Category: Podcast

Today we’re featuring music of Francesco Barsanti, born around 1690 in the Tuscan city of Lucca. This city was- and would be- a center of Italian culture for centuries, boasting such notable denizens as Luigi Boccherini and Giacomo Puccini.

In 1708, Barsanti ventured to Padova, where he had initially intended to pursue an education in the field of science. After keenly observing several concerts held at the university, Barsanti embarked on a composition career instead, focusing chiefly on music for the flute and the oboe. He spent many successful years in London as a noted flutist and oboist before venturing north to Scotland in 1735, where he lived for almost a decade and continued to compose.

Sonata in C Major  – Francesco Barsanti (b. ca. 1690)
Adagio / Allegro /Largo / Presto
, recorder; Jerry Fuller, violone

Podcast length: 10:03

In this episode of Ars Antigua Presents (11 minutes), we’re celebrating Bach’s birthday on March 31st with a recording of his Trio in G Major, BWV 1039. Johann Sebastian Bach’s appointment as Kapellmeister at the city of Cöthen was basically a happy one, because his patron, the Prince of Cöthen, was a true music lover with a voracious appetite for instrumental music. In this post Bach had at his disposal a small but outstanding ensemble of musicians, which he used to perform all manner of secular music. These intensely expressive and often technically demanding, yet intimate, works have the usual texture of Bach’s instrumental sonatas, with two upper parts supported by a bass part.

In this music from the BWV 1039 trio sonata, we’ll hear Anita Miller Rieder, flute, Pablo Mahave-Veglia, violoncello, and Andrew Fredel, harpsichord.

In 1772, the 16-year-old Mozart was living in Salzburg and penned a trio of light instrumental works called “divertimenti” – a form highly popular in the later 18th century. Though scored only for strings, these three works have sometimes been called the “Salzburg symphonies.” Today we’re going to hear one of these, which the young composer graced with strongly sentimental melodies and verve throughout. The initial allegro movement speaks richly in the sonata allegro form, followed by a lyrical andante. In the final presto, Mozart shows his wit and sense of humor with two very contrasting themes.

Last month we featured the “Annunciation” violin sonata of Heinrich Biber; this month we feature his instrumental music that reflects on sacred themes. The Mystery Sonatas, also known as the Rosary Sonatas, constitute one of the virtuoso high points of Baroque violin literature, and the opening passacaglia fully displays Biber’s contrapuntally daring and technically demanding style of writing.

Never one to leave his faith far behind, Biber included a set of engravings with his manuscript that illustrated each piece; this passacaglia and its opening incipit depicts the Guardian Angel. Jin Kim performs this piece on violin on this month’s episode.

The 17th-century composer and violinist Heinrich Biber was born in Bohemia
and moved to Salzburg in 1670, where he flourished and was able to explore
his faith through music and composition. Brought up with a Jesuit
education, Biber frequently incorporated sacred themes into his instrumental works, including in his “Rosary” sonatas, compiled in those first years in Salzburg. Today we’ll hear the “Annunciation” sonata, which begins and ends with a rapid cascade of notes depicting the rustling of Archangel Gabriel’s wings as he descends from heaven to tell the Virgin she is to give birth to the son of God. In this performance, Bill Bauer is the violinist and Charles Metz the harpsichordist.

Program:

”The Annunciation” from the Rosary Sonatas – by
H.I.F. Biber (1644-1704), William Bauer, violin and Charles Metz
harpsichord

I. Preludium
II. Aria
III. Adagio
IV. Finale

Our episode this month is an “Early Music Petting Zoo” and features the following compositions:

• Bartolomeo Bismantova (1677) Preludio per il Cornetto – Michael Collver cornetto solo
• François Couperin Prelude from the first Concert Royale – Bill Bauer, kit fiddle & Jeff Noonan, guitar
• Girolamo Kapsberger (1580 – 1651) “Il Kapsberger” Variations on a Ground – Jeff Noonan, theorbo
• Musette by anonymous French composer – Robert Green, hurdy gurdy with Lee Chapman, guitar

Little known today, composer Jan Josef Ignác Brentner was one of the most successful Bohemian composers of the 18th century. Many of Brentner’s works are catalogued but seem to have been lost, although a scattering of manuscript copies survive throughout the Czech Republic and a large number have been found in Austria. Other copies of his music have turned up, in modified versions, in Bolivia, although no one is quite sure how his music made it to South America.

This chamber concerto is a piece of tafelmusik, or table music, designed for light entertainment. Though the instrumentation of viola d’amore, lute, two oboes, bassoon, and cembalo seems quite exotic, this combination was also used by Brentner’s contemporaries, including Vivaldi, Graupner and Telemann.

Today, we’ll hear music from Charles MacLean, who was born in 1700 and lived until 1773. MacLean took inspiration from the Scottish folk song “Nighean donn an àraidh” for his violin sonata in A, and its movements are variations upon that tune. Instead of the standard violin tuning, G-D-A-E, MacLean wrote this sonata for a violin tuned A-E-A-E, which creates more tension on the bridge and yields a more brilliant sound. In this performance, we’ll hear Bill Bauer on violin and Jeff Noonan on theorbo.

This month’s episode (13 minutes and 2 seconds) features music from lutenist and composer John Dowland. Dowland wrote the Lachrimae Pavane, known in English as “Flow My Tears,” in 1596, and it is now one of the most widely known pieces of the English Renaissance. Lachrimae became the composer’s signature song literally as well as metaphorically: later in life he would occasionally sign his name “Jo.

Dolandi de Lachrimae” or “John Dowland of the Lachrimae.”

This performance is notable in that it is played on a newly restored Italian Virginal built by the Florentine maker Francesco Poggi around 1590. Here’s Charles Metz, performing John Dowland’s Lachrimae Pavane.

Following that Lachrimae, we’ll hear music of one of Dowland’s contemporaries, William Byrd: a Pavan and Galliard played by Charles Metz on the virginal. This instrument is closely related to the harpsichord, but the strings run parallel to the keyboard instead of perpendicular to it. Because of this orientation, the virginal’s strings are plucked closer to the middle than the harpsichord, which gives the instrument a richer, fuller sound.

This month’s program (10 minutes and 32 seconds) explores the music of Giovanni Battista Lully. In 1646, at the tender age of 14, Lully was pressed into service for the French Chevalier de Guise as a dishwasher. Just seven years later, his fame as a dancer, comedian and composer had grown enormously and he had risen to the position of Louis XIV’s in-house composer, the compositeur de la musique instrumentale.

In 1670 Lully collaborated with the playwright Molière on a comédie-ballets called Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, the featured work for this month’s program. Of particular note is the March pour Le Grand Ceremonie des Turcs that opens this work, which reflects the then-current trend for “les turqueries”- all things related to the Ottoman Empire. This month’s performance features Ars Antigua under the direction of Jerry Fuller.

This month’s program (10 minutes) features Jeff Noonan and two plucked instruments common in the 17th century, the theorbo and the Baroque guitar. The theorbo is a long-necked member of the lute family that features a set of bass strings that extend all the way up to a second pegbox. Not only do these strings extend the range of the theorbo, but they also resonate with the upper strings, giving the instrument a harplike quality to its sound. Our first selection is Girolamo Kapsberger‘s Toccata Arpeggiata for theorbo.

The episode continues with a set of variations on a ground, “Il Kapsberger.” Kapsberger was a virtuoso performer on the lute, theorbo and chitarrone, and played a seminal role in their development into solo instruments.

This month’s episode concludes with a little bit of Spanish music from around the turn of the 17th century. Gaspar Sanz, the dominant figure in Spanish Baroque music, was a composer whose effect on modern composers is perhaps most evident in this Pavan and Canarios; Joaquin Rodrigo used part of it as the central theme in his famous Fantasia para un Gentilhombre.