Festival de Musica Barroca in San Miguel

A number of Ars Lyrica regulars -- including yours truly -- made the trek to beautiful San Miguel de Allende (pictured here) for the annual Festival de Musica Barroca in March. This festival, whose artistic director is our own Barry Sills for the Camerata Ventapane, included two programs with a number of Houston-based musicians, including the Houston Bach Choir. We repeated one of these programs at the Biblioteca Lerdo de Tejada in Mexico City (also pictured here), and did a command performance in Léon for the pope -- who took too much sun that morning and chose to rest instead! Nevermind, the program was much appreciated by a capacity crowd of Catholic prelates and government officials, and we're already planning several performances of Handel's "Acis and Galatea" for next year, in Houston and in Mexico. If you've never been to San Miguel, you should plan on joining us next year for one of the best-kept secrets in the Baroque music world: it's gorgeous, peaceful, and the music-making well worth the trip!

La Resurrezione Program Notes

Ars Lyrica performs Handel's "La Resurrezione" on March 9 (in Houston) and 10 (in Austin). This rarely-heard work, which dates from the composer’s youthful sojourn to Italy, narrates Jesus’ resurrection as witnessed by Mary Magdalene, her companion Mary Cleophas, St John the Apostle, an Angel, and Lucifer himself. Handel’s telling of this tale, which is organized around eight distinct scenes in two large parts, is full of soaring melodies and striking orchestral colors.

Here is a bit of background, from my program notes:

Handel composed La Resurrezione di nostro Signor Gesù Cristo for the Marquis Francesco Maria Ruspoli, at whose home the work was first performed in concert in 1708, on Easter evening. Ruspoli, an important patron of the arts and prince of the church, was Handel’s principal employer during the young composer’s residency in the Eternal City. In addition to La Resurrezione, Ruspoli had also commissioned for the same season a passion setting by Alessandro Scarlatti. With multiple performances of both works at the Bonelli Palace in Rome during Holy Week of 1708, one wonders how the good Marquis and his friends found any time to attend services!

Thanks to carefully kept payment records, much is known about the première of La Resurrezione. Though not fully staged, Handel’s oratorio was given in front of painted backdrops that depicted each scene. With the composer in charge, the virtuoso violinist Arcangelo Corelli served as concertmaster for an unusually large orchestra that included a few exotic instruments: the viola da gamba, for example, is featured prominently in several movements. The cast included five of Italy’s finest singers, including Marguerita Durastanti, who created a stir as Mary Magdalene since at that time women were forbidden by papal order from singing in public in Rome; she seems to have been replaced by a castrato in subsequent performances. The roles of the Angel and Mary Cleophas were likewise sung by castrati whose ranges are good match for a modern lyric soprano and alto countertenor, respectively. Some 1500 libretti were printed for at least three performances of the work, something of a record for a new oratorio in Rome at the turn of the century.

One reason why oratorios were so popular in early eighteenth-century Rome is because the genre was effectively opera in disguise: oratorio fulfilled the taste for large-scale dramatic musical works while obeying (at least to the letter of the law) the papacy’s periodic decrees against theatrical entertainments of all sorts, including operas. Performances were given in the grandest Roman houses and palaces, which often had private theaters or rooms large enough to accommodate several hundred spectators. These rooms were often lavishly decorated for oratorio performances and the singers costumed in elaborate operatic garb.

More operatic in nature than Handel’s earlier allegorical oratorio Il trinfo del Tempo, La Resurrezione was a great success from the start. Its characters, from the swaggering Lucifer to the grief-stricken Mary Magdalene, are dramatically conceived and each sings arias in the latest operatic fashion. (Handel in fact re-used several of Resurrezione arias in later operas and oratorios, in one case not changing a single word of text!) The lack of any real choral writing also separates this work from Handel’s later English-language oratorios, in which the chorus is often the most prominent voice. The two choral numbers in La Resurrezione are intended for all the soloists, in the fashion of the “coro” that typically provides closure for Italian Baroque operas.

Bach and Time – New Year's Eve 2011

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
and never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
and auld lang syne?

For auld lang syne, my dear,
for auld lang syne,
we’ll take a cup o’kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.

And surely you’ll buy your pint cup,
and surely I’ll buy mine!
And we’ll take a cup o’kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.

Every New Year’s Eve at midnight, millions of revelers the world over stumble through these famous words by the Scottish bard Robert Burns. Last week in New York, I encountered them under glass (literally, thanks to Pierpont Morgan’s eccentric collecting habits) and marveled again at their universality: they seemed somehow less corny in the original manuscript and earliest prints. Remembering “old times” — more precisely, the unique character of past events, things, and people — is crucial. Without memory, there is no culture.

On New Year's Eve 2011, Ars Lyrica Houston will savor a few of the greatest moments in our collective musical past, with major works by J. S. Bach on the subject of time. Then we party! Please note that our 2011 New Year’s Eve Gala is upstairs in the Grand Lobby of Sarofim Hall, not the Founder’s Club as in previous years. Good luck to all at the silent auction — may everyone win at least a “pint cup,” as Burns’ lyrics suggest!


Bach and Time program:

"Gottes Zeit ist die allerbeste Zeit," BWV 106

Suite in D Major, BWV 1068

"Ehre sei dir, Gott, gesungen" (Christmas Oratorio Pt. V), BWV 248/5


Program notes for Bach and Time:

Like most of us, Johann Sebastian Bach understood time to operate in multiple dimensions. His weekly responsibilities as the cantor and chief composer for Leipzig’s principal churches surely made him efficient with his own day-to-day time, since such a position required a new cantata every week. On a more spiritual level, Bach’s orthodox Lutheran milieu also conceived of time within a specifically Christian framework, encompassing everything from creation to eternity. God’s time (to use the locution of BWV 106: “Gottes Zeit”) is eternal, whereas human time is demarcated by salvation history, whose broad outlines are the giving of the Law, the revelation of the Gospels, and the obligation to live a moral life in the here and now.

Bach and his anonymous librettist juxtaposed all these ideas about time to great effect in Gottes Zeit ist die allerbeste Zeit (“God’s is the best time”). An intimation of eternity seems present from the opening notes of the Sonatina, whose archaic scoring for two recorders and two violas da gamba must have struck even its first hearers as an oddly quaint way to set such expressive and modern musical figures. Four singers then take center stage, for a cantata whose various sections announce that God’s time is eternal, that ours is brief, and that belief eventually leads us to a better place.

Unlike later cantatas organized around freestanding recitatives and arias, Cantata 106 looks backwards towards 17th-century models in its seamless shuttling from one kind of musical figure and scoring to another for each sentence or section of text. Given its old-fashioned form and its text, scholars have long assumed that Bach wrote this work for a funeral, most likely in 1707, at the very beginning of his career as a composer of church pieces. Its subtitle, “Actus Tragicus,” suggests a potentially broader purpose as well, in keeping with the German tradition of Trauerspiel or morality plays. Here, the tragedy is that of the human condition, which is overcome only in death through faith.

Bach’s Christmas Oratorio is actually a series of six separate cantatas for the Christmas – New Year season, each of which borrows considerable material from older compositions. Cobbled together in 1734, according to the autograph manuscript, this “oratorio” relies on the same alternation of text types and musical textures as do Bach’s passion settings, with Gospel narration by a tenor Evangelist, reflective arias for solo voices, and big “choral” movements leavened regularly by simple four-part chorales.

Part V (Ehre sei dir, Gott, gesungen), intended for the first Sunday after the New Year, begins in an irresistibly cheerful mood, with two oboes d’amore, strings, and voices tossing around the most joyous of musical ideas. The rest of this cantata focuses on the multifaceted role of the Star in the Christmas story: as signal to the Wise Men, as a light to the Gentiles, as a sign of danger for Herod, and as a beacon that continues to shine.

Perhaps the most timeless feature of this program is the beloved “Air” from Bach’s third “orchestral” Suite. Though the larger work otherwise follows a familiar French sequence of movements, complete with an initial “Ouverture” and some very fashionable dances, its best-known part is a humble little tune that Bach slips in just after an imposing opening movement—an unexpected little gift, perfect for this time of year!

© Matthew Dirst

Paradise Found program notes

To whet your appetite for "Paradise Found" -- Sept 22 in Bryan, Sept 23 in Houston, and Sept 26 in Alexandria, LA -- here are my notes on this program. Looking forward to seeing many of you at this special set of concerts, featuring the amazing French-Italian soprano Céline Ricci.

"Paradise Found" takes us on a journey comparable to that of Milton's masterpiece, from a Scarlatti cantata’s despairing tones to the heavenly rapture of Handel’s Gloria. In between these vocal “bookends,” instrumental works from the same era illustrate how some of the finest Baroque composers shuttled seamlessly between these emotional extremes, in music that is at once affecting and transformative.

Like his father Alessandro Scarlatti and his contemporaries Handel and Vivaldi, Domenico Scarlatti composed dozens of Italian cantatas for the delectation of aristocratic and royal patrons. Though the genre’s heyday had passed, this master of the newfangled keyboard sonata retained a keen interest in the cantata across a long and productive career. The attraction appears to have been both practical and aesthetic: a genre eminently suited to the intimate cultural pleasures of the Portuguese and Spanish courts (which Scarlatti served from 1719 to the end of his life), the cantata also offered the opportunity for formal experimentation and great subtlety in expression.

Metastasio’s libretto for Pur nel sonno suggests a date of composition sometime during Scarlatti’s tenure at the court of Philip V and Maria Barbara in Madrid. This great poet, the leading opera librettist of the 18th century, had begun his literary career in Rome’s Arcadian Academy, from whose pastoral verse he borrowed stock characters for this cantata. Its “story” is delivered from the unlucky suitor’s point of view, and from the outset, the mood is dark: an Introduzione in two parts—something one might expect only at the head of a full-length opera or oratorio—is by turns aggressive and pensive. The sinewy first aria introduces a world-weary lover, one rejected by the unattainable Phyllis but unable to forget her, even in sleep; his passion remains sadly one-sided. A highly dramatic recitative follows, as the protagonist’s dream veers from lovely visions to fear and shame. His final realization—that he’ll never be free again—is given full vent in a tour-de-force concluding aria with abundant vocal fireworks.

Rameau’s harpsichord music comprises both original works and transcriptions of orchestral dances and character pieces from his popular stage works. The Air pour les Bostangis and the Gavotte are both examples of the latter type. Excerpts from Rameau’s opera-ballet Les Indes Galantes (1735), the first of these charming pieces accompanies a dance by gardeners of the seraglio (the “bostangis”), whose proprieter (the “Gracious Turk” of Act I) is but one of Rameau’s colorful “Indians.” Les Tendres Plaintes and La Joyeuse, by contrast, are more idiomatically conceived for the harpsichord. These two gems encapsulate, within the gently recursive French rondeau form, the two emotional poles of this evening’s program: from “tender complaints” to joy.

Couperin’s La Sultane would also seem, by virtue of its title, to transport us to the Orient; but this is a decidedly Parisian sultan, not an exotic harem-keeper. One of several works Couperin wrote as a kind of French response to the wildly popular Italian trio sonata, La Sultane features unusually full scoring—for two violins, two violas da gamba, and continuo—and a classic sequence of sections in contrasting tempi. Its grandiose and powerful beginning leads to a faster fugue, whose primary theme is nearly identical to that of the opening movement. A tender air and sections in contrasting quicker meters lighten the mood considerably toward the end, as all four instruments engage in concerto-like figuration.

The setting of the Gloria now attributed to Handel came to the world’s attention in 2001. Newspapers heralded its discovery as a major event, despite lingering doubts about its authenticity. If Handel wrote it, he surely did so between 1706 and 1708 in Rome, where such a blatantly theatrical solo setting of this liturgical text would have been well received by patrons who loved opera but were frequently denied it because of recurring papal prohibitions. Its seven discrete movements follow the typical divisions of the “Gloria in excelsis” portion of the mass ordinary. Handel’s virtuosic treatment of the solo voice in the joyous outer movements is noteworthy, as is the highly expressive “Qui tollis,” which makes vivid with tortuous chromatic melodies the “sins of the world.” Because the Gloria lacks a free-standing overture, we have simply borrowed one in the same key from the same composer: the three-movement sequence that introduces Esther (1718), Handel’s first English-language oratorio. ©Matthew Dirst

Summer Festivals

The biennial Boston Early Music Festival is always a wonderful opportunity to hear some great music, browse through exhibits, and socialize with friends and colleagues from around the world. This year Ars Lyrica offered its first program on the festival fringe, for a very enthusiastic audience at Old South Church’s Gordon Chapel. (Watch for the review in the next issue of Early Music America.) Soprano Melissa Givens and countertenor Ryland Angel were the stars of our show, in music by Alessandro and Domenico Scarlatti. Bravo to our prima donna, primo uomo, and a terrific band that included violinists Adam LaMotte and Sean Wang, cellist Barry Sills, and guitarist/theorbo player Richard Savino!

Both of the BEMF operas were on my dance card, and they were something to behold. Steffani’s “Niobe, Queen of Thebes,” though not destined for standard-rep houses anytime soon, proved a marvelous vehicle for superstar countertenor Philippe Jarrousky and his hapless queen, soprano Amanda Forsythe. The score abounds in short virtuosic arias and ensembles, and contains some of the oddest music I’ve ever heard: King Anfione (Jarrousky’s role) sings an aria while dying that defies description – more chromatic weirdness that I’ve ever before heard in a Baroque opera. BEMF also revived its much-praised production of Handel’s “Acis and Galatea” to a very grateful audience. I can’t imagine a more thoughtful and right-on-target production for this delicious score. The singing was pretty incredible, too, with Aaron Sheehan, Teresa Wakim, and Douglas Williams giving outstanding performances in the leading roles. Gilbert Blin, who staged both productions, could IMHO stage the Boston phone book and we’d be enthralled.

San Francisco was next on my itinerary, where I spent a few delightful days in the cool breezy weather that this city is famous for in the summertime. (During my grad school days at Stanford I regularly took both a sweater and a jacket with me on warm days when headed to SF for the evening – things haven’t changed!) While there I saw “Siegfried” at SF Opera (thanks to Birgitt VanWijk and Rudy Avelar) in a marvelous production by Francesca Zambello, with gorgeous playing by the orchestra under Donald Runnicles, and a great cast, too.

Off to the Tetons Festival in a few weeks to play a program with Nic McGegan, then to Santa Fe to see “Griselda” and “Wozzeck.” Stay tuned for a post on the latter – can’t wait to get my Santa Fe fix with this summer’s oddest couple, Vivaldi and Berg!

A match made in Venice

Here's a great pic of Ars Lyrica performing "Monteverdi and the Venetian Style" at the opening of "Titian and the Golden Age of Venetian Painting" at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Houstonians, put this exhibit on your calendar (it closes in August); the art is simply staggering. This was a truly once-in-a-lifetime opportunity -- not that I wouldn't happily put together a Monteverdi program on the slightest pretext. Here's hoping it made the gods happy, too!

Ars Lyrica's 2011-12 Season: Transformations

I'm thrilled to announce our 2011-12 season, which explores the idea of transformation — in bodily, spiritual, and various musical senses — in a wide variety of repertory, from early Baroque madrigals through early Classical chamber works. Highlights include the Houston débuts of some fantastic musicians, including sopranos Céline Ricci and Gillian Keith and violinist Ingrid Matthews, plus the New York Baroque Dance Company in a new production of two major works from Monteverdi's 1638 Madrigals of Love and War. There are a number of special subscription offers that expire on June 10, so visit Ars Lyrica Houston and get your tickets now.

In addition to our Houston series, we'll be visiting Alexandria LA and Austin TX this coming season, and making our second recording for Sono Luminus. The latter features Jamie Barton, Brian Shircliffe, and Joe Gaines in Domenico Scarlatti's hilarious "La Dirindina," which opened our 2010-11 season last September, and a solo cantata by the same composer with Céline Ricci.

One other quick note: Ars Lyrica is taking its final subscription program of the current season to the Boston Early Music Festival Fringe on June 15 at noon, at Old South Church's Gordon Chapel. Forbidden Pleasures should be great fun -- either in Houston on June 10 or in Boston on June 15 -- so come join us!