SERIES 01 SERIES 01 Vivaldi’s Venice Vivaldi’s Venice

DATES ARTISTS Sydney City Recital Hall Xavier de Maistre (France) harp Wednesday 26 February 7:00 PM Paul Dyer AO Artistic Director Friday 28 February 7:00 PM Australian Brandenburg Orchestra Saturday 29 February 2:00 PM (Matinee) Saturday 29 February 7:00 PM PROGRAM Wednesday 11 March 7:00 PM Vivaldi Sinfonia in C major from L’Olimpiade, RV 725 Friday 13 March 7:00 PM i Allegro ii Adagio iii Allegro Brisbane Queensland Performing Arts Centre Vivaldi Concerto in D major, RV 93 Tuesday 3 March 7:30 PM i Allegro giusto ii Largo iii Allegro Melbourne Melbourne Recital Centre Parish Alvars La Mandoline, Op. 84 Thursday 5 March 7:00 PM Gregori* Concerto Grosso in D major, Op. 2 No. 2 Saturday 7 March 7:00 PM i Grave ii Allegro iii Largo iv Allegro Sunday 8 March 5:00 PM Marcello Concerto in D minor, S D935 Concert duration approximately 100 minutes, including one interval. i Andante e spiccato ii Adagio iii Presto Please note concert duration is approximate only and is subject to change. Interval We kindly request that you switch off all electronic devices prior to the performance. Vivaldi Concerto in G major, RV 310, Op. 3 No. 3 i Allegro ii Largo iii Allegro This concert will be recorded for delayed broadcast on ABC Classic. Albinoni/Giazotto Adagio in G minor CHAIRMAN’S 11 Pescetti Sonata in C minor Proudly supporting our guest artists. i Allegro ma non presto ii Moderato iii Presto Vivaldi L’inverno, Concerto in F minor, RV 297, Op. 8 No. 4 i Allegro non molto ii Largo iii Allegro

* Denotes Australian première

2 AUSTRALIAN BRANDENBURG ORCHESTRA VIVALDI’S VENICE 3 SHAUN LEE-CHEN 30 APR – 15 MAY 16–31 JUL CONCERTMASTER Mozart’s Bach’s Season Clarinet Violin

Mozart’s bright and achingly beautiful Thrilling German Baroque violinist 2020 basset clarinet concerto performed on Jonas Zschenderlein joins Brandenburg the rare and richly voiced instrument string soloists to perform concertos, of the period. sonatas and a suite by Bach. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Mozart Concerto for oboe in C major, K 314 Bach Concerto for violin in E major, BWV 1042 The W.F. Bach Adagio e Fuga, F 65 Bach Concerto for three violins in D major, Mozart Concerto for basset clarinet in BWV 1064R A major, K 622 Bach Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D major, brilliant BWV 1068

2–19 SEP 22 OCT – 6 NOV colours Notre- Ottoman of Dame Baroque The rich musical tradition of Notre-Dame The mesmerising Whirling Dervishes told in a theatrical concert experience are steeped in mystique and will return entwining music for orchestra and choir from Turkey to dazzle in Paul Dyer’s Baroque with spoken word and song. musical meditation. PROGRAM PROGRAM Featuring music by French composers A pasticcio featuring Allegri, Boccherini, Campra, Lully, Rameau, Rebel and more. Lully, Marais, Telemann, and traditional music from Turkey.

5–16 DEC Noël! Noël!

Gather your family and friends together this Christmas and spend a joyous evening JOIN THE BRANDENBURG FAMILY TODAY sharing rare carols, medieval hymns and ADULT SUBSCRIPTION PACKAGES START FROM $181 a cheeky musical surprise. PROGRAM Filled with timeless carols including Call 1300 782 856 or visit O Come All Ye Faithful, Stille Nacht and brandenburg.com.au/season2020 many musical surprises PROGRAM NOTES Vivaldi’s Venice

DISCOVER OUR PODCAST

Tales of Baroque

Episode Five – Life, and Harps, in Baroque Venice With Xavier de Maistre returning to woo audiences in Vivaldi’s Venice, Dr Alan Maddox also returns to share the microphone with Hugh Ronzani. Together they take a look at life, and harps, in Venice during the affluence of the Baroque period

ALAN MADDOX HUGH RONZANI

Tales of Baroque will be released in our Keynotes e-Newsletter every six weeks. Sign up at brandenburg.com.au/keynotes

PHOTO CREDIT: Dr Alan Maddox appears courtesy of The University of Sydney, STEVEN GODBEE Sydney Conservatorium of Music.

VIVALDI’S VENICE 19 PROGRAM NOTES PROGRAM NOTES Vivaldi’s Venice Vivaldi’s Venice

From the twelfth to the sixteenth been taken aback by the sight of many Antonio Vivaldi (1678–1741) CONCERTO IN D MAJOR, RV 93 century Venice had been one of the people wearing masks. Mask-wearing Allegro giusto SINFONIA IN C MAJOR FROM great trading centres of Europe, but was a centuries-old tradition, regulated Largo L’OLIMPIADE, RV 725 by the eighteenth century its main by law. In the early eighteenth century Allegro Allegro trade was culture. Tourists were drawn masks could be worn for six months of Adagio Vivaldi was taught violin by his father, from all over Europe to see the city’s the year, and nobles had to wear masks Allegro who played in the orchestra at the art treasures, majestic churches and at state ceremonies and public events, Basilica of San Marco and was also grand palazzos, to hear the magnificent and at the theatre. Vivaldi was one of the most successful a barber and wig-maker. Vivaldi was displays of sound and pageantry at opera composers in Italy in the first Much of the best instrumental and ordained as a priest in 1703, and known public festivals, and to attend the decades of the eighteenth century. choral music could be heard at the thereafter as the Red Priest, probably church services which contained His opera-composing career covered four ospedali, charitable institutions because of the colour of his hair. He was so much music they were more like almost thirty years, and he spent long which cared for orphans and destitute not particularly pious: the priesthood concerts than religious ceremonies. periods travelling throughout Italy children, and which each maintained was an accepted career path in Italy About 30,000 foreigners visited Venice staging his own operas. Like Handel, all-female orchestras and choirs especially for someone who was keen every year, rowed in a gondola four Vivaldi was very entrepreneurial. whose standard was equal to anything to improve their social standing. After a kilometres across the lagoon, to the one could hear anywhere in Europe. L’Olimpiade dates from 1734, year he gave up saying mass, claiming one hundred and eighteen islands Venetian composers were at the composed for the carnival season a debilitating chest complaint: ‘I almost which make up the city. (The connecting cutting edge of the new Italian style, at the Teatro Sant’ Angelo in Venice, always remain at home and go out only bridge was only built in 1933). Many at once impassioned and lyrical. when Vivaldi was impresario of in a gondola or carriage, since my chest visitors hired guides to accompany Chief among them was Antonio Vivaldi, the theatre. This sinfonia, or short ailment prevents me from walking.’ It them through the maze of alleys, canals who revolutionised the concerto and symphony, functioned as the overture. did not prevent him from maintaining and bridges, and to protect them from changed the direction of instrumental In this period the music of the overture a unique level of virtuosity on the violin, armed bands of thieves and assassins music for generations to come. did not directly relate to that of the or from travelling throughout Italy, who roamed the city at night. Time was opera to follow but set the mood more mounting his many operas to great different in Venice: the new year began generally. Vivaldi builds excitement acclaim. It also did not prevent him from on the 1st of March, so travellers might from the beginning with a typically working for the Pietà, most famous of leave France or Germany in January vigorous first movement with its rushing the Venetian ospedali, where he was 1723 but find themselves back in 1722 semiquavers and signature rapid octave a violin teacher and then music director when they arrived. For the Venetians leaps, which struck his contemporaries on and off for much of his working life, (along with most of Italy) the first hour as thrillingly innovative. A lyrical second and for whom he wrote most of his over of the day was the hour after the sun movement leads to the typical dance- five hundred concertos. In 1723 the set – so midnight could be 4 o’clock, like third movement, which reminded governors contracted him to compose or 8 o’clock, depending on whether it the audience that the opera would, as two concertos a month, even when he was summer or winter. Unsuspecting usual, have a happy ending. was away from Venice, ‘in order to keep travellers from English-speaking the … ensemble in as high repute as it countries would have been further has reached up to the present’. bamboozled by the use of the twenty- four-hour clock, and all would have Vivaldi probably wrote this particular concerto in 1730. He and his father had

20 AUSTRALIAN BRANDENBURG ORCHESTRA VIVALDI’S VENICE 21 PROGRAM NOTES PROGRAM NOTES Vivaldi’s Venice Vivaldi’s Venice left Venice at the end of 1729 to travel Elias Parish Alvars (1808-1849) a necessity for modern orchestral an arpeggiated accompaniment, was to Vienna, where his new opera Argippo music. In 1842 Parish Alvars acquired known as the ‘three-handed technique’. LA MANDOLINE, OP. 84 was being performed, and then on to the latest in double-action harps, the This term was also used to describe Prague. While they were in Prague it ‘Gothic’ model, larger, more strongly a technique required to play piano is likely that Count Johann Joseph von constructed, and with more strings compositions in this period and for the Wrtby, the royal governor of Bohemia, This man is a magician. In his hands than its predecessors. This inspired same reason - it gave the impression commissioned this concerto and two the harp becomes a siren, with lovely him to develop even more innovative that three hands were playing. trios for lute. As is the case for almost neck inclined and wild hair flowing, techniques which used the instrument Another technique which Parish Alvars all of Vivaldi’s works, the intended stirred by his passionate embrace to in an entirely new way, and for invented and which can be heard performer is not known, although it utter the music of another world. which he was greatly admired by his in the Mandoline was ‘bisbigliando’ could have been Count Wrtby himself as contemporaries including Mendelssohn (‘whispering’ in Italian), a special effect HECTOR BERLIOZ, AFTER HEARING PARISH ALVARS the lute was still a popular recreational PLAY IN FRANKFURT and Liszt. A newspaper article from only possible on a double action pedal instrument in that part of Europe. 1842 described him in the romantic harp. This involves playing the same Parish Alvars was an English virtuoso terms popular in the period, focusing note very fast and softly alternately on WHAT TO LISTEN FOR harpist and composer for the harp. as much on his looks as his playing: adjacent strings, giving a shimmering The Pietà girls and young women He was baptised Eli Parish in Devon where ‘From beneath his prominent forehead or whispering effect. played a wide range of instruments, his father was a local organist, but at some speak his dreamy eyes, expressive which Vivaldi used in all manner of time and for reasons unknown he changed of the glowing imagination which Giovanni Lorenzo Gregori unusual combinations and which helped his name to Elias Parish Alvars, and all of lives in his compositions.’ Berlioz was (1663-1745) his compositions were published under develop his strong sense of tonal colour fascinated by him after hearing him CONCERTO GROSSO IN D MAJOR, that name. At the age of twelve he began and texture. In this concerto he ensured play in Dresden in 1843, and in his OP. 2 NO. 2 studying in London with the virtuoso harpist that the soft-grained sound of the lute music treatise on instruments and Grave Nicolas-Charles Bochsa, whose colourful (here the harp) was not swamped by orchestration he described Parish Allegro life ended in Sydney in 1855 (his elaborate the more vibrant bowed strings. The Alvars as ‘the most extraordinary Largo tomb is in Camperdown Cemetery). From fast outer movements are built around player’ ever heard. Allegro passages alternating between full the early 1830s Parish Alvars based himself orchestra and soloist, in a structure in Vienna, and embarked on the first of WHAT TO LISTEN FOR A composer, music theorist and known as ritornello form which the many concert tours that he was to Most nineteenth-century solo harp violinist, Gregori came from Lucca, Vivaldi was the first composer to use make throughout Europe. He travelled as music was intended for talented a walled city in Tuscany which was extensively. In the soloist’s passages the far afield as St Petersburg, Moscow and amateurs, but Parish Alvars composed also the birthplace of Boccherini and orchestra drops right away, leaving the Constantinople, where he played for for virtuosos like himself and many Puccini. Gregori played violin in the harp supported only by the continuo the Sultan Mahmud II. of his eighty works for solo harp are orchestra of the ducal palace there for over fifty years. (bass instruments and harpsichord). Parish Alvars was innovative in exploiting fiendishly difficult. His Grand Study in The distinctive strumming rhythms of the many effects and harmonic capabilities Imitation of the Mandoline, published the first movement are followed by one of the new double-action pedal harp, in 1846, required the player to master of Vivaldi’s most exquisitely serene slow developed in 1810 by French harp builder many of his new techniques. One, in movements, and the concerto ends with Sébastien Erard. The pedals meant that which the melody is played with the a lively dance-like Allegro. the instrument could be played in any key, thumbs while fingers of both hands play

22 AUSTRALIAN BRANDENBURG ORCHESTRA VIVALDI’S VENICE 23 PROGRAM NOTES PROGRAM NOTES Vivaldi’s Venice Vivaldi’s Venice

WHAT TO LISTEN FOR mathematics scholar, a skilled globe six of the twelve concertos for other have made it very appealing as film The concerto grosso was developed maker, and poet. He played the violin instruments, including this one music, and it has been used in countless in the early eighteenth century. and collected musical instruments, and (BWV 978) for two harpsichords. movies, commercials, and television Gregori’s Opus 2 collection of concerti spoke seven languages. He was also programs. was published in 1698 and were early expert in drawing and painted pictures WHAT TO LISTEN FOR examples of the form, which used a for the family palaces in Venice and at The first movement features a cheerful Giovanni Battista Pescetti small group of soloists, typically two their country villa, and for the ceiling of theme characterised by series of rising (1704-1766) violins and a cello, contrasted against the Marcello parish church. scales played by the solo violin (here SONATA IN C MINOR the harp). The second slow movement the full orchestra. This concerto opens Marcello composed a number of Allegro ma non presto in a serious minor key is an extended with an extended slow harpsichord concertos, violin sonatas, and cantatas Moderato solo, structured around strong chords introductory movement leading to for the finest singers of the day, Presto a lively elegant rhythmic Allegro. played by full orchestra. Typically for including the castrato Farinelli and the The world’s first public opera house A delicate Largo provides a link to Vivaldi, the third movement is a lively celebrated soprano Faustina Bordoni opened in Venice in 1637, and by the a short brisk final movement. dance in triple time. who was Benedetto Marcello’s pupil. early 1700s opera had become such Tomaso Albinoni/ a tourist attraction that there were Alessandro Marcello Antonio Vivaldi (1678–1741) (1673–1747) Remo Giazotto (1910-1998) nineteen theatres in operation. In fact, CONCERTO IN G MAJOR, RV 310, it is estimated that Venice offered more ADAGIO IN G MINOR CONCERTO IN D MINOR, S D935 OP. 3 NO. 3 performances and new productions of Giazotto was an Italian musicologist Andante e spiccato Allegro opera than the other major Italian cities who claimed to have discovered a Adagio Largo put together. The eighteenth-century fragment of the manuscript of an Presto Allegro opera-going public only wanted to unknown Albinoni sonata in the state hear new music, which meant Venetian Alessandro Marcello came from a Vivaldi’s fame was cemented by the library in Dresden. He never allowed theatres had to be continually supplied Venetian noble family, who counted publication in 1711 of his Opus 3, a anyone to see the fragment and it was with new operas and which in turn a Doge painted by Titian among their collection of twelve concertos entitled not recorded in the library’s catalogue, provided local composers like Pescetti ancestors and who had a palazzo on the L’estro armonico (meaning ‘harmonic so there is considerable doubt as with regular employment. Vivaldi is Grand Canal. Venice in the eighteenth inspiration’). Their originality in terms to whether it ever existed. Giazotto known to have composed about fifty century was a highly stratified of musical form and the sheer energy published the Adagio in 1958, under operas (although he claimed in a letter society, with all political, judicial and and vigour of Vivaldi’s style expressed his own name and copyright, but in 1739 that he had written ninety-four), administrative power exercised directly in forceful rhythms and endless variety maintained that it was a reconstruction but even a lesser known composer like by the small hereditary aristocracy. made them a model for concerto of the Albinoni sonata’s slow movement. Pescetti composed twenty-five. As an aristocrat Marcello was a member composition that was followed by He later changed his story and said of the governing council, a diplomat, other composers for years afterwards. that the piece was entirely his, perhaps In 1736 Pescetti travelled to London and a magistrate, but he could not be The Vivaldi scholar Michael Talbot because by then it had become hugely where he landed the plum job of a professional musician as that was describes them as ‘perhaps the most successful commercially. Its simple director of the Opera of the Nobility a career path open only to artisans, influential collection of instrumental melodic line and minor key wistfulness in London, the company set up by the lowest strata of Venetian society. works to appear during the whole of the the Prince of Wales in opposition Like many aristocrats Marcello was eighteenth century’. Bach transcribed to Handel’s Italian opera company. exceptionally well educated. He was a

24 AUSTRALIAN BRANDENBURG ORCHESTRA VIVALDI’S VENICE 25 PROGRAM NOTES PROGRAM NOTES Vivaldi’s Venice Vivaldi’s Venice

Unfortunately for Pescetti the company extended first movement, followed by full orchestra to set the scene, with as they try to regain their balance, collapsed in 1737, but Pescetti stayed a slower second movement. The sonata transient events or sounds portrayed the soloist being the last one to fall. in London, working as a composer and concludes in typical fashion with a short in short musical episodes usually by The final section of the movement contributing arias to pasticcio operas final movement in the style of a lively the soloist. predicts the arrival of spring with the until 1745, when he returned to Venice. gigue. warm Sirocco wind, but it is driven WHAT TO LISTEN FOR After many years he obtained an back by the warring winds of winter in (1678–1741) The first movement begins with the appointment as second organist at Antonio Vivaldi a thrilling conclusion to the concerto. the Basilica of San Marco, but died L’INVERNO (WINTER), CONCERTO IN instruments entering part by part, their just two years later. F MINOR, RV 297, OP. 8 NO. 4 single, steady repeated notes conjuring frozen travellers fighting their way The eighteenth-century English The Four Seasons concertos were through the snow. The first episode music historian Charles Burney published in 1725 and in his own from the soloist represents the biting heard Pescetti’s music in London and lifetime, as in ours, they were Vivaldi’s wind, and the full orchestra returns, still thought that he was ‘a very elegant most popular work in part because of trudging in the cold but now stopping to and judicious writer for the voice’, and their astonishingly vivid depiction of the stamp their feet. The soloist reappears that ‘his melodies are extremely simple changing seasons and the relationship in flurries of snow, which the orchestra and graceful.’ However, he added, ‘his between nature and humanity. interrupts with gusts of bitterly cold style was then too meagre and simple The three movements of each concerto wind. Fast repeated notes from the for our ears, which had been long reflect events related to that season, violins and soloist represent the accustomed to the rich food with which as described in a three verse sonnet chattering of teeth, and the movement they had been fed by Handel’, an unfair attached to the score of each concerto ends with the travellers stamping the comparison, given that Pescetti was and probably written by Vivaldi himself. snow from their feet once more before a generation younger than Handel and He marked the scores to indicate which finding warmth before the fire in the that musical style overall had moved musical passages represent which second movement. The change to to greater harmonic simplicity. verse or in some places which line a comforting major key and plucked of the sonnet, and in some places he WHAT TO LISTEN FOR strings representing the rain falling added more details to give, as he wrote, The Ospedale della Pietà in Venice (before the While in London Pescetti wrote a set outside on a cold winter afternoon make construction, at the beginning of the 19th century, ‘a very clear statement of all the things this one of Vivaldi’s most beautiful slow of the facade of the church) of sonatas for harpsichord, published that unfold’. in 1739. It was common practice in the movements. Back to the harsh minor period to substitute one solo instrument Although they were not his only key for the third movement which for another, and here the harp takes the representational music, that is, music begins with the soloist alone on the ice. place of another plucked instrument, which depicts scenes or sounds found The orchestra joins, and as they walk the harpsichord. in nature, the concertos were unique ‘slowly and fearfully’ (the bouncing in the extent to which the music of bows on strings suggests hearts A sonata is an instrumental piece of ‘narrates’ the specific details from the beating faster) the music rises in pitch music intended to be played by a solo sonnets. Vivaldi achieved this in the until everyone suddenly falls onto the instrument or small ensemble. In this fast movements by using recurring ice in a series of descending passages. work Pescetti conformed to the sonata ritornellos (refrains) played by the Vivaldi depicts every twist and turn structure prevailing at the time, with an

26 AUSTRALIAN BRANDENBURG ORCHESTRA VIVALDI’S VENICE 27 PROGRAM NOTES PROGRAM NOTES Vivaldi’s Venice Vivaldi’s Venice

I ALLEGRO NON MOLTO Agghiacciato tremar tra nevi algenti Frozen, shivering in the icy snow Al severo spirar d’orrido vento, at the cutting breath of the dreadful wind, Correr battendo i piedi ogni momento; run, stamping your feet all the time, E pel soverchio gel battere i denti; the extreme cold making your teeth chatter;

II LARGO Passar al foco i dì quieti e contenti Pass quiet and contented days by the fire Mentre la pioggia fuor bagna ben cento while the rain pours down outside;

III ALLEGRO Camminar sopra il ghiaccio, Walk on the ice e à passo lento per timor with careful slow steps for fear di cader girsene intenti; of falling or tripping on it; Gir forte, sdrucciolar, cader a terra, turn suddenly, slipping and falling to the ground; Di nuove ir sopra il ghiaccio e correr walk onto the ice again and running heavily Sinfonia - First page from a manuscript copy of forte Vivaldi’s opera, L’Olimpiade, RV 725, dated c.1734 Sin ch’il ghiaccio si rompe, e si disserra; until the ice cracks and breaks; Sentir uscir dalle serrate porte hear Sirocco, Boreas, and all the warring winds Sirocco, Borea, e tutti i Venti in guerra as they whistle through closed doors: Quest’ è ’l verno, This is winter, ma tal, che gioia apporte. but it brings joy.

Program notes, translations & timeline Canaletto - The Grand Canal near the Ponte di Rialto, 1725 © Lynne Murray 2020

28 AUSTRALIAN BRANDENBURG ORCHESTRA VIVALDI’S VENICE 29 Mozart’s bright and achingly beautiful basset clarinet concerto performed on the rare and richly voiced instrument of the period.

STARRING SOLOISTS: CRAIG HILL (AUSTRALIA) BASSET CLARINET EMMA BLACK (AUSTRIA) CLASSICAL OBOE

MELBOURNE 30 APRIL – 3 MAY 2020 SYDNEY 6–15 MAY 2020 PARRAMATTA 14 MAY 2020

BOOK NOW PHOTO CREDIT: brandenburg.com.au JAMES BRAUND