Returning to the VoM Video Archives

It turns out that, under pandemic conditions, Sundays have turned out to be busy days for me, even if they only involve viewing streamed video performances. As a result I am somewhat embarrassed to confess that the Sunday Mornings at Ten videos created by Voices of Music (VoM) have escaped my notice. This is a series of weekly streams of video recordings past performances (mostly in St. Mark’s Lutheran Church), collected under a common title.

Ironically, yesterday’s compilation did not go “online” until this morning. At about a quarter to ten, I received an electronic mail “apology” for the glitch, informing me that yesterday’s program, entitled Et in Terra Pax, was finally available for viewing. This fit perfectly into my schedule; and, given my past interest in the VoM video archives, I looked forward to the opportunity to return to a “programmed account” of selections.

It turned out that the program title referred only to the opening selection. This was the second movement of a setting of the Gloria text from the Mass, which George Frideric Handel scored for soprano and strings. The entire Gloria setting cannot be found in the HWV catalog because it was lost for many years. It was discovered in the library of the Royal Academy of Music in London in 2001 and was subsequently attributed to Handel. The prevailing conjecture is that he composed the music in Rome, possibly for the soprano Margherita Durastanti.

The soprano for the VoM performance was Laura Heimes. She performed with “chamber accompaniment” by two violins (Carla Moore and Sara Usher), cello (Farley Pearce), violone (John Dornenburg), organ (Katherine Heater), harpsichord (Hanneke van Proosdij), and archlute (David Tayler). The program notes on the Web page (probably by Tayler) suggest that Handel may have been influenced by Antonio Vivaldi, specifically conjecturing one of the latter’s slow concerto movements. Personally, I was willing to accept the music on its own terms, having had few encounters with the music that Handel composed while in Rome.

The opportunity to “compare and contrast” arose when Tayler decided to follow this video with one of soprano Dominique Labelle performing a sacred motet by Vivaldi. This was the RV 627 “In turbato mare irato” (in the turbulence of the angry sea). Instrumental resources were only somewhat richer than those deployed by Handel. There were now four violins (Usher, joined this time by Katherine Kyme, Elizabeth Blumenstock, and Maxine Nemerovski), along with a single viola (Lisa Grodin). William Skeen played a five-string cello, while Pearce shifted over to violone. Proosdij took to the organ keyboard, while Tayler remained with his archlute. This video was recorded in March of 2012.

The program then shifted back to the Mass text with the setting of the Agnus Dei text from Johann Sebastian Bach’s BWV 232 (usually referred to as the B Minor Mass). Those familiar with the Mass setting probably know by now that most of the movements for solo vocalist are given “chamber music” accompaniment. As a result, the instrumental resources were basically the same as those for RV 627, albeit with different performers. The vocalist was mezzo Meg Bragle, and the recording was made in May of 2017.

The fourth video then shifted back to another Vivaldi sacred motet, the RV 607 “Laetatus sum” (I rejoiced). However, this video involved a less familiar gathering of resources. The work was originally composed for two sopranos and two altos, but Tayler provided a choral arrangement, which was sung by the San Francisco Girls Chorus, led by its director, Valérie Sainte-Agathe. Additional performers were added to the string sections to balance the choral setting. Moore served as Concertmaster, joined by violinists Blumenstock, Kyme, and Nemerovski, joined by Gabrielle Wunsch and Alana Youssefian. The violists were Maria Caswell and Tomà Iliev, while Skeen was joined by Adaiha MacAdam-Somer on cello. This performance was prepared for the Berkeley Early Music Festival, where it was performed in June of 2018.

The final selection shifted solo duties from the vocal to the instrumental. Marc Schachman played the oboe solo featured in the instrumental Sinfonia movement that begins Bach’s BWV 156 cantata, Ich steh mit einem Fuß im Grabe (I am standing with one foot in the grave). That music would later resurface in one of Bach’s harpsichord concertos, BWV 1056 in F minor. Instrumental accompaniment included a bassoon, played by Anna Marsh. The other “new face” in this video was that of violinist Linda Quan. The recording was made in March of 2019.

According to my records, pandemic conditions forced the cancellation of this month’s VoM program. The original plan was that the final concert of the season would take place a little less than a month from today. Hopefully, that performance will proceed as originally intended.