Category Archives: Baroque era

by | October 27, 2011 · 1:00 am

Karl Wilhelm’s harem

Perhaps inspired by Venetian practices, in the mid-1710s Karl Wilhelm, Margrave of Baden-Durlach (1679–1738), established a large ensemble of Hofsingerinnen—female court singers. Some visitors to his court were scandalized, not least the Duchess of Orléans (Élisabeth Charlotte de Bavière, 1652–1722), who expressed herself repeatedly:

“I have already heard about the ridiculous seraglio maintained by the Margrave of Durlach. According to what I’ve heard lately about our Germans—whether they are princes or aristocrats—they are all as crazy as if they had come out of the madhouse; I am really quite ashamed by this.” (15 December 1718).

“I have heard about the bedlam life led by the Margrave of Durlach; he is completely mad. I fear that he has turned into a complete imbecile; [his lifestyle] has never been crazier…” (13 September 1719)

“The man of letters…will surely be given a leading position in heaven if he can persuade the Margrave of Durlach to abandon his scandalous life and shut down his seraglio.” (4 June 1722)

Due to such accounts, Karl Wilhelm’s courtly lifestyle has inspired visions of Oriental harems to this day, tempting three centuries of historians either to omit the topic intentionally or to misuse it as a way to project their own fantasies.

This according to “The court of Baden-Durlach in Karlsruhe” by Rüdiger Thomsen-Fürst, an essay included in Music at German courts, 1715–1760: Changing artistic priorities (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2001, pp. 365–387). Below, a suitably illustrated work by Sebastian Bodinus, who was employed by Karl Wilhelm around this time.

Related post:  Cellist, interrupted

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by | September 1, 2011 · 1:00 am

Mr. Isaac and The Union

The 1707 Act of Union joined England and Scotland as a single entity. For the birthday of Queen Anne that year the choreographer Mr. Isaac created The Union, a couple dance that conveyed some of the tensions involved in forging a new national identity.

The doctrine of affections linked the genres of the dance’s loure and hornpipe sections with specific emotions. The loure was connected with pride, even arrogance, as well as a tinge of nostalgia; in this section of The Union, the two dancers pass and join with an air of circumspect ambivalence, expressing cultural rapprochement. Associated with Scotland, the hornpipe was linked with vigor and vitality, and the second section of The Union presents an idealized, anglicized vision of Scottishness.

This according to “Issues of nation in Isaac’s The Union” by Linda J. Tomko (Dance research XV/2 [winter 1997] pp. 99–125). Above, excerpts from John Weaver’s notation of the piece using the Beauchamp–Feuillet system.

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by | August 11, 2011 · 1:00 am

Bach’s countenance

In 2008 scholars at the Centre for Forensic and Medical Art at the University of Dundee used forensic techniques to produce a reconstruction of Bach’s face on the basis of his skull.

According to its author, Markus von Hänsel-Hohenhausen, Vom Sichtbaren zur Wirklichkeit: Das wahre Antlitz Johann Sebastian Bachs (Frankfurt am Main: Frankfurter Verlagsgruppe, 2009) raises fundamental questions relating to image theory, considering the power of the image, the possibility of accessing reality through subjectivity (that is, the objectivity that arises from a dual subjectivity), the rendering of real “presence” by means of technically accurate representation, and the physicality (and noticeable absence of spirit) that results from the application of technical methods alone, e.g., in the case of Andy Warhol’s work.

Beginning with reflections on the royal portrait, Christian ritual, and Jesus Christ’s crown of thorns, the book then delivers a clear statement about the significance of portraits of Bach, at the same time offering therein an answer to the question: Does a person really have a true countenance?

Above, the reconstruction with the 1746 portrait by Elias Gottlob Haußmann, the only portrait Bach is known to have sat for.

More posts about J.S. Bach are here.

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by | June 22, 2011 · 1:00 am

A composer’s quadricentennial

In his day, the blind Aragonese composer and organist Pablo Bruna (known as El Ciego de Daroca) was renowned for his organ playing at the Colegiata de Santa María de los Corporales in Daroca (above), for his important disciples, and for his keyboard works. Today is his 400th birthday!

A previously unknown work by Bruna—A de la casa, a villancico for soprano and tenor with unfigured bass—was discovered in 1990 in the musical archive of Barbastro Cathedral. The text stems from the custom of giving food to the poor, which in Bruna’s work is given a Eucharistic interpretation. Only three other vocal works by Bruna have survived: two other villancicos and a Benedicamus Domino.

This according to “A de la casa: Duo de Pablo Bruna—Una obra inedita del Ciego de Daroca” by Pedro Calahorra Martínez (Nassarre: Revista aragonesa de musicología VII/1 [1991], pp. 9–20). Below, Saskia Roures performs Bruna’s Tiento de falsas de 2º tono.

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by | April 9, 2011 · 1:00 am

Tablature in PDF and PostScript

Tablature in PDF and PostScript is a large collection of lute music in tablature form created by the lute player and computer technologist Wayne Cripps (above). Each entry is available as an EPS, PDF, and MIDI, file. This free online resource for lute players is hosted by Dartmouth College.

Many thanks to Roderic Leon for alerting us to this compilation!

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by | April 1, 2011 · 1:00 am

Le ballet de la nuit

Le ballet de la nuit, a major ballet de cour, was organized by Louis Cauchon d’Hesselin and first performed in the Louvre’s Salle du Petit Bourbon in 1653. The event was notable for many reasons—not least, for the involvement of the young Louis XIV, who danced in five roles, including his most famous role as the Sun King, accompanied by chosen courtiers and professional dancers, singers, and acrobats.

Edited by Michael Burden and Jennifer Thorp, Ballet de la nuit: Rothschild B1.16.6 (Hillsdale: Pendragon Press, 2009) focuses on the exquisitely produced volume presented to d’Hesselin (who also performed in the work), which passed into the hands of the Rothschild family at Waddesdon Manor and is now in the ownership of the National Trust.

The book presents a full facsimile of the Waddesdon source along with the printed vers pour les personages, lists of performers, cues for special effects, the running order of the entrées, and essays by Burden, Thorp,  Catherine Massip, and David Parrott that discuss cultural patronage at the Court of Louis XIV, the musical context, dances and dancers, and the costumes and scenography of this unique and extraordinary ballet. Also included is a modern edition of the surviving music prepared by Lionel Sawkins.

Above, an illustration from the book (click to enlarge); below, Lully’s overture.

Related article: Le Carrousel du Roi

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by | September 15, 2010 · 7:17 pm

Baroque birdsong

Along with its wide-ranging discussions of theoretical topics, the 1650 treatise Musurgia universalis by the German Jesuit polymath Athanasius Kircher (1602–1680) includes what may be the first transcriptions of bird songs.

The illustration gives the nightingale’s song followed by those of the chicken, the cuckoo, the quail, and the parrot; the latter says χαίρε (“hello”). Vox cuculi is notated as the familiar falling minor third heard in cuckoo clocks (see below).

A facsimile edition of the treatise has been issued by Georg Olms (Hildesheim, 1970; reprinted 2006).

Related article: Athanasias Kircher’s global reach

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by | September 14, 2010 · 8:24 am

Napoli e L'Europa/Naples and Europe

Ut Orpheus Edizioni launched the series Napoli e L’Europa/Naples and Europe in 2009 with a critical edition of Demofoonte by Niccolò Jommelli. The full project, La Scuola Napoletana dal XVII al XIX Secolo, involves the publication of critical and urtext editions of works by composers of the Neapolitan School along with performances by Riccardo Muti and the Orchestra Giovanile Luigi Cherubini; Demofoonte was performed in conjunction with the Opéra national de Paris in Salzburg, Paris, and Ravenna in spring and summer 2009.

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by | July 29, 2010 · 12:00 pm

Fitzwilliam Handeliana

In 2009 the music publisher Edition HH launched Fitzwilliam Handeliana, a series of publications of Handelian music inspired by manuscript holdings in The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. The first volume in the series, Compositions for harpsichord and organ, is a collection of works by the founder himself: Richard, 7th Viscount Fitzwilliam of Merrion (1745–1816). Edited by Gerald Gifford, the museum’s Honorary Keeper of Music, the volume presents rarely seen works by one of Händel’s ardent champions.

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by | July 23, 2010 · 10:46 am

Schola Cantorum Basiliensis: Scripta

The series Schola Cantorum Basiliensis: Scripta was inaugurated by Schwabe Verlag in 2009 with Die frühen Werke Johann Sebastian Bachs: Stil, Chronologie, Satztechnik by Jean-Claude Zehnder. The book follows the young composer’s development from 1699 to 1708, showing how even in his teens Bach’s compositions evinced an innovative, experimental mind at work.

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