On the weekend of December 9-11, Magnificat will revive one of our most beloved programs that features the Pastorale sur la naissance de Nostre Seigneur of Marc-Antoine Charpentier together with traditional French noels, or Christmas carols from the period. This program was performed by Magnificat as part of our 1993-1994 season and again in 1997 on the San Francisco Early Music Society concert series.
Like many, I first encountered the music of Charpentier in the delightful Midnight Mass, a work that uses the tunes associated with many popular noels in setting the text of the Mass ordinary. Charming as this piece is, it gives only a faint glimpse of the range and profundity of Charpentier’s compositional skills. Nevertheless, in making reference to the infectious melodies, it captures the earthy flavor of these tunes, which were known and loved by Frenchmen of all classes.
Charpentier’s Pastorale is once removed from the noels, borrowing much of the imagery and tone of the texts but providing them with a rich and highly refined musical setting. It was exactly these parallels that motivated the construction of Magnificat’s original program in 1993. The Pastorale on its own was a bit short for an entire concert and by framing its four sections with arrangements of noels (some by Charpentier himself) a satisfying and revealing program resulted.
In 1670, upon returning to France from his studies with Carissimi in Rome, Marc-Antoine Charpentier became a member of the household of Marie de Lorraine, called Mademoiselle de Guise. One of the wealthiest women in Europe, and a princess in rank, Mlle. de Guise chose to live in Paris independent of the intrigues and obligations of court life under Louis XIV. She was a passionate lover of music, and maintained an ensemble of musicians, less opulent than that to be found at court, but highly admired by the Parisian connoisseurs of the time. It was for this ensemble of companions that Charpentier wrote his Pastorale.
During this time, Charpentier was primarily involved with writing music for the stage, working briefly with Moliére before the playwright’s untimely death, and later with others. His gifts as a composer of dramatic music contributed significantly to the Pastorale and it has been suggested that the work was intended to accompany a traditional Christmas pageant. This possibility is supported by the list of characters on the title page of the manuscript: along with the shepherds and angels are the names of Mary and Joseph, who have no singing parts anywhere in the piece. Charpentier’s biographer Catherine Cessac has suggested that the Pastorale may have been intended for performance at a school for the education of poor girls supported by Mlle. de Guise. It is easy to imagine costumed young girls arranged in the traditional tableaux vivants during this musical expression of the Christmas story.
Three versions of the Pastorale are preserved in the composer’s manuscripts, the first having been performed in 1684. The following two years the piece was performed again but with some new music and some of the previous music rearranged. The reasons for the revisions is not clear, though it is easy to surmise that perhaps the capabilities of different singers may have motivated the changes. In any case, the basic form of the piece remained consistent and for Magnificat’s program an amalgamation of the three versions has been assembled using the opening scenes common to all three arrangements which tell the story up to the appearance of the angels to the shepherds, while the scene at the crèche comes from the1685 version and the closing scene depicting the shepherds on their way home at dawn is taken from the 1686 version.
Wednesday, October 26, 2005
Thursday, October 13, 2005
Mille grazie!
Just a brief post to thank all those who contributed to our very successful first concert set - musicians, box office staff, ushers, stage hands - and most of all the very warm audiences!
SFCV Review of September 30 Magnificat concert
http://www.sfcv.org/arts_revs/magnificat_10_4_05.php
EARLY MUSIC
A Running Start
09/30/05
By Joseph Sargent
Giovan Battista Guarini's play Il Pastor Fido (The Faithful Shepherd) was a failure as drama but proved extraordinarily successful as literature. The tragicomic 17th-century play of pastoral love, lust and loss was first published in 1590. No other source of lyrical texts surpassed it in popularity among Italian composers of the time.
Il Pastor Fido evidently holds a similar appeal for Magnificat, which compiled a selection of solo and polyphonic pieces from the play for its opening concert of the 2005-2006 season, organized into a narrative structure that mimics the play's plot. Under the guidance of artistic director/violoncellist Warren Stewart, a consort of five vocalists and three instrumentalists tackled this repertoire Friday at Palo Alto's First Lutheran Church with abandon, delivering an animated performance that represented a strong debut for the ensemble's new season.
Any effective performance of Italian madrigals ought to lavish great attention on the tell-tale aspects of the genre: frequent emotional shifts in the text, an innate sense of theatricality, and distinctive “text paintings” in which musical devices accentuate the literal meaning of individual words. Magnificat proved to be adept interpreters in this regard, their approach focused on conveying the dramatic as well as musical power of these settings.
An effective match
This combination of music and drama paid off with Tarquinio Merula's "Oimè, son morta!" (O, I'm dead), a struggle between "wanton nymph" Corisca and the hunter Satiro. Soprano Jennifer Ellis and bass Peter Becker were a delightfully combative pair of foes, their virtuosic vocal displays and captivating affective gestures a highlight of the evening. Ellis' beguiling voice was pure and lithe with a delicate vibrato, perfect for this repertoire. Becker had a sparkling presence here and throughout the evening with his gorgeous tone, impeccable skill in ornamentation and winning theatricality.
Among the other soloists, tenor Dan Hutchings deployed his gentle, polished voice to good effect in Sigismondo d'India's "Cruda Amarilli" (Cruel Amaryllis), though he might have offered more passionate expression (both physical and vocal) to the text's heart-wrenching sentiments. Tenor Paul Elliott displayed a somewhat darker tone in a series of d'India songs, conveying a somber quality that, while matching the affective nature of the texts, sometimes seemed heavy-handed. He and Hutchings were well-matched, however, in their Alessandro Grandi duet "Udite lagrimosi" (Hear, weeping), their voices distinctive in alternating phrases yet merging seamlessly at several points to create a satisfying whole.
Magnificat displayed impressive command in the ensemble madrigals, their faultless intonation and carefully matched phrasing adding greatly to this music's effectiveness. Particularly successful was the closing madrigal set, d'India's Se tu, Silvio crudel, mi saettasti (When you, cruel Silvio, shot me). Following an agile opening flourish from soprano Laura Heimes, the ensemble depicted Silvio's tragic accidental wounding of his beloved Dorinda with virtuoso panache, effortlessly moving between fugal and homophonic lines and poring over the many expressive word paintings with great care. Also impressive was Claudio Monteverdi's masterly "Ah dolente partita" (Oh, painful separation), in which the character Mirtillo agonizes over the absence of his beloved Amaryllis. Ellis and Heimes gave haunting expression to the piece's opening dissonances and the ensemble followed with passionate cries of anguish, supplemented by powerful dynamic swells.
Love's labors
In Giovanni Ghizzolo's Il Gioco della Cieca (The game of Blind Man's Bluff), Heimes displayed a bright, dulcet sound as Amaryllis, tangling with Mirtillo in a game in which the participants' furtive movements symbolize the blindness of love. Heimes also combined with Ellis and Becker for several delightful moments as the Nymph's Chorus, their gleeful passages commenting wryly on the characters' machinations.
A couple of quibbles, however. Balance was a nagging issue at several points in the program, particularly in the classic Monteverdi setting of "Cruda Amarilli," with Elliott in particular tending to overpower his comrades. And some of Magnificat's performers seem generally more comfortable in the madrigal idiom than others — dramatic expression was occasionally unequal and ornamental lines were delivered in varying degrees of fluency, for instance.
The two continuo performers, theorbist David Tayler and harpsichordist Hanneke van Proosdij, masterfully accompanied the vocal consort and also commanded their own moments in the spotlight. Tayler's gentle grace and technical polish imbued a pavan of Alfonso Ferrabosco II with quiet emotion, while Proosdij added graceful lyricism and flawless passagework to a canzona by Merula and a toccata of Giovanni Picchi.
EARLY MUSIC
A Running Start
09/30/05
By Joseph Sargent
Giovan Battista Guarini's play Il Pastor Fido (The Faithful Shepherd) was a failure as drama but proved extraordinarily successful as literature. The tragicomic 17th-century play of pastoral love, lust and loss was first published in 1590. No other source of lyrical texts surpassed it in popularity among Italian composers of the time.
Il Pastor Fido evidently holds a similar appeal for Magnificat, which compiled a selection of solo and polyphonic pieces from the play for its opening concert of the 2005-2006 season, organized into a narrative structure that mimics the play's plot. Under the guidance of artistic director/violoncellist Warren Stewart, a consort of five vocalists and three instrumentalists tackled this repertoire Friday at Palo Alto's First Lutheran Church with abandon, delivering an animated performance that represented a strong debut for the ensemble's new season.
Any effective performance of Italian madrigals ought to lavish great attention on the tell-tale aspects of the genre: frequent emotional shifts in the text, an innate sense of theatricality, and distinctive “text paintings” in which musical devices accentuate the literal meaning of individual words. Magnificat proved to be adept interpreters in this regard, their approach focused on conveying the dramatic as well as musical power of these settings.
An effective match
This combination of music and drama paid off with Tarquinio Merula's "Oimè, son morta!" (O, I'm dead), a struggle between "wanton nymph" Corisca and the hunter Satiro. Soprano Jennifer Ellis and bass Peter Becker were a delightfully combative pair of foes, their virtuosic vocal displays and captivating affective gestures a highlight of the evening. Ellis' beguiling voice was pure and lithe with a delicate vibrato, perfect for this repertoire. Becker had a sparkling presence here and throughout the evening with his gorgeous tone, impeccable skill in ornamentation and winning theatricality.
Among the other soloists, tenor Dan Hutchings deployed his gentle, polished voice to good effect in Sigismondo d'India's "Cruda Amarilli" (Cruel Amaryllis), though he might have offered more passionate expression (both physical and vocal) to the text's heart-wrenching sentiments. Tenor Paul Elliott displayed a somewhat darker tone in a series of d'India songs, conveying a somber quality that, while matching the affective nature of the texts, sometimes seemed heavy-handed. He and Hutchings were well-matched, however, in their Alessandro Grandi duet "Udite lagrimosi" (Hear, weeping), their voices distinctive in alternating phrases yet merging seamlessly at several points to create a satisfying whole.
Magnificat displayed impressive command in the ensemble madrigals, their faultless intonation and carefully matched phrasing adding greatly to this music's effectiveness. Particularly successful was the closing madrigal set, d'India's Se tu, Silvio crudel, mi saettasti (When you, cruel Silvio, shot me). Following an agile opening flourish from soprano Laura Heimes, the ensemble depicted Silvio's tragic accidental wounding of his beloved Dorinda with virtuoso panache, effortlessly moving between fugal and homophonic lines and poring over the many expressive word paintings with great care. Also impressive was Claudio Monteverdi's masterly "Ah dolente partita" (Oh, painful separation), in which the character Mirtillo agonizes over the absence of his beloved Amaryllis. Ellis and Heimes gave haunting expression to the piece's opening dissonances and the ensemble followed with passionate cries of anguish, supplemented by powerful dynamic swells.
Love's labors
In Giovanni Ghizzolo's Il Gioco della Cieca (The game of Blind Man's Bluff), Heimes displayed a bright, dulcet sound as Amaryllis, tangling with Mirtillo in a game in which the participants' furtive movements symbolize the blindness of love. Heimes also combined with Ellis and Becker for several delightful moments as the Nymph's Chorus, their gleeful passages commenting wryly on the characters' machinations.
A couple of quibbles, however. Balance was a nagging issue at several points in the program, particularly in the classic Monteverdi setting of "Cruda Amarilli," with Elliott in particular tending to overpower his comrades. And some of Magnificat's performers seem generally more comfortable in the madrigal idiom than others — dramatic expression was occasionally unequal and ornamental lines were delivered in varying degrees of fluency, for instance.
The two continuo performers, theorbist David Tayler and harpsichordist Hanneke van Proosdij, masterfully accompanied the vocal consort and also commanded their own moments in the spotlight. Tayler's gentle grace and technical polish imbued a pavan of Alfonso Ferrabosco II with quiet emotion, while Proosdij added graceful lyricism and flawless passagework to a canzona by Merula and a toccata of Giovanni Picchi.
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