June 2003 Newsletter

June, 2003 Volume 15 Number 4

Letter from the President

Caros amigos do Bach Here we are: the last newsletter of the 2002-03 season. And what a season it has been!

We celebrated the fifteenth anniversary of the CBFS.

It was a year which, like the others before, was filled with wonderful music conducted, played and sung by a group of committed, talented people and listened to by our equally committed and talented audiences.

In March, after our birthday concert, we had a chance to give voice to our appreciation and love for Christine Azad and to celebrate the first fifteen years of the Bach Society, while about eighty of us gathered in the Marriot hotel for a most pleasant evening. Our thanks again to Mary Morin, Michael Hallworth and Shari Derksen for organizing that most successful event.

And what will the 2003-2004 year bring?

Well, in this newsletter you will find the programmes Christine and Janet have planned. Beautiful, don’t you agree?

The reason why you will not find dates re our concerts is because we are waiting for the CPO schedule. Once that is out we can finalise our programmes. Stay tuned!! Alvin Albrecht, whose “profile” appeared in the March newsletter has accepted the position of Treasurer/Administator. Which means that he will take over Art Ziebart’s job at the end of September as well as the administrative duties Christine has presided over. So, because he already keeps track of our database, Alvin has now made himself indispensable. We are all grateful to you Alvin and welcome you aboard. (Just don’t even think of moving now.)

On September 26th. we will hold our Annual General Meeting. “So what?” you may say.

Well this is always an important event in the life of our organization. Nominations for new board members are made, sometimes ahead of time, sometimes from the floor which all adds to the excitement of creating a group of people who will steer us through the coming year.

If you mark that date on your calendar NOW chances are that the 26th of Sept. is still free.

Do come and give input and support, I can promise you that the business part will be to the point, interspersed with a glass of wine and savouries.

All that remains for me now is to wish you all a splendid, safe summer.

Marijke van Wijk.

Calendar of Events

The CBFS concert repertoire has been set but scheduling is not yet finalised. Watch the Septenber newsletter for exact dates and venues.

October 2003 The 16th Bach Marathon - with Silent Auction

December 2003 Bach Advent Concert From J.S. Bach’s Christmas Oratorio BWV 248 Cantatas No. 1 and 2A Vivaldi Bassoon Concerto

February 2004 Bach Children’s ConcertInstruments demonstration and a Children’s play with music.

March 2004 Bach Birthday Celebration - with birthday cakeJ.S. Bach Cantata BWV 150 “Nach dir, Herr, verlanget mich.”G.P. Telemann Psalm #96 “Singet dem Herrn ein neues Lied”G.F. Handel Concerto Grosso Op. 6, No. 11

Vivaldi's Bassoon Concerti

by F.M. Davenport

Five hundred or more concerti in a life span of sixty or so years, from a man whose vocation and training led him initially to the priesthood: that’s about nine per year instead of the more usual nine per lifetime. What are we to make of such a prolific output? What would Antonio Vivaldi make of the anachronism of the CBFS, dedicated to playing works dating from an era when only new works were truly valued? In Vivaldi’s Italy there was an objection to anything ‘passée’, and everyone must have heard the witticism that he wrote only one concerto many times. Indeed, why would he not do so at a time when works were written, performed once then, more often than not, lost rather than published and preserved?

There have been many suggestions made as to how Vivaldi, an ordained priest could be ‘excused’ from celebrating daily Mass, ranging from suggestions of highly inappropriate behaviour, to his having either asthma or epilepsy. Whatever the reason, this son of a violinist spent several periods of his life teaching in a girls’ orphanage, for a time as violin master and later as ‘concerto master’, then ‘chapel master’. Even during breaks in his tenure he sent two concertos a month by mail. Of course, his compositional output included cantatas, operas and sacred works, not only, or even primarily concerti, but he continued to supply and direct concerti for special occasions for several years after he had left the institution.

As one would expect of an Italian composer, many of his more complex works are for strings, but Vivaldi had travelled to northern Europe and was interested in winds, writing concerti for recorder, flute, oboe and even clarinet. The number of bassoon concerti, at least 37 (or as bassoonist Leonard Sharrow claims, 43) comprises more than half his woodwind output and is quite exceptional for this, or indeed any other period. Even when the woodwind concerto is at its height there is a conspicuous lack of bassoon works: Mozart is rumoured to have written four, but we only have a complete score to one of them; Weber wrote one, and a second soloistic work with orchestra which bassoonists have to share with violists; Hummel wrote one, and so it goes on.

Vivaldi was in the music teaching industry and his students played many different instruments. Unlike the contemporary school band director he did not have fingering charts and method books to distribute to his students: Quantz’s treatise on playing the flute was not published until 1752 ( after Vivaldi’s death) and Ganassi’s, ‘Opera Intitulata Fontegara’, for recorder players, published in Venice in 1535 is the closest thing we have to a modern-day method book.

So Vivaldi wrote his concerti. He wrote them in accessible keys and followed a standard formula of three movements: fast, slow, faster. The outer movements are often little more than scale and or arpeggio studies of varying rhythmic complexity, training young fingers into increasing patterns of agility. Many of these movements could be compared with 19th and 20th century volumes of ‘scale studies’ except that they are musically more enjoyable for performer and listener alike and contain the added element of interplay, even sometimes competition, between soloist and orchestra. The slow movements, on the other hand, are some of the most musically enjoyable and beautiful pieces in the literature and are reminiscent of operatic arias in their flowing and expressive melodic lines.

The bassoon on which these works would have been played was not the multi-keyed monster of the modern orchestra. It was slightly smaller and would have had a mere two, or perhaps three keys. Vivaldi’s writing is idiomatic for the instrument and it is, in fact, somewhat easier to perform these works on the baroque instrument than on the contemporary version. Seven concerti are in the key of F major, which is the most accessible key for bassoonists. Only four are in the closely related Bb major, probably because part of the didactic technique was to include wide leaps, and although some bassoons of this era had a low Bb key, most would only go to low C. By far the largest number (thirteen) are in C major, including both the concerto generally perceived to be the easiest to play (F.VIII # 17) and that considered the most difficult (F VIII # 26). Only twice in the familiar 37 concerti does he use more than two sharps or flats: (F.VIII # 14 in C minor, and # 27 in Eb major).

We are fairly familiar with pedagogical yet musically valid works in the keyboard repertoire: Bach’s Anna Magdalena book, for example. Such pieces are somewhat rarer in the woodwind world. Bassoonists are indeed fortunate to have such a large body of works which may have been conceived in the studio, but were polished by this composer into beautiful performance pieces.Bibliography Jansen, Will, et al. IDRS Journal No 2 (idrs.org/Publications)Pierce, David: IDRS Journal, No 15, July, 1987Ganassi, Sylvestro, (ed. Hildemarie Peter) Opera Intitulata Fontegara, Venice 1535: (Berlin, Robert Lienau, 1956).Quantz, J.J. (trans. Reilly): ‘On Playing the Flute’ (London. Faber, 1966)

Profile - Kerri Rubman

by Anna Carnell

Kerri Rubman, alto with the CBFS for 3 years, loves the teamwork of ensemble singing, being one of many sounding like one. She began singing with a Baltimore college group and moved on to an excellent church choir, singing everything from Gregorian chant to comtemporary music. It was a demanding experience, having to work constantly to keep up; a continuous challenge for the body as instrument, and in connecting the voice with the text.

Kerri, a professional preservationist and freelance writer, arrived in Calgary from Baltimore 5 years ago with her husband, and with a long distance job with the National Trust for Historic Preservation in Washington D.C. She edits their bi-monthly newletter, works on various publications, and reviews articles for a quarterly journal. She enjoys Calgary, enjoys the more relaxed pace and has learned to create unique cultural opportunities. History being a large part of her training and profession, she’s learning about local history, audited courses at the University, and is working on a ‘Doors Open Calgary’ project, intended to open up more local historical buildings for public viewing.

She earned her first degree at the Wesleyan University in Connecticut. From the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill she received her masters degree in folklore, specifically about black gospel quartet singing, For this degree she was able to combine two passions, cultural history and music. Kerri interviewed singers and listened to music in order to trace how traditions changed with the development of the recording industry.

Kerri’s love of history and music and her training in those fields was a major factor in her search for another choir. Perhaps it was also the solitary nature of the writer’s work that inspired her to seek out the Bach choir.

With the Bach Choir, Kerri is interested in focusing on the details, on understanding the music and how it was performed in historical context, what it was like to sing Bach’s music in his time, as well as the social history. She’d like more rehearsal time to work on details and vocal blending, and more time for a cappella music. She would also like to hear the choir from ‘the outside’ rather than from within the group. How would she hear the real choir, though, if she wasn’t herself a part of it?

Profile - Constance Jackson

by Anna Carnell

Constance Jackson, alto with the Bach Festival Society, is one of those lucky musicians with a piano and choral background. She has always been a chorister and has sung or played every imaginable kind of repertoire with every imaginable kind of choir. While living in Canada, and during their travels in the U.S., she sang with church choirs, a women’s choir, the Philharmonic Chorus, the Festival Chorus and the Bach choir.

She sang with CBFS for one year near the beginning, but came back to Bach 3 years ago. She loves the challenge of singing Bach, fitting the pieces of the puzzle together. She finds the music satisfying, the singers excellent, and enjoys the sense of balance in the voices.

Constance has also accompanied for as many choirs as she has sung for. She’s currently playing for High Country Chorale and the Calgary South Rotary Club, but played for the Bonavista Players, the Beth Israel Players and a Gilbert and Sullivan Society in Ontario. Her favourite approach to piano playing now, is to sight read music from the library. Like jazz, it gives her a sense of novelty and exploration.

Music has been a part of Constance’s life since she was 5 years old. She began her studies in Regina and majored in music at the University of Western Ontario. Music studies led to a career in teaching, preparing students for festival and exams. She looked for opportunities to stretch their repertoire and to practice a variety of styles and approaches. Though she has retired from teaching, I asked her what advice she would give a student now. Constance answered, “play, sing and listen to what you love, look for new approaches and keep at it.”

Constance seems to be doing just that in her own life. In addition to singing and accompanying, she and her husband have started a small tree farm. It’s a hobby farm, so they have time for their many other hobbies, skiing, hiking and traveling among them.

They approach their travels from a unique perspective. They look for experiences which are new and challenging, friendship exchanges among them, which focus on getting to know the people and culture. “We love traveling”, she says, having just returned from a trip to Vietnam and Shanghai, “but I realize how lucky we are to live in Canada with freedom, space and beauty all around us. Of all the places I’ve been, I’d choose to live here.”

Editor's Website Picks

Interested in contacting other choral groups in Calgary? You will find the Calgary Region Arts Foundation client list at http://www.craf.org/clients4.htmlThe Academy of Ancient Music at http://www.aam.co.uk/ has program notes on works and shows pictures of artists, such as Bach. To find these, click on News and Features.A little embarrassed that you don’t know some musical term like appoggiatura? You won’t be if you check out the Glossary page of the Bach Choir of Bethlehem at http://www.bach.org/bach101/suites/glossary.htmlThe Denton Bach Socety revisits Bach’s first Leipzig Christmas at http://www.dentonbach.com/archive/magnificat9.htm where you can find program notes, commentaries, pictures and the full texts of the Magnificat in Latin and English.For a site with a multitude of links to all sorts of Bach info try http://www.bachfaq.org/Interesting trivia about Bach can be found at: http://www.spiritsound.com/bachbits.htmlDon’t forget our own http://www.bachcalgary.org with newsletters back to September 2000, pictures of the choir and orchestra and profiles of our conductors.

Membership Information

The Calgary Bach Festival Society has a large library of cantatas which can be rented. If interested, please contact us at 282-8525 or e-mail Bill Zdep tcprint@telus.net

Volunteers are welcome and needed for several positions and projects. If interested, please contact us at 282-8525 or e-mail Bill Zdep tcprint@telus.net