Classic Ross Amico

Tag: Early Music

René Clemencic Early Music Pioneer RIP

An unfortunate consequence of living to a ripe age is that after a sustained period of retirement people tend to assume you are long-gone. Such is the case with René Clemencic, whom, I am stunned to learn, died only days ago at the age of 94. For all I know, he could have still been active until comparatively recently, but I have not seen any new recordings for decades.

A true blast from the past, then, Clemencic was a major player from the infancy of the modern HIP (historically informed performance) movement. In 1958, he created Musica Antiqua with the purpose of resurrecting music of the Middle Ages and Renaissance on period instruments. A decade later, he founded the Clemencic Consort. His recordings on the Harmonia Mundi label now seem as ancient as the music he championed. The style is at times a little heavier, a little thicker than we’ve become used to in this particular repertoire. Still, there’s no denying the quality of the musicianship. And who can really say for sure what performance sounded like in the Middle Ages anyway?

Interestingly, in addition to being a musicologist, a conductor, and a talented performer – with a mastery of the recorder, clavichord, and harpsichord – Clemencic was also a composer. In fact, with a well-rounded education and broader interests in art and philosophy, he was something of a renaissance man himself.

I am happy to learn he seemed to have enjoyed life. He could have picked no better time to depart it than March, which is, after all, Early Music Month. R.I.P.

https://www.archyworldys.com/early-music-specialist-rene-clemencic-died-kurier-at/

A more extensive biography from his website

http://www.clemencic.at/en/frbiography.html

A favorite Clemencic album of old Hungarian dances

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VsyDsydQxiU

Centuries before Carl Orff, the roots of “Carmina Burana”

Something entirely new to me, Clemencic’s opera “Gilgamesh”

March 11, 2022
Local Music Events to Brighten a Rainy Day

Looking for a little musical cheer on a rainy Sunday? Here are four musical events with local connections to enjoy.

The Bucks County-based ensemble La Fiocco – directed by Dr. Lewis Baratz, host of WWFM’s “Well-Tempered Baroque” – will host Early Music keyboard virtuoso Corina Marti. Marti will perform on a reconstruction of a hand-pumped portative organ, the clavisimbalum, and an early 16th century-type harpsichord. The program will include works by Francesco Landini, istampittas from anonymous English, Italian, and French sources, intabulations from the 15th century Faenza Codex, and pieces from the 16th century Amerbach Codex. The concert will be streamed from the neo-Romanesque St. Marienkirche in Basel, Switzerland. LINKS TO THE CONCERT AND ZOOM RECEPTION WILL BE SENT PRIOR TO THE PERFORMANCE, so if you’re interested, register ASAP! The concert will debut this afternoon at 3:00 EDT, and will be available on-demand through 4/17. For more information, visit lafiocco.org.

During an ordinary, Covid-free season, La Fiocco would be performing at 1867 Sanctuary Arts and Culture Center, in Ewing, NJ, or at Trinity Episcopal Church, Solebury, PA (near New Hope). Another ensemble that makes Solebury its home is Concordia Chamber Players. The ensemble’s artistic director, cellist Michelle Djokic, will be joined by violinist Siwoo Kim and violist Milena Pajaro-vande Stadt, in a concert filmed at ArtYard in Frenchtown, NJ. On the program will be works by Carlos Simon, Milad Yousufi, Igor Stravinsky, Johann Sebastian Bach, Zoltan Kodaly, Erno Dohnanyi, and Georges Enescu. The video will premiere at 5:00 EDT, and remain posted for your viewing and listening pleasure, at concordiaplayers.org.

On Friday, Princeton composer Julian Grant’s latest, a vocal chamber music work/pocket opera on the subject of a Russian folk tale, received its world premiere, courtesy of Harvard Musical Association. Grant’s “Salt” forms the centerpiece of a concert by Emmanuel Music that also includes plenty of Beethoven: selections from his Scottish and Irish folksongs, the song cycle “An die ferne Geliebte” (“To the Distant Beloved”), and the Presto movement from the Piano Trio, Op. 1, No. 1. The video is now posted. Grant’s piece begins about 48 minutes in, but, by all means, start at the beginning of the concert and enjoy the entire program! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCTXlzq_6Zk

Finally, if you’re in need of a lift, Princeton Symphony Orchestra brass provide a surge of hope and nobility via Aaron Copland’s “Fanfare for the Common Man.” The performance was recorded in Princeton’s Palmer Square. Watch it now, and turn that frown upside down, at princetonsymphony.org.

April 11, 2021
Jaap Schröder Dies Early Music Pioneer

With only hours remaining in 2019, the waning year lashed out to claim its last high-profile musical victim.

Violinist Jaap Schröder has joined his former colleagues, harpsichordist Gustav Leonhardt (d. 2012 at 83), flutist and conductor Frans Brüggen (d. 2014 at 79), and cellist Anner Bylsma (d. July 25 at 85) in the Great Beyond. The four recorded together, in various permutations, as chamber musicians and as members of Concerto Amsterdam.

Concerto Amsterdam was established by Shröder in 1960, employing members of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. The ensemble started out playing on modern instruments, using historically-informed techniques, but gradually transitioned to period instruments.

Schröder was also director and concertmaster of the Academy of Ancient Music and served as visiting music director of the Smithsonian Chamber Players. He died on New Year’s Eve at the age of 94.

Bylsma, Schröder, Leonhardt and Brüggen (pictured, left to right) perform Telemann’s “Paris” Quartet No. 4

January 2, 2020
Classical Christmas Music Beyond the Carols

This time of year, with Christmas still weeks away, I’m never quite sure if I’m programming too much holiday music, or not quite enough. I walk away from an air shift feeling vaguely uneasy, as if I’ve served up a platter that is neither fish nor fowl.

Of course, if I were putting together a playlist entirely for myself, it would be all-mistletoe all the time. But I’m confident that, as the Big Day draws nigh, I will cross the tipping point and everything will start to feel a bit more natural and perhaps more satisfying. In the classical music world, the demarcation seems to be Beethoven’s birthday (December 16).

When it comes to Christmas, I think classical music stations tend to work against themselves. By the third week of December, listeners have already been subjected to countless arrangements of the same ten or 15 carols. Naturally, a kind of fatigue begins to creep in. 1000 years of Christmas music, and the scale tips in favor of “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing.”

If stations were more creative in their programming for Christmas, balancing the secular with the sacred, and broadening the coverage to incorporate music from all eras, from the Middle Ages to the present – allowing for abundant interludes in the form of winter portraits or evocations of the seasons – it could make for a truly stimulating month, and perhaps the backlash wouldn’t be so extreme. There’s so much music that we never get to hear.

Consider all this as preamble to today’s Noontime Concert on The Classical Network. Piffaro, The Renaissance Band will be joined by Les Canards Chantants and actors Mark Jaster and Sabrina Mandell for a program of 15th century Christmas music, titled “A French Noël.” David Osenberg will be your host and Piffaro artistic directors Joan Kimball and Robert Wiemken will provide commentary.

I’ll be around at 1:40. At 2:00, we’ll cross the channel for Rutland Boughton’s “Bethlehem,” a choral drama adapted from the 14th century Coventry Nativity Play. Composed in 1915 and written very much in the English pastoral idiom, the work incorporates familiar carols, such as “O come all ye faithful” and “The Holly and the Ivy.”

Taking a page from Richard Wagner, Boughton composed a cycle of five operas on Arthurian themes and started a Glastonbury Festival, in the style of Bayreuth. Alas, neither the operas nor the festival, as it was originally conceived, have endured.

In Boughton’s “Bethlehem,” the shepherds bear gifts of a penny whistle, a hat, and a pair of warm mittens. The Three Wise Men hobnob with Herod, Zarathustra, and yes, Merlin. If you gravitate toward the music of Ralph Vaughan Williams, you’re bound to fall under the work’s disarming spell.

It’s never too early to be Early. Join us for a Piffaro Noël, and then on to Coventry, from 12 to 4 p.m. EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

December 10, 2019
Giving Tuesday on The Classical Network

It’s December 3, and we’re still feeling the aftershocks of Thanksgiving – and also perhaps the gravitational pull, a little bit, of Christmas.

It is the season of giving, and on this Giving Tuesday, The Classical Network will salute a number of non-profit organizations that continue to make a difference in our community. WWFM hosts will conduct brief interviews throughout the day, from 10:15 a.m. to 5 p.m., with representatives from the following:

HomeFront (10:15 a.m.); SAVE, A Friend to Homeless Animals (11 a.m.); Trenton Music Makers (2 p.m.); Womanspace, Inc. (3:30 p.m.); Princeton Senior Resource Center – PSRC (4:15 p.m.); and Trenton Area Soup Kitchen (5 p.m.)

Tune in to learn more and see how you, too, can lend a helping hand.

Of course, we’ll also serve up ample helpings of music along the way. Today’s Noontime Concert is a kind of Early Music Advent program. The Salisbury Four will present “The Soft Complaining Flute,” with selections from the 16th and 17th centuries. The program was presented last December, as part of the Midtown Concerts series, hosted by Gotham Early Music Scene, or GEMS, at the chapel of St. Bartholomew’s Church, 325 Park Avenue, in midtown Manhattan. Free concerts are held at St. Bart’s every Thursday at 1:15 p.m.

GEMS supports artists and organizations in New York City devoted to Early Music. You can learn more and view a complete schedule by visiting the events calendar at gemsny.org.

Following today’s concert broadcast, and in between interviews, I’ll be peppering my playlist with music of love, thanks, and concern for our fellow human beings, including Michael Abels’ “Global Warming” (the title inevitably suggests climate change, but the music itself celebrates the coming together of the world’s diverse cultures), Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 15 in A minor, Op. 132 (its third movement is inscribed by the composer, “Holy song of thanksgiving of a convalescent to the Deity”), and Aaron Copland’s suite from “The Tender Land” (with its song of thanks, “The Promise of Living”).

In addition, apropos of our visit from Trenton Music Makers, we’ll hear “The Music Makers” by Sir Edward Elgar.

You don’t have to give ‘til it hurts. It actually feels pretty good.
Giving makes the world a better place. Consider offering your time and support to those in our community who make it their mission to help others.

Music is hope. It’s consolation, and it’s inspiration. It’s the gift that keeps on giving, from 12 to 4 p.m. EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

December 3, 2019

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