Saturday 18 August
NaylandVillage
Hall, 11.00 am
PRE-FESTIVAL TALK
by
Peter Holman, Artistic Director
preceded
by coffee at 10.30 am
Friday 24
August
St
Mary's Church, Hadleigh, 6.45pm
MONTEVERDI AND
RENAISSANCE DRAMA
Pre-concert talk by Richard Andrews, Emeritus Professor
of Italian in the University of Leeds
______________
St
Mary’s Church, Hadleigh, 8.00 pm
(Please note starting time)
MONTEVERDI: ORFEO
(CONCERT PERFORMANCE)
Philippa
Hyde, Kristina Jaunalskne, Ulrike Hofbauer, Claire Tomlin
(soprano)
Joseph Cornwell, Daniel Auchincloss, Patrick McCarthy (tenor)
Stephen Varcoe, Eamonn Dougan (bass)
Psalmody
The Parley of Instruments
The Gonzaga Band
directed by Peter Holman
Monteverdi's opera L'Orfeo,
written at Mantua for the court carnival celebrations of
1607, was not the first opera, but it is generally
considered to be the first in the modern sense because it
uses a large ensemble to add elaborate choruses and arias
to the monody or recitative that carries forward the
story. The libretto, by the Mantuan courtier Alessandro
Striggio, tells the familiar Greek myth of Orpheus's
descent into Hades in search of his lost love Euridice,
though the original ending in which Orpheus is torn to
pieces by the Bacchantes was replaced by a deus ex
machina: at the end his father Apollo takes him up
to Heaven to be reunited with Euridice. Monteveredi's
superb music, expressive and brilliant by turns, made a
profound impact at the time and has continued to do so
since its rediscovery early in the twentieth century.
This anniversary performance has been
made possible by the generosity of a large number of SVF
Friends, and should be a memorable occasion. The cast of
notable early music singers is accompanied by eighteen
musicians playing copies of the intruments specified by
Monteverdi: natural trumpets, cornetts, sackbuts,
Renaissance strings, theorboes, double harp,
harpsichords, organ and regal. Early booking is
recommended!
Saturday 25
August
St
James’s Church, Nayland, 12.00 midday
FABELLAE
ENSEMBLE SAVADI
Kristine Jaunalskne, Ulrike Hofbauer (soprano)
Marie Bournisien (Baroque harp)
Savadi makes a
welcome return to the Festival after its outstanding
concert in the 2005-6 winter series. Its three members
come from Latvia, Germany and France, and studied
together in Basle. They won the 2003 Van Wassanaer
Concours at The Hague, and since then have performed in
festivals and concert series throughout Europe. Savadi
means 'in another way' in Latvian, and the group is
unique in performing the Baroque repertory for one and
two sopranos with the beautiful and flexible
accompaniment of the Italian Baroque triple harp.
Their new
programme, Fabellae, is drawn from the rich
repertory of Italian sacred music written in the first
half of the seventeenth century. It brings together
narrative motets that praise particular saints and
recount their exploits for the edification of the
faithful. The saints include Mary, Mary Magdalen, Peter,
Ignatius and Francis Xavier, and the composers include
Sigismondo D'India, Barbara Strozzi, Giovanni Rovetta and
Giacomo Carissimi.
'Their
fascinating programme was carefully and cleverly chosen,
presented with equal measure of humour and scholarship,
and brilliantly performed.' Stephen Varcoe
_______________________
St Mary's Church, Stoke by Nayland, 7.30pm
VIVALDI: CONCERTI
DIVERSI
Tassilo
Erhardt (violin & viola d'amore)
Sally Holman (bassoon)
David Miller (lute & archlute(
Mark Caudle (bass viol & violoncello)
Mary Pells (violoncello)
Essex
Baroque Orchestra
directed by Steven Devine
Those
who know only The Four Seasons can have no
inkling of the great variety of Vivaldi's concertos, and
the inventive way in which he uses an extraordinary range
of different instruments. This concert brings together
three concertos written for the famous Dresden court
orchestra, richly scored with recorders, oboes, bassoon,
string soloists and orchestra, with concertos probably
written for girls in Vivaldi's own group at the Pietà,
the famous Venetian orphanage. There will be virtuoso
solo concertos for viola d'amore and bassoon, and two
powerful double concertos: for two violoncellos and for
violin and viola all'inglese - Vivaldi's name
for the viola da gamba or bass viol.
Tassilo
Erhardt, Sally Holman and Mary Pells play regularly in
Essex Baroque Orchestra, while Mark Caudle is an old
friend of the Festival (he played in the very first
concerts in 1987), and gave a very successful solo
recital in the 2002 Festival.
Sunday 26
August
St
Mary's Church, Stoke by Nayland, 6.15pm
FROM RENAISSANCE TO
BAROQUE
Pre-concert talk by Peter Holman, Artistic Director
_________________________
St
Mary’s Church, Stoke by Nayland, 7.30 pm
VIRTUOSI OF VENICE &
ROME
THE
GONZAGA BAND
Faye Newton (soprano)
Jamie Savan & Fiona Russell (cornett)
Adam Woolf (sackbut)
Steven Devine (chamber organ & harpsichord)
Early seventeenth-century
Italy was a ferment of new ideas, in music as in the
other arts. Performers and composers developed new
ensembles, new ways of singing and playing, and new ways
of exciting audiences with their expressiveness and
virtuosity. The programme explores virtuoso pieces for
soprano with varied combinations of cornetts, sackbut and
keyboard by Monteverdi and his Venetian and Roman
contemporaries, including Alessandro Grandi, Girolamo
Frescobaldi, Giovanni Battista Riccio and Giovanni Picchi.
An intriguing link between the old and new are the
madrigals and motets by the sixteenth-century masters de
Rore and Palestrina updated with the addition of virtuoso
passagi or florid ornaments for voice or solo
instrument.
Faye Newton
specialises in Mediaeval, Renaissance and Baroque music,
and sings with a number of leading ensembles in the
field, including the New London Consort, Concanentes,
Trobairitz and Concerto delle Donne.
'Faye Newton's bright but appropriately varied
delivery and well-projected wit made each of her
contributions a delight.' The Times
The Gonzaga Band
was formed by the cornett player Jamie Savan in 1997 to
explore the historical approaches to the performance of
vocal and instrumental music of the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries. It has become one of the most
sought-after early music groups of the younger
generations, making numerous festival appearances
throughout the UK and appearing on BBC Radio 3. Its first
commercial CD is due for release soon on the Magnatune
label.
'Flair and invention' The Times
'Sublimely played' The Independent
Monday 27
August
St
Mary’s Church, Boxford, 12.00 midday
THE CLASSICAL MANDOLIN
Alison
Stephens (mandolin)
Steven Devine (piano)
The
modern metal-strung mandolin goes back to the middle of
the eighteenth-century, and has a considerable repertory
from the Classical period, including some youthful pieces
by Beethoven and important works by Johann Nepomuk
Hummel, a pupil of Haydn and one of Beethoven's major
Viennese rivals. In this informal programme, which will
be introduced by the performers, Alison Stephens and
Steven Devine contrast sonatinas by Beethoven and
Hummel's Grand Sonata in C major with the Concerto, op.
113, by the Neopolitan Raffaele Calace (1863-1934), the
most prominent late nineteenth-century exponent of the
mandolin.
Alison
Stephens is its leading exponent in Britain today, and is
best known for recording the soundtrack of the film Captain
Corelli's Mandolin. She gives recitals regularly in
Britain and abroad, often as a duo with Steven Devine.
Their recording of music by Calace will be released this
summer by Naxos.
'Alison Stephens clearly loves this instrument and
plays it with a passion and flair that Captain Corelli
himself would doubtless have relished.'
BBC Music Magazine
____________________
St Mary’s Church, Hadleigh, 7.30 p.m.
HANDEL: DIXIT DOMINUS
PERGOLESI: STABAT MATER
Philippa
Hyde & Claire Tomlin (soprano)
Beth Mackay(alto)
Patrick McCarthy (tenor)
Psalmody
Essex Baroque Orchestra
directed by Peter Holman
This popular programme is based
around two of the greatest religious works from
eighteenth-century Italy. The psalm 'Dixit Dominus' was
written by Handel in Rome for a vespers service in the
summer of 1707, and is thus 300 years old this year. With
its powerful choruses, virtuoso solos and brilliant
orchestral writing, it was Handel's first masterpiece and
was to remain one of his finest church works. Although it
was written less than thirty years later, Pergolesi's
'Stabat Mater' (1736) belongs to a different world,
anticipating the tender and expressing galant style
of the middle of the eighteenth-century. It was written
to be performed in a Neopolitan church shortly before the
composer's untimely death at the age of twenty-six, and
later become one of the most popular works of its time,
being adapted by J.S. Bach and others. The programme also
includes Handel's rarely heard choral setting of the
psalm 'Laudate pueri' written for the same occasion as
'Dixit Dominus', and Albinoni's ebullient Concerto in C
major, op. 9, no. 6, for two oboes and strings.
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