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~ Boulder Bach Beat hopes to stimulate conversations about the ways Bach’s music succeeds in building bridges between populations separated by language, culture, geography and time.

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Tag Archives: Zachary Carrettin

Komm, Jesu, komm!

13 Thursday Feb 2014

Posted by Edward McCue in Bach's Predecessors, Bach's Successors, Bach's Works, Festival Events, Music Education

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Boulder, Boulder Bach Chorus, Boulder Bach Festival, cantor, chorale, Denver, double choir, funeral, hymn, Jakob Thomasius, Johann Schelle, Komm Jesu komm!, Leipzig, meter, motet, Paul Thymich, rhythm, St. Thomas Church, St. Thomas School, University of Leipzig, verse, Zachary Carrettin

St. Thomas Church in Leipzig

St. Thomas Church in Leipzig

Among all of Bach’s motets, Komm, Jesu, komm! (BWV 229) is the one most closely associated with the traditions of the St. Thomas School and St. Thomas Church in Leipzig. Its text is a paraphrase of John 14:6 by the Leipzig poet Paul Thymich. Bach’s predecessor as cantor, Johann Schelle, had set the entire text of Thymich’s eleven-versed hymn for the 1684 funeral of the University of Leipzig professor Jakob Thomasius, but Bach elected to set only the first and last verses for what must have been either a memorial or funeral service. Komm, Jesu, komm! can be dated to 1732 or earlier as, in that year, the oldest surviving manuscript for the motet was copied by one of Bach’s students.

Overall, the form of the motet is that of a chorale, although Bach sets the first verse phrase-by-phrase as though it were Biblical prose. In the second verse, however, Bach harmonizes the text in four parts and exploits the many possibilities afforded by a double choir. Using contrasting rhythms, meters and textures, the first section steadily mounts in intensity as the text repeatedly calls out for Jesus, and then, after strong chordal blocks, the following minuet-like melody conveys the soul’s surrender to God.

Komm, Jesu, komm! will be performed by the Boulder Bach Chorus, under the direction of Zachary Carrettin, during 21 and 23 February 2014 concerts in Denver and Boulder of the thirty-third season of the Boulder Bach Festival.

Duo Crezdi to Appear in Recital

25 Thursday Apr 2013

Posted by Edward McCue in Bach's Life, Bach's Predecessors, Bach's Successors, Bach's Works, Festival Events

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Antonio Veracini, basso continuo, bassoon, Boulder Bach Festival, Buxtehude, Chaconne in D minor, chorale, chorale partita, coloratura, continuo, Dario Castello, Dresden, Duetto no. 3 in G Major, Duo Crezdi, Fifteen Inventions, First Congregational Church, Florence, Georg Böhm, gigue, harpsichord, Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber, Johann Ludwig Krebs, Josquin des Prez, Leipzig, minuet, organ, partita, passacaglia, Paul Miller, Peter Wollny, Rick Erickson, Rosary Sonatas, Sacred Mysteries, scordatura, Sei gegrüsset Jesu gütig, sonata, Sonata in G minor, Sonata No. 4 in C minor, Sonata Prima in A minor from Libro secundo, tetrachord, Vater unser im Himmelreich, Venice, violin, Zachary Carrettin

Duo Crezdi

Duo Crezdi

In the final concert of the thirty-second season of the Boulder Bach Festival, Zachary Carrettin, violin, and Rick Erickson, harpsichord and organ, will join forces as Duo Crezdi in an artist recital at First Congregational Church in Boulder, Colorado at 7:30 pm on Friday, 3 May 2013.

The violin sonatas on the program will come from very different places and times. The earliest is Dario Castello’s Sonata Prima in A minor from Libro secundo. Diligent scholarship has not been able to determine any exact dates for Castello’s birth or death. In fact, almost no shreds of biographical evidence exist about the composer. This much is known: Castello lived much of his life in and around Venice. He was an excellent wind player and a master of the bassoon, an instrument which was very popular in Venice at the time. He published two books of sonatas in 1621 and 1629, which were so popular that they were reprinted in the 1640s and 50s. His sonatas are made up of a number of short contrasting sections and the work to be performed by the Duo Crezdi is no exception. As one of the first to write idiomatically for the violin, Castello’s music has a refreshing and delightful spontaneity about it which is easy to hear even four hundred years later.

Biber’s (1644-1704) Passacaglia stands as the last piece in the composer’s ambitious cycle of Rosary Sonatas. For each of the fifteen Sacred Mysteries, Biber composed a violin sonata, but each one is in a different tuning, or scordatura. In the sole surviving copy of the score, every sonata is prefaced by a lovely copper engraving. The Passacaglia is the last piece in the cycle, and the only one for violin without continuo. It is the only sonata that “duplicates” an earlier tuning for the violin – in this case, the ordinary tuning G – D – A – E. The Passacaglia consists of sixty-five repetitions of a descending tetrachord (four-note motive) in which all manner of harmony, melody and expression appears. In the middle of the piece, the descending motive even appears in an upper voice, complicating matters for the interpreter. Claiming the prize as probably the most elaborate composition for solo violin up to that time, Biber’s Passacaglia almost surely had some influence on J. S. Bach when he composed, some decades later, his own magnificent Chaconne in D minor (BWV 1004) for solo violin.

Chronologically speaking, the Bach and Veracini sonatas date from almost the same time. Bach’s six accompanied sonatas for violin and keyboard were composed no later than 1725, and the composer continued to tinker with them for many years thereafter. The Sonata in C minor (BWV 1017) is cast very much in the mold of a trio sonata. As Peter Wollny noted, each part (violin, keyboard right hand, keyboard left hand) has its own rhythmic character in the slow movements. For example, in the third movement the violin has a lyrical melody, the right hand of the keyboard has continuous triplets, and the left hand has a bass line mostly in quarter notes. The two fast movements feature dense counterpoint and imitative textures, perfectly in keeping with the idea that each part should be interesting and meaningful in and of itself.

Antonio Veracini (1659-1733) led a colorful life and held important posts in Florence and Dresden. As the story goes, he once claimed that “as there is one God, there is one Veracini.” Without lacking a sense of drama either in life or in music, Veracini once jumped out of a building during an argument in Dresden. He even survived a shipwreck in the English Channel. Veracini’s nephew diplomatically wrote that “the heart, rather than cleverness, guided [Veracini’s] finger and bow.” Of his many published violin works, Veracini’s Sonata in G minor (appearing in 1721 as op. 1, no. 1) is an intense, many-colored piece. Opening with a broad French-style introduction, it quickly moves through an impetuous Allegro before settling into a more lyrical Aria. The anxious Allegro that follows contains several outbursts that might have given even the stoic Bach a severe case of indigestion. The final two movements, a short Minuet and an almost ridiculous Gigue that alludes to the sound of the postman’s bell, do little to dispel the image of an undeniably brilliant, yet slightly unstable, musical mind.

Two works for organ on the concert will feature compositions by men who were close to the Bach circle personally. Johann Ludwig Krebs (1713-1780) studied with Bach in Leipzig. The use of the letters of Bach’s name in the fugue subject reflect an ancient practice, dating back to Josquin, called soggetto cavato (“carved subject”) where the letters of a name determine the musical notes. We therefore have, according to German spelling, a subject of B-flat, A, C, B-natural.

Georg Böhm (1661-1733) was connected to the Bach family from his studies in Ohrdruf, a town which knew several generations of Bachs. Böhm might have tutored the young J. S. Bach but there is no direct evidence to support this assertion. Much later, C. P. E. Bach claimed that his father, J. S., loved to study Böhm’s music. Böhm’s Vater unser im Himmelreich is stylistically much like Buxtehude’s music. It is probably one of the most expressive works he penned. Particularly noteworthy is Böhm’s exploration of the organ’s high coloratura register.

The remaining works by J. S. Bach will show his mastery both of small-scale and large-scale musical forms. The Duetto no. 3 in G Major (BWV 804) is similar in texture to one of Bach’s famous Fifteen Inventions (BWV 772-86), but it is more extended and elaborate. Bach derives an entire motivic menagerie by exploring the possibilities of a simple seven-note cell, heard at the beginning in the right hand. Contrasting with this small scale form, the chorale partita for organ on Sei gegrüsset, Jesu gütig (BWV 768) is an extended set of variations on a chorale tune. This is the most ornate of the four sets of chorale variations Bach left us and contains eleven variations on the tune. The variations range from simple to elaborate and give us a full spectrum of Bach’s powers of inventiveness.

Paul Miller – Boulder Bach Festival

Interview with Paul Miller: The Viola d’Amore in the St. John Passion

17 Sunday Feb 2013

Posted by Edward McCue in Bach's Successors, Bach's Works, Festival Events, Interviews, Organology

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aria, Baroque bow, bass, Betrachte meine Seel', Boulder Bach Festival, Boulder Bach Festival Players, cantata, chorale prelude, Erwäge wie sein blutgefärbter Rücke, Hindemith, Johannes Eberle, Kammermusik Nr. 6, Kleine Sonate, Leipzig, lute, luthier, Martin Biller, Mein teurer Heiland, Mittenwald, nylon string, organ, organ registration, organ stop, passion, pastorale, Paul Miller, Prague, Rick Erickson, solo stop, St. John Passion, St. Matthew Passion, sympathetic string, tenor, timbre, Tomastik, tone color, Tritt auf die Glaubensbahn, viola d’amore, Weimar, Zachary Carrettin

ModernvioladamorecropEdward McCue (EM) Few of us are familiar with the viola d’amore. What is it about this many-stringed instrument that Bach found attractive, and what role will it play in Boulder Bach Festival performances of the St. John Passion (BWV 245), under the direction of Rick Erickson, on 1 and 2 March 2013?

Paul Miller (PM) Bach already included the viola d’amore in his score for the cantata Tritt auf die Glaubensbahn (BWV 152) at the end of 1714, but we’re not certain what kind of instrument he would have known during his years in Weimar. It’s quite likely that that viola d’amore had five or six playing strings, but we’re not sure if that instrument included resonating, sympathetic strings strung below the playing strings. In any case, we can be certain that Bach appreciated the nasal quality of the tone produced by the viola d’amore and realized that it did not project as loudly as a violin.

Later, while in Leipzig, Bach featured the distinctive tone color of the viola d’amore in the St. John Passion. For nearly fifteen minutes, following the violent scourging of Jesus, a pair of these gentle instruments, with the accompaniment of a lute, reflect on the beating of this innocent man during a bass arioso, Betrachte, meine Seel’, and a tenor aria that immediately follows, Erwäge, wie sein blutgefärbter Rücken. With these two arias, Bach reveals what lies at the center of his interpretation of John’s gospel, that is, whatever bad happened to Jesus must be interpreted as being good for us. This is in stark contrast with the later St. Matthew Passion (BWV 244), where our guilt and sin are lamented over again and again.

Bach portrayed the interplay between darkness and light in the St. John Passion by employing the full Baroque palette of musical devices, including contrasts in tone color. Bach was so very sensitive to tone color, and since many of the organs of his day included a viola d’amore stop, I like to imagine him really enjoying that solo stop for extended periods of time.

EM Few twenty-first century listeners have had an opportunity to hear the extraordinary sound of the viola d’amore. How many orchestral string players have ever heard one, and when they do, how many commit to its mastery?

PM Few upper string players take the time to double on the viola d’amore, and when they do, they must contend with a number of thorny technical issues.

Since Bach didn’t specify a tuning for the strings of the instrument, Zachary Carrettin, our concertmaster for the Boulder Bach Festival Players, and I have had to discover for ourselves what tuning will work. We have found that a G minor tuning of the strings, even though the arias are in E flat Major and C minor, respectively, works really well. Even though there certainly would be other ways to go about it, we find that it is easier to play in tune with each other when we tune both instruments with the same open strings. While there are a couple of spots that are genuinely a bit tricky, most of it works pretty well with the G minor tuning, and we find that the open strings resonate very nicely in all of the right places.

Zach and I have also decided to play on instruments built by the same luthier, Martin Biller. Zach is playing on Biller’s classic Mittenwald model with an absolutely beautiful arched back of interwoven cherry and maple woods. I’m playing on an viola d’amore modeled after a flat-backed instrument made by Johannes Eberle of mid to late eighteen-century Prague, so you’ll see two instruments with different shapes but complementary sounds.

Lately we’ve also been working out other technical issues, including different ways of using the Baroque bow and string selections. Because our violas d’amore have seven strings, rather than the four found on modern violins and violas, it’s easy to crash into the wrong string if you’re not careful, and if you blindly insist on using gut strings, your instrument quickly goes out of tune. As a result, we’ve decided to use metal-wound perlon strings by the Viennese manufacturer Thomastik, the same string-maker that supplied Paul Hindemith when he composed and performed his Kleine Sonate and Kammermusik Nr. 6 for viola d’amore in the 1920s.

EM Paul, it’s obvious that you are very much looking forward to performing the two arias that include your viola d’amore, but what will likely be the high point of the St. John Passion for the other members of the orchestra, the chorus and the audience?

PM Even though I’ve always played one of the viola d’amore parts in previous performances, I think that the other players also like the d’amore arias because they give them a break from playing and an extraordinary opportunity to join the audience in listening to fifteen minutes of sheer beauty. But for all of us performing the St. John Passion, it’s the bass aria and chorale after Jesus has died, Mein teurer Heiland, that is truly amazing. This pastorale in 6/8, very much like a chorale prelude for soloist, chorus and orchestra, confirms that the terror of Jesus’ passion is finally over and that the brightness of God’s glory can now shine forth.

Bach certainly composed gems for the viola d’amore in the St. John Passion, but I’ve got to say that Mein teurer Heiland is even greater evidence of his musical and theological genius.

Interview with Zachary Carrettin: “Bach, the Passionate”

22 Saturday Sep 2012

Posted by Edward McCue in Bach's Life, Bach's Predecessors, Bach's Successors, Bach's Works, Festival Events, Interviews, Music Education, World View

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Edward McCue (EM) Zachary, how are Rick Erickson and you interpreting this year’s Boulder Bach Festival theme, “Bach, the Passionate?”

Zachary Carrettin (ZC) As a theme, “Bach, the Passionate” manages to embrace both of the largest programs of our new season. The Chamber Concerts this month will feature Italian-influenced concertos and how Bach adapted the passionate Italian style of writing and playing, especially in the case of the violin as a virtuoso instrument. In contrast, “Bach, the Passionate” also celebrates our Festival Week performances of his St. John Passion (BWV 245). In that great work we will hear Bach’s religious fervor relating the story of the Passion of Jesus Christ. These two very different kinds of passion will result in dramatically different listening experiences that both reveal Bach at his very best.

When considering Bach’s concertos, I think that it’s important to understand that he recognized clear distinctions between French tastes and Italian tastes, the two prevailing national styles of instrumental writing of the time, and that the Germans, by and large, were known as being expert at both styles of playing. Major orchestras, such as the one at the Electoral Court in Dresden, featured principal players who had studied with the great masters in Italy and France. At least one contemporary critic claimed that the Dresden orchestra played French music better than the French and Italian music better than the Italians

I think that the degree of difference between the stylistic approaches of the French and Italians can be best understood by examining what a Frenchman wrote after traveling to Venice to hear Vivaldi and his orchestra: “Vivaldi wretched with passion in a disgusting display of indiscipline,” and it was in fact this “disgusting display of indiscipline” that was eventually exported throughout Europe. Today we might characterize this emotional style as being “unabashed Romanticism.”

We use many different terms in our attempt to describe the French and Italian styles during the Baroque period. In an interview that Christopher Hogwood, the music director of the Academy of Ancient Music in London, held with Baroque violinist and historian Jaap Schröder, Schröder demonstrated how a violinist would bow a French minuet as opposed to bowing an Italian minuet.

Schröder noted that, in the French minuet, there are repeated lifts and retakes of the bow. The note is played, and then the bow is lifted in the air, resulting in a mannered performance that emphasizes the strong beat versus the weak beat.

Schröder’s example of playing an Italian minuet leaves the bow on the string and simply bows down-up down-up as it comes. With this sort of bowing, the strong beat often occurs on the up bow stroke, which violates what the French were going for, that is, an emphasis on the strong beat brought about by gravity. By simply playing through the line without lifting the bow, the Italians, especially in the north, adopted a less mannered, more sustained approach to playing that was much like singing.

Thus, to a French musician, it might have seemed that the Italians were not very proficient in the art of bowing, but, to the initiate, it was obvious that the Italians were going for a longer line and a more legato, more fluid, more cantilena approach to bowing.

Now, with this explanation of some aspects of the Italian style, we can begin to consider the details of Vivaldi’s world. An ordained Catholic priest, Vivaldi was a composer of sacred music and a music educator at the orphanage attached to the Church of the Pietà in Venice. A true showman, Vivaldi was fond of flipping around his red curls and really playing in a virtuoso style. Thus, a severely intellectual or refined performance of a Vivaldi concerto cannot accurately portray his ethos.

However, in spite of their cultural differences, Vivaldi’s concertos influenced the Lutheran Bach more than any other concerto composer, more than Handel, more than Corelli, and certainly more than the countless other Italians, such as Albinoni. Bach was greatly influenced by Vivaldi’s concertos even though there is no evidence that Bach ever met Vivaldi or heard him play. Vivaldi’s reputation somehow succeeded in making its way to Bach, as did those aspects of his performance style that demanded that a concerto to be played in a very dramatic and spontaneous manner.

If you look at Vivaldi’s compositions, as compared to Bach’s, Vivaldi’s are indeed more simple, and I’ve encountered a number of theory professors who have disregarded him as a composer, claiming that “he wrote the same concerto five hundred times.” I think, though, that those particular theorists are missing out on the important fact that it’s the performer who brings Vivaldi’s concertos to life. Vivaldi wrote his concertos in such a way that they are quite extraordinary when placed the hands of gifted interpreters. With Vivaldi, we very much have a marriage of the performer and composer. In Vivaldi’s case, the composer invites the performer to say as much in the performance as the composer did in the writing of the piece.

EM So how does understanding Vivaldi change the way that we approach the works of Bach?

ZC Bach was a different composer, a more complete composer than Vivaldi. One can really disrupt the genius of Bach if one adds too much of oneself to Bach. On the other hand, I think that there is still adequate room for a lot of flair and extroversion in Bach’s concerto writing.

You can see that, especially in slow movements, for example, in the Concerto for Violin in A minor (BWV 1041), but also in the Brandenburg Concertos. Think of Brandenburg Concerto no. 5 in B flat Major (BWV 1050), where the violin, flute and harpsichord are featured as solo instruments. The middle movement, entitled affettuoso, is a gorgeous cantabile in a minor key that is totally heart-felt; however Bach assigns fragments of each phrase to each of the three instruments, never allowing a single instrument to play a complete statement. By doing so he almost forces to the musicians be a little bit more reserved and coherent, as opposed to the andante of the Concerto for Violin in A minor. There Bach has fluid, floridly ornamented lines cascading and spanning the entire range of the instrument’s extensive tessitura. This example of Bach’s creative genius is very much like the singing of an aria and, in that respect, is very much like Vivaldi’s writing for the violin.

EM We know that Bach heard an orchestra playing in the French style while he was living in Lüneburg, but did Bach ever come into contact with an entire orchestra of Italians?

ZC I don’t know about the personnel in Bach’s orchestras, yet I doubt that he had many Italian musicians working for him. I do know that Bach was limited in his resources and that not all of Bach’s musicians had mastered their instruments at the highest level. He often had to deal with disparities in technical levels and experience, which is probably why the instrumentation of the cantatas vary so greatly from week to week. When he had the good fortune to meet extraordinary talents, such as when a couple of excellent oboists visited Leipzig, he took the opportunity to feature those forces in the church service on the next available Sunday or feast day.

Antonio Vivaldi

In Vivaldi’s case, however, the composer had a consistent group of accomplished musicians available to him at all times. I think Vivaldi wrote something like thirty-nine bassoon concertos, evidence that he had more than a couple of good violinists readily at his disposal. Vivaldi really had such a strong base of musicians in his conservatory that he was encouraged to write many concertos for two, three and even four solo instruments. In contrast, while in Leipzig, Bach had to write concertos for himself and settle for an orchestra of town musicians and students who were, for the most part, unqualified to perform as soloists in their own right.

EM During Bach’s lifetime, Handel, in London, was deeply immersed in the world of Italian opera. Is that why, when we hear Handel, we know we’re not hearing Bach?

ZC When we hear any of Handel’s solo lines for an instrument, we are struck by the fact that that gorgeous melody could just as well have been sung by a great operatic soprano. That’s not at all the case for Bach. Bach was not an opera composer, and one wonders if Bach’s music could have survived if he had somehow managed to land a position with a major opera company.

I say this because even Bach’s vocal writing is so highly contrapuntal, with multiple, coexisting melodic lines, rather than simply lyrical. Within Bach’s counterpoint, a melodic line, such as a chorale melody, will appear and disappear and reappear while primary and secondary obligato voices weaving a complex texture over a bass line. This style of writing is really distinct from the kind of composition that Handel was undertaking, yet Handel’s writing, while more straightforward, is not simple. While it is every bit as harmonically complex as Bach’s, Handel’s writing is more accessible. Handel’s melodic lines start and finish with the same instrument, while Bach’s melodic lines are constantly shared among the participating instruments.

I remember reading a quotation that great counterpoint is like a great democracy, that each individual line or each individual person willingly sacrifices some freedom for the betterment of the whole organization. I think that that is what is really happening all the time in Bach’s music.

I guess that this is very similar to Mahler’s symphonies. Mahler can be compared to Bach in that Mahler rarely allows a melody to started on one instrument and completed by that same instrument. Working in the late nineteenth century and into the early twentieth century, Mahler was fascinated with tone colors and sonorities and would first have part of a melody doubled by the trumpet and clarinet and then replace the clarinet with and oboe and then ask the trumpet to drop out and go with a flute instead. Thus Mahler’s melodies are spun out with multiple timbres one hundred and fifty years after Bach, and that’s what Mahler did differently from Brahms and what Bach did differently from Handel.

EM The upcoming Chamber Concerts also include a work by Corelli. Wasn’t Corelli sort of the old man among this group of composers being featured?

ZC Indeed, Corelli was already quite popular in Rome in 1680, while Bach was not born until 1685. Corelli was the “grandfather of the concerto,” or at least he gets that credit today. Corelli was writing in the concerto grosso genre where there are two dueling forces: the ripieno, which is the tutti or the whole orchestra, and the concertino, which is the soloist or group of soloists.

Often in Corelli you’ll have two violin soloists, a first violin and a second violin, along with a cello soloist. Generally, there will be a four measure phrase that is first played by a soloist and that is then is repeated in imitation by the whole orchestra. As a result, a conversation takes place between the leaders of the sections and the rest of the instrumentalists. While parts of Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos are very much reminiscent of this older concerto grosso style, the concertos for solo instruments by Vivaldi or Bach have evolved into something else.

The Concerto for Two Violins in D minor (BWV 1043) that Nurit Pacht and I will be playing is a good example of a greatly evolved concerto grosso. The two solo violins are always playing solo materials even though at least half the time they are joined by the other violins in the section. What I mean by that is that the two violinists can play the double concerto without additional accompaniment because the two solo parts make musical sense on their own. Yet, when you hear the concerto performed live with the orchestra, you realize that the concertino versus ripieno is very much what’s happening, in the outer movements especially, and nowhere more obviously than in the first movement.

EM In conclusion, is there anything else you want to say about what makes Vivaldi Vivaldi and Bach Bach?

ZC While I have strongly experienced Northern Italian culture, as an outsider, as an American, in spite of the fact that people around the globe are becoming more similar as the result of the various forces of globalization, I would have to say that Italians still seem to thrive on a lack of predictability while many Germans really do get along extremely well with a lot of organization. And nowhere better can these cultural distinctions be seen and heard than in Vivaldi’s and Bach’s music. 

Still, while Bach’s counterpoint is highly organized, Bach is never lacking in surprise and in absolute beauty. While Vivaldi is really into shocking the listener, I would never say that he is more passionate or emotional than Bach. Both Bach and Vivaldi strived to accurately document the psychology of his own world and his own time. I think that’s why, after the passage of three hundred years, so many of us are so fascinated with the music and the musicians of the Baroque era.

Interview with Rick Erickson: 32nd Season Kickoff

13 Thursday Sep 2012

Posted by Edward McCue in Audio Recordings, Bach's Life, Bach's Predecessors, Bach's Works, Festival Events, Interviews

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Boulder Bach Festival, Brandenburg Concertos, cantata, chorus, concerto, continuo, Corelli, Handel, harpsichord, improvisation, organ, ornamentation, pedal, Sonata in G minor, St. John Passion, viola da gamba, Vivaldi, Zachary Carrettin

Edward McCue (EM) Now that we’re starting a new season, how do you feel about last year’s season and its theme, “Brandenburg and More?”

Rick Erickson (RE) I loved it, and I know that other people did, too. It was so much fun to do the complete Brandenburg Concertos over the season, plus the cantatas and everything else. As an instrumental ensemble and chorus, we all got to know each other, and this season is the direct result of all the great ideas that developed as we walked through last season together.

EM That reminds me of what I’ve always said about moving to a new place. You really have to experience the seasons a second time before you can claim a new city or new ensemble to be your own. So, Rick, I figure that, after this second season with the Boulder Bach Festival, Boulder really will be your place, too.

RE Look, I’m Swedish enough to already be completely positive about the Boulder Bach Festival. It already feels very natural and very good, and I’m so excited about this new season. Just look at what we’re taking on. We’re starting with ambitious Chamber Concerts this fall, and then it’s the St. John Passion (BWV 245) in the spring and Bach Camp! in the summer.

The program for the Chamber Concerts later this month is going to be so much fun for our players and the audience. It’s all about context. It’s all about Bach’s world. That to me is both exciting and gives a clear picture, too, as to who Bach was. To be lining up Bach with Corelli, Vivaldi and Handel and hearing concerti in the context of Bach’s time is really exciting and will be just phenomenal. I think we’re all going to have a ball.

EM You know, what surprises me is how radical, fresh and new Bach’s idea of the keyboard concerto was. He took other composers’ works for other instruments and turned them into keyboard concertos, and, to complement that, you’ve selected to also feature a Handel organ concerto during the upcoming Chamber Concerts.

RE Handel was in England where the organ was not perceived to be a primary contrapuntal instrument, unlike in Germany. It had very little in the way of a pedal division, and yet, in spite of that instrument’s incredible limitations, Handel wrote this elaborate keyboard game with lots of room for piles of ornamentation and expansion on a basic idea. It’s almost as if all keyboardists looked at each other one day and said, “Our time his here. We’re soloists, too.”

It’s pretty amazing just how quickly writing for keyboards evolved during the Baroque period, and already last spring, Zachary Carrettin and I began investigating this when we performed the Sonata in G minor (BWV 1029) at the Gala Benefit. The harpsichord is a full-fledged participant in the language of that sonata and equal to the viola da gamba in every sense. That had to have been really important for continuo keyboardists after years and years of just quietly filling in the harmonies.

But, actually, here’s the really interesting thing.

I’ve been to helping to edit some historical materials on continuo improvisation that suggests to us modern folk that continuo playing during the Baroque period was actually never any neutral kind of “fill in the chord, fill in the harmonic blank and stay out of the way” sort of thing. Instead, these caretakers of the bass line were producers of melody in their own right. The continuo keyboardists weren’t simply sitting there filling up time with pleasant harmonies, but they were freely improvising and highly involved with what was going on. That, of course, is incredibly appealing to me, and it makes perfect sense that, as the concerto form took on broader and broader language, it would be a natural inclination for the keyboardists to take their turn as soloists. I very much resonate with this argument.

But back to the topic of our upcoming season.

I’m so honored to make music with these amazing artists we have in the community, and I’m thrilled that later this month we get to perform the Chamber Concert three times in Longmont, Denver and Boulder. This is absolutely terrific. Think how unified in sound and approach we’ll have become. I think that, after the third concert, we should dash into the recording booth and lay down every bit of this really great program.

I can’t wait. Here we go!

The Sonatas for Viola da Gamba and Harpsichord

11 Friday May 2012

Posted by Edward McCue in Bach's Life, Bach's Predecessors, Bach's Works, Festival Events, Organology

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Boulder Bach Festival, Brandenburg Concerto no. 3 in G Major, Brandenburg Concerto no. 5 in B flat Major, Brandenburg Concertos, Carl Friedrich Abel, Christian Ferdinand Abel, concerto, continuo, da gamba, Diego Ortiz, Erbarme dich mein Gott um meiner Zähren Willen, First Congregational Church, frets, harpsichord, Leipzig, ornamentation, rebab, Rick Erickson, siciliano, sonata, sonata da chiesa, Sonata in D Major, Sonata in G Major, Sonata in G minor, Sonatas for Viola da Gamba and Harpsichord, St. Matthew Passion, Trattado de glosas, vihuela de mano, viol, viola da gamba, Weimar, Zachary Carrettin

Carl Friedrich Abel

Although the circumstances behind Bach’s composition of three Sonatas for harpsichord and viola da gamba (BWV 1027-29) are unknown, recent research indicates that they were most likely written in the early 1740’s, when the greatest virtuosos of the viola da gamba were long a thing of the past. No original source combines all three sonatas into a cycle, but a single score of the Sonata in G Major (BWV 1027) that details performance instructions for ornamentation and articulation supports the idea that Bach wrote the sonatas for Carl Friedrich Abel, the son of Cöthen colleague Christian Ferdinand Abel, for performance during his 1737-1743 sojourn in Leipzig.

The viola da gamba emerged in Spain during the fifteenth century, perhaps as a hybrid between the North African rebab and the Spanish vihuela de mano. With six strings and a fretted fingerboard, this novel instrument in various sizes traveled quickly to Italy and was soon being produced by master luthiers throughout the Continent and England. Bach became acquainted with the North German instruments owned by Johann Ernst von Sachsen-Weimar, and an inventory of Bach’s possessions shows that he owned a hundred-year-old English “viol” at the time of his death.

A description of a harpsichord collaborating with a viola da gamba can be found in the Trattado de glosas published by Diego Ortiz in 1533, but instead of the harpsichord simply introducing themes to the viol for further elaboration, Bach calls for the harpsichordist’s left hand to play basso continuo while the right hand acts as a melody instrument.

The Sonata in G Major is a reworking of a Sonata for two flutes and continuo (BWV 1039). Written in the four-movement (slow-fast-slow-fast) sonata da chiesa form, Bach infuses this sonata with the newer gallant style and engages all three voices in intense contrapuntal conversation.

The Sonata in D Major (BWV 1028) is the most virtuosic of the three sonatas for the viola da gamba, although the harpsichord remains at least an equal partner throughout. Again in four movements, the opening adagio presents an arioso-like melody shared between the two instruments, and he following allegro features a melody full of lively rhythms and exuberant momentum. The third movement, an andante, presents a siciliano melody reminiscent of Erbarme dich, mein Gott, um meiner Zähren Willen! from the St. Matthew Passion (BWV 244), and the final movement includes an extended, cadenza-like harpsichord solo similar to the one in the Brandenburg Concerto no. 5 in B flat Major (BWV 1050).

The Sonata in G minor (BWV 1029) differs from the other two sonatas in that it is in the three-movement Italian concerto form. From the outset, the harpsichord’s accompaniment resembles the orchestral texture of the Brandenburg Concerto no. 3 in G Major (BWV 1048). In the adagio, Bach exploits the viola da gamba’s capacity to soar in a movingly, tender way, and the final allegro deftly handles a profusion of themes.

Boulder Bach Festival music director Rick Erickson will join concertmaster Zachary Carrettin in a performance of the entire Sonata in G minor at a Benefit Concert at 6:30pm on 24 May 2012 at First Congregational Church in Boulder.

Visualizing Bach

07 Monday May 2012

Posted by Edward McCue in Bach's Works, Festival Events, Video Recordings

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acoustics, Alexander Chen, Boulder Bach Festival, cello, frequency, music notation, suite, Suite in G Major, viola, violoncello, Zachary Carrettin

Alexander Chen writes, “Classical notation is convenient and concise code. But visually, it’s completely disconnected from any actual physical characteristics of sound. String lengths, on the other hand, are visual representations of the frequencies they produce.” Chen has produced a visualization of the prelude from the Suite in G Major (BWV 1007) using techniques described here.

Boulder Bach Festival concertmaster Zachary Carrettin will perform the entire Suite in G Major on viola at a Benefit Concert at 6:30pm on 24 May 2012 at First Congregational Church in Boulder.

The Suites for Violoncello

27 Friday Apr 2012

Posted by Edward McCue in Audio Recordings, Bach's Life, Bach's Works, Festival Events, Organology, Other Artists, Video Recordings

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Anna Magdalena Bach, Boulder Bach Festival, Cöthen, cello, da gamba, da spalla, dance, First Congregational Church, La Petite Bande, Ryo Terakado, Sergey Malov, Sigiswald Kuijken, Sonatas and Partitas for Violin, suite, Suite in D Major, Suite in G Major, Suites for Unaccompanied Violoncello, viola, violoncello, violoncello da spalla, Zachary Carrettin

Bach’s six Suites for solo violoncello (BWV 1007-12) are among the most frequently performed compositions written for an unaccompanied stringed instrument. Each suite consists of six dance movements, and the entire collection is carefully conceived as a cycle as opposed to an arbitrary series of pieces.

Violoncello da spalla by Dmitry Badiarov

Most likely composed during Bach’s Cöthen period, the lack of an autographed manuscript results in uncertainty as to whether the suites were composed before or after the 1720 Sonatas and Partitas for solo violin (BWV 1001-6), and the vagueness of the early use of the term “violoncello” (“small large viol”) does not suggest whether the pieces were to be played on an instrument held da gamba (between the legs) or da spalla (on the shoulder).

Bach’s second wife, Anna Magdalena, prepared a copy of the suites and indicated that the sixth was to be performed on an instrument with a fifth string tuned a perfect fifth above the top string of our modern cello. Cellists wishing to play this Suite in D Major (BWV 1012) on a four-string cello must employ high positions to execute many of the notes, while performers of period instruments can choose either a five-string Baroque cello held da gamba or a da spalla form of the instrument.

Sigiswald Kuijken has recorded all six suites on the violoncello da spalla, as has Ryo Terakado, also of La Petite Bande. Sergey Malov, violinist, violist and relative newcomer to the violoncello da spalla, offers an online performance of the gigue from the Suite in G Major (BWV 1007).

Boulder Bach Festival concertmaster Zachary Carrettin will perform the entire Suite in G Major on viola at a Benefit Concert at 6:30pm on 24 May 2012 at First Congregational Church in Boulder.

Interview with Zachary Carrettin: Real Authentic Practice

19 Thursday Jan 2012

Posted by Edward McCue in Audio Recordings, Interviews, Music Education

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acoustics, Baroque bow, Boulder Bach Festival, bowing, Corelli, harmonic series, improvisation, Kenneth Goldsmith, Leopold Mozart, Mozart, performance practice, Rick Erickson, string tone, tenor, vibrato, Zachary Carrettin

Edward McCue (EM) You’ve been complimented on your expressive playing on the Baroque violin. Where did this affinity for period instruments originate?

Zachary Carrettin (ZC) When I was a freshman at the High School for Performing and Visual Arts in Houston, I became a private student of violinist Kenneth Goldsmith. We immediately began working on the Mozart violin concertos, and when I was sixteen, I bought a Baroque bow primarily for work on solo Bach and Corelli trio sonatas. By the time I was seventeen, Mr. Goldsmith had put a Baroque violin with pure gut strings in my hands, and so I began working on the original equipment, as well as original manuscripts, before I entered college. As a Rice University undergraduate, I pursued further studies in Holland and Belgium and began to work professionally on historical instruments, so I would say that period instruments have been integrated into my training as a violinist, not something outside of learning violin technique and violin style.

EM So what do you look for in a historical instrument?

ZC This is a big issue for me as I believe that a historical instrument’s setup should achieve the most honest, pure, beautiful sound that fully expresses the harmonic series. Often times violinists will convert their instruments into what they believe to be an eighteenth century setup, and they lose all of the great qualities of the instrument. Success depends on who is doing the work and what they are using for the model for the work on the instrument.

I do play an instrument with a retrofitted Baroque neck, but it was a careful operation, and the instrument retains an enormous amount of resonance. If the ring had been lost, there would really be nothing authentic about the resulting sound.

EM I often hear musicians discussing specific bowing techniques required to play the Baroque violin in an authentic manner, but isn’t an understanding of style and repertoire at least as important as the equipment and technique?

Francesco Saverio Geminiani (1687-1762)

ZC Certainly, and that repertoire becomes so much more interesting the further that you go into it. Eventually you begin to understand things that are in the music but are not notated on the page. To do this, one needs to look at harpsichord music, and virginal music, and organ music, and lute manuscripts as all of these things inform the practice of playing the violin for seventeenth and eighteenth century repertory.

After working with so many teachers and musicians I now realize that there are many viable technical and stylistic approaches to playing Baroque music. Today’s diversity of approaches really reflects the diversity that existed in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries because, in addition to the national styles of composing and playing in France and Italy, there were regional styles. Even within a given city you might have found a violinist who lived three city blocks away from an equally important violinist, and yet the two of them agreed on nothing.

This kind of diversity of approaches led to a warning from Leopold Mozart that “one should not vibrate on every note” as opposed to Geminiani’s recommendation that “since the shake makes the tone more agreeable, it should be used as often as possible.” Clearly, each heard someone else doing something he didn’t like, so I think that treatises are often reacting against things that a particular musician didn’t favor.

And I have worked with people who favored the lower part of the bow and people who favored the upper part of the bow and some who liked to play open strings as often as possible without using the fingers and others who try to avoid the open strings as often as possible. In fact, there is documentation supporting all of these practices.

This diversity makes it difficult to implement a concept called HIPP: Historically Informed Performance Practice. I think this diversity is reconciled by applying RAP: Real Authentic Practice.

For me there are three concepts to Real Authentic, early eighteenth century, Practice. Those three concepts are: everybody composed, everybody improvised, and everybody played more than one instrument. That pretty much goes without exception. Singers played several instruments. Composers sang and played several instruments, and concertmasters played several instruments, sang, improvised and composed.

My point being is that we should be constantly expanding the tools of expression that we have at our disposal. To this end, the first ten years of playing Baroque string instruments might be devoted to reading documents, playing original instruments and learning a variety of practices, and then the next ten years might be committed to merging all of those ideas by pursuing Real Authentic Practice. My hope for everyone involved in historical performance is that we will eventually embrace all of the equipment and documents as colors on a palette for our expressivity, rather than limiting ourselves to any single approach that we perceive to be “authentic.”

EM How have you integrated singing into your playing?

ZC Your question makes me think back to when I was fifteen or sixteen. My mentor, Ken Goldsmith, gave me a stack of LP records of the great singers of the 1940’s, 50’s and 60’s and said, “You know, if you want to learn how to play the violin, you must listen to the great singers.” Ferruccio Tagliavini is still my favorite tenor, and I think that what Mr. Goldsmith said is true for all of us instrumentalists.

We learn from what’s natural to the voice, and the color, the sonority that a choir achieves, should be our ideal as instrumentalists. We should always be going for that, yet, strangely, many of us forget that along the way. We get caught up with the equipment, with notions of authentic performance practice, with documents, with the different functions of a violin, and a cello and an organ, and often we stray too far away from the true nature of the sound.

Fortunately, Rick Erickson and I agree on so many things. For example, we agree on the inherent vocal nature of bowed instruments and wind instruments, and we want to find what is most natural. We don’t want to limit ourselves with our concepts of what may have been done in a particular choir or orchestra in a particular city in the year 1715, but rather, the more we read, the more ideas we have, the more we compose, the more we improvise, the more we explore, the more we try things on different instruments, the more we can bring to our audiences.

I think that, here in Boulder in the early twenty-first century, our audiences and we are in a particularly fantastic place. We have an enormous number of manuscripts and documents at our disposal. We have recordings, we have traditions of playing early music. We have teachers and musicians and colleagues with whom we can exchange ideas. So we actually have more possibilities than they may have had, say, in Dresden in 1715 or Venice in 1730.

When we combine our own imaginations and our own experiences with playing and hearing this music, the sky is the limit. That’s not say that we can do everything better than they did in Bach’s time. I don’t believe that’s possible, for a number of reasons, but whatever we do, we can do it beautifully, and we can do it in our own way.

Interview with Zachary Carrettin: Finding Our Voice

18 Wednesday Jan 2012

Posted by Edward McCue in Bach's Works, Festival Events, Interviews

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acoustics, balance, Baroque bow, Boulder Bach Festival, bowing, Chaconne in D minor, emotions, improvisation, Mozart, painting, phrasing, Rick Erickson, Sergiu Luca, string tone, The Holy Trinity Bach Players, vibrato, Zachary Carrettin

Edward McCue (EM) How is the Boulder Bach Festival ensemble developing its own sound?

Zachary Carrettin (ZC) Our instrumentalists come from a diversity of backgrounds, and each one of us has strong opinions and a strong musical voice. As we prepare our February and March programs, we’re working together to develop a unified voice with real character.

Step one has been to begin using our Baroque bows. Last fall, when I asked my colleagues if they had access to a Baroque bow, virtually everyone said they owned one. We have decided to use our bows in a way that is informed by the Italian and French music of Bach’s time and before, and equally important is our decision to pay careful attention to the acoustic of our performance space.

Personally, I first became really aware of a room’s acoustic when I was working with a great German violinist who was bouncing the bow quite high off the string in a very detached manner. Because we were playing in a space that seated more than a thousand people and was carpeted, the acoustic didn’t resound, and I realized that, after working with him for a couple of days, his style of playing had probably developed over decades of playing in stone chapels in Europe, which have a lot of resonance. His detached manner of playing was probably perfect for those spaces, which create a musical line through the sonorous ringing of the room, whereas when we play in less resonant spaces in North America, we have to create the legato that is not provided by the room.

St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, Denver

Some venues, however, elongate the lines of our music more than others. For example, St. John’s in Boulder has an attractive acoustic. While its resonance does not last for a long period of time, it creates a beautiful sonority. St. Andrew’s  in Denver, on the other hand, has more of an after ring, so we have to make immediate adjustments to our playing technique in order to create the sound we want.

So, as an ensemble, we have decided to create the ideal sound, the sound we want the audience to hear, wherever we play, whatever the acoustic.

EM When you played the Chaconne in D minor (BWV 1004) last September in Boulder at St. John’s, what was on your mind?

ZC The Chaconne is a difficult question. In music it’s such a masterpiece and it’s quite lengthy, and what it has to say has layers of complexity. I find that often I choose to approach it more like a lutenist than as a bowed string player. Bowed strings players are often going to go after a sustained sound, maybe more like an organ, and I find that, in the case of this work, some of the intimacy is lost if there is too much sustain.

The challenge I found in playing in St. John’s was finding the right balance between me producing the legato or the room offering it. So I explored it a little bit as I was getting to know that space. At times I thought I was underplaying a bit, and at times I thought I was overplaying it. There’s a point where you connect with the acoustic in which you’re playing and it becomes your instrument, and that is always what I’m looking for. I definitely wanted to bring the listener to the piece rather than to exert it to them, but creating that intimacy can be difficult in an unresponsive acoustic, as the danger is always underplaying.

Having said that, there are many techniques at our disposal to compensate for acoustic shortcomings of a room: bow speed, the pressure, the weight of the bow, where we place the bow on the string, when to vibrate, when not to vibrate. These are all things that I am constantly exploring because I feel that I need to be able to adjust to every venue, and the only way to do that is to practice all of the options

Sergiu Luca with Baroque and Modern Bows

One of my teachers, Sergiu Luca, once told me that he felt he understood Mozart when he had played a thousand phrases of Mozart each a thousand times and each in a hundred different ways. I might be getting the numbers wrong on that, but the idea being that he had tried every possibility for those phrases. He also told me that he didn’t improvise onstage, but rather he had tried all the possibilities, and any performance would be a collection of all of the bowings and fingering he had tried, put together in a new puzzle.

That’s really inspiring because all of us in the Baroque music profession improvise while we perform, but we also want to be improvising in the practice room. We constantly want to be trying all of the fingerings that might work in the various spaces. Having said that, when I was an undergraduate at Rice University, I often practiced in bathrooms, in stairwells, in organ halls, in concert halls, and especially in churches. Even during summers, when I spent time with my family in Venice, I played masses with organists and tried to play in as many acoustic environments as possible.

And even when I was touring with Yanni, whenever I would get a day off, I would find a church in that town or city in which to practice, and when I’m on the east coast here in the United States, I find it delightful to practice in churches built in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. I think the acoustic is our instrument, and we want to practice in as many acoustic environments as possible.

EM You mentioned that the acoustic at St. Andrew’s is more resonant than that at St. John’s. In a sense, then, is it more gratifying for you and for the ensemble to play there?

ZC The acoustic in Denver simply makes things easier. We don’t need to sustain. We don’t need to use vibrato. We can focus on the purity of the pitch, and we can allow the bow to do its natural decay. So in a way, the music plays itself. Having said that, it is also a slightly brighter sound than St. John’s.

St. John’s has a warmth, but because St. John’s doesn’t have the amount of after ring that St. Andrew’s has, St. John’s requires us to hold the notes a little longer and to create the decay. So, in other words, in a space that is extremely resonant, one can just pull the bow across the string and release it and the bloom happens and the decay happens by the nature of the acoustic, but in a space like St. John’s, we have to control the decay with our hand. Each bow stroke has to be thought out because we get the sonority, we get the color and we get the warmth at St. John’s, but we don’t get the after ring. So I think the challenge for us in St. John’s is to recreate the sound we created in St. Andrew’s, but in order to do it we sometimes need some vibrato, we sometimes need to avoid open strings, and we sometimes need to keep the bow on the string longer. When playing at St. John’s we have to remember the sound of the performance we gave at St. Andrew’s but forget the physiology.

EM What is the sound at Holy Trinity in New York, where Rick Erickson leads the Bach Vespers?

ZC Ah, that is truly one of the most wonderful spaces for this music on the continent.

Holy Trinity has it all. It has a wonderful amount of after ring, but it doesn’t linger excessively. If an after ring lingers too long, then different harmonies begin to stack upon one another and you start to hear cacophony. In that situation you often have to play in a more detached matter so that the after ring doesn’t become muddy. But you also have to take slower tempos, and sometimes you don’t want to take a slower tempo. What is so wonderful at Holy Trinity is that you can play at any tempo and at any speed of harmonic motion. If a harmony or a chord is changing on every beat, you can still play at a fast tempo. Then there is this wonderful, warm ring. It’s very homogenous, so the choir and orchestra always sound wonderfully blended. However, no individual voice is lost, so you hear the violas and you hear the altos. It doesn’t matter how many violins you have because you still hear the bassoon and you still hear the continuo organ accompanying. All of the different timbres come out within a wonderful blend.

Four Musical Angels by Bernardo Daddi, ca. 1340

What happens in that space is that it is really easy to stop forcing the details of the music. A musician with enough experience can simply play, and the space does half of the work for him or for her. Also it puts one in a space psychologically and physically, and dare I say spiritually, where there’s a little less sense of ego or of individual and a little more sense of being a conduit for the music.

I’m reminded of the Renaissance paintings with the celestial orchestras with angels playing instruments. The angels always appear as if they’re not exerting any effort. There’s just this sound going through them, this harmony of the spheres being transmitted through them. I think that, to some extent, in spaces like Holy Trinity, that actually happens.

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