About the event
CPE Bach (1714-1788), Christoph Schaffrath (1709-1763), Carl Friedrich Christian Fasch (1736-1800)
Johann Georg Lang (1724-1798), Trio de Giuseppe Giordani (1751-1798), Johann Joachim Quantz (1697-1773)
Avec Aline Zylberajch, Philippe Grisvard piano Silbermann 1749, copie Kerstin Schwarz
Johannes Pramsholer violin,
Aurélien Delage silberman piano and traverso
Etienne Mangot Gambetta English
Sebastijan Beretta transverse
Program
Étienne Mangot, gambetta all’inglese
Aline Zylberajch, pianoforte
Johann Georg Lang (1724-1798)
Andante (Sonata gambetta solo con basso)
Christoph Schaffrath (1709-1763)
Largo (Sonate en sol majeur pour viole & clavier obligé)
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Carl Philip Emanuel Bach (1714-1788)
Andante (Sonata per il Cembalo è Viola en sol mineur Wq 88)
Pietro Pompeo Sales (1729-1797)
Cantabile con moto (für gambetta & obligates cembalo)
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Aurélien Delage, traverso
Étienne Mangot, gambetta all’inglese
Aline Zylberajch, pianoforte
Tommaso Giordani (1733-1806)
Sonata opus 30 n°3 en si bémol majeur pour pianoforte, flûte & viole de gambe
Allegro moderato – Allegretto
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Aurélien Delage, pianoforte, Sebastijan Bereta traverso*
Joseph Haydn (1732-1809) :
Largo (sonate Hob.XVI:2)
Johann Joaquim Quantz (1697-1773) :
Sonata per il flauto traverso solo en sol 109 : Presto mà fiero*
Joseph Haydn (1732-1809) :
mouvement sans titre (sonate Hob.XVI:4)
Finale (sonate Hob.XVII:D1)
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Johannes Pramsohler, violon
Philippe Grisvard, pianoforte
Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (1714-1788)
Sonate en si mineur pour clavecin et violon Wq 76
Allegro moderato
Poco andante
Allegretto siciliano
Resonances and Sympathies
Instruments rares
The pianoforte of Frederick II...
The fortepiano presented tonight is a copy of an instrument by Gottfried Silbermann, Freiberg 1749, kept in the Germanisches Nationalmuseum in Nuremberg
Its keyboard has a range of almost five octaves (F0 - E5)
Its body is made of oak, its soundboard of spruce. It has two strings per note.
It is based on the hammer mechanism invented by Bartolomeo Cristofori, with escapement and hammer catcher.
It offers several possibilities of manual registers: the dampers can be raised, all together or gradually. Ivory bars can be lowered onto the strings to produce a slightly metallic sound: this is the Pantalon set, by analogy with the instrument developed by Pantalon Hebenstreit
The una corda register makes it possible by sliding the keyboard sideways to soften the playing by letting only one of the two strings vibrate.
These registers can be combined with each other, according to the imagination of the performer.
Gambetta all’inglese…
"When one of the strings is touched with the bow or plucked, the brass or steel string underneath resonates per consensum, vibrates and shakes, so that the charm of the harmony is, as it were, increased and developed." Michael Praetorius, Syntagma Musicum II, De organographia, 1619
Built in Andenne in 2019 by François Bodart, after many years of experimentation on sympathetic stringed viols (baritone stringed, lyra viol), this viol belongs to the family of "love" instruments, used since the 17th century by European composers, in religious music up to the salon music of the late 18th century. Equipped with 15 strings, this instrument has two sets: a viol set (six gut strings rubbed by the bow) and a harp set (9 steel and brass strings plucked by the thumb of the left hand). Of an intermediate size between the "tenor" and the "bass", it is tuned "in G". The sympathetic strings resonate in sympathy with the harmonies produced by the vibration of the viol by the bow, and can be plucked, which increases the polyphonic possibilities of the instrument.
A few words about the program
Violists are rightly very fond of the sonatas of Christoph Schaffrath and CPE Bach. Both active at the court of Frederick of Prussia, they offered to the viol vibrant works of the new sensibility" which are among the last masterpieces dedicated to this instrument. However, Italianist circles also offered to the viol, and very late, beautiful galant pages marked by the ultramontane vocality that seduced all of Europe.
Thus, the archives of the prince-bishops of Augsburg contain compositions for Gambetta which exploit all the expressive registers. Johann Georg Lang produced some of these works. Born in Bohemia, he studied in Naples under Francesco Durante. He later settled in Augsburg as a Kammermusiker and later as a Konzertmeister - until his masters fled before the French troops in 1794.
He probably intended his sonatas for the chapel's violinists, renowned for their virtuosity. Among these was Pietro Pompeo Sales, a composer from Brescia, who was much appreciated by his contemporaries for his operas as well as his sacred music. The last prince, Clemens Wenzeslaus von Sachsen, himself a violinist, gave him the freedom to produce his works in Europe, as far as London, where he gave viola concerts in 1776.
The travels of Tommaso Giordani, prolific composer in all genres, have taken him from Naples to Dublin via Germany, the Netherlands, France and London, where he resides when Sales performs.
His sonatas opus 30, published in 1782, are indicated for flute or violin, bass viol or viola and harpsichord or piano - choosing "love" instruments allows to underline the quality and the originality of their writing. John Field is among his students...it's a whole new musical page that is being turned.
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Unlike C.P.E. Bach, we do not know if Joseph Haydn was interested in the Royal Harpsichord or instruments of the same type. On the other hand, his music was widely played in Europe, especially by amateurs in search of novelties. We can therefore imagine his music being played in Dresden on an instrument by Johann Gottlob Wagner.
Similarly, in his early keyboard pieces, Haydn was very much influenced by Italian music, especially the keyboard works of the Venetian Baldassare Galuppi. Italy is of course the cradle of fortepiano making. Around 1700, Bartolomeo Cristofori invented the pianoforte in Florence. It is interesting to note a Venetian anecdote reported by Charles Burney during his visit to the City of the Doges in 1770. He testifies to his meeting with the Count of Tour-et-Taxis who "possesses a very curious keyboard instrument made in Berlin on the instructions of His Majesty the King of Prussia, and which was made to be played by the King of Italy. The King of Prussia, and which resembles by its form a large clavichord; this instrument has several registers, which imitate at will the harp, the lute, the harpsichord or the pianoforte. (...) he preluded for a long time and proved to me, by his art of modulation, that he was one of the best products of the school of Tartini.
Is it an instrument close to the royal harpsichord? If so, the keyboardist will have another important repertoire to discover in this little-known instrument.
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Melancholicus & Sanguineus : C. F. C. FASCH & C. P. E. BACH
Carl Friedrich Christian Fasch was the son of the famous Zerbst choirmaster Johann Friedrich Fasch. He entered the service of Prussian King Frederick II in 1756, and shared the position of court harpsichordist with Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach for more than ten years. In addition to a model, he found in him a friend. Unfortunately, the young musician's arrival in Potsdam coincided with the moment when Prussia became bogged down in the Seven Years' War: musical activity at court was immediately suspended, plunging the young musician into precariousness and depression. At the end of the war, court music had lost some of its lustre, and the king's interest in it diminished considerably. Like many of his colleagues, Fasch thought of finding a better position. The king refuses to lose one more harpsichordist: Emanuel Bach is (finally) granted leave of absence. Fasch stays in Berlin and resigns. The golden age of Frederick's chapel is over, and the musical taste of the aging king has become petrified. Berlin will no longer be the great rival of Vienna, London or Paris in the musical field. Apart from his increasingly symbolic duties at court, Fasch devotes himself essentially to teaching.
If his early works betray the ascendancy of his illustrious colleague - as the Larghetto in E minor, the evolution of his style shows that he was able to emancipate himself quite quickly and find a very personal style. Fasch, like all his Berlin colleagues of the 1760s, was particularly fond of the genre of character pieces, inspired by the world of Couperin and Rameau; they are miniatures of sensitivity and melancholy, true jewels of theempfindsamkeit, telle L’Antoinefor example, played this evening.
Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach's Sonata in B minor wq.76 (1763) for obbligato harpsichord and violin impresses by its size and character. The first movement, instead of a dialogue between the two instruments, pits them against each other in a sort of joust, where each seems to embody a character or temperament, in the manner of the Sanguineus & MelancholicusThis is one of his famous trio sonatas, itself inspired by a similar work by Johann Gottlieb Graun. This sonata demonstrates in many ways the extraordinary and eccentric quality of Emanuel Bach's language, which had earned him - among other reasons - the enmity of the king. Unhappy in a court where his music was not appreciated, CPE Bach was later able to flourish as a Director Musices in Hamburg. But Fasch was not so lucky, and composing turned out to be a painful experience for him: very self-critical, he burned much of his music. It is finally through choral music that he left his mark in the twilight of the 18th century, by founding the famous Sing-Akademie of Berlin, at the head of which he was one of the main architects of the rediscovery of Johann Sebastian Bach.
Kerstin Schwarz
Kerstin Schwarz trained as a musical instrument restorer at the Händel-Haus of Halle and the Technische Fachhochschule de Berlin, où elle obtient son diplôme en 1994. La même année, elle commence un important travail de recherches organologiques. Elle construit son premier instrument, un piano Cristofori, en 1997. Elle travaille aux côtés du facteur Tony Chinnery à Vicchio près de Florence pendant 17 ans, puis fonde en 2008 sa propre entreprise, Animus Cristophori : elle poursuit ses recherches qui la conduisent à construire, aux côtés de clavicordes, clavecins et épinettes, des instruments très rares : pianoforte Silbermann, clavecin roïal. Elle est régulièrement sollicitée pour la restauration de divers instruments historiques. Depuis 2015, elle a établi son atelier à Zerbst (Allemagne). https://www.animus-cristofori.com