Bits and pieces of interesting programming for our concert
It is always fun programming for a concert for our ensemble... lots of of interesting pieces to play from the Baroque and Classical era for historical instruments... and most of it is waaaaayyyyy off the beaten path. We are a small chamber ensemble specialising in Early Music, so we trawl the libraries and archives to bring mostly forgotten music to life... and we don't have to answer to a commercial and business type board who would freak out if we weren't just rehashing the well known names and tunes.... musician run is the best!
Anyway, one of the pieces that we are playing is a Partie from Pachelbel's Musical Delights. The set is a set of 6 suites for two violins and continuo, all in completely different scordatura (mistuned) tunings for the violin. This is one that is fun... the two bass strings are raised halfway up to the next string, the A goes up slightly, and the E goes down slightly... making for a very trumpet-y sounding violin that resonates really nicely in B-flat major!
A slow Sonata entry... pity we don't have access to a chamber organ... and then we are off into a series of dances with a particularly virtuosic variation for the first violin... and concluding with a trumpet call finale.
... and yes, Pachelbel of the Canon fame... at some point in time, we will do that... but not as a wedding dirge... but as a true joyful celebration!
... and another piece on the program. A recorder concerto by Fiorenza... an old school Italian composer who is probably best known for beating and abusing his students in the Baroque era. Vicious sounding person... but composed some pretty awesome music!
This particular concerto is one of my favourites... but the manuscript is a bit confusing... many of the accidentals either look the same, or are mismarked... or missing. So, there is a bit of on the fly musical intelligence required to navigate through it! Or a pencil to correct the bits and pieces...
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That scordatura choice for the Pachelbel suite sounds wild, raising the lower strings and nudging the top ones to get that brassy Bb ring. I love how it reshapes the color and keeps the dances lively, even without a chamber organ to lean on. Do you keep a second fiddle set up for that tuning, or do you retune between pieces and hope the pegs behave?
I have a few violins, so I keep one at that tuning for a few weeks so that it has a chance to properly settle and be reliable in concert!
Wait, Pachelbel wrote other stuff besides Canon in D? :)
That caught my attention too.
LOL... of course!
I expect it can be hard to read old manuscripts and styles of notation may have changed. Do you re-write it for performance? I know there are good tools for that these days. It's not something I have much use for though.
No, I use the manuscripts. I have been reading from them for a few decades, so I'm mostly comfortable with them... so much so, that when I read modern prints (even ones from the 20th century... I find them stark and cold, and lacking all the extra implied information that comes from the old prints.
"and yes, Pachelbel of the Canon fame... at some point in time, we will do that... but not as a wedding dirge... but as a true joyful celebration"
I was thinking doesn't he do weddings - even I have heard of him :D
My niece sometimes plays the harp at weddings. Tiny car - huge harp.
Haha... harp in a tiny car, that must look hilarious!
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