UMS PRESENTS AKADEMIE FÜR ALTE MUSIK BERLIN Sunday Afternoon, April 13, 2014 at 4:00 Hill Auditorium • Ann Arbor 66th Performance of the 135th Annual Season 135th Annual Choral Union Series Photo: Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin; photographer: Kristof Fischer. 31 UMS PROGRAM Johann Sebastian Bach Orchestral Suite No. 1 in C Major, BWV 1066 Ouverture Courante Gavotte I, II Forlane Menuett I, II Bourrée I, II Passepied I, II Johann Christian Bach (previously attributed to Wilhelm Friedmann Bach) Concerto for Harpsichord, Strings, and Basso Continuo in f minor Allegro di molto Andante Prestissimo Raphael Alpermann, Harpsichord Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach WINTER 2014 Symphony No. 5 for Strings and Basso Continuo in b minor, Wq. 182, H. 661 Allegretto Larghetto Presto INTERMISSION AKADEMIE FÜR ALTE MUSIK BERLIN AKADEMIE FÜR ALTE 32 BE PRESENT C.P.E. Bach Concerto for Oboe, Strings, and Basso Continuo in E-flat Major, Wq. 165, H. 468 Allegro Adagio ma non troppo Allegro ma non troppo Xenia Löeffler,Oboe J.C. Bach Symphony in g minor for Strings, Two Oboes, Two Horns, and Basso Continuo, Op. 6, No. 6 Allegro Andante più tosto adagio Allegro molto WINTER 2014 Media partnership provided by WGTE 91.3 FM. Special thanks to Tom Thompson of Tom Thompson Flowers, Ann Arbor, for his generous contribution of floral art for this evening’s concert. Special thanks to Kipp Cortez for coordinating the pre-concert music on the Charles Baird Carillon. This tour is made possible by the generous support of the Goethe Institut and the Auswärtige Amt (Federal Foreign Office). Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin records for Harmonia Mundi. Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin is managed in North America by International Arts Foundation, New York, NY. Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin is managed worldwide by Felix Hilse, Berlin, Germany. 33 UMS NOW THAT YOU’RE IN YOUR SEAT… If you mentioned the name Bach in the second half of the 18th century, people would assume that you meant either Carl Philipp Emanuel or Johann Christian — but not Johann Sebastian. In their own lifetimes, these two sons of the Thomaskantor were much more famous than their father. They represented two divergent trends in the music of the time. Emanuel stood for Empfindsamkeit (sensitivity), a way of writing that emphasized emotional expression and often featured surprising harmonies, sudden interruptions, and other dramatic moves. Christian’s name, on the other hand, became synonymous with the style “galant,” a much mellower, happier vein. Yet, as always, one must be careful with generalizations as there are exceptions to every rule. The program will begin with a work by the father where, especially in the shorter dance movements, he clearly prepares the way for the galant style of the next generation. Orchestral Suite No. 1 in C Major, origin. “Stylized” means that the music BWV 1066 (1724) is meant to be listened to rather than Johann Sebastian Bach danced to — a description that certainly Born March 31, 1685 in Eisenach, Germany applies to Bach’s orchestral suites, even Died July 28, 1750 in Leipzig though Bach himself didn’t call them by that name. His title was “Overtures,” for UMS premiere: Chicago Symphony Baroque the reason that each work began with Orchestra with harpsichordist Kenneth Gilbert an elaborate overture in the French conducted by Jean Martinon in June 1967 at style. French Baroque overtures, whose the Fair Lane Festival original home was the opera house, can WINTER 2014 be instantly recognized by their slow, SNAPSHOTS OF HISTORY…IN 1724: majestic opening, usually employing • Handel’s opera Julius Caesar is first performed in London dotted rhythms (with alternating long • War between the New England colonies and the and short notes). They also typically Wabanaki Confederacy of Indian nations have a faster middle section in imitative • Canaletto paints several celebrated canvases of the Grand Canal in Venice counterpoint, after which the opening • Swiss mathematician Daniel Bernoulli publishes music returns. Each of these opening his revolutionary Exercitationes Quaedam movements in Bach’s four orchestral Mathematicae • Bach and his second wife, Anna Magdalena, have their suites also incorporates concerto-like first son, Gottfried Heinrich, who shows great musical elements, with smaller instrumental talent but is mentally disabled groups contrasted with the full ensemble. In other respects, the four suites are very If the six Brandenburg Concertos were different from one another, in scoring and Johann Sebastian Bach’s answer to the in the actual sequence of movements. Italian concerto, the four orchestral In Orchestral Suite No. 1, the suites are the result of his in-depth study “Overture” is followed by a “Courante,” a of French music, although — unlike the dance in fast triple meter that figures in concertos — the four suites were not all of Bach’s solo suites but nowhere else composed as a group. in the orchestral works. Next come two A Baroque suite is essentially a set “Gavottes,” in duple meter and with a long AKADEMIE FÜR ALTE MUSIK BERLIN AKADEMIE FÜR ALTE of stylized dances, mostly of French (half-note) pickup, and a “Forlane,” in a 34 BE PRESENT quick 6/4 time. (This is the only example After he lost his father at the age of 15, of a “Forlane” in all of Bach’s music.) The he went to live with Carl Philipp Emanuel, two “Minuets” that follow are in medium who was then in the service of Frederick tempo and triple meter; the two “Bourrées” the Great, King of Prussia, and was also in duple meter with a short (quarter note) in constant contact with Friedemann. pickup. The two “Passepieds,” which close Emanuel’s empfindsamer Stil (sensitive the suite, are fast dances in 3/4 time. style) must have made a big impression on the teenage Christian, who wrote some of his earliest surviving works during his Concerto for Harpsichord, Berlin years. His authorship is confirmed Strings, and Basso Continuo in by a surviving sketch in his handwriting, f minor (1750–55) and in 1985, the work was included in Johann Christian Bach the complete edition of J.C. Bach’s works. Born September 5, 1735 in Leipzig, Germany Christian’s later g-minor symphony, Died January 1, 1782 in London, England which closes this afternoon’s program, attests that the youngest Bach retained Previously attributed to Wilhelm his darker, emotional side long after he Friedemann Bach had established himself in the smoother, Born November 22, 1710 in Weimar, Germany sunnier galant style. Died July 1, 1784 in Berlin The present concerto in f minor UMS premiere: Concerto for Harpsichord, definitely shows the influence of WINTER 2014 Strings, and Basso Continuo in f minor has Christian’s two older half-brothers. never been performed on a UMS concert. Together with five other concertos whose authorship has never been in SNAPSHOTS OF HISTORY…IN 1750: doubt (the so-called “Berlin Concertos”), • Johann Sebastian Bach dies on July 28, 1750 at the age it constitutes the earliest known body of of 65 work by the future “Milan” and “London” • The first volumes of the French Encyclopédie are published Bach. With hindsight, our concerto can • Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Bond found the be said to represent a transition between Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia, the first hospital the Baroque and Classical eras (which in America • Carl Linné publishes his ground-breaking work in we associate with the works of J.S. Bach botany, the Species Plantarum and Mozart, respectively). Like a classical • Johann Stamitz composes his innovative symphonies concerto, it begins with an orchestral in Mannheim introduction; when the solo instrument enters, it plays a contrasting second The present concerto has caused theme. Yet the theme of the orchestral considerable confusion for musicians introduction — a dramatic and turbulent and music-lovers as it has been, at various melody — keeps returning much like a times, attributed to all three illustrious Baroque ritornello, in constant contrast Bach sons: Wilhelm Friedemann, Carl with the more lyrical solo material. There Philipp Emanuel, and Johann Christian. is a solo cadenza at the end of the first This is surprising since the styles of the movement, as in a classical concerto. After two older Bach sons, different from one a serious and dignified slow movement another as well, are far removed from containing a second cadenza, a whirlwind that of their younger half-brother. Yet “Prestissimo” closes the work. Christian, at the beginning of his career, was heavily influenced by his brothers. 35 UMS Symphony No. 5 for Strings and bear little resemblance to the Viennese Basso Continuo in b minor, classical symphony, which Joseph Haydn Wq. 182, H. 661 (1773) had already begun to standardize by the Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach time this work was written (the third Born March 8, 1714 in Weimar, Germany movement comes closest to “regularity” Died December 14, 1788 in Hamburg but even there, idiosyncratic features abound). The first movement juxtaposes UMS premiere: Concert Soloists of Philadelphia rapidly scurrying scalar figures with conducted by Marc Mostovoy in December mysterious, slow-moving chords visiting 1981 in Rackham Auditorium distant keys, and lyrical melodies with angular motifs, shooting up like arrows. SNAPSHOTS OF HISTORY…IN 1773: The sensitive melody of the second- • The 17-year-old Mozart composes his “Little” Symphony No. 25 in g minor, K. 183 movement “Larghetto” is enlivened by • The Boston Tea Party takes place in Boston Harbor some fortissimos and pianissimos that • Carl Wilhem Scheele and Joseph Priestley isolate come when you would least expect them, oxygen • Johann Wolfgang Goethe writes The Sorrows of while the final “Presto,” which opens on a Young Werther surprising dissonance, goes through some • Captain James Cook crosses the Antarctic Circle highly unusual tonal adventures before it reaches its energetic conclusion.