{"id":7549,"date":"2012-11-09T07:45:51","date_gmt":"2012-11-09T12:45:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/?p=7549"},"modified":"2012-11-09T07:45:51","modified_gmt":"2012-11-09T12:45:51","slug":"early-baroque-voice-with-guitar-shares-the-freedom-enjoyed-by-todays-singer-songwriters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/2012\/11\/09\/early-baroque-voice-with-guitar-shares-the-freedom-enjoyed-by-todays-singer-songwriters\/","title":{"rendered":"Early Baroque voice with guitar shares the freedom enjoyed by today’s singer-songwriters"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Bud Roach<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In the mad dash to make classical music more \u201cmarketable,\u201d it seems every ensemble, large or small, is programming concerts with a thematic hook, like tracing the history of a specific instrument or the relationship between composer and patron.<\/p>\n

Some of the ideas are a bit manufactured but others are genuinely intriguing, and well worth exploring.<\/p>\n

Capella Intima is an early music ensemble that has used this method of grouping pieces together to create a narrative. As the founder of the ensemble, I\u2019m always looking for ways to entice people to our concerts, but considering our repertoire, it can be a tough sell.<\/p>\n

Capella Intima performs music that is rarely heard anywhere else — mostly sacred music from the early 17th<\/sup>-century for a few solo voices, with continuo accompaniment.<\/p>\n

My path to this repertoire was indirect to say the least.<\/p>\n

For a number of years as an orchestral oboist, going to work meant putting on a tailcoat and heading to the concert hall to play a symphony by Mozart, Mahler or Brahms. It was when I began to sing tenor that I immersed myself in the world of early music, and realized how satisfying it could be to unearth forgotten treasures and share them with an engaged and curious audience.<\/p>\n

The problem, of course, is that the audience tends to be small — sometimes very small. But I continue to present concerts of this sort, embracing the ideas that Bruce Haynes set out in his wonderful 2007 book, The End of Early Music<\/em><\/a>, about the limiting nature of what we consider to be the canon.<\/p>\n

There is a wealth of music worthy of performance from the early baroque, written by composers whose names have been seen only in the footnotes of history texts. I know this because I\u2019ve heard it performed by adventurous groups from around the world, and distributed by equally adventurous record labels.<\/p>\n

It was this excitement of discovery (or rediscovery) that led me to the baroque guitar, and the system of notation called alfabeto<\/em>.<\/p>\n

In the early decades of the 17th<\/sup> century, the Spanish guitar displaced the lute as the favoured instrument for vocal accompaniment. Composers and publishers alike were eager to increase their sales to a wider audience with little musical training. To overcome this, they would provide a simple fingering chart for strummed chords identified by letters of the alphabet with each volume of arias published. This way, practically anyone could accompany the popular music of the day.<\/p>\n

Accompanying oneself is probably the furthest point away from performing a Strauss tone poem with a hundred colleagues on stage, following a conductor\u2019s every gesture. It really is a completely different musical world.<\/p>\n

This early baroque repertoire is usually performed with a continuo group, but even that requires an element of following someone else\u2019s lead. The freedom that comes from providing one\u2019s own accompaniment isn\u2019t something foreign to singer-songwriters today, but remains elusive to most classical performers.<\/p>\n

Capella Intima will present a programme of these arias by Alessandro Grandi, Giovanni Felice Sances, and Claudio Monteverdi, (with a little Barbara Strozzi thrown in as well) in Toronto and Hamilton.<\/p>\n

The Toronto concerts are on Nov. 17 at 3 p.m. in the chapel at Trinity-St Paul’s Centre, and at the same time on Nov. 18 at Kingston Rd United Church.<\/p>\n

For all the details about Capella Intima and the concerts, click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Thanks to support from the Ontario Arts Council, Capella Intima will be able to present a larger-scale concert in March of 2013. I’m looking at early Roman oratorios —\u00a0 probably ones by Luigi Rossi — with a few string instruments.<\/p>\n

Here is the promo video for the premiere recording of Alessandro Grandi\u2019s third volume of arias from 1626:<\/p>\n