Program notes for "Springtime in Paris"

For those of you who like to read these in advance of the actual event, here are the program notes for "Springtime in Paris," Ars Lyrica's next subscription program (on Sat March 20) at the Hobby Center. Looking forward to seeing many of you there!

Scion of a distinguished family of musicians, François Couperin “le Grand” began his career while still in his teens by succeeding his father as organist at Saint-Gervais in Paris, an important post that came with one of the capital’s finest instruments. In 1693 he became one of four organists at Versailles, where he also taught members of the royal family how to play the harpsichord, and after the turn of the century acquired the posts of composer and master of King’s chamber music. Unusually for his time, Couperin had little interest in theatrical music; instead, he was quite content to devote his considerable compositional energies to chamber and harpsichord works plus intimate motets for the church. The former especially, with their extraordinary richness and delicate surface filigree, are the musical zenith of the French Baroque.

Couperin, like many of his contemporaries, was fascinated by the modish Italian genre of the trio sonata. As popularized by Corelli especially, this genre posed a problem for French composers: how to reconcile its obvious attractions — virtuosic display, movements with formal logic, and its much-admired “southern expressivity” — while not abandoning the highly stylized dance suite, France’s greatest contribution to Baroque instrumental music. Couperin’s solution to this problem was a set of instrumental suites entitled Les Goûts Réunis, which ostensibly “reunited” the Italian and French tastes. Another collection entitled Les Nations, composed with the general purpose in mind, consists of four large suites that are headed by an Italianate sonata. La Françoise, the first of these, epitomizes Couperin’s inimitable style in its noble grandeur, tender melancholy, and a kind of innocent freshness. The remainder of our Suite in E includes subsequent movements from La Françoise plus a few movements from two of the Concert Royaux, all of which allow performance on whatever instruments one has at hand.

Jean-Baptise Lully’s instrumental trios, by contrast, are all excerpts from his stage works, some presumably countenanced by the composer himself and others arranged by other hands. Our Suite in C embraces both sides of this tonal center (major and minor) and features four binary dance movements plus a concluding chaconne, whose repeating harmonic pattern is put through some surprising twists and turns.

Armand-Louis Couperin, second cousin to François, composed in the same genres but in a much less rigorous manner. His harpsichord works (publ. c1751) span the gamut from intimacy to exhibitionism and reflect the simpler musical tastes of the mid-eighteenth century. Les Cacqueteuses (The Cacklers) is an amusing if unflattering musical portrait of a familiar character type, while l’Arlequine reflects the French fascination with all things Italian in the early 18th century, in particular the Harlequin figure so essential to the madcap antics of the commedia dell’arte.

The cantata was likewise appropriated from the Italians and given a kind of makeover à la Française. The new genre of the French cantata follows the same general outline as its model (a sequence of recitatives and airs) and, as in Italy, was cultivated not at court but instead in the newly fashionable world of the literary-musical salon. In the cantata the elegant ladies and gentlemen of Paris’ leading households found not only an ideal musical genre but a wonderfully plastic poetic form, one far removed from the staid sensibilities of the grand siècle. Classical mythology provided the subject matter for contemporary poets, who turned out verses that enterprising composers set with great attention to detail. Even when things turn out badly for the protagonists, the French mined these tales for their moral lessons. Montéclair’s Pan and Syrinx, for instance, reminds us that we may not always get what we want, but Love sometimes has something else in store for us: Pan’s pursuit of the lovely Syrinx ends with her transformation into a reed, which he fashions into his eponymous instrument, the pan-pipe, thus preserving her memory whenever he makes music.

Finally, the genre of the lute song or air de cour reaches just a bit further back into French history, to the age of Henri IV (d. 1610) and Louis XIII (d. 1643), providing a useful frame for the more familiar late French Baroque repertoire. During the first half of the 17th century, solo songs were a part of both large-scale court ballets and smaller domestic entertainments, and were by far the most popular kinds of musical publications in France. Guédron’s airs, the earlier chronologically of the two sets on this program, give us a glimpse of this genre at its birth, with simple but highly expressive settings of strophic poems. The songs of Le Camus show how this genre developed into more rhetorical mode of expression, with melody and bass lines that seem to follow their own muse, coming together only occasionally to punctuate the evocative verse. © Matthew Dirst

Organ debuts tomorrow

Here's the new Fritts organ at St Philip, as it looked on Wednesday of this past week, just after the last carvings on the facade were installed. Visually it's really stunning, and will look even better once we get the side walls and the ceiling repainted a slightly darker color in the next few weeks.

It's started to make some noise, too! Tomorrow will be the first day to use a few ranks of pipes in church, and we'll be hearing steadily more of it over the next two months, as tonal finishing progresses.

It's Here!

The new Fritts organ for St Philip Presbyterian arrived on Sunday, and a very eager crowd of St Philippians plus a number of local friends spent the afternoon unloading the truck, bit by bit, until the sanctuary was covered in organ parts. The instrument is now taking shape rather quickly in the rear gallery, thanks to Paul Fritts, Bruce Shull and the rest of their hardworking crew. I was delighted to see the top go on the case today; it fit under the ceiling by about 5 inches. Good measuring, Paul!

Houstonians are welcome to stop by and observe the progress over the next week or so. Everything should be in the case by next weekend, then the process of voicing begins. The latter should be finished by mid-March, with any luck, and we'll be sampling the finished stops every Sunday morning during church.

"Antony & Cleopatra" on New Year's Eve

Just finished the program notes for Ars Lyrica's upcoming performance of Johann Adolph Hasse's "Marc'Antonio e Cleopatra," and thought I'd post them here for anyone who is interested in finding out more about this remarkable work before the program on New Year's Eve. Tickets are going fast, so get yours now by visiting Ars Lyrica

PROGRAM NOTES

In 1721 a young German tenor by the name of Johann Adolph Hasse traveled to Italy to hone his craft and seek his fortune. His work at the Hamburg Opera and at the Brunswick court assured entrée into Italian musical circles, and he quickly found opportunities in Rome, Venice, and Florence, much as the youthful Handel had done just a few years earlier. Settling in Naples, he studied composition with Alessandro Scarlatti, the grey eminence of Italian opera and oratorio, and began to write seriously for the stage. By 1730 he produced at least seven operas, eight intermezzi, and three serenate, the most significant of which is Marc’Antonio e Cleopatra.

As a genre, the Italian serenata (or “serenade”) falls somewhere between solo cantata and full-length opera seria. Owing perhaps to the long tradition of lover’s serenades, the Baroque serenata typically sets a familiar love story and was often used as a kind of compositional gift for an important patron, though the dimensions and scoring of such works vary considerably. Marc’Antonio e Cleopatra was written for a Neapolitan banker, at whose palace the work was first performed in 1725 by two of the greatest singers of the age: castrato Carlo Broschi (aka Farinelli), who took the role of Cleopatra, and contralto Vittoria Tesi, who sang as Marc’Antonio. Though today such cross-casting seems bizarre, in Baroque opera gender-bending reinforced the artificial nature of the theatrical experience (naturalistic acting styles had not yet been invented, either).

The libretto, by poet and impresario Francesco Ricciardi, begins with Antony’s great military loss to Octavian’s superior forces. Rather than submit to Rome, he and Cleopatra jointly decide that they’ll be better off in the next world. Hasse’s score makes vivid their complex emotions in eight arias and two duets, the whole preceded by an introductory Sinfonia in two movements. Though the work is scored for just strings and continuo, in several movements we’ve added various woodwind colors (oboes, recorders, flute, and bassoon), which render even more colorful Hasse’s imaginative and supple ideas.

Marc’Antonio e Cleopatra likely had several performances in Naples and elsewhere and was mentioned by German theorist Johann Joachim Quantz (in 1755) as one of Hasse’s most successful works. It brought him considerable fame in Italy, where Hasse was henceforth known as “il Sassone” (the Saxon composer). The work likely resonated deeply with Neapolitans — who, like our famous lovers, faced the unpleasant prospect of domination by a foreign power. But unlike Antony and Cleopatra, who choose death over captivity, Naples had grown so accustomed to Hapsburg rule that even this serenata has an obligatory bow (in its final recitative) to Emperor Karl VI and his consort Elizabeth.

From 1730 onwards Hasse served as Kapellmeister to the Saxon court in Dresden and was widely admired for his superior understanding of the lyric style. His operas were among the first seen by the young Mozart, and though Gluck’s reforms threatened to put an end to Italian opera seria, Hasse continued to produce his works in Vienna, Venice, and other major cities until the early 1780s. He and his wife, the great soprano Faustina Bordoni, were perhaps the first “power couple” in operatic history!

© Matthew Dirst

Jan 3 Organ Arrival!

Friends in Houston (and especially organists) are cordially invited to drop by St Philip Presbyterian Church on Sunday, Jan 3 anytime after 12:30 pm or so to help unload the new Paul Fritts organ. The case, action, and pipes will be taken off the truck and spread around the interior of the church, and the next day the organ builder and his crew begin the process of putting it all back together in the rear gallery. Reassembly will take about 10 days, then 6-8 weeks of voicing follow, since all the pipes must be tonally finished in the church. We'll be able to use the various stops as they are finished on Sunday mornings, so St Philippians will get to know the wonderful new sounds of the Fritts gradually. Completion is expected by mid-March at the latest, with inaugural festivities planned for Sunday, April 18.

Fritts Organ for St Philip

It's almost here: the new Paul Fritts organ for St Philip was feted at an open house at Paul's shop this past Sunday and is due to arrive in Houston on Jan 3. It's looking and sounding fabulous, and we're eagerly awaiting it at the church (we've already sold the mighty Johannes electronic substitute!). The case is being painted a slightly darker, creamier off-white before it leaves Tacoma, the carvings will get some painted highlights as well, and a few facade pipes are still being made, but these pics should give a pretty good idea of the magnitude of the project. It's a great step for St Philip, and a very significant addition to the local musical scene. Inaugural festivities are already scheduled for Sunday, April 18 -- mark your calendars and come join us!

Red Priest red hot!

Red Priest gave an amazing performance tonight for Houston Early Music, complete with their trademark rearrangements of famous Vivaldi concerti and Halloween-inspired shenanigans. These four players, led by recorder virtuoso Piers Adams, have been compared to the Rolling Stones (among other groups), and now I see why. They play with an enthusiasm that goes well beyond the familiar swaying and ducking of even the most physical of early music practitioners. It's a fascinating combination of both spot-on playing with the imagination -- and sheer nerve -- of the best jazzers or rock musicians. Utterly fascinating, though some of the music -- particularly the Corelli "Folia" at the end -- came completely apart in their hands, though no one there (myself included) seemed to mind!