Voices of Music Continues Women in Music Project

Last night at St. Mark’s Lutheran Church, Voices of Music presented its first concert in San Francisco in its 2019–2020 season. The title of the program was Concerto delle Donne (consort of women), named after an ensemble of women singers that Alfonso d’Este, Duke of Ferrara, assembled to perform for his court in July of 1584. That occasion was honored as part of the Voices of Music Women in Music Project, presenting the works of Italian composers active during the seventeenth century.

Consistent with the occasion, last night’s performers were almost entirely female, the one exception being co-director David Tayler alternating between archlute and guitar. The other performers included Tayler’s co-director Hanneke van Proosdij, both playing recorder and providing continuo on harpsichord and organ, Elisabeth Reed, rounding out continuo on gamba, violinists Elizabeth Blumenstock and Alana Youssefian, and sopranos Sophie Junker and Sherezade Panthaki. Over the course of the evening, these musicians joined together in a diversity of combinations.

The program was organized in four sets, only the last of which focused on a single composer, Claudio Monteverdi. The only female composer of the evening was Barbara Strozzi, three of whose songs were framed by instrumental selections by Marco Uccellini. Similarly, the opening set alternated the instrumental music of Salomone Rossi with vocal selections by Luzzasco Luzzaschi, two arias and one duet. The third set focused entirely on instrumental works by Giovanni Battista Fontana and Dario Castello.

Peter Paul Rubens’ portrait of Vincenzo Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua, whose support enabled one of last night’s Monteverdi selections (from the Villa Perdomini collection, from Wikimedia Commons, public domain)

My guess is that most, if not all, of the selections were unfamiliar to most of the audience. Those familiar with Monteverdi madrigals may have recognized the final selection, “Chiome d’oro” (golden tresses), from the seventh book of madrigals. Those interested in his earlier efforts might have recognized “Damigella tutta bella” (pretty woman) from the Scherzi musicali, which may have been composed for the entertainment of guests when Monteverdi was the service of the Duke of Mantua at the time, Vincenzo I. Both of these were vocal duets performed at the very end of the evening by the entire ensemble. Both Junker and Panthaki served up a lively account of the text, volleying their own intimate exchanges within the rich context of the instrumental ensemble. These selections were preceded by Panthaki’s solo account of the “Laudate Dominum” Psalm setting from Monteverdi’s Selva morale e spirituale (moral and spiritual forest) collection, presenting the sacred side of Monteverdi in Venice before indulging in secular Mantua.

Those familiar with Ottorino Respighi’s three Ancient Airs and Dances suites would probably also have recognized the “Bergamasca” tune, whose 1650 arrangement by Bernardo Gianoncelli concluded the second of the suites. This was presented in the version taken from Uccellini’s Opus 3 collection Sonate, arie et correnti. Uccellini’s version was one of the several offerings composed for two violins, allowing for a generous serving of playful give-and-take between Blumenstock and Youssefian. Even more engaging were the exchanges that emerged when these violinists performed a sonata selection by Castello, a composer distinguished by the fact that we know almost nothing about him (as Robert Mealy once put it during a master class at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music).

Thus, lack of familiarity did not make any of last night’s selections less engaging. All of the performances were consistently rich and expressive, with continuo support that always attentively followed every mood shift. As a whole the program was a generous serving, lasting over two hours; but the engagement was so consistently riveting that clock time rarely signified to the attentive listener.

An Evening with Monteverdi and Contemporaries

Bernardo Strozzi’s circa 1630 portrait of Claudio Monteverdi (from Wikimedia Commons, public domain)

Last night in St. Mark’s Lutheran Church, San Francisco Performances (SFP) began this season’s Hear Now and Then Series with a “then” program of vocal and instrumental Italian music from the seventeenth century. The focus was primarily on the vocal side with particular attention to Claudio Monteverdi, represented by selections from his seventh and eighth books of madrigals, both of which were written during the period when he served as maestro di capella at the St. Mark’s Basilica in Venice. The program also included several of the more “entertainment-based” compositions collected under the title Scherzi musicali, written earlier in Monteverdi’s career during his service to Vincenzo Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua. In addition there were a few vocal selections by Monteverdi’s contemporaries, Luigi Rossi and Martino Pesenti.

Almost all of the vocal works involved two treble voices. These were supplied by Joelle Greenleaf, Artistic Director of TENET Vocal Artists, and her TENET colleague Molly Quinn. They were accompanied by the Quicksilver ensemble led by Robert Mealy, whose other members were violinist Julie Andrijeski, cellist David Morris (occasionally shifting to gamba), harpsichordist Avi Stein, and Charles Weaver dividing his time between theorbo and guitar. They provided instrumental “separators” between the vocal sets with chamber compositions by Giovanni Paolo Cima, Giovanni Battista Fontana, Francesco Turini, and Dario Castello. Prior to the Castello selection, Mealy explained to the audience that Quicksilver had not prepared any Monteverdi selections because his only instrumental works were to be found in his operas!

Back when I taught at the University of Pennsylvania, the Music Department had a Collegium Musicum, whose focus on early music included Monteverdi madrigals. Every performance of a madrigal was preceded by an expressive reading of the text being set, which basically “primed” the emotional disposition of the listener for what would follow in Monteverdi’s music. Last night SFP opted for the more usual practice of providing text sheets. If these did not always prepare the mood for listening quite as well, they disclosed one of the most interesting aspects of Monteverdi’s works.

Each madrigal involved setting a rigidly structured poetic text. However, Monteverdi was consistently more interested in the emotional turbulence of the semantics, rather than formal structure. As a result he is guided almost entirely by the prevailing mood; and it is through his efforts to capture that mood that he accounts for the words of the poet, often adding repetitions and frequently ignoring formal boundaries.

Greenleaf and Quinn then took Monteverdi’s departure from text structure as an opportunity for their own departure from convention. Rather than just stand there and sing, the two of them seem to have worked out choreographic moves that reinforced not only the semantics that Monteverdi highlighted but also rhetorical dispositions that made their delivery more of an intimate encounter between two different personalities. This worked particularly well in light of Monteverdi’s approach to polyphony.

Technically, Monteverdi was as prodigiously skilled in developing the interplay between two polyphonic voices as he was in blending those voices into rich homophonic textures dominated by thirds and sixths. Thus, just as a sonnet often divides into two parts, one of which poses a “problem” after which the other establishes a “solution,” so Monteverdi could begin a duo with back-and-forth exchanges of motifs (often with hints of one-upmanship). Then, as the two protagonists begin to tire each other out, they mutually agree to settle into consonant homophony. This technique was similarly evident in much of the instrumental music, in which the two violin parts were as much “protagonists” as the vocalists, again with “competitive polyphony” resolving into “agreeable homophony.”

The seventeenth century in Italy was also a time when composers began to take more adventurous approaches to dissonance. Particularly in secular settings, there was less concern about whether a composer might be flirting with “the Devil’s music.” Instead, an extremity of emotional disposition was treated as an opportunity for an auditory extremity, often drawing upon pitch classes from the chromatic scale that would provide a “shock value” through their “otherness.” Castello was particularly daring in taking this approach, making it more than a little frustrating that we know almost nothing about him except we what know from the two books of instrumental sonatas that he published.

Last night’s program thus emerged as a delightful journey through adventurous approaches to both vocal and instrumental settings. Because Monteverdi served as the bellwether for the selections and their representative composers, it was understandable that he should also account for the encore. This turned out to come from one of his operas, L’incoronazione di Poppea, providing a more specific reference point for the staging techniques that Greenleaf and Quinn had designed for their earlier performances. They sang the rapturously erotic duet “Pur ti miro, pur ti godo” (“I gaze at you, I possess you”) in which Nero and Poppea celebrate (yes, I am afraid that is the right word) Nero having exiled his wife Ottavia in order to marry Poppea and claim her as his Empress.

Hear Now and Then to Celebrate Monteverdi

Jolle Greenleaf and Molly Quinn (courtesy of San Francisco Performances)

This season’s Hear Now and Then Series presented by San Francisco Performances will begin solidly on the “then” side of the balance with a program of vocal and instrumental Italian music from the seventeenth century. Vocalists will be Jolle Greenleaf, Artistic Director of TENET Vocal Artists, and her TENET colleague Molly Quinn. Instrumental support will be provided by the Quicksilver ensemble led by violinist Robert Mealy, whose other members are violinist Julie Andrijeski, cellist David Morris, harpsichordist Avi Stein, and Charles Weaver on theorbo. The program will pay special attention to Claudio Monteverdi and the madrigals he composed for one or two voices. Other composers to be represented on the program will be Giovanni Paola Cima, Giovanni Battista Fontana, Francesco Turini, Martino Pesenti, and Dario Castello.

This performance will take place at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, October 12. The venue will be St. Mark’s Lutheran Church, located at 1111 O’Farrell Street, just to the west of the intersection with Franklin Street. Single tickets are on sale for $65 on the ground floor and $45 for the balcony. They may be purchased online through a City Box Office event page. Because this is the first concert in its series, subscriptions are still available. The price levels for the series of four concerts are $250, $205, and $155; and City Box Office has a separate event page for online purchase.

Richard Egarr Begins a Project to Record the Complete Works of Dario Castello

The end of last month saw the latest release from AMM Records, the “house label” of the Academy of Ancient Music and Music Director Richard Egarr. The album is a collection of twelve chamber sonatas collected under the title Sonate Concertate in Stil Moderno written by Dario Castello and first published in 1621. The release includes a booklet with a dozen pages of background material in three essays by not only Egarr but also William Carter and Alexandra Bamji. Given that there is virtually no biographical information about Castello, this is a rather impressive effort at informing the inquisitive listener. In addition, the reader should not be surprised that a “complete works” project for this composer will be rather limited; and, in fact, the only other publication is a second collection under the same title first printed in 1629.

The first booklet essay basically takes on the question of what constitutes “modern style.” The fact is that the sonata as we know it dates back to the beginning of the seventeenth century. The noun comes from the Italian “sonare,” which means “to sound,” in contrast to “cantare,” which means “to sing.” Thus, the early seventeenth century saw the emergence of multiple-movement compositions for both vocalists (cantatas) and instrumentalists (sonatas), usually with accompaniment and often involving more than one solo part. Castello’s was one of the earliest collection of such instrumental pieces and thus could be identified as “modern.” Furthermore, given how little “hard data” are available, we cannot say with any certainty whether the use of the adjective “modern” came from Castello himself or from his publisher’s interest in promoting sales.

The title page specifies that these sonatas have been composed for “diversi Instrumenti a 2 & 3 voci,” accompanied by organ or “spineta” (clavier). The first eight are the two-voice sonatas; and the remaining four are for three voices. Instrumentation is only partially specified. In the first six sonatas the upper-register instrument is specified only as “soprano.” Low-register instruments are specified as either bassoon or a choice between trombone or violetta, a three-string predecessor of the viola. In the second half of the collection (the seventh through twelfth sonatas), the upper register is explicitly assigned to violins.

On the AMM recording each sonata is allotted a single track. The sonata itself clearly has distinct sections, but there are no tempo indications. Calling these sections “movements” would be a bit of a stretch, since each section involves the exposition of new material with little more than what might be likened to improvisatory “jamming” by way of development. It would be fair to say that each individual sonata can be taken as an opportunity for several instrumentalists to gather together for the social joy of making music (and this could well have been the “pitch” of Castello’s publisher). It is unlikely that either the publisher or any interested performers would have given much thought to whether or not anyone was present in the capacity of “audience.”

Thus, for all the abstraction that emerges when music is made in a recording session, the spirit behind these sonatas is one of an intimate gathering of friends. At this point it is worth noting that I have had several opportunities to observe Egarr “in action” during his appearances as a visitor to Philharmonia Baroque in San Francisco. Usually he plays the same role of both leader and harpsichordist on such visits; and that is basically what he does on this new Castello album (except that some of the keyboard work takes place on a small organ). Even when he performs with the full forces of the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, there is always an engaging sense of intimacy in his approach to both leadership and solo performance. On this recording he is assisted in accompaniment by Carter on theorbo. The “sonare” parts are then provided by other AMM players: Pavlo Beznosiuk and Bojan Čičić on violins, Josué Meléndez on cornetto, Joseph Crouch on violetta, Benny Aghassi on dulcian (an early form of bassoon), and Susan Addison on trombone.

It is, of course, unlikely that either composer or publisher ever thought of this as a collection of pieces to be played in a single sitting. Thus, while each sonata is definitely a gem unto itself, a recording project like this one runs the risk of straining the attention span of the listener. However, to the extent that he had liberty to do so, Egarr has made some excellent choices of instrumentation through which the experience of this album, taken in its entirety, becomes a journey through the diverse practices of making music that prevailed in the early decades of the seventeenth century. That diversity includes more virtuosity than a modern listener might suspect; and, as a result, the listener who takes a beginning-to-end approach to listening to this album is likely to develop a fondness for not only Castello’s music but also the breadth of talented musicians contributing as performers. The booklet also informs such listeners that an album of Castello’s second book is “in the works;” and I suspect I am not the only one looking forward to it!