 E-mail Story Print Friendly
|
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Shunned opera gets due centuries later
By David Steinberg
Journal Staff Writer
The light of King Louis XIV shined on composer Jean-Baptiste Lully for more than three decades. Lully held several court-appointed titles, including the prestigious maitre de la musique de la famille royale.
But a shadow fell over Lully when the Sun King learned that the composer had seduced one of his pages. That is why in 1686, a year after the scandal, Lully's last opera, "Armide," was performed in a public hall, and not at court.
"Louis refused to have anything to do with 'Armide,' which is too bad because it's a wonderful opera," said Susan Patrick, the harpsichordist for the Albuquerque Baroque Players.
The ensemble will play a suite of arranged pieces from "Armide" at its paired concerts Saturday, Nov. 21, and Nov. 22.
"French operas have had a lot of instrumental music, and an anonymous person took the instrumental music from 'Armide' and re-arranged it for four parts," Patrick said.
That works perfectly for the four-member ensemble. The other players are Linda Vik on Baroque violin, MaryAnn Shore on Baroque oboe and recorders and Mary Bruesch on viola da gamba.
The program also includes a sonata for recorder and continuo from Nicolas Chédeville's "Il pastor fido," which had been attributed to Antonio Vivaldi, and a trio sonata for oboe, violin and continuo by Johann Gottlieb Goldberg that had been attributed to J.S. Bach.
"Nobody is positive who wrote it," Patrick said of the Goldberg/Bach work. "But the first biographer of Bach, Johann Forkel, had said ...that the sons of Bach told him that Goldberg was a student of their father. ... But nobody is sure if Goldberg studied with him."
In the 19th century, she said, because of that alleged teacher-student connection, Goldberg's sonata was attributed to Bach.
"Its style is more complex than other pieces by Goldberg, but some characteristics correspond to other Goldberg pieces," Patrick said.
In the case of the Chédeville/Vivaldi attribution issue, she said, Chédeville wanted the piece to have Vivaldi's name attached to it.
"Vivaldi was very, very popular at the time, and when Chédeville had it published, it was normal to say (it is played with) such and such instruments," Patrick said.
"The first instrument he put under Vivaldi's name was a musette, which is a bagpipe. Chédeville was a virtuoso on musette. But if a great person like Vivaldi said it's OK to play musette, it must be a great instrument."
About a dozen years after its publication, the publisher admitted that Chédeville was the composer but nobody paid any attention to it until about 1990, she said.
If you go
WHAT: Albuquerque Baroque Players
WHEN and WHERE: 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 21, at Fellowship Christian Reformed Church, 4800 Indian School NE, and 3 p.m. Nov. 22 at the Historic Old San Ysidro Church, Old Church Road, Corrales
HOW MUCH: $15 general public, $12 seniors, $7 full-time students. For reservations or for more information call 255-7089 or visit www.albuquerquebaroqueplayers.com
| We do not publish all comments, and we do not publish comments immediately. |
|
|
