Rich and Strange
Wellington Festival of Early Music, 1999 - Restoration programme
RICH AND STRANGE
Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes:
Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
(Shakespeare The Tempest)
'Something rich and strange' might be an apposite title for any concert of baroque music: one of the original meanings of the word 'baroque' was the misshapen pearl, bizarre and extravagant. In the midst of the excesses of the 20th century, this music can too often sound to us merely thin and polite. It is valuable to remind ourselves of its historical context and its sometimes shocking impact on its original audiences: from Purcell's deliberate dissonances and 'false relations', to the wild whimsies of the Sturm und Drang (storm and stress) composers almost a century later. The humour, wit and drama with which it is richly interwoven also to some extent reflect its original social and historical context, and may require a degree of empathy from both audience and performers to have their true effect.
Nevertheless many of the 'tunes' of Purcell, Handel and Bach are as familiar to us now as the lines of Shakespeare, and we hope you will recognise some old favourites in this programme. But there is still a vast amount of baroque music, even by well-known composers, that remains unexplored. Some of the music tonight will be strange in this sense of 'unfamiliar', some in the sense of 'peculiar'; some, perhaps, in both senses.
By a further derivation, 'strange' may also imply 'mysterious' or 'puzzling'. Exactly who composed the G minor Overture, BWV 1070, remains today a mystery. The Gordian Knot is the archetypal puzzle, solved by Alexander the Great only by cutting through it with his sword. Purcell's music is intricate, even in places labyrinthine, but requires no such drastic measures to be enjoyed.
The Gordian Knot Unty'd Henry Purcell (1659-1695)
Overture
2nd - 3rd - 4th Act Tunes [Rondeau Minuet - Air - Jig]
Minuet - 2nd Musick [March]
Chacone
The author of this Restoration drama, The Gordian Knot Unty'd, and the date of its first performance are unknown. The author, a 'gentleman who writ lately a most ingenious dialogue concerning women', may have been Sir William Temple. Some of Purcell's incidental music to the play appears in other works by him and can be dated as early as 1683, but this version was probably first performed in 1691.
The Overture is in the French style, with a duple-time opening and close, and a lighter triple-time central section. The tunes played between the acts of the play make up a series of dances: the Jig has the famous anti-Jacobite song Lillibulero as its bass line. The final Chaconne is built on one of Purcell's superbly chromatic ground basses, here in an unusual 5-bar pattern.
Concerto Grosso, op. 6, no. 7, B flat major George Frideric Handel (1685-1759)
Largo - Allegro
Largo e piano
Andante
Hornpipe
Handel's twelve concerti grossi were written out by him in 1739 and first published in 1740 as his Grand Concertos, op. 6, and have become some of his best-loved works. They were designed to be played as interval music during his various odes and oratorios, and in typical Handel fashion, many of the movements are 'borrowed' from earlier versions in chamber music or organ concertos, or appear in other works of this period. No such borrowings, however, have been recorded for no. 7 in the series, which is also unusual as the only one for strings alone, without a separate concertino group of soloists.
After a short introduction, there is a bright fugal movement based on an unusual theme of reiterated notes doubling speed at every bar. The second movement is in the style of a sarabande; the third a jaunty stroll in the park. The final hornpipe is similar to those by Purcell, but taking even further the dance's typical syncopations and rhythmic complexities. The movements are linked by short improvised cadenzas.
Ouverture, BWV 1070, G minor Anon. [W.F. Bach?, 1710-1784]
Overture (Larghetto - Un poco allegro)
Torneo
Aria (Adagio)
Menuetto & Trio
Capriccio
Although no autograph manuscript of this Overture or Suite remains, several contemporary copies of it exist, along with J.S. Bach's four other well-known orchestral Overtures, and which are likewise ascribed to him - or at least to 'Sigr. Bach'. It has always been included in the standard catalogue of J.S. Bach, the Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis (including the most recent edition), and assigned there the number BWV 1070. It is undeniably a superb piece - substantial, well constructed, highly imaginative and expressive. However it is also obvious on stylistic grounds that it cannot be the work of Johann Sebastian Bach - the musical language is simply too modern. Of the possible candidates among Bach's children, the most likely composer is his eldest son, Wilhelm Friedemann, who was extraordinarily gifted but unsettled and ended his life in poverty. Much of his music remains unknown and grossly undervalued.
The first movement is the most substantial, with the typically slower introduction leading to a faster fugal section. The use of the term torneo here is unusual: a torneo or tourney was originally a military pageant, or a kind of horse-ballet (and by later derivation, the carousel), or the music or dances for these. Here it is a quirky dance in the style of a bourrée or rigaudon. The whimsically expressive aria gives perhaps the clearest hint of the early classical (rather than high baroque) origins of the work. The minuet and its musette-like trio might have come straight from a Rameau opera of the 1760s. The last movement, the Capriccio, is the most peculiar: again in fugal style, but with abrupt harmonic shifts and long figurative episodes including a passage of bariolage passed between the violins.
Selections from The Faerie Queen Henry Purcell (1659-1695)
Ye gentle spirits of the air, appear
Prelude - Sing while we trip it - Fairies' dance
Prelude - Rondeau - Jig
Prelude - Thrice happy lovers - Hornpipe
See, even Night herself is here - Chaconne
Purcell's music for the theatre mostly comprised incidental act music, overtures, dances and occasional songs. Even his larger-scale works, such as King Arthur or The Faerie Queen (but with the notable exception of Dido and Aeneas) were not all-sung operas as in the Italian tradition. The English tradition, on the contrary, was for spoken theatre which included musical scenes, set-pieces, or entertainments. The Faerie Queen was first produced in May 1692, and is really a series of masques interspersed with a version of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream drastically rewritten to suit the taste of late 17th century London. As the change of title suggests, it concentrates on the fantastic, supernatural and comic aspects of Shakespeare's original play. Small and larger sections of it reappeared frequently in the following years among interludes and after-pieces to other works, so we need make no apology for selecting and re-ordering some of the best-known music from it here.
What no 20th century performance can hope to reproduce is the effect of the spectacular element of these productions, jaded as we are by the over-blown pageantry of the Broadway musical, the Hollywood epic, or the mammoth rock concert. But Purcell's genius ensured that his music retains its own life and drama beyond its original theatrical role. The Faerie Queen is a veritable kaleidoscope of superbly characterised dances, zany songs and special effects to reflect the magic and fantasy of the story. As just one example: Purcell sets the 'sleeping-spell' text of See even Night with the silvery ethereal quality of 'violins with sourdines' [i.e. mutes]; the word-painting is further enhanced by the absence of the bass line, and by the extraordinary harmonic movement.
Notes by Robert Petre