Fresh Baroque
It’s been pretty busy for Aradia recently and our new season is up and running!
We were in Newfoundland in June, to perform 4 staged performances of Dido and Aeneas by Purcell. Then in July we went off to Sulmona, Italy where we performed 4 performances of Mozart's Don Giovanni and 4 performances of Donizetti's L'elisir d'amore. In August Aradia made a start to the Toronto season by finishing a big project-the third CD in a 3CD set of Handel's opus 6 concerti grossi!
Want to see Aradia in Toronto, here’s what we’re doing:
Music of the “Chapels Royal” of England
Glenn Gould Studio - 8pm - 16th September
Charles II spent his exile during the Puritan’s rule of England on the continent, including a time at the court of King Louis XIV. Upon his return to England, Charles opened the theatres once again and also set up a series of clerical and musical establishments termed Chapel Royal after those in Versailles and the French court. In truth the term is better coined as Chapels Royal, for there were many buildings associated with Charles’ Restoration chapels.
Of the four composers well associated with the Chapels Royal: Mathew Locke (1622- 1677), Pelham Humfrey (1647- 1674), John Blow (1649- 1708) and Henry Purcell (1658- 1695) it is likely only Purcell whose name is best known today. However the other composers were at the forefront of the developing of an English style of baroque music, which is unique in its harmonic and melodic invention.
John Blow (1649 – 1708) Full Anthem: I beheld and lo a great multitude
Matthew Locke (1621 – 1677) Anthem: How doth the city
Henry Purcell (1659 – 1695)
Sonata in 4 parts: no 6 in G minor, Z 807 “The Great chaconne”
Anthem: Hear my prayer, Z.15
Anthem: Jehova, Quam Multi sunt Hostes Mei, Z. 135
Pelham Humfrey (1647 – 1674) Full Anthem: O lord, my God
John Blow (1649 – 1708) Anthem: My God, my God look upon me
Wiliam Turner (1651- 1740) Anthem: Lord what is man?
Henry Purcell (1659 – 1695) Full Anthem: My Beloved spake, Z.28
The Dublin Messiah
Glenn Gould Studio - 8pm -17th December
“The Ladies who honour this Performance with their Presence would be pleased to come without hoops, as it will greatly encrease the Charity by making room for more company The Gentlemen are desired to come without their Swords.” (The Dublin Journal 10 April 1742).
With these words, the gentle folk of Dublin were invited to attend the first performance of what was to become one of the most beloved and enduring works of the classical music repertoire. Reconstructing the first performance in Dublin, Aradia was affectionately labeled “upstarts” for competing with the other Titans in town (TSO, Tafelmusik) who also present Messiah. Why not come to ours and try something a bit different! The orchestra and choir of Aradia are joined by: soprano Virginian Hatfield, mezzo- soprano Maria Soulis, tenor Joseph Schnurr and bass Giles Tomkins. More details...
Capriccio Stravagante
Glenn Gould Studio - 8 pm - 18th February
Aradia expresses the lavishness of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Venice with instrumental and vocal music of an unusual and beautiful kind. The listener will be brought to St. Mark’s square and the beautiful cathedral of the same name, with composers who worked there in an era, which was clearly the Golden age of Venice. The program finishes with a tip of the hat to Venice’s most famous son, Antonio Vivaldi. Juxtaposed to these works will be two new music commissions, by Rose Bolton and by Chris Meyer (the winner of the Baroque idol competition). Mezzo- soprano, Marion Newman joins the orchestra of the Aradia Ensemble. This concert will also have a youth component with The Toronto Youth Chamber Orchestra, led by our own Elyssa Lefurgey- Smith, taking part in a few pieces.
This concert will be repeated in Ottawa
The Grain of the Voice
Glenn Gould Studio - 8 pm - 5th May
The title of this concert, "The Grain of the Voice," comes from an important essay by the semiotician Roland Barthes featured in the collection Image, Music, Text (New York: Hill and Wang, 1977). Barthe’s concept is that often in our refining of Western classical music we have lost an essence- The Grain of the Voice. This concert will explore ways of recapturing this essence with the choir and orchestra of Aradia combining forces with the raw, vital singing of Toronto-based Georgian choir Darbazi. They will present their traditional repertoire alongside Aradia who will perform 17th century motets by Monteverdi and Gesualdo, performed in (hopefully) a vital and expressive style of the Italian baroque. A new composition by Kevin Mallon will unite these two very different vocal “grains.”
(This concert is also being presented at the Richard Bradshaw Auditorium lunch- time series on May 3, 2012)
Other activities
The Toronto Chamber Orchestra (Aradia’s name when using modern instruments) will be doing a production of Schubert’s opera Die Freunde von Salamanka (The Friends from Salamanca) with Opera in Concert on April 1st, 2012
For more information and tickets: www.operainconcert.com
Recordings
Aradia will be recording a CD of Handel chamber music in the spring of 2012. Later in the season, Aradia will be recoding a CD based on the repertoire of our first concert—Music of the English Chapels Royal as well as a CD of Handel trio sonatas.
Italy
COSI, July 2012—for the third year, Aradia will be the orchestra in residence for The Centre for Opera Studies in Italy, this year performing Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro
Aradia?
According to Robert Graves’ book Greek Myths, Aradia was Apollo’s twin sister and the daughter of Leto and Zeus. She was sent by the gods to teach humankind to order the music of the natural world into song. The Aradia Ensemble presents an innovative series that incorporates old-world artistry and modern-day relevance, performing an eclectic blend of orchestral, operatic and chamber music on Baroque instruments. Featuring some of Canada’s leading early music specialists, Aradia has collaborated with Toronto’s Opera in Concert and with Isadora Duncan and Baroque Dancers, Irish musicians and Javanese Gamelan and many other art forms.
The Juno nominated ensemble, winning two British Gramophone Editor’s Choice Awards, has produced more than 50 CDs on the Naxos Label which can be heard regularly on the CBC and 96.3 Classical FM. Most recently Aradia has been featured on the soundtrack of Jim Carey’s movie Yes Man. Aradia has also toured Canada, Italy, New Zealand and USA. The ensemble has just completed its Second year as Orchestra in Residence for COSI (The Centre for Opera Studies in Italy) in Sulmona, Italy.
What is
Baroque Music?
Baroque music is generally understood to mean music written between 1600 and 1750. The word baroque is derived from the Italian barocco, meaning “irregular pearl” and is also used in reference to the highly decorated and ornate architectural style of the 17th and 18th centuries. This era is said to begin in music after the Renaissance and to be followed by the era of Classical music in Europe.Baroque music is set apart from other time periods by its aesthetic of emotional expression; composers from this time aimed to express one emotion in each short piece or movement. The way in which Baroque music is written down is also unique to the period: the manuscript is really more like an outline of the performance than an exact notation.
Improvisation is very important in both the melody and bass lines: in the upper parts improvisation is used to decorate, embellish and personalize the melody lines; in the bass part, numbers written underneath the line of music indicate to the players which chords to play, and they improvise these chords as they go. This style of bass line is called figured bass, and is typically played by a combination of plucked instruments (harpsichord, lute) and sustaining instruments (cello, bass, bassoon).
Period instruments are instruments that come from the same time period as the music being performed. By studying instruments from the Baroque time that are still in existence, as well as by looking at secondary sources such as historical paintings of instruments and books describing instrument making, we can get a good idea of what music sounded like in the 17th and 18th centuries.
There are quite a large number of string instruments, (violins, cellos, basses and violas) that were made in the 17th and 18th centuries and are still being played today. There are also wind and keyboard instruments, such as oboes, bassoons, flutes, harpsichords. Original instruments are also copied by current instrument makers, so period instrument groups like Aradia usually have a mix of old original instruments, and modern copies.
When comparing a baroque violin to a modern violin, you will see that the baroque violin doesn’t use a chin rest or shoulder rest, and there are no fine tuners below the bridge for tuning. A baroque violin uses strings made of sheep gut instead of metal and has differences in the neck and bridge that result in less tension on the bridge. Baroque wind instruments are different from modern instruments in that they have only a few metal keys and are made of wood instead of metal.
