HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL OF YOU!
Attributed to Joris van Son (Flemish, 1623–1667)
Still Life with Fruit, 1600s
Milwaukee Art Museum
We hope you were able to enjoy a peaceful holiday season, despite the huge skids and brakes the Omicron variant has placed on all of our activities. Most of all, we hope you are safe and healthy!
Thank you for the bountiful donations towards our end of year appeal! Your contributions help make it possible to continue our regular programming, our important outreach work, and streaming our concerts for free on-line. We are extremely grateful.
” I keep writing ‘Stone Age’ instead of ‘Bronze Age’ on all my checks.”
OUR JANUARY IN-PERSON CONCERTS ARE STILL ON!!
Music from the Heart: Mitteldeutschland features the outstanding countertenor, Reginald Mobley.
Concert Dates:
Friday, January 14th, 2022 at 7:30pm - Brattleboro Music Center, VT [www.bmcvt.org]
Saturday, January 15th, 2022 at 7:30pm - Harvard-Epworth United Methodist Church, Cambridge
Sunday, January 16th, 2022 at 3:30pm - Follen Community Church, Lexington
Purchase your ticket today: CLICK HERE
* Attendees must provide proof of vaccination or a negative PCR test taken within 72 hours of the event. Masks required.
** We will be streaming this concert on our website starting Thursday, January 27, 2022 at 7.30pm. We will send out a reminder!
Oh la la….FOLLOWING THE FRENCH VOGUE
In the 17th century, German courts followed the French model for its string orchestras, taking their cue from the famous Vingt-quatre Violons du Roi, or the 24 Violins of the Sun-King, Louis XIV and his father Louis XIII. As the diagram above shows, the division of the 5 string groups were as follows: Dessus de violon (violins), Haute-contre de violon (violas in a high tenor range), Taille de violon (violas in a tenor range), Quinte de violon (a five-stringed, middle ranged instrument), and Basse de violon (bass). The French especially favoured the violin family for dancing and ballet music. Some of the works on our January program “Music from the Heart,” follows this tradition of a five-part string band. It allows for a very rich middle range, the sort of warmth of color that Johann Sebastian Bach chose for his Cantata BWV 54, written early in his career in Weimar in 1714. He was surely influenced by one of the leading composers of the late 17th century in central Germany (Mitteldeutschland), Philipp Heinrich Erlebach (1657-1714).
Below is an example of the beautiful sound world of strings in Philipp Heinrich Erlebach’s Air Traquenar from his Ouverture No. IV in d minor. Erlebach’s vast output of music of over 1,000 sacred and secular works was sadly ravaged by a fire in 1735, destroying all but a handful of manuscripts— just 70 remain. We will be playing three pieces from this precious collection, including his motet for countertenor, strings and basso continuo, Trocknet euch ihr heissen Zähren (Dry yourself, ye hot tears).
FROM UTTER DEVASTATION, A RESURGENCE IN MUSIC PROVIDED SOLACE FOR THE SOUL...
Detail from The Battle of White Mountain by Pieter Snayers (1592-1667)
The Thirty Years' War in Europe began in 1618, and continued on such a scale and with such devastation that its like was not seen again until The Great War of 1914. It pitched Catholics against Protestants, Lutherans against Calvinists and Catholics against Catholics across the Holy Roman Empire, drawing in divisive neighbors and lasting for thirty gruelling years, from the Defenestration of Prague to the Peace of Westphalia of 1648. Many more civilians died than soldiers; some say the German lands lost 60% of its population. Despite this horrendous loss of life, the resurgence of music in the second half of the 17th century became the focal point of every village, hamlet, town, and city in Germany— each village boasted an organ and a choir in its churches. This was aided in great part by Lutheranism, whose reformist leader, Martin Luther, placed enormous emphasis on music, and its important role in liturgy. Erlebach and Bach were both devout Lutherans. Needless to say, we all need music to help us contemplate about, believe in and celebrate our common humanity, despite the great horrors of war and conflict around the world.
