Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra, March 5, 2024

oneppo chamber music series

David Shifrin, artistic director

Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra

Passions Revealed

Tuesday, March 5, 2024 | 7:30 pm

Morse Recital Hall in Sprague Memorial Hall

José García-León, Dean

Program

Johann Friedrich Fasch

1688–1758

Pietro Antonio Locatelli

1695–1764

Antonio Vivaldi

1678–1741

Marin Marais

1656–1728

Overture in D minor, FaWV K:d4

Concerto grosso in C minor, Op. 1, No. 11

Largo – Allemande. Allegro – Sarabanda. Largo –Allegro

Concerto for bassoon in B-flat major, RV 501, “La Notte”

Largo/Fantasmi (Ghosts) – Il Sonno (Sleep) –Sorge l’Aurora (The dawn rises)

Dominic Teresi, bassoon

Chaconne from Alcyone (1706)

Georg Philipp Telemann

1681–1767

Johann Sebastian Bach 1685–1750

Jean-Joseph de Mondonville 1711–1772

Orchestral Suite in B-flat major

Ouverture – Bourrée – Plainte – Rondeau –Sarabande – Gigue

Concerto for 2 violins in D minor, BWV 1043

Vivace – Largo ma non tanto – Allegro

Aisslinn Nosky & Johanna Novom, violin

Sonate en symphonie in G minor, Op. 3, No. 1

Overtura – Gratioso – Giga

We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts.

As a courtesy to others, please silence all devices. Photography and recording of any kind is strictly prohibited. Please do not leave the hall during musical selections. Thank you.

Artist Profiles

Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra

Aisslinn Nosky, violin I

Patricia Ahern, violin I

Christopher Verrette, violin I

Cristina Zacharias, violin I

Johanna Novom, violin II

Valerie Gordon, violin II

Julia Wedman, violin II

Patrick G. Jordan, viola

Brandon Chui, viola

Keiran Campbell, violoncello

Michael Unterman, violoncello

Pippa Macmillan, double bass

John Abberger, oboe

Kathryn Montoya, oboe

Dominic Teresi, bassoon

Jeffrey Grossman, harpsichord

Aisslinn Nosky, guest director

The dynamic Canadian violinist Aisslinn Nosky has captivated audiences around the world. Her fierce passion for early music and skill as a soloist and director have generated robust appreciation. Hailed as “superb” by the New York Times and “a fearsomely powerful musician” by the Toronto Star, widespread demand for Nosky continues to grow.

Nosky was appointed concertmaster of the Handel and Haydn Society of Boston in 2011. She has also appeared as guest director and soloist with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, Holland Baroque, Portland Baroque Orchestra, and Juilliard 415. She was a member of Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra from 2005 to 2016. She

served as principal guest conductor of the Niagara Symphony from 2016 to 2019, and was guest artist-in-residence of the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra.

Nosky has recorded the complete Haydn and Mozart violin concertos with the Handel and Haydn Society.

» aisslinn.com

Tafelmusik

Every now and then a group of musicians comes along and changes the way we think about music. For over four decades, Tafelmusik has been synonymous worldwide with dynamic, engaging, and soulful performances informed by scholarship, passion, and artistic excellence. Performing on instruments and in styles appropriate to the era, Tafelmusik has performed in more than 350 cities in 32 countries. Its extensive discography on the Sony, CBC Records, Analekta, and Tafelmusik Media labels has garnered ten JUNOs and numerous international recording prizes. From a vibrant home season in Toronto, to international tours, awardwinning recordings, and inspiring education programs, Tafelmusik is a musical powerhouse with a reputation for thrilling and delighting audiences.

Tafelmusik artistic co-directors: Brandon Chui, Dominic Teresi, Cristina Zacharias

» tafelmusik.org

Program Notes

by Charlotte Nediger

Overture in D minor fasch

The organist and violinist Johann Friedrich Fasch was descended from a long line of Lutheran cantors and theologians. He studied at the Thomasschule in Leipzig and with Christoph Graupner in Darmstadt before taking up the position of court Kapellmeister in Zerbst. He remained in Zerbst until his death in 1758, but his reputation as a composer was widespread: his works were performed by Telemann in Hamburg, Bach in Leipzig, Pisendel in Dresden, and C. P. E. Bach in Berlin. He continued to send copies of his compositions to his former teacher Graupner in Darmstadt, and the library there includes a wealth of his instrumental works, including the Overture that opens this program.

Concerto grosso in C minor locatelli

The virtuoso violinist Pietro Antonio Locatelli’s playing was said to run the gamut from “such fury as to wear out dozens of violins in a year,” to a sweetness and delicacy which would “make a canary fall off of his perch in a swoon of pleasure!” His three sets of orchestral concerti grossi reveal his compositional skills. They are beautifully crafted, harmonically rich, rhythmically inventive, texturally varied works modelled after Arcangelo Corelli’s celebrated Opus 6 concerti. One contemporary praised Locatelli for the novelty of his ideas, the sublimity of the themes, and the naturalness of his melodies, qualities

which are well demonstrated in the C-minor concerto from his Opus 1 collection of twelve concertos, published in 1721.

Concerto for bassoon in B-flat major, “La Notte”

vivaldi

Antonio Vivaldi’s descriptive concerto “La Notte” (The Night) exists in three versions: one scored for flute, bassoon, and strings; a similar version for flute without bassoon; and a quite different piece for solo bassoon and strings.

Vivaldi’s ability to “paint” vivid pictures with a relatively small musical palette, made famous in The Four Seasons, is plainly evident in all three versions. Vivaldi’s night has a sinister beginning, interrupted by a flurry of ghostly spirits (Fantasmi). Sleep (Il Sonno) finally descends, and we follow the bassoonist through a mesmerizing dreamscape. In the final movement, daybreak finds the soloist rousing the strings from drowsy sleep, though not without a few resets of the “snooze” button on the orchestra’s part.

Chaconne from Alcyone marais

Marin Marais was one of Louis XIV’s most renowned instrumentalists, a virtuoso of the viola da gamba. In addition to his positions as a chamber musician, Marais was also a member of the opera orchestra of the Académie Royale de Musique and studied opera composition with Lully. This led to the composition of five operas for production at court. Alcyone, first performed

Program Notes, cont.

in 1706, was the most popular, and was staged as late as 1771. Its glorious Chaconne has been a favorite of Tafelmusik since we first performed it over 40 years ago.

Orchestral Suite in B-flat major telemann

Included in the vast catalogue of Telemann’s output are some 135 orchestral suites for various combinations of instruments, from strings only to full orchestra with trumpets and timpani. One of his favorite choices matches the scoring of the Tafelmusik core orchestra: two oboes, bassoon, strings, and continuo. Aisslinn Nosky has assembled an engaging selection of movements from three of Telemann’s suites for this orchestration. The dynamic opening Ouverture is followed by a sequence of lively dance movements. As is so often the case with Telemann, the winds are featured prominently throughout. The poignant Plainte, featuring solo oboe and violin, is an exquisite centerpiece.

Concerto for 2 violins in D minor bach

The violin was one of Bach’s favored solo instruments: he turned to the violin as a counterpart to the solo voice in countless arias in his sacred works, and of course composed the remarkable sonatas and partitas for unaccompanied violin, works that remain at the very core of the violin repertoire three centuries later. Although primarily a keyboard player, Bach was also a capable violinist and violist, and he fully understood that the violin could be

played on the one hand with great energy and virtuosity, and on the other with the most sublime and tender expression. This is evident in the contrasting movements of his concertos for solo violin, and especially in the Concerto for 2 violins in D minor, which has long been a favorite of violinists and audiences alike.

Sonate en symphonie No. 1 in G minor mondonville

The French violinist Jean-Joseph Cassanéa de Mondonville was born in Narbonne, settling in Paris as a young man and quickly rising to prominence as one of the city’s leading performers and composers. His 1734 publication of six Pièces de clavecin en sonates (Harpsichord pieces as sonatas), Op. 3, was particularly well received. The title refers to their scoring for harpsichord and violin, both parts equally elaborate, and as such an unusual melding of a solo harpsichord piece and a violin sonata. He later transcribed all six for a full ensemble, to be performed at the Concert Spirituel, a popular concert series in Paris. We end the program with the orchestral version of the colorful and vivacious first sonata and are grateful to Patrick G. Jordan for adding the missing viola part to complete the score.

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