YALE BAROQUE ENSEMBLE From BIBER TO BACH Extravagant and virtuosic music of the German Baroque robert mealy Director music of Bach Biber Rosenm端ller Schmelzer Telemann
Robert Blocker, Dean
december 4, 2011 · 8 pm Morse Recital Hall in Sprague Memorial Hall
YALE BAROQUE ENSEMBLE Johann Heinrich Schmelzer c. 1620—1680 tutti ensemble
Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber 1644–1704 tutti ensemble
Schmelzer tutti ensemble
Georg Philipp Telemann 1681–1767 Ms. Collins
Die musikalische Fechtschul’ (1668) Aria 1 Aria 2 Sarabande Courente Fechtschul’ Bader Aria Sonata XII from Fiducinium sacro-profanum (1683) Allegro Più presto Allegro Adagio Allegro Lamento sopra la morte di Ferdinando III (1657) Lamento Adagio: Todtenglocken Allegro Allegro Sonata for cello in D major, TWV 41:D6 from Der getreue Musikmeister (1728) Lento Allegro Largo Allegro
As a courtesy to the performers and audience members, turn off cell phones and pagers. Please do not leave the theater during selections. Photography or recording of any kind is not permitted.
From BIBER TO BACH Extravagant and virtuosic music of the German Baroque Robert Mealy, director Soo-Ryun Baek, baroque violin Tess Isaac, baroque violin Colin Meinecke, baroque viola Hannah Collins, baroque cello Avi Stein, harpsichord Johann Rosenmüller 1619–1684
Sonata settima à 4 in D minor from Sonatae (1682)
tutti ensemble intermission Johann Sebastian Bach 1685–1750 Ms. Isaac, Mr. Meinecke
Biber Ms. Baek
Bach tutti ensemble
Sonata in D major for violin & viola, after BWV 1028 Adagio Allegro Andante Allegro Sonata No. 3 in F major from Sonatae violino solo (1681) Adagio/presto Aria & variatio Presto/Adagio Variatio Finale Overture No. 3 in D major, BWV 1068 Ouverture Air Gavotte I & II Bourée Gigue
program notes
Germany in the seventeenth century was a country of extremes: grand courts, spectacular entertainments, appalling genocide, economic collapse. In the wake of the Thirty Years War, with armies pillaging the countryside, a third of the population died. The imperial city of Vienna, home to the Holy Roman Emperor, suffered not only from the lengthy sieges of the Turkish army, but from the depredations of the plague, which claimed many lives. The music of the first half of our program is from this charged and impassioned time, when laments were heard as much as rejoicing. We open with a ballet created for the Viennese court by the violin virtuoso J.H. Schmelzer, who contributed many musical spectacles for the Emperor. His “Musikalische Fechtschul,’” or “musical fencing-school,” includes a display of bow-technique as swordplay, after which everyone relaxes in the sauna during the “Batharia.” After this entertainment, we turn to Schmelzer’s younger colleague, H.I.F. von Biber, with one of his lesser-known chamber entertainments, from his collection “Fiducinium sacro-profanum,” or “string music for secular and sacred occasions.” By contrast, Schmelzer’s heartfelt lament for the Emperor Ferdinand III, who was himself a composer and a great patron of the arts, shows the deeply melancholic side of seventeenth-century culture, including a depiction of the “Todtenglocken,” or funeral bells.
a fine composer, but a savvy entrepreneur. Many of his sonatas appeared in the Getreue Musikmeister, a self-published (and often selfengraved!) periodical where only subscribers would receive a complete piece: each issue contained only some of a sonata’s movements, and you had to wait till next week to find out how it comes out. His cello sonata is a good example of his excellent workmanship, full of ingenious and idiomatic turns of phrase. We end our first half with a late sonata by the eminent composer Johann Rosenmüller. A predecessor of Bach in Leipzig, Rosenmüller was about to become Thomaskantor there when he was jailed on suspicion of homosexuality. He escaped and fled to Venice, where he found work at San Marco—and took on the job of music-master to the Pietà, a few decades before Vivaldi. Late in his career, he was brought back to Germany by the Duke of BraunschweigWolfenbüttel; after his return, Rosenmüller published one final set of sonatas for strings, full of passionate invention and an almost operatic sense of melody.
After intermission, we turn to the music of Bach, who wrote far more chamber music than has actually survived. Christoph Wolff estimates that more than 300 pieces from his Cöthen period are lost to us. This explains why we have so few of his trio sonatas, for example. To re-create some of this lost repertoire, I have arranged one of his sonatas for viola da gamba As a change from the impassioned rhetoric of and harpsichord as a trio sonata for violin and the seventeenth century, we hear a deftly- viola; the viola takes the gamba part, while the composed cello sonata by J.S. Bach’s close violin takes over what was the right hand of the friend G.P. Telemann. Telemann was not only keyboard part. This re-working has the advan-
yale baroque ensemble Robert Mealy, director
tage of clarifying Bach’s exceptional counterpoint: The Yale Baroque Ensemble, directed by baroque in these trios, each voice equally participates in violinist Robert Mealy, is a postgraduate ensemthe conversation. ble at the Yale School of Music dedicated to the highest level of study and performance of the We then return to Biber, a composer who took Baroque repertoire. Using the Yale Collection of the violin to remarkable heights of invention. Musical Instruments’ set of new baroque instruHis 1681 set of sonatas is less famous than his ments, members of the Ensemble go through an “Mystery” sonatas, but they contain even more intensive one-year program of study, immersing extravagant virtuoso turns. The third of these themselves in the chamber and solo repertoire sonatas features both an aria with variations and from 1600 to 1785 to create idiomatic and viran extended section marked “variatio,” before tuosic performances of this music. The Yale racing to the edge of a cliff with a thrillingly Baroque Ensemble is presented in a series of abrupt ending. concerts each year, including a special appearance last spring at Carnegie’s Weill Recital Hall Among the 300-odd lost works of Bach, there as part of the Yale in New York series and an were probably several Ouvertures. Alas, only Italian tour with the Yale Schola Cantorum. As four have come down to us today. Although resident ensemble of the Collection of Musical we tend to think of these as orchestral works, Instruments, the Yale Baroque Ensemble perrecent work by Richard Maunder has empha- forms recitals each term at 15 Hillhouse Avenue. sized that eighteenth-century concertos and suites were frequently performed with one The Yale Baroque Ensemble plays on the YCMI’s player per part; these are as much chamber collection of new baroque string instruments music as they are “orchestral” works. Bach’s made by Jason Viseltear of New York City, after brilliant and complex writing is far more trans- del Gesù, Amati, and Testore. Bows are from parent in a chamber version. His third suite is the YCMI collection, by David Hawthorne and best known today in its standard version, with Christopher English after seventeenth-century trumpets and drums, but some scholars have and eighteenth-century originals. proposed that these were only added for Bach’s Leipzig collegium concerts, and the original is simply in four parts. We hear tonight a reconstruction of this earlier version. – Robert Mealy
artist profiles
Violinist Soo Ryun Baek was born in Korea and enjoyed a successful career at home before her move to the U.S. in 2006. Her solo awards include Grand Prize in the Sung Jung Music, Nanpa, Korea Music Society, and Eumag Journal competitions. Ms. Baek also won a special prize in the Korean Philharmonic Orchestra Competition. As a chamber musician, Ms. Baek has performed in Spain and toured Germany and the U.S. She was nationally broadcast on radio during a chamber performance at the Los Angeles Contemporary Museum of the Arts. Ms. Baek has also performed in master classes given by the Takacs Quartet, Peter Salaf, Arnold Steinhardt and Anne-Akiko Myers. Ms. Baek is currently a Visiting Fellow in the Yale Baroque Ensemble, where she works with renowned baroque violinist and specialist Robert Mealy. She received both the Leni Fe Bland scholarship and the Leni Fe Bland fellowship from the Music Academy of the West. She received her Bachelor of Music degree from Seoul National University with honors, the Artist Diploma from the Colburn Conservatory, and a Master of Music degree from the Yale School of Music, where she studied with Ani Kavafian. She recently performed with the Yale Philharmonia as a winner of the Woolsey Competition.
A native of Geneva, New York, cellist Hannah Collins has performed as a soloist and chamber musician at festivals throughout Europe and North America, including the Aldeburgh Festival (UK), Musique de Chambre à Giverny (France), Orford Centre d’arts (Canada), and the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival Creative Dialogue Workshop (U.S.). With support from the Presser Foundation, Hannah spent 2009–2011
in France and The Netherlands researching and performing modern solo cello repertoire. She was the winner of De Link Competition 2010 for contemporary interpretation and has recently commissioned and premiered several new solo works including Monologue (2011) for speaking, singing and acting cellist by Dutch composer Patrick van Deurzen. Hannah is also an active performer of early music, having appeared frequently with the Yale Collegium Players, the Yale Temperament Viol Consort, and the Quodlibet Ensemble. She was also the principal continuo player for Yale Schola Cantorum’s 2009 Naxos recording of the Bach and Mendelssohn Magnificats, led by Simon Carrington. Hannah recently completed a graduate degree at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague and also holds degrees in biomedical engineering and music from Yale University. Her teachers have included Stefan Reuss, Ole Akahoshi, Aldo Parisot, and Michel Strauss.
Tess Isaac graduated from the University of North Texas, having studied baroque violin with Cynthia Roberts, and is currently a violinist in the Yale Baroque Ensemble at Yale University under director Robert Mealy. Tess is an active member of the San Francisco Bach Choir, Dallas Orchestra of New Spain, Denton Bach Society, Victoria Bach Society, and Austin Bach Society, having performed several times at the Boston Early Music Festival. Tess has performed with musicians such as Itzhak Perlman, Dave Brubeck, Kanye West, William Prucell, and Edgar Meyer, to name a few. Having gained many insights touring Asia, North and South America, and Europe with various chamber and orchestral ensembles, she has expanded her knowledge of
the baroque style through attendance at Oberlin, Longy, and American Bach Soloists summer academies. She was chosen as a Cecil Atkins Scholarship Award recipient at UNT for 2006– 2008 and was the recipient of the NordstromAdams UNT Early Music Endowment Award for 2008–2009. Interested in improvisational work, she is also a pianist, a composer, and a baritone violinist in celtic, bluegrass, and jazz ensembles, which have performed at the Denton Arts and Jazz Festival in Texas.
Colin Meinecke, violist, is a native of Denton, Texas. He is active in a wide range of repertoire, with a particular interest in historical performance. He is a 2011–2012 fellow in the Yale Baroque Ensemble and frequently performs with the American Baroque Orchestra and Sebastian Chamber Players. In 2011, he played with Santa Fe Pro Musica and the Santa Fe Desert Chorale for their summer seasons. A recipient of the Harriet Gibbs Fox and Conway Dickson Scholarships, he received his Master of Music degree in viola performance from the Yale School of Music, where he studied with Ettore Causa. He holds a Bachelor of Music degree from the University of North Texas, where he graduated summa cum laude; his principal teachers were Susan Dubois, viola, and Cynthia Roberts, Baroque viola and violin.
Avi Stein teaches continuo at the Juilliard School and harpsichord, vocal repertoire, and chamber music at Yale University. He is the organist and music director at St. Matthew & St. Timothy Episcopal Church in Manhattan. The New York Times described Avi as “a brilliant
organ soloist” in his Carnegie Hall debut and he was recently featured in Early Music America in an article on the new generation of leaders in the field. Avi has performed throughout the United States and in Europe, Canada, and Central America. He is an active continuo accompanist who plays regularly with the Boston Early Music Festival, the Trinity Church Wall Street Choir and Baroque Orchestra, the Clarion Music Society, and the chamber groups Quicksilver, Repast and Aeris. Avi has also directed a variety of ensembles including the Opera Français de New York, the OperaOmnia company, the 4x4 Festival, and the young artists’ program at the Carmel Bach Festival. Avi is currently finishing his doctoral studies in organ and harpsichord at Indiana University and holds degrees from the Eastman School of Music and the University of Southern California. He was a recipient of a Fulbright scholarship for study in Toulouse.
upcoming
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December 5 & 7 prokofiev piano sonatas Horowitz Piano Series Sprague Hall | Mon & Wed | 8 pm Nine graduate pianists perform Prokofiev’s complete piano sonatas in two evenings. december 5: Sonata No. 1 in F minor, No. 2 in D minor, No. 5 in C major, No. 9 in C major, and No. 4 in C minor. december 7: Sonata No. 3 in A minor, plus the War Sonatas: No. 8 in B-flat major, No. 6 in A major, and No. 7 in B-flat major. Tickets $5 (general admission)
December 6 american brass quintet Oneppo Chamber Music Series Sprague Hall | Tue | 8 pm Music from the Renaissance to today by Josquin, Widmann, Gabrieli, Cherubini, Lacerda, Trevor Gureckis (a YSM alum), and Joan Tower. Featuring a collaboration with School of Music brass faculty. Tickets $20–30 | Students $10
recording studio Eugene Kimball
December 8 new music for orchestra Yale Philharmonia Woolsey Hall | Thu | 8 pm Shinik Hahm conducts the Yale Philharmnia in new works by graduate composers Paul Kerekes, Hannah Lash, Loren Loiacono, Garth Neustadter, Kathryn Salfelder, Chris Rogerson, Justin Tierney, and Daniel Wohl. Free admission
Robert Blocker, Dean