UMS Concert Program, June 11, 1967: Fair Lane Festival -- Chicago Symphony Baroque Orchestra

Concert: FOURTH
Complete Series: 3569
Fair Lane, Dearborn Campus, The University Of Michigan

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FUR LANE FESTIVAL
CHICAGO SYMPHONY BAROQUE ORCHESTRA
Antonio Janigro, Guest Conductor
Sunday Evening, June 11, 1967, at 8:30 Fair Lane, Dearborn Campus, The University of Michigan
PROGRAM
Concerto Grosso in G minor, Op. 6, No. 6........Handel
Largo affettuoso A tempo giusto Musette Allegro Allegro
Kenneth Gilbert, harpsichord
Concerto for Three Horns in D major........Telemann
Vivace Grave Presto
Dale Clevenger, Clyde Wedgwood, Richard Oldberg, horn; Steven Staryk, violin; Kenneth Gilbert, harpsichord
Concerto for Three Trumpets and Two Oboes in D major . . . Telemann
Intrada Allegro Largo
Vivace
Adolph Herseth, Vincent Cichowttz, William Scarlett, trumpet; DeVere Moore, Richard Kanter, oboe; Kenneth Gilbert, harpsichord
INTERMISSION
Concerto for Two Violins in C major.........Telemann
Allegro Adagio Vivace
Victor Aitay, Samuel Magad, violin; Kenneth Gilbert, harpsichord
Concerto for Trumpet in D major.........Telemann
Adagio Allegro Grave
Allegro
Adolph Herseth, trumpet; Kenneth Gilbert, harpsichord
Concerto Grosso in D major, Op. 6, No. 5........Handel
Larghetto, allegro Presto Largo
Allegro Menuet
Kenneth Gilbert, harpsichord
Fourth Program 1967 Fair Lane Festival Complete Series 3S69
89th Season of the University Musical Society Presentations Twentyfifth program in the Sesquicentennial Year of The University of Michigan
PROGRAM NOTES by John F. Ohl
Concerto Grosso in G minor, Op. 6, No. 6........Handel
Handel's concertos, in their variety of form, style, and medium, illustrate both his independence of standard practice and his fondness for improvisation. According to Burney it was in 1733, at the outset of his career as a producer of oratorios, that Handel began what became an invariable practice, that of performing some of his concertos during the intervals. Notices during the years of his major oratorio activity almost always advertise his intention to favor the public with these additional attractions. He seems on occasion to have performed as many as three complete con?certos on a single occasion, sometimes intermixing concertos for strings or other instruments with those for solo organ. The Concerto Grosso in G minor is one of the most beautiful of the set of twelve which Handel composed in 1739 and published the next year. These works belong to the type in which a solo group of two violins and violoncello are contrasted with a larger body of strings, a medium made famous by Corelli's Opus 6 which also consists of twelve concertos for this combination. In the Concerto in G minor, as in all the concertos of the set, Handel shows his cus?tomary independence of any models and his fondness for adopting any and all styles of concerto writing current in his day. The opening slow movement shows an obvious debt to Corelli, although only Handel possesses this superb breadth and grandeur. This leads directly to the fast second movement, a fugue in four parts on a fascinating chromatic theme in which the solo group plays with the full orchestra and there is no concerto element whatever. The Musette which follows is one of Handel's most original inspirations; as the title of the movement implies, it opens with a passage that is in large part on a drone bass; this returns several times in the course of the movement, shortened and altered in various ways, as a refrain. Between the returns of the refrain Handel inserts new material of the greatest diversity, set sometimes for the soloists, sometimes for the full orchestra. The resulting form, with refrains separated by new material each time, is one which French composers of keyboard suites called a rondeau, a design particularly well suited to so French a dance movement as a "musette." The Allegro which follows is by contrast completely Italian, but the style is that of Vivaldi not Corelli; the solo group of two violins and cello is replaced by a solo violin, and what results is a typical first movement of a Vivaldi solo concerto. This extra?ordinary work is brought to an end with a lively little dance for the trio made up of all the violins in unison, the violas, and all the bass instruments.
Concerto for Three Horns in D major........Telemann
Georg Philipp Telemann (16811767), a contemporary of Bach and Handel, was a renowned figure in the musical life of his time, in his way as famous as Handel in his, and far more widely known than Bach. He was in Leipzig before Bach came there, having entered the University of Leipzig in 1701 as a student of law, while engaging in various musical activities on the side. After holding various other posts he became "Director Musices" in Hamburg, where he remained from 1721 until his death. He was a most prolific composer, and contributed to every form of music; his reputation, high during his life, suffered in later periods, and at one time during the modern revival
John F. Ohl is Chairman of the Department of Music History and Literature, School of Music, Northwestern University.
of interest in Baroque music (during the rediscovery of Bach) it was fashionable to regard Telemann as an industrious turnerout of mechanically conceived music of little worth. A more balanced view obtains today, and Telemann is recognized as a fine craftsman whose knowledge of musical styles current in his day was international in scope. He was highly regarded by both Bach and Handel. He was godfather to Bach's second and most famous son, Carl Philipp Emanuel; and according to custom the godson was given one of the godfather's names. Handel and Telemann corresponded over many years, and exchanged compositions; it is perhaps this fact that explains Handel's notorious "plagiarism" of a number of Telemann's compositions; his use of his friend's music may have been a gesture of admiration and an acknowledgment of the identity of their styles in certain types of music. The Concerto for Three Horns, according to its modern editor, was probably composed between 1712 and 1721, when Telemann was in Frankfurt am Main and before he went to Hamburg. It is in the Vivaldi threemovement form. The horns are treated as a solo group, but special demands are made upon the virtuosity of the first horn throughout the first and third movements, and there are many passages where the principal horn is joined by a solo violin, all the other instruments but the bass being silent. The rhapsodic middle movement is assigned to the solo violin accompanied by pizzicato upper strings, since the horn of this period was unsuited to music in a minor key.
Concerto for Three Trumpets and Two Oboes in D major .... Telemann
This brilliant work, scored for three trumpets and timpani, two oboes, and strings, the com?bination Bach normally used in his most festive cantatas, was probably written in Hamburg for an official occasion of great pomp and splendor. The opening Intrada is much more than an introduction to the Allegro which follows it, although it is connected to it by three transitional chords; it has the character of a march for the entrance (Intrada) of a procession of dignitaries in ceremonial robes. The Allegro which opens the Concerto proper gives the central role to the oboes, the trumpets and drums reinforcing the conclusion. The slow movement is a solo for the first oboe accompanied by the strings, its plaintive melody presenting the melancholy side of the oboe's nature. The festive mood returns with even greater vigor in the final movement and the Concerto ends as it began, in a mood of high celebration.
Concerto for Two Violins in C major........Telemann
A beautiful work which might almost be a counterpart, in the major mode, to Bach's magnifi?cent Concerto in D minor (S. 1043) for the same combination. Indeed, it is tempting to suppose that one of the two composers is emulating the other's example. Bach evidently wrote his Concerto for Two Violins at Cothen, between 1717 and 1723, but in the absence of a sure date for Telemann's Concerto it is impossible to guess which composer was the model for the other. Like Bach's lovely work, Telemann's is in the threemovement form of Vivaldi. The powerful unison theme which pervades the first movement might have been written by Vivaldi himself, and the workingout of the entire movement follows Vivaldi (and therefore Bach) in every respect, the two solo violins intertwining their strands of melody in the same way as they do in Bach's Double Concerto. The slow movement in the minor mode, as befits a concerto whose main key is major, may lack the ineffable beauty of Bach's second movement but does not fall much short of it. The last movement again is very like Bach's final movement; the texture is less intricate than Bach's but the mood of the whole of Telemann's Concerto is, after all, the obverse of Bach's intensely serious Concerto. This is certainly a composition of which any composer of the late Baroque might be proud.
Concerto for Trumpet in D major.........Telemann
For this Concerto, Telemann adopts the fourmovement form of the sonata da chiesa, thus following Corelli instead of his more usual model Vivaldi. The work is scored for solo trumpet, two violins, and basso continuo, and might well be performed as a piece of chamber music, with only a single instrument on each of the two violin parts. The opening Adagio is like the first movement of one of Corelli's solo sonatas in the church sonata style; the violins form a background of repeated chords above which the trumpet has a lyrical melody not unlike that for a solo violin in a Corelli sonata. In the second movement, however, there is real concerto alternation between the strings and the solo trumpet, and the latter has passages of great brilliance which show off its agility in rapid figurations. The Grave is again in the style of a trio sonata, the trumpet being silent; as is usual in third movements in late Baroque church sonatas, the rhythm is that of a sarabande. Concerto style reappears in the last Allegro; the movement is fugal, and the themes are typical trumpet themes. Toward the end one is strongly reminded of Vivaldi once more, and thus of Bach, and the conclusion is like that of the Second Brandenburg Concerto, with the trumpet below the violins on the third of the final chord.
Concerto Grosso in D major, Op. 6, No. 5.......Handel
An essential quality of Handel's genius, which in the past has frequently been held against him, is his willingness to improvise, his readiness to adapt to new uses his own ideas or those of others when he sees that they will serve; he was, in fact, a superb opportunist. The Concerto in D major is an excellent case in point. The first and last movements are substantially identical with his Overture to the Ode for St. Cecilia's Day composed in the same year as the Concertos of Opus 6. It seems likely that the Overture, in the French style Handel almost invariably used, with a dance movement (here a Minuet) added as was his custom in theater pieces, preceded the use of this music as part of a concerto grosso, for in the latter situation the opening Larghetto and the lively fugal Allegro are expanded, the original parts for solo oboes being assigned to solo violins. The Presto exists as a trio sonata movement in Handel's Opus 5, also published in 1739; it's impossible to guess which was the original version. The Largo which follows might be a movement from a Corelli Concerto Grosso, or from a Corelli trio sonata into which concerto alternation in Corelli's manner has been introduced by adding a string orchestra. The fourth movement, marked Allegro, has no concertostyle contrast between solo and orchestra whatever; the English scholar Basil Lam has pointed out its marked similarity to one of Domenico Scarlatti's harpsichord sonatas in the same key. In the last movement, as has been mentioned, Handel returns to his Overture for St. Cecilia's Day in a Mmuet with two variations identical with the last movement of the Overture.