Broadside1004

T H E A T L A N T A E A R L Y M U S I C A L L I A N C EBROADSIDE New President Predrag Gosta Reports Plans
I would like to welcome you to 2004/05 Season. As Itake the post as the new President of the Atlanta EarlyMusic Alliance, my hope is to see the Alliance becomea greater presence in the Atlanta early musiccommunity and support provider for Atlanta-based AEMA MISSION
early music ensembles and musicians. This year will bring many new initiatives, which will strengthen our organization and create a solid base for future expansion. Already, the Board of Directors has met twice (once as a full board and once as an Executive formance of music, with spe-cial emphasis on music writ- Committee), and has established the parameters within which we will work during the next 10 months. While more complete information will be provided to you in the upcoming issues of the Broadside, with this issue I would like to inform you briefly about them, and Eckhart for his past two years of great service as our invite you to be involved. Only with your help we will be able to accomplish the goals that we set! In this issue:
The biggest change this year is that there will not be First, the board has recently decided to improve the an independent concert series organized by AEMA.
President’s Greet-
newsletter, both in content and in distribution. We While working on restructuring and improvement, the allocated twice more money in our budget for the Board has decided to ”rest” for a year, so that we can newsletter, and we decided to offer bigger support to better prepare, raise money, and create a quality Harpsichord Lec-
our editor, Pat Dewitt, who is pretty much on her own programming that will stand out and differ from the in the newsletter’s ”creation” (thank you, Pat!). The ture-Recital
programs provided by other quality early music groups newsletter is probably one of the most important and soloists in Atlanta. We hope to be able to follow benefits that our association offers. We know that only your suggestions and bring some out-of-town New Trinity Ba-
through quality content on a greater number of groups to Atlanta, as well as help and support our roque to Present
pages instead of only on a few pages, we will be able affiliated ensembles and soloists not only through to take your attention and bring forth more members.
encouragement but also through financial means. All In this manner, I would like to extend an invitation to of this is, as I said, under development, but discussion “Historically
all of you to submit your writings, your reviews, your continues as you read this column, and more accurate Informed Perfor-
thoughts, comments, and even jokes, related to early information will be available as the year progresses.
mance”
music, historical performance practice and life experience. Tell us a story from your life, write about And let me not forget the website: we promise to have the instrument that you fancy (or not!), or comment it updated within a month, so that you can always refer Concert Updates
on the concert that you heard. The newsletter is not to it whenever you need to find out about Atlanta’s only here to present the news, but also to be a link in Once again, welcome and we look forward to hearing Other initiatives for this year include an ”official” from you! At the same time, we invite you to continue Budget creation, submission of 990 forms to IRS, and supporting not only the Atlanta Early Music Alliance, archiving of our current and past materials. To support but also all other early music groups and soloists of this effort, we recently appointed a newly this city and beyond! Come, bring your friends, and formed honorary position of AEMA’s Historian. Our past President, Eckhart Richter, has generously accepted the Board’s nomination. He will, with help from all of us, create and maintain the archive of our organization, which will contain all past documents,newsletters, and even concert programs. We also thank B R O A D S I D E
Jorg Voss, Treasurer,Education Committee Harpsichord Subtlety in Basketball Arena
Editor’s Note: On August 31, Peter DeWitt presented a brief Republican National Convention.) I fear the loss of harpsichord recital in a very unusual location: the gym (formally distinctiveness. The world has gone all-white; we are named the Winthrop-King Centre) at Shorter College. His recital so bombarded with white noise that we can’t hear provided an illustration of the main point he made in his Teacher the colors. We seem less and less able to recognize of the Year address to the faculty and students: that subtle subtle differences in sound; we can’t tell if it’s live or distinctions are important. On his oldest harpsichord, a Memorex. Personally, I never had any problems Zuckerman Flemish IV (left in the picture), built by Pat DeWitt, telling the difference: if it was too loud, it was he played Sweelinck’s variations on “Mein junges Leben hat ein recorded. If the tape was softer, anyone could tell.
End”; on his most recent acquisition, a muselar by Robert If drums aren’t being fed through electronic systems, Greenberg (center in the picture), he played Pavana Lachrymae, they are not likely to be mistaken for drum machines.
Byrd’s setting of Dowland’s “Flow, my tears”; and on the German If MTV really wants to be unplugged, they need to double by Philip Tyre, the J. S. Bach Toccata in g minor. get rid of the mikes. The problem with Rock concertsisn’t that they are too loud; it’s that they are always This occasion was one for performance of early music before a the same loud. Researchers in the 70s found that broader audience than is usually available. The students were orchestras could be just as loud as Rock concerts.
attentive, and reactions afterward were very favorable. The wife However, where the orchestras averaged a range of of one previous Teacher of the Year said that it was the best 40 decibels, the rock group averaged a range of less program since her husband’s. The Health Services director said that the experience of sitting and listening to the music brought You see before you my three personal harpsichords.
Why should anyone want three? Obviously for the Following are excerpts from the address: “In Praise of Subtlety”. subtle distinctions. Each of these instruments is a The world we live in is too loud. 30 years ago, when we modern copy of a specific Northern European were gardening at my wife’s family farm, the only sound instrument, each perfectly suited to the music that interrupted our quiet conversation was birdsong.
composed for it. The first mimics an instrument built Today, we cannot hear ourselves shouting over the in 1634 by Jan Ruckers, a most important Flemish ambient traffic noise. The garden is in the same spot, but the highway has changed from 2 lanes to divided 4 The second instrument is a copy, including the with too many attendant 18-wheelers. For the original art work, of a muselar, also from the Ruckers Republican Convention in NYC, police are using 150 workshop, built in 1655 by his apprentice Henri decibel speaker systems for crowd control. The hearing Couchet, the creator of the classic French threshold of pain is 120 decibels, the intensity harpsichord. Muselars, a type of virginals, so-called experienced by being within 50 feet of a jet plane taking because they were frequently played by young women, off. So we’ve replaced direct physical assault on the body were the most common instruments built by this maker at this time. The Latin motto is possibly For me, I do not fear so much the threat of hearing directed at these performers: “Look, listen, and be pain or loss. (Obviously, I’m not attending the silent, if you would live in peace.” Notice the striking B R O A D S I D E
The Atlanta Early Music Alliance
P. O. Box 663
Decatur, Georgia 30030
Are you a member of AEMA?
If not, we hope you will join us! To join, please clip this form, fill it out and send it, with your check made out to “The Atlanta EarlyMusic Alliance,” to AEMA, P.O. Box 663, Decatur, GA 30030. For more information, or a sample newsletter, call 404/874-7243.
(NOTE: an AEMA membership now runs from July 1st to June 30th each year. Membership applications received January 1st orlater will be prorated by 50%.) Organization/Title (optional)_____________________________ Address:____________________________________________________________________________________ I enclose _______ for my chosen membership category checked below: Subtlety (continued)difference in sound between this and the first instrument, caused by country in which Bach lived. The 2 keyboards allow for contrasting the 90o turn of the strings and the rightwards placement of the loud and soft, required by the composer in this multi-faceted work.
keyboard. This piece is a cover of John Dowland’s famous song of However, you should notice that the difference between the loud despair over a lost love written in 1600: “Flow, my tears” from across and soft is very subtle. The piece ends with a dance-like fugue, in the English Channel, where many of the Ruckers instruments were which the theme is heard 25 times, but never exactly the same. We sold. William Byrd’s setting is astounding in its constant variety of hear it in 6 keys, sometimes upside down, in different voices and subtle changes on the basic tune, often depicting aspects of the text.
with different accompaniments. It is exactly these differences that Ifear we will lose the hearing of, if we cannot pay attention to subtle The last instrument has many more different possible sounds distinctions. After all, as it says in Latin on the muselar fallboard, available, including 2 keyboards. It is a copy of a Hamburg instrument “the ears are the doorways to the soul.” built in 1740. The lid painting is original by my wife and depicts the New Trinity Baroque to Present A Staged Opera
On Saturday, October 23, New Trinity Baroque will present Giovanni PM, and the tickets are regularly $25, $15 for NTB Friends, and only Battista Pergolesi’s chamber comic opera “La Serva Padrona” (The $5 for full time students (with ID).
Maid Mistress) at St. Bartholomew’s Episcopal Church.
Julia Matthews, soprano, known from New Trinity Baroque’s latestCD release of Purcell’s “Dido & Aeneas” (where she sang Belinda)will return as the lead singer for this chamber comic opera (Serpina),as well as the Stage Director. Together with bass Jason Hardy (asUberto) and Kurt-Alexander Zeller (as Vespone). New TrinityBaroque will perform on period instruments and present a fully stagedhistorically informed performance of Pergolesi’s masterpiece. NTBwill also perform two famous concertos for oboe, featuring Boston-based oboist, Joyce Alper - Albinoni’s Concerto No. 2, Op.9, andAlessandro Marcello’s Concerto in d minor.
Pergolesi’s chamber opera buffa “The Maid Mistress” (1733) wasenjoyed from the first day it was presented in the Theatre in Naples,and through many subsequent generations. The splendid acousticsof St. Bart’s will enhance the experience while New Trinity Baroquetries to visually “transform” the space to fit within the lines of thestory (stage-wise). This performance is fully staged. Seating is limited.
For more information and tickets, please visit NTB’s website www.
newtrinitybaroque.com, or call 770 638-7574. Via email you may writeto [email protected]. The performance starts at 8 B R O A D S I D E
Stevenson Weighs In On Historically Informed Performance
This letter is the first in what we hope will be a series of personal and I once played with an early music group at a church service professional reactions to that key term in our mission statement, and afterwards a lady told me that she had imagined herself “historically informed performance”. What is it? Why is it important? to be in a great cathedral in France where a famous cleric (I How can we recognize it? How can we attain it? This is a worthy topic forget his name) was speaking. At the time I didn’t think for the 10th year of the Broadside. Please consider yourself invited to this was a compliment and wished she had listened more attentively to the music instead of drifting off! But now Irealize part of my criteria of “authentic” performance is For those who may not know Emily Stevenson, she has been a mainstay that it must appeal to the imagination. Hearing someone of the early music scene in Atlanta for many years. If I go to a concert on a stage using a microphone and modern instruments, and look around for AEMA members, the probability that I will find not to mention a constant vibrato, really turns me off the Emily present is high. Such patronage is priceless. Moreover, she is an music. I get a thrill if I can imagine I am at the time and excellent amateur performer on the viola da gamba (treble). If I go to a place the music was composed. And it has to sound right, workshop and find myself in Emily’s group, I am confident that the though the right sound is a personal definition to some How do I define an authentic performance of early music?The usual criteria are the use of period instruments and practices we know from writings and pictures of the period.
The further back we go, the less we know of these things, andyet, to me, an “authentic” performance is very important.
The Atlanta Early
Viewing first-hand a piece of history, such as the “WingedVictory” statue in the Louvre or the bedroom of Mary, Queen Music Alliance
of Scots, is an exciting event, and a good performance of www.atlema.org
early music can provide equal fuel for the imagination.
The Alliance: News of AEMA People and Communities Collegium Vocale (in collaboration with the Chancel Choir
of St. James United Methodist Church) featuring Haydn’s
Wouldn’t you know! No sooner did Jonathan DeLoach finish “Mass No. 6 in G Major” (Mass in Honor of Saint the excellent Concert Calendar enclosed with this newsletter Nicholas). The program is completed with Latin motets by than more concerts rolled in. The Broadside will keep you Palestrina, Philips, and Bruckner, a set of North Country Folksongs arranged by contemporary British composer Atlanta Schola Cantorum
Philip Wilby, a Christiansen hymn arrangement, and a Saturday, Nov 13, 2004, 8:00 pm. Schwartz Center for Please contact [email protected] for times and prices.
Performing Arts,Emerson Concert Hall. 1700 North Decatur Road, Atlanta, Monastery of the Holy Spirit, 2625 Hwy. 212 SW, ConyersDecember 3, 2004 Concert repeated on Sunday, Nov 14, 2004, 5:00 pm. St.
St. Bartholomew’s Episcopal Church, 1790 LaVista Rd., James United Methodist Church, 4400 Peachtree Dunwoody December 4, 2004Holy Trinity Episcopal Church, 515 E. Ponce de Leon Ave.,

Source: http://atlema.org/docs/archive/2004-10_Broadside-X-01.pdf