Baroque Favourites
See here the conqu'rlng hero comes (Judas
Maccabaeus) - George Frideric Handel (1685 - 1759)
1st movement: Allegro motto (The Four
Seasons: Winter) - Antonio Vivaldi (1678 - 1741)
Eslst eln Ros entsprungen (The World's
Fair Rose) - Michael Praetorlus (c. 1571 - 1621)
2nd movement (Trumpet Concerto) - Giuseppe
Torelli (1658 - 1709)
Nun komm der Helden Helland (Come,
Redeemer of Our Race) - Johann Sebastian Bach (1685 - 1750)
Slow movement (Oboe Concerto) - George
Frideric Handel (1685 - 1759)
In dulcl jubilo - Johann Sebastian Bach
(1685 - 1750)
Fast movement (Guitar Concerto) - Antonio
Vivaldi (1678 - 1741)
Hornpipe (Concerto grosso Op. 6 No.7) -
George Frideric Handel (1685 - 1759)
Pastorale BWV 590 - Johann Sebastian Bach
(1685 - 1750)
2nd movement: Vivace (Trumpet Concerto In
D) - George Frideric Handel (1685 - 1759)
2nd movement: Largo (The Four Seasons:
Spring) - Antonio Vivaldi (1678 - 1741)
Chorus from Cantata BWV 140 (Wachetauf) -
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685 - 1750)
Sonata No.87 - Domenico Scarlatti (1685 -
1747)
O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden (O Sacred
Head sore wounded) - Johann Sebastian Bach (1685 - 1750)
Any collection of popular Baroque music
must concentrate on the later years of the period. In particular attention must
fall on the great German composers Johann Sebastian Bach and George Frideric
Handel, on the Italian violinist-composer Antonio Vivaldi, and, to a more
limited extent, on Domenico Scarlatti, the Italian harpsichordist, who spent
the greater part of his career in Portugal and Spain.
The present collection includes only one
example of music from the early seventeenth century, Es ist ein Ros
entsprungen (The World's Fair Rose). The melody and the original words are
from the fifteenth century and appear in the Speierschen Gesangbuch of 1600.
Praetorius, among the leading German Lutheran composers of his time, published
his four-part arrangement of the carol in 1609 as part of his Musae Sionae,
a varied collection of Lutheran church music.
The period generally known as Middle
Baroque, a convenient if over-simplified label to cover the years of the second
half of the seventeenth century, is represented here by an excerpt from a
trumpet concerto by the Italian composer Giuseppe Torelli, a musician of
historical importance in the development of the concerto. Torelli was born in
Verona and was associated intermittently with the musical establishment at the
basilica of San Petronio in Bologna, with a brief intervening period in the
service of the Margrave of Brandenburg at Ansbach.
Antonio
Vivaldi was born in Venice in 1678, the son of a barber, who combined his craft
with that of violinist. Vivaldi was ordained a priest and was to spend much of
his life as a member of the musical establishment of the Ospedale della Pietà,
a charitable foundation for the education of illegitimate or indigent girls.
The Pietà, one of four such institutions in Venice, enjoyed a high reputation
among Venetians and the many visitors to the city for its music, and Vivaldi
was to start his career there as violin master, later assuming responsibility
for instrumental music. A commission of 1723 required him to write two
concertos a month for the Pietà, but his employment, subject to annual renewal
by the board of governors, was interrupted at various stages in his career,
allowing him a period in the service of Philipp, Land grave of
Hessen-Darmstadt, governor of Mantua, and association with
other representatives of the ruling Habsburgs. In Venice he became closely
associated with the opera, both as composer and director of music, while his
prowess as a violinist was a cause for wonder. In 1741 he left his native city,
where his reputation had waned, and travelled to Vienna, where he died a month
after his arrival, before any further opportunities had offered themselves.
The present collection includes excerpts
from the famous set of concertos known as The Four Seasons, published by
Vivaldi in 1725 with a dedication to Count Wenzeslaus van Morzin, a Bohemian
nobleman and distant relative of Joseph Haydn's first patron. These concertos
appeared as the first music in a publication with the title Il cimento
dell'armonia e dell'inventione, the contest between harmony and invention,
reason and imagination. Accompanying The Four Seasons were sonnets that
explained in detail the programmatic content of each section. The second
movement of Spring shows the idealised goatherd of pastoral convention
guarding his sheep by sleeping peacefully, while his faithful dog, represented
by the viola, barks at regular intervals, against the gentle murmur of the
foliage. The first movement of winter offers a harsher picture of cold winds,
stamping feet and chattering teeth.
Among
the 500 or so concertos that Vivaldi wrote, a large number are for strings with
a solo violin. While the guitar is not included among the solo instruments for
which he wrote, a lute concerto provides an opportunity for the use of the
instrument. Vivaldi's compositions for lute seem to have been written not for
the Pietà but for another Bohemian nobleman, Count Johann Joseph von Wrtby
about the year 1731, when the composer may have visited Prague.
Domenico Scarlatti was the son of the
Neapolitan opera composer Alessandro Scarlatti. He made an early name for
himself both as a harpsichordist and composer in his native Italy, visiting
Venice and Rome, presumably in search of lucrative opportunities, before moving
to Lisbon, where he entered the service of the Princess Maria Barbara, who was
later to become Queen of Spain. Scarlatti's many harpsichord sonatas, over 550
in number, provide a highly characteristic addition to keyboard repertoire.
The year 1685 saw the birth of Domenico
Scarlatti and his two great contemporaries Bach and Handel. The latter was born
in Halle, the son of an elderly barber-surgeon of some distinction in his
profession. His father reluctantly permitted him to study music, with the other
subjects oj a general education, which he pursued briefly at the University of
Halle, before moving to Hamburg, where he was employed at the opera-house, as
violinist, harpsichordist and composer. There followed a period in Italy,
appointment as Kapellmeister to the Elector of Hanover, and a move to England,
where he finally settled in 1712, at first as composer and director of music
for the Italian opera, and later as the creator of English oratorio, a form
that allowed for the linguistic and religious prejudices of the English public.
The first music included here is an
arrangement of one of the most famous moments in the 1746 oratorio Judas
Maccabaeus. Much of Handel's instrumental music comes from earlier in his
career, although he never hesitated to re-use his own music for whatever
purpose seemed most appropriate. The various orchestral concertos provide
problems of dating, although the dozen such works for strings only that form
Opus 6 were written specifically for publication in 1739, The so-called oboe
concertos of Opus 3 and the solo sonatas for various instruments, including the
oboe, are earlier works in which other material is often found. The concerto
for trumpet is a re-construction.
Johann Sebastian Bach, a musician by long
ancestry, won himself a considerable reputation as an organist at the beginning
of his career. A period as organist to Duke Wilhelm Ernst of Weimar was
followed by a happy six years as Hofkapellmeister to Prince Leopold of
Anhalt-Coethen followed by 27 occasionally contentious years as Cantor at the
Thomasschule in Leipzig, with responsibility for music in five of the city
churches.
The first years in church employment in
Leipzig brought a demand for a series of cantatas for performance on Sundays
and major feast-days throughout the year. The cantata Num komm der Heiden
Heiland formed part of such a cycle, but had been preceded in Weimar days
by a chorale prelude on the well known hymn of
