The Atlanta Baroque Orchestra John Hsu, Artistic Director & Conductor Recreation de Musique Chamber music for flutes and violins by Marais, Charpentier & Le Clair Daniel Pyle, Resident Director Sunday 21 October 2007 3:00 p.m. Peachtree Road United Methodist Church 3180 Peachtree Road NW Atlanta, Georgia
Recreation de Musique: French Chamber Music made possible by the sponsorship of Janie R. Hicks Suite II in G minor, from Pièces en trio (1692) Marin Marais pour les Flûtes, Violons, et basse-continue (1656-1728) Prélude Fantaisie 1er Sarabande & 2me Sarabande Rondeau Gigue Gavotte 1er Menuet & 2me Menuet Plainte Petitte Passecaille Air Gay Première Recreation de musique, œuvre VI Jean-Marie Le Clair for two violins and basse-continue (1697 1764) Ouverture Gracieusement Forlanne 1er Menuet & 2me Menuet Gavotte 1er Passepied & 2me Passepied Sarabande Chaconne intermission Deuxième Recreation de musique, œuvre VIII Jean-Marie Le Clair for two flutes and basse-continue (1697 1764) Ouverture Forlane: point trop vite Sarabande: lentement Menuet & autre Menuet Badinage Chaconne Tambourin Sonata à Huit Insturments Marc-Antoine Charpentier for two flutes, two violins. viole de gambe, basse de violon, theorbo, and harpsichord (1644-1704) Grave Récit de la Viole seule - Sarabande Récit dela Basse de violon Bourée Gavote Gigue Passecaille - Chaconne
THE ATLANTA BAROQUE ORCHESTRA John Hsu, Artistic Director & Conductor Violin Violoncello Flute Martha Perry Brent Wissick Catherine Bull Ute Marks Janice Joyce Harpsichord Viole de gambe Daniel Pyle Martha Bishop Triple Harp Paula Fagerberg The Atlanta Baroque Orchestra was founded under the leadership of Lyle Nordstrom, along with founding-members Catherine Bull, Jeanne Johnson, Daniel Pyle, and Eckhart Richter, who felt the need for a permanent, professional, historical-instrument orchestra in the Southeast. The unique, transparent sheen of early instruments, coupled with their capability of a delightful variety of articulations, allows voices and instruments to blend into a unified, yet clear, sound that is very difficult to achieve with modern instruments. Since its founding in 1997, the ABO has been applauded for its freshness and verve, and for its delightful, convincing performances of a wide range of earlier works. The Orchestra received initial generous support from the Atlanta Early Music Alliance and a variety of individuals, and has also depended on donations of time and money from the musicians themselves. The ABO is a not-for-profit corporation based in Atlanta, and is 501(c)3 (tax-exempt). Contributions, which are tax-deductible, are greatly appreciated and are central to the survival of a venture such as this. If you would like to support the ABO and its future programming, please send checks made out to The Atlanta Baroque Orchestra, 303 Augusta Avenue SE, Atlanta, GA 30315. There is also a great opportunity for friends of the arts in the community to serve on the Atlanta Baroque Orchestra board. Please visit our website at www.atlantabaroque.org for more information on the ABO. John Hsu is the Old Dominion Foundation Professor of Music Emeritus at Cornell University, where he taught for 50 years (1955-2005). He was the founder and conductor of the erstwhile Apollo Ensemble (a period instrument chamber orchestra) and a renowned virtuoso player of the viola da gamba and baryton. As both a conductor and an instrumentalist, he has been awarded grants by The Fund for U.S. Artists at International Festivals and Exhibitions, a public/private partnership of the National Endowment for the Arts, the United States Information Agency, The Rockefeller Foundation, and the Pew Charitable Trusts. He has performed throughout North America and Europe, and made awardwinning recordings. Among them are his CD of Haydn Baryton Trios (with violist David Miller and cellist Fortunato Arico), which was chosen Winner in the Music Retailers Association's Annual Award for Excellence in London, 1989; and his CD Symphonies for the Esterhazy Court by Joseph Haydn (with the Apollo Ensemble), which was nominated for the 1996 International Cannes Classical Music Award. In recognition of his edition of the complete instrumental works of Marin Marais (1656-1728), the most important composer of music for the viola da gamba, and for his performances and recordings of French baroque music for the viola da gamba, the French government conferred on him the knighthood Chevalier de l'ordre des Arts et des Lettres in May of 2000. He is a graduate of the New England Conservatory of Music, which awarded him the Honorary Doctor of Music degree in 1971, and the Outstanding Alumni Award in 2003. He is also Artistic Director Emeritus of the Aston Magna Foundation for Music and the Humanities, the pioneering musical organization in the historical performance movement in this country, founded by Albert Fuller in 1972.
Program Notes by Daniel Pyle Throughout the history of Western music, there is a tendency to alternate between periods during which each nation or major ethnic group had its own musical style and periods were one international style held sway over the whole continent. The Renaissance (ca. 1450 1600) and the Classical (ca. 1730 1830) were times when composers from all Western European regions were working in the same, international style; but the Baroque period (ca. 1600 1760) was a musical era marked by distinct national styles: the Italian, the French, the German, and (for the first part of the period, before the local style was completely swamped by the advent of Handel) the English. Of these four, the Italian and the French were the most widely known and influential. Musicians all over the continent were familiar with the Italian style because that, after all, was were the Baroque style originated. The French attitude towards the Italian-born Baroque style was ambivalent, all the way through the period until it waned and was supplanted by the Classic style. French musicians and music-lovers were deeply impressed by the musical and expressive power of the Italian Baroque, and they wished to emulate that power; but at the same time they were very conscious of being French and of the need to create a music that was distinctly French but matching the Italian in expressivity. Many Italian artists and musicians visited and worked in France, particularly during the regency of Anne of Austria (widow of Louis XIII, before her son Louis XIV came of age) and her favorite, Cardinal Mazarin who was Italian by birth (Mazarini). When Louis XIV did assume the government of France, choosing Jean- Baptiste Lully to be his chief musician, there was a strong reaction against Italian influence in music and the arts, and Lully achieved a lasting place in the history of music by creating a style of opera and of musical declamation of text that was peculiarly French and especially suited to the French language. Lully s position of pre-eminence was a musical reflection of his master s policy of concentrating all power in France in his own hands (remembering that during the reigns of his grandfather Henry IV and his predecessors, France s existence as a nation was almost ended by a series of disastrous civil wars). Lully had the authority to stifle the careers of any composers whom he might view as rivals, and did not hesitate to use this authority. Chief among those rivals was Marc-Antoine Charpentier. Charpentier was also mostly interested in composing opera, and had in fact spent a part of education in Rome as a student of Carissimi. Upon returning to Paris, however, Charpentier found that opportunities for producing operatic work was blocked by Lully, and he that the only venues for his output not under Lully s control were the Church for whom he wrote numerous oratorios, masses, and dramatic motets and the salon. The Sonata for Eight Instruments was likely composed around 1685 for an entertainment at the Paris residence of the Duchess of Guise for which he also composed the chamberopera Les Arts Florissant. In spite of the fact that Charpentier used an Italian designation sonata for this work, it is not at all in the form of a sonata, but rather a French dance-suite in every respect.
One excuse that was often used to justify thwarting Charpentier s ambitions was that he was too much influenced by Italian music, on account of his Roman training. This is especially ironical, in view of the fact that Lully was Italian by birth, having been baptized as Giovanni Battista Lulli, and only arrived in France as a young man but then made himself over to be more French than the French. Marin Marais was, unlike Charpentier, in every respect a French musician. At a time when Italian musicians had completely jettisoned the viola da gamba in favor of the violin family, he was a virtuoso performer on the gamba, and one of the select group of chamber-musicians who regularly played for Louis XIV and his family at Versailles. As a composer is best known for his five books of suites for viola da gamba with basso continuo. The only other chamber-music which he published was a set of six suites for two treble instruments (the title page suggests either flutes or violins) and bass. They appeared in 1692, a decade when many French composers were fascinated by the new Italian trio sonatas, in particular those by Corelli. One way they responded to this new genre was to adopt the texture two treble melodic parts with basso continuo but adapt it to the suite of dances: this is the course which Marais took. Other composers, like François Couperin, actually worked in the Italianate sonata form. But Couperin was so wary, even in the 1690 s, of being branded an Italophile that he published them only under a pseudonym and did not acknowledge them as his own work until 30 years later. By the 1720 s, French musicians no longer felt compelled to conceal there interest in Italian music. Jean-Marie Le Clair built his career as a virtuoso performer on an Italian instrument, the violin; in fact, the one musician to whom he was generally compared was an Italian, Pietro Locatelli. His bestknown compositions are his very Italianate sonatas for violin and basso continuo, which he openly published under his own name. The two Récréations de musique, on the other hand, are very much French in style, not only in being dance-suites, but also in the manner of writing for the violin and flute. What does mark them, however, is a very distinctly personal sense of harmony, using many unexpected progressions. Of course, the one story about Le Clair that is indispensable for all programnotes is that he died by another s hand: he was going home from an evening of billiards and was attacked and killed outside his own door. It is thought that the assailant was hired to kill him, probably either by his wife who was not overly fond of him, or by his nephew who felt that Uncle Jean-Marie was not doing enough to promote the nephew s career as a violinist. The case remains unsolved and open in the files of the Paris police.
These concerts are made possible in part by a gift from
Embellish A Melody! Bach Club ($1.000 +) Vivaldi Club ($250-499) An anonymous donor Anne P. Halliwell An anonymous donor Dr. & Mrs. Ephraim R. McLean An anonymous donor Cathy Callaway Adams Dr. & Mrs. David Bright Peter & Patricia DeWitt Telemann Club ($100-249) Federal Home Loan Bank of Atlanta Joan Althouse Janie R. Hicks John & Linda Austin Martha J. R. Hsu Mr. & Mrs. Roger S. Austin Douglas A. Leonard Beth Bell William E. Pearson III Mr. & Mrs. Roy B. Bogue Lois Z. Pyle Stratton H. Bull Dr. & Mrs. Eckhart Richter Susan K. Card Donald E. Snyder Moncure and Sandy Crowder Larry Thorpe & Dr. Barbara Williams Jeffrey & Martha Freeman Susan Wagner Dymples E. Hammer Mr. & Mrs. Allan R. Jones Handel Club ($500-999) Virginia Ware Killorin Donald N. Broughton & Susan L. Olson Hans & Christa Krause Dr. & Mrs. William P. Marks, Jr. Hans & JoAnn Schwantje Dr. George Riordan & Karen Clarke Season Sponsors ($5,000 or more) Anonymous Donor Anonymous Donor Dr. and Mrs. Peter DeWitt Janie R. Hicks Lois Z. Pyle Larry Thorpe & Dr. Barbara Williams The Atlanta Baroque Orchestra would like to thank the following persons and establishments For contributing their time, talents, and energy in regard to the details of ABO concerts. Atlanta Early Music Alliance (AEMA) Janice Joyce & Chris Robinson Janie Hicks Peter and Patricia DeWitt Martha Bishop Peachtree Road United Methodist Church: Scott Atchison And Camilla Cruikshank Eckhart & Rosemary Richter Russell Williamson Valerie Prebys Arsenault Sid & Linda Stapleton Susan Wagner Linda Bernard & RyeType Design Cathy Adams & The Federal Home Loan Bank of Atlanta The ABO would also like to acknowledge the several thousand dollars worth of rehearsal time that has been graciously given to the orchestra by its members. These concerts could not be given without their enthusiasm and support.
ABO Board of Directors President: Eckhart Richter Vice President: Cathy Adams Vice President for Development: Janie Hicks Secretary: Susan Wagner Treasurer: Peter DeWitt Resident Director: Daniel Pyle Ephraim McLean William E. Pearson III John Lemley Melanie Punter Scott Atchison Come Hear our other 2007-08 Concerts! 11 November 2007, 2:30 pm Symphonies for Strings by German composers from Bach to Mendelssohn 18 February 2008, 3:00 pm Program music by Italian Composers music by Sammartini, Locatelli, & Geminiani sponsored by Mrs. Lois Z. Pyle 30 March 2008, 3:00 pm Bach s Cantata 82 Ich habe genug plus concerto For Two Violins & Brandenburg Concerto nos. 3 & 5 sponsored by an anonymous donor 11 May 2008, 3:00 pm Classical Chamber Music for Strings and Winds sponsored by Peter & Patricia DeWitt Visit our new web-site at www.atlantabaroque.org