Program Notes
Georg Philipp Telemann was one of the most prolific composers of his day. The Paris Quartet in G Major, TWV 43:1, is from the first volume of his Paris Quartets, a collection of two sets of six chamber pieces each for flute, violin, gamba (or cello), and continuo, published in 1730 and 1738, respectively. Both sets were highly praised in Telemann’s lifetime, especially in France. They were nicknamed “Paris Quartets” because of their association with Telemann’s celebrated visit to Paris in 1737-38, where he presumably played harpsichord continuo in a concert of all twelve quartets with famed French musicians Blavet, flute; Guignon, violin; Forqueray, gamba; and Edourd, cello. In his autobiography of 1739, Telemann writes about the “marvelous way in which these quartets were played…if indeed words can convey any impression. Suffice it to say that the Court and the whole city pricked up their ears most remarkedly.” In the G major concerto, a central fugue is framed by exuberant outer movements. As Elisabeth Le Guin, writing eloquently about the quartets, tells us: “Grace informs every gesture…We are invited down garden pathways of seemingly endless invention, to savor this or that original flower, warm sunlight, delicious shadow….”
Georg Frideric Handel rivaled Telemann in popularity. His trio sonatas are contained in two main collections: Op 2 and Op 5, comprising six and seven sonatas each. The Trio Sonata in B Minor, Op. 2, no. 1, HWV 386b, follows a slow-fast-slow-fast arrangement—the “sonata da chiesa,” or church sonata format associated with Arcangelo Corelli. These sonatas were intended to be played at social gatherings or as outdoor entertainments at London’s various pleasure gardens. The sonata highlights Handel’s melding of lyrical Italianate melodies with German counterpoint, and are both profoundly expressive and technically brilliant.
An ornamented version of Handel’s beloved aria “Lascia, ch’io pianga,” from his opera Rinaldo (1711) comes down to us in an arrangement by William Babell (1689-1723), a contemporary of Handel, who was known for his virtuosic arrangements of popular operatic arias for keyboard. The flashy runs were considered by the 18th-century diarist Charles Burney to be lacking in substance and taste!
Johann Sebastian Bach is known to have traveled to Frederick’s court in Potsdam in 1747 to visit his son Carl Philipp Emanuel, who was employed there as court musician. Knowing of his great skill at improvising, Frederick composed a theme upon which he asked Bach to improvise a fugue. Bach responded with a three-part ricercar on the fortepiano, which he later expanded into The Musical Offering, BWV 1079, a set of pieces based on this Thema Regium (“theme of the king”). The collection consists of two ricercars, a four-movement trio sonata, and ten canons, six of which we present in the concert today. A canon is a piece in which two or more voices sing or play the same music at different times. All but one of the canons are notated in enigmatic form: Bach gives only a short melody with a direction in Latin above. It is up to the performer to come up with a solution for these “puzzle” canons. For example, Bach indicates that the first canon is a “canon cancrizans” or “crab canon,” The term “cancrizans” is derived from the Latin cancrizāre,” which means “to move crabwise.” Thus, in a crab canon, the imitating voice plays the theme in reverse order. In subsequent canons, the tune is heard in the flute (canon per Motum contrarium) and violin (canon perpetual super Thema Regium). In the canon per Augmentationem, contrario Motu, the violin plays an ornamented version of the royal theme, to which the harpsichord plays a counterpart that can be played in two ways: as written, or augmented (note values lengthened) and mirrored. In our concert, the notes in the left hand of the harpsichord are played as written, while the right hand augments them (playing the notes twice as slow), and mirrors them (when the left hand goes a step up, the right hand goes a step down).
Like Handel, Bach enjoyed playing his solo instrumental pieces at the keyboard. Several of these versions survive. In his adaptation of the violin sonata, BWV 1003, Bach adds ornamentation, fills out the texture, enriches the harmony, alters the tessitura, and adds a bass line. Following Bach’s model, legendary harpsichordist Gustav Leonhardt arranged the Violin Sonata in G Minor, BWV 1001, for harpsichord, transposing it to D minor. The luxuriant ornamentation of the Adagio recalls the improvisatory quality of French unmeasured preludes by 17th-century French composers such as Jean-Henry D’Anglebert, whose ornament table Bach knew and used as a basis for his own ornament table for his eldest son Wilhelm Friedemann.
By contrast with the church sonata format of Handel’s Op. 2 trio sonatas, the dances in the Trio Sonata in G Major, Op. 5, no. 4, HWV 399, call to mind the Italian “sonata da camera,” or chamber sonata. An Italianate Allegro introduces the sonata, followed by a movement in French overture style. The last movement, a passacaille, takes its name from the Spanish pasacalle, meaning “walk-about.” Repurposed from the ballet to his opera, Radamisto (1720), Handel’s Passacaille presents an increasingly virtuosic series of inventions over a recurring bass. After an expressive foray into the minor mode, played here by flute and oboe, Handel delights the listener with a return to the major sonority—a sheer delight for listener and player alike!