SCHOP, TELEMANN, MUFFAT, BIBER, FROBERGER & JC BACH Thursday 8 April 2021, Perth Concert Hall –––––
PROGRAMME
SCO.ORG.UK
Season 2020/21
SCHOP, TELEMANN, MUFFAT, BIBER, FROBERGER & JC BACH Thursday 8 April 2021, 7.30pm Perth Concert Hall
Schop Pavane a 6 in F major, No 56 Telemann Cantata 'So grausam mächtig ist der Teufel' Muffat Sperantis Gaudia from Florilegium 1 Biber Serenata 'The Night Watchman' Froberger Toccata III J C Bach Lamento 'Ach, daß ich Wassers g’nug hätte' Introduced by Brian Schiele, Jan Waterfield and Marcus Farnsworth
Our Musicians
YOUR ORCHESTRA BARITONE Marcus Farnsworth
BASSOON Alison Green
VIOLIN Stephanie Gonley Aisling O’Dea
HARPSICHORD Jan Waterfield
VIOLA Felix Tanner Brian Schiele Steve King CELLO Philip Higham DOUBLE BASS Nikita Naumov
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WHAT YOU ARE ABOUT TO HEAR Schop (ca.1590-1667) Pavane a 6 in F major, No 56 (c.1633-35) Telemann (1681-1767) Cantata 'So grausam mächtig ist der Teufel' (1731-32) Muffat (1653-1704) Sperantis Gaudia from Florilegium 1 (1695)
Biber (1644-1704) Serenata 'The Night Watchman' (1670) Froberger (1616-1667) Toccata III
(1649)
J C Bach (1642-1703) Lamento 'Ach, daß ich Wassers g’nug hätte' (date unknown)
––––– Talk about ‘Baroque’ music, and many people will immediately think of Bach or Handel. And understandably so. But that’s also a rather partial view, both in terms of time and location. It was a period – a long period, in fact, covering about a century and a half – in which lines between national musical styles began to blur, and in which influences from different courts and countries ricocheted back and forth in the music of increasingly welltravelled composers. And it was a time of great experimentation and great musical flamboyance, perhaps epitomised by what became known as the stylus phantasticus, an early Baroque style that set out to break the rules, showcase virtuosity, and surprise (even shock) listeners with its high-flying fantasy and vivid musical storytelling. Both of those elements can arguably be discerned in today’s first piece, the Pavan a 6 by Johann Schop. Born at the end of the 16th century (a full century before JS Bach) in Lower Saxony, Schop worked in Copenhagen before fleeing an outbreak of plague to return to Germany, where he spent almost 50 years at the Hamburg court. He was one of the most popular and prolific composers of his time, credited with stretching the technical capabilities of the violin – the instrument on which he was a virtuoso performer – in entirely new directions. By his standards, the Pavan a 6 is a rather sober work, composed in Hamburg in 1633 as part of a set of courtly dances. It begins in a traditionally stately manner but, in true stylus phantasticus fashion, soon sets about subverting the rules, becoming suddenly more animated, with a distinctive falling motif that echoes across the instruments. Its fugue-like conclusion is interrupted by a far livelier
Johann Schop
Georg Philipp Telemann
Georg Muffat
The stylus phantasticus, an early Baroque style that set out to break the rules, showcase virtuosity, and surprise (even shock) listeners with its high-flying fantasy and vivid musical storytelling.
section in three time, just to keep the dancers on their toes. Georg Philipp Telemann comes from the same generation as JS Bach and Handel, and knew them both: Bach even made Telemann godfather to his son Carl Philipp Emanuel. He was staggeringly prolific, to the extent that we’re only beginning to appreciate the huge breadth and diversity of his creations today, and he mixed styles freely, incorporating the latest trends from French, Italian, German and even Polish music, with a good ear for what the public wanted to hear, and an even greater ability to bring it to them. He was proud of
having composed nearly seven complete years’ worth of cantatas for church use: So grausam mächtig ist der Teufel (‘How horribly powerful is the devil’) is one of them, composed for the third Sunday in Lent, and published in 1731-2 while Telemann was working in Hamburg, where he spent the last four decades of his life. It’s brief and to the point, warning of the devil’s uncanny ability to charm in order to achieve his evil ends, in music that’s by turns lyrical and gruff. Georg Muffat embodies the Baroque period’s sense of internationalism. Born in Megève, then in the Duchy of Savoy, he spent time in Paris (where he was rumoured
Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber
Johann Jakob Froberger
Johann Christoph Bach
to have studied with Lully) before settling in the Alsace region, with its confluence of influences from France, Germany,
(or bouquets, perhaps) to which Muffat ascribes somewhat fanciful titles (‘Sperantis gaudia’ translates as something like
Switzerland and even Italy. Indeed, his rather ambitious stated aim was to guide the nations away from conflict and towards peace with his music. In the preface to his Florilegium primum, from which ‘Sperantis gaudia’ is taken, he writes (in four languages, naturally): “The weapons of war and their causes are far away from me: notes, strings and lovely musical sounds are my exercise, and since I combine the French manner with the German and Italian styles, I do not incite war, but perhaps help to achieve a desirable concord between with these peoples, playing for dear peace.”
‘Expectation of pleasure’). It’s a suite of seven separate dance movements, showing the distinct influence of the French dance forms that Muffat had experienced in Paris, and which would go on to fill the suites of Bach and Handel in later decades. After a classic French Ouverture, with a dashing, three-time section following a stately, clipped opening, Muffat moves through a striding Balet, a brusque Bourrée, an elegant Rondeau and a brief, spiky Gavotte, before finishing with two rhythmically tricksy Menuets.
Published in Augsburg in 1695, the Florilegium primum is a ‘garland of flowers’ bringing together no fewer than 50 separate
If there’s one composer who epitomised the stylus phantasticus at its most fantastical, it’s Heinrich Biber, who surely counts as an avant-garde iconoclast of his day. He was a virtuoso violinist as well as a composer,
numbers, most of them dances, in collections
writing lavishly complicated, fearsomely
If there’s one composer who epitomised the stylus phantasticus at its most fantastical, it’s Heinrich Biber, who surely counts as an avant-garde iconoclast of his day.
(with Frescobaldi), worked in Vienna, and is known to have travelled to Brussels, London and Paris. He kept his elegantly crafted music firmly under wraps during his lifetime, writing exclusively for the courts in which he was employed. Only after his death were its riches revealed. His Toccata III comes from a collection of showy keyboard works, put together in a lavishly decorated manuscript in 1649 and dedicated to the Holy Roman Emperor, Ferdinand III. It begins with a flamboyant free section, in which harmonies are embellished with decorative runs and other ornamentation, and closes with a celebratory fugal section. In all, it sounds – as Froberger probably intended – like something improvised on the spot, music that moves at whim from mood to mood, but nonetheless underpinned by a solid sense of structure and pacing.
Like Muffat and Schop, Johann Jakob Froberger represents the free-wheeling internationalism of the early Baroque
Today’s concert closes with the Lamento ‘Ach, dass ich Wassers g’nug hätte’ (‘Oh, that I had enough water’) by Johann Christoph Bach, the cousin of JS Bach’s father Johann Ambrosius Bach (and not to be confused with the better-known Johann Christian Bach, JS’s youngest son). This elder JC was almost as celebrated a figure as JS during their lifetimes, and organist and court musician in Eisenach, where JS was born. The Lamento is another genre-defying, freeform work that embodies stylus phantasticus values, written for a solo voice, not quite a cantata, yet more than a song. Drawing on Biblical texts from Jeremiah and the Psalms, it’s an outpouring of sadness and regret at sins committed, in which the singer is given intensely expressive support by a solo violin. With its distinctly modern-sounding harmonies and its quirky but immediately memorable melody, it quickly lodges in the head: once heard, it’s never forgotten.
period: born in Stuttgart, he trained in Rome
© David Kettle
demanding music for his instrument, and often requiring equally outlandish retunings of its strings (in works such as the Rosary Sonatas) that almost seem to redefine what a violin actually is. He used his music to tell stories, too: the Rosary Sonatas take listeners through the life of Christ, and his well-known Battalia depicts rowdy, drunken musketeers, galloping horses and the cacophonous noise of battle itself. His ‘Nightwatchman’ Serenata is slightly more sober, yet no less entertaining, embedding the song of a Salzburg nightwatchman (based on real calls that Biber noted down, apparently) complete with gently strumming, lute-like strings amid the dances of an early Baroque suite.
LIBRETTO Telemann (1681-1767) Cantata 'So grausam mächtig ist der Teufel' (1731-32) Aria So grausam mächtig ist der Teufel! Er machet gar wohl dumm und stumm,
Aria The Devil is so gruesomely powerful, that he can turn us mute & stupid.
Durch holdes, langes, listigs Heucheln, durch reizender und falsches Schmeicheln, verspricht er Heil, und bringt darum.
By his charming, wheedling hypocrisy & by his alluring flattery, he promises us Salvation.
Recit Gott lob! Durch Wachen und durch Beten kann ich, in Gottes Kraft, auch diesen Feind zertreten,
Recit Praise God! If I watch & pray, with God’s might, I can destroy this demon.
dies sind die Waffen meiner Ritterschaft.
These are my Knight’s weapons.
Ist er ein Goliath, so will ich David sein; ein Tropfen Jesus' Blut ist hier des Glaubens schleuder Stein;
If he is Goliath, then I will be David. One drop of Christ’s blood will be the slingshot of my Faith.
nur ein Jesus wort nimmt ihm den Mut, als ein zu mächtigs Schwert für seine Wut.
And one Word of Jesus will give me enough courage to take up the sword against the Devil’s rage.
Aria Ich spotte nur deiner, du spötischer Teufel,
Aria I scorn you, scornful Devil.
ich trotze dir freudig, du trotziger Feind.
I defy you, defiant Fiend.
Wie? fürcht' ich denn nicht seine Klauen? Nein!
How? Do I fear your talons? No?
Wie? Fühl' ich nicht ein Grauen? Mit-nichten!
Am I afraid? Not at all!
Warum nicht? Mich schrecket kein Zweifel: ein Jesus wort schlägt ihn, so mächtig er scheint.
No doubts will frighten me, for however powerful he seems, it is one Word of Jesus that will slay him. English Translation by Jan Waterfield
Biber (1644-1704) Serenata 'The Night Watchman' (1670)
Lost, Ihr Herrn, und lasst euch sagen,
Gentlemen, it’s time to go home.
Der Hammer, der hat neun geschlagen.
The clock has struck nine.
Hüt’s Feuer, hüt’s wohl,
Guard your fires & guard them well!
Und lobet Gott den Herren, und unser liebe Frau.
Praise be to God & to our Lady.
Lost, Ihr Herrn, und lasst euch sagen.
Gentlemen, it’s time to go home.
Der Hammer, der hat zehn geschlagen.
The clock has struck ten.
Hüt’s Feuer, hüt’s wohl,
Guard your fires & guard them well!
Und lobet Gott den Herren, und unser liebe Frau.
Praise be to God & to our Lady.
English Translation by Jan Waterfield
J C Bach (1642-1703) Lamento 'Ach, daß ich Wassers g’nug hätte' (date unknown)
Ach, dass ich Wassers gnug hätte in meinem Haupte, und meine Augen Tränenquellen wären, dass ich Tag und Nacht beweinen könnt meine Sünde.
Oh, that I had water enough in my head and that my eyes were springs of tears, so that I could bewail my sin night and day.
Meine Sünde gehe über mein Haupt. Wie eine schwere Last ist sie mir zu schwer worden,
My sin overwhelms me. Like a weighty burden, it has become too much more me,
Darum weine ich so, und meine beiden Augen fliessen mit Wasser. Meines Seufzens ist viel, und mein Herz ist betrübet, denn der Herr hat mich voll Jammers gemacht am Tage seines grimmigen Zorns.
wherefore I weep so, and mine eyes flow with tears. My sighing is great, and my heart is sad, for the Lord has filled me with grief in the day of his wrath.
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