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Karen Rebholz

Madison Bach Musicians rehearsing Falconieri's "Folias" at Grace Episcopal Church.

press release: Madison Bach Musicians invites you to join us—from the intimacy and safety of your home—for a musical journey through 17th & 18th-century Europe. A Baroque Tour will explore the glorious sonic landscapes of Italy, Spain, France, England, and Germany through masterworks by Vivaldi, Falconieri, De Castro, Charpentier, Guillermain, Purcell, Handel, and Buxtehude. Our program ensemble consists of five strings plus harpsichord, and we are thrilled that baroque bassoon virtuoso Marc Vallon will join us for Vivaldi’s exuberant Bassoon Concerto in Bb major.

A Baroque Tour will be broadcast from the acoustically spectacular sanctuary of Grace Episcopal Church on Saturday evening April 24. From 7:30-8pm, MBM artistic director Trevor Stephenson will discuss the composers, the repertoire, and the historical instruments. The performance will run from 8 pm until approximately 9:15 pm. The evening will then conclude with a live question & answer session with the musicians socially distanced on the concert platform. Listeners should submit their questions—in advance or during the broadcast—via email to madisonbachmusicians.manager@gmail.com. Following the event, ticket holders also may watch on demand through May 8.

Performers include: Marc Vallon - baroque bassoon soloist; Kangwon Kim and Emily Dupere - baroque violins; Micah Behr - baroque viola and baroque guitar; Martha Vallon - baroque cello and viola da gamba; James Waldo - baroque cello (and tambourine!); Trevor Stephenson - harpsichord

Here are a few interesting things to know about each of the eight composers featured in the concert:

Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741). Venice, Italy. Music director for more than thirty years at the Ospedale della Pietá. Violin virtuoso who also wrote 39 wonderful and idiomatic bassoon concertos! Vivaldi’s development of the concerto style profoundly influenced the music of J. S. Bach. Though financially fairly successful throughout his career, Vivaldi died in poverty not in Venice, but in Vienna—but that’s another story.

Andrea Falconieri (1586-1656). Born in Naples, Italy. A gifted lutenist, he wrote primarily secular songs and instrumental music. He spent seven years in Spain, c. 1621-1628—his name sometimes appearing as Falconiero—and then returned to Italy where he died of Plague in 1656. His variations on La Folia—a tremendously popular dance tune/chord progression that rose to prominence in the 16th century—are subtitled Folias echa para mi Señora Doña (Folias composed for my esteemed wife). "Folia" means variously: folly, madness, and empty-headedness, because of the dance’s notoriously consuming and intoxicating effect.

Francisco José de Castro (1670-1730). Born in Spain, but trained and spent much of his career in Italy. De Castro was an accomplished violinist who wrote primarily secular instrumental music, much of it in the style of Corelli. De Castro’s Opus 1 trio sonatas, though issued by a leading Italian publisher in Bologna, are some of the only surviving examples of trio sonatas written by a composer of Spanish birth.

Marc-Antoine Charpentier (1643-1704). Born, worked, and died in Paris, except for a period in his mid-twenties when he studied composition in Italy, possibly with Carissimi. Charpentier wrote a great deal of widely admired religious vocal music though his career in France was hindered by the powerful and well-connected Jean-Baptiste Lully, who was very possibly jealous of Charpentier’s talent. Charpentier was supported for much of his working years by the patron Madame de Guise (Marie de Lorraine). 

Louis-Gabriel Guillemain (1705-1770). Born and worked most of his career in France. Guillemain studied violin as a young man with Somis in Turin, Italy. He then became concertmaster at the Acadèmie de Musique in Lyon and later played regularly in the court orchestra of Louis XV. His contemporary, the composer Daquin, wrote:

When one speaks of a man full of fire, genius and life, one has to think of Monsieur Guillemain, Musician to the King; he is perhaps the most extraordinary and adroit violinist one can hear play. There are no difficulties that can stump him and he can compose learned pieces which sometimes embarrass his rivals. His works are full of touching beauty.

Henry Purcell (1659-1695). Born, worked, and died (at the age of 36) in London. Purcell was the organ tuner as well as a music copyist at Westminster Abbey by the time he was 14. At age 18, he succeeded Matthew Locke as leader of the string orchestra for King Charles II. At 20, he was appointed organist at Westminster Abbey. He published instrumental works and songs during his lifetime and wrote music for many plays (incidental music) as well as, I believe, one of the greatest short operas ever written by anyone, Dido and Aeneas.

George Frideric Handel (1685-1759). Born in Halle, Germany to a notably non-musical family. Handel traveled widely as a young man and spent several years in his early twenties in Italy learning the craft of opera as well as instrumental writing. Handel transplanted successfully to England around 1712 where he wrote Italian operas and then later—when the popularity of opera waned—oratorios. Handel was a phenomenal organist and a skilled violinist. On this concert, we’ll hear one of the elegant sonatas for violin and continuo that he published in England during the mid 1720s. 

Dietrich Buxtehude (c. 1637-1707). Birthplace not precisely known—possibly in northern Germany or perhaps in Denmark near Elsinore (of Hamlet castle fame). Buxtehude, a virtuoso organist, became music director at the magnificent St. Marienkirche in Lübeck. There, around 1673, he established the Abendmusiken festival which was well-known throughout Europe until the early 19th century; this festival has enjoyed a revival in the 20th century as well. Handel, at the age of 18 in 1703, visited Buxtehude. And in 1705, young J. S. Bach made the same pilgrimage. Bach traveled nearly 250 miles—perhaps much of it on foot—to reach Lübeck and visit the venerable master whose long career connected the intricate musical sensibilities of mid-17th century Protestant Germany (the sound-world of Heinrich Schütz) with the grandeur of the high Baroque which was well on its way.