ROSL, 1st round 28Jan10 | 1

Waking up early in London is very easy: my body still remains in the continent so I got an extra hour to have a calm cup of tea and write this.

Since a couple of days ago, I feel sick (the extreme cold these days in Utrecht and the humidity through the window of my room certainly affected me), but yesterday Janet and me took the plane to London. Today we will play in the first round of the Royal-Over Seas League annual music competition… Bach and van Eÿck… Castello, Telemann and Yun will wait until Monday, and Vivaldi to the final on Tuesday (in case we get there, of course).

By now everything goes very well: a nice travel (far from my last experience with easyJet), a lovely evening, I feel less sick, and thermometers are more than 10ºC higher here. Today we will have a walk in London centre, and go to Long Clawson in the weekend.

AEC Early Music 2010 21Jan10 | 0

The second AEC Early Music Platform Meeting is taking place in The Hague during the next two days, in cooperation with the Koninklijk Conservatorium. There will be conferences, presentations of research activities by students and concerts (detailed programme here).

The first of the concerts will be offered tomorrow evening by Cappella Monteverdiana, conducted by Christina Pluhar. Considering that all the members of the group are from the Koninklijk Conservatorium, I don’t have to say twice how happy it made me to find Christina’s invitation to join. Two days of intensive rehearsals, full of work and pleasure.

22 January 2010 - 18.30

Marini, Monteverdi, Merula, Caresana

Cappella Monteverdiana Den Haag, Scroll Ensemble - dir. Christina Pluhar

Oud Katholieke Kerk [map]

Juffrouw Idastraat
2513 Den Haag (The Netherlands)

Ensemble Eloqui presentation 17Jan10 | 1

Ensemble Eloqui made its first public appearance last Friday, in Vredenburg Leeuwenbergh, in the heart of Utrecht. The context? The first concert of the project on Historically Informed Performance (HIP), led by the violinist Antoinette Lohmann, that the Hogeschool voor de Kunsten Utrecht organized this first month of 2010 for the “modern” (classical) string students of the school. With the motto “Do you have the guts?”, Antoinette has introduced them into baroque language, rethoric and technique with music by Scheidt, Biber, Lully, Farina and Vivaldi.

Also Leclair sounded, at the beginning of the concert, played by the four members of Ensemble Eloqui. We felt a little like those young “support bands” we find in rock concerts. Just a little warming up of our programme, “Les Goûts-Réunis”, that we will play today and next Tuesday. A warming up for 200 listeners. Not bad!

17 January 2010 - 15.00

[map]

Constantijn Huygenstraat 1
3141 Maassluis (The Netherlands)

Free admission

*****

19 January 2010 - 12.30

Conservatorium van Utrecht - Hoofdgebouw (Kapel) [map]

Mariaplaats 28
3511 Utrecht (The Netherlands)

Free admission

who said...

"[Beethoven] went in his usual (I might say, ill-bred) manner to the instrument as if half-pushed, picket up the violoncello part of Steibelt's quintet in passing, placed it (intentionally?) upon the stand upside down and with one finger drummed out a theme of the first few measures. Insulted and angered, he improvised in such a manner that Steibelt left the room before he finished, would never again meet him and, indeed, made it a condition that Beethoven should not be invited before accepting an offer."

F.W. Wegeler & F. Ries, Biographische Notizen über Ludwig van Beethoven (Koblenz, 1838)

"[...] the king [Charles II of Spain] eagerly asked me if I had heard Matheuchi sing, when he would come, and if he was impertinent or not, and as if there were no army in the world, nor Milanese state, completely forgot such matters, but this is not surprising given that all his ministers, or most of them, have had the same experience [...]"

Letter of Carlos Felipe Spinola y Colonna to the duke of Medinaceli (1698)

"I was in St Alban's Abbey and I was intrigued: they were building a new organ and I went up to - I suppose it must have been - the verger and I said, 'Is the organ baroque?' And he said, 'No, it's in perfectly good order.'"

John Tavener, The Music of Silence, A Composer's Testament (Faber ISBN 0571200885)

"The Second Harpsichordist will go only to the last rehearsal, sending the Third One to the previous, who won't read more high Clef than Soprano, trying to play without using the Thumbs, don't follow the Numbers, play always the Sixth, don't meet up with the Master, and close all the second Parts of Arias with major thirds, etc. etc. etc."

Benedetto Marcello, Il teatro alla moda (1720)