“Magnificat in D, BWV 243: 3. Quia Respexit Humilitatem; 4. Omnes Generationes” by Johann Sebastian Bach [1733] performed by Maria Stader with Karl Richter and the Munich Bach Orchestra & Choir [1979]

Lest you forget that music could be so sublime… here is the soprano aria and exhilarating chorus that follows it from Bach’s Magnificat. This older recording was paired with the same musicians performing Bach’s other most famous choral work, Cantata #140 “Wachet Auf.” The album has been re-released multiple times since the 1979 original, although it appears to be out of print at present. [Amazon]

“Concerto for Recorder, Strings & Continuo in C major, TWV 51:C1 - I. Allegretto” by Georg Philipp Telemann [1725-1735] performed by Michala Petri with Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields conducted by Inoa Brown [July 1980]

Michala Petri reminds us all that the recorder, now an important music teaching tool with children, was once a legitimate concert instrument. This Telemann concerto, written sometime between 1725 and 1735 in Hamburg, Germany, appeared during the instrument’s Baroque-era peak. 

Georg Philipp Telemann, hand-colored aquatint by Valentin Daniel Preisler, after a lost painting by Louis Michael Schneider, 1750.

“Minuet 1 & 2” from Music for Royal Fireworks by George Frideric Handel [1749] performed by Karl Münchinger and the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra [1982]

I’ve tried to ignore the royal wedding happening tomorrow because I think the obsession over a wedding that would mean something only if it were occurring 300 years ago is a bit overdone. Still, to appease those of you who will be rising in just a few hours to watch the pomp and pageantry, I give you music by Handel that was written and performed for King George II in 1749—or just a few years after Sir Robert Walpole first proved the need for a “prime minister” in the King’s cabinet.

(Image: George II - via)

Classical Music Factoid of the Week: François Couperin (1668-1733)

Context first.

“It was around [the time of his masses for organ] that the composer came under the sway of the Italian school. He would display this influence in several chamber works he wrote in 1692 that he called sonades.” (excerpted from Classical Archives bio)

Couperin looking back on one group of his sonatas:

“The first sonata in this collection is the first that I composed, and the first to be composed in France. Charmed by those works of Signor Corelli whose works I shall love as much as I live, much as I love the French works of M. de Lully, I attempted to compose one.

Knowing the greed of the French for foreign novelties, and lacking in self-confidence, I pretended that a relative of mine in the service of the King of Sardinia had sent me a sonata by a recent Italian composer. I rearranged the letters of my own name into an Italian one [Coperuni or Pernucio], which I used instead. The sonata was devoured eagerly. I wrote others, and my Italianized name brought me much applause under the disguise.”

~ From The Book of Musical Anecdotes by Norman Lebrecht [1985] 

Deception for profit isn’t new to the music industry.

“Sanctus” from Messe propre pour les Couvents by François Couperin [1690] performed by Pierre-Yves Asselin [1984]

In 1690, at the ripe old age of 22, François Couperin composed two masses for organ that remain among the most famous works of French organ music. They immediately brought notice that the young Couperin had the potential to surpass the status of his many talented musical relatives.

This recording by Canadian-born organist Pierre-Yves Asselin includes interspersed readings, just as the Santcus portion of the mass would have been performed in the late 17th century. Moreover, the organ you hear is an original French Baroque organ from the church of Saint Christopher in the French Town of Houdan (see below), built by L.A. Clicquot in 1734. (Info taken from the liner notes to the album 10 Glorious Organs in Europe.)

(images via)

Simply beautiful. (See also this humorous anecdote.)

“Initial Experiments” by Wendy Carlos [1968/1999]

Released at the end of 1968, Switched-On Bach stormed the charts, took home three Grammys, and introduced the world to the Moog synthesizer. Continuing this week’s theme of rarely heard music from 1968 (see also here, here, and here), in the track above, Wendy Carlos describes her first experiments with the Moog and her process of arranging Bach for the instrument. Interrupting her narration, you will hear a number of pieces that were left off the final album.

The most remarkable thing, to me at least, is that the full development of Carlos’ sound took place in just a few months of experiments early in 1968. She hadn’t had her Moog for that long, since the instrument had come to the attention of musicians only after a demonstration at the Monterey Pop Festival in June of ‘67. 

Carlos included this fascinating explanation as a bonus track on the 1999 box set of her complete Moog releases, Switched-On Boxed Set.

Israel in Egypt, Part 1 (Lamentation of the Israelites for the Death of Joseph): “Their Bodies Are Buried in Peace” by George Frideric Handel [1739], performed by Andrew Parrott with Taverner Consort & Players [1990]

I don’t mean to bring down the spirit of this blog, but my grandfather’s death and upcoming funeral provided me with a meaningful opportunity to explore sad, funereal music. Yesterday I posted a Walt Whitman poem set to music in 1918.

Today’s song comes from a little-heard movement of an oratorio by Handel. Israel in Egypt remains one of the few popular oratorios, but it is usually only heard in its two-part revised form. In its original form, the work was composed of three parts. The first was an adaptation of Handel’s 1738 composition Funeral Anthem for Queen Caroline, for which the text was derived entirely from the Old Testament.

I’m not personally big on religious dogma, but it is impossible not to feel something when you hear music like this. I know my grandfather is at peace now.

Their bodies are buried in peace; but their name liveth evermore (Ecclesiasticus 44:14).

Lastly, this lamentation reminds me of another little-heard piece of classical languishment that I fell in love with six months ago: “Solveig’s Cradle Song” from the end of Edvard Grieg’s Peer Gynt.

“Concerto in G Minor for 2 Cellos, RV 531 - 3. Allegro” by Antonio Vivaldi [ca. 1727?] performed by Yo-Yo Ma and Jonathon Mason with Ton Koopman and the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra [2003]

When Vivaldi came up as today’s song, I was reminded of a back-and-forth discussion about sexism and Charles Ives which came across by dashboard a couple weeks ago. Is some music naturally more effeminate? Can women reach the same artistic level as male musicians? I think the following will show that one of those questions has been settled for centuries. At the same time the answer might irritate the modern feminist (male or female) for its quaintness.

Already a skilled violinist, at age 24 Antonio Vivaldi took a job as master of violin at a convent/orphanage in his hometown of Venice, Italy, where he began working with a seemingly unlikely group of musicians. The Pio Ospedale della Pietà took in orphans of both genders, but struggled to find traditional futures for most unwanted young girls. Many of the girls were trained in music by local musicians or older women there and over the centuries the orphanage’s choir and orchestra slowly gained a reputation. Thirteen years after taking his first job there, Vivaldi became music director and arguably led the women’s orchestra to its artistic peak. Among the many pieces he wrote for the orchestra was this unique double cello concerto (the date is completely unknown). The segment posted above is the energetic third (final) movement.

Philosopher, writer, composer Jean-Jacques Rousseau visited Ospedale della Pietà within a few years of Vivaldi’s death and had this to say about his experiences there:

“I have not an idea of anything so voluptuous and affecting as this music; the richness of the art, the exquisite taste of the vocal part, the excellence of the voices, the justness of the execution, everything in these delightful concerts concurs to produce an impression which certainly is not the mode, but from which I am of opinion no heart is secure. Carrio and I never failed being present at these vespers of the ‘Mendicanti’, and we were not alone. The church was always full of the lovers of the art, and even the actors of the opera came there to form their tastes after these excellent models.

What vexed me was the iron grate, which suffered nothing to escape but sounds, and concealed from me the angels of which they were worthy. I talked of nothing else. One day I spoke of it at Le Blond’s; “If you are so desirous,” said he, “to see those little girls, it will be an easy matter to satisfy your wishes. I am one of the administrators of the house, I will give you a collation [light meal] with them.” I did not let him rest until he had fulfilled his promise.

In entering the saloon, which contained these beauties I so much sighed to see, I felt a trembling of love which I had never before experienced. M. le Blond presented to me one after the other, these celebrated female singers, of whom the names and voices were all with which I was acquainted. Come, Sophia, — she was horrid. Come, Cattina, — she had but one eye. Come, Bettina, — the small-pox had entirely disfigured her. Scarcely one of them was without some striking defect.

Le Blond laughed at my surprise; however, two or three of them appeared tolerable; these never sung but in the choruses; I was almost in despair. During the collation we endeavored to excite them, and they soon became enlivened; ugliness does not exclude the graces, and I found they possessed them. I said to myself, they cannot sing in this manner without intelligence and sensibility, they must have both; in fine, my manner of seeing them changed to such a degree that I left the house almost in love with each of these ugly faces. I had scarcely courage enough to return to vespers. But after having seen the girls, the danger was lessened. I still found their singing delightful; and their voices so much embellished their persons that, in spite of my eyes, I obstinately continued to think them beautiful.”

~ From Book VII of The Confessions of Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1770, pub. 1782) (via)

Lastly, while I focussed on the view of women, I think we can all be proud of how far we’ve come in our treatment of people with all sorts of disabilities - especially with the context that the Americans with Disabilities Act just turned 20.

“Violin Sonata #3: Praeludium; Aria and Variation No. 1” by Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber [1681] performed by Romanesca [1994]

A few months ago I posted an extravagant adagio from the fourth sonata included in Heinrich Biber’s 1681 Sonatae violino solo, from the same Romanesca set heard above. From that post:

Bohemian composer and violinist Heinrich Biber was born in the Czech/German borderlands and worked throughout central Europe before settling at the age of 36 in Salzburg. Biber’s influence can still be felt today. He more than any other musician before Mozart advanced violin performance technique. In the movements from the Biber sonata posted above you can hear both his compositional skill writing for solo violin and the mastery of the instrument required to play the work.

Moreover, many of you will recognize Salzburg as the home of the Mozart family. Biber’s son Karl Heinrich, as Hofkapellmeister (literally head choirmaster, essentially music director) under the patronage of the Archbishop of Salzburg, oversaw roughly six years of Leopold Mozart’s growth as a violinist and teacher. Leopold was of course the overprotective father and educator of child prodigy Wolfgang Amadeus. You may have heard of him.

Even more than the adagio posted earlier, this open-form aria and variation highlight just how advanced Biber’s technique was for the 17th century (and how talented Andrew Manze is today).

“Violin Sonata No. 4: Adagio; Aria and Variation; Finale” by Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber [1681] performed by Romanesca [1994]

Random Music History Song of the Day

Bohemian composer and violinist Heinrich Biber was born in the Czech/German borderlands and worked throughout central Europe before settling at the age of 36 in Salzburg. Biber’s influence can still be felt today. He more than any other musician before Mozart advanced violin performance technique. In the movements from the Biber sonata posted above you can hear both his compositional skill writing for solo violin and the mastery of the instrument required to play the work.

Moreover, many of you will recognize Salzburg as the home of the Mozart family. Biber’s son Karl Heinrich, as Hofkapellmeister (literally head choirmaster, essentially music director) under the patronage of the Archbishop of Salzburg, oversaw roughly six years of Leopold Mozart’s growth as a violinist and teacher. Leopold was of course the overprotective father and educator of child prodigy Wolfgang Amadeus. You may have heard of him.

Even if you don’t know the history, this violin sonata is simply a gorgeous piece of Baroque music.