Download Program Notes The so-called baroque period of music spans over

Program Notes
The so-called baroque period of music spans over 150 years of music and includes
the great masters Monteverdi, Vivaldi, Schütz, Bach and Handel, all of whom are
featured on this evening’s program. This great span of music is seen simultaneously
as a redefining period of compositional development and as one that borrows style
and technique from the past, thus it is the first artistic period that builds upon the
past while pioneering new forms and techniques.
Around 1600, the common milestone of the end of the Renaissance and the
beginning of the Baroque, an incredible event occurred that would forever change
how musicians would perceive their art. Simply put, with the recent invention of
Opera (whose creation itself was actually a re-creation or a misunderstood rebirthing of dramatic forms from classical antiquity) music that had hitherto been
conceived of mathematically now needed to provide an obvious and diverse palette
of human emotion. In place of strict academic counterpoint, a hierarchical
structuring of harmony meant to elucidate emotional rhetoric became the primary
underpinning of musical form, onto which was forged a sophisticated and varied
vocabulary of melodic gesture depicting feeling through the doctrine of the Affekts.
This new paradigm came to be seen as the modern style, or “style moderno” in
contrast to the older purely contrapuntal style that came to be called “style antico.”
Thus there were now two manners of compositional process: the modern style that
focused on the individual; emotionality; subjectivity and freedom, leading naturally
into a desire for virtuosity and soloistic improvisation. The older style came to be
seen as the method for objective, corporate statements of faith, with a marked focus
on the archaic, and also became the style for intellectualism, academic enquiry and
for depicting “the law” as referenced in the Hebrew bible.
Indeed, all of the composers active during this 150-year period of compositional
activity felt an equal affinity for both styles, and no serious composer would lack the
skills to excel in both worlds. (This adherence to juxtaposing style antico with style
moderno can be seen well into the 19th century as well, although by the late
romantic period, the antico was seen solely as a rigorous form of training and not
necessarily a practice that had an aesthetic value.)
What then are some of the audible and noticeable differences between these two
styles?
I often like to compare the old style to that of a tapestry where different lines are
interweaved into a distinct work of art – the individual lines of which are
subservient to the larger picture. We hear many different lines of polyphony
moving about – but no one could “sing back the tune” of strict polyphony, because
the point of the music is not a melody or theme, but the relationship of the parts to
each other. Robert Shaw always used to say that this type of music illustrated pure
and beautiful “communism” – he then waited to see how this radical statement
would ripple through his 1950’s choristers…but it is an interesting metaphor for
style antico!
The modern baroque style is easy to hear – lots of notes, melodies that are
immediately recognizable, words that are easy to hear and emotions that are
possible to grasp. This music focuses on the art of persuasion and can move large
groups of people to feel the same thing at the same time – think of Handel’s
Coronation Anthems and their feelings of joy coupled with militarism and pomp and
circumstance – the earliest examples of musical propaganda!
With the new baroque period came a rapid development of instrumental practice
and virtuosity. Now that music had its own set of purely musical devices of rhetoric,
it was possible for wordless music to have true meaning, and not just serve as
occasional or ceremonial background music. The choice of instruments on this
afternoon’s program focuses on the modern counterparts of the virtuoso
instruments of Monteverdi’s San Marco Cathedral – the cornetti and sackbut
consort, and of Handel and Bach’s world of the trumpet and trombone. The brass
ensemble assembled for the concert will be playing music originally intended for
their ancestor instruments but will also be performing transcriptions of music
originally written for other instruments. This type of instrumental substitution was
an incredibly common practice in the baroque period, borne out of necessity and
circumstance, (whether for budgetary, practical or health reasons,) and we have
carried this tradition into the 21st century with Beatus vir being offered by 2
trumpets in the place of solo violins and with Handel’s bizarre and archaic “Gloria
Patri” from his Dixit Dominus being re-arranged for brass ensemble and organ!
These transcriptions were made following the example of actual transcription
practice of the period – and to prove the point we have programmed Bach’s own
organ transcription of Vivaldi’s concerto for two violins and orchestra.
We frame the program with two of Handel’s most well known works – Zadok the
Priest and The King Shall Rejoice, both in the triumphant key of D major, and
between them we have sandwiched 12 gems spanning the entire Baroque period.
Audience members with a special sensitivity to key relationships will notice a
coherent arch that an 18th century ear would appreciate, as we have attempted to
create a symmetrical presentation of the works that follows the type of harmonic
logic expected by a baroque listener. In a nutshell – the first half of the program
examines the flat side of the circle of fifths ending up at C major before intermission,
while the second half investigates the “sharp” side of the key world raising the
energy until the return of D major with The King Shall Rejoice and Reilly Lewis’ great
transcription of Handel’s “Hallelujah Chorus” from Messiah.
© Julian Wachner, 2010