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Siete qui: Home Festival Festival 2011 Baroque beauties
Baroque beauties PDF Print E-mail
Georg Philipp Telemann’s proverbial lively intellect (Magdeburg, 14 March 1681 - Hamburg, 25 June 1767) was coupled with a delight in research and discovery and he assiduously sought out styles that were not typical of his own culture. Some examples? Certainly not Italian, French, Spanish or English, which were European “standards” at that time, or the dances everybody enjoyed (allemande, courante, sarabande, gigue, etc.). He preferred folk music – foreign, “ethnic”, popular styles; his favourites were Portuguese, Russian (muscovite), Turkish and even Swiss!
Among his numerous symphonies – often also known also as suites, overtures, or partite – Telemann composed a lively Völker Overtüre in B flat major TWV 55, for strings and basso continuo (“Klingende Geographie”), where the music blossoms forth in melodies of pure hedonistic beauty. It is interesting how this great baroque composer interprets melodies and dances from far-off lands that most people still considered “exotic”.
Antonio Lucio Vivaldi (Venice, 4 March 1678 - Vienna, 28 July 1741) takes us on to the Concerto in G minor RV 156 for strings and continuo (Allegro, Adagio, Allegro). The themes, spread out over a rich connective tissue, intertwine cleverly, alternating joyful figures threading notes like beads in a necklace with scenes depicted in more intimate, nuanced, delicate colours. The overall effect reflects the baroque love of beauty, orchestrated here tangibly, like sculpture, with an array of materials laid out by the masterful hand of the “red [haired] priest”.
In the footsteps of the Italian genius comes his most illustrious admirer, Johann Sebastian Bach, who studied his music closely and adored his concertos. The Kantor of Leipzig patiently transcribed and re-elaborated Vivaldi’s masterpieces, picking up all the tricks. So when he started to compose the Brandenburg Concertos (ca. 1721) not only had he thoroughly mastered the technique, but he fired it up with his own extraordinary poetic imagination.
In the Concerto no. 5 in D major BWV 1050, the harpsichord is the star – a soloist virtually alone on stage for a grandiose cadenza of no less than 65 bars. This Allegro, with its luminous harpsichord part, is light and effervescent. The second movement, Affettuoso, relies on the flute and violin to convey a delicate, sentimental mood. The Allegro closes the concerto in the style of a fugue, the theme echoing from one section to the next, often highlighted by brilliant harpsichord passages. After a melancholy minor section, the fugue theme returns to put things back in order.
Arcangelo Corelli (Fusignano, 17 February 1653 - Rome, 8 January 1713) composed his Sonata op. 5 no. 12 as the last of 12 Sonatas for violin and harpsichord published in 1700, now widely known as La Follia. The “Follia” was actually an old dance, one of Europe’s earliest themes, dating back to 1500. It was originally a Portuguese dance involving a fertility rite during which dancers carried men dressed up as women on their shoulders. The name reflected the reckless speed of the dance, and the unusual choreography. The sonata consists of a progression of chords with a catchy melody made up of an orderly musical phrase, that gives away its origins as a dance.
Starting with Jean-Baptiste Lully the Follia became the testing ground for anyone who wanted to try out variations – in the sense of multiple adaptations of a basic theme. So there are versions of the Follia by Purcell, Vivaldi, Scarlatti, Händel, C.P.E. Bach, Salieri and even Rachmaninoff. But it is Corelli’s Follia, with its 23 blinding variations, that is the real musical must!
J.S. Bach’s Suite in B minor BWV 1067 comprises several movements based on old dances, showing the composer’s creative, “worldly” side. The flute keeps up a dialogue, alternating and opposing the strings, building up a cohesive structure. The melodic Overture offers solemn rhythms livened up by a fugue, then a refined Rondeau; the Sarabande is ecstatic but gloomy. After the swift Bourrées I and II comes the noble theme of the Polonaise and the Minuet, then in the popular Badinerie the flute leads the orchestra through a dizzy dance, to bring the Suite to a sparkling conclusion.

Marino Mora