Pieces de Luth - Conservatorium van Amsterdam

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Pieces de Luth De Mr. Weiss, luthiste a la cour de Dresde De Mr. le vieux Gallot de Paris De Mr. Reusner, luthiste a la cour de Berlin Et de Mr. Bach, maistre de chapelle a Leipzig sur plusieurs diferents Modes Interpreteés par M. Schreiner avec Privilege du Roy A Amsterdam au Conservatoire de Musique le 1er juin a 19h30 Silvius Leopold Weiss (1687-1750) Prelude and Fantasia in D minor Jacques de Gallot (c. 1625 - c. 1695) Suite en ton d’A my la b.mol: 1. Prelude 2. Allemande: le bout de lan de Mr gautier 3. Courante: la cigogne 4. Sarabande: la piece de huict heurs 5. Gigue: le dogue d’Angleterre Esaias Reusner (1636-1679) Suite in G minor: 1. Allem[ande] de R. 2. Courant de R. 3. Sarab[ande] de R. 4. Gigue Paduana in C minor Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) Fuga del Signore Bach (BWV 1000) Silvius Leopold Weiss (1687-1750) Sarab:[ande] in B-flat major Prelude and Ciaccone in E-flat major Bachelor Final Exam Lute Manou Schreiner Conservatorium van Amsterdam 1st of June 2021 - 7:30 p.m.

Transcript of Pieces de Luth - Conservatorium van Amsterdam

Page 1: Pieces de Luth - Conservatorium van Amsterdam

Pieces de Luth De Mr. Weiss, luthiste a la cour de Dresde

De Mr. le vieux Gallot de Paris De Mr. Reusner, luthiste a la cour de Berlin Et de Mr. Bach, maistre de chapelle a Leipzig

sur plusieurs diferents Modes Interpreteés par M. Schreiner

avec Privilege du RoyA Amsterdam au Conservatoire de Musique

le 1er juin a 19h30

Silvius Leopold Weiss (1687-1750) Prelude and Fantasia in D minor

Jacques de Gallot (c. 1625 - c. 1695) Suite en ton d’A my la b.mol: 1. Prelude 2. Allemande: le bout de lan de Mr gautier 3. Courante: la cigogne 4. Sarabande: la piece de huict heurs 5. Gigue: le dogue d’Angleterre

Esaias Reusner (1636-1679) Suite in G minor: 1. Allem[ande] de R. 2. Courant de R. 3. Sarab[ande] de R. 4. Gigue

Paduana in C minor

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) Fuga del Signore Bach (BWV 1000)

Silvius Leopold Weiss (1687-1750) Sarab:[ande] in B-flat major

Prelude and Ciaccone in E-flat major

Bachelor Final Exam Lute Manou Schreiner

Conservatorium van Amsterdam 1st of June 2021 - 7:30 p.m.

Page 2: Pieces de Luth - Conservatorium van Amsterdam

In the first half of the eighteenth century, the lute experienced its last heyday in what is now Germany. Towards the end of the seventeenth century, the instrument that had once proudly been hailed as ‘the king of instruments’ had gradually fallen out of fashion in France, the very country that had dominated lute culture for the better part of the century, leaving it to the German lands to take up the baton. But even there, the lute was not met with unequivocal praise: ‘The flattering lutes really do have more partisans in the world than they merit’, begins the notorious music theorist Johann Mattheson’s scathing critique of the instrument in his 1713 publication Das Neu-Eröffnete Orchestre. This statement does not necessarily reflect the general opinion of the time, of course, but it does give an indication of the demise the lute was going through, which ended with its complete disappearance from musical life by the end of the eighteenth century. But his remarks on the instrument notwithstanding, Mattheson did have praise for Silvius Leopold Weiss, the first lutenist-composer in this programme, calling him ‘a perfect musician’. Weiss’ career started very early: After having been taught the lute by his father, he played for the Emperor Leopold I. already at the age of seven. But unlike many other child prodigies, his fame only spread from there, culminating in his appointment as lutenist of the court in Dresden in 1718. The two pieces that open this programme, the Prelude and Fantasia in D minor, are both improvisatory and virtuosic in nature, attesting to the fact that Weiss was a ‘great extemporaneus’, as his colleague Ernst Gottlieb Baron attested in his treatise on the lute from 1727. Both of these pieces are also early examples of the use of the additional two lower courses (double strings), B-flat1 and A1, that the lute had received by that time, a lasting change to the instrument that was initiated by Weiss himself when he was around twenty years old. Up until that point, Weiss had been playing on lutes with eleven courses with a C1 as their lowest note, as not only all of his contemporaries, but also all representatives of the famous seventeenth-century French lute school had done. One of the last representatives of the French lute school was the second lutenist-composer in this programme, Jacques de Gallot. Gallot had a lasting influence also on Weiss in particular, as is demonstrated by the fact that the latter made his own version of one of Gallot’s most cherished pieces, L’Amant Malheureux. In spite of his status, not much information about Gallot’s life has come down to us: There is no extant portrait of him and the only things we do know about him are that he came from an influential family of lutenists and was referred to as le vieux Gallot de Paris, and that the famous Ennemond Gaultier, one of the ‘founding fathers’ of the French lute school, had been his teacher. Gallot even published a musical tombstone for his cherished teacher in his undated collection of Pieces de Luth, the Allemande le bout de lan de M gautier [sic] included in this programme. Writing such musical tombstones, or tombeaux, for deceased friends and colleagues had become a tradition among the French lutenists, a tradition that had been started by Ennemond Gaultier himself. The tombeau here is preceded by a style of prelude that the French lute school is famous for having originated, the so-called prélude non-mesuré, in which only the notes to be played are notated, but no meter or rhythm, which are left entirely up to the discretion of the performer. Together with the

rest of the pieces, this set anticipates the later suite that came to dominate instrumental music. The French lute style was brought to Germany by the third lutenist-composer on the programme, the German Esaias Reusner. Like Weiss, Reusner had also first been taught the lute by his father and turned out to be a prodigy on the instrument. He later received lessons from an unidentified French lutenist not only in lute-playing, but also in composition. Reusner incorporated elements of the French style, such as broken chords and melodic lines and refined ornamentation, in his own compositions, but he also differed in some respects from his French contemporaries, such as in his use of more straightforward melodic lines and of richer and fuller harmonies and textures. The suite in G minor comes from a later autograph addition to his second and last collection of lute pieces entitled Neue Lauten-Früchte from 1676 and the Paduana in C minor from his first collection, the Delitiæ testudinis from 1667. The fourth composer on the programme may come as a bit of a surprise, since Johann Sebastian Bach is not known to have been a lutenist. Although a lute and two special gut-strung harpsichords meant to imitate the sound of the lute (known as the Lautenwerck and commissioned by Bach himself) are recorded in his personal effects, there are no contemporary accounts attesting that Bach could actually play the lute himself. Furthermore, even the few of his works that can definitely be said to have been composed for the lute are notated in standard music notation and not in the special tablature notation system all lutenists had been using for centuries. The Fuga del Signore Bach in this programme was not an original lute composition, but was written by Bach as the second movement of his first violin sonata in G minor BWV 1001. It was later transcribed for the lute by a personal friend of Bach’s, the German lutenist Johann Christian Weyrauch. The question of whether the transcription was done by Weyrauch on his own or in collaboration with Bach cannot be satisfactorily answered, as some of the numerous changes made to the original violin version are of a high quality whereas others are definitely inferior. In these latter cases, I incorporated the passages from the original in the version presented here. The last three pieces of the programme all come from the London manuscript, an important manuscript source containing only pieces by Silvius Leopold Weiss. The Sarabande in B-flat major is part of a whole suite from the middle period of Weiss’ output that lies remarkably low on the instrument and also makes extensive use of the aforementioned new lower range of the instrument. The Sarabande features some of the cantabile (singable) writing that Weiss was famous for during his day and also makes remarkable use of campanella, the effect of playing the notes of a melodic line on different strings and letting them ring together. The Prelude and Ciaccone in E-flat come from an earlier period and therefore don’t make use of the extended range yet, although one can almost feel Weiss’ yearning for it. The prelude with its extended arpeggios, fast scale passages and harmonic twists may be one of the most colourful demonstrations of what a ‘great extemporaneus’ Weiss truly must have been, whereas the Ciaccone with its eight different iterations of a seven-bar bass subject and its cantabile melody forms a peaceful and majestic ending to this overview of some of the treasures of middle to late Baroque lute music.