The Early Music Blog

Dietrich Buxtehude died 300 years ago

2007-05-09T14:32:00.000+03:00

Klara is having a Buxtehude special today. They'll focus on him during 'Ludwig' and 'Orlando'. Two great shows with tons of good music. Especially when they focus on early music, of course!
Listen to Klara live here.

You can listen to 'Orlando' again, until the next show airs.

Technorati tags: music, early music, baroque

Klara - Aria Top 20

2007-02-22T20:53:00.000+02:00

On Klara, the Flemish Classical Radio Station, they had an Aria Top 20. I'm happy to hear it wasn't only Puccini or Verdi people voted for. There was a lot of George Frideric Handel and Henry Purcell even made it into the top 3!

You can listen to this radio program again here (only for a short time I guess)

Technorati tags: music, early music, baroque

Jonathan Dunford: The Viola da Gamba

2006-06-07T14:24:00.000+03:00

"I stumbled upon the viola da gamba for the first time when I was twelve years old, two years into cello lessons with the American cellist Fortunato Arico, known to one and all as Freddy. Over the years Freddy had expanded his virtuosity backwards in time, first to the baroque cello, then to the viol. In the New York of the early 70s the viol was still a very rare fish, an exotic, unfamiliar instrument only marginally more identifiable than the Theremin. Freddy liked to give proselytizing concerts, to which he reported like some musical Marley’s ghost, clanking with early and late instruments hanging in their cases from his shoulders. It was at one of those concerts that I heard him play Couperin’s Pièces de viole on his beautiful old Gofriller. Dowland’s many pretty images of being pierced by love’s arrow was my case exactly. I had never heard such music, such a sound. It was love at first, second, and third sight, love that was to be everlasting and undiminished. In short, from that moment I was hooked on the viol and wanted urgently to play it myself..."

Technorati tags: music, early music, baroque

Ton Koopman: 10 CD's for a Desert Island

2006-06-07T14:23:00.000+03:00

"...A very beautiful CD with Montserrat Figueras as a marvellous soprano soloist in the lamenti, together with Jordi Savall with all his feeling for rhythm and creativity. Jordi and Montserrat belong to the intimate circle of my best friends. I know only a few musicians that I esteem so highly. Making music together with them has always been (and still is) a feast..."

Technorati tags: music, early music, baroque

Brian Robins: Interview with Phillipe Herreweghe

2006-06-07T14:21:00.000+03:00

"In 1985 harmonia mundi released a recording of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion which was immediately recognised by many as possessing very special qualities. The booklet provided with the set included a learned dissertation on musical rhetoric by the conductor, Philippe Herreweghe that went some way toward explaining why this recording was different. Not only had unusual trouble been taken to give the text a rare communicative power, but Herreweghe approached the score with a warm humanity achieved without sacrificing contrapuntal clarity and rhythmic impetus. More than fifteen years later Herreweghe’s name is synonymous with a long and successful series of recordings of Bach’s choral works that has established him as arguably the pre-eminent exponent of the repertoire. Yet as his extensive discography proves, there is more to Herreweghe than Bach. Brian Robins went to Antwerp on behalf of Goldberg in an attempt to discover more about the man and his approach to music..."

Technorati tags: music, early music, baroque

Michael Noone: Sebastian de Vivanco

2006-06-07T14:19:00.000+03:00

"Until now, the reputation of the Spanish priest-composer Sebastián de Vivanco (c.1551 - 1622) has languished in the shadow of that of his great contemporary Tomás Luis de Victoria. There are many good reasons why this was so. Unlike Victoria, whose music circulated internationally in his own day and has, closer to our own time, long been well-represented in modern editions and recordings, Vivanco, even during the early music explosion of the past thirty years, has been overlooked by all but a few dedicated musicologists, editors, and performers. Far from there being a complete edition of his works, there is not even a reliable complete list of his compositions for casual inquirers to consult (a lack that even the latest 2001 edition of Grove has failed to meet), and his biography, such as it is, is little more than an ad hoc gathering of dates and documentary references. In that sense, Vivanco is to Victoria what Lassus was to Palestrina a century ago..."

Technorati tags: music, early music, baroque

Jordi Savall: Travel Notes II

2006-05-29T22:24:00.000+03:00

"In fact, culture resides less in a heritage than the way in which it has to be valued, and this manner of valuing it entails a project, which implies a will. We thus have a circle: this will, capable of reviving a culture, should in itself stem from a culture, a tradition, from its values. Jean-Marie Domenach, Europe: le défi culturel..."

Technorati tags: music, early music, baroque

Fux's Vienna

2006-05-29T22:23:00.000+03:00

"Vienna. To a music lover the very name evokes a myriad of evocations. The city of Haydn, of Mozart, of Beethoven, the great triumvirate on whose shoulders rest the foundation and glory of the classical era, of the Biedermeier world of Schubert, the tortured soul of Mahler, the radical new music of Schönberg, Berg, and Webern. Yet there is another, earlier musical Vienna, an era all but forgotten by historians. It is the story of a world of extravagance centred around three musical Habsburg emperors and Johann Joseph Fux, the man who served them faithfully for more than half a century. It starts in 1685 or thereabouts with the arrival in the imperial capital of the young Fux, then in his mid-twenties. It ends on 13 February 1741, the date on which Fux died at the age of 80, outliving the last of the emperors he served by less than five months..."

Technorati tags: music, early music, baroque

Joshua Rifkin: 10 CD's for a Desert Island

2006-05-29T22:22:00.001+03:00

"The American pianist, musicologist and conductor Joshua Rifkin is one of the outstanding musical polymaths of our day. Educated at Julliard School of Music, Rifkin later studied with Karlheinz Stockhausen in Darmstadt. In the field of popular music he is particularly associated with the revival of interest in the ragtime composer Scott Joplin. His most important contribution to the field of scholarship has been his research on Bach's choruses, work that led to his controversial claims that Bach employed only one voice per part. Rifkin has put his theories to the test in a number of recordings, most notably a Mass in B minor recorded for Nonesuch..."

Technorati tags: music, early music, baroque

Interview with Emma Kikby

2006-05-29T22:22:00.000+03:00

"“The Divine Emma”. “The Empress of early music”. Just two of the epithets that have been applied to the name of English soprano Emma Kirkby, whose superb technique and pure voice have been enchanting early music enthusiasts for over two decades. Yet no artist of her stature assumes a less godlike or regal attitude in person, as Brian Robins can confirm when he recently interviewed Emma Kirkby for Goldberg..."

Technorati tags: music, early music, baroque

Heinrich Schütz

2006-05-29T22:19:00.000+03:00

"One century before the birth of Bach, the German composer Heinrich Schütz (1585-1672) single-handedly ushered his country onto the European musical scene. Schütz was a pioneer and pre-eminent composer, a transitional figure linking the very different worlds of the Renaissance and the Baroque..."

Technorati tags: music, early music, baroque

Jordi Savall: Living Music and Humanism

2006-05-21T21:06:00.000+03:00

"Music is the true living history of Humanity. We trust in it unreservedly because what it affirms relates to our feelings, and without it we would have only dead pieces of history..."

Technorati tags: music, early music, baroque

Nigel Wilkins: The Devil's Music

2006-05-21T21:05:00.001+03:00

"According to tradition “the Devil has all the best tunes”. Whatever name he bears, whatever form he adopts, the Devil has always exploited or appreciated the power of music, whether for his own pleasure or as an instrument for the seduction and domination of souls. Satan “the Adversary”, “Father of Untruth”, “Ancient Serpent”; Lucifer, the most handsome of angels, leader of the revolt, cast down into the pits of hell by the Archangel Michael; Beelzebub, Prince of Demons; Astaroth, Grand Duke of Hell; Mephistopheles, one of the most important lords of Hell; Belial, a demon whose seductive appearance belies his hideous nature. These and endless other demons and monsters, witches and wizards—all that which serves evil—we shall simply call “the Devil”, so as not to lose ourselves at once in the dark labyrinths of demonology!..."

Technorati tags: music, early music, baroque

Andreas Scholl: 10 CD's for a Desert Island

2006-05-21T21:05:00.000+03:00

"Andreas Scholl, the outstanding counter-tenor of our time, began singing with the Kedricher Chorbuben, first soprano and then, for a while without realizing it after his voice broke, falsetto. From 1987 to 1993 he studied with Richard Levitt and Renי Jacobs at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis. Even before graduating, he caught the early music world's attention by participating in several important recordings (DHM, Sony and Harmonia Mundi). His Vivaldi and Caldara recordings on Harmonia Mundi won him prestigious awards. The surprisingly few discs he has issued since signing an exclusive contract with Decca in 1998 have been enthusiastically received. He has also garnered high praise on the Baroque operatic stage..."

Technorati tags: music, early music, baroque

Marguerite Haladjian: Interview with Marc Minkowski

2006-05-21T21:04:00.000+03:00

"Mark Minkowski occupies a unique place in today’s musical landscape. Originally trained as a bassoonist, he later turned to conducting baroque music. Very early on he showed his inclination to reconcile form and content, genres and periods. His goal is to express the riches of a variety of repertoire from the 17th through the 20th-century, and to transmit his own cohesive world view and culture through his many productions. His enthusiasm, playfulness and imagination—inseparable from the serious work of mastering a score —reveal an inquisitive person always on the lookout for new emotions. Minkowski is truly animated by music. Marguerite Haladjian talked extensively with him for Goldberg..."

Technorati tags: music, early music, baroque

Claire Fontijn-Harris: Elisabeth-Sophie Cheron

2006-05-21T21:03:00.000+03:00

"If one were to imagine a female counterpart to the “Renaissance man,” a person able to excel simultaneously in several diverse domains, ֹlisabeth-Sophie Chיron (1648-1711) would satisfy the requirement. The talents that she demonstrated in art, music, and literature were rewarded in her lifetime by a nomination to two academies, as well as by a pension from Louis XIV that crowned her final years. She was named a member of the Acadיmie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture in 1672, after having presented her self-portrait as her morceau de rיception under the protection of the painter Charles Le Brun. Although she was not the first woman to be admitted to this academy—three others had been named in the previous decade—she participated in the important first wave of female participation in the newly created institution. With the publication of her book of psalm paraphrases in 1694, the Essay de pseaumes et cantiques mis en vers, et enrichis de figures, her literary talent came to the attention of the Paduan Accademia dei Ricovrati, to which she was named a member in 1699. Given the academician name of “Erato,” after the muse of lyric and love poetry, Chיron joined the ranks of the eight other female “muses” of the academy of the Ricovrati, limited in their number—by classical dictates—to nine..."

Technorati tags: music, early music, baroque

David Skinner: William Byrd

2006-05-21T21:00:00.000+03:00

"While Palestrina, Lassus and Victoria produced music for the Catholic liturgies and were relatively unfettered in their art, the English composer’s Latin polyphony was forged under quite different circumstances. Most of Byrd’s music dates from the long reign of Elizabeth I (1558-1603), when, after more than 20 years of religious turmoil, England finally settled as a Protestant nation. While one might expect Byrd to have concentrated his artistic efforts on music for the reformed church, it is clear from his surviving output that he had a different agenda in mind when putting pen to paper. The statistics are revealing. Owing to Byrd’s long association with the Chapel Royal and powerful patrons, close to half of his industrious output is devoted to secular and courtly entertainment (keyboard music, consort songs, madrigals, sonnets, etc.), while the remainder is for the church. Byrd composed close to 200 Latin works (most of which survive in contemporary printed editions) plus three settings of the Mass Ordinary, while his music for the English church (not a note printed in the composer’s lifetime) amounts to only four services, three settings of Preces and Responses, a short Litany, and around two dozen anthems. Indeed, if one were to record Byrd’s surviving sacred music, the Latin works would fit on to around 13 or 14 CDs, while one would be pressed to fill four discs with the English material..."

Technorati tags: music, early music, baroque

Brian Robins: Bach Sacred Cantatas

2006-05-11T09:34:00.000+03:00

"Within the output of certain composers there are seminal groups of works whose sheer volume has ensured for them a neglect out of all proportion to their value. No more notable (or notorious) instance exists than that of the cantatas of J.S. Bach, the body of works that stands at the very heart of his output. As an early music enthusiast you almost certainly know the Brandenburg Concertos and are familiar with the four Orchestral Suites. Hopefully the Mass in B minor and the St. Matthew and St. John Passions play an important part in your life. But ask yourself a question. How many of Bach’s cantatas can you honestly say you know. Not just heard, but know? Five? Six? Beyond that you’re doing well and if the answer is more than a dozen you might want to move on to the next article!"

Technorati tags: music, early music, baroque

María Bayo: 10 CD's for a Desert Island

2006-05-11T09:33:00.000+03:00

"María Bayo was born in Fitero, Navarre (Spain), and studied in Pamplona and Detmold, Germany. Since 1988, when she won the Belvedere Contest in Vienna, this extraordinary soprano has embarked on an international career, singing in the world's top opera houses. Bayo recently recorded Tomasso Traetta's Antigona, in which she plays the lead role under the direction of Christophe Rousset. Her most recent recording (Handel arias and cantatas) earned 5 Goldberg stars..."

Technorati tags: music, early music, baroque

Brian Robins: Interview with Andrew Carwood and David Skinner

2006-05-11T09:31:00.000+03:00

"Over the course of the past ten years or so The Cardinall’s Musick has become firmly established as one of the leading small vocal groups in the UK. With pioneering recordings of the complete works of Nicholas Ludford and Robert Fayrfax in the catalogue, and a series of William Byrd’s complete sacred works now well under way, the group has established a special reputation for their performances of Tudor repertoire. But all that looks set to change, as Brian Robins discovered when he went to Oxford on Goldberg’s behalf to meet joint directors Andrew Carwood and David Skinner..."

Technorati tags: music, early music, baroque

Marguerite Haladjian: François Couperin

2006-05-11T09:28:00.000+03:00

"François Couperin presents a curious figure in the musical world: after receiving honors and recognition from king and court, he was forgotten for a century and a half; today his works are again played, reflected upon and celebrated. At the end of the 18th century his musical genius was so much admired by students of Bach that they would declare: “Couperin is the French Bach.” Bach himself had copied several of Couperin’s pieces for the Notebooks of Anna Magdalena Bach by hand. Couperin’s Livres de clavecin were a revelation to Vincent d’Indy in the 1860s; Berlioz adapted an 18th century parody of Sœur Monique (a rondeau from Couperin’s 18th ordre de clavecin) for three voices and organ; Brahms published the complete harpsichord works of Couperin—the four Livres de clavecin—and mentioned in his introduction the debt owed Couperin by Bach, Handel and Scarlatti. Wanda Landowska, who played her first concerts as early as 1905, was a zealous defender of Couperin, whose music she placed at the zenith of musical creativity. The impetus she contributed led to the rapidly growing interest in his works. In 1915 Debussy considered dedicating his Etudes to Couperin, and in 1917 Ravel wrote the piano work Le Tombeau de Couperin in which he captured the spirit and mystery of the composer. Later still, Richard Strauss displayed his admiration for Couperin by taking inspiration for his Suites de Danses de François Couperin, Divertimento and Fêtes d’Antan from Couperin’s works. Béla Bartók published a Hungarian edition of Couperin’s works, and played them in concert; Darius Milhaud made an orchestral transcription of La Sultane. The systematic work of musicologists such as Julien Tiersot, who published one of the first biographies of the Couperin dynasty in 1925, was part of the next phase in the rediscovery of his music..."

Technorati tags: music, early music, baroque

Maricarmen Gómez: The Song of Sibyl

2006-05-03T09:02:00.000+03:00

"In their respective essays about the year 1000, both Henri Focillon and Georges Duby pointed to the feeling of collective terror that seized entire towns which had converted to Christianity as such a significant date was approaching. There are few testimonies to this effect, but silence is sometimes more eloquent than words at a time in which pessimism seemed to spread ill will, and which was followed by a period in which optimism decisively influenced the transformation of Western Europe..."

Technorati tags: music, early music, baroque

Pierre Hantaï: 10 CD's for a Desert Island

2006-05-03T09:01:00.000+03:00

"Pierre Hantaï was born in 1964 and studied harpsichord with Arthur Haas and Gustav Leonhardt. He played with La Petite Bande and with Philippe Herreweghe, Jordi Savall, and Sigiswald Kuijken. Pierre Hantaï is one of the most brilliant and original current harpsichordists. His masterful performance of the Goldberg Variations on Opus 111 is an essential recording that no one should hesitate to obtain. Hantaï also records for Virgin Classics as both a soloist and in conjuction with his brothers..."

Technorati tags: music, early music, baroque

Ernesto Schmied: Interview with Paolo Pandolfo

2006-05-03T08:59:00.000+03:00

"San Lorenzo de El Escorial, Madrid. Paolo Pandolfo has just finished recording the first compact disc of music by Marin Marais for Glossa, Le Labyrinthe et autres histoires..., and is currently putting the finishing touches to it. A little tired, but enthusiastic, the Italian viola da gamba player spoke to Ernesto Schmied for Goldberg about his labyrinths and other stories..."

Technorati tags: music, early music, baroque

Roger Tellart: Claudio Monteverdi

2006-05-03T08:57:00.000+03:00

"Like the statue of the Commendatore, the founding father Monteverdi stands at the junction between the 16th and 17th centuries, announcing the dawn of a new era. He is the author of an oeuvre whose ‘proximity’ we feel more acutely today than ever before, one reason for the enthusiastic revival of his operas, his madrigals and his famous Vespers of the Virgin, which have stolen the show at this year’s Summer festivals in France to equal (almost) the Bach commemoration..."

Technorati tags: music, early music, baroque

Veronique Gens: 10 CD's for a Desert Island

2006-04-29T18:10:00.000+03:00

"Over the last ten years Veronique Gens has specialized in French baroque music (especially that of Charpentier, Gilles, Lully and Rameau), singing with highly prestigious groups such as Les Arts Florissants, Il Seminario Musicale, La Chapelle Royale, Les Musiciens du Louvre and Le Concert Spirituel..."

Technorati tags: music, early music, baroque

Ernesto Schmied: Interview with Frans Brüggen

2006-04-29T18:08:00.000+03:00

"Vigo, 12 January, 10 am. Today, Frans Brüggen, director of the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century and one of the most important figures in early music, has a few hours off during his lengthy tour. I arrive punctually at his hotel and minutes later I was face to face with him and Sieuwert Verster, his right-hand man. We take a seat in a semi-isolated corner. Brüggen lights up a cigarette and orders coffee for the three of us..."

Technorati tags: music, early music, baroque

Leonora Douarte: Baroque Women IX

2006-04-29T18:07:00.000+03:00

"From time to time scholarship on women musicians also turns up information not otherwise available about men in music. Such is the case with the members of the Duarte family, who were active in the cultural and musical life of 17th-century Antwerp. Thanks to Rudolf Rasch’s article about Leonora Duarte in the Dictionary of Women Composers (Sadie and Samuel, eds., London, 1994), we learn of the existence of the Duarte family’s musical circle..."

Technorati tags: music, early music, baroque

Marc-Antoine Charpentier

2006-04-29T18:05:00.000+03:00

"I am he who, born in another time, was known during the century; here I am, dead, naked and nobody, in the tomb, dust, cinders and food for the worms. I lived enough but too little in relation to eternity [...]. I was a musician, considered good among the good and ignorant among the ignorant. And as the number of those who despised me was much larger than the number of those who praised me, music was of little honour to me but a great burden; and, as when I was born, I brought nothing into this world, in dying, I took nothing with me..."

Technorati tags: music, early music, baroque

Juan Carlos Asensio: Codex Las Huelgas

2006-04-20T13:08:00.000+03:00

"The complexity and importance of the literary output of the Medieval era would be better appreciated if these early manuscripts could reveal how they were originally copied and assembled, as well as the identities of the various hands who contributed to this process—line rulers, calligraphers, scribes, illuminators, binders and those who subsequently consulted them. Various historical circumstances have played a part in converting many general libraries into custodians of a large proportion of the manuscripts of the Middle Ages, where they lie in wait of exhaustive scholarly research or one off consultations. But this could not be further from the codex’s original aim. For centuries, it was the literary unit par excellence and, specifically in music, the only meeting point between early performance practices and our intention to revive the music of this period. In the Middle Ages the copying of music manuscripts had a very functional purpose. Frequently those with liturgical contents were copied in order to transmit melodies. Due to the increasing importance of the liturgy and of chant as part of this, it is not surprising that there were a large number of well cared-for music books in circulation and that they were copied by highly professional scribes. For this reason, in the main religious centres of the post-Carolingian period, schools dedicated to musical invention and culture flourished with relative ease and were immediately linked to important copying centres, raising musical science to unsuspected heights..."

Technorati tags: music, early music, baroque

Peter Holman: 10 CD's for a Desert Island

2006-04-20T13:06:00.000+03:00

"Peter Holman studied at London with Thurston Dart, and founded the Parley of Instruments with Roy Goodman in 1979. He is now also director of the choir Psalmody, musical director of Opera Restor'd and artistic director of the Suffolk Villages Festival. He is the author of Four and Twenty Fiddlers: The Violin at the English Court 1540-1690 (1993), Henry Purcell (1994) and Dowland: Lachrimae (1999). He has recently been appointed Reader in Musicology at Leeds University..."

Technorati tags: music, early music, baroque

Eduardo Notrica: Interview with Reingard Goebel

2006-04-20T13:05:00.000+03:00

"Would you like a cup of coffee? The cup comes from Dresden. Have you seen this type of china before? It’s called Zwiebel [onion] and was in use throughout Saxony during the reign of Augustus II “the Strong”. Baroque china designed using Chinese motifs..."

Technorati tags: music, early music, baroque

Pilar Ramos López: Maria Antonia Walpurgis: Baroque Women VIII

2006-04-20T13:04:00.000+03:00

"Captivated as we are by symphonies, sonatas, concertos and cantatas, the dominant role of opera during the 18th century is sometimes forgotten. Whether it was in public or courtly theatres, Italian opera was performed from St Petersburg to Lisbon, and privately, in noble and bourgeois homes, collections of arias were sung in arrangements, while librettos, printed separately, were also read. Although there was a long list of female singers and patrons during the epoch, the number of women composers whose operas have been conserved is small. Maria Antonia Walpurgis (1724-1780) was among the most exceptional of these, as we shall see. This short article traces some of the little-known facts about this Saxon princess, whose operas, praised by Johann Adolf Hasse, Pietro Metastasio, Frederick the Great, Johann Cristoph Gottsched and Antonio de Eximeno, have yet to be recorded..."

Technorati tags: music, early music, baroque

Jerome F. Weber: Guillaume Dufay

2006-04-20T13:00:00.000+03:00

"From December 1414 to March 1418 the Council of Constance was the largest gathering in the world. In addition to 183 bishops, there were 18,000 churchmen, including theologians, abbots, monks and other clerics. More than 50,000 visitors, including many secular princes, came to the city, creating a festive atmosphere. In the end, one pope (John XXIII of Pisa) was deposed with his consent, another pope (Gregory XII of Rome) resigned, and a third pope (Benedict XIII of Avignon) was deposed against his will. A new pope, Martin V, was elected, reuniting the Catholic Church after 40 years of the Western schism..."

Technorati tags: music, early music, baroque

Bernard D. Sherman: Bach's Mass in B Minor

2006-04-09T14:08:00.000+03:00

"Since 1968, when Nikolaus Harnoncourt led the first period-instruments recording of the B Minor Mass, no fewer than 20 other historically inclined maestros have followed suit. If the early-music movement has a central work, it might be this one..."

Technorati tags: music, early music, baroque

José Miguel Moreno: 10 CD's for a Desert Island

2006-04-09T14:07:00.000+03:00

"José Miguel Moreno is one of the most brilliant contemporary performers of the lute, vihuela, and theorbe. An expert in every detail, Moreno displays his mastery in every note. The two most outstanding qualities of his playing are his powerful sound and his refinement. José Miguel Moreno is also one of the founders of the Glossa record label, for which he recorded his latest CDs..."

Technorati tags: music, early music, baroque

Craig Zeichner: Interview with Peter Phillipps

2006-04-09T14:06:00.000+03:00

"In November of 1973 a 20-year-old Oxford undergraduate student lead a group of singers in a concert with the rather unassuming title Continental Polyphonic Music. The student’s name was Peter Phillips and the ensemble was the earliest incarnation of the Tallis Scholars. The composers on that first program, Lassus, Victoria, Ockeghem, Josquin and Obrecht, are some of the masters Phillips and his ensemble have performed and recorded to critical acclaim in the quarter of a century since. In fact, the Tallis Scholars are the standard bearers in presenting this extraordinarily complex and moving sacred music of the Renaissance to wider audiences. Craig Zeichner spoke with him for Goldberg..."

Technorati tags: music, early music, baroque

Claire Fontijn: Brigida Bianchi: Baroque Women VII

2006-04-09T14:04:00.000+03:00

"The biography of the celebrated actress known as Aurelia (c. 1613-1704) spans most of the 17th century. Her origins have eluded scholars of music and theater history, but it has been assumed that she belonged to the Italian acting troupe known as the Fedeli that came to France in the early years of the 17th century. Her professional and familial allegiances explain the plethora of names under which she published and performed. She claimed that she entertained the French court “as a child” (“già fanciulla”) in the commedia dell’arte, but most accounts place her and the actor Scaramouche (Tiberio Fiorilli) in France in the late 1630s. While the identity of her first husband remains mysterious, we gather that by 1633—the year of the birth of her only child, Marc’Antonio Romagnesi—she had married her second husband, Augustin Romagnesi of Mantua..."

Technorati tags: music, early music, baroque

Marc Desmet: Jacobus Gallus

2006-04-09T14:02:00.000+03:00

"It is now already three years without a break that I have been in charge of a church choir. I have provided some works that are sung and heard almost every day. There would be more of them if at the moment they were not beyond my powers. The cause is not art, but the spring of the press and the imprinting power are broken. During this time, my dear friends exclaim: ‘Temper your worries with some rejoicing’...” When Jacobus Gallus wrote these lines, in 1589, he was a man worn out, old before his age, undermined by vigils, insomnia and work. His brother Georg would say it again some years later: Gallus was submerged by the requests of his friends, who all sent him texts to set to music. “I wish to give pleasure to everyone,” said the composer... His brother would give us to understand how much this praiseworthy desire would finally cost him his life: “Wishing to satisfy them [....] he soon embellished numerous pieces and would have completed them all had death not come prematurely to take the breath of life from him..."

Technorati tags: music, early music, baroque

Tom Moore: Telemann's Tafelmusik

2006-04-04T17:50:00.000+03:00

"If the Suite in A minor for Recorder, Strings and Continuo is the single work of Telemann which is best known to the general public (as a sort of companion piece for flutists to the Suite in B minor of Bach), the Musique de Table [or Tafelmusik] of 1733 is perhaps his most celebrated collection, and the earliest to come before the modern public, in a complete edition edited by Max Seiffert as part of the Denkmäler Deutsche Tonkunst in 1927 (the collection has since appeared also in the Musikalische Werke of Telemann from Bärenreiter, vol. 12-14, 1959-1963). One might think of the collection as a counterpoint to the Brandenburg Concertos of Bach, showing off the composer’s skill in handling various genres and instruments. Bach’s collections of concerted and chamber music were, of course, never published. Telemann, in contrast, spent most of his career in the thriving commercial center and port of Hamburg, a free city with no resident nobility, in which the highly educated merchant elite set the tone, and one to which travelers came from all over Europe..."

Technorati tags: music, early music, baroque

Benjamin Bagby: 10 CD's for a Desert Island

2006-04-04T17:49:00.000+03:00

"Charismatic and minimalist, this American musician is capable of captivating an entire auditorium on his own. Accompanying himself on a six-string lyre he recites the epic poem Beowulf, surely, as the ancients would have done. Bagby was the tireless driving force of Sequentia, together with Barbara Thornton. His recordings (in DHM) are excellent, but if you have the opportunity to see him in concert, prepare yourself for a trip back in time..."

Technorati tags: music, early music, baroque

Ernesto Schmied: Interview with Pedro Memelsdorff

2006-04-04T17:48:00.000+03:00

"Pedro Memelsdorff (Buenos Aires, 1960) is a flautist, recorder-player and director of Mala Punica (the Latin name for the pomegranate), a group which has revolutionized the ars subtilior with its polemical interpretations and dazzling performances. Intelligent, cosmopolitan, studious and scathing, Memelsdorff lives in a 15-century palace in Bologna. Ernesto Schmied talked extensively with him for Goldberg..."

Technorati tags: music, early music, baroque

Fernando Pagola: Sophie Elisabeth zu Braunschweig: Baroque Women

2006-04-04T17:46:00.000+03:00

"The women who have been discussed in the Baroque Women series thus far have ranged from Italy (Caccini and Strozzi) to England (Bassano) to France (Jacquet de la Guerre and Bembo). In all cases, it was Italy that gave them inspiration, training, or influence in their musical involvement. With this installment, we travel to German-speaking lands to concern ourselves with two homonymous noble rulers in order to explore their noteworthy musical pursuits; in their case, too, Italian influences were not far from their activity. I shall treat the pair in chronological order, first discussing Sophie Elisabeth, Duchess of Brunswick and Lüneburg (1613-76)—a composer whose works are slowly emerging from notation into performance, thanks to the fine work of Karl Wilhelm Geck—and next Sophie, Electress of Hanover (1630-1714), whose musical interests indirectly influenced the patronage offered to one of the period’s foremost composers, George Frideric Handel. The connection of the former to Schütz thus brings both women into the orbit of two of the most prominent composers associated with the period commonly known as the Baroque..."

Technorati tags: music, early music, baroque

Dinko Fabris: Luigi Rossi

2006-04-04T17:41:00.000+03:00

"Despite the constant search for celebrations in the musical calendar, sometimes even the births and deaths of marginal figures, the centenary of the birth of one of the most important Italian composers of the first half of the 17th century, together with Monteverdi and Frescobaldi, has been overlooked: Luigi Rossi, defined by his contemporaries as Phonasco toto orbe celeberrimo (“a world-famous singing teacher”), and by Saint-Evremond as “Luigi, le premier homme de l’univers en son art” (“Luigi, the world-leader in his art form”). It’s as if today no-one remembered Bernini, Pietro da Cortona or Andrea Sacchi anymore, who like Rossi, were leading Baroque figures in Rome around the middle of the 17th century. Yet we don’t even know Rossi’s exact date of birth, which occured somewhere between 1597 and 1598, according to what can be deduced from his will; an earthquake destroyed all his letters, once held in his birthplace, Torremaggiore, a small city of the old kingdom of Naples near Foggia, which was beautified by Frederick II in the Middle Ages and later the manor of a family of Neapolitan nobles from which the enigmatic 18th-century scientist and alchemist Roberto Di Sangro, Prince of San Severo, descended. Rossi’s career was similar to that of many composers of his time who emigrated from southern Italy in search of fame and fortune, but his reputation made him one of the leading figures of European Baroque culture. This is a short review of his main periods..."

Technorati tags: music, early music, baroque

Ivan Moody: Orthodox Chant

2006-04-02T12:01:00.000+03:00

"It is not surprising to read that, according to the chronicles, it was the beauty of the liturgy which attracted the attention of Prince Vladimir’s emissaries to Constantinople in the 10th century. “We did not know whether we were in Heaven or on earth”, they said after attending a celebration at Aghia Sophia.

Liturgical art in Orthodoxy is an expression of prayer, which in turn is a means of living eschatologically, ever conscious of the Revelation (Apokálypsis in Greek): the transfiguration of our everyday lives in order to prepare the coming of the heavenly Kingdom. Without bearing this in mind, it is impossible to understand the essence of Eastern Orthodox art, or to understand quite why their visit to the City (as Constantinople was traditionally known) made such an impact on the two Russian visitors that in 988 the Grand Duke of Kiev, Prince Vladimir, chose to be baptised into the Orthodox Church.

The aim of this article, in the absence of easily accessible general books on the subject, is to provide a brief introduction to the chant of the Orthodox Church, principally as found in the Greek and Russian traditions, and to explain something of its ethos, background and development with reference to currently available recordings..."

Technorati tags: music, early music, baroque

Nigel North: 10 CD's for a Desert Island

2006-04-02T12:00:00.000+03:00

"Few performers have achieved what Nigel North has: a lyrical tone on the lute. His colleagues frequently include his recordings in their lists of CDs for a Desert Island (see Goldberg 3 & 6). Among his most outstanding recordings are his series of Bach's sonatas and suites for violin and cello, transcribed for lute (Linn Records). This American, who lives in London, has made solo and group recordings on the chitarrone, the theorbo, the Baroque lute and the archlute for Harmonia Mundi, Chandos, Arcana, Linn Records and Columns Classic, among other labels..."

Technorati tags: music, early music, baroque

Josep Pascual: Interview with Jordi Savall

2006-04-02T11:59:00.000+03:00

"Jordi Savall is well known both as a viola da gamba virtuoso and as a conductor. Faithful to his texts but at the same time an advocate of spontaneity, he has a wilful personality that leads him to take risks without ever foregoing his profound understanding of his material. His aim is to revive music in the present rather than merely to reconstruct it as it was in the past..."

Technorati tags: music, early music, baroque

Bruno Turner: Francisco Guerrero

2006-04-02T11:56:00.000+03:00

"On Monday November 8, 1599, Fran-cisco Guerrero, maestro de capilla of the Cathedral of Seville, died of the plague that had raged through the city for several months. His colleagues, the singers and clergy, buried him on the Wednesday, first celebrating requiem mass and the absolutions for the repose of his soul. His body was interred in the chapel of Nuestra Señora de la Antigua. The memorial stone may be seen by visitors if they can persuade an official to roll back a carpet. Strangely, the present inscription claims that Guerrero served the cathedral “44 años” and that he died at eighty-four years of age. Pedrell and other scholars of the nineteenth century report the memorial giving the composer’s age as seventy-two years; they also repeat an inscription recorded by Loaysa and others which differs from the present stone..."

Technorati tags: music, early music, baroque

Alexandre Pham: Van Dyck

2006-03-31T22:17:00.000+03:00

"During the first half of the seventeenth century Anthony Van Dyck (1599-1641) appeared on the scene like a shooting star, a rare prodigy. At the age of seventeen he opened his own studio in Antwerp; by nineteen although nominally an apprentice to Rubens, he was more a collaborator (and the more talented of the two). His break with his mentor, a pillar of the Flemish school, and consequent development of an individual style came after a period in Italy between 1621 and 1626.

In the portrait of a lutenist, probably Jacques Gaultier (a musician at the English court between 1617 and 1647), the mature Van Dyck celebrates the presence of a Frenchman at an English court that had come to appreciate the art of the French school of lutenists. Within the context of the painter’s career, the work betrays an Italian sensibility; in that of the musician it captures the theorbist at the pinnacle of his fame. Painting and music come together to celebrate two sensibilities. The canvas can be dated to after the painter’s arrival at court in 1632, when Charles I knighted him and made him official painter..."

Technorati tags: music, early music, baroque

Peter Holamn: Dowland's Lachrimae

2006-03-31T22:15:00.000+03:00

"When John Dowland published Lachrimæ, or Seaven Teares in the spring of 1604 he was about 40 and at the height of his powers. He was probably the most famous lutenist in Europe, the holder of a prestigious post at the court of Christian IV of Denmark. Although he had not published any of his lute music, it had circulated widely in manuscript, and some of it had appeared in print in collections published in England and on the Continent.

His First Booke of Songes or Ayres created a stir when it was published in 1597. It was the first English collection published in table layout (with the parts distributed around a single page so that the performers could read from a single copy), and it popularised a new type of song based on dance rhythms and patterns rather than the counterpoint favoured in earlier types of English song; it was the model for all subsequent collections of English lute songs..."

Technorati tags: music, early music, baroque

Paul Hillier: 10 CD's for a Desert Island

2006-03-31T22:14:00.000+03:00

"Paul Hillier was one of the founding members of the Hilliard Ensemble. After leaving the group he founded Theater of Voices, with whom he normally records at Harmonia Mundi. At the moment he is director of the Institute of Early Music at the University of Indiana..."

Technorati tags: music, early music, baroque

Alexandre Pham: Interview with Antonio Florio

2006-03-31T22:13:00.000+03:00

"A conversation with Antonio Florio, the man responsible for the revival of Neapolitan Baroque music.

This conductor is the musical director of the ensemble he founded, La Cappella della Pietà de’ Turchini, and the creator of the Naples Early Music Centre. Here, he speaks of the composers who fashioned the musical identity of Naples, such as Gesualdo, Monteverdi, Salvatore, Caresana and Provenzale, as well as other musicians who have been overshadowed by Pergolesi and Alessandro Scarlatti..."

Technorati tags: music, early music, baroque

Claire Fontijn: Antonia Bembo: Baroque Women V

2006-03-31T22:12:00.000+03:00

"Thus begins Antonia Bembo’s cantata for soprano and basso continuo, Clizia, amante del sole, one of the vocal compositions found in her manuscript Produzioni armoniche, compiled at the turn of the 18th century and dedicated to King Louis XIV.

The book begins with an autobiographical letter revealing that Bembo, a Venetian noblewoman, had left her family and everything behind to come to France. In the Ovidian tale taken up in this cantata, Helios the sun first loved the maiden Clytie and later scorned her affections, after which she metamorphosed into a sunflower so that she may show her devotion to him by following his light throughout the day.

The message of Bembo’s cantata may be interpreted as a metaphor that cleverly drew a parallel between her status as the king’s admirer (Clytie) and the “Sun King” Louis XIV (Helios) and served to reinforce the power of the message of her dedicatory letter. There she wrote that she had been aware of the fame of King Louis XIV since childhood, so much so that she left Venice to appear before him.

The large claims that she made here can be corroborated by a backward glance at her life in Venice many years before. Truly “far from her home land,” the Veneto, in France she found the musical career--first as a singer and later exclusively as a composer—that she had been unable to pursue in Venice.

But “sickened by the stars, scorned by fortune”? Are these the words of Clytie or of Bembo herself?..."

Technorati tags: music, early music, baroque

Brian Robins: William Lawes

2006-03-31T22:09:00.000+03:00

"Wednesday, September 24, 1645. The scene is Chester, in the north-west of England. Since 1642 the country has been involved in bloody civil war between those loyal to the king, Charles I, and the forces of Parliament.

The Royalist city of Chester has been under a state of siege or semi-siege since the early part of the war, but two days earlier had rejoiced to learn that relief was at hand in the shape of a force led by the king himself.

But Parliamentarians, in hot pursuit of the king, had also converged on Chester. During the course of the day skirmishes take place in the outskirts of the city and it is during one of these, so we are told, that a casual shot from a Parliamentarian found its mark, killing one of a group of headstrong Royalists who had rashly underestimated the strength of the opposition.

But although the man who fell fatally wounded was a loyal servant of Charles I and indeed a member of his court, he was no professional soldier. His name was William Lawes and by his untimely death on that autumn day England lost her greatest living composer..."

Technorati tags: music, early music, baroque

Febo da Brescia and Laura da Paula: Lotto (II)

2005-12-27T14:58:00.000+02:00

"Besides the altarpieces, Lotto’s portraits remain his most successful work. No other artist has demonstrated such a remarkable capacity for renewal and invention. These remarkable portraits express an elitist delight in the aesthetic and culture of the secular, and especially the secular of the nobility. Lotto’s portraits seem to have been inspired by the peculiar aesthetic of the madrigal, which in the hands of the most skilled authors demonstrated a capacity for refined, erudite, symbolic allusions..."

Technorati tags: music, painting, baroque

Maricarmen Gomez: Spanish Music in the Days of Philip II

2005-12-27T14:57:00.000+02:00

"John H. Elliott has rightly observed that “Spain was a great European power for about three hundred years; that is, from the beginning of the 16th century until the dawn of the 19th, and for, perhaps, a hundred of those 300 years, from the mid-sixteenth to the mid-seventeenth century […] the single most powerful force in the Western world.” Those hundred years coincide with the reign of Philip II (1556–1598), son of the emperor Charles V; of his son, Philip III (1598-1621), and of his grandson, Philip IV (1621-1665)..."

Technorati tags: music, early music, baroque

Christophe Rousset: 10 CD's for a Desert Island

2005-12-27T14:55:00.000+02:00

"Christophe Rousset was a student of Bob Van Asperen in The Hague and today is a recognised harpsichordist. After diverse experience as director of orchestra he founded his own group in 1991. He has since directed this group, Les Talents Lyriques, in Venetian operas (Monteverdi’s Poppea and Cavalli’s Didone) and in Neapolitan operas (Jommelli’s Armida abbandonata and Traetta’ Antigona). He has also directed works by Händel (Scipione, Riccardo primo, Rinaldo, Admeto) and French operas (Mondonville’s Les fêtes de Paphos). In 1999 Les Talents Lyriques will interpret various works which have the common theme of Dido: Henry Desmarests’ Didon and Hasse’s Didone abbandonata..."

Technorati tags: music, early music, baroque

Hugo Strauss: Interview with William Christie

2005-12-27T14:54:00.000+02:00

"Between two of his concerts, it was our good fortune to meet William Christie.

Though absorbed in the ultimate rehearsals of Israel in Egypt (our photos), maestro “Bill” was kind enough to take the time for an interview during which he discussed his interpretations of the Italian and French repertoires.

Conversation with the veritable father of the wave of Baroque in France..."

Technorati tags: music, early music, baroque

Fernando Pagola: La Cechina and la Flora: Baroque Women

2005-12-27T14:53:00.000+02:00

"Winter 1604-1605: at the French court, Marie de Médicis invites an ensemble of Italian singers to perform. They are called Il Concerto Caccini, or with only the women performing, Le Donne di Giulio Romano. Their success is immense. At their head, of course, Giulio Caccini. Born in 1551, he was an exceptional tenor, and accompanied himself on a variety of instruments. .."

Technorati tags: music, early music, baroque

Alexandre Pham: Jean-Baptiste Lully

2005-12-27T14:51:00.000+02:00

"After Purcell´s London (cf. Goldberg 2), this article presents another window on the history of music through which we see a personality in his sphere of influence. True, the splendour of Versailles was created by the will of a king, Louis XIV, whose youth, damaged by the outrages of the Fronde, gave him a lust for power and renown. A name appears, the first servant of his glory. It is that of a foreigner, an Italian to boot, whom the royal patronage raises to the highest echelons. .."

Technorati tags: music, early music, baroque

Alexandre Pham: Lotto (I)

2005-12-25T13:31:00.000+02:00

"Starting on October 16, Lotto’s work will be shown in Paris. Echoing the Salviati exhibition at the Louvre in June 1997, we find ourselves in the presence of another major figure of Italian mannerism. If Francesco Salviati extended the classic lesson of the Florentine masters, Lorenzo Lotto, born in 1480, is a part of the generation that saw the birth of Giorgione (1477/78) and Raphael (1483), and, to a lesser degree, Titian (1490). Lotto brought fame to Treviso, Venice, Bergamo, and The Marches, but his was a tormented vision, accompanied by emotional instability, and profound inner questioning..."

Technorati tags: music, painting

Sophie Roughol: Monteverdi's l'Orfeo

2005-12-25T13:29:00.000+02:00

"The first opera? That is the way that Monteverdi's L'Orfeo is generally presented, for an ordered mind likes to have a point of departure, if not an end. The date of the performance, 1607, tends to comfort such a mind: the beginning of a century, the beginning of a genre, the birth of a new musical era that, despite the difficulties with lyric creation at the end of the 20th century, seems not to be defunct..."

Hopkinson Smith: 10 CD's for a Desert Island

2005-12-25T13:26:00.000+02:00

"Hopkinson Smith first studied musicology at Harvard, and from 1973 studied in Europe with Emilio Pujol, Eugen Dombois, and Jordi Savall, with whom he has collaborated for more than ten years. From the mid-1980s he has concentrated specifically on the lute, vihuela, baroque guitar, and theorba repertory. His many recordings on Auvidis Astrée have allowed us to rediscover the Spanish vihuelistas, the French baroque composers of lute music, and the works for lute by Weiss and Bach..."

Alexandre Pham: Gabriel Garrido

2005-12-25T13:25:00.000+02:00

"Gabriel Garrido, Argentinian musician, director of the Ensemble Elyma, and professor in Geneva, is one of the new celebrities of the early music world. A few years ago he helped us discover the baroque music of Indian South America. Now, he is the protagonist of a revision of Monteverdi's music. Alexandre Pham spoke with him for Goldberg..."

Jerome F. Weber: Guillaume de Machaut

2005-12-25T13:23:00.000+02:00

"As the story goes, Guillaume de Machaut was over 60 years old when he met a young lady of 19, Péronne d’Armentières. He was a poet and a composer, but he had also served a king as secretary and an archbishop as canon. .."

Jerome F. Weber: Stabat Mater

2005-12-22T22:33:00.000+02:00

"The Middle Ages were marked by a profound love of the Blessed Virgin Mary by all Christians in both Eastern and Western churches. Mary was loving and lovable, a human figure more approachable than her Son, Jesus Christ, who was both God and man. The place of the Stabat Mater in Catholic devotion cannot be understood without appreciating this. One expression of devotion to the Virgin was the rosary, developed in the Middle Ages as a parallel to singing the psalms. While monks and canons sang the 150 psalms in the weekly course of liturgical prayer, the unlettered prayed the Ave Maria 150 times. The rosary was designed as a meditation on the mysteries of salvation during the praying of the Ave Maria. But the rosary described the mysteries of salvation as events in the life of the Blessed Virgin. The Incarnation—the Son of God taking on human nature—was perceived as the annunciation of the angel Gabriel to Mary that she would conceive a Son. The Ascension of Christ was followed by Mary’s Assumption into heaven and her crowning as Queen..."

Martin Gester: 10 CD's for a Desert Island

2005-12-22T22:31:00.000+02:00

"Gester is an organist and harpsichordist. He is director of the early music department at the conservatory of Strasbourg, the French city where he lives. In 1990, Gester founded Le Parlement de Musique, an ensemble dedicated to the research and performance of 17th- and 18th-century works. Le Parlement has recorded (mainly for Accord) music by Charpentier, A. Scarlatti, Hasse, Caldara, Brossard, J. S. Bach, Carissimi, and Vivaldi. One of their latest recordings is the anonymous St Matthew Passion (from the Uppsala manuscript)..."

Brian Robins: Interview with Tess Knighton

2005-12-22T22:30:00.000+02:00

"Doctor Tess Knighton is a musicologist. To the layman it’s a label liable to conjure up instant images of dusty libraries and faded manuscripts diligently pored over by ivory-tower dwellers scarcely less dusty and faded..."

Brian Robins: Interview with Edward Wickham

2005-12-22T22:29:00.000+02:00

"Among the seemingly endless proliferation of young British choral groups,few have achieved the startling success of Edward Wickham’s The Clerks’ Group. Shortly before Brian Robins met Wickham, he had received one of Gramophone magazine’s prestigious awards for the Clerks’ recording of Ockeghem’s Requiem..."

Sophie Roughol: Emilia Bassano: Baroque Women III

2005-12-22T22:28:00.000+02:00

"The sudden appearance of Emilia Bassano (Madame Lanier) might seem strange in this series on women musicians, for Emilia was not a musician, and it is above all as a poet that she is present for us today..."

Alexandre Pham: Niccolo Jommelli

2005-12-22T22:24:00.000+02:00

"Do you know Jommelli? Behind the name of this Neapolitan composer, to whom a number of discs have recently been devoted, hides the spirit of a fertile dramatic temperament, celebrated in his lifetime, whose visionary sensibility made possible a salutary reform of 18th-century opera seria..."

Fernando Pagola: La Cechina and La Flora: Baroque Women

2005-12-08T13:02:00.000+02:00

"Winter 1604-1605: at the French court, Marie de Mיdicis invites an ensemble of Italian singers to perform. They are called Il Concerto Caccini, or with only the women performing, Le Donne di Giulio Romano. Their success is immense..."

Nigel North: 10 CDs for a Desert Island

2005-12-08T12:55:00.000+02:00

"Few performers have achieved what Nigel North has: a lyrical tone on the lute. His colleagues frequently include his recordings in their lists of CDs for a Desert Island (see Goldberg 3 & 6). Among his most outstanding recordings are his series of Bach's sonatas and suites for violin and cello, transcribed for lute (Linn Records). This American, who lives in London, has made solo and group recordings on the chitarrone, the theorbo, the Baroque lute and the archlute for Harmonia Mundi, Chandos, Arcana, Linn Records and Columns Classic, among other labels..."

Pachelbel's canon in D Major

2005-12-07T03:28:00.000+02:00

I just came across this rather unorthodox rendition of Pachelbel's canon. Not for early music purists...

Alistair Dixon: Thomas Tallis

2005-12-04T14:44:00.000+02:00

"Following the death of Thomas Tallis in 1585, William Byrd wrote in his consort song Ye sacred muses “Tallis is dead, and music dies”, thus capturing the esteem and veneration in which Tallis was held by his fellow composers and musical colleagues in the sixteenth century and, indeed, by the four monarchs he served at the Chapel Royal..."

David Parsons: 10 CDs for a Desert Island

2005-12-04T14:43:00.000+02:00

"Trained at the Royal College of Music as a pupil of Diana Poulton. He made his debut at the Wigmore Hall in London, where he has forged an excellent career that is acclaimed by critics..."

Javier Rozas: Interview with Carlos Mena

2005-12-04T14:38:00.000+02:00

"Catching Carlos Mena at home in Vitoria (Spain) is a complicated task. Even though he himself admits that in recent months he has reduced the number of his commitments and performances, his diary is still replete with bookings all over the world..."

Alexandre Pham: Caravaggio's Music (Part Two)

2005-12-04T09:40:00.000+02:00

"SONG OF SONGS A musical interlude in which the spirit of the subject expressed in an idyllic landscape is like an hymn to sleep and to serenity. Rest during the flight from Egypt (Rome, Doria-Pamphili Gallery) is a rare example of Caravaggio using a musical element in a sacred composition. The canvas is dated 1596–1597. Identified also by Camiz and Ziino, the musical text carried by Joseph and played by the angel violinist is a Marian motet by the Fleming Noכl Bauldewijn on the Song of Songs..."

Brian Robins: Purcell's London

2005-12-04T09:39:00.000+02:00

"The walls had long since ceased their original function, of protecting the City against siege and attack, and seventeenth-century London was expanding in all directions. The City proper was densely populated, with narrow streets and medieval wooden buildings blotting out the sky with overhanging storeys. A mass of small shops sold goods of every description. Noise was everywhere, with hawkers and apprentices bawling the merits of their wares, and the wheels of coaches and carts creating a constant rattle on the cobbled streets..."

Harry Christophers: 10 CDs for a Desert Island

2005-12-04T09:38:00.000+02:00

"Harry Christophers began his musical studies in Canterbury Cathedral. He founded The Sixteen in 1977, and conducts also the baroque orchestra The Symphony of Harmony and Invention. The Sixteen is surely one of the most brilliant polyphonic English ensembles. In both ensembles. Their repertoire ranges from Renaissance music right through contemporary music. In 1997, he began a series of CDs dedicated to Victoria (Collins)..."

Ernesto Schmied: Interview with Marta Almajano

2005-12-04T09:37:00.000+02:00

"A kind and good-natured woman who confesses to singing in the shower, Marta Al-majano (born Zara-goza, Spain, 1965) is always disposed to a pleasant chat. She is today one of the most captivating voices in the early music world. Ernesto Schmied spoke to her last November at her Zaragoza home..."

Sophie Roughol: Elisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre - Baroque Women III

2005-12-04T09:36:00.000+02:00

"We owe to the Parisian monthly, Le Mercure Ga-lant, the first mention of the name of Elisabeth Jacquet, in July 1677, in very flattering terms: “There is a prodigy who appeared here four years ago. She sings at sight the most difficult music. She accompanies herself, and accompanies others who wish to sing, at the harpsichord, which she plays in a style which is inimitable..."

Antonio Ezquerro: Hildegard von Bingen

2005-12-04T09:34:00.000+02:00

"It is fashionable nowadays to celebrate musical anniversaires. Following this trend, this year marks the 900th anniversary of the birth of Hildegard of Bingen. Despite the scarce dissemination of her works in non-Germanic circles, she was a truly exceptional composer..."

Alexandre Pham: Caravaggio's Music (Part One)

2005-12-04T09:31:00.000+02:00

"Painting and music: unlikely bedfellows or ideal complements? Discord or alliance?"

Ivan Moody: The Composer and Early Music

2005-12-04T09:30:00.000+02:00

"The history of the involvement of music of the relatively remote past with that of the present is extensive. If one considers only the present century, then the appearance of “neo-classicism” alone would provide ample evidence of this..."

Sophie Roughol: Cantigas de Santa Maria

2005-12-04T09:28:00.000+02:00

"Santa Maria, strela do dia... Alfonso X of Castile often dreamed of stars. More than of the future of his kingdom. A great humanist, a mediocre sovereign. Can one be both?"

Tom Moore: Bach's Musical Offering

2005-12-04T09:27:00.000+02:00

"Johann Sebastian Bach stands with Beethoven as one of the central figures of the European musical tradition, and one who continues to influence composers and musicians to this day..."

Peter Phillips: 10 CDs for a Desert Island

2005-12-04T09:26:00.000+02:00

"Peter Phillips studied in Oxford and founded The Tallis Scholars in 1973, group specializing in Renaissance polyphony. In 1981, with Steve Smith, he created the label Gimell, which has produced more than 30 CDs to date. His first book, English Sacred Music 1549-1649 was published in 1991..."

Ambrosio Lacosta: Interview with Bob van Asperen

2005-12-04T09:25:00.000+02:00

"One of the most brilliant harpsichordists of today, Dutchman Bob van Asperen, starts our series of deep interviews: conversations that reach above pure music and are followed by the Proust Questionnaire. Ambrosio Lacosta spoke with Bob van Asperen on the Arago-nese side of the Pyrenees last August..."

Sophie Roughol: Barbara Strozzi - Baroque Women I

2005-12-04T09:24:00.000+02:00

"logii delle donne virtuose del nostro secolo (“Eulogy to the virtuous women of our century”): such is the title given to one of his writings by Giulio Strozzi, who came from one of the greatest families of Florence. For several years, he had nearby one of the best possible models of a virtuous woman: his adopted daughter, Barbara..."

Jerome F. Weber: Johannes Ockeghem

2005-12-04T09:21:00.000+02:00

"Johannes Ockeghem, a singer and composer who served at the court of the king of France, took part in a mission that almost changed the course of world events. In January 1470 he was paid 275 livres tournoises from the royal treasury to cover the expenses of a journey from Tours to Spain. This was one of two visits that he seems to have made in the company of the Cardinal Bishop of Albi, Jean Jouffroy, and the provost of Paris..."

Pedro Luis Huerta: Music and Dance in the Romanesque Sculpture of Castile-Leon

2005-12-04T09:05:00.000+02:00

"One of Europe’s richest Romanesque heritages is to be found in Castile-Leon. This region of Spain offers exceptional examples of the style, remarkable for both their architectural scope and the wealth of their decorative repertoires, which at times include highly significant sculptural elements..."

Jennifer Thorp: La Mode de France? Dancing in London and Paris c.1680 - c.1730

2005-12-04T09:04:00.000+02:00

"The ambivalence of English society in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries towards French culture in general, and “French dancing” in particular, was echoed in the dance practice of the two capitals. This in turn influenced what was published about dancing and its place in social and musical life, and even affected the repertoire created..."

Andreas Scholl: Singing Bach

2005-12-04T09:03:00.000+02:00

"At the age of nine I sang in Bach’s St John Passion with the “Kiedricher Chorbuben”, the boys’ choir of my hometown. I will never forget the enthusiasm of all the boys and the intensity of our singing in the concluding lines of the final chorale, “Herr Jesus Christ, erhöre mich, erhöre mich/Ich will dich preisen ewiglich” (Lord, grant me this and I will glorify you throughout eternity)..."

Roland Jackson: Bach and Performance Practice

2005-12-04T09:01:00.000+02:00

"Bach provided a few guides that are of some help in the performing of his works. These include: a “draft” concerning numbers of singers and instrumentalists; a table of ornaments (for Wilhelm Friedemann); some rules for thorough bass; a few tempo and dynamic indications; some occasional registrations for organ..."

Pierre Dubois: An Organ for Performing Bach

2005-12-04T09:00:00.000+02:00

"In the second part of a small book on the organ and organists first published in 1948 and reissued several times since, musicologist Norbert Dufourcq did not hesitate to organise his remarks thus: 1. The Prophets; 2. The Master; 3. The Disciples..."

Ton Koopman: Bach Cantatas

2005-12-04T08:57:00.000+02:00

"For a very long time it has been my most ardent wish to perform and record J. S. Bach’s secular and church cantatas. A lot has changed in “Early Music land” since the historical recordings by Nikolaus Harnoncourt and Gustav Leonhardt..."

Daniel R. Melamed: The Passions - Versions and Problems

2005-12-04T08:56:00.000+02:00

"Bach’s passion settings, approaching 300 years old, have become intimately familiar from dozens of recordings and countless performances. But for all their familiarity, behind Bach’s passions are questions and problems caused largely by our distance from the works in time and context..."

Hille Perl: 10 CDs for a Desert Island

2005-12-04T08:54:00.000+02:00

"A musician, a gamba-player, who has played music as long as she can think. For her, music is the foremost means of communication between human beings, more precise and intense and unmistakable than language, of greater emotional significance than any other experience besides love..."

Mark Argent: Interview with Masaaki Suzuki

2005-12-04T08:53:00.000+02:00

"Masaaki Suzuki is in the middle of a twenty-year project, recording the cantatas of J S Bach with his Bach Collegium Japan for BIS. In the autumn of 2004 he made his UK début, directing the Academy of Ancient Music in a series of exceptional concerts (see “Report from London” in Goldberg 32). Mark Argent caught up with him during that visit. He’s not yet a household name in Europe, but, judging by those performances, we will be hearing much more of him in the coming years..."