March 2004 Newsletter

March, 2004 Volume 16 Number 3

Letter from the President

What interesting sounds issued forth as eager and curious young people tried the various instruments on display outside the Leacock theatre at the Children’s Concert. Most of the instruments were generously loaned by Scot’s Music, St. John’s Music, and Sing, Move, Play Orff. Then, inside the theatre, the Bach family invited us to a house party where we heard the Conservatory Strings of Mt. Royal College, the Bach Festival choir, the Athparia trio, and soloists Timothy Steeves and Ariel Gonzalez. The young performers were very inspiring.

Many thanks to all the hard working volunteers and musicians, whose dedication and love of young people and music make this event possible.To thank the Bach Festival choir, it will be treated to a day rehearsing with Mel Braun, on staff at the University of Manitoba.This will be held in a lovely setting, complete with lunch.

Now we head towards the anniversary of J.S. Bach’s birthday, March 21, 1685. To celebrate, the concert will consist of his setting of a Psalm, Cantata BWV 150, written for a penitential church service. Also, Telemann’s setting of Psalm 96, and a Concerto Grosso by Handel. Orchestra, choir, and soloists are preparing to make it most enjoyable. The reception after will feature a huge birthday cake for all.

As a member, and recipient of this newsletter, the Society would welcome a donation of your volunteer time. Or perhaps a simple monetary donation is more your style. Even telling a friend to come to a concert is one more ticket sold, and one more step towards our continued success.Constance Jackson

Calendar of Events

March 21, 2004, 3 PM Bach Birthday Celebration - with birthday cake Scarboro United Church J.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

Good Friday, April 9, 2004, 7 PM The Festival Chorus presents "Joshua" by G.F. Handel Jack Singer Concert Hall Tickets available at Ticketmaster

April 17, 2004, 8 PM Voicescapes "Resonanza" Cathedral Church of the Redeemer

May 15, 2004, 8 PM Early Music Voices "Viva Italia" Christ Church Elbow Park

Interview with a Violin Maker

by Anna Carnell

With no violin-making school in Canada, Vicki Hill looked to Great Britain’s Newark School of Violin Making to find two luthiers to work at Hill’s Fine Strings in Calgary. Vicki’s interest grew with the enthusiasm generated by her violin-maker ex-husband. Their business quickly outgrew their basement repair shop and moved to its present location 5 years ago.Nothing satisfies Vicki more than selling a Suzuki violin to a 5 year old. Many students return year after year to buy bigger and better violins as their skill and repertoire expand. Vicki stocks a variety of instruments, from new Romanian violins built at Gliga workshops with excellent Carpathian maple, to instruments made by local builders such as Leis Carlsson and Chris Sandvoss. Vicki deals with suppliers around the world and occasionally shops for instruments at specialized auctions.Special instruments need special repairs and it was a challenge to find skilled and highly trained luthiers. Vicki invited Jon Springall and Becky Downing, who arrived 4 months ago from Great Britain, thrilled to combine work with travel. Becky decided upon her future profession at age 10, when her violin needed repairs. She expressed an interest in violin making and that luthier responded with an invitation to learn to build her own instrument on weekends. She made her first viola at 13, another at 15, and has followed up with several violins, a viola and and cello. Jon arrived at the profession from another angle. A fiddle player, he travelled for a few years, then became a cabinet maker, specializing in eighteenth century furniture. Building eighteenth century instruments seems a logical career side-step.Both Jon and Becky enjoy the challenge and variety involved in repairing the instruments which come their way, and are proficient in making their own instruments. Both prefer the traditional analysis methods of flexing the plates and tapping for sound as they shape the wood, though they are comfortable and fascinated with the technology involved in analzyzing the sound and science of instrument making and repair.Building an instrument from scratch first involves decisions about whether to use an existing pattern, copying an original instrument or making a new design. The choice of wood is critical; it must be well cured and of very fine grain. The rib structure is built around a mold, and the wood carefully arched and honed and analyzed for its ability to transmit a fine sound. There follows all the intricate subtleties in setting up the bridge, the neck, fingerboards, etc.; luthiers are part a process which has been evolving since the Renaissance.Stradavarius made significant innovations in changing the shape of the instrument for greater and better quality sound; Guarneri experimented with the size of the body and innovative shapes in the ‘f’ holes; nineteenth century experiments included a trapezoidal violin by Savart and a violin and viola built back to back.When they aren’t building instruments they are often to be found playing, both involved with traditional folk music groups in town. Becky prefers the viola and Jon, though he plays the fiddle, relaxes with his mandolin.They feel lucky to be a part of Vicki Hill’s specialized team which involves 3 luthiers (who make and repair instruments), 1 archetier (who makes and rehairs bows) and 2 salesmen. In addition to the instruments, Vicki stocks a good selection of fiddle, Suzuki and RCM exam music. Much more important, however, is the fact that here is a place where you’ll find expert advice, and a team of creative minds as enthusiastic as yourself.

Cantos Music Foundation

Cantos Music Foundation brings exciting music opportunities to Calgary, with a variety of community services, unique programs and a spectacular tour of musical history. Cantos provides program space and instruments from the Collection to a wide range of community groups throughout the city, loaning and renting instruments to charitable organizations and businesses as well as welcoming the community in. Two performance spaces, both with theatre seating, are available for rent.Until recently the best kept secret in Calgary, the Cantos Music Collection is an incredible journey into musical history. With over 200 instruments on display, the Collection spans the evolution of music from 246 BC to present day. Among the pipe organs, clavichords, pianos, synthesizers, drum machines and related artifacts, is a one of a kind Joannes Couchet Harpsichord from 1679, a Kimball Theatre Pipe Organ from 1924 (one of only ten in Canada), an impressive variety of Moog electronic instruments, and a Mellotron similar to one used by the Beatles. A guided tour of the collection is an interactive exploration into the sounds of the past – a celebration of music. Cantos brings music to all ages with its programs, ranging from learning experiences to just plain fun. Organ à la Carte, free noon hour concerts featuring the organ family of instruments, entertain thousands of music lovers in the summer. A popular wintertime treat is Silent Movie Mondays, when silent movies from the early 1900s are accompanied by a world-renowned live theatre organist. Stars of Tomorrow on Instruments of Yesterday is a series of free noon hour concerts featuring Mount Royal College performance students, playing selected instruments from the Collection. Programs for schools, Good Vibrations and Music Matters, are curriculum based and receive rave reviews from students and educators year after year.

Cantos Music Foundation is located in the historic Customs Building at 134 - 11th Avenue SE. Call 543-5115 for more information on programs, services, rentals or to book a tour of the Collection.

CD Reviews

A review from olitiken (Copenhagen) Monday, Dec 1, 2003

Translated by Jytte Christiansen, with permission from Politiken and Mr. Jacob Fuglsang

Fugal Perfected to the Fingertips by Bernhard Lewkovitch

In Bach’s time, the fugue was a prevalent principle in more than one form. Its first tender beginnings were already practiced by the polyphonic masters from the Netherlands as a canon, which developed through generations to great heights, culminating with Bach and Handel. But already by that time the principle of the fugue seemed exhausted, not the least by the Bach’s sons.As time went on, the conception of fugue writing got a somewhat questionable reputation as a last hope for a composer whose imagination did not stretch to more dynamic musical thinking. Today it is almost regarded as an apology for not being able to find an escape for anything else. You start the fugue and it takes care of itself. Carl Nielsen’s three motets are a typical example; by the end of the composition, the music stops before it has been fully developed.But now Bach; he finished the principle in a way that for some brings the greatest happiness, and makes others yawn. That Bach brought the principle of the fugue to its sublime art we have proof of, with The Art of the Fugue, even though it has the reputation for being as stimulating as therapeutic knitting. There are admittedly people who cannot tolerate hearing a fugue after having heard this work, but Bach, nevertheless, did nothing that he did not feel impelled to do, so as to complete a perfect life in compositional duty.The fugue, a long chain of movements, begins in relatively simple style and slowly develops to something nearing total brain disturbance; the theme in its initial form, the theme transposed, the theme as imitation, as double imitation, as converted imitation, and so on.All this expressed the highest and most intellectual interpretation of musical mathematical thinking one can hear; The Art of the Fugue moreover radiates a fascinating grace, an enthralling, vigourous sound. It stands as an enduring, fitting monument as one of Bach’s greatest works, built, in fact, on the four letters of his own name.Handel’s concerto grosso form always has a fugal movement, one that I at least, would not like to do without. Handel takes the fugue to exactly the point where he wants to further the text. The defense likely is, that with this composer, the limit is where he would like to continue with the music.The theory lesson, for those of us who studied counterpoint as the main subject, was both a delight and a nightmare.

Bach: The Art of the Fugue - by Emerson Quartet (DGG 474495-2)

If fugue playing for string quartet is complicated and difficult, then it is no less so when using the same choice of music for solo violin with four strings. In the period from 1717 – 1723 in Cothen, Bach wrote three solo sonatas and three partitas, possibly for a musician named Johann Georg Pisandel, who Bach met in Weimar in 1709, and who may have expressed a wish for Bach to contribute to the solo violin repertoire.This repertoire is a benchmark, a challenge for any violinist, which given luck and opportunity, will bring him to the concertmaster’s chair or as a violinist in any major orchestra around the world. To listen to these works is, of course, a mixed blessing, depending upon who the performer is. Virtuosi deal with the technical challenges with ease, but that is not always the case with beginners.But if everything is in place, the details fastened as if with pins, and the form perfect in its advancing development, congratulations are in order for the performer as well as the listener. Consequently, two, three and four voice fugue runs, divided over the four strings of a solo violin, and with the inexorable demand for polyphonic clarity, require a consummate performer and listener.The recording market has, in recent years, brought out a rather good selection. It is Henrick Szeryng, master Polish violinist, who with his re-adjusted recording of 1965, available at a reasonable price, shows the fugue principle not only as the most sublime musical composition, but performs with a technical skill merged with the spiritual world, which rules in this work by Bach. With this recording, lean back, leave your stresses behind you, right to the innermost muscle fibres, look ahead, and calmly enjoy.Just as I compared the work of a string quartet with solo violin, we are now talking about something which at its best, can be likened to a cow condensed into a boullion cube; so compact, so concentrated, radiant with expression. It is difficult to decide in which form it is best presented, string quartet or solo violin, though this is hardly relevant since these two styles are too different for comparison.One thing I do miss. The minimal program notes tell nothing about which instrument Szeryng plays; my noncommittal guess is Cremona or Stradavarius or Guarneri; though it doesn’t really matter. Everything on this CD is worthy of Bach’s genius.

Bach: The Sonatas and Partitas - by Henryk Szeryng (Sony SB2K89947)

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.html

The 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.html

The 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.html

Don’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.

Our Society received an e-mail from the Webmaster of this site telling us that he had posted our concerts. I looked at it and it impressed me enough that I deemed it worthy of special mention. Have a look at it - Bill

Site Name: Bach Cantatas Website URL: http://www.bach-cantatas.com

Description: A comprehensive site covering all aspects of J.S. Bach's cantatas and his other vocal works. Contains discussions and detailed discographies of each cantata and other local works, performers and general topics. The site also includes texts and translations, scores, music examples, articles and interviews, and short biographies of about 1,500 performers of Bach vocal works (singers, conductors, vocal and instrumental groups). There are also other relevant resources such as a discussion of the Lutheran church year, reviews and discussions of Bach’s non-vocal works, terms and abbreviations, schedule of concerts of Bach's vocal works, hundreds of links to other relevant resources. The site is an international collective project, being compiled from various postings about the subject, most of which have been sent to the Bach Cantatas Mailing List.

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