American Baroque
L'Europe Galante

Flute, oboe, violin, viola da gamba and harpsichord

Saturday, January 29, 2005  8:00 pm
Synod Hall



"outstanding panache and crispness"

– Cleveland Plain Dealer

Baroque in full bloom…A whirlwind tour of the most fashionable musical centers of Europe: Vivaldi’s Venice, Handel’s London, Couperin’s Paris, and Telemann’s Frankfurt and Berlin. American Baroque’s adventurous program combines 18th-century music with a new work commissioned by the group.



Join us for R&B Bobblehead night on January 29! Be one of the first 100 patrons in the door and receive a free R&B Bach bobblehead doll! This is a one-of-a kind bobblehead designed exclusively for R&B by Pittsburgh artist John Manders. You can only get it through R&B! Bobbleheads will be available for purchase.





Join us for the pre-concert talk given by Gonzalo X. Ruiz, member of American Baroque, from 7:00-7:30 in Synod Hall.



Program


American Baroque
L'Europe Galante
Stephen Schultz, baroque flute

Gonzalo X. Ruiz, baroque oboe

Elizabeth Blumenstock, baroque violin

Roy Whelden, viola da gamba

Joanna Blendulf, baroque cello

Katherine Shao, harpsichord


Concerto Opera XXXVIIa      Joseph Bodin de Boismortier (1689-1755)
      Allegro - Adagio - Allegro

11 Miniatures for Baroque Ensemble      Marc Mellits (1996)
      Slippery - Dark Age Machinery - Metoclopramide - Lefty's Elegy - Lunacy - Carpal Tunnel - Velocity - Nomadic - Lego - Elegy for Lefty - Clay-notes

Quartet in G major from Tafelmusik      Georg Phillip Telemann (1681-1767)
      Largo-Allegro-Largo-Vivace-Moderato-Grave-Vivace

Intermission

Suite in A from Nais      Jean-Phillippe Rameau (1683-1764)
      Sarabande-Gavotte vive-Rigaudons-Sarabande-Gavottes-Pas de deux

Trio in B minor Opus 2 #1      George Frederick Handel
      Andante - Allegro ma non troppo - Largo - Allegro (1685-1759)

"Winter"      Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741)
      Allegro - Largo - Allegro



Program Notes


Program Notes
        L'Europe Galante

Boisrmortier's reputation, like that of Telemann, has suffered the ironic fate of being tarnished by the composer's prolific compositional habits. Boismortier published so much lightweight fluff for amateurs that his quality works, which are not few, are often overlooked. The Concerto in e minor is one of his very best compositions, and a rare instance of a completely successful hybrid. In its outer movements it follows the conventions of Italian concerto writing by giving every instrument a solo passage framed by tutti sections. Vivaldi wrote several works using this formula, essentially using the chamber ensemble as a miniature orchestra. What is remarkable here is that Boismortier does this without ever losing the more egalitarian spirit of chamber music, or, perhaps more importantly, the French style and its grounding in the courtly dances.

Marc Mellits' 11 Miniatures for Baroque Ensemble was written for American Baroque in memory of the composers' father. Ostensibly rooted in the classic American minimalist tradition, it is nevertheless infused with a sense of recklessness and fun that make the piece a joy to perform, and make its introspective moments all the more poignant. The composer writes: "Among my fondest childhood memories is that of my father making my brothers and I laugh. Of all the humorous moments I recall, none remains more vivid than those times when my dad would put on a ruffled cowboy hat and bellow out a drunken version of an old country song called There Stands the Glass. The image of this large man stumping around the kitchen with a silly hat and his faded blue robe still brings a smile to my heart. My brothers and I would fall off the sofa laughing so hard tears would run from our eyes. When my father died in 1995, I was just beginning to work on 11 Miniatures. With this image of him and his voice still echoing his song, I could not help but weave fragments, bits and pieces of the old Lefty Frizell tune into my own work. For some bizarre reason I seem to remember Dad doing his song around the Chanukah menorah, which may explain the motif 'Dreidle, Dreidle, Dreidle' that appears in this work."

Few composers in history have enjoyed the consistent success and public approval garnered by Georg Philipp Telemann throughout his career. Telemann excelled in all the vocal and instrumental genres of his day and his works were hailed as models by practically all his contemporaries. While Mozart is often cited as having been the first independent composer in the modern sense, Telemann enjoyed an artistic freedom that was relatively unfettered by the constrictions of his employers and certainly paved the way for that type of freelance career. Although we often think of the public concert as a phenomenon that flourished in Beethoven's Vienna, Telemann's productions, where all manner of music was heard, were the center of musical life first in Frankfurt and then in Hamburg. Telemann was also a tireless educator and theorist and was held in highest esteem by all the important musical writers and essayists of his day, including Scheibe, Quantz, Mattheson and Marpurg.

Telemann was the undisputed master of the conversational quartet form, and the Tafelmusik Quartet in G major is a wonderful example of his skill. The opening movement begins with a textural slow introduction which returns later after a contrapuntal allegro section where the melody lines are perfectly tailored to the flute, oboe and violin, while maintaining an equality of importance. The following Vivace is perhaps unique in all of the Baroque era: a conventional flute and violin trio sonata acts as the "tutti" orchestra for what is truly an oboe concerto. A short connection leads to the exuberance of the final Vivace where the melody instruments again are treated with the natural equanimity that made Telemann's quartets models of their genre.

When the War of the Austrian Succession ended in October 1748, the Paris Opera commissioned Jean Phillippe Rameau to write an opera in celebration. The result was Nais, subtitled Opera pour la Paix (an Opera to Peace). Across the channel the British celebrated with Handel's Fireworks music, which for all its majesty can seem simple by comparison to Rameau's kaleidoscopic score. This suite consists of shorter pieces, magical examples of the composer's mastery of the traditional dance forms.

The Trio in b minor comes from Handel's Opus 2 collection, published in London in 1726. In it is found the composer's most exciting chamber music written specifically for winds. While in the outer movements the voices are treated equally as is the norm in this type of contrapuntal music, but in the magical third movement, the flute is carried aloft on a cushion of violin double stops. The frontispiece of this collection typically proposes that these works may be played on just almost any instrument, but only the flute can do full justice to this particular trio.

Vivaldi's Four Seasons is possibly the most popular work in the classical repertoire. Like Beethoven's Fifth Symphony and Rossini's William Tell Overture, it is one of a small handful of works that are readily recognized even by those who never listen to classical music. Some listeners can get beyond its iconic status and place it within the Italian high baroque tradition, albeit as one of its most extravagant flowerings. Few, however, would suspect that the work's greatest success in the eighteenth century came not in Italy, but in France. The previously published L'Estro Armonico had set the stage by introducing France not only to the music of Vivaldi but to the Italian concerto more generally. The Four Seasons ushered in what can only be described as a Vivaldi craze and can fairly be said to have hastened the demise of classic French style.

The works had been in existence before their publication by Le Cene in 1725, and had probably been subjected to much refinement. For publication Vivaldi included four sonnets, which do not appear in earlier manuscripts. While their authorship is unclear and they are not exalted literature, they go along so well with the concertos that they probably preceded the composition of the music. Musically the four concertos contain plenty to justify their masterpiece status. They are filled with lyricism, invention and virtuosity, and while they require the utmost skill from performers, in it are found more memorable melodies than in any vehicle for purely technical display.

Winter, as presented tonight, is my own arrangement of the cycle. Vivaldi's masterpiece has received so many performances and recordings that it has also inspired an impressive number of creative arrangements for everything from synthesizer to accordion quartet to solo recorder to koto ensemble. Many are impressive, amusing, some almost blasphemous to musicians. Nothing of the sort is offered here. What I have done is simply to follow Vivaldi's own orchestration techniques and adapt them slightly to fit our ensemble. While most listeners know that Vivaldi wrote hundreds of concertos for the violin, few know that he also wrote many concertos that treat a small mixed group of winds and strings like a mini orchestra. This more compact format more than makes up in color what it lacks in numbers. Many of his most popular concertos like il Gardellino and la Tempesta di Mare survive in these two forms and in many cases the chamber version was the original and the orchestral version the adaptation. Here the violin retains the lion's share of the solos. In my own part I assigned to the oboe some violin lines that may be considered extreme for the instrument, but only by those unfamiliar with the full extent of Vivaldi's oboe writing. The harpsichord solo in the last movement of Winter was a whim. The result really is a Four Seasons like you've never heard before. The coloristic aspects of Vivaldi's descriptive composition come to life much more vividly than in the original version while the new texture is instantly perceived as authentically baroque. The "spotlight" that roves from one instrument to another keeps the focus on the ensemble and the work's content, not one soloist. Rather than simply another new spin on a tired classic, this is an original but historically plausible version that preserves all the excitement and beauty of the original composition and opens up a whole new dimension of colors drawn from Vivaldi's own palette.

-Gonzalo X. Ruiz


Bios


American Baroque Bios

Founded in San Francisco in 1986, American Baroque brings together some of America's most accomplished and exciting baroque instrumentalists, with the purpose of defining a new, modern genre for historical instruments. The group's adventurous programs combine 18th-century music with new works, composed for the group through collaborations and commissions from American composers. An ensemble of eclectic, accomplished, and artful musicians, their performances bridge the gap between the edges of the new music frontier and the familiar roads to music of the past.

After many accomplishments in the field of early music, American Baroque began, in the early 1990s, to explore the territory of performing new music written for historical instruments through its collaboration with composer, member and gambist Roy Whelden and his pieces Quartet After Abel and Gamba Quartet, which resulted in a CD release on the New Albion label in 1993. Intrigued by the unique timbres and subtlety of sounds inherent in their period instruments, the group continued to pursue projects and programming that involved combinations of new and old elements. Collaborations with such artists and composers as Rudy Rucker, Jonathan Berger, Carl Stone, and the Common Sense Composers Collective yielded an unprecedented number of commissioned works written specifically for the group's instruments.

Since its founding, the ensemble has performed at the Tage Alter Musik Festival in Regensburg, Germany; the Library of Congress; the Cleveland Museum of Art; San Francisco Early Music Society; on National Public Radio and West Coast Live; and in the Opus415 New Music Festival. In addition, ensemble members perform and record together in the finest period-instrument orchestras in America throughout the year. Recent projects include concerts at the University of Vermont and at Bowdoin College, and a multi-tracked studio recording of Songs of Cold Mountain, a cycle of texts by the 7th-century poet Han Shan. The group is particularly proud of their theatrical and multimedia collaboration entitled "The Death of Anton Webern," written and directed by ensemble member Katherine Shao.

American Baroque has been recognized through grants and awards from the Aaron Copland Foundation, Chamber Music America, the Mikhashoff Foundation for New Music, and the Zellerbach Family Fund, and won first prize for the 2000 ASCAP Awards for Adventurous Programming. American Baroque remains the only U.S. chamber ensemble committed to performing both new music and 18th-century works on historical instruments, while continuing to explore the issues raised by both genres, old and new.

American Baroque is an affiliate of the San Francisco Early Music Society.

INDIVIDUAL

Gonzalo Xavier Ruiz is one of the North America's most critically acclaimed and sought-after historical woodwind soloists. In recent seasons he has appeared as principal oboist and concerto soloist with most of the leading period instrument groups in America and has performed widely in the U.S. and Europe under conductors such as Christopher Hogwood, Nicholas McGegan, Jordi Savall, Gustav Leonhardt, Reinhard Goebbel and Mark Minkowski. His playing is featured on numerous recordings of solo, chamber, and orchestral repertoire. Equally accomplished on the modern instrument, he has performed as principal oboist of the Buenos Aires Philharmonic, New Century Chamber Orchestra and the Pacific Chamber Symphony among others. Mr. Ruiz was a prizewinner at the Brugges Early Music Competition in Belgium and for twelve years has been professor of oboe at the Oberlin Conservatory's Baroque Performance Institute. He has also taught at the Longy School in Cambridge and given master classes at Indiana University. An active chamber musician, he has made numerous reconstructions and arrangements, most notably from the works of Bach and Rameau. He has twice been a featured recitalist at the annual convention of the International Double Reed Society. Mr. Ruiz is an acknowledged expert in historical reedmaking techniques, and over two dozen of his pieces are on permanent display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Joanna Blendulf, a native of Sweden, has diverse musical interests, performing in chamber ensembles and orchestras throughout the United States. She received her musical training at the Cleveland Institute of Music and Indiana University, where she studied with Stanley Ritchie, Tsuyoshi Tsutsumi and Alan Harris. In 1998, Joanna received the prestigious Performer's Certificate from the Indiana University faculty for her achievements on baroque cello. Spending much of her time in transit, she is currently performing with the Portland Baroque Orchestra, American Bach Soloists, the Indianapolis Baroque Orchestra, Jubilate Baroque Orchestra, the Nashville Chamber Orchestra and the San Francisco Bach Choir. Joanna is an active chamber musician, touring with Mirable, American Baroque, Musica Pacifica and The Streicher Trio, all based in the San Francisco Bay Area where she resides. She was named runner-up in the 2000 EMA/Dorian Competition for her recording of the Jean Zewalt Triemer cello sonatas and has recorded on the Dorian and Eclectra labels.

Elizabeth Blumenstock, whose performances have been called "magical," "rapturous," and "riveting," is one of the country's leading baroque violinists. A frequent soloist, concertmaster and leader with Philharmonia Baroque, American Bach Soloists, and the Los Angeles-based Musica Angelica, she is also a founding member of some of California's finest period instrument ensembles, including American Baroque, Artaria Quartet, the Arcadian Academy and Musica Pacifica. With over 65 recordings to her credit, she has recorded for Dorian, Harmonia Mundi, Virgin-Veritas, and BMG. Ms. Blumenstock has appeared with orchestras and chamber ensembles throughout the United States and abroad, and has performed at the Boston and Berkeley Early Music Festivals, the Opus 415 New Music Festival, and the San Luis Mozart Festival. She has taught at Oberlin's Baroque Performance Institute and the International Baroque Institute at Longy and is currently instructor of baroque violin at University of Southern California and University of California Berkeley.

Stephen Schultz, called "among the most flawless artists on the baroque flute" by the San Jose Mercury News, and "flute extraordinaire" by the New Jersey Star-Ledger, is principal and solo flutist with the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra and performs with other leading early music groups such as Chatham Baroque, the American Bach Soloists, Trinity Consort, and Musica Angelica of Los Angeles. A graduate of the Royal Conservatory of Music in Holland, Schultz also holds several degrees from the California Institute of the Arts and the California State University of San Francisco. Mr. Schultz is an Artist Lecturer in Music History at Carnegie Mellon University, and his engaging teaching style has left its mark at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Holy Names College, and the University of California at Davis and Los Angeles. Mr. Schultz, founder of American Baroque, has produced and edited over thirty-five CDs for his colleagues and lives in Pittsburgh with his wife, Tina Blaine.

Katherine M. Shao, harpsichordist and managing director, has performed with many of California's finest ensembles including the New Century Chamber Orchestra, Magnificat, and the San Francisco Symphony. She has a master's degree from the Indiana University School of Music and works frequently in the contemporary music realm incorporating new music and performance art elements in many of her endeavors including the production of The Path to the New Music, a radio drama about the composer Anton von Weber. She was a founding member of the ground-breaking all-female sensation BIMBETTA. In addition to her many endeavors as a performer, Ms. Shao also works as a technology manager in the software industry near her home in the Bay Area.

Roy Whelden, like most musicians before the twentieth century, balances mutually supportive careers in performance and composition. As a performer on the viola da gamba and vielle, he has played and recorded with such ensembles as Sequentia (Koln), American Baroque, Ensemble Alcatraz, and Musica Pacifica. Mr. Whelden received a Doctorate of Music at the Indiana University School of Music, where he studied with the legendary Thomas Binkley. He has recorded his compositions on the New Albion label, and has arranged countless works, old and new, for American Baroque

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