and sonatas, and been enrolled in the choir school of one of the wrote his last three operas between 1718 and local churches or seminaries, but the fi rst doc- 1721 for festival performances sponsored by his umentation of him there concerns his marriage old Roman patrons, but, like Bach, he found his in 1678; the couple’s fi ft h child (of 10), Dome- music hopelessly outdated during his last years. nico (1685–1757), became one of the following He died in Naples on October 22, 1725. generation’s leading composers. Scarlatti’s fi rst Scarlatti’s Six Concertos in Seven Parts (also opera appeared in 1679 and it won for him known as his Concerti Grossi) were published the patronage of Queen Christina of Sweden, by Benjamin Cooke in London in 1740, 15 years then ameliorating her exile in Rome through aft er the composer’s death. Th ey were probably her generous support of the city’s arts. (Corelli composed around 1720, when Scarlatti had re- was also her protégé.) In 1683, the Marquis del turned to his position as Kapellmeister for the Carpio, the Spanish ambassador to the Vatican Viceroy of Naples and was writing some instru- and one of Scarlatti’s most ardent aristocratic mental music when the fashion for his operas admirers in Rome, was appointed Viceroy of and cantatas was quickly waning. Th e curious Naples. He invited Scarlatti to become music timing of the posthumous publication was ex- director at his new posting, and the composer plained by the remarkable success Cooke had accepted immediately. Scarlatti wrote some 80 enjoyed with a daring venture eight years before, operas during the next 18 years in Naples, most when he had published the complete works of

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Arcangelo Corelli, including the famed Con- daring juxtapositions, this is music not so much certi Grossi, Op. 6, and was willing to take a of the concert hall as of the opera house, per- similar chance with Scarlatti’s concertos; it was haps a wordless analog to Vivaldi’s work in the the only publication of Scarlatti’s instrumental theater—he claimed to have written 94 operas; music before the 20th century. Th e Concerto about half that number have been identifi ed Grosso in D minor, only six minutes long and and 20 or so still exist in whole or part. consistently in a somber minor mode, com- Aft er the experimentation of the opening prises an imitative Allegro, a deeply felt Grave, a movement, the concluding Allegro, with its lively Giga [gigue] and an elegant Minuetto that ritornello form and uniform mood and theme, contrasts the typical concerto grosso solo group reaffi rms the established conventions, though of two violins and cello with the full ensemble. its stern character and chromatically infl ected solo episodes lend it an expressive weight ap- propriate to close this product of Vivaldi’s re- Violin Concerto in D minor, Op. 4, markable invention. No. 8 (from La Stravaganza), RV 249 Vivaldi’s Violin Concerto in D minor was pub- George Frideric Handel lished in 1716 in Amsterdam by Roger Estienne Concerto grosso in D minor, Op. 3, No. 5, among a collection of 12 such works together HWV 316 for two oboes, strings, and basso titled La Stravaganza (Op. 4), indicating an “ex- continuo travagance” of harmonic daring and fl amboyant Handel’s fi rst published concertos were the set solo passages; Vivaldi dedicated the volume to of six Concerti Grossi issued by Vettor Delfi no, an aristocratic student of his in in 1734 as the composer’s Op. 3. Walsh had Venice. Such expressive and formal stravaganza enjoyed an excellent success with Handel’s 12 is exemplifi ed by the opening movement. Th e Sonatas for Melody Instrument and Continuo formal model for fast movements of Baroque (Op. 1) and six Trio Sonatas (Op. 2), published concertos (which Vivaldi did much to develop) the year before (as well as with publications was “ritornello,” in which a recurring orchestral of concerti grossi by Corelli, Geminiani, and refrain (“ritornello” = “return”) is separated others), and Op. 3 was meant to capitalize on by intervening episodes for the soloist. Expres- Handel’s popularity and the swelling demand sively, 18th-century musical philosophy held among performers for new material. Th e de- that emotions should not be mixed within a sin- tails of Handel’s involvement in the publication gle movement, that once a piece starts it carries are unknown (numerous mistakes in the origi- a single general mood (and tempo and themat- nal printing suggest that it was distant), but he ic material) to the end. Th e remarkable Violin was able to realize a share of the profi ts from it, Concerto in D minor defi es both of those con- profi ts that were especially welcome since his cepts. It begins not with the standard orches- operatic ventures at the time were mired in a tral introduction but with the soloist winding fi nancial crisis caused by competition from a through strange, twisting phrases with unusual rival opera company sponsored by the Prince melodic leadings. Th e orchestra does eventually of Wales. come in and the music then proceeds according For Op. 3, Walsh assembled a set of six con- to the expected “ritornello” procedure, but it is certos that Handel had probably composed at suddenly broken off by a series of block chords various times between 1710 and 1722. Except in slow tempo (Adagio). Th e movement re- for the Concerto No. 1, for which no mod- sumes with almost breathless impatience, using els are known, many of the movements were new themes in a new meter and a new tempo reworkings of other of Handel’s pieces from (Presto). Th is music, too, is suddenly stopped such diverse sources as the Brockes Passion, by a long passage of slow, solemn harmonies the Chandos Anthems, the operas Amadigi and (Adagio), a sorrowful benediction to an extraor- Ottone, and various keyboard compositions. dinary movement. With its dramatic swings and Th ey were among the most popular of all

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18th-century instrumental music, achieving some Handel wrote for the family chapel services of 29 printings within just 30 years. Their immediate James Brydges, Duke of Chandos, while serving renown may have been spurred by Walsh’s an- as director of music at the Duke’s estate in Mid- nouncement in the first edition that several of them dlesex in 1717–18. Th e somber, short-phrased had been performed at the wedding of the Prince of Largo and the following Allegro, a fugue on two Orange and Princess Anne (a pupil of Handel) at subjects, form the introduction to “In the Lord the Royal Chapel in St. James’ on March 14, 1734. Put I My Trust” (HWV 247), the second of the In his study of Handel’s concertos, Chandos Anthems. Th e elaborately imitative conjectured that it was possible the works compris- fourth movement is taken from the overture to ing Op. 3 had even been specially assembled for the “As Pants the Hart for Cooling Streams” (Chan- occasion, and that Walsh’s publication was a sort of dos Anthem No. 6, HWV 251b). Th e lamenting musical souvenir of the event. central Adagio and the spirited fi nale, based Th e Concerto in D minor, Op. 3, No. 5 opens around the returns of a unison refrain, were with two movements based on music from the originally composed for this concerto. Chandos Anthems, the dozen Psalm settings —© 2020 Dr. Richard E. Rodda

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Th eAkademie für Alte Musik Berlin (Aka- rediscovery and new interpretation of many op- mus) was founded in 1982 in Berlin. Since its eras and oratorios, to great international critical beginnings, it has become one of the world’s acclaim. In the recent past, Akamus was directed leading chamber on period instru- by Emmanuelle Haïm, Bernhard Labadie, Paul ments, and the ensemble can now look back Agnew, Diego Fasolis, , and on an unprecedented history of success. From Alessandrini. New York to Tokyo, London to Buenos Aires, Akamus’ fruitful partnership with the RIAS Akamus is a welcome guest, appearing regu- Kammerchor Berlin has produced many larly at the most important venues throughout award-winning recordings. In addition, the Europe and internationally, touring as far afi eld ensemble works in close cooperation with the as the United States and Asia. Bavarian Radio Chorus. Regular guests include Akamus has established itself as one of the internationally renowned soloists such as Isabelle pillars of Berlin’s cultural scene, having enjoyed Faust, Kit Armstrong, Alexander Melnikov, its own concert series at the Konzerthaus Berlin Anna Prohaska, Werner Güra, Michael Volle, for more than 30 years and collaborated with the and Bejun Mehta. Together with the dance Staatsoper Berlin on Baroque repertoire since company Sasha Waltz & Guests, Akamus has 1994. In addition, the ensemble has had its own developed acclaimed productions such as Dido concert series at Munich’s Prinz-regententheater & Aeneas (music by Purcell) and Medea (Pascal since 2012. Dusapin). With up to 100 performances each year, Recordings of the ensemble have won numer- Akamus performs in a variety of confi gurations, ous important awards, including the Grammy, off ering programs that range from chamber Diapason d’Or, Cannes Classical, Gramophone, music to symphonic repertoire. As well as work- Edison, MIDEM Classical, Choc de l’année, and ing with guest conductors, the orchestra is oft en the Jahrespreis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik. directed from the leader’s chair by one of its three In 2006, Akamus received the Telemann Prize of concert masters: Bernhard Forck, Georg Kallweit, Magdeburg and in 2014 both the Bach Medal and Stephan Mai. and Echo Klassik. Th e ensemble has an especially close and en- Akamus’ most recent CD productions in- during partnership with René Jacobs. Th eir mu- clude Bach violin concertos with Isabelle Faust; tual passion to explore new paths has led to the Handel’s Concerti Grossi, Op. 6; Haydn’s Missa

30 ABOUT THE ARTISTS cellensis together with the RIAS Kammerchor; gives lessons at the music schools in Leipzig, and oboe concertos by Carl Philipp Emanuel Weimar, Berlin, Rostock, Helsinki, and Saint Bach with Akamus’ solo oboist Xenia Löffl e r. Petersburg. He is also a coach of the youth For more information, please visit the or- Baroque orchestra Bachs Erben (Bach’s Heirs). chestra’s website at www.akamus.de. Xenia Löffl er Georg Kallweit Xenia Löffl er, a member and As concertmaster and so- solo oboist of the Akademie loist of the Akademie für für Alte Musik Berlin since Alte Musik Berlin, Georg 2001, has earned an excel- Kallweit is recognized today lent reputation in recent as one of the most sought years as a soloist and cham- aft er specialists in his fi eld. ber and orchestral musician. Over the years he has fo- As a soloist, she performs cused on the solo reper- worldwide with Akamus. toire of the Baroque violin and the leadership of In addition, she has worked with the Collegium ensembles. 1704 (Prague), the Batzdorfer Hofk apelle, and Alongside his work with the Akademie, he the Handel Festival Orchestra Halle, as well as has worked regularly as a guest concertmaster with a range of renowned conductors. and soloist with numerous historical and mod- Löffl er has a particular interest in exploring ern orchestras, including the Finnish Baroque unknown repertoire for the oboe. She has re- Orchestra, Ensemble Resonanz Hamburg, and leased several internationally acclaimed solo the Deutsches Sinfonie Orchester. CDs on labels including Harmonia Mundi He has also been active with the lutenist Björn France (Venice: Th e Golden Age, nominated for Colell in the duo Ombra e Luce, an ensemble the BBC Music and the Gramophone Awards), that focuses on early Italian . Supraphon (A. Reichenauer), and Accent (Th e Kallweit has been part of more than 70 record- Oboe in Dresden). Her latest recording with ings, many of which have received international Akamus features oboe concertos by Carl Philipp prizes. Among these include his interpretation Emanuel Bach. of violin concertos with the Akademie für Alte She is also the founder of the wind octet Musik Berlin on Harmonia Mundi France, cham- Amphiona, a regular guest at international festi- ber music with the Berliner Barock-Compagney, vals since 1998. Th e ensemble has recorded nine and recitals with Ombra e Luce. highly acclaimed CDs. Georg Kallweit’s musical activities have taken Löffl er teaches historical oboe at the Universi- him to nearly all of Europe, as well as to North tät der Künste in Berlin and gives master classes and South America and Asia. As a teacher, he in Germany and abroad.

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