The University of Chicago Presents Rockefeller Memorial Chapel. October 29, 2015, 7:30 PM. Bach Collegium Japan

Transcription

1 The University of Chicago Presents Rockefeller Memorial Chapel October 29, 2015, 7:30 PM Bach Collegium Japan Masaaki Suzuki, conductor/harpsichord Joanne Lunn, soprano Guy Ferber, trumpet Masamitsu San Nomiya, oboe Kiyomi Suga, flauto traverse Andreas Böhlen, recorder Ryo Terakado, violin Yukie Yamaguchi, violin Mika Akiha, viola Emmanuel Balssa, cello Frank Coppieters, contrabasso BACH Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 in F Major, BWV 1047 Andante assai VIVALDI Concerto in C Major for Recorder, Strings, and Continuo, RV 443 Largo molto Guy Ferber, trumpet Masamitsu San Nomiya, oboe Andreas Böhlen, recorder Ryo Terakado, violin HANDEL Gloria in B-flat Major, HWV deest Gloria in excelsis Deo Et in terra pax Laudamus te Domine Deus, Rex coelestis Qui tollis peccata mundi Quoniam tu solus sanctus Intermission Andreas Böhlen, recorder Joanne Lunn, soprano BACH Sonata in E minor for Flute and Continuo, BWV 1034 Adagio ma non tanto Andante

2 Kiyomi Suga, flauto traverso VIVALDI Concerto in C Major for Oboe and Strings, RV 450 molto Larghetto BACH Cantata No. 51, Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen BWV 51 Aria: Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen Recitativo: Wir beten zu dem Tempel an Aria: Höchster, mache deine Güte Chorale: Sei Lob und Preis mit Ehren Alleluja! Masamitsu San Nomiya, oboe PROGRAM NOTES Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 in F Major, BWV 1047 JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH Born March 31, 1685, Eisenach, Germany Died July 28, 1750, Leipzig, Germany approximately 12 minutes Premiere In 1721 Bach presented the score to Christian Ludwig, Margrave of Brandenburg. The first performance is unknown. Bach served as Kapellmeister at the court of Anhalt-Cöthen from 1717 until 1723, an unusually happy period for the composer; Prince Leopold was an enthusiastic and informed amateur musician who put the full resources of his court including a seventeen-piece orchestra at Bach s disposal. Early in his tenure at Cöthen, Bach had journeyed to Berlin to order the construction of a new organ at Cöthen. While in Berlin, he played for Christian Ludwig, the younger brother of King Wilhelm I of Prussia; as a member of the royal family, Christian Ludwig enjoyed the official title of Margrave of Brandenburg. He expressed some interest (perhaps simply polite) in Bach s music, and the composer promised to send him some. Bach, however, was in no hurry to get around to this, and it was not until several years later, in March 1721, that he finally sent off a handsomely-copied manuscript of six orchestral concertos with a flowery letter of dedication to the Margrave in Berlin. The manuscripts were later found among the Margrave s papers (he apparently never had them performed), and the nickname Brandenburg Concertos was attached to them long after the composer's death. The Second Brandenburg Concerto is in concerto grosso form, but here Bach assembles an unusual set of solo instruments: trumpet, flute, oboe, and violin. The trumpet has caused a number of problems. The trumpet Bach wrote for is the small F trumpet, an instrument with a sound so piercing that it almost seems capable of shattering glass. Such an instrument can with ease drown out the other solo voices, especially the flute (which in Bach s

3 time would have been the wooden recorder), and conductors face difficult problems balancing the voices in this concerto. So extreme are these problems that some scholars have gone so far as to suggest that Bach actually intended that this part should be played on the horn, whose mellow sonority balances more easily with the other voices. The ear-piercing sound of the high trumpet is so much a part of this music, however, that it is hard to imagine that Bach could have intended it for any other instrument. The robust opening movement (Bach left no tempo indication) alternates extended passages for the four soloists with tutti interjections from the full orchestra. Bach solves balance problems very neatly in the slow movement he simply leaves the trumpet (and the rest of the orchestra) out, turning the music over to the remaining soloists and continuo for a chamber music interlude; this Andante is based on a short melodic phrase that repeats throughout the movement. The finale, marked assai, is fugal, and the trumpet celebrates its return by introducing the main subject, followed by oboe, violin, and flute. This movement belongs largely to the soloists, who often play with only continuo accompaniment; the writing in this movement for the trumpet, which often plays in its highest register, is of unbelievable brilliance and virtuosity. Concerto in C Major for Recorder, Strings, and Continuo, RV 443 ANTONIO VIVALDI Born March 4, 1678, Venice, Italy Died July 28, 1741, Vienna, Austria approximately 12 minutes Vivaldi spent nearly forty years ( ) as music director of the Ospedale della Pietà, a home for illegitimate, abandoned, or orphaned girls in Venice. In that era (perhaps more progressive than our own), the Ospedale believed that teaching these girls to play an instrument would give them a useful skill, rescue them from a life of poverty, and keep them from becoming lifelong burdens on the state. At the Ospedale, Vivaldi s responsibilities were to teach the violin and to write music for the girls to play, and it was for the use of these girls that he wrote most of his 450 concertos. The vast majority of them are for the composer s own instrument, the violin, and other stringed instruments, but he also wrote concertos for winds, and the Concerto in C Major for Piccolo and Strings was one of these. Like virtually all of Vivaldi s works, the Concerto in C Major is impossible to date, but there is no question about its authenticity, for the composer s manuscript survives. Vivaldi fully exploits the recorder s brilliant high range in this concerto, a part that is sometimes taken by the piccolo in modern performances. The concerto is in the standard three movements of the Italian concerto. Introduced by a powerful orchestral ritornello, the opening movement has a virtuosic solo part: its long runs demand a seemingly endless supply of breath from the soloist, who must play at almost stratospheric heights. The Largo, in E minor, belongs exclusively to the soloist, who projects a sustained and florid melodic line over the orchestra s steady (and subservient) rhythms. The orchestra reasserts itself at the animated opening of the molto, and quickly the recorder sails in, chirping happily above the

4 orchestra s busy accompaniment. Once again, Vivaldi requires superb breath control from the soloist as this concerto powers its way to a most cheerful close. Gloria in B-flat Major, HWV deest GEORGE FRIDERIC HANDEL Born February 23, 1685, Halle, Germany Died April 14, 1759, London, United Kingdom approximately 15 minutes Premiere This piece was composed either in 1706 in Germany or in 1707, during the first year Handel had moved to Italy. The first performance after the rediscovery was on May 18 th, 2001 at the Hinchingbrooke Performing Arts Centre in Huntingdon, UK. The authenticity of this work is not certain. It may be by Handel and it may not and the Handel Werke Verzeichnis lists it as deest, the designation for missing works. The manuscript for this setting of the Gloria text was discovered in 2001 in a collection of Handel arias in the library of the Royal Academy of Music in London, and on the first violin part is inscribed Handel s name. Those are the sole connections, beyond certain stylistic similarities, to Handel, and the origin of this work may never be decided convincingly. The work has been performed and recorded (and enthusiastically received), and this may well be an important and long-unknown addition to the Handel catalog. The Gloria text a great hymn of praise comes from the second part of the Roman Catholic Mass, and over the centuries it has attracted a number of composers. These include Vivaldi, Saint-Saëns, and in the twentieth century Poulenc and Rutter. Composers often subdivide the text to suit their own musical purposes: Handel scores this setting for soprano soloist and strings and divides the text into six movements. Sonata in E minor for Flute and Continuo, BWV 1034 JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH Born March 31, 1685, Eisenach, Germany Died July 28, 1750, Leipzig, Germany approximately 15 minutes Six flute sonatas by Bach survive: three for flute and harpsichord and three for flute and basso continuo. The Sonata in E Minor is one of the latter: the flute line is fully written out, but there is only a single bass line for the keyboard player, whose responsibility it becomes to flesh out the harmony of the accompaniment on his own. And Bach would have expected both his performers to ornament their lines in individual (and spontaneous) ways ideally, no two performances should ever be exactly the same. This sonata appears to have been composed in , during Bach s earliest years as Kapellmeister in

5 Cöthen. It is in the slow-fast-slow-fast sequence of movements of the baroque instrumental sonata. The stately, steady opening Adagio ma non tanto gives way to an agile that requires some impressive breath control from the flutist. The Andante opens with a six-measure statement from the keyboardist, and this line repeated several times and in various permutations will furnish the underpinning for the entire movement, as the flute line sings gracefully above it. The concluding, the only movement in the sonata in binary form, demands more brilliant playing from the flutist. Particularly noteworthy here is the fact that Bach carefully differentiates passages that should be played forte and those that should be piano usually he left such decisions about dynamics to his performers. Concerto in C Major for Oboe and Strings, RV450 ANTONIO VIVALDI Born March 4, 1678, Venice, Italy Died July 28, 1741, Vienna, Austria approximately 12 minutes Vivaldi s oboe concertos, also composed for the girls of the Ospedale della Pietà, tend to be very brief, and they take the standard three-movement fast-slow-fast sequence of the Italian concerto. Vivaldi specifies molto for the first movement of the Concerto in C Major, and this is vigorous music indeed, as the orchestra stamps out the spirited ritornello. The oboe makes its entrance on a part that requires long lines, trills, turns, triplet runs, and superb breath control clearly, Vivaldi had some accomplished oboe students if he was writing music this demanding for them. Often baroque concertos transform the middle movement into chamber music: the orchestra sits out while the soloist plays above a continuo line. Not here. In the Larghetto Vivaldi accompanies the soloist with the full orchestra, often dividing their passages between solo and tutti interjections. This movement is nominally in A minor, but the writing is so chromatic that any sense of a stable home key is undercut, and Vivaldi offers the opportunity for a cadenza just before the final chords. The concluding bursts to life on striking antiphonal exchanges between the two violin sections. When the oboe enters, however, the orchestra retreats to the shade, content to offer quiet accompaniment. Once again, the solo part demands a first-class oboist, and once again Vivaldi offers that soloist the opportunity for a cadenza just before the end. Cantata Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen BWV 51 JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH Born March 31, 1685, Eisenach, Germany Died July 28, 1750, Leipzig, Germany approximately 18 minutes Premiere

6 Premiered under the baton of J.S. Bach probably on September 17 th, 1730 in Leipzig When Bach became Cantor at the Thomaskirche in Leipzig in 1723, he enthusiastically embraced his new responsibility to supply liturgical music for services there. Over the next five years, he composed five complete cycles of cantatas, a total of nearly 300 cantatas. And then, exhausted by these labors and by constant squabbles with the Leipzig authorities, Bach scaled back his composition of liturgical music, concentrating on secular works and writing cantatas only on special occasions. The Cantata No. 51 Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen ( Praise God in All Lands ) was one of these, probably composed for performance on September 17, 1730 (the numbering of Bach s cantatas does not reflect the sequence of their composition). This is a special sort of cantata, festive in spirit and with prominent roles for solo performers. Chief among these is a brilliant part for soprano. In Bach s time, this would have been sung by a boy soprano, but more recently adult female sopranos have gladly made this part their own. This cantata features a terrific obbligato role for solo trumpet, which imitates the soprano s line at some points; Bach also writes extended solo parts for two violins in the last movement, further heightening the brilliance of this music. Jauchzet Gott is joyful music, and it has become one of Bach s most popular cantatas. In four movements, the cantata features wonderful writing for the soprano throughout Bach gives her high, ringing music. The shining opening Aria echoes with the bright sound of the trumpet, also set high in its register, and Bach sends the soprano soaring brilliantly above this. The second movement, Wir beten zu den Tempel ( We Worship in the Temple ) is a recitative in which the soprano s line moves gracefully above slowly-pulsing string accompaniment. Halfway through, Bach adjusts the tempo to Andante, and here the soprano s florid decoration floats above continuo accompaniment. The third movement, an aria on the text Höchster, mache deine Güte ( Father, Grant Us Favor ), also features simple continuo accompaniment, now in a steady 12/8 pulse; above this, Bach spins a beautifully-sustained melodic line. The concluding movement, marked Chorale, is in two parts. Its opening section features prominent parts for two solo violins, whose wide skips and bright energy are reminiscent of Bach s own Concerto in D Minor for Two Violins. Encased within these intermeshing violin lines, the soprano sings the chorale tune that Bach would normally assign to a choir. Midway through this movement, the pace suddenly quickens and the soprano launches an energetic fugal treatment of the word Alleluja. Silent since the opening movement, the trumpet now returns to join in this contrapuntal complexity, and the cantata sails home on a great wave of exuberant energy. The praise of God has seldom sounded so good. - Program notes by Eric Bromberger