Michala Petri, recorder & Anthony Newman, harpsichord

JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH

Born Eisenach, March 21, 1685; died Leipzig, July 28, 1750
Sonata for Recorder and Obbligato Harpsichord, BWV 1030
Composed ca. 1736; 15 minutes

On June 1, 1723, Bach officially took up his duties as Kantor of the Thomasschule and Thomaskirche, the Lutheran cathedral in Leipzig. Despite the prestige of his St. Thomas appointment, the satisfaction of his achievements in music, and the opportunities that the city offered Bach and his family, the following 27 years in Leipzig also brought a measure of stress and discontent. Bach composed such extraordinary works as the passions of St. John and St. Matthew, the B-minor Mass and four great cycles of cantatas for the church year; he also wrote disgruntled letters and petitions to civic and ecclesiastic bureaucrats about working conditions, wages, curricula and other considerations that had a deleterious effect on his spirit.

Frustrated by such extra-musical distractions, Kantor Bach acquired two other significant side positions that served as pressure releases. He became the official composer to the court chapel in nearby Dresden, and he assumed the directorate of the Leipzig Collegium Musicum, a position he held from 1729 to 1737. In both those secular environments, Bach counted outstanding musicians among his colleagues, and for them he wrote many excellent vocal and instrumental compositions.

The Sonata for Flute (Recorder) and Obbligato Harpsichord is among the works Bach wrote for the musicians of the Collegium Musicum—although an examination of the manuscript suggests that it, like many other of his compositions, was re-cycled from an already existing work. The “sonata” of Bach’s era indicated a type of composition in which one instrument was the featured soloist—in this case, the recorder. (The more restricted definitions of “sonata” would come later in the 18th century.) The term “obbligato” indicated an accompanying instrument, in this instance the harpsichord, which played an obligatory (not “ad libitum,” or discretionary) role in the structure of the piece. As befitted the caliber of musicians available to him, Bach composed a work that demands sophisticated musicianship and sparkling technique.

© 2012 Sandra Hyslop

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JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH

Partita for Solo Alto Recorder, BWV 1013
Composed ca. 1718; 10 minutes

In December 1717, Johann Sebastian Bach received an appointment as Kapellmeister at the court of Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Köthen, or Cöthen, in Brandenburg, southwest of Berlin. Prince Leopold offered him a good salary and excellent working conditions which afforded Bach and his growing family new ease in their daily lives. Because Prince Leopold, a Calvinist, had little need for sacred music in his court, this appointment effectively stemmed Bach’s activities as a composer of ecclesiastical works. Bach and his new employer—who was himself an avid amateur musician—enjoyed a warm personal relationship, and the four years in Anhalt-Köthen court saw the composition of many of Bach’s most well-known secular instrumental works.

Like his partitas for other instruments—keyboard and violin—this Partita for Solo Alto Recorder is a multi-movement collection of popular dance forms in a slow-fast-slow-fast arrangement. Listeners would have recognized the Allemande (the moderately paced German dance), Corrente (lively, Italian), Sarabande (stately and serene) and English Bourrée (quick and spirited), which Bach placed in their customary order of performance. Never stirring from their palace chairs to dance, they would have enjoyed the passive pleasure of hearing the solo suite as performed by one of Bach’s capable court flautists.

© 2012 Sandra Hyslop

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ARCANGELO CORELLI

Born Fusignano February 17, 1653; died Rome January 8, 1713
Sonata for Alto Recorder and Continuo, Op. 5, No. 12, “La Follia”
Composed 1700; 10 minutes

Respected and influential in his time as a violinist, pedagogue and director of instrumental ensembles, Arcangelo Corelli won his reputation as a composer on a relatively small body of instrumental pieces. His entire output, besides a handful of miscellaneous compositions for strings, comprised six volumes of violin sonatas, with 12 discrete works in each volume.

By far the most familiar of these is the Sonata Op. 5, No. 12, in D minor, a set of 23 variations on an ancient theme, “La Follia.” Several other composers in the pre-classical era also used the 16-bar theme as basis for their works—C. P. E. Bach, Antonio Vivaldi, and Alessandro Scarlatti among them. In the 20th century, Sergei Rachmaninoff used the tune as a basis for his piano composition “Variations on a Theme by Corelli."

The “La Follia” [“The Folly”] theme originated as a popular dance tune in Portugal around 1500. The music accompanied a frenzied dance, punctuated by hand-clapping and the flare of tambourines; an early 17th-century observer of Iberian dancers wrote that they had “abandoned all reason."

Tamed and slowed to a stately tempo, the “La Follia” theme achieved an elegance that belies its wild origins. As Corelli and others set it, “La Follia” suggests a sarabande, with stately rhythmic motion in 3/4 measure and a long second beat. Corelli’s violinist—or, as in this adaptation, the recorder player—performs 23 variations of increasing technical demands. It asks for excellent technique and precise ensemble playing from the soloist and the continuo player.

© 2012 Sandra Hyslop

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GIUSEPPE TARTINI

Born Pirano, Istria April 8, 1692; died Padua February 26, 1770
Sonata for Flute and Continuo, “The Devil’s Trill”
Composed probably in the 1740s; 13 minutes

Through his teaching, writing and composing, Giuseppe Tartini exerted widespread influence during his lifetime and beyond. He founded a violin school in Padua, and he was a prolific composer for his instrument, leaving approximately 125 violin concertos, the same number of violin sonatas, and four dozen trio sonatas. He wrote several works on the theory and practice of music; Leopold Mozart (1719-1787) “borrowed” heavily from one of them in writing his own “Violinschule.” (Actually, Mozart père simply translated, from Italian to German, a complete section of Tartini’s published violin method—without attribution.) Leopold’s admiration for Tartini’s enlightened violin methods no doubt carried over into the tuition that his son, Wolfgang, received from his father, his only teacher.

The catchy title, “The Devil’s Trill,” was appended by the composer himself—and not by the publisher, as has so often been the case with subtitles. Tartini later recounted a dream in which Satan had appeared at his bedside. During their chat, the composer asked the devil to play for him on his violin. Tartini was astonished to hear the devil perform with exquisite skill and musical taste. He awakened in a state of high excitement, and, seizing his real fiddle, Tartini attempted to recreate what he had heard the devil play. Alas, the dream performance proved too ephemeral, but it inspired Tartini to write this sonata, with a final movement named in honor of his dream visitor and his impressive trilling. The trill, a fast and insistent figure, repeatedly interrupts the quiet Andante passages of the Allegro assai third movement.

© 2012 Sandra Hyslop

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JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH

Sonata for Recorder and Continuo, BWV 1034
Composed ca. 1724; 12 minutes

The sonata of Bach’s era designated a music work to be “sounded” (from the Italian “sonare”), in contrast with a cantata (from the Italian “cantare”), a work to be sung. The Baroque instrumental sonata encompassed a range of styles and did not yet indicate the categorical form that would develop in the works of Haydn and Mozart.

Composed over a number of years, the sonatas for flute and continuo, later catalogued together as BWV 1030-1035, were all written during Bach’s Leipzig residency, 1723-1750. Still designed on the traditional Baroque slow-fast-slow-fast arrangement of the movements, the Bach sonata features a solo instrument that stands out against the “basso continuo”—a term for the accompanying cello, bassoon, harpsichord, lute, organ or combinations thereof. The basso continuo part, with a solid bass line and complementary harmonic materials, demands skilled and sensitive instrumentalists who contribute essentially to the success of the piece. The role is frequently played by a single harpsichordist, whose talents for improvisation can burnish the performance.

The Sonata in E minor opens with a slow, melancholy arioso, followed by a sprightly Allegro. The gently rocking Andante movement leads to a driving final Allegro. Bach provided both instrumentalists with technical and musical challenges, as individuals and in the ensemble.

© 2012 Sandra Hyslop

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ANTONIO VIVALDI

Born Venice, March 4, 1678; died Vienna, July 28, 1741

NICOLAS CHÉDEVILLE

Born Sérez, February 20, 1705; died Paris, August 6, 1782
Sonata for Recorder and Continuo, RV 57
Composed ca. 1737; 9 minutes

In 1737, the French composer Nicolas Chédeville (1705-1782) published six sonatas for recorder and continuo, falsely adopting the name of the famous and successful Italian composer Antonio Vivaldi. The publication also bore a pseudo catalog listing: Op. 13, Nos. 1-6. The publisher Jean-Noël Marchand confessed to the hoax in 1749, revealing that Chédeville had impersonated Vivaldi, financed the publication and reaped its profits. By that time, however, the “Six sonatas for musette, vielle, recorder, flute, oboe, or violin, and basso continuo” were firmly wedded to Vivaldi’s name and they entered his catalog as RV numbers 54-59.

It has been suggested that the reason for Chédeville’s deception lies in his interest in the musette, the little French bagpipe with the oboe sound. Wanting to increase its popularity as a dance partner, Chédeville apparently reasoned that Vivaldi’s great name would sell the set of six sonatas to musette musicians everywhere. And to increase the sales power, Chédeville also reminded prospective buyers of the music that players of the vielle (a small violin), recorder, flute, oboe or violin could also find merit in his publication.

The Chédeville sonatas slipped easily under the radar of his time. Following the familiar pattern of the Baroque period, they constitute suites of alternating slow-fast movements of popular dance styles. They met the needs of his audience—amateur musicians looking for amiable music to play in comfortable domestic settings—and deluded them into thinking they were playing compositions by the famous Antonio Vivaldi.

© 2012 Sandra Hyslop

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JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH

Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue for Keyboard in D Minor, BWV 903
Composed ca. 1720; 8 minutes

As a keyboard improviser—whether performing in the North German organ styles or at the harpsichord in the manner of the newer Italian and French styles—Bach exceeded all his contemporaries. In 1717, he was at the height of keyboard powers as he entered into Prince Leopold’s service in Anhalt-Köthen. Paid a decent salary, working with outstanding colleagues and playing on a wonderful new harpsichord provided by the Prince, Bach enjoyed excellent conditions for creating new keyboard music. His Köthen compositions included the Little Keyboard Book for Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, the first part of the 48 Well-Tempered Clavier, two-part Inventions, three-part Sinfonias, six French Suites, six English Suites, and the Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue in D minor.

After nearly three centuries, the Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue remains fresh and startling. The very idea of combining a fantasy (which suggests freedom and improvisation) with a fugue (suggesting rules and structure) is indicative of Bach’s great musical imagination. With no tempo indications and few dynamic markings in the score, Bach invites the performer to active participation in his exploration of the keyboard. The Fantasy is constructed in three sections—a toccata-style introduction, an expressive recitative and a summing-up—that move boldly through chromatic progressions into unexpected territories. The Fugue emerges quietly, with a chromatic fugue theme that Bach treats in strict contrapuntal fashion. The fugal episodes expand gradually to echo the boldness of the harmonic and stylistic explorations of the Fantasy.

© 2012 Sandra Hyslop

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GEORG PHILIPP TELEMANN

Born Magdeburg, March 14, 1681; died Hamburg, June 25, 1767
Sonata for Alto Recorder and Continuo in C Major
Composed in 1740; 10 minutes

An immensely prolific and skillful composer, Georg Philipp Telemann also achieved notable financial success, partially because he established his own publishing house. Between the years 1725 and 1740 he published no fewer than 43 works that he not only had composed but also engraved, printed, bound, advertised and sold over a European-wide network of agents and distributors. In 1740, the date of the composition of this sonata, Telemann sold a large quantity of his engraved plates, turning his attention from composing to writing about theoretical aspects of music. In his later years he returned to composition, concentrating particularly on sacred works.

The Sonata in C major assigns both the soloist and the continuo player(s) the satisfying task of mastering the arts of legato and staccato playing at all tempos, while melding their instruments into a seamless whole. The players have no sooner sung their brief arioso melody of the opening Adagio, when they erupt into a sparkling Allegro, also brief. The tender arioso melody returns—the players have the option of adding musical ornamentation upon its reappearance—but it does not linger long, as the second Allegro flashes through the air. The second movement, Larghetto, is a melancholy song in minor. The sonata closes with a vivacious tour de force of technical color.

© 2012 Sandra Hyslop

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Michala Petri has established herself as the world’s leading exponent of the recorder. A native of Copenhagen, Ms. Petri began playing the recorder at the age of three and made her concerto soloist debut at the age of 11 at the Tivoli Concert Hall. Since then, the Danish artist has toured the globe, appearing in the musical world’s most renowned venues and at its most illustrious festivals. She has dedicated her career to establishing the recorder as a major solo instrument. Her virtuosity is demonstrated in a repertoire that spans five centuries. She has written numerous transcriptions of existing music, and she has had more than 100 new works written for her

In the concert hall or recording studio, Ms. Petri has worked with an equally wide range of artists and ensembles. She has performed with such artists as Pinchas Zukerman, Sir James Galway, Joshua Bell, Maurice André, Gidon Kremer, Heinz Holliger, Claudio Abbado and jazz icon Keith Jarrett. As a soloist, she has appeared with ensembles like the English Chamber Orchestra, the London Philharmonic, the Swedish Chamber Orchestra, the Moscow Virtuosi, the Berlin Baroque Soloists and Kremerata Baltica.

Ms. Petri has been particularly interested in literature for the flute and guitar. In 1992, she formed a duo with guitarist-lutenist Lars Hannibal, which continues to this day. In December 2010, they both were the featured guests in the PBS “Live from Lincoln Center” broadcast, “Baroque Holiday with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.” Lately, she has been interested in the music of China and has worked with virtuosos on the xiao (bamboo flute) and pipa (lute).

Ms. Petri’s discography totals nearly three dozen titles on such labels as Philips Records and RCA Red Seal. In 2006, she and Mr. Hannibal created the record label, OUR Recordings, which has released 19 CDs so far. Her disc with the Danish Vocal Ensemble, Nightingale, received two 2012 Grammy® Award nominations. Among her most recent releases are a CD of English recorder concertos written for her on OUR Recordings and Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos Nos. 4-6 with Neville Marriner and the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields on Decca.

Among Ms. Petri’s many honors and awards, last September she was appointed Honorary Professor at the Royal Academy of Music in Copenhagen. She has been named Knight First Class of the Order of the Dannebrog by the Queen of Denmark, and she has received several German "Echo" Disc Awards. Beyond music, Ms. Petri is Vice President of the Danish Society for Fighting Cancer and a board member of UNICEF Denmark. Her website is michalapetri.com.

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Anthony Newman is considered one of America’s foremost Baroque interpreters. He has maintained a 40-year career as a leading organist, harpsichordist, fortepianist, conductor, composer and Bach specialist. His prodigious recording output includes more than 170 CDs, and now MP3s, on such labels as CBS, SONY, Deutsche Grammaphon and Vox Masterworks; he now records for 903 Records. In 1989, Stereo Review voted his original instrument recording of Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 3 with the London Philomusica Antiqua as Record of the Year. His collaboration with Wynton Marsalis on Sony's In Gabriel’s Garden was the best-selling classical CD for 1997.

As a keyboardist, Mr. Newman has made solo appearances across North America and throughout Europe, including New York, Atlanta, Chicago, San Francisco, Mexico City, Paris, Prague and Vienna. He has collaborated with many of the most distinguished classical music artists of the past half-century. He and flutist Eugenia Zukerman presented duo recitals across the country, including a yearly series at the New York Public Library. He performed frequently with soprano Julianne Baird and the Brandenburg Collegium. Among others with whom he has worked are Kathleen Battle, Itzhak Perlman, John Nelson, Jean-Pierre Rampal, James Levine, Lorin Mazel, Mstislav Rostropovich, Seji Osawa and Leonard Bernstein.

As a conductor/soloist, Mr. Newman has led and appeared with many of the world’s ranking chamber orchestras, including the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and those of St Paul, Los Angeles and Budapest. His last appearance at 92nd Street Y was as keyboardist for the New York Chamber Symphony on February 13, 1993, 20 years ago today. He has made more than 40 appearances with the Seattle Symphony and has guest-conducted the Los Angeles and New York philharmonics and the San Diego, Calgary and Denver symphonies, among others.

As a composer, Mr. Newman’s works have been heard in such musical capitals as Paris, Vienna, Budapest, Krakow, Warsaw, New York and London. His catalog includes four symphonies, four concertos, three large choral works, two operas (Massacre, in collaboration with Charles Flowers, and Nicole), 3 CDs of piano music, and a large assortment of chamber, organ and guitar works. His publisher is Ellis Press (TD EllisMusic.com), and he has received 30 consecutive composer's awards from ASCAP.

Mr. Newman is music director of “Bach Works,” New York's all-Bach association, and Bedford Chamber Concerts in Beford, NY. He serves on the Visiting Committee for the Department of Musical Instruments at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and he is on the board of Musical Quarterly magazine. He has served on the faculties of The Juilliard School, Indiana University and State University of New York at Purchase. From 1995-2004, he was a member of Hospice International. His website is anthonynewmanmusician.org.

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