Fringe Concert redux

We should have posted about last Friday’s recital before the better part of six days had gone by, but the days were too filled with concerts, exhibition-related activities, and travel to write about the highlight of our Boston trip.  And yes, it was a highlight: the performance went well, we had a most appreciative audience, and all instrument makers involved were pleased with the collaboration.

Here is the final list of instrument makers:

Warren Ellison (violin after N. Amati)

Timothy G. Johnson (violin after A. Amati)

Dmitry Badiarov and apprentices (violin)

Gabriela Guadalajara (violin after Stainer)

Daniel Larson (violin after A. Amati)

Francis Beaulieu (piccolo violin)

A. David Moore (continuo organ)

You can visit the Gamut Music website to watch a short video taken by Daniel Larson of the opening sections of “The Ascension.”

Edith had a grand time visiting the luthiers’ exhibit booths on Saturday to try out their violins in normal tuning and on other repertoire (Bach and Fontana).  Now that she could listen to the violins without an agenda of matching them to specific pieces, she enjoyed hearing how much each instrument’s sound had opened up after having been played for a couple of weeks (and, in some cases, having had slight adjustments).  She found herself equally disappointed and relieved not to be in the market for a new instrument!

One of the wonderful aspects of Friday’s recital, as well as the previous Saturday’s in Madison, was the opportunity to feature readings of biblical prophecies relating to each of the “portraits” in our program—whether predicting the event itself or sharing an “affect” with the respective partita—and to print the events’ narratives along with the program notes:

Annunciation—Isaiah 7:14 with Luke 1:26–38

Presentation—Isaiah 42:6–7 with Luke 2:25–35

Crucifixion—Isaiah 53:4–5 with John 19:18–30 and Matthew 27:50–54

Resurrection—Job 19:25 with Matthew 28:1–10

Ascension—Psalm 47:5–7 with Luke 24:50–52

Descent of the Holy Spirit—Joel 2:28–29 with selections from Acts 2

Our thanks to Murray Somerville for gracing the Boston performance with his readings, and to the Rev. Franklin Wilson for doing so in the Madison performance.

Piccolo violin

When I (Edith) proposed our upcoming demonstration recital to a number of luthiers earlier this spring, one maker who was interested was Francis Beaulieu of Montreal.  However, being primarily a viol maker, he told me he wouldn't have a standard violin available at BEMF—but he would have a piccolo violin.  I have never even heard live, much less played, a piccolo violin, which is a small violin tuned a minor third higher than the standard violin and known primarily for its solo role in Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 1.  Still, since I've wanted for a while to try my hand at the instrument, I have been eagerly anticipating the opportunity for the last two months.

This afternoon I finally got to meet Beaulieu and try out the instrument.  It was even smaller than I was expecting (body length approximately one-third less than a full-size violin), but strangely not as difficult to finger as I had feared.  (No, my first few attempts were not exactly in tune, but gradually the pitches became recognizable!)  And a comparison with the other violins I'll be playing showed that the piccolo violin should be able to hold its own alongside them—provided it can hold its own under the other performance conditions (namely, in a large church and with an organ).  The final decision will have to wait, then, until our rehearsal on Thursday evening, but I'm hopeful.

Biber week begins

Last evening we had the great pleasure of presenting our latest program, "Youth, Power, and Wisdom: Biber's Pictures of the Life of Christ," at Luther Memorial Church in Madison as a preview performance of our upcoming Fringe Concert at the Boston Early Music Festival (BEMF).  The program includes six of Biber's partitas on the Mysteries of the Rosary:

     I. The Annunciation
     IV. The Presentation
     X. The Crucifixion
     XI. The Resurrection
     XII. The Ascension
     XIII. The Descent of the Holy Spirit



(Thanks to Marika Fischer Hoyt for the photos.)

In Boston, the recital will double as a demonstration recital for luthiers displaying their work at the BEMF Exhibition.  Edith has been working in advance with instruments by four of the luthiers—Warren Ellison, Gabriela Guadalajara, Timothy Johnson, and Daniel Larson—and is looking forward to meeting more makers and their instruments in the next few days!

Chappy will also be doing an instrument demonstration of sorts: his instrument in Boston will be a new continuo organ by A. David Moore of Vermont (Moore, however, is not exhibiting at BEMF).

This was our first time performing a full recital with our colleague and friend Philip Spray on violone.  What fun to play "The Ascension" at last with the proper instrument for the violone solo marked in the "Aria Tubicinum"!

We leave tomorrow for Boston and will keep you updated throughout the week.  If you'll be at BEMF, we hope to see you at our recital: Friday, June 14, at 9:00 a.m. at First Lutheran Church.

Update on February 14 performance

If you were planning to attend our February 14 Convocation recital at Wheaton College, we regret to inform you that it has been canceled.  Our thanks go to Prof. Edward Zimmerman for his help in trying to reschedule us for later this spring, but the Convocation calendar was already full.  We do, however, hope to reschedule the performance for next fall, so please stay tuned!

Happy New Year!

We wish you all a happy new year, and we hope to be able to play for you—in person—sometime soon!  In the meantime we've put up another sample recording, this one from our performance at the opening concert of the Sunday Afternoon Live from the Chazen series (at the Chazen museum on the UW-Madison campus).  We thought you might enjoy hearing our arrangement of Boccherini's Fandango for violin, harpsichord and percussion.  Thanks a million to Laura Guse, our percussionist!

Biber in Milwaukee...and beyond

On Saturday, December 8, we performed H. I. F. Biber’s “Annunciation” partita in the Advent-themed concert Rejoice! by Milwaukee’s Ensemble Musical Offering.  Our friend and colleague Phil Spray joined us on violone, which was a real treat, since there have been few opportunities for the three of us to play together.  However, we hope that will change in the near future.  Looking ahead to the Boston Early Music Festival in June 2013, if the Lord wills that the arrangements work out, we expect to collaborate with Phil once again for a pair of Fringe Concerts with the theme “Biber’s Life of Christ,” in which we will perform thirteen of the fifteen partitas on the Mysteries of the Rosary.

A welcome to the 2012–13 season

At last we are back performing in Madison!  On September 8 and 9 we will jump early into Madison’s concert season with recitals at Capitol Lakes Retirement Community and the Chazen Museum of Art (see “Upcoming Events” at right for details).  Our program is titled “Invitation to the Dance” and features a century’s worth of dance and dance-inspired music from France, Italy, and Germany.

In this post we’d like to present some notes on the program.  As always on WPR’s Sunday Afternoon Live, host Lori Skelton will present an interesting background sketch on each piece, but on a 1.5-hour show that, after all, is primarily dedicated to the music itself, there simply won’t be time to discuss many particulars!  Since we’re hard put to write just a simple, short essay for our program notes, we’ve written a rather extensive essay and uploaded a PDF here.  You can download it to read at your leisure on screen or on paper—and even bring it with you to the performance, which really should help with understanding of the program notes (whether or not the converse holds true!).  In any case, however you choose to read the essay, we hope it will provide some helpful insights into both the music and our preparation process.