Tuesday December 15, 2009

Baroque Chamber Orchestra of Colorado
Frank Nowell & Cynthia Miller Freivogel, co-leaders; Debra Nagy, oboe d'amore & oboe; Elizabeth Weigle, soprano
Johann Sebastian Bach: Oboe d'amore Concerto in A major, BWV 1055 14:00
Johann Sebastian Bach: Excerpts from Wedding Cantata, BWV 202 17:37
Johann Sebastian Bach: Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 in G major, BWV 1048 12:41 (9/15/07)
Also, Charley anticipates the Baroque Chamber Orchestra of Colorado's collaboration with the St. Martin's Chamber Choir this weekend.
George Frideric Handel: "Andante--Allegro" (1st movement) from Organ Concerto in B flat major, Op.4 No.6
Frank Nowell, organ; Baroque Chamber Orchestra of Colorado
NCA (5/1-3/09) 5:21


Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750): Oboe d'amore Concerto in A
major, BWV 1055
I. Allegro
II. Siciliana (Larghetto)
III. Allegro ma non tanto

After working for Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Cöthen, Bach was appointed cantor of the St. Thomas School in Leipzig. He moved family and furniture in May of 1723. His job description included duties as civic director of music, and this meant numerous odious encounters with the Town Council. He complained of ``superiors who are strange people, with little regard for music.''
Some relief from his official duties came in 1729, when he was asked to direct the Leipzig Collegium Musicum, a group founded 25 years earlier by Telemann. During the winter, they performed every Friday night at Gottfried Zimmermann's coffeehouse. In the warmer months, they moved outdoors in the garden for concerts every Wednesday afternoon.
For these concerts, Bach resurrected a number of violin and oboe concertos that he had written in Cöthen and transcribed them for keyboard and strings. These concertos are now placed from as early as 1729 to as late as 1744--roughly the dates of Bach's tenure as director of the Collegium Musicum.
It was Sir Donald Francis Tovey who first demonstrated that the keyboard concerto in A major is based on a concerto originally for oboe d'amore. Invented around 1720, the instrument was slightly larger than the modern oboe and pitched a minor third lower.
The A major Concerto's opening ritornello begins with a three-note motive that permeates even the solo sections. The middle movement features a descending bass line under the soloist's elegiac maunderings. The finale is a dance, contrasting the agressive ritornello with a more pastoral oboe melody.


Bach - Cantata 202 Texts and Translations

I. Aria
Weichet nur, betrübte Schatten,
Frost und Winde, geht zur Ruh!
Florens Lust
Will der Brust
Nichts als frohes Glück verstatten,
Denn sie träget Blumen zu.

(Give way now, dismal shadows,
Frost and wind, go to rest!
Flora's delight
will grant our hearts
nothing but joyful fortune,
for she comes bearing flowers.)

IV. Recitative
Drum sucht auch Amor sein Vergnügen,
Wenn Purpur in den Wiesen lacht,
Wenn Florens Pracht sich herrlich macht,
Und wenn in seinem Reich,
Den schönen Blumen gleich,
Auch Herzen feurig siegen.

(Therefore Love himself seeks his pleasure,
when crimson laughs in the meadows,
when Flora's magnificence glories,
and when in his kingdom,
just like the beautiful blossoms
hearts make a fiery triumph as well.)

V. Aria
Wenn die Frühlingslüfte streichen
Und durch bunte Felder wehn,
Pflegt auch Amor auszuschleichen,
Um nach seinem Schmuck zu sehn,
Welcher, glaubt man, dieser ist,
Dass ein Herz das andre küsst.
VI. Recitative
Und dieses ist das Glücke,
Dass durch ein hohes Gunstgeschicke
Zwei Seelen einen Schmuck erlanget,
An dem viel Heil und Segen pranget.

(When the spring breezes caress
and waft through colourful meadows,
Love will often slip abroad
to seek after his treasure,
which, it is believed, is this:
that one heart kisses another.
And this is happiness,
that through highly favorable fortune
two souls achieve such a treasure,
Around which much worth and blessing shines.)

VII. Aria
Sich üben im Lieben,
In Scherzen sich herzen
Ist besser als Florens vergängliche Lust.
Hier quellen die Wellen,
Hier lachen und wachen
Die siegenden Palmen
auf Lippen und Brust.

(To be accustomed in love,
to cuddle in playful tenderness
is better than Flora's fading delights.
Here the waves swell,
here on lip and breast
the triumphal palms smile and wave.)

VIII. Recitative
So sei das Band der keuschen Liebe,
Verlobte Zwei,
Vom Unbestand des Wechsels frei!
Kein jäher Fall
Noch Donnerknall
Erschrecke die verliebten Triebe!

(So may the bond of chaste love,
committed pair,
be free from the inconstancy of change!
May no sudden fall,
no thunder crack
disturb your amorous desires.)

IX. Aria
Sehet in Zufriedenheit
Tausend helle Wohlfahrtstage,
Dass bald bei der Folgezeit
Eure Liebe Blumen trage!


(May you behold in contentment
a thousand bright happy days,
so that soon in the coming time
your love may blossom!)
--
English Translation by Pamela Delall.


Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750): Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 in G major, BWV 1048
I. [No tempo indicated: Allegro]
II. Adagio
III. Allegro

Sometime during the last half of 1718, Bach traveled from Cöthen, where he worked as conductor of the court orchestra, to Berlin, where he placed an order for a new harpsichord. While in Berlin, he performed for the Margrave of Brandenburg, Prince Christian Ludwig, who was the younger brother of the Prussian King Frederick I. So impressed was the Prince that when Bach returned to take delivery of the harpsichord on March 1, 1719, he commissioned some music.
Bach must have known that he would never be paid, for instead of composing new music, he selected, or revised, six concertos he was already using in Cöthen, neatly copied them out, and sent them off to the Prince on March 24, 1721.
The dedication, a flowery epistle in French, read in part: ``Your Highness deigned to honor me with the command to send Your Highness some pieces of my Composition: I have then in accordance with Your Highness' most gracious orders taken the liberty of rendering my most humble duty to Your Royal Highness with the present Concertos, which I have adapted to several instruments.''
In his book on Bach, Karl Geiringer writes: ``The Brandenburg Concertos seem to embody the splendor and effervescence of court life at Cöthen, and, moreover, they reveal the composer's delight in writing for a group of highly trained instrumentalists. There is an exuberance and abundance of inspiration in this music which only a genius, aware of his newly achieved full mastery, could call forth. Craftsmanship and richly flowing melodic invention, logic and zest for experimenting, counterpoise each other here to an extent rarely equaled again even by Bach himself.''
The Third Brandenburg Concerto, scored for three violins, three violas, three cellos, harpsichord and double-bass, may have been written as early as 1711-1713, during Bach's tenure in Weimar. The middle movement, a single measure marked ``Adagio,'' consists of two solitary chords. Contemporary opinion is divided about just what Bach meant. Either the two chords are the ending for some lost movement, or an improvisation by the violinist, violist or harpsichordist was supposed to end with the two chords, or the two chords were intended to be played as written.