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)

Bach’s English Suites 21Oct09 | 0

Two weeks ago we had the second group lesson of the harpsichord class: this time devoted to Johann Sebastian Bach’s English Suites (BWV 806-811). And, as accorded at the beginning of the year, the task was for Claude and me!

Because I had a travel to Spain our last possible week of work (arriving the evening before our presentation), we had to plan so in advance that my well-known last minute stress was absent this time (so good!, I must say… and repeat it), and we got time enough to document ourselves, plan and re-plan the work, search for music to listen and analyze not only Bach’s pieces but others in which we found some similarities.

Departing from something so specific as these 6 harpsichord suites with preludes, we focussed in offering our colleagues a broad overview about the suite as genre in Germany before Bach’s time, and a more detailed analysis of the English Suites, including them in the context of all Bach’s suites in general. We have learnt a lot! Beside, working with Claude has been enriching: we have so different ways of working that all the angles could be covered!

You can read our article. Inserted in the text you will find calls for musical examples (both in score and recording) which you can consult in the list attached at the end (page 19 of the file). The examples are to be found in this pdf of the presentation.

In three weeks we will have Pascal Dubreuil with us for a masterclass, and will play in the montly voorspeelmiddag:

11 November 2009 - 16.00

J.S. Bach: English Suites

Clavecimbel Voorspeelmiddag: Studenten van Siebe Henstra

Conservatorium van Utrecht - Gebouw voor Kunsten en Wetenschappen (K3.10) [map]

Mariaplaats 27
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)