Program notes  

by Martin Pearlman 

Michael Praetorius  

Our concert begins in Germany with some of the earliest music in North Star  Baroque's repertoire. Michael Praetorius lived on the cusp of the late Renaissance and  the early Baroque. He was a prolific composer of Lutheran church music, as well as a  gifted organist. His massive three-volume encyclopedia, the Syntagma musicum, is  today one of the main sources of information about the instruments and musical  practices of his time. 

The suite that we play today is a selection of five contrasting dances from  Praetorius's Terpsichore, an enormous collection of dance music that he published in  1612. Rather than original compositions, the collection consists of his arrangements  of hundreds of dances of various types that were popular at the time, particularly at the  French court of Henry IV. It is an important collection that not only introduced  Germans to the latest French dance music, but that also preserved much of this music  for posterity. As he writes on his title page, the dances are printed "as the French  dancing masters in France play them, which can be well used to entertain and delight  princely tables at banquets."  

Monteverdi madrigals 

One of the greatest composers in the history of music, Monteverdi produced nearly a dozen operas (of which sadly only three survive), his colossal Vespers of  1610, a great deal of church music, and nine books of madrigals, eight of which were  published during his lifetime. From 1613 until his death some thirty years later, he  held the post of maestro di cappella (director of music) at St. Mark's basilica in  Venice, one of the most prestigious posts in Italy.  

As with Praetorius, Monteverdi's life and work span the transition from the late  Renaissance to the early Baroque. However, the three beautiful madrigals for two  sopranos on our program are all late works which have Baroque continuo  accompaniments.  

• "Chiome d'oro," is a joyful song praising the beauty of the poet's lover. Here  two violins alternate with the two sopranos.  

• In the madrigal "O come sei gentile," a suitor compares his fate to that of the  little bird that belongs to the woman he loves. Both of them are captives and  they both sing, but their fates are different. Monteverdi's setting is brilliantly sensitive to the nuances of each word and phrase. 

• "Zefiro torna" is one of Monteverdi's most famous madrigals. Here a repeating  bass line creates a hypnotic effect, as the two sopranos spin out virtuosic variations depicting the joys of nature. Here too Monteverdi's word painting is  beautifully detailed, sometimes illustrating individual words -- the murmuring  of the waters, high notes for the mountains, low notes for the valleys -- but the  mood abruptly changes for the final verse, as the poet tells of the torment and  loneliness of his unrequited love. 

Bach, Violin Concerto in A minor, BWV 1041 

This famous concerto, one of only two Bach concertos for solo violin that have  come down to us, is generally thought to date from the composer's years at Cöthen  (1717-1723), a time when he wrote numerous concertos. However, the only surviving  manuscripts of it were copied out about a decade later. By that time Bach, in addition  to his church obligations, was directing his Collegium Musicum in concerts at  Zimmermann's coffee house in Leipzig, so this concerto was no doubt played in that  series. It was also for his Collegium Musicum in the early 1730s that Bach  transcribed this violin concerto for harpsichord, so that it was probably also played at  the coffee house as a harpsichord concerto with Bach himself or one of his sons  playing the solo part. 

Handel, Op. 6, No. 4 

This concerto comes from a set of twelve concerti grossi that Handel wrote at  the request of his publisher John Walsh. Since Corelli's concertos were so popular in  England, Walsh felt that a similar set by Handel would sell very well. Handel therefore took a break from the opera that he was working on to provide him with a  collection of twelve great concertos known as his opus 6. He worked at an  astonishing pace. According to the completion dates that he noted at the end of each  concerto, it seems that he composed this fourth concerto in a mere two days.  

The opening movement, a Larghetto affettuoso, is a melodic piece with a gently  pulsing accompaniment. That introduction leads into a lively Allegro that begins with  a fugue. In the serene third movement Largo, a slow, beautiful counterpoint of violins  unfolds over a gentle walking bass line. For his finale movement, Handel adapted  

music that he had previously written for his opera Imeneo. But in this concerto  version, the lively violin writing and strong rhythmic character transform the gentle  aria into a bright finale, something that Handel confirmed by changing the tempo  marking of the original from Andante to Allegro.

Vivaldi, "O qui coeli" 

For a good part of his career, Vivaldi was music director at the Ospedale della  Pietà, a girls' orphanage in Venice. One of several such institutions in the city, the  Pietà was famous for the high level of its singers and instrumentalists, and its concerts  attracted tourists from Italy and beyond, as well as financial support from the city and  private patrons. Although Vivaldi's main role at the school was as a violin teacher and  director of the orchestra, he filled in also as choirmaster when that post suddenly  became empty. For six years, until a permanent replacement was found, he directed  the choir and wrote religious and other vocal music in addition to fulfilling his regular  duties. 

Among the vocal works that he produced during that time were a number of  Latin motets, pieces for solo voice with string ensemble. "O qui coeli," like Vivaldi's  other motets, has three arias, the last of which is a virtuosic Alleluia. Its anonymous  text is in Latin, but it is not liturgical; rather, it may have been meant as a moral lesson  for the girls at the school. The Latin is rather decadent and at times problematic to  translate, but Vivaldi's music transforms it into a brilliant "concerto" for the voice.  

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