quoting Diruta 08Jul09 | 0

“… ricercari, motets, and Masses help you improvise well, canzonas to play quickly, and madrigals to achieve different harmonic effects.”

G. Diruta, Seconda parte del Transilvano (1609), libro quarto [1]

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[1] In BRADSHAW, M.C. & SOEHNLEN, E.J.: “The Transylvanian” (Il Transilvano), volume II. Henryville [etc.]: Institute of Mediaeval Music, 1984, p.143.

The Dutchman & the honeybees 08Feb09 | 0

Last Friday I went to the concert at the end of the first day of the International Baroque Dance Symposium celebrated (until this morning) in the new Amsterdam conservatory (that I also wanted to visit).

And I really enjoyed it: it was a short but at the same time varied programme, with students and teachers from the conservatory (exquisite Francesco Corti’s continuo!) and dancers from the Nationale Balletacademie and not so “national” ones like Ricky Barros, which expressiveness during the folias deserved itself being there…

French and Italian music…, and a little “present” from the Spanish Escuela Bolera:

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)