Program notes

by Martin Pearlman

Handel, Concerto grosso in D, Op. 6, No. 5

         Within one month, from the end of September to the end of October 1739, Handel produced the twelve great concerti grossi of his opus 6 collection.  That was an astonishing pace averaging 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 the acts of his oratorios.  Indeed, we know that he eventually advertised some of the concerti as special attractions in oratorio performances.

          This Concerto No. 5 opens with a pair of movements that together form the two parts of a typical French overture -- the first with bright but stately dotted rhythms and the second with faster contrapuntal music.  And indeed they did originally come from an overture.  Handel lifted them in almost finished form from the overture to his recently completed Ode for St. Cecilia's Day.  The third, fourth and fifth movements (Presto, Largo, and Allegro) are original pieces, although the Allegro borrows material from a Scarlatti sonata that had recently been published in England.  That Allegro originally ended the concerto, but Handel later decided to add a sixth movement for which he once again turned to the overture of his St. Cecilia Ode.  From it, he adapted a minuet and added two variations to it, making for a gentle, gracious ending after the excitement of the Allegro.

C.P.E. Bach, Cello Concerto

         Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, often referred to as "the Berlin Bach," was one of several sons of J. S. Bach to became important musicians in their day.  Shortly after finishing at university, C.P.E. won employment as keyboardist at the court of Frederick of Prussia, later known as Frederick the Great.  Frederick was himself an accomplished musician and flutist and gathered around himself some of the finest musicians in Europe, with whom he put on regular performances in his palace Sanssouci. 

         C.P.E. Bach's three cello concertos were all written within the three-year period 1771-73, a time when he was at Frederick's court, but whether they were performed at court or in one of the various local music academies or private house concerts is not known.  Even the name of the soloist for whom they were written is uncertain, but a likely candidate is Ignaz Mara, a young virtuoso cellist who was in Berlin during that time, and about whom one critic wrote that he was an "excellent soloist on his instrument, and his tone and execution were extremely impressive."  This was unusual, since the cello at that time was mainly used for playing bass line accompaniments.  As Bach's colleague Joachim Quantz wrote:  "Solo playing on this instrument is not easy."

          The A major concerto that we hear tonight is the third and most virtuosic of Bach's three cello concertos.  (An amateur player of the time who had copies made of the other two concertos considered this one "too difficult.")  Interestingly, the piece also exists as a concerto for harpsichord and a concerto for flute, but this version for cello is generally thought to be its original form.  Like most of C. P. E. Bach's music, the work is in a transitional style between the Baroque music of his father and the Classical style of Haydn and Mozart.  C.P.E. Bach is considered the great exponent of a style known as the Empfindsamer Stil (sensitive or sentimental style).  While we can clearly feel that very personal style in his many keyboard works, we can also hear it to some extent in the slow movement of this concerto.

         Beyond his work as a performer and composer, C.P.E. was famous for his book, An Essay on the True Art of Playing Keyboard Instruments, a book that influenced all other such books for decades and that was widely read by professionals and their students.  Today it is still considered required reading for keyboard players who want to learn about eighteenth-century performance.

Vivaldi, Concerto in A minor for two violins

         This concerto for two 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, including the young Johann Sebastian Bach.  The overall collection in which this piece appeared was entitled L'Estro armonico ("Harmonic inspiration" or "Harmonic whimsy"), and it was published as Vivaldi's opus 3. 

        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 audiences 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 work performed by girls at the Pietà.

Pergolesi, La serva padrona (The Maid Turned Mistress)

         On August 1, 1752, a newly arrived touring troupe from Italy performed Pergolesi's comic intermezzo La serva padrona in Paris and ignited a cultural war that became known as the "War of the Buffoons" (Querrelle des bouffons).  Pergolesi's little comic work was a shock to many Parisians, who were accustomed to tragic dramas and more serious music in their operas, and it set off a few years of impassioned arguments, pamphlets and essays about the relative merits of French vs. Italian music.  Patriots defended the traditional tragic French dramas, while the opposition, which included Rousseau and other Enlightenment writers, found French music too formal and "artificial" compared to the simpler, more "natural" and emotional Italian music. 

         The king and queen were on opposite sides of the battle, and as it dragged on, French partisans could be seen (and heard) sitting below the king's box at the opera, while Italian supporters sat below the queen's box.  After a few years, the controversy inevitably died down, but Italian influence had worked its way into many French works, as well as French institutions like the new Comédie-Italienne. Pergolesi's intermezzo also played a role in popularizing opera buffa, the operatic comedies that later were so important for Mozart.

      All of this took place long after Pergolesi's death in 1736 at the young age of 26.  He had originally written La serva padrona as a short two-part comedy to be performed between the acts of a serious three-act opera.  The opera itself was not a success, but the comic intermezzo was a hit.  Eventually comedy troupes separated it from the opera and performed it independently.

          La serva padrona tells the story of a domineering young maid Serpina and her old master Uberto. Uberto resents being constantly ordered around by her and decides to free himself by getting married.  But Serpina decides to prevent that by marrying him herself.  To make that happen, she needs the help of the household servant Vespone in disguise.  In the end, her scheme works, and the maid becomes mistress of the house.