2004 CONCERT ARCHIVES

NOËL! NOËL! 2004

Divine early evening concerts full of festive joy

Featuring the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra and Choir
Guest soloist, soprano TARYN FIEBIG
Artistic Director PAUL DYER

"A sparkling young soprano brings style to the age-old sound of Christmas."
THE (SYDNEY) MAGAZINE 2003

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BRANDENBURG SERIES 2004, Concert 5
BRANDENBURG 2

Guest director and soloist, baroque violin Manfredo Kraemer (Argentina)
Guest soloist, baroque trumpet, Pascal Geay (France)

Dynamic Argentine violinist Manfredo Kraemer leads the orchestra in a journey through the highlights of the baroque concerto

Manfredo Kraemer, renowned for his risk-taking musical approach, will partner concertmaster Lucinda Moon and solo cellist Jamie Hey in one of Vivaldi’s revolutionary L’estro Armonico violin concertos. He will also take the lead in Bach’s double violin concerto, perhaps one of the most divine pieces ever written.

Brandenburg Concerto No 2 is the most extraordinary of the set of concertos by Bach from which the orchestra takes its name. It will be a treat to hear this work live on period instruments and a thrill to hear the sparklingly virtuosic trumpet fanfare played by one of the world’s leading exponents of baroque trumpet, Pascal Geay.

The luscious and energetic Brandenburg string sound is superbly suited to the Concerto Grosso. These two works by Handel and Avison both skilfully incorporate melodies by Scarlatti, whose new keyboard works were the all the rage at the time.

HANDEL
Concerto Grosso Op 6, No 2, HWV 320
VIVALDI
Concerto for 2 trumpets in C major, RV 537
{Staff/Sullivan}
BACH
Concerto in D minor for 2 violins, BWV 1043
{Kraemer/Moon}
AVISON
Concerto No 9 in C major
VIVALDI
Concerto 2 violins and cello in D minor, Op 3, No 11 from L’estro Armonico
{Kraemer/Moon/Hey}
BACH
Brandenburg Concerto No 2 in F major, BWV 1047

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BRANDENBURG SERIES 2004, Concert 4
TANGO BAROCCO

Guest director and soloist, baroque violin Marc Destrubé (Canada)

From the seduction of baroque dance to the passion of tango

The essence and origins of baroque orchestral music are dance and display. The genius of these master composers was to take popular dances and transform them into sophisticated, noble and often witty orchestral showpieces.

The celebrated Marin Marais, familiar to many from the cult film Tous les matins du monde starring Gerard Dépardieu, turns his hand to the rich theatrical colours of the French court dance suite in his sumptuous Divertissement from the opera Alcione.

Baroque audiences expected to be dazzled. Exceptional Canadian baroque violinist Marc Destrubé will perform Leclair’s ravishing and highly virtuosic Violin Concerto in D major.

Dance has been the seductive weapon of great lovers from the time of minuets in the court of Louis XIV to the tango of Rudolph Valentino – and the art of dance continues to capture our imagination. Witness the Australian première of Tango Concerto composed in baroque style by the viola da gamba player René Duchiffre in 2001.

LECLAIR
Overture to the opera Scylla et Glaucus
LECLAIR
Violin Concerto in D major, Op 7 No 2 {Destrubé}
MARAIS
Divertissement from the opera Alcione, 4th Dance Suite: Airs pour les Matelots et les Tritons
HANDEL
Overture and Dance Suite from the opera Rodrigo
DUCHIFFRE
Concerto Tango in D minor for two violas da gamba

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BRANDENBURG SERIES 2004, Concert 3
MOZART’S TENOR

Guest soloist, tenor Christoph Prégardien (Germany)

"One of the great lyric tenors of our time."
FRANKFURTER ALLGEMEINE

For MOZART’S TENOR, Artistic Director Paul Dyer has programmed concerts that will unleash the full musical might of the Orchestra for Mozart’s Linz Symphony and showcase German star tenor Christoph Prégardien in virtuosic highlights from Mozart and Weber.

Famous for his exquisite bronze velvet tone, Prégardien is one of the exceptionally talented singers of this generation. His discography includes over 120 recordings including frequent collaborations with singers such as Scholl and Bartoli.

The inspiration for many of Mozart’s arias came from unusually talented star vocalists of his time. Written for virtuoso tenor Anton Raaff, the title role of Idomeneo is one of the most spectacular and demanding in the entire opera repertoire.

Another treat will be Mozart’s Symphony No. 36, known as the Linz. It is a testament to his genius that Mozart wrote the great work in only six days. During a brief stay in Linz in 1783, he had an offer to give a concert but didn’t happen to have a symphony on him. What should he do but write one for the occasion?

A first for the Brandenburg will be a foray into the early Romantic era with the divine tenor aria Durch die Wälder from Weber’s opera Der Freischütz.

MOZART
Concert Aria, Aura, che intorno spiri, K431 {Prégardien}
MOZART
Symphony No 36 Linz, K425
MOZART
From the opera Idomeneo, K367:
Overture;
Aria Fuor del mar {Prégardien};
Ballet Music
WEBER
Scene, Waltz and Aria Durch die Wälder from the opera Der Freischütz {Prégardien}

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BRANDENBURG SERIES 2004, Concert 2
THE NIGHT WATCHMAN

Guest soloist, bass Wolf Matthias Friedrich (Germany)

Characters both earthy and divine brought to life by the stunning and versatile bass voice of Wolf Matthias Friedrich.

The deep bass voice was loved by baroque audiences.

The malevolence of Lucifer’s character in Handel’s Oratorio La Resurrezione and the stumbling, inebriated Night Watchman in the comic serenade of the same name by Heinrich Biber, perfectly suit the dark swagger of a great bass voice.

But audiences had equal affection for the bass role in religious works, where paradoxically the bass was the voice of reassurance and divine love – such as Bach’s glorious cantata Ich habe genug or Biber’s Nisi Dominus.

BERTALI
Sonata for strings and continuo Taussent Gulden (One thousand gilders)
BIBER
Nisi Dominus for bass voice, solo violin and continuo {Friedrich}
BIBER
Partita No III for strings and continuo from Harmonia Artificioso – Ariosa
BUXTEHUDE
Cantata for bass voice, strings and continuo Mein Herz ist bereit (My heart is ready) {Friedrich}
BIBER
Ciacona from The Nightwatchman Serenade for bass voice, strings and continuo {Friedrich}
BACH
Cantata No 82, Ich habe genug for bass voice, oboe, strings and continuo, BWV 82 {Friedrich}
VIVALDI
Concerto in G minor for two cellos, RV 531
HANDEL
Lucifer’s second bass aria O voi, dell’Erebo from the oratorio La Resurrezione {Friedrich}

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BRANDENBURG SERIES 2004, Concert 1
WEST END BAROQUE

Guest soloist, recorder Genevieve Lacey (Australia)

The flamboyant nightingale of the recorder Genevieve Lacey evokes the heyday of bourgeois musical theatre in 18th century London with baroque 'entertainments' full of pathos and joy.

At the height of its fame and glory, the recorder was the most popular instrument of the rising middle class. Genevieve Lacey’s mercurial recorders will weave a rich many-coloured tapestry transporting us to the cosmopolitan, sophisticated London of the baroque era.

Interlaced between ‘entertainments’ are slow airs of heartbreaking simplicity, crazed divisions with bizarre flights of fancy, a lament to make you swoon and two classic orchestral works from Handel at the height of his powers.

Part the First
HANDEL Concerto grosso in B minor HWV 330
The first entertainment
WILLIAM BABELL
Concerto No 1 in D
Dances and Divisions
MATTEIS Ground after the Scotch Humour; BANISTER Another Division on a Ground from The Division Violin; FINGER A Division on a Ground from The Division Flute; UCCELLINI Aria sopra La Bergamasca
A second entertainment
BABELL Concerto No 2 in D

Part the Second
HANDEL Organ concerto in F, Op 4, No 5, HWV 293
More sombre entertainment
BABELL Concerto No. 3 in D minor
Slow Ayres and Laments
PURCELL Two in one upon a ground and Evening Hymn; GEMINIANI Lady Ann Bothwell’s Lament
The final entertainment
SAMMARTINI Concerto a piu instrumenti in F

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BRANDENBURG ENSEMBLE 2004, Program 2
FRANCE AND ITALY IN THE LATE BAROQUE

At the height of the baroque era, musical Europe was polarised between the influences of Italy and France. Like the artificial society of the royal court at Versailles, French music was stately, cultivated, at once grandiose and reserved, its aesthetic summed up in the refined sound of the viola da gamba. Italian music, on the other hand, was impassioned, personal, by turns intensely lyrical and moving relentlessly forward, its quintessential violin-driven sound crystallised in the music of Archangelo Corelli.

These contradictions are personified in the pivotal figure of Jean-Baptiste Lully, the Italian who came to dominate French music at the height of its glory under the Sun-King, Louis XIV. Our program begins with Lully’s death in 1674, marked by Jean-Féry Rebel’s Tombeau. Now a new style could gradually emerge, a mixture of the classical French 'taste' with the more extrovert elements of the Italian style.

Couperin, in particular, combined the best of both, without setting one above the other, and each work in this program expresses this synthesis in some way. Leclair champions that most Italian of instruments, the violin, while incorporating French airs and dance forms in his compositions. Telemann, incorporating both styles in his Paris quartets, combines the classic French and Italian instruments, and of course we include a sample from Corelli, the Italian who inspired them all.

Repertoire

REBEL
Le Tombeau de Monsieur Lully
LECLAIR
Sonata No 1 in B minor
TELEMANN
Paris Quartet No 6 in E minor
CORELLI
Sonata for trumpet in D major
COUPERIN
L'Apothéose de Corelli
MARAIS
La Sonnerie de St Genevieve
du Mont de Paris