Early and Period Music

Thinking of going on an early music treasure hunt this summer? Here are some ideas for you.

If your travel boundaries lie within Toronto and the GTA, you could spend the whole summer sampling a variety of styles and genres in many different programmes:

The Italian singer/instrumentalist Viva BiancaLuna Biffi (featured in the June early music column) presents her one-woman show, “Fermate il Passo,” a programme of Italian frottola in which she sings universal tales of love – its euphoria and torments, its ultimate triumph over adversity – while accompanying herself on the viola d’arco. This Music Mondays concert at the Church of the Holy Trinity takes place on July 5.

Beaches Baroque, a duo made up of baroque violinist Geneviève Gilardeau and lutenist Lucas Harris, presents “The Bach/Weiss Sonata.” The featured work is a seven-movement sonata for violin and lute supposedly by Bach, but striking in that the lute part began life as a sonata in its own right by Bach’s friend, the virtuoso lutenist Leopold Weiss. As well, more music by Bach, Weiss and Hagen will be presented, on July 10 at Beaches Presbyterian Church.

Hildegard von Bingen’s music broke the boundaries of expression for its time, and sounds amazingly modern today. The soaring chant of this 12th-century abbess can be heard on August 8 at the Church of Saint Mary Magdalene, sung by a group that’s been acclaimed for its performances of medieval music and Gregorian chant. The five-voice women’s ensemble Schola Magdalena is led by artistic director Stephanie Martin.

And sprinkled through the ambitious Summer Music in the Garden programme of the Toronto Music Garden – a concert almost every Sunday and Thursday from now till late September – are the following hour-long programmes, each one featuring a different aspect of early music:

July 4: On the day before her Music Mondays concert (described above), Viva BiancaLuna Biffi’s imaginative show “Fermate il Passo” can be heard here too, in this lovely outdoor setting.

July 15: “In Four Hands, Twenty-Nine Strings,” baroque violinist Linda Melsted and guitarist Terry McKenna explore a whole range of styles from the 17th to the 20th century – old English dance tunes, an opera overture, tango and more.

August 12: “Inspired by Cremona” presents some of the bold new music created to showcase the unsurpassed perfection of the stringed instruments crafted by 17th-century Italian makers. Music by Farina, Merula and Castello will be performed by baroque violinists Patricia Ahern and Linda Melsted, harpsichordist Borys Medicky and lutenist Lucas Harris.

August 22: In “Masque of the Garden,” musicians of the Toronto Masque Theatre, actor Derek Boyes and baroque dancer Dorothea Ventura celebrate the Music Garden itself, with music and dances that inspired the six sections of the garden.

August 26: “Able was I ere I heard Abel” is a tribute to the 18th century’s last great gamba virtuoso, Carl Friedrich Abel. Gambist Justin Haynes and baroque cellist Kate Bennett Haynes present music by Haydn, Schaffrath, and Abel himself.

September 2: In “Bach at Dusk,” cellist Winona Zelenka’s six-year odyssey through the Bach solo cello suites is fulfilled, with her performance of the Suite in C Minor (which is actually number five in the set).

It’s so easy to “catch the fire” of a summer festival – music springing up in various places, artists and concert-goers sharing the excitement of magical moments – and I urge you to work one or more into your summer plans. Here’s some of what you might find in various Southern Ontario festivals:

July 4: North of Toronto at historic Sharon Temple, Music at Sharon presents Les Voix Baroques, a celebrated ensemble specializing in vocal works from the Renaissance and Baroque. They’ll offer music by Charpentier and Carissimi in this imposing space.

July 18: Northwest of Campbellford, the Westben Festival presents the Toronto Consort in their presentation “Shakespeare’s Songbook.” The Consort uses the songs and dances of Shakespeare’s plays to engage the audience in the wonderful world of Elizabethan music: “music for fools, fairies and Falstaff.”

July 9-August 1: The Elora Festival takes place in a village with a spectacular setting along the Elora Gorge, north of Guelph. If you go, you’ll be able to hear four early music concerts: choral works with the Elora Festival Singers and collaborating artists on July 18 (Handel and Vivaldi) and July 22 (The Tudors); the delightfully daring group I Furiosi on July 24; and “Love: Sacred and Profane” on July 31 – a programme of renaissance music presented by Ludus Modalis Vocal Ensemble from France.

July 16-August 8: At the Festival of the Sound in Parry Sound, you can hear concerts as diverse as “Sound the Trumpet” (music for trumpet, soprano and piano by Purcell, Handel, Bach and Scarlatti) on July 29; Bach’s powerful B Minor Mass on July 30; and “Baroque on the Boat” (a morning concert on the M.V. Chippewa in Georgian Bay with the Festival Winds) on August 6.

July 19-August 22: At Stratford Summer Music, gems seem to be multiplying: Winona Zelenka, having recently recorded all the Bach solo cello suites, will perform each of them in separate concerts – and as several of these are now sold out, more performances are being added as I write. (Zelenka is featured as the cover story in The WholeNote’s June issue.) As well, Bach’s Coffee Cantata can be enjoyed in the appropriate setting of a coffee house (August 13, 14 and 15); and from it another event has been brewed: “Bawk’s” (alias Tiefenbach’s) Cappuccino Cantata (or The Lonely Barista) can be savoured the following week (August 20, 21 and 22).

July 24-August 7: If you find yourself in Ottawa this summer, you must take in some events of the Ottawa Chamber Music Festival. July 28: Les Voix Humaines (gambists Susie Napper and Margaret Little) present “Master and Pupil: Sainte-Colombe, the master, and Marin Marais, his pupil”; August 1: Ensemble Caprice explores an unlikely connection in “Bach and the Baroque Gypsies”; August 5: Helene Plouffe, Mark Simonds and friends present “Discovering the viola d’amore and chalumeau”; August 5: Ludus Modalis perform “Spiritual Songs and Psalms of the Renaissance” with music by Sweelinck, Estocart, Ferrabosco, Costelley and Le Jeune. (This list is not comprehensive, so do check the listings.)

As for me, I am enslaved by a gamba and a cat, neither of whom travels very well; so I’ll probably do most of my concert-going within the boundaries of Toronto. But you never know – don’t be surprised if you find me at any of the aforementioned events. And may your own treasure hunt be fascinating!

Simone Desilets is a long-time contributor to The WholeNote in several capacities, who plays the viola da gamba. She can be contacted at: earlymusic@thewholenote.com.

As usual, there’s no shortage of interest on the early music scene this month, as the 2009/10 season draws to a close and the 2010 summer season begins.
Viva BiancaLuna Biffi is a name I hadn’t heard before, until I was alerted to her presence at three different concert series in Southern Ontario this month. This engaging Italian musician has a solid grounding in medieval fiddle, renaissance viola da gamba, baroque cello and voice, and she’s a specialist in the late 15th/early 16th-century form of Italian secular song known as the frottola, a predecessor to the madrigal.

Biffi has revived a long-lost art practised by late renaissance and early baroque musicians, singing the upper line of the songs while performing her own arrangement of the other voices on the viola d’arco (no mean feat!) – and, judging from the audio files I’ve heard, she’s a consummate and I’ll bet completely delightful musical storyteller with a twinkle in her eye, a smile in her voice and an apt sense of accompaniment on her instrument.

The one-woman show she brings to Canada is Fermate il Passo (“Stay a moment, passer-by!”). She describes it as a mini- or proto-opera (opera as we know it had yet to be born), that charts the course of love from sunset to night to dawn. I thought it might be interesting to follow her around and have a look at this area’s summer festivals where she’ll be performing.

On June 19 you can hear Biffi at Knox United Church in Ayr, one of the Grand River Baroque Festival’s two venues. I think she’ll fit in well with the spirit of this festival – it really is a feast of wonderful performers and very unusual programming. Artistic directors Guy Few and Nadina Mackie Jackson have conjured up three days of celebration that include a masquerade gala with fireworks, a concert-combination of Vivaldi and Piazzolla, and another concert of music by Glenn Buhr, Mathieu Lussier, Vivaldi and the Chevalier de Saint-Georges. There’s early music mixed with pop (“Pop-Period Fusion”) and fencing demonstrations too. It all takes place from June 18 to 20, just west of Kitchener in the Buehlow Barn and a bit south of that in Ayr.

Then, after appearances at the Montreal Baroque Festival (June 25) and in Quebec City, Biffi returns to Toronto on July 4 for the Toronto Music Garden’s “Summer Music in the Garden” series, curated by Tamara Bernstein. The design of this lovely public garden was inspired by a Bach unaccompanied cello suite – an appropriate setting for early music – and Biffi’s performance there will be the first of this year’s early music lineup. (There will be more news of what’s to come in the July/August WholeNote.)
Biffi’s final appearance in this area is on July 5 at the Church of the Holy Trinity, in its “Music Mondays” series. Right in the middle of downtown Toronto, you can spend an hour or so on a Monday afternoon in this quiet setting, enveloped in intimate music-making.

Tafelmusik’s  “Baroque Summer Institute” is a comprehensive training programme in baroque performance, now in its ninth year and held at U of T’s Faculty of Music. It attracts about 85 participants from around the world – and no wonder: study includes orchestra and choir rehearsals, masterclasses, opera scene study for singers, chamber ensembles, private lessons, lectures and workshops, classes in baroque dance, and concerts. This year’s Institute takes place from June 6 to 19. During this time four concerts will be presented – June 7, 12, 16 and 19 – featuring either Institute participants or faculty, and ending in a “Grand Finale” with combined forces in a baroque extravaganza. Both faculty and students are top-notch, and one couldn’t go wrong in checking out the fruits of their labours.

A few more concerts

Helmuth Rilling came to town a few weeks ago to conduct the Toronto Symphony and collaborating artists in stunning performances of Bach’s B Minor Mass. A lot of it is still in my ear, and I remember having particular “heroes” within the performing forces – one of whom was the first cellist, whose sheer commitment to the beauty and inexorability of her line was riveting to hear and to see. Winona Zelenka was the cellist – featured in the magazine this month. She’ll be playing at the Glenn Gould Studio on June 6, to celebrate the release of her new two-CD recording of Bach’s cello suites.

About 40 kilometres north of Toronto stands the Sharon Temple, a unique architectural beauty and a testimonial to the vision of the Children of Peace, who built it in the 19th century. The “Music at Sharon” concert series takes place there on Sunday afternoons, and Ensemble Polaris (a group difficult to classify) appears there on June 13. While they seek to explore the music of northern countries and traditions, many of the members of this group are early-music specialists as well, and you can hear ancient influences in their varied and colourful soundscape.

Also on June 13, the Toronto Early Music Centre presents the last of its “Musically Speaking” series for this year. Ensemble L’indiscrète performs the Pièces de clavecin en concerts by Rameau, as well as music by Marais, Buxtehude and Telemann, on harpsichord, baroque violin and viola da gamba.

Another concert at the Sharon Temple that is clearly devoted to early music is a performance by Les Voix Baroques, on July 4. A celebrated ensemble specializing in vocal works from the Renaissance and Baroque, they will perform music by Charpentier and Carrisimi.

Simone Desilets is a long-time contributor to The WholeNote in several capacities, who plays the viola da gamba. She can be contacted at: earlymusic@thewholenote.com.

There’s a relatively new organization in town with a unique purpose: to celebrate the art of continuo playing. The Toronto Continuo Collective was established in the fall of 2005 by Lucas Harris, player of theorbo, lute and Baroque guitar; and Boris Medicky, harpsichordist and organist. Having both worked with the New York Continuo Collective, these two musicians saw fertile ground for nurturing this art in Toronto.

Continuo is the art of interpreting the accompaniment to a melody as practised in the Baroque era, starting with a written bass line and (often but not always) attendant symbols known as “figures.” A good continuo player (lutenist, guitarist, keyboardist or harpist) can interpret the implied harmonies, and also has a handle on the appropriate stylistic elements – ornamentation, word painting, etc. – that make the music expressive, colourful and interesting. This takes some expertise, which the musicians of the ToCC are enthusiastically immersed in developing.

Of course, having a melody to accompany is a fundamental necessity, so a Singers’ Collective was also created as a parallel workshop for singers interested in working on Baroque vocal style, technique, gesture etc. These two groups working together have produced several staged performances.

On the evenings of April 11 and 12 they’ll present the latest in their projects: a performance of scenes from Cavalli’s 1645 opera Doriclea, along with Italian instrumental music from the same period. With theorbos, lutes, harpsichord, viola da gamba, Baroque harp, Baroque guitar, a string ensemble and eight singers, they’ll tell stories of the character Doriclea who oscillates between female and male, along with suitors and foes in love and war.

Also on April 11 (in the afternoon, fortunately), there’s a concert performance by two gamba players I admire, Kate Bennett Haynes and Justin Haynes. They’ll be playing solo repertoire for bass instruments – gorgeous music from early 18th-century France, works by Marais, Barriere and Boismortier. This concert is one of the “Musically Speaking” series presented by the Toronto Early Music Centre, an organization whose name is very familiar to me. However, after thinking about it, I admitted to myself that I have a pretty sketchy idea of what, exactly, the Toronto Early Music Centre does. So I asked president Frank Nakashima to tell me a bit about the focus of TEMC’s activities.

These are summed up in its mandate: “This non-profit organization promotes the appreciation of historically informed performances of early music in the community through sponsorship of concerts and activities such as lectures, workshops, exhibitions and masterclasses with visiting and local artists.” It has been active since its founding in 1984 – and is more a “centre” in the philosophical rather than the physical sense. Its role is often behind the scenes: sponsoring and supporting events through organizing venues and advertising concert appearances.

But the TEMC also has a visible component. It hosts the well-known Early Music Fair, held at Montgomery’s Inn every September, as well as the TEMC Vocal Circle, which meets once a month to explore early choral music. And its own concert series, “Musically Speaking,” occurs monthly from January to June at Toronto’s Church of the Holy Trinity.

Concerning this series, Nakashima tells me: “We try to make it as inviting and as friendly as possible, not just enticing, but to create a learning environment. These programmes are only one hour in length, and are meant to provide an opportunity, especially for the uninitiated, to give early music a try. Pay-what-you-can admission isn’t a big financial risk. I encourage the performers to be interactive and engaging, with the intent of helping the audience to leave that concert having learned something about their music.”

Sounds like a great way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

More concerts

• April 7 to 11: Tafelmusik violinist Julia Wedman, in collaboration with Earth Day Canada, has conceived the programme “Forces of Nature: An Earth Day Celebration,” taking us on a musical journey with our Earth through the course of a single day. Not only music by Rameau, Vivaldi, Geminiani, Haydn, Telemann and Buonamente, but also a pre-concert lecture, a gallery of photography and interactive displays will be available.

• April 17 & 18: “My mistress has a laugh sweeter than honey…” This is just one of the many attributes of women that will be celebrated by the 15-voice a cappella Cantemus Singers in Renaissance poetry and song. This programme is presented on Saturday evening at Hope United Church, Danforth and Main; and on Sunday afternoon at the Church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, Keele and Glenlake.

• April 18, in Kitchener: Nota Bene Period Orchestra with their guest, Tactus Vocal Ensemble, presents “Meet you at the Crossroad.” In recognition that Easter 2010 marks a crossroad in the calendars of the Western and Eastern Orthodox faiths, music celebrating both traditions will be explored.

• April 23: Sine Nomine Ensemble for Medieval Music presents “Fort oultrageuse et desraisonable depense – Music for medieval feasts and occasions.” Banquets, weddings, coronations could be lavish affairs, as this selection of music and readings reveal.

• April 24: In their final concert of the season, “Songs of the Americas,” Musicians In Ordinary takes us to Latin America and the USA with songs and guitar solos from the 17th to 19th centuries.

• April 24: Scaramella presents “Stylus Phantasticus,” featuring music that reveals all kinds of extraordinary harmonic and melodic ingenuity, by composers who were not afraid to break a few rules.

• May 5 to 8: The Classical Music Consort, directed by Ashiq Aziz, presents “Handel @ St. James.” In this four-concert festival, various facets of Handel’s genius are explored in lesser-known solo, chamber and vocal music.

There’s a lot more! A brief search through this month’s listings reveals a string trio version of Bach’s Goldberg Variations, presented twice by Trio Accord (April 5 in Waterloo and April 8 in Toronto); Bach organ music played by Philip Fournier (April 17); the Pergolesi Stabat Mater sung by Cantores Celestes Women’s Choir (April 17); recorder duets from the 17th, 18th and 20th centuries played by Claudia Ophardt and Colin Savage (April 8); music by Palestrina, Victoria, Vivaldi – and other treasures for you to find.

Simone Desilets is a long-time contributor to The WholeNote in several capacities, who plays the viola da gamba. She can be contacted at: earlymusic@thewholenote.com.