2025/2026 Second Season

Program notes 

by Martin Pearlman 

Handel, Concerto Grosso 

Within one month, from the end of September to the end of October 1739, Handel  produced the twelve great concertos of his opus 6 collection, turning them out at the  astonishing pace of one concerto every 2-1/2 days. His publisher was anxious to have  such a collection, since similar concerti by Corelli and Geminiani were very popular in  England, and works in this genre by Handel would certainly sell very well. But the  concertos were also useful to Handel himself as overtures or interludes between acts  of his oratorios. Indeed, we know that he eventually advertised some of the concerti as  special attractions in oratorio performances. 

The first concerto of the set, which North Star Baroque plays today, is one of  the brightest and most outgoing of the set. The stately music of the first movement is drawn in part from an early version of Handel's own overture to his opera  Imeneo. That music leads directly into the following Allegro. This pair of  movements is followed by the similarly paired third and fourth movements, to  which Handel adds an extra Allegro movement at the end. That final dance-like  Allegro draws a good deal of its inspiration from music by two other composers  whose harpsichord music had recently been published in England: Domenico  Scarlatti (his Sonata in G, K. 2) and Gottleib Muffat. Handel ingeniously  reordered and reworked ideas "borrowed" from these composers to produce a  brilliant -- and essentially new -- work of his own.  

Bach, Cantata, Ich habe genug 

Bach's solo cantata Ich habe genug (I have enough) was composed for the  Feast of the Purification, February 2, 1727. It was performed on that occasion by a  baritone singer with a solo oboe, strings and continuo, but like many works of  Bach, it went through several revisions. Initially Bach wrote the opening aria for  an alto, but on completing it, he appended an instruction that the voice part should  be transposed down an octave for a baritone. He then wrote the remainder of the  cantata for baritone. Several years later, he transposed the work up a third from C  minor to E minor to adapt it for soprano and, in that higher version, substituted a  flute for the oboe. Still later, he altered the clef on the voice staff to transpose it  back to C minor for an alto. A final version copied out toward the end of his life is  once again for baritone. Why all these changes were made and what circumstances  led him to make them are not known, but they probably reflect the availability of 

soloists at times that he wanted to perform the cantata. It is normally heard today  in its baritone version. 

The text is by an anonymous librettist. Over its three arias, it rejects worldly  fortunes and expresses serenity as it anticipates death. In the opening aria, a gentle  pulsing in the strings supports an elaborately ornamented oboe line as it weaves  around the voice. The well known middle aria is a beautiful lullaby in rondo form  for the solo singer with strings and continuo: "Schlummert ein, ihr matten Augen"  ("Go to sleep, you weary eyes"). There follows a  recitative that ends in a brief arioso bidding farewell to the world: "Welt! gute  Nacht" ("World! good night"). The cantata then concludes with a lively aria in C  minor, "Ich freue mich auf meinen Tod" ("I rejoice at my death"), in which the  soloist sings spirited sixteenth-note melismas on the word "freue" ("rejoice"). 

Vivaldi, Concerto for Four Violins 

This popular concerto for four violins first appeared in 1711 in a collection  of Vivaldi's concertos, which the scholar Michael Talbot called "perhaps the most  influential collection of instrumental music to appear during the whole of the  eighteenth century." Indeed the energy and novelty of these concertos influenced a  great many composers of the time. Among them was the young Johann Sebastian  Bach, who not only studied them but who actually transcribed this work as a  concerto for four harpsichords and orchestra. The overall collection of twelve  concertos in which this concerto appeared was entitled L'Estro Armonico  ("Harmonic inspiration" or "Harmonic whimsy"), and it was listed as Vivaldi's  opus 3.  

While the entire concerto is full novel ideas, one particular moment stands  out for its unusual effect. The Larghetto in the second movement consists only of  a series of chord progressions played by all four soloists together, but each soloist arpeggiates the chords in a different way. The first violin plays pulsing arpeggios  of 32nd notes. At the same time, the other three violins play 16ths, but each one  articulates them differently, one slurring them in pairs, one articulating all the  notes separately, and the other slurring three notes of each beat together followed  by one separate note. The result is a fascinating, complex mix of activity within  each simple chord.  

For a good part of his career, Vivaldi directed music at the Ospedale della  Pietà, a girls' orphanage in Venice that was famous for the high level of its music making. Its concerts attracted tourists from throughout Italy and beyond, as well  as attracting financial support from the city and private patrons. Although there is  no record of a premiere performance, it is likely that Vivaldi would have had this  performed by girls at the Pietà. 

Corelli, "Christmas Concerto" 

Corelli's eighth concerto grosso bears the subtitle "Fatto per la notte di  natale" ("Created for the Night of Christmas"). It was commissioned by the great  music patron Cardinal Ottoboni and performed in Rome at Christmas of 1690.  However, it wasn't until 1714, the year after the composer's death, that it appeared  in print along with his other concertos. 

What makes this a "Christmas" concerto? It is the Pastorale movement with  which it ends. Up until that point, the music is much like the other concertos in the  set: a beautiful, often lively work that features a trio of two violins and cello in  contrast with the larger ensemble. But then the last Allegro leads without a break  into a peaceful, pastoral music in a gentle 12/8 meter to bring the concerto to quiet  ending. It has the same rhythm and character as the striking moments in Handel's  Messiah, Bach's Christmas Oratorio and other works when the shepherds see the  star of Bethlehem and learn of the birth of Jesus. It was part of a common musical  language for Baroque composers in telling the Christmas story. Interestingly,  Corelli marks the Pastorale as ad libitum, probably because it could be omitted, if  one wanted to play it at another time of year as a normal concerto. However, the  Pastorale movement is so well known today that the concerto is almost never heard  without it. 

Much of Corelli's career was spent in Rome, where he directed an orchestra  renowned for its beautiful sound and discipline. One of the great violinists of his  time, Corelli was also a famous teacher. He produced some of the finest violinists  of the next generation and, through them, he enormously influenced violin  technique for generations to come. 

Vivaldi, "Nulla in mundo pax sincera" 

This motet is an extraordinary work for soprano soloist with a string  ensemble. It is, in some sense, a concerto for the voice. It begins gently with a  beautiful Larghetto aria and builds to its final Alleluia, a virtuosic aria in which the  vocal part sounds almost like one of Vivaldi's violin concertos. Its form --

aria/recitative/aria/Alleluia, -- was typical of Italian motets of the time, the most  famous of which is Mozart's Exsultate, jubilate. 

The work comes from a period when Vivaldi was teaching and directing  music at the Ospedale della Pietà, a girls' orphanage in Venice. The girls at that  institution were very well educated in music, and their music-making was admired  well beyond Venice and even beyond Italy. The anonymous text of this work is in  a somewhat awkward and decadent Latin, but, despite being in Latin, it is not  meant for a church service. Instead, it may have been intended as a moral lesson  for the girls at the school, urging them to avoid the temptations and snares of this  world and to focus on the eternal life of the soul. 

The name of the singer for whom Vivaldi wrote this motet is unknown, but  in all likelihood, it was performed at the Pietà, perhaps by one of its very talented  students. On the other hand, it could have been sung by a former resident who  returned to the orphanage as an adult professional musician to sing with them,  something which did occasionally occur. Either way, it was designed for a highly  accomplished singer.