95214 j h roman booklet 03 by Klassiek.nl

95214

J. H. ROMAN 12 Sonatas for Flute and B.c.

Jed Wentz Musica ad Rhenum

ONE LAW FOR THE LION & THE OX IS OPPRESSION In 2010 Peter Bavington published a review of a clavichord concert by Gustav Leonhardt in The British Clavichord Society Newsletter, in which he put a currently prevalent and decidedly modernist theory of Baroque performance practice into the following elegant nutshell: ‘One of the great joys of listening to Leonhardt playing Bach is that he understands the importance of a steady tempo. All too often, players strive after “expression” by applying an exaggerated rubato, constantly slowing down and speeding up, even in the course of a single bar, so that the ear never knows when the next beat is coming. This creates a kind of anxiety in the listener. A steady beat, on the other hand, brings comfort and security: it [...] enables the ear to concentrate on the melody and harmony, that is on the music itself. Expression, in Baroque repertoire, is produced mainly by phrasing, that is, by grouping notes and allowing little silences (silences d’articulation) between them: any distortions of rhythm need to be carefully judged and subtle.’ For Bavington, good music-making is a matter of restraint. The performer’s personality must be squeezed into miniscule silences that she or he creates between notes played strictly in time. If the player strives for expression, the result is an anxiety-provoking and false “expression”: therefore, the performer must be selfeffacing and humbly create a state of contemplative comfort and security, in the service of ‘the music itself’. Performers, of course, are at liberty to choose any musical aesthetic that most closely matches their musical ideals, just as listeners and critics are free to select the concerts and recordings of those performers whose music-making they enjoy most. However, I must point out that the stance Bavington so eloquently promotes is not an historical one. If one is basing one’s performance practice on musical sources from the long 18th century, there can be no excuse for reducing musical expression to mere correct phrasing or to playing in time, nor for the musician to be content to 2

produce only feelings of security and comfort in the listener: in the 18th century, the goal of music, like that of rhetoric, was to move the passions, including violent and unpleasant ones such as hatred, rage and even anxiety itself. Although the intellectual approach to Baroque music of 20th-century musicologists like George J. Buelow may have created the false impression that the passions were rational stylizations of emotion and thus required the listener to think rather than to feel, historical sources make clear that the difference between a passion and what we now call an emotion was only one of degree: the passions were simply the strongest category of emotions. The French medical doctor Jean-Baptiste-Joseph Lallemant defined passion thus in his Essai sur le méchanisme des passions (1751): ‘the passions are violent emotions, by which the soul is affected, as a consequence of the idea of an object whose representation produces a vivid impression.’ For Lallemant, it was the vivid impression made by music on the imagination or soul that caused the listener to feel. In fact, he believed that musically induced emotions were so strong as to cause a physical reaction in the listener. There was nothing new in this idea. The passions had long been associated -indeed, since the time of the ancient Greeks- with perceptible alterations in the body: think of red-faced anger, or pale and trembling fear. Thus Baroque writers, in calling on musicians to move the passions of the audience, were asking them quite literally to force tears from the listener’s eyes. The creation of a state of comfort and security, in which the audience concentrates ‘on the music itself’, was never an 18th-century ideal. On the contrary, Baroque writers believed that it was the ability of musicians to move the passions that linked their art to that of rhetoric. Johann Joachim Quantz, the most influential flutist of the 18th century, put it thus in his Versuch einer Anweisung die Flöte traversiere zu spielen (1752): ‘Musical execution may be compared with an orator’s delivery. The orator and the musician fundamentally have the same aim regarding both the preparation and the final execution of their productions, namely to make themselves masters of the hearts of their audience, to 3

arouse or calm their passions, and to transport them now to this feeling, now to that.’ Far from advocating a comforting contemplation of ‘the music itself’, Quantz here emphasizes the emotionally enslaving power of a persuasive oratorical-musical delivery. It is in this context that Quantz, elsewhere in his Versuch, specifically admonished the performer to change tempo and modulate the dynamics, just as an orator would modulate the speed and dynamics of his voice in a speech. Such vocal changes were considered to be signs of the passions, just as assuredly as were the glowing cheeks of rage. Coeffeteau, whose Tableau des passions humaines was translated into English in 1621, noted that:

melt you, inflame you, and shrink you up; and to move you from hot to cold and back again. We know that we will not please everyone with such interpretations, but we console ourselves with the knowledge that those who prefer 21st-century ‘comfort and security’ to an 18th-century emotional rollercoaster can easily find performances of Baroque repertoire better suited to their dispassionate tastes. © Jed Wentz

[…] in motions of joy and desire, the heart melts with gladnesse. In those of sorrow and trouble, it shrinks up and freezeth with griefe. In those of choler and resolution, it is inflamed and all on fire. In those of feare it grows pale and trembling. A Louers words are sweete and pleasing, and those of a cholerick man are sharpe and rough: Finally, there riseth no passion in the soule, which leaueth not some visible trace of her agitation, vpon the body of man. Here the sound quality of the voice, either ‘sweete’ or ‘sharpe’, ‘pleasing’ or ‘rough’ is as much a sign of the passions as body temperature or facial expression. So too, for musicians, the timbre, timing and tempo of any given phrase had to match its emotional content, just as a good orator would match the color of his voice and vehemence of his delivery to the emotional content of his text. If Bavington advocates steady tempi in the service of what he calls ‘the music itself’, Quantz bids performers to use all the tricks and techniques of rhetorical delivery to sweep the audience away. This is why, gentle reader, and I hope gentle listener too, you will not find, in this recording of Roman’s beautiful sonatas for flauto traverso and basso continuo, any attempt to create an anxiety-free zone. Rather, we have done our best, by means of modulated sounds, to transport you from passions ‘sweete’ to passions ‘sharpe’; to 4

Jed Wentz Studied with Robert Willoughby and Michael Lynn at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, and with Barthold Kuijken at the Royal Conservatory in the Hague. In the course of his career he has turned his hand to many tasks: from archival work to conducting opera, from scholarly pursuits to recreating historical declamatory techniques in spoken performance. All of this seemingly diverse activity centers on the question of expression in 18th-century music, and how one can come to know more about what moved the audience then in order the better to move the audience now. He teaches at the Amsterdam Conservatory. Job ter Haar studied at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague with René van Ast, Lidewij Scheifes, and Anner Bijlsma. During and after his studies he specialized in playing chamber music. With his baroque ensemble Musica ad Rhenum he has made a great number of CDs, which distinguish themselves through the use of historical tempi and rubato. In recent years he has delved even further into classical and early romantic style. Above all, his interest is in the use of early nineteenth century expressive tools. Next to his performing career, Job ter Haar is working as a research coach at Codarts Rotterdam. German harpsichordist, fortepianist and organist Michael Borgstede has been described as one of the most exciting virtuosos of his generation on historical keyboard instruments. As a soloist and member of the chamber music ensemble 6

Musica ad Rhenum, he has toured most of Europe, the United States, Asia, South America and the Middle East and performed at the most prestigious venues and festivals. Michael Borgstede is professor of harpsichord and Basso Continuo at the Hochschule für Musik und Tanz in Cologne. His two dozen CD productions have all met with wide critical acclaim. His debut recording of the 4 Livres de Pièces de Clavecin by Francois Couperin on 11 CDs won the prestigious Gramophone Editor’s Choice. The Dutch newspaper de Volkskrant described it as “a real treasure box” and the American magazine Fanfare stated there was “no excuse for not investing in an issue that will provide rich rewards for many years to come”. No less enthusiastic was the reaction to the four CD set with harpsichord suites by Georg Friedrich Händel, which was hailed by the German and Spanish magazines Fono Forum and Scherzo alike as “a new reference recording”. Michael Borgstede’s last solo recording with the Complete Harpsichord Works by father and son Forqueray was awarded a Diapason d’Or – as was his collaboration with traverso player Jed Wentz in Johann Sebastian Bach’s flute sonatas and Musical Offering.

With thanks to Marion Moonen and Rachel Brown For their inspiring playing and With grateful thanks to Anne Smith