MiV Home
A garden in Oak Bay
July 12, 2020
Distance, they say, lends perspective. (Although for Mark Twain, it lent enchantment; however, I have no intention of indulging in mere persiflage here...)
Perspective, yes, but also a blurring of fine distinctions: thus, there can be little doubt that, for the early twenty-first century music lover who does not specialise in the period, much baroque music sounds the same, no matter where it was composed or the nationality of its composer.
While laying no claims to being any kind of specialist myself, I have over the last two decades (and more) attended enough Early Music Society performances to know this for the canard that it is and I can usually tell my Bach from my Handel from my Vivaldi, not to mention the lesser (known) figures of that era.
And, even if I had not acquired this ability over the years, Sunday afternoon's charming concert, held in positively sylvan surroundings on a sunny summer's afternoon, not only amply demonstrated that composers of the first half of the eighteenth century were by no means interchangeable, it also allowed us to forget, albeit fairly briefly, "what is technically known as All This" (Hadley Freeman, The Guardian).
The afternoon opened with three extracts from Handel's Water Music, deftly arranged for horn, bassoon and cello by Andrew Clark.
This had the attribute of all first-class arrangements, in that nothing seemed to be missing and one could easily have been persuaded that this was Handel's original and the more familiar orchestral version an expanded version.
The opening allegro was spirited and infused with a sense of joy at once again being able to perform in public — no matter how small this particular "public" was.
I was also struck, during the minuet, by the thought that the baroque horn and bassoon seemed somewhat closer, in terms of timbre, than their modern "improved" equivalents. Or perhaps it was simply the immaculately synchronised phrasing on offer.
The afternoon took its title from a set of sonatas by Michel Corrette: Les Délices de la Solitude: Sonates, Pour le Violloncelle, Viole, Basson Avec la Basse Continue chiffrée — literally, "The Delights of Solitude: Sonatas for cello, viol, bassoon with encrypted basso continuo"; and if you're wondering about that "encrypted", I believe that it actually signifies that the continuo part is indicated by means of a number (chriffre being a cognate of "cipher" in its original meaning, i.e. that of "number"): what is is more commonly known today as a "figured bass" or "thoroughbass". A brief glance at the score would certainly seem to confirm this.
Corrette's Op.20 dates from 1738 (approximately) and consists of half a dozen sonatas, of which we were treated (le mot juste, I do believe) to the last two, played with considerable enthusiasm by Katrina Russell and Martin Bonham.
I particularly enjoyed the "call and response" of the opening Preludio, the Allemanda was quite charming and the jaunty, partly canonical presto which closed the piece certainly set my feet tapping, even though, at times, the music was almost overwhelmed by the sound of the wind in the willows (in all honesty, I think they were actually Garry Oaks; blame Kenneth Grahame).
Enjoyable though Corrette undoubtedly is, I doubt if anybody would suggest that he occupies a place in the same hallowed league as Johann Sebastian, particularly when the latter was represented by the Sarabande from the first cello suite, BWV1007, one of the summits of the cello literature.
As my colleague James Young reviews the majority of the early music concerts around town (when there are any, of course), it had been some years since I heard Bonham play and the loss was mine; I had forgotten just what a fine and sensitive musician he is. This was most distinguished playing and for the three or so minutes of its duration I was transported.
Joseph Saggione was another name completely new to me, which the fact that he seems to have also gone by the names Giuseppe Fedeli and Giuseppe Fedeli Saggione does nothing to explain. His Sonata V for two bass instruments is in six brief movements and was marvellously played by Russell and Bonham. There were some remarkable moments, such as the second movement, Arpegio in which it was difficult to tell whether it was the cello's arpeggios or the bassoon's apparent bass line which was the accompaniment. Or the fifth movement, Paesana, whose angular bassoon line struck Bonham as typically Italian — or so he remarked to me later; for James Young it could have been from the soundtrack to a Fellini movie, whereas it put me in mind of twentieth century French wind music (by, for example, Jean Françaix). It was only the context and style of the cello part which placed it firmly in the eighteenth century.
More Handel came next, in the shape of extracts from his opera Partenope and, once again, the Water Music.
The allegro, in brisk triple time, found the three players producing a marvellously full sound; the succeeding Lord Mayor's March was an appropriate mix of the ceremonial and the martial.
The last of Corrette's eponymous sonatas proved to be, by turns, stirring and determined, absolutely beautiful (the contribution of the crickets added to, rather than subtracted from, the effect) and exceedingly jolly.
E flat is not a string player's favourite key and Bonham gave us to understand that, having chose to play one movement — the Bourrée — from Bach's fourth Cello Suite, BWV1010, as a harmonically suitable prelude to the afternoon's final item, he had rather come to regret it. It is, after all, regarded as perhaps the most technically challenging of the six.
Not that one would have guessed; the first Bourrée was spirited, and the second exquisitely delicate.
Finally, we had five pieces arranged by Russell from a set of ten (all, seemingly, in E flat) composed for two horns and bass by the brothers Ignaz and Anton Böck. These pieces actually date from 1803, making them easily the latest music on offer.
The first piece began almost with a fanfare and it has been suggested that its prefatorial nature indicates that the pieces were intended by their authors to be performed as a set.
In the event the five chosen proved a wonderful closer to the afternoon: the second piece was brisk and jolly, the third — a minuet — eminently danceable, the fourth a lovely duet between horn and bassoon, while the last was a suitably rustic Contradanze, in which the tempo was whipped up excitingly at the close.
While I was left wondering exactly how the brothers — born just three years apart and both professional horn players — divided up the compositional effort (one horn part each and sharing the cello, perhaps?), that was a mere detail and hardly relevant to the enjoyment provided.
As a way of gently easing us back into live music appreciation it is hard to see how this could have been bettered.
It was — as advertised — a truly delightful afternoon.
MiV Home