Baroque London Prog Notes

BAROQUE LONDON Programme Notes By Christopher Verrette Her Majesty’s Theatre in Haymarket, London stands on a spot that has been continuously associated with theatre since 1705. The building on this site has always been named in accordance with the gender of the reigning monarch, so the names “His Majesty’s,” “The King’s,” and originally “The Queen’s” (for Queen Anne) have been used at different times over the years. The current structure is the fourth, built in 1897, and has been home to the musical The Phantom of the Opera since 1986. In the second decade of the eighteenth century, the original structure hosted the earliest London performances of music by the German visitor George Frideric Handel, who would preside over performances of operas and oratorios in this venue for many years to come. Another German composer visiting London, Johann Joachim Quantz, reported in his autobiography on the performance of a “grand and pompous” opera that he attended in 1727: “The orchestra consisted for the most part of Germans, several Italians, and a few Englishmen. Castrucci, an Italian violinist, was the leader. All together, under Handel’s conducting, made an extremely good effect.” Or would have, had it not been for the behaviour of the fans of its two star sopranos, Faustina Bordoni and Francesca Cuzzoni. “The violence of party for the two singers was so great, that when the admirers of one began to applaud, those of the other began to hiss.” From this it can be seen that the musical scene in London was dominated by foreign talent, whether as composers, leaders, soloists, or orchestral players. In fact, none of the composers we shall hear from on this programme was born in England. It is probable, though, that our protagonist, Mr. Richard Neale, whose name appears on the rosters of the opera orchestra, was among those “few Englishmen.” It is also clear from Quantz’s account that audience members of the time could take sides in the competition between star singers with vehemence equal to that of, say, sports fans, partisan voters, or overly-concerned followers of celebrity break-ups in our century. Quantz also heard an opera by Giovanni Battista Bononcini during his visit to London, which pleased him less: “Handel’s depth and solidity overpowered the lightness and grace of Bononcini.” Another commentator, James Ralph, contrasted the two this way: “Handel would warm us in Frost and Snow, by rousing every Passion with Notes proper to the Subject: Whilst Bononcini would fan us, in the Dog-Days, with an Italian Breeze, and lull us asleep with gentle Whispers.” These two composers, too, had their own zealous advocates, and the competition between these factions was a matter of enough magnitude that it introduced into the English language (at least, for the first time in print) a colourful idiom, later transformed into a pair of characters in a book by Lewis Carroll: Some say, compar’d to Bononcini, That Mynheer Handel’s but a ninny; Others aver, that he to Handel Is scarcely fit to hold a candle: Strange all this difference should be ‘Twixt Tweedle-dum and Tweedle-dee! (John Byrom, Epigram on the Feuds Between Handel and Bononcini) While opera was very much in the public eye, music was also being made in taverns, pleasure gardens, wealthy households and churches; at court, in public concerts, and in the streets. Much of the instrumental music we will be hearing would have been used for smaller scale events and venues, places where Mr. Neale may have hoped to play between opera gigs. Handel first visited London in 1710, and returned in 1712 to open the opera season, continuing to live there after his employer in Hanover became King George I in 1714. His initial successes came in the form of Italian opera, and he was made the principal composer of the Royal Academy of Music (no connection to the existing institution of that name), which presented operas at the King’s Theatre from 1719–1734. After the financial failure of this enterprise, and as public taste drifted away from Italian opera, he turned his attentions to oratorio, the first of which was Esther, premiered at the King’s Theatre in 1731. The sinfonia widely known as “The Entrance of the Queen of Sheba” opens the Third Act of Solomon, which premiered in 1749. Although an exceptionally large orchestra was engaged for these performances, this beloved excerpt features extended passages for just two oboes alone. It is also interesting to note that borrowings from three different composers have been identified in this relatively short work. This practice of “borrowing” was not uncommon at the time, but as we shall see, could occasionally get a composer into trouble. Handel’s concertos were used as interludes in performances of his large-scale theatrical works. The concerti grossi of Corelli were popular in London, partly due to the influence of his disciple Geminiani, who had published, in addition to his own original concertos, orchestral adaptations of Corelli’s Op. 5 violin sonatas. Handel’s Op. 6 represents an updated spin on Corelli’s model, again using material appropriated from other composers, and dance types popular in Britain that Corelli would not have used, such as the hornpipe. They are scored for strings, although oboe parts were sometimes added. The Op. 3 concertos, however, have parts specifically for wind instruments, including transverse flute. Handel spoke very highly of his fellow German expatriot, John Ernst Galliard. He began his career at the court of Celle, then came to London in 1706 to serve Prince George, the Consort of Queen Anne. He was employed as an oboist at the Queen’s Theatre and as organist of the chapel at Somerset House. He became proficient enough in the English language to translate a singing treatise by Pier Francesco Tosi (from Italian), and was an important commentator on music. In 1712, he collaborated with the poet John Hughes on an opera in English, composed in the Italian style: Calypso & Telemachus. Although these characters are familiar from Homer’s Odyssey, the plot of the opera actually comes from Les Aventures de Télémaque by Fénelon, written while tutoring a grandson of Louis XIV, but widely circulated in the eighteenth century. The book’s tales of kings, ostensibly intended for the instruction of a child, were deeply critical of the policies of that same child’s grandfather. This book would later supply the plot to Mozart’s Idomeneo. The overture is somewhat unusual in its form: the opening fanfare-like section and subsequent fugue are typical, but instead of returning to the material of the opening, there is another slow section in triple metre and another faster section, also in triple metre. One Italian feature of the opera is its use of da capo arias. We will hear one featuring flute, with the vocal part played on the oboe. Calypso & Telemachus only survived three performances. Galliard had better commercial success later with pantomimes. He also wrote sonatas for the bassoon or cello. When Bononcini came to London around 1720, he had already been an international musical celebrity for a generation; he was a published composer at 15 and had held various distinguished posts in his native Italy and the Imperial court in Vienna. He had considerable impact on the British scene long before arriving in London: in 1706, his opera Camilla was performed in English translation at Drury Lane and almost single-handedly set the bar much higher for opera in England. It was Richard Boyle, Earl of Burlington, dubbed “The Apollo of the Arts” by Horace Walpole, who brought Bononcini to London in order to compose operas alongside Handel for the Royal Academy of Music. Burlington had also hosted Handel at his fine Palladian mansion during his first years in England. The pastoral style of Bononcini’s operas was very popular with audiences, and they usually ran for more performances than Handel’s. It is somewhat ironic, given Handel’s propensity for borrowing, that Bononcini’s career in London would suffer under allegations of plagiarism: it seems a madrigal presented at the Academy of Ancient Music as his work had in fact been composed by Antonio Lotti. He returned to the continent in 1733, travelled and performed widely, and died in Vienna in 1747. Although he made his mark chiefly as a composer of opera and cantatas, Bononcini was an accomplished performer on the cello and among the first to write solo sonatas for that instrument, which was then a fairly new arrival on the scene. The cello was slightly smaller than the bass violin that had been the traditional underpinning of string ensembles. It offered greater agility for virtuoso passagework and more possibilities for the individualistic expression expected in solo sonatas. Johann Joachim Quantz is best known for literally writing the book On Playing the Flute (as it is known in English translation), one of the mostly detailed and oft-quoted tomes on the subject of eighteenth-century musical performance. He came to the flute surprisingly late. Orphaned at age ten, he apprenticed as a Town Musician, becoming proficient on several instruments, including violin and oboe. After serving in the Dresden Town Band, he obtained at age 21 a position as oboist with the Polish Chapel, an instrumental ensemble that accompanied the Elector of Saxony on his trips to Warsaw as King of Poland. He saw an opportunity for advancement in learning the transverse flute, and was able to study with Buffardin, a French flautist in the legendary instrumental ensemble at the Saxon court. His 1727 visit to London came at the end of a period of study in Italy that was extended to a three-year Grand Tour.

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