Le Concert Des Nations
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Cal Performances Presents Program Friday, February 27, 2009, 8pm Charles Avison (1709–1770) Concerto IX in Seven Parts, done from the First Congregational Church Harpsichord Lessons by Domenico Scarlatti Largo — Con Spirito — Siciliana — Allegro Le Concert des Nations Antonio Rodriguez de Hita (1725–1787) Música Sinfonica para los Ministriles (1751) Despacio cantable — Andante — Les Goûts Réunis (1670–1780) Pastoral — Allegro Luigi Boccherini (1743–1805) La Musica notturna di Madrid (1780) PROGRAM Le campane di l’Ave Maria — Il tamburo dei Soldati Minuetto dei Ciechi “con mala grazia” Jean-Baptiste Lully (1632–1687) Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme Suite Il Rosario Largo assai — Allegro — Marche pour la Cérémonie des Turcs Largo come prima 1st Air des Espagnols — 2nd Air des Espagnols Passa calle Allegro vivo — Il tamburo Gavotte — Canarie Ritirata Maestoso L’entrée des Scaramouches Chaconne des Scaramouches Le Concert des Nations Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber (1644–1704) Battalia à 10 Das liederliche Schwärmen, Mars, die Schlacht, Manfredo Kraemer concertino undt Lamento der Verwundten, mit Arien Riccardo Minasi violin I imitirt und Baccho dedieirt Mauro Lopez violin II Isabel Serrano, Alba Roca violins Sonata Laura Johnson violin & viola Die liederliche Gesellschaft von allerley Humor Angelo Bartoletti, Gianni da Rosa viols Presto — Der Mars — Presto Jordi Savall viola da gamba Aria — Die Schlacht Balasz Mate, Antoine Ladrette cellos Lamento der Verwundten Musquetirer Xavier Puertas violone Enrique Solinis guitar & theorb0 Luca Guglielmi harpsichord Arcangelo Corelli (1653–1713) Concerto IV in Re maggiore (1712) David Mayoral percussion Adagio — Allegro Adagio — Vivace Jordi Savall, director Allegro — Allegro North American representation for Jordi Savall and Le Concert des Nations: INTERMISSION Jon Aaron, Aaron Concert Artists, Inc., New York, New York, www.aaronconcert.com. The work of Jordi Savall, Le Concert des Nations, Hespèrion XXI and La Capella Reial de Catalunya is supported in North America by the Friends of Hespèrion XXI. For more information, write to [email protected]. Cal Performances’ 2008–2009 season is sponsored by Wells Fargo Bank. 34 CAL PERFORMANCES CAL PERFORMANCES 35 Program Notes Program Notes Tastes of the Musical Galant from Quinault. These epic works were the opposite of liederliche Gesellschaft von allerley Humor (“disso- collection that capitalized both on the grand con- Lully to Boccherini galant, with their mythic-heroic themes, grandiose lute company of humors of all kinds”) is one of the certo and on another Italian musical sensation that scaling, and carefully choreographed homages to most astonishing movements in Baroque music: was sweeping England at that time. The incredible the Sun King. In 1664, however, Lully began a col- each instrument plays a different tune, all in mis- popularity in England of Scarlatti’s keyboard mu- Les goûts réunis—“the tastes united,” the theme of laboration with Molière that produced theatrical matching keys and rhythms, representing the utter sic led Charles Burney (A General History of Music, tonight’s program—appeared first as the title of music of a more lighthearted ilk. Lully’s music for cacophony of the soldiers’ drunken singing. In Der 1776–1789) to write of a “Scarlatti sect” who played François Couperin’s second collection of cham- Le bourgeois gentilhomme (1670) was not a setting Mars (“the march”), one violin and one violone almost nothing else. The two fast movements of ber music, published in 1724, in which Couperin of Molière’s comedy to music, but rather a series imitate the sounds of fife and drum; the two sur- the present concerto (Con spirito and Allegro) are strove to combine the best elements of the French picturesque entrées or tableaux: most remain sepa- rounding Presto movements recreate the training of arranged from sonatas by Scarlatti; Avison may and Italian musical styles of his time. The final rate from the action of the plot, though some com- the infantry (duple meter) and cavalry (triple me- have composed the Largo and Siciliana to go with piece in the volume—an Italian-style trio sonata plement it (like the buoyant gavotte of the tailors’ ter). During the actual engagement (Die Schlacht), them, or they may be based on works by Scarlatti entitled Le Parnasse, ou l’Apothéose de Corelli— apprentices who re-dress the hero, M. Jourdain, in the violones snap their strings against the sound- that no longer survive. memorialized the Italian composer-virtuoso whose the clothes of a nobleman). Several of these are na- board (so-called “Bartók pizzicato”) to imitate ar- National Spanish styles and pan-European gal- archetypal sonatas and concertos all Europe strove tionally themed, giving an impression of musical tillery fire—“and loud!,” Biber directs. Yet for all ant styles coexist in the work of Antonio Rodríguez to imitate. sounds of nations beyond France while remaining his clever sound effects, Biber is not insensitive to de Hita (1724–1787), maestro di capilla at the cathe- This joining of musical tastes was a central firmly grounded in French musical practice. The the tragedies of war: his musical battle concludes dral in Palencia (1744–1765) and at the Monasterio ideal of the galant musical style of the 18th cen- raucous Marche pour la Cérémonie des Turcs— not with a triumphant march but with a plaintive de la Encarnación in Madrid (1765–1787). He is tury. The connotations of the term galant were perhaps Lully’s best known single movement—be- “lament for the wounded musketeers,” in which best known as composer of zarzuelas, humorous manifold, from “chivalrous” to “elegant” and even came a model of the strident, percussive “Turkish” the repeated notes of the concitato style are trans- musical dramas that combined sung and spoken “sexy” (fêtes galantes, scenes of lovers engaging in musical style that gained popularity in the follow- formed into the sobs and sighs of the survivors. text, and is credited with reintroducing national- idle pleasantries, were a favorite subject of contem- ing century. Two Airs des Espagnols, danced by The next two works on tonight’s program are istic, specifically Spanish elements into that genre porary art). In music, galant style privileged the two Spaniards who sing in their native language Italian-style concerti grossi, contrasting a small (Diccionario de la zarzuela, 2003). His sacred and whims and impressions of the ear over the compo- of the trials of love, borrow the triple meter and group of soloists (concertino, usually two violins instrumental music from the Palencia period, sitional rules of the past. Daniel Heartz (Music in off-beat entrances of Spanish zarabandas. Finally, and cello) with the sound of the full orchestra (ripi- however, are purely in the popular galant styles of European Capitals, 2003) has pointed out parallels the Chaconne des Scaramouches—in contrast to the eno). Through much of the 18th century, Italian his time, imported from Italy and Vienna; sacred between the galant style and the rococo style of vi- lofty chaconnes and passecailles that crown many a music was held up as a standard of excellence for music, both in Latin and the vernacular, makes sual art: just as the rococo reacted against the “clas- tragédie lyrique—is Lully’s impression of the light- serious music throughout Europe—and most up by far the bulk of his output. The four pieces sical” strictness of Louis XIV’s reign (1661–1715), er, freer Italian ciaccona long associated with the composers who imitated Italian music were imitat- on tonight’s program are taken from his Escala emphasizing elegance, grace, lightness, and color commedia dell’arte. ing the Roman violin virtuoso Arcangelo Corelli diatónico-cromático-enarmónica (1751), a collec- on a small scale, galant music was lighter and less Meanwhile, on the other side of Europe, the (1653–1713). After retiring in 1708 from a brilliant tion of 77 individual movements, for three to five contrapuntally complex than the “learned” music renowned violin virtuoso Heinrich Ignaz Franz performing career, Corelli began to busy himself instruments, for use by the cathedral’s ministriles of previous generations. This freer style opened the von Biber (1644–1704) was writing a different with the composition of concerti; his 12 concerti (i.e., players of wind instruments) “as processionals way not only to a blending of national “tastes,” but kind of music for a different kind of court. In his grossi, Opus 6 (1714), were considered the arche- or other interludes” (en las funciones de Procesiones also to music that took sound itself as its subject, more than 30 years as violinist and Kapellmeister at typal models of the genre even in his day, spawning y de otros intermedios). The three-part works—to imitating the sounds of the street, the battlefield, the archiepiscopal court of Salzburg, he produced numerous similar publications in the generations which tonight’s pieces belong—are scored for two and everyday life. Tonight’s program, spanning a staggering variety of compositions, including following, both in Italy and abroad. The clearest al- treble instruments and one bass instrument in the from the 1670s to the 1770s, brings together mu- his famous violin sonatas in scordatura, grandi- ternation between ripieno and concerto can be heard manner of the Italian trio sonata. True to the lib- sic from all over Europe in a sampler of the many ose sacred works for 4 to 53 voices, and pictorial in the central Vivace and the final Allegro, which eral attitude toward dissonance treatment outlined tastes of the galant. compositions imitating birds, bells, night watch- borrow the rhythms of the minuet and gigue in his Diapasón instructivo (1757), Rodríguez fre- men’s calls and peasants on their way to church. Even as far away as England, the Corellian quently introduces his own harmonic idiosyncra- 2 His Battalia à 10 (1673) belongs to a longstanding concerto grosso—also called the “grand concerto”— sies, such as sudden dissonances or switches to uni- tradition of pieces that mimic the sounds of battle, quickly became the most popular genre of orches- son texture (both of which abound in the Pastoral).