Category: Festival-conference

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Festival-conference

JACOB 3.0

photo of performers at Jacob 3.0

[dropcap]O[/dropcap]n Sunday 4th September I attended the world premiere of a new collaborative venture to promote the life and music of Jakob van Eyck. Known to millions of recorder players around the world due to the many sets of variations he wrote for the instrument based on popular tunes of his day, he is less familiar to the citizens of Utrecht (where he worked for most of his adult life) and of the Netherlands in general. This project, which also opened the 2016 season of Cultural Sundays (Culturele Zondagen), aimed to correct that wrong by making van Eyck’s music relevant in the 21st century, and to give music history a new “local hero”.

photo of performers at Jacob 3.0

The Grote Zaal in the Vredenburg had been transformed into something resembling a jazz club by purple lighting and synthetic smoke. On the central stage there was a large DJ’s mixing table with a variety of turntables and other devices, and a second table with an Apple device. These were the domains of Arjen de Vreede (DJ DNA) and Jorrit Tamminga respectively. I learned that recorder sound samples had been cut onto vinyl discs to allow the background use of chords. Another machine, which had been acquired at great expense from Kraftwerk in the 1990s, transformed sounds into growls. While the DJ accompanied using a variety of techniques, Tamminga sampled and mixed and looped the live performance of star recorder player, Erik Bosgraaf. In a dramatic white suit, he made his entry playing one of the later variations of a van Eyck piece, and worked backward until he ended up at the relatively long notes of the original tune. He then progressed up some stairs and transferred to a metallic instrument upon which he produced flashes of white noises. Up another flight of stairs saw him encounter and play what he later called his great bass ikea flute (similar to those shown below). From here he descended once again to the stage, played some more van Eyck on a different, higher pitched recorder and then walked off, leaving DNA and Tamminga to wind down the accompanying sounds and the impressive light show to a subdued ending.

Paetzold recorders

I must be honest and say that I found the concert a challenge. I understand that van Eyck and his music deserve to be more widely known. I also appreciate that new approaches have to be taken to give it modern currency. The concert hall was packed and the audience highly appreciative of the performance. I found it a powerfully thought-provoking experience – if slightly shocking in the context of the early music which filled the rest of my time in Utrecht – but having one’s preconceptions challenged and boundaries pushed is never a bad thing. Samples from the show are available HERE, so you can listen for yourselves.

Brian Clark

My thanks to:

  • Residenties in Utrecht
  • Festival Oude Muziek
  • Gaudeamus Muziekweek​
  • Culturele Zondagen
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Festival-conference

A wonderful weekend in Utrecht

Modern floral

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he Utrecht skyline may have changed dramatically since I last attended the early music festival, but some things remain reassuringly familiar – the friendliness and helpfulness of the Dutch, the wonderful array of foreign cuisine available to visitors, the quaint old buildings in the middle of the Netherlands’ fourth largest city and – most important of all – the fantastic quality of the concerts!

I was fortunate enough to enjoy several events on the last weekend of the festival which this year was devoted primarily to Venice. An hour or so after being guided to my extremely comfortable hotel (a stone’s throw from the main railway station and a brief walk from the main focus of the festival, the city’s amazing multi-space music venue, the Vredenburg), I attended one of the Eventalks, a series of diverse seminar-like lectures covering a broad spectrum of topics related to the theme of the festival and framed by music. Sandra Ponzanesi‘s “Postcolonial Italy: Quo vadis?” sought the roots of at least some of the current migrant crisis in Italy’s rather tardy forays into the European land grab in Africa; the suppression of native cultures and denial of education (typical of all colonial powers) and later generations’ acceptance of responsibility for such actions adds another level of meaning to how the death toll amongst aspiring migrants risking the crossing to an Italian island (the closest outreach of Europe to the Libyan coast) is perceived not only in Italy but elsewhere in the world. Olga Pashchenko  introduced and followed the talk with a nicely contrasted selection of harpsichord music by Bernardo Storace.

Later even that planned, my second musical event of the evening was a concert of Monteverdi by Cantar lontano, directed by Marco Mencoboni. As an earlier concert had overrun, we were obliged to wait for a while before we started, but the organisers very kindly laid on liquid refreshments – though it seemed a great idea at the time, as the minutes ticked by and the red wine kicked in, the likelihood of falling asleep became a very real one… Finally we started a little over half an hour late; however, barely had the first segment ended than another large crowd joined the audience, so the first piece was reprised to welcome them! This was followed by the Lamento dells ninfa, one of the composer’s (rightly!) most popular pieces. If the singing was dramatic, there was something of Monteverdi’s own instruction missing – while the three men’s voices are to keep time with the descending continuo bass, the soprano (who here had the most glorious voice!) is instructed to sing rather more freely, as if agitated by the letter she is supposedly reading. Similarly in Il combattimento  that followed, Tancredi and Clorinda (the protagonists of the work) were placed on opposite sides of the stage, facing outwards and rarely interacted with one another; the narrator, on the other hand, wandered around the stage – at times looking rather manic, if I’m honest – but giving the most passionate delivery of the wonderfully expressive text I have ever heard; indeed, although my lady friends had a particular interest in one of the lutenists, for me Luca Dordolo as Il testo was the star of this show. Another highlight was the virtuoso wide-ranging voice of the bass, and the pointed dissonant chords in Hor ch’el ciel.

On Saturday morning, I joined a guided tour of the Dom tower where the town carillonneur, Malgosia Fiebig, gave an amazing recital including three of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. Climbing more than 100m above the city was a thrill in itself, with the history of the building explained along the way. Then, after she played another concerto by Il prete rosso, she explained how, as well as the automated quarter hourly tones, the instrument can, and is, regularly used for recitals. The physicality of playing the carillon has to be seen to be believed, and yet she was able to coax different dynamic levels from what seemed an uncompromising instrument – it was very impressive!

One of my Utrecht hosts then took me and a colleague on a boat trip around the Utrecht canals with Wineke van Muiswinkel, one of the organisers of JACOB 3.0 (about which more HERE), which was a nice way to find out more about the city’s rich history. More of the afternoon was spent on touristy activities (including a trip to the charming Spelklok Museum – its motto “the most cheerful museum in the Netherlands” says it all!) and then I took in the various stalls at the early music trade exhibition in the Vredenburg. Mostly these consisted of instrument makers, but there were a couple of publishers, some music/book shops, and one promoting Alexander Technique.

The main event in the evening was Ensemble Correspondances, directed by Sébastien Daucé, exploring Charpentier’s time in Italy and its possible influence on his own music. This required a very large ensemble, since the main work in the second half was his mass for four choirs, which were assembled in four corners of the centrally placed main stage. They had ended the first half with other four-choir music but two of the choirs had been elevated to opposite galleries for this which gave an entirely different aspect to the music due to dynamic variation between the groups. Other music included a psalm setting for solo bass with violins, a motet for two sopranos with cornetti, and – for me the pinnacle of many high points – a portion of Legrenzi’s sequence for the dead which, as I have commented before, in at least one movement sounds more French than Charpentier’s himself; perhaps that is why it drew these performers’ attention? While I shared my friends’ overall delight with a fabulous concert, I had reservations about the orchestration of such music (not only doing so at all, but the actual choice and numbers of instruments, and – for example – the allocation of cornetti to double soprano lines of the two “less important” choirs), and I found the constant relocating of players and singers around the space distracting (especially for an encore).

The first half of Sunday was devoted to Jacob van Eyck. Well known by recorder players in the UK (where his increasingly virtuosic variations on popular tunes of his day often feature on exam syllabi) but unfamiliar apparently to the majority of Utrechters (as well as entertaining the population in a local park with his playing, he was among the city’s first carillonneurs!), van Eyck has largely been put on the map by Dr Thiemo Wind. He led a guided tour of the principle locations associated with the composer, explaining the history of the city as he went and offering contemporary images of the city that van Eyck never saw – he was blind! A rather special moment was Wind’s rendition of a set of variations on “What shall we do in the evening?” in the beautiful cloisters of the Domkerk.

A couple of hours later van Eyck’s music provided the inspiration for a new project, JACOB 3.0 – check out my review HERE.

The afternoon concert that I opted to go to was given by Cappella Romana, directed by Alexander Lingas, in the Willibrordkerk. The programme featured sacred music for the imperial Russian chapel by composers during the reign of Catherine the Great. Two not especially well-known Italians, Baldassare Galuppi and Giuseppe Sarti, were interspersed with pieces by Berezovsky and Bortnyansky and other slightly later Russian composers. The music was only occasionally formulaic in the sense that there were verses and responses – sometimes, rather oddly for unaccustomed ears, simultaneously. Otherwise, these were fine motets, beautifully sung by twelve voices, with solos all taken by members of the choir. If there was something that I missed it was the dark vowels typical of that part of the world, and the lack of any excursions off the bottom of the bass clef which are so typical of later orthodox music. And while it was technically impressive that the huge conference booklet reproduced the Old Church Slavonic texts in their beautiful script, perhaps a transliteration might have been a more useful addition to the Dutch translation.

After yet another delicious curry from NAMASKAR (a fantastic Indian place directly opposite the music venue!) I went to my second Eventalk, this time a very brief discussion of two early republics – the Venetian and the Dutch. James Kennedy touched on aspects of both that modern republics might like once again to consider adopting; honesty (the concept of which, he told us, was a renaissance extension of the notion of honour which came about through the development of international trade), compassion for the poorest in society (for both the Venetians and the early Dutch this was considered an obligation) and a sense of communal agreement in the political sphere – decisions should be made by discussion and compromise for the greater good of society at large, rather than a few vested interests. As usual, the talk was framed by keyboard music, once again nicely played (on organ and harpsichord) by Olga Pashchenko.

Then it was time for the very last concert of the season. Festival director Xavier Vandamme  gave a very brief introduction, confirming that the 2016 was the most successful Festival oude muziek in recent years, with ticket sales up over the past seven years by an incredible 80%!

There is a tradition of saving the best till last and in Le concert spiritual and the consummate showman Hervė Niquet, Utrecht certainly did that. Vivaldi with only women’s voices was the theme; not a new idea, of course, but there were slight differences in approach here. Not only were the tenor and bass parts transposed up an octave, but the solos were all sung chorally (so even those who sang tenor in the chorus also sang the solo soprano parts, etc.). The concert was exhilarating – tempi were brisk, the singing was fabulous, the instrumental playing was incisive and Niquet took every opportunity to play with the audience – which they lapped up and afforded him (of course) a standing ovation. Yet, from a musicological point of view, or even a HIP perspective, there were deficiencies, too – where were the wind instruments? (That said, I doubt if a baroque trumpeter could have played the final movement at such a speed!) If all the voices sing the solos, why don’t all the cellos play the continuo part? Why did one from each orchestra play some? Why were there even two orchestras, when only one work required that layout? One might argue that none of that matters, but if the programme notes ask “Does this mean we more closely approach Vivaldi’s intentions?”, such aspects of performance practice must be brought into question.

But let’s not end on a negative note! These were two and a half days of fairly hectic activity – though the festival and its fringe events offered many, many more! – giving a taste of music and life in Venice and its influence in musical history from Willaert (one of the feature composers, though I did not manage to hear any, alas…) to Catherine the Great’s Russia. Terrifically well-attended concerts, with deeply appreciative audiences and an army of ever-smiling, always helpful festival staff – Utrecht, thank you; it was an absolute pleasure!

Brian Clark

Thanks to the following for arranging my visit:

  • Residenties in Utrecht
  • Festival Oude Muziek
  • Gaudeamus Muziekweek​
  • Culturele Zondagen
  • Centre for the Humanities
  • Tourisme Utrecht

And on a personal note, I’d especially like to thank Marthe van der Hilst, Lidy Ettema and Juliëtte Dufornee for making my stay such fun!

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Festival-conference

Sex and Alienation in Edinburgh

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[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he musical partnership of Mark Padmore and Kristian Bezuidenhout is one which through a series of definitive Lieder recordings and concert tours has become synonymous with excellence. Thus it was that I approached their Queen’s Hall recital at this year’s Edinburgh International Festival with sky-high expectations.

The programme featured some of my favourite songs, Beethoven’s An die ferne Geliebte  and Schubert’s Schwanengesang, as well as some less familiar Beethoven songs. These opened the recital, establishing Padmore’s gloriously intense lyrical tone and Bezuidenhout’s delicate and authoritative touch upon the fortepiano, a copy by Rodney Regier (revised by Beunk and Wennink) of an instrument of 1824 by the Viennese maker Conrad Graf. Padmore’s perfect control of his head register led to some sublime moments in Beethoven’s Abendlied, and prepared us for a beautifully poised account of An die ferne Geliebte  which exploited fully the contrasts between the work’s dynamic passages and its more contemplative episodes.

The second half of the concert was devoted to Schubert’s Schwanengesang, less the valedictory song cycle that the title promises than a posthumous marketing opportunity for the publisher Hasslinger, who on the composer’s death simply lumped together all the remaining Schubert songs he had on his books. This rather unpromising context doesn’t prevent Schwanengesang  from gripping, moving and charming the listener by turns, but the challenge for great performers is to mould the music into some sort of unified cycle. Rather than being apologetic about the contrast between the texts by the great Heine and the less-than-great Rellstab, the performers simply gave each their due respect, performing each for what they are.

Where the Beethoven had been lyrically engaging, the duo’s account of Schwanengesang  took us into a whole new realm of expression. We were reminded that this was music written in a city where barely a century later high society would be queuing up at the door of Sigmund Freud, and Padmore and Bezuidenhout took us on a dark exploration of the desperation, alienation and mania that lurks just under the surface of many of Schubert’s settings of Heine. The percussive potential of the fortepiano and Padmore’s rich palette of vocal tones combined to produce almost overwhelming tension. We almost needed the sunny world of the Rellstab settings as an antidote. In response to thunderous applause from a discerning Queen’s Hall audience, the pair brought this powerful recital to an enigmatic conclusion with a mesmerising account of Beethoven’s Resignation, a song setting a text by Friedrich von Haugwitz in which the poet reluctantly accepts his lot in life – almost the finale to Schwanengesang that Schubert was unable to write.

My second visit to the 2016 EIF saw me at the opera for a performance of Mozart’s Cosi fan Tutte. All very conventional you may think, but not so. This was a production of the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, Korea National Opera and EIF featuring the Cape Town Opera Chorus, The Freiburger Barockorchester and a stellar line-up of soloists directed by Jérémie Rohrer. Da Ponte’s dark comedy of manners is transported to pre-war Abyssinia under Italian occupation, a point established from the start by a parched north-African set and an opening anti-Mussolini satirical song played on a gramophone.

So not Mozart as we know it. But to deal with the positive aspects first this beautifully nuanced performance was archetypal Mozart in almost every respect. Sandrine Piau’s coquettish Despina and Rod Gilfry’s raddled Don Alfonso were perfect foils for one another, while the dashing young lovers Joel Prieto and Nathuel di Piero and their ‘intendeds’ Lenneke Ruiten and Kate Lindsey were technically and musically superb. In the pit the authentic sounds of the Freiburger Barockorchester lent true authority to the overall sound and the evening was an unalloyed musical delight.

BUT – and it is no mean but – the production was problematic. In advance of the run we had all been sent a letter warning us about its explicit sexual nature, and indeed it seemed as if quite a number of the potential audience members voted with their feet, opting for a refund. My objections, however, stemmed not from prudery but from the fact that the transfer of context simply didn’t work. The casual racial and sexual abuse of the local Africans was disturbing, and the heroes’ transformation into black soldiers was startling, but ultimately this attempt to add morally unsettling depths to da Ponte’s rather trivial story foundered on the fact that this is very much a light if cynical comedy. The necessary slapstick moments hopelessly defused any sexual tension, and some of the more graphic onstage displays were simply embarrassing – no sex please, we’re British!

As one audience member put it succinctly to me, ‘If you are aspiring to Mozart’s sound-world in the pit and musically onstage, why not go the whole hog and present the whole opera as he conceived it?’ Why not indeed. It was not quite a production to listen to with closed eyes, as the set and direction were both visually pleasing, but the chief delights were in the sounds of the period instruments expertly played, Rohrer’s crisp direction and the lovely supple voices of the young cast.

D James Ross

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Festival-conference

Itinéraire Baroque Festival

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Dordogne, France – 28-31 July 2016

Actor and musicians
Comedian Lorenzo Bassotto, soprano Elena Bertuzzi and Accademia Strumentale Italiana

Picture a landscape of rolling hills, fields of sunflowers and maize. Intersperse with deeply shaded woodland, sleepy small towns and villages in which the most notable feature is almost inevitably a 12th or 13th century Romanesque church and you have the Périgord Vert, a largely unspoilt area situated in the north of the Dordogne region of France. It sounds an unlikely venue for a festival of Baroque music inspired by one of the great names in early music. Yet in 2016 Itinéraire Baroque reached its 15th edition, still enjoying the benign leadership of its co-founders Ton Koopman and festival director Robert Nicolas-Huet, the festival owing its genesis to the Dutch musician’s ownership of a house in the area.

Itinéraire Baroque may occupy a short space of time, but over four days it packs in a large amount of music. This year it was possible to attend no fewer than eleven events – I missed the final concert – covering a spectrum stretching chronologically from Josquin des Prez to Haydn’s late ‘Nelson’ Mass, stylistically from simple Dutch Calvinist contrafactas of Dowland songs to the splendour of Mozart’s ‘Coronation’ Mass.

Harpist in a French church
Harpist Emma Huijsser at the church of Bourg des Maisons

At the heart of Itinéraire Baroque is the day that not only gives the festival its name, but also adds an innovative dimension. Each year the Saturday (in this case 30 July) is devoted to a magical musical tour that focuses on short concerts given in five of the historic churches of the region, buildings that in some cases otherwise rarely see the light of day. This year’s audience met early at the church St Cybard at Cercles, a mostly 14th century building, now beautifully restored and of somewhat grandiose pretensions for a community of some 200 souls. There we were regaled with a short Bach organ recital by Koopman (including a lovely performance of the Pastorale, BWV 590; so appropriate to these surroundings) before being split into five groups, each to follow a different itinéraire  to the venues, where a short concert is preceded by an introduction to the architecture and history of the building. Of the churches this year that at our first stop, the tiny but beautifully proportioned 12th century St Saturnin at Coutures, turned out to be a perfect gem. It was host to a largely satisfying concert, too, a recital of a group of charming Kraus songs and Haydn’s cantata Arianna a Naxos  by the Swedish mezzo Anna Zander and fortepianist Mayumi Kamata, whose strongly characterized performance of the Haydn was marred only by the sluggish tempos at which both arias were taken. We found awaiting us for the second concert an almost equally appealing church in the shape of that at Bourg des Maisons, where a recital of arrangements of lute music on Baroque harp was given by the accomplished young Dutch player Emma Huijsser, standing in for the indisposed Hana Blažíková. The church is especially notable for a ravishing and only recently revealed set of frescos, the earliest of which date from the 12th century, while Huijsser impressed particularly in a highly musical and finely articulated performance of Bach’s Lute Suite in D minor, BWV995. Following a generous break for lunch (well, we are in France, after all!), the next venue on the itinerary was the only non-ecclesiastical one. The lawns of the 15th century Château de Beauregard played host to a recital by Camerata Trajectina, one of Holland’s long-established early music ensembles. I fear a good lunch, the hot afternoon and routine performances conspired to make a programme entitled ‘Dowland in Holland’ less than enticing. For the following concert it was back to church, in this case the rather austere looking St Martin at Cherval, where the La Cetra Barockconsort played a potpourri from Die Zauberflöte  arranged in 1793 for flute and string trio by one Franz Heinrich Ehrenfried. Initially the skill with which he coped with the contrapuntal complexities of the Overture intrigued, but interest later lapsed and I fell to musing on the incongruity of a 21st century audience sitting solemnly in a church listening to an arrangement designed to fulfil no more profound a function than provide social entertainment. The final course of this richly diversified 6-course musical feast necessitated only a short hop to St Martial Viveyrol, where the Dordogne-based Le Vertigo gave a pleasant if unremarkable concert based on French music (and Purcell) that might have been heard at the court of Charles II. Unsurprisingly soprano Caroline Dangin-Bardot sounded more comfortable in French repertoire by Michel Lambert (the lovely air ‘Vos mépris), Sébastien Camus and Charpentier than in Purcell’s ‘The Plaint’ and ‘Fairest Isle’.

The festival had opened two days before with a Bach programme given by Koopman and his Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra. The venue was the church of St Martin in Champagne, a building that has its roots in the Romanesque period, as evidenced by the magnificently decorated multi-arched doorway, but that was much rebuilt and enlarged in the 16th century. Sadly, it turned out to have treacherous acoustics and although I tried three different places it proved impossible to hear sufficiently clearly to come to definitive conclusions about the performances. This applied especially to the singing of soprano Yetzabel Arias Fernandez, replacing Hana Blažíková, whose full-blooded approach to Jauchzet Gott, BWV51 and the Wedding Cantata, BWV202 seemed only to exacerbate the inherent problems created by the building, the voice spreading alarmingly in its upper range. Elsewhere Koopman’s long-established and exceptional empathy with Bach’s music could be intermittently appreciated in vital performances of the Orchestral Suite no.1 and the magnificent Sinfonia from the cantata Am Abend aber desselbigen Sabbats, BWV42, but the poor acoustic made this overall a disappointing concert.

Soprano with orchestra
Soprano Yetzabel Arias Fernandez with La Risonanza directed by Fabio Bonizzoni

The following evening Arias Fernandez appeared to rather better effect in the event at which she was originally scheduled to appear. It took place at Cercles, which played host to all three concerts on 29 July. Performed by La Risonanza under their founder and director Fabio Bonizzoni, the programme was notable for a superb performance of Vivaldi’s trio sonata ‘La Folia’, RV63, a work that can outstay its welcome but one that on this occasion was given with such intensity and sense of fantasy that it gripped the attention from start to finish. Arias Fernandez sang chamber cantatas by Alessandro Scarlatti (the splendid Bella madre), Bononcini and Handel’s well-known Armida abbandonata. While the acoustic suited her lustrous voice better than that at Champagne, I still found her apparent inability to curb its power in the upper range disconcerting. Her ornamentation, too, left much to be desired and like so many singers of Baroque music today she has no trill. Given her approach, it was the big Handel cantata that worked best, Arias Fernandez rising well to its dramatic challenge.

Earlier in the day the Austrian ensemble Vivante had presented a compelling programme of Monteverdi tenor duets and solos culled from the 7th and 8th Books of Madrigals and the Scherzi Musicale of 1632. If the singing of neither Tore Tom Denys nor Erik Leidal displayed truly

Monteverdi duets
Tenors Tore Denys & Erik Leidal and Vivante Ensemble

Italianate qualities, both proved themselves to be well versed stylistically, with Leidal showing an edge in this respect, being more confident with ornamentation, while it was Denys who won the plaudits for vocal beauty, Leidal’s lower range tending to be a little grainy. I’ve left until last the concert that quite unexpectedly gave me the most pleasure. This was given by the Accademia Strumentale Italiana and consisted of an exploration in words and music of the world of the commedia dell arte. Music by a wide range of composers stretching alphabetically from the ubiquitous Anonymous to Adrian Willaert was linked by a brilliant performance (in French) by the comedian Lorenzzo Bassotto, exploring the humour, pathos and vulgarity of commedia dell arte  with immense panache. The instrumental playing was of high quality, with some wonderfully subtle percussion work by Sbibu. And I’ll nominate the vivacious soprano Elena Bertuzzi as my discovery of the festival. She boasts outstanding technique, a lovely vocal quality and moreover is a real personality who knows instinctively how to communicate to an audience. If she can reach the point where she can sing this programme without the aid of music books, she’ll be even more irresistible.

Brian Robins

Photographs: © Jean-Michel Bale (Itinéraire Baroque)

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Festival-conference

Early Nights in Orkney : D James Ross

[dropcap]W[/dropcap]hen the late Peter Maxwell Davies founded the St Magnus Festival in Orkney forty years ago, its main raison d’etre was to showcase contemporary music, and the original 1976 Festival, which I attended as a student, was built around a solid spine of Max’s own compositions. The Festival has grown in ways, which its founder could hardly have anticipated, but one very welcome development is the inclusion of a selection of early music.

Organ, Choir and Pipes, St Magnus Cathedral
Orkney’s magnificent Romanesque/Gothic Cathedral plays host to many of the Festival’s events, and Monday 20th June saw us streaming through its red sandstone portal for a concert melding contemporary, early and traditional music. This anniversary year the organisers have ‘updated’ a number of memorable events from 1976, and this concert was an adaptation of a concert for organ, fiddle and pipes. The choir were the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland Voices directed by Tim Dean and it was they who gave us the bulk of the programme’s early content. After a pipe tune and an organ Chaconne based upon it, the voices came as a gentle balm, performing a group of English Renaissance polyphonic motets. Singing from the west end of the Cathedral behind the audience, they opened with a declamatory performance of Tallis’ Sancte Deus, followed by Byrd’s busy Laudibus in sanctis  and Sheppard’s ethereal Libera nos. There were lovely passages in all three works, but the positioning of the choir led to some muddiness in the Byrd and after a shaky start, the tuning never fully settled in the Sheppard. Organist Michael Bowtree contributed an impressive performance of Bach’s G-major Prelude and Fugue BWV541, demonstrating just what a fine instrument the Cathedral organ is, and also in my opinion undermining the various other contemporary works he played, making them sound by comparison like rather random ramblings. This was also the case to a certain extent with Max’s O magnum Mysterium, which sounds to me very hard to bring off and not entirely effective, the exact opposite of Victoria’s setting, which we heard later in the programme. A simply stunning anthem by Judith Weir, Ascending into Heaven, saved the honour of contemporary composers, using a range of radical techniques such as tonal clusters and glissandi to remarkable musical effect. A set of pipe tunes, delivered with great virtuosity and overwhelming volume by Pipe Major Laurence Tait softened us up for two motets by Victoria, O magnum mysterium  and Alma Redemptoris mater  before more contemporary organ music rounded off the event. RCS Voices produce a very pleasant sound, a little too fruity for my taste in the early repertoire with some intrusive vibrato in the tenor and soprano voices, but these young singers are an encouraging indication of the growing importance of early music at the Conservatoire. The northerly latitude f this Festival was brought home to us as we filed out of this late-night event into relative daylight, driving home in the legendary ‘simmer dim’ of the shortest night of the year.

Dido and Aeneas
On Tuesday 21st the Cathedral was again the venue for a triumphant collaboration between the vocal ensemble Voces8 and Florilegium under the direction of Ashley Solomon. Heading the cast as the tragic heroine Dido was operatic soprano Anna Dennis, whose portrayal of the Trojan queen was dramatically mesmerizing and musically stunning. She projected Tate’s subtle dramatic creation with enormous intensity, while enriching Purcell’s vocal lines with subtle ornamentation. In her iconic Lament, her enigmatic expression seemed to demand the audience’s remembrance rather than pleading for it. In costume and ‘off the book’, she was ably supported by the eight versatile singers of Voces8, who with strategic doubling occupied all the other roles. The fact that they were all in ‘civvies’ and reading from scores was not really too off-putting, except perhaps in Dido and Aeneas’ final fiery exchange, when Sam Dressel’s vocal score seriously got in the way. Dressel otherwise gave us a passionate and believable Aeneas, while Barnaby Smith’s venomous Sorceress and Oliver Vincent’s spirited Sailor also deserve special mention. Also worthy of mention was the superb playing of Florilegium, one to a part and superbly dramatic, supportive and pathetic by turns. I was personally delighted to hear lutanist David Miller provide two beautiful guitar grounds where Purcell indicates them, but for which no music survives – in addition to restoring these, Ashley Solomon’s realisation of the score also includes strategic repeats, all of which enhanced the normal printed version. Sometimes performances of music with which one is very familiar can be a disappointment – I prepared my own score for and conducted Dido and Aeneas with the Musick Fyne Chorus and Soloists and The Marvel Baroque Orchestra earlier this year (as well as singing Sorceress!) – but I found this performance consummately excellent and a sheer delight.

Voces8 : Eventide
Fresh from their triumphant Dido and Aeneas, Voces8 next appeared in the Wednesday late-night 10pm slot in St Magnus Cathedral with a programme entitled Eventide. This turned out to be a wide-ranging affair incorporating plainchant and Renaissance choral repertoire, through Romantic and modern music to close harmony. As with Monday evening’s concert, the dual themes of juxtaposition and exploitation of the Cathedral’s architecture were paramount, and the singers started in the apse giving a disembodied account of Orlando Gibbons’ Drop, drop slow tears  and Tallis’ O nata Lux, using the O nata lux  plainchant to advance into the choirstalls, whence they sang Britten’s youthful Hymn to the Virgin. It soon emerged that the concert would fall into similar units of contrasting music, the next of which framed a very English account of Bogoroditse Devo  from Rachmaninov’s All-night Vigil  with the two settings by Tallis of Te lucis ante terminum. In honour of the late founder of the Festival, they sang Max’s gentle Lullaby for Lucy, following it with three other secular works, two spirituals and a folksong all in close harmony. The concluding unit presented an arrangement of Fauré’s Pie Jesu  and the ubiquitous Allegri Miserere  framed in items of chant from the Requiem service, perversely sung in canon, and allowing the singers to again range from the West end to the apse for the Allegri. I find it rather curious that the group chose to construct pseudo-liturgical contexts for works, which of course would never have been heard together, and I have to say I found this and the sheer random eclecticism of the programme disconcerting. However the singing was flawlessly polished and expressive, and the group’s encore, Ola Gjeilo’s Ubi caritas, provided a suitably elegiac ending to the event. I did notice more than one audience member suppress a yawn during the ‘makey-uppy’ Allegri and I wondered idly if its days might be numbered? And my surprise that the singers hadn’t used the performance space to set up the usual contrasting solo and tutti ensembles passed when I realised that, being only eight in number, at least one singer had to sing in both choirs!

Florilegium
Thursday (referendum day) dawned in warmth and sunshine, and it was a wrench to abandon the beach for the dark cave of St Magnus Cathedral for a lunchtime concert by Florilegium – and to judge by a few empty seats, a wrench which some had succumbed to. Hardly had we heard the courtly opening of Telemann’s flute concerto in D and any reservations were forgotten. Ashley Solomon’s delicious flute tone floated above an accompaniment of exquisite delicacy, each note placed to perfection. This is a group which listens and watches constantly, and the result is a heady blend of unanimity and musicianship which is hard to beat. Purcell’s G minor Chacony recalled the group’s superlative playing for Dido and Aeneas  two days previously, while the strings burst into a frenzy in an explosive performance of Vivaldi’s Trio Sonata La Folia, which rose to eye-watering peaks of virtuosity. Finally the strings were rejoined by Ashley Solomon for a beautiful rendition of Bach’s 5th Brandenburg Concerto. This work has in effect three soloists, flute, violin and harpsichord, and there is nothing like a live performance to remind one just how radical this solo role for the keyboard is. As Terence Charlston stepped out of the customary continuo shadows with cascades of solistic bravura, we had a glimpse of the sort of swirling improvisation for which Bach was renowned in his lifetime. This was a beautifully poised Brandenburg 5, benefiting from the thorough understanding the group had developed in recently recording the work.

The Hebrides Ensemble & Max
My final concert at the Festival was on a magically still and sunny Thursday evening, when Scotland’s foremost contemporary music ensemble The Hebrides Ensemble reconstructed with one or two variants a concert given forty years previously by The Fires of London. Consisting of modern music, much of it by Max, it only belongs tangentially in this review, but as I attended the original concert in 1976 when it had a major influence on my subsequent career in early music, I thought I would include it. The key works are ‘realisations’ by Max of Scottish Renaissance repertoire at that time recently rediscovered by Dr Kenneth Elliott: Kinloche his Fantasie  and the Renaissance Scottish Dances which topped and tailed the concert. Deeply influenced by chant and early music in his own compositions, Max was quick to spot the potential of this charming repertoire. From a keyboard original, he transforms the Fantasie by William Kinloche into a glittering flight of fancy for modern chamber ensemble comprising harpsichord, violin, cello, flute, clarinet and percussion. The same mix of instruments also played the 7 Renaissance Scottish Dances, drawn from Dr Elliott’s 1957 Musica Britannica volume and a collection of early Scottish Keyboard Music he published shortly afterwards. These beguiling miniatures are processed through Max’s fertile imagination into an engaging set of lively and slow contemplative movements, one of them melding two slow airs in a way only Max could have conceived of. Although it was the rest of the modernist programme, bristling with pungent harmonies and virtuosity, which tested the players most, it is the early Scottish realisations which I remembered most vividly from forty years ago, and which brought my festival to a nostalgic conclusion.

D James Ross

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Festival-conference

Festival de musique Chaise-Dieu – 22nd to 30 August 2015

Pink chrysanthemum

[dropcap]S[/dropcap]ituated at nearly 1100 metres on a promontory in the Haute-Loire, the small village of La Chaise-Dieu is dominated by the massive Benedictine abbey of St Robert. Founded in 1043, the present building dates from the 14th century, when it was built under the patronage of Pope Clement VI, who is buried in the abbey.

Today La Chaise-Dieu is best known as the venue of a music festival begun almost half a century ago with a single recital given by the great Hungarian pianist György Cziffra. From such modest beginnings the festival has developed into an event that in 2015 was spread over nine days during which more than 50 events took place. The festival was one of the first to embrace early music and period instrument performance and, while by no means restricted to such repertoire, a significant number of concerts fall into that context. Many, in keeping with the festival’s focus on sacred music, take place in the vast abbey church, but in more recent years the festival has broadened beyond the confines of Chaise-Dieu to other venues, including the historic town of Le Puy-en-Velay. In 2016 a central pillar of the festival’s 50th anniversary will be a performance of Monteverdi’s 1610 Vespers in the town’s famous pilgrimage cathedral.

Among notable early music visitors this summer were the countertenor Max Emanuel Čenčič, whose ‘Art of the Castrato’ programme included works by Rossi, Porpora, Leo and Handel, La Chapelle Rhénane under Benoît Haller (Bach Mass in B minor), María Cristina Kiehr with Concerto Soave (Purcell), and the concert I was able to hear on my first visit to Chaise-Dieu, given in the abbey church on 26 August by the choir Accentus and the Insula Orchestra under their founder and director, Laurence Equilbey.

The programme consisted of three works, the Miserere in C minor of Zelenka, Mozart’s Solemn Vespers, K339, and the C. P. E. Bach Magnificat, the soloists for the latter two works being Judith van Wanroij (s), Renata Pokupić (a), Reinoud van Mechelen (t), and Andreas Wolf (b). Doubtless to compensate for the vast space she had to fill, Equilbey employed unusually large choral and orchestral forces for this repertoire. While perhaps not ideal this worked well enough for the Zelenka and Mozart, but in the Bach Equilbey was unable to avoid an impression of a certain unwieldiness in passages such as ‘Et misericordia’. Elsewhere there was much to admire; the opening ‘Magnificat’ was imbued with impressive dynamic energy, as indeed the initial urgent ‘Miserere’ of Zelenka’s imposing and agreeably eccentric tripartite setting been earlier. ‘Fecit potentiam’ had splendid authority in the hands of the outstanding Wolf, while Pokupić was wonderfully sensitive in ‘Suscepit Israel’.

Most satisfying of all was the Mozart, given a performance that at once confirmed the impression given by Equilbey’s CD of the Requiem that she is that rare beast, a born Mozartian. Absence of mannerism, beautifully judged tempos and balance in both chorus and orchestra, allied to fine playing and choral singing and a fine line-up of soloists all went to contributing as satisfying a performance of the work as one is likely to encounter. Laudate pueri was notable for the clarity with which the contrapuntal texture was laid out, while Judith van Wanroij shaped Laudate Dominum with exquisite taste and a lack of sentimentality underpinned by Equilbey’s sensitive direction. Laurence Equilbey and her forces will be bringing the same programme to the Barbican Centre on 21 September. London concert goers should not miss it.

Brian Robins

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Festival-conference

Beaune Festival International d’Opera Baroque et Romantique

Floral design

3–25 July 2015

[dropcap]L[/dropcap]ong a Mecca for aficionados of Baroque opera, particularly those who object to the vulgarity of many of today’s stage productions, the Beaune Festival now has behind it more than three decades of presenting concert performances given by some of the finest singers and directors in the field. Traditionally one of the special features has been the open-air presentation of opera in the exquisite arcaded cour of the 15th century Hospices de Beaune. But change seems to be afoot. The 2015 season presented only two works that could be described as operas, Lully’s Armide and Purcell’s ‘semi-opera’ King Arthur, the remaining large-scale events consisting principally of oratorios or other sacred works given in the Basilique Notre-Dame.

Along with King Arthur (reviewed elsewhere), we attended two oratorio performances: Handel’s Jephtha with the Namur Chamber Choir and Accademia Bizantina under the direction of Ottavio Dantone (17 July), and the first modern performance of Porpora’s Il trionfo della Divina Giustizia (24 July), given under the direction of Thibault Noally.

In Britain we tend to take a proprietary view of Handel’s oratorios, so the chance of hearing the last – and arguably greatest – of them conducted by a leading Italian early music director was an intriguing prospect. I have to confess that Dantone has not always been a favourite conductor, some of his performances seeming to me too mannered and lightweight. Here such concerns were immediately swept away by Dantone’s fervour and the depth of string tone produced by Accademia Bizantina, whose playing was on the highest level throughout. Such impressions were enhanced by the commanding presence and authority of bass Christian Immler in Zebul’s opening recitative and aria ‘No more to Ammon’s god’ and further confirmed by the commitment, power and articulation of the excellent Namur choir. The love scenes between Hamor (alto Delphine Galou) and Iphis (soprano Katherine Watson), were done with an exquisite Italianate warmth and sensual affection that made their final parting a more central and poignant part of the denouement than usual. The duet ‘These labours past’ became a glorious poem to love. In her later affliction Watson was deeply affecting in her song of parting, ‘Farewell, ye limpid streams’, sung with the pellucid grace Watson brought to all Iphis’ music. The young Swedish tenor Martin Vanberg sang stylishly as Jephtha without ever attaining the tortured dramatic intensity of the finest interpreters of the role. His ‘Open thy marble jaws’ never quite conveyed the horror of the moment, although ‘Waft her, angels’ attained a gracious lyricism. His wife Storgè was Gaëlle Arquez, a Beaune protégée I’ve kept a close watch on since she first appeared as a soprano in 2011. Since then she has moved down to mezzo parts and indeed her Storgè included some impressive chest notes of true alto quality, ‘Let other creatures die?’ directed at her husband with venomous fury. Caroline Weynants’ Angel deserves special mention for a thoroughly appealing ‘Happy, Iphis’, while the final scene was in part redeemed from its usual sense of anti-climax by the lovingly expressed exchanges in the duet between Iphis and Hamor. It remains only to add that in a cast with only one native English speaker, diction and pronunciation were in the main unexceptionable.

Virtually the whole festival took place during the remarkable heat wave experienced by much of central and southern France during July. It made for uncomfortable conditions in the basilica for both performers and audience. In the case of the latter it also brought out numerous examples of that irritating species, the fan waver. At the Porpora I had the misfortune to sit behind a particularly exotic member of the breed, a lady who seemed quite oblivious that her unceasing activity might just have been a distraction to those around her. That aside, however, this was another unusually satisfying and rewarding evening. Il trionfo della Divina Giustizia is one of Nicolo Porpora’s earlier works, first given in April 1716 in San Luigi di Palazzo in Naples. Scored for strings and four solo singers, whose roles are those of the Virgin (Delphine Galou), the allegorical figure Giustizia Divina (mezzo Blandine Staskiewicz), Mary Magdelene (soprano Emmanuelle de Negri) and St John (Martin Vanberg), the oratorio is an examination of the emotions of the protagonists in the aftermath of the Crucifixion. The anonymous libretto inspired the 30-year-old Porpora to a score suffused with pain and anger, expressed in music of intense chromaticism and dissonance. Among many notable numbers I would note especially the madrigalian quartet set over a running bass that concludes Part 1, the wonderful flowing duet for the Virgin and Giustizia that opens Part 2, and, perhaps above all, ‘Occhi mesti’, the final aria for the Virgin, where upper strings senza basso attain a rapt, chromatic intensity over the mother’s near inexpressible grief. The role brought more supremely accomplished singing from Galou, but overall both singing and playing would have benefited from rather fewer broad brushstrokes and a more subtle sense of light and shade. Nonetheless, I’m more than happy to have made the acquaintance of yet another outstanding work by this Neapolitan master in such a good performance.

Brian Robins

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Festival-conference

Musings on a “Court of Muses”

Floral design

The 13th International Fasch Festival
Zerbst/Anhalt, Germany, 15-19 April 2015

[dropcap]J[/dropcap]ohann Friedrich Fasch (1688-1758) served as court Kapellmeister of Anhalt-Zerbst for 36 years, from 1722 to his death. The first Fasch “Festtage” were organized by local Zerbst enthusiasts in 1983, who also celebrated the 200th anniversary of Fasch’s death in 1988 in style. Since 1995, this small but excellent festival in Saxony-Anhalt has been co-hosted by the town of Zerbst (c. 90 km north of Leipzig) and the International Fasch Society.

The opening ceremony of the 13th International Fasch Festival on 15 April, Fasch’s 327th birthday, included the usual speeches by officials and festive music. The most moving part, however, was the laudatory speech given by Fasch scholar Prof. Manfred Fechner in honour of this year’s recipient of the Fasch Prize: the German harpsichordist, conductor, musicologist Ludger Rémy. His most recent CD with Les Amis de Philippe consists entirely of orchestral pieces (“overture symphonies”) by Fasch that were introduced to 21st-century audiences at the 12th International Fasch Festival in 2013; the CD is available on the cpo label (777 952-2).

The 2015 opening concert featured Bach’s Erben, a youth orchestra specialising in Baroque music. It is based at Kloster Michaelstein, the home of the Musical Academy of Saxony-Anhalt which promotes early music performance practice and education (http://musik.kloster-michaelstein.de/de). To see and hear these youngsters from all over the world expertly engage with Fasch’s music and that of his contemporaries was exciting – clearly, they have all been bitten by the “Baroque bug”, which bodes well for the future.

The highpoint of this year’s Festival was, without doubt, the modern premiere of Fasch’s setting of the St John Passion, dating from c. 1748. Dr Gottfried Gille, 2013 Fasch Prize recipient, had prepared the performing edition and left it in the capable hands of university music director Jens Lorenz, the “J. F. Reichardt” chorus of the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, and the Händel-Festspielorchester Halle. All four vocalists excelled; particularly outstanding was Tobias Hunger, the evangelist and solo tenor. Fasch’s St John Passion had intentionally been scheduled on 16 April 2015, an important date in the history of Zerbst. It marked the 70th anniversary of the town’s destructions by allied forces in 1945. The performance was broadcast live by the Central German Radio (MDR), and I would argue that this work presents a new milestone in Fasch’s compositional output. His extremely sensitive setting of the Biblical text, interspersed with highly visual devotional poetry, had me on the edge of my seat for the entire time – especially impressive were the massive opening and closing choruses (the latter featuring horns!); the many action-oriented accompanied recitatives with seamlessly woven-in turbae choruses; and Fasch’s hauntingly beautiful arias, most importantly the stunning “Cavata” for tenor (“Verblendeter!”) as well as an aria for alto (“Meine Ruhe blüht im Tode”), which followed the announcement of Jesus’ death on the cross and gave me goosebumps. Conceiving large-scale works like these would have required all of Fasch’s intellectual and creative attention; no wonder he repeated cantata cycles at the court chapel on a regular basis!

The international scholarly conference began on Friday, 17 April, focusing on Anhalt-Zerbst as a “Court of Muses” during Fasch’s tenure as Kapellmeister. Prof Wolfgang Hirschmann (Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg) presented the keynote address which contextualized Volker Bauer’s 1993 fives types of courts (supposedly) prevalent during the early modern period. One is the “Court of Muses”, a somewhat ambiguous term. It refers to rulers who, for instance, built huge palaces and promoted the fine arts and literature as part of a broader, political agenda. Was that the case in Anhalt-Zerbst (and elsewhere)? Prof Ursula Kramer (University of Mainz) showed how the term “Musenhof” – actually a 19th-century invention – had changed over time. She also cleverly suggested that it was not only the presence and absence of male rulers, but that of their wives, mothers, sisters, etc., which could and would significantly shape – and transform – a court. Rashid-S. Pegah (Berlin) had examined the extant correspondence of Prince Johann Ludwig II of Anhalt-Zerbst-Dornburg, taking a closer look at his education, trips, and musical collection. Pegah felt that the court of Zerbst aligned more closely with the “Hausväterlicher Hof” type, where rulers valued privacy above all. Next, Dirk Herrmann, the author of the seminal book on the Zerbst palace, illustrated its various building phases in the 18th century. The Zerbst princes’ continued interest in, and financial commitment to fixing up the palace in Jever (a former enclave of Anhalt-Zerbst) was the topic of a paper presented by the director of the Schlossmuseum in Jever, Prof. Antje Sander (Varel).

After lunch Konstanze Musketa (Händel-Haus Halle) drew attention to Gottfried Taubert, the author of the famous 1717 treatise “The righteous dancing master”. He spent 16 years as dancing master in Zerbst, and according to a newly discovered entry in the court chapel registers, died there in 1746. References to his permanent employment in Zerbst are, however, curiously absent. Perhaps he was paid directly by the princely family, rather than the court. Barbara M. Reul (Luther College, University of Regina, Canada) introduced 17 previously unknown printed librettos that are held at the Historische Bibliothek of the Francisceum Secondary School in Zerbst. While no music survives, these primary sources document performances between 1722 and 1756 at Zerbst’s “princely school”, St Bartholomäi, in honour of headmasters and superintendents. She also examined a hitherto-unknown printed source confirming the presence of Prussian comedians in Zerbst in the mid-1740s, who entertained at the court and in town.

The first conference day was concluded by Ralph-Jürgen Reipsch (Telemann Research Centre, Magdeburg) and Bernd Koska (Bach Archive, Leipzig). Reipsch drew attention to a boy treble from Magdeburg, Christian Wilhelm Stammer, who performed at the Zerbst court in 1738. He was supposed to join the court Kapelle as a boy treble, but died shortly before he was able to take up the role. Bernd Koska’s paper was based on his enlightening book on the Gera court Kapelle at the beginning of the 18th century (ortus, 2013). Fasch composed a secular work for Gera in 1715; sadly, only the title page of the libretto, but no music survives. Koska also emphasised that Fasch could have come into contact with Pietists a decade earlier (i.e. while serving in Gera) than previously assumed.

On Friday, 17 April, the many festival guests who had flocked to Saxony-Anhalt from all over the world were treated to two lovely concerts. Epoca Barocca had chosen a wonderfully varied mixture of vocal and instrumental music, with soprano Silvia Vajente and bassoonist Katrin Lazar stealing the show in the Zerbst “Ratssaal”; this was the first time this beautiful auditorium had been used as a performance venue during a Fasch Festival. The popular “Fasch midnight” show at the (partially restored) Zerbst palace featured Ensemble Calmus. Their entertaining programme entitled “Touched: Love song from the Renaissance to the present” not only brought a lighter tone to the Festival, but also attracted a younger, but no less enthusiastic audience.

The second half-day of conferencing began with two papers in English that focused on works with a Zerbst connection. Janice B. Stockigt (University of Melbourne) carefully traced how a Missa in D by Alessandro Scarlatti found its way from Italy to Zerbst via Prague and Dresden. The fact that this mass was also the final work to be performed at the closing concert of the 2015 Festival made her paper even more valuable. Samantha Owens (University of Queensland) masterfully contextualized a hilarious hunting song by James Hook, “Ye sluggards who murder your lifetime in sleep” from the mid-1770s, which is preserved in the Zerbster Musikstube collection at the Landeshauptarchiv Sachsen-Anhalt in Dessau. Next, Nigel Springthorpe (Royal Holloway University, London) examined selected correspondence of Fasch’s colleague and successor, Johann Georg Röllig. In addition to explaining Röllig’s dire employment situation in the 1780s, Springthorpe drew attention to Röllig’s works for the Swedish royal family (first cousins of Catherine the Great, a former princess of Anhalt-Zerbst). Gottfried Gille (Bad Langensalza) prefaced his detailed examination of Fasch’s St John Passion with comments on how he had rescued music by the Zerbst Kapellmeister in the 1960s – he is truly a Fasch scholar of the first hour.

The final conference session opened with a paper presented by Peter Wollny (Bach Achive, Leipzig). He identified Christian Gotthilf Sensenschmitt, Cantor in Meerane (a small town 140 km south of Leipzig), as the copyist of an Ascension cantata, “Auf Christi Himmelfahrt allein” (FR1232) by Fasch. While he expressed doubts regarding the Zerbst Kapellmeister’s authorship of that particular work, Wollny voiced none about the once contentious two-part cantata “Willkomm du Licht” (FR701/1) by Fasch, of which he had located another manuscript copy. Maik Richter (Halle/Saale) provided compelling evidence that Fasch had composed two more pieces for the court of Anhalt-Köthen than previously assumed: a “Trauermusik” in 1732 for the funeral of Princess Christiana Johanna Aemilia, and wedding music in 1742 for the daughter of Prince August Ludwig, Christiana Anna Agnese and Count Heinrich Ernst zu Stolberg-Wernigerode. Hannes Lemke (Zerbst/Anhalt), the newly appointed head of the St Bartholomäi Church Archives in Zerbst, concluded the conference with a brilliant paper on Fasch’s privately motivated actions at the court. Lemke has been tasked with cataloguing centuries worth of (mostly) unknown or thought-to-be-lost primary sources of interest to musicologists, theologians, and historians alike. He chose to focus on documents that outline when Fasch went to confession over the course of his 36-year tenure, and with whom. This information allows us not only to pinpoint exactly when the Kapellmeister was in town, but also helps clarify his position at court. Finally, Lemke came full circle by pointing out that regardless of what was happening at the Zerbst court, Fasch successfully created his own version of a “Musenhof” in his music.

On Saturday afternoon, another new performance venue was introduced to the audience. The “Tempelsaal” of the former Masonic Lodge in Zerbst is an intimate venue, perfectly suited for Ludger Rémy’s small Capell und Taffel-Music ensemble. They wowed the audience with delightful chamber music for a variety of woodwind instruments, including the rare “oboes da silva”, instruments which Fasch is known to have bought for use at the Zerbst court. The ensemble repeated their programme on Sunday, 19 April, at the Baroque church in Burgkemnitz, which Central Germany Radio recorded for broadcast. On Saturday night, La Ritirata added lots of Spanish flair to German and Italian music from the first half of the 18th century. In addition to playing audience favourites like Vivaldi’s “Alla rustica” concerto, they performed a gorgeous violin concerto by Fasch – hearing it played live, and with such passion, puts any recording to shame.

The last day of the Festival began with a festive service held at St Bartholomäi Church. The congregation was treated to both the modern premiere of a church cantata by Fasch from 1736 and a cantata written by Fasch’s “Herzensfreund” (friend of the heart), Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel, court Kapellmeister at Gotha. Moreover, the Zerbster Kantorei and Cammermusik Potsdam, under the energetic direction of Cantor Tobias Eger, framed the worship experience with music by Telemann and Bach.

The 13th Internationl Fasch Festival closed with a delightful concert that included music by Fasch senior, Fasch junior (Carl Friedrich Christian Fasch, best known as the founder of the Berlin Sing-Akademie chorus), and the modern premiere of the Scarlatti Missa mentioned above, directed by Wolfgang Katschner. In addition to his ensemble, the Lautten Compagney, which excelled in two orchestral suites by J. F. Fasch, the alto soloist, Julia Böhme, deserves special mention.

Overall, the 13th International Fasch Festival presented a well-balanced programme with a pleasant variety of ensembles and concert programmes. The conference was equally stimulating; the papers will be published in vol. 13 of the IFG’s Fasch-Studien series. Looking ahead, the 14th International Fasch Festival is scheduled to take place from 20 to 23 April 2017. The focal point will be “From Luther to Fasch” to commemorate the 500th anniversary of the Reformation. After all, Zerbst is only a 45-minute drive from Wittenberg, and was one of the first towns in which Luther preached; its historical significance cannot be overestimated. The scholarly conference will focus on Fasch and religion, a topic that is bound to capture the imagination of a large interdisciplinary, global scholarly community.

Barbara M. Reul