To quote Roger North from the time of the English Civil War, when musicians, facing Puritan disapproval of music in the church and theatre, “chose to fidle at home, than to goe out and be knockt on the head abroad” …
Follow-up to Orin’s post a few days ago asking about our readers’ music rotations … like reader AT Gavin, I am also highly partial to early bowed music. I listen to a lot of early viol music and music from the early Baroque. As I’ve mentioned here, I’m a very bad amateur cellist with a particular love for Baroque. Anyway, I wanted to thank reader AT Gavin for the recommendation of John Mark Rozendaal’s Breaking the Ground – division music for viol, and a very lovely album. I myself have been listening intensively to the first couple of volumes of Sainte-Colombe, Concerts a deux violes esgales.
Although my heart is in the baroque cello, if I’m honest with myself, I don’t think most of the early cello music is very good, not compared to the violin music of the period or the viols. I love the music of Domenico Gabrielli for the baroque cello, and play much of it (badly) – and it is perhaps the earliest music indisputably for the “cello.” But, for example, I can’t quite figure out how Caldara’s trio sonatas for violin are so lovely and his cello sonatas so … not. When it comes to picking things to play, increasingly I find myself gravitating toward transcriptions of baroque violin for cello, not the original cello. The Corelli violin sonatas – which, I’ve been told, have never been out of print since they were published in 1700 or so – I play them in transcription, and am very fond of a gamba edition that dates back almost to when they were first published, discovered in a Paris archive.
And, to really announce heresy, I have come to prefer the Bach cello suites on … viol da gamba, not cello. Finally, although I am often skeptical of attempts to come up with “new” Baroque music, I have liked this new work from Rolf Lislevand on Baroque guitar and associated instruments.
Do we have other readers also interested in early music? What do you listen to?
Richao says:
I was never a big music fan until, of all things, I saw the film “Master and Commander.” I realized then that the reason I never bought much classical music was because I didn’t know what I liked – and now I did: Smaller ensembles rather than larger, and earlier rather than later. That started me on a journey in which I’ve collected probably 400 albums in the past six years.
My favorites? Bach (especially the solo masterworks and the cantatas (by Suzuki)), Corelli, Biber, and the dance collections put together by Playford. I love to see Vivaldi performed live, though he can get a bit monotonous on CD. Scarlatti on the keyboard, along with Couperin. And I fell in love with Monteverdi’s Beatus Vir a couple years ago during a live performance, but only now have started to explore his work more carefully. (I love the recent release “Teatro d’Amore” by L’Arpeggiata.)
The Library of Congress had a fantastic season for early music lovers in 2007-2008, but the pickings have seemed rather slim since then, at least with regards to some of the better known ensembles from Europe and other parts of the country. The monthly cantata performances by the Washington Bach Consort are a welcome break from the workday but of inconsistent quality. I’ve been to two very enjoyable Folger Consort Christmas performances; perhaps I should try to make it to some of their others…
December 30, 2009, 2:04 pmKenneth Anderson says:
That is a lovely scene at the end of Master and Commander where the two play together – particularly historically nice touch to tip the gamba over on its side to be strummed.
December 30, 2009, 2:25 pmcelticdragon says:
I love the aforementioned scenes from Master And Commander, but I remain partial to Celtic music with reels, slip jigs and strathspeys.
December 30, 2009, 3:08 pmAk Mike says:
As another very bad amateur cellist, my appreciation for the early Baroque is enhanced by the fact that the bass lines are a lot easier to play than, for example, Schumann or Brahms.
December 30, 2009, 3:11 pmEx parte McCardle says:
As a devotee of Dufay, Busnois and Ockeghem, I resent Sainte-Colombe, Caldara, Corelli, et al., being referred to as “early music.” I prefer to think of them as ultra-modern.
Just kidding (more or less). I love having posts of this nature on VC, by the way. Keep ‘em coming.
December 30, 2009, 3:16 pmjheath says:
I like early bowed music also and appreciated this post. Thanks! I’ve no cello but this modern version of a pochette is a practical way for peripatetic amateurs like me to bow music.
December 30, 2009, 3:26 pmArkady says:
Sorry, but I just can’t resist this:
Victor Borge:
December 30, 2009, 4:20 pmRichard Gould-Saltman says:
“How many cellists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
I
I
IV
V
I
I
IV”
December 30, 2009, 5:17 pmNoesis Noeseos says:
You are not alone in your admiration of the Bach suites played on viola de gamba. The g-major prelude sounded more, shall I say, rugosely is an inspiration. My favorites, though, are the Purcell fantasias: an early Baroque composer (think of all that Restoration theatre music) who here harkens back a generation (or two) to Dowland, Morley, and the cabinet of viols, with a little Tallis for the sake of gravitas. Sublime!
December 30, 2009, 5:24 pmNoesis Noeseos says:
Well, sir, your notion of “early” stands still a crack above dawn. If you want to catch the worm, you have to rise with Machaut, or, better, Perotin. … It was a beautiful morning, even in its later hours, and its colors: O, rosa bella!
December 30, 2009, 5:30 pmRandy says:
In Washington, we are happy to have the Violins of Lafayette, which specializes on early french baroque operas. They are highly regarded.
Most music of all time periods is actually pretty mediocre or hack work. We listen to the best because over the years, the other stuff just doesn’t make the cut. I read somewhere that about 90% of all music composed in 1790s Vienna (Mozart and Haydn’s time), was played once and never again.
December 30, 2009, 5:43 pmDNJ says:
I am quite a fan of Early vocal music, whether opera, sacred or other. Favorites includes Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, Orlando Gibbons’s The Silver Swan, Allegri’s Miserere, and Palestrina’s Masses.
December 30, 2009, 6:33 pmXanthippas says:
Not bad, but the most “indie” approach to the music is the renditions played on violoncello da spalla, the instrument they were originally played on.
December 30, 2009, 7:16 pmHoosier says:
Does Cream count as “early music”?
December 30, 2009, 7:47 pmNoesis Noeseos says:
Only when taken with 500mg of mescalin, and then Ma Fin Est Mon Commencement.
December 30, 2009, 8:32 pmMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
Noesis Noeseos,
O, rosa bella!
Yeah, Ex parte McCardle, why no love for Ciconia?
Xanthippas,
I don’t believe the violoncello da spalla hypothesis for a moment. Kuijken just uses that thing (rather like a slightly squashed quarter-size cello, held on the shoulder) because he wants to play the music, isn’t a cellist, and dreads playing them in (gasp!) viola transcription like the rest of us who play various da braccio instruments and still want to play the Bach Suites. Transcriptions are icky if you’re an early-generation “authenticist.”
Kenneth is right, though: There isn’t much good Baroque cello music — that is, not with the cello in the starring role. The Vivaldi sonatas (and still more the huge pile of concertos) and the Marcello sonatas are good music, but there’s nothing like the violin literature.
December 30, 2009, 8:49 pmNoesis Noeseos says:
Michelle Dulak Thomson says:
Noesis Noeseos,
O, rosa bella!
It’s that pure, Pythagorian three-to-two Fifth, Michelle. No other harmonic ground will so successfully coax the music of the spheres into resounding for us here on earth. The Greeks had the concept; the polyphonists of Western Europe of the Middle Ages engineered it into practice.
December 30, 2009, 9:16 pmEx parte McCardle says:
Fine, you purists (Noesis Noeseos and Michelle Dulak Thomson): it’s nothing but the Winchester Troper for me from now on.
December 30, 2009, 10:20 pmNoesis Noeseos says:
Oh, I had a recording of selections from the Winchester Troper about 30 years ago, on a 33, which, of course, went the way of sorrows once digitals appeared. There was a sequentia based on the Old Testament Balaam story. I haven’t been able to find another recording in decades. If you could supply a link, I should be most grateful! I can’t remember a finer example of Ars Antiqua; the final melismatic sequence of the Balaam still rings in my ears.
December 30, 2009, 10:42 pmMark Field says:
If you still have the album, they now make a record player which attaches to your computer via a USB cable and allows you to rip the songs onto your computer. Pretty neat, and available at Best Buy.
December 30, 2009, 11:33 pmNoesis Noeseos says:
Thank you, Mark, for the information. Sadly, the physical disk passed out my possession many, too many years ago.
The music itself, though–ah, in moments of intense concentration I can still hear it.
Regards, NN
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December 31, 2009, 12:23 amEx parte McCardle says:
Noesis Noeseos: Happy to oblige. A disc of Christmas music from the Troper:
http://www.heraldav.co.uk/catalogue?diskNum=151
It is lovely, but a warning, which doubtless will not be news to you: the adiastematic neumes in which the Winchester Troper is notated are open to a wide variety of interpretations. The performance on this disc represents only one of an almost-infinite range of interpretive choices, in this case, that of Susan Rankin and Christopher Page. The reading of Alejandro Planchart would be much different. As to whether this performance sounds anything like what might have been heard at Winchester at Christmas of, say, 1050, well, who can say?
December 31, 2009, 10:38 amRandy says:
For me, of course, music stopped with Hildegard von Bingen. Perotin rocks!
December 31, 2009, 1:03 pmBrooks Lyman says:
Kenneth,
You’re a man after my own heart (In musical taste, at least. Other areas of human endeavor will be considered on a case-by-case basis.). A suggestion: there are some gambas available (from China, but why are we surprised) at very reasonable prices, as decent string instruments go. Available from the following source (there are doubtless others): http://www.lazarsearlymusic.com/Viols/violasdagamba.htm
As a former very poor cellist with a love of early music (however “early” may be defined), I am considering a gamba (which is, of course, fretted; players of modern instruments may consider this “cheating,” but for me, anything to make it easier to play music is fine). In any event, you might want to consider the gamba as an alternative to the cello for early music (and in many cases, probably more authentic).
December 31, 2009, 10:38 pmAnother early music fan « Knowledge Problem says:
[...] my delight upon perusing the Volokh Conspiracy earlier this week to find that Kenneth Anderson is a fellow early music fan! Not only that, but he also appreciates and plays the cello, my favorite non-percussion instrument. [...]
January 1, 2010, 5:48 pmMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
Brooks Lyman,
Frets aren’t “cheating” by any definition. They make some things easier, some things harder. (And some things impossible, like glissandi, but I digress.) As to whether cello or gamba is “more authentic,” obviously it depends on the music. Where the part in question is the principal part, it’s either cello or gamba, never both, because they’re tuned differently. Bass lines — meh, do whatever you want. If “authentic” means “how musicians of the time would have handled it,” my scrupulous sociological fieldwork among musicians ;-) suggests that they’d use whatever was on hand
January 2, 2010, 8:20 amjerry says:
yeah, I’m interested in early musics.
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January 7, 2010, 1:14 pm