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Convivio From Leipzig to London PROGRAMME Saturday 28 August 2021 St Michael’s Church, Bath Welcome e are delighted to present the second national influences from Germany, Italy, France and concert in our relaunched 2021 season England. Yet they are also all united by the unmistakable Wwith Convivio and a feast of the Baroque: vibrancy and energy of music from this period. From Leipzig to London. As we emerge from lockdown we are thrilled While we are still adhering to the latest to be able to present live music once again. However, Government Covid guidelines to ensure both you, the these are particularly challenging times for all arts audience, the performers and our volunteers are safe, we organisations. As a volunteer led charity the generous also want to provide you with a memorable evening of support we receive from Friends is vital in enabling us top quality, live music - something we have all missed for to provide a platform for talented young musicians. far too long. If you have not yet joined as a Friend, please Tonight’s concert brings the talents of eight consider doing so. You can sign up online through our young musicians who take us on journey across 18th website: bathrecitals.com century Europe to enjoy music by some of the greatest Thank you for your support tonight. We hope names of the Baroque age. you have a wonderful evening and we look forward to All five of the composers featured in this seeing you at future Bath Recitals events in 2021 and programme were born within 26 years of each other. beyond. They each have their own individual nuances and styles which shine through their music backed by their The Bath Recitals team Bath Recitals, 42 Great Pulteney Street, Bath BA2 4DR | bathrecitals.com | Registered Charity Number 1051410 Programme designed by Revolution Arts, revolutionarts.co.uk 2 Bath Recitals 2021 Season Convivio Programme J.S. Bach (1685-1750) Orchestral Suite no 1 in C major BWV 1066 H. Purcell (1659-1695) Chaconne in G minor Z 730 A. Vivaldi (1678-1741) Bassoon Concerto in E minor RV484 Interval J.P. Rameau (1683-1764) Suite from ‘Hippolyte et Aricie’ RV 439 A. Vivaldi (1678-1741) Concerto in C Major RV450 for oboe, strings and continuo J.P. Rameau (1683-1764) Les Boreades - Entree de Polimnie G. F. Handel (1685-1759) Suite from Water Music Suite No. 1 HWV 348 (excerpts) J. S. Bach (1685-1750) Orchestral Suite no 1 in C major BWV 1066 Ouverture - Courante - Gavottes - Forlane - Menuets - Bourrees - Passepieds t was not so very long ago that historians blithely Gavotte; Forlane; Menuet; Bourrée; and Passepied in lumped the majority of Bach’s instrumental and addition to the more traditional Ouverture and Courante. Iorchestral works into the Cöthen period (1717–1723) What makes Bach’s dance movements so unusual since that was the period when he was employed as a court is the sheer detail of the writing: The inner parts of the Kapellmeister and was not required to produce church Courante, for instance, exploit the opening melodic cantatas. (The Calvinist court at Cöthen had no use for the gesture to create a highly cohesive texture, while the sort of complex music of which Bach’s cantatas were traditional metrical clashes of the dance are exploited to comprised.) Even though many scholars have admitted their fullest. The paired dances show a degree of wit that some of the pieces could have originated later, some which is often neglected in Bach studies: Gavotte II works still do not seem to fit into the neat categories introduces an actual horn call as counter melody, but not, provided by the course of Bach’s career. as might be expected, in the wind instruments; rather, it is Among them, the Orchestral Suite in C, BWV played by the (inappropriately enlisted) strings. 1066, can be dated in performing sources to circa 1725, Menuet II dispenses with winds altogether precisely the time when Bach was supposed to be and sounds, on first hearing, as if the melodic line immersed in his remarkable production of cantata cycles. has been omitted. But soon it emerges that the Of course, this date does not exclude the possibility that “accompanimental” material is all there is, and Bach may have composed the work at Cöthen, but it does very satisfactory it proves to be. at least suggest that Bach was involved in instrumental Other important “accompaniments” are the performance of some kind at precisely that juncture when lower strings in the Forlane, which in some ways determine he was supposed to have been occupied with other things. the character of the movement more than the melody. Whatever its origins, the C major suite was The same sort of figuration reappears in the second probably composed and performed independently of the Passepied, as a complement (rather than mere other three, which do, however, match it in style and form; accompaniment) to the melody of the first Passepied. only in the 19th century were all four perceived as forming a set. Jeffrey Thomas & John Butt Bach’s C major suite contains no less than five “modern” dances (or more specifically, pairs of dances): 4 Henry Purcell (1659 - 1695) Chaconne in G minor, Z. 730H enry Purcell’s Chacony in G minor takes us Despite being in a minor key, the Chacony to the London theatres that reopened after was probably written as a lively dance. Charles had Hthe return of Charles II to England in 1660. picked up the French habit of listening to music while Restoration theatre music was ‘incidental’: auxiliary to standing and tapping his foot, and he emphatically the actual play, music was performed before the main preferred music that gratified his partiality. The piece is event began and during the interval. based on a descending tetrachord—four consecutive By and large, a suite of theatre music notes of a minor scale, leading from tonic to comprised eight pieces—an overture and a sequence of dominant—which became associated with the lament, dances—that were very often subsequently used as a decisive instance being Dido’s lament from Purcell’s concert works. As the Purcell scholar Peter Holman Dido and Aeneas (1689). As was usual in England, in explains, much Restoration theatre music only survives the case of the Chacony, the chaconne of the title is in concert versions, and it is therefore often problematic used indeterminately, and the word might equally to decide which music was written for which play. This suggest a passacaglia or simply a ground. is certainly the case with Purcell’s Chacony in G minor, which was probably composed around 1680—that is, Paul Williamson while Purcell was employed by Charles, and nearly a decade before he turned his attention almost exclusively to the theatre, after the accession of William III (who notoriously disliked music) and Queen Mary in 1689. 5 A. Vivaldi (1678 - 1741) Bassoon Concerto in E minor, RV 484 Allegro poco - Andante - Allegro eginning in 1703 and intermittently for bassoon concertos – more than for any other many decades, Antonio Vivaldi served as instrument except the violin. From their technical Bmusic factotum at the Pio Ospedale della demands, it is clear that he composed them for a Pietá in Venice, an institution devoted to the care virtuoso. and education of abandoned, orphaned and The E minor Concerto RV484 is the indigent girls–not a few of them with most famous of the many concerti, at least in unacknowledged patrician pedigrees. part for it’s unusual brooding opening movement There was with a special emphasis on showing off the baroque bassoon’s more sultry musical training and in addition to his duties as side! virtuoso violinist, violin teacher, orchestra This is followed by a beautiful slow director and instrument purchaser, Vivaldi served singing second movement exploiting the plaintive as resident composer, producing hundreds of expressivity of the bassoon’s tenor register. works for various instruments and ensembles, In true Vivaldi style the concerto including around 500 concerti, usually at a rate concludes with a virtuosic flare in the final of more than two per month. movement which pushes the bassoon to the Lacking among the girls in the Ospedale extremes of its agility and flexibility! were bassoonists. There is no mention of bassoon solos or instruments among the records, and it is unclear for whom Vivaldi composed his 38 6 J. P. Rameau (1683 - 1764) Suite from Hippolyte et Aricie, RV 439 Ouverture - Premier et deuxieme rigaudon - Chaconne - Vol des zephirs - Premier et deuxième Gavotte ittle is known about Rameau’s early years, and music of the day - a number of hybrid forms that it was not until the 1720s that he won fame as combine elements of opera and ballet. La major theorist of music with the publication This suite draws on the instrumental of his Treatise on Harmony (1722). interludes designed for dancing interspersed Rameau was almost 50 before he embarked throughout the opera typical of 18th century opera. on the operatic career on which his reputation chiefly These pieces demonstrate Rameau’s rests today. extraordinary aptitude for creating colourful music, His debut, Hippolyte et Aricie (1733), caused a in particular through his highly imaginative great stir and was fiercely attacked for its orchestration. revolutionary use of harmony. Rameau especially pushes the wind Hippolyte et Aricie changed the direction of instruments (the oboes and bassoon) to the extremes Rameau's career, and, over the next 30 years, he of their range and paints wonderful pictures of the turned out another two dozen works for the stage, outside scenes in this opera.