This is a review of a concert by The English Concert under Harry Bicket
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20 March
This is a review [incomplete ?] of a concert given by The English Concert under Harry Bicket, with soloists Katharina Spreckelsen (oboe), Nadja Zwiener (violin), Anna Devin (soprano) and Robin Blaze (counter-tenor), at Saffron Hall on Sunday 20 March at 7.30 p.m.
Part Two : From the decade following Part One, a work by a Neapolitan composer, dying in Pozzuoli in the care of Franciscans¹
(4) Antonio Vivaldi ~ Sinfonia in B Minor (Al Santo Sepolcro) (c. 1730), RV 169
(5) Giovanni Battista Pergolesi (1710–1736) ~ Stabat Mater (1736)
Starting in the second half of the concert, with soloists Anna Devin (soprano) and Robin Blaze (counter-tenor) already on stage (either side of the harpsichord / chamber organ), Harry Bicket and The English Concert (@EnglishConcert) employed Vivaldi’s Sinfonia ‘Al Santo Sepolcro’ as a thoughtful prelude to the last work on the programme, Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater (almost managing to avoid applause just after it²) :
With its initial, reverentially solemn atmosphere, it was insightful programming, and the ensemble created a great sense of space, during which, from his expression, Robin Blaze (seated stage left) could be seen to be engaging with the Sinfonia, as if ‘getting into character’. (It was clearly intended as such, for him (and Devin) as well as for us). Towards the end, it was suspenseful, before, with repeated notes, becoming more expansive : thus, it had the rise and fall of emotions, and the devotional trains of thought³, that were to come out in the Pergolesi.
We may think that we live in an era of information exchange, but (as will be mentioned below) composers in different countries were aware of each other’s works in the early eighteenth century : in the last ten years of his life, Bach arranged Pergolesi’s composition (slightly expanding its orchestral resources) as Tilge, Höchster, meine Sünden (BWV 1083), in which he set a German paraphrase of Psalm 51 (and it is because Bach copied out the work that we have Handel's Brockes Passion, performed at Easter at King's on Holy Saturday, and broadcast on Easter Monday).
Coming full circle, to having heard Stabat Mater for the first time in live performance as a twenty-year-old, one was struck anew by what one would now see as the Baroque character of the setting, and how it brings out those qualities in the text (even if it is near the end of the period - whether or not that is deemed to be in 1750, with the death of Bach). That said, by being over-emphatic with the work, it is easy (as many a recording did at that time) to make it sound ‘soupy’ (and so sound from another century, era, or genre), an effect that is also greatly magnified by much vibrato in the solo voices : not, of course, what one would have any reason to expect from The English Concert.
So nowadays, perhaps, this work is less often heard with a soprano and an alto (fashions change), and, although the familiar chordal-progressions of the opening may not change, Bicket brought a tautness to the playing. He went straight into the vivid strings of the next movement, with a tightness that kept a number in a row together, and make them of a piece with each other : unlike Palestrina, who set the text of the Stabat Mater as stanzas of six lines, Pergolesi has it in groups of three, which means that those first movements can have a nuance to match the content of each shorter stanza. [In the structure's formal terms, there may be twelve movements within the twenty stanzas of text, but one-half of them are taken up with the first eight stanzas.]
Pergolesi's (@EnglishConcert / @SaffronHallSW) and Palestrina's very different (@BBCSingers / @ConcertsatKings) Stabat Mater in the week ->— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) March 25, 2016
Once the voice of Anna Devin (soprano) had settled with that of counter-tenor Robin Blaze after the opening number⁴, we could hear together as a whole the sections through to the conclusion of the eighth stanza (Dum emisit spiritum [‘As He gave up the spirit’]). En route, in a movement that Bicket took briskly (it is marked Allegro), the tone that Pergolesi gives to the fourth stanza (which begins Quae moerebat et dolebat, an alto aria that talks of Mary’s grief, and her shuddering at her son’s pain) is the first time where we might detect an apparent mismatch between text and the tone of the setting⁵.
Immediately after Quae moerebat et dolebat, which may be what draws Pergolesi on, we have the other-worldliness of the duet Quis est homo qui non fleret, and then the word-painting of Dum emisit spiritum, with lute-notes, the affect of Devin's soprano voice, and the pianissimo strings. These words are where the first significant difference in mood comes, as the emphasis moves from - within the context of where Mary is, and what she feels - the suffering and death of Jesus on the cross, and Bicket here took a very brief pause.
Despite using a split choir, does Palestrina broadly seem to set the text straight through, and be more about our understanding than drama ?— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) March 25, 2016
The next seven stanzas (or, at least, five) felt to have the different focus of a prayer to Mary, asking to identify with her grief (in stanza nine, Me sentire vim doloris [‘Let me feel the force of grief’]). From this point on, when it was not a duet, it was a solo aria for Blaze’s honeyed, if quiet, voice, which, at his best, has the clarity of the tone of a bell, and Bicket maintained the tight approach to keeping the movements ticking over.
However, at the close of these stanzas that directly speak to The Virgin (Fac me tecum plangere [‘Let me weep with you’]), he allowed a moment’s breath. The last three movements (plus Amen) were a less-pressured two-stanza solo alto aria (in which Blaze and the ensemble set a tone of reflection), and two duets, which took us through death and beyond with the personal voice that has been addressing us since Jesus’ death (in the triumphant way that, over a longer span, Messiah does).
Enthusiastic applause, and even some drumming of feet, were indicative of how keenly the audience at Saffron Hall appreciated the performance. It was a great pleasure to hear this ensemble and these soloists at Saffron Hall with such a meditative concentration on the variety of music in this short period of composition !
Today we're at sunny Saffron Hall for the Pergolesi Stabat Mater and concertos with our very own Nadja Zwiener and Katharina Spreckelsen— The English Concert (@EnglishConcert) March 20, 2016
Moving to writing up the first half…
Part One : Venice in the early decades of the eighteenth century
1. Antonio Vivaldi (1678–1741) ~ Concerto for Strings and Continuo
2. Tomaso Albinoni (1671–1751) ~ Oboe Concerto
3. Vivaldi ~ Concerto for Violin, Strings and Basso Continuo
(1) Vivaldi ~ Concerto for Strings and Continuo in G Minor (c. 1725), RV 157
1. Allegro
2. Largo
3. Allegro
In this performance by The English Concert (@EnglishConcert), conducted by Harry Bicket, the approach to the opening piece was energetic, in the way that some of Bach is typically played (who, of course, was heavily influenced by Vivaldi’s compositions), as well as being direct and clear : perhaps we had a feeling, as in (whatever its exact origins) Johann Pachelbel's Canon for Three Violins and Basso Continuo, of being impelled, till, at the very end, we came down to quietness and the sound of the lute (William Carter).
The central, slow movement was fully expressed and unhurried. Without its being over-meditative in character, Bicket brought out a tone of thoughtfulness, which provided a vivid contrast with the Allegro, accordingly making its pace seem like that of a Presto. Again, the playing was spirited, with dynamism and attack (albeit, at times, this is writing of a somewhat anxiety-ridden kind, with the tremulous activity of its figurations), and its energy drove it through to a sure conclusion.
(2) Albinoni ~ Concerto for Oboe and Strings in D Minor (1722), Op. 9, No. 2
1. Allegro e no presto
2. Adagio
3. Allegro
The work opened with a movement in which a principal feature is what is most easily described as a swooping (or ‘snatched’) gesture, and which showed great versatility in writing for the oboe. It was welcome that oboist Katharina Spreckelsen did not play over-plangently, but, without complicating the musical line, developed expressive tone through it : an elaborated section, just before the conclusion of the Allegro e no presto, then had its proper context.
Bicket next brought out a flowing texture, which swelled in the way that Handel's familiar instrumental passage ‘The Arrival of The Queen of Sheba’ does⁶, with the Adagio being nicely and neatly played by all. As a whole with this ambience, Spreckelsen was tellingly restrained in the solo part, with unfussy trills - when Rallentando and emphasis were used, it was sparingly, and so to good effect. Winningly, we heard from her at the last, and then the movement passed to the strings for its close.
Shorter than the other movements, the Allegro gave us an Italianate style of bells, and peals of them. Spreckelsen was now using a more reedy tone, but with a dead-ahead attack, and, although the phrasing within the ensemble was balanced, it was, of course, unlike when other groups attempt such playing, being subtly done.
(3) Vivaldi ~ Concerto for Violin, Strings and Basso Continuo (per la Santissima Assenzione di Maria Vergine) in C Major (c. 1730), RV 581 :
1. Adagio – Allegro
2. Largo
3. Allegro
There is a rising Adagio introduction to the movement proper (resembling a subdued / suppressed fanfare ?), where we then heard soloist Nadja Zwiener approaching, with ease, some quite intricate violin-writing. Before returning to the opening material, and the end, we also had a real feeling of excitement in the sound of soloist and strings.
The succeeding Largo had a feeling of suspension to it. It was to be increased by the effect, in the divided strings, of brief strokes being drawn below Zwiener’s harmonizingly lyrical writing, as if with the sense of breaths, or a pulse. (It is an impression by which Vivaldi was clearly taken, and is most famously heard in Concerti Nos 1 to 4 of Il cimento dell'armonia e dell'inventione, a set of twelve as his Opus 8.) In the final bars of the movement, we find ourselves returning to full orchestral sound.
The tone of the ensemble in the closing Allegro was good natured, with something akin to joie de vivre to the fore from Zwiener. However, as if we acquiesced in this mood too quickly, there were to be darker hints, not least with the second orchestra’s contributions.
We were to be brought to a very expressive passage for violin, modulating to navigate to the soul of the piece. Upon a moment’s rest per tutti, we were then led into the Concerto’s lively conclusion.
It had been a shorter instrumental first half, without the originally programmed Sinfonia by Alessandro Scarlatti (from I Dolori di Maria Vergine - so part of the Marian (and Crucifixion) theme), but very insightful as well as enjoyable, and with evidence that the audience appreciated the sensitivity and skills of soloists and ensemble and its conductor alike.
End-notes
¹ Some traditions have it that the text's author was the Franciscan friar Jacopone da Todi.
² Though hands or bows held high do not always ensure that performers succeed in holding off applause at the end of a piece, and, if they want to run the next one together, sometimes have to make it impossible to interpolate it.
³ If, even at this modest remove of time, we sometimes have little notion, save from an indicative title, why pieces had been composed (i.e. to be performed where and / or for what purpose), and commentators and musicologists then have to conjecture, giving us their best guesses from the information available : this was as true in the first half, with another piece by Vivaldi (his Concerto for Violin in C Major, RV. 581), as with items in Bojan Čičić’s (@BojanCicic’s) recent concert programme with The Academy of Ancient Music (@AAMorchestra).
⁴ In this piece, matching may tend to be less of an issue with two female singers (although the voices can sometimes be quite exposed), but they still have to get the balance right : the hall in which they rehearsed now reacts differently, with the effect of an audience in it.
⁵ The choral version of (Josef) Haydn’s originally purely orchestral Seven Last Words of our Saviour on the Cross was performed on Good Friday at Easter at King’s. In her programme-notes, Emma Cleobury likewise refers to occasions where – in Gottfried van Swieten’s revision of a text first used by Joseph Friebert for the same purpose as Haydn – the words 'jar with the music' :
One case that she cites (in the Haydn, in the movement Es ist vollbracht !) is of 'serene music' alongside Weh euch Bösen, / Weh euch Blinden, words of rebuke to those who ignore Christ’s sacrifice. Yet such conflicting responses to the death of Christ are ones that one is familiar with in Messiah (first performed in 1742), at once mourning Christ, having lamented his suffering on the cross, but then looking to the salvation that he has won and is offering.
⁶ Taken from Act III of Handel’s Solomon (HWV 67), it is often heard alone, and also employs oboe (being scored for two oboes and strings). The oratorio was composed in 1748 (twenty-six years later), and Handel would assuredly have known, and taken from, the Concerto. (Or one might equally have been reminded of the effect, in places, of his Water Music (HWV 348–350), which pre-dates Albinoni’s work ?)
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Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)
