Manitoba Chamber Orchestra
Karl Stobbe, Concertmaster
Westminster United Church
9 November 2005

Robert King, conductor
Daniel Taylor, countertenor

 

Johann Christian BACH (1735-1782)
Symphony no. 6, op. 6, in g minor

1. Allegro
2. Andante pui tosto Adagio
3. Allegro molto

Antonio VIVALDI (1678-1741)
Stabat Mater, in f minor for solo contralto voice and strings

1. Stabat Mater dolorosa (largo)
2. Cujus animam gementem (adagio)
3. O Quam tristis (andante)
4. Quis est homo (largo)
5. Quis non posset (adagio)
6. Pro peccatis suae gentis (andante)
7. Eja mater, fons amoris (largo)
8. Fac ut ardeat (lento) 9. Amen (allegro

Mr. Taylor

Intermission
Refreshments are available upstairs in the concert hall.

Georg Frideric HANDEL (1685-1759)
Selections, opera seria

Overture, from Ottone (HWV15)
Aria: Dove sei, from Rodelinda (HWV19)

Mr. Taylor

Francesco GEMINIANI (1687-1762)
Concerto grosso in e minor, op. 3, no. 3

1. Adagio Staccato
2. Allegro
3. Adagio
4. Allegro

Georg Frideric HANDEL
Selections, opera seria & ballet music

Aria: L’empio, sl’eale, indegno, from Giulio Cesare in Egitto (HWV17)
Chaconne, from the masque Terpsichore (HWV8b)
Aria: Domero, from Giulio Cesare

Mr. Taylor

Concert sponsor / LBL Holdings
Season sponsor / The Great-West Life Assurance Company
Print media sponsor / Winnipeg Free Press
Radio media sponsors / CBC Radio Two 98.3, CBC Radio One 990 and Golden West Radio
Electronic media sponsor / Shaw Cable

 

Robert King

Robert King is now widely acclaimed as one of Britain’s leading conductors. Artistic Director of The King’s Consort, he is also Artistic Director of the ION Festival in Nürnberg.

Born in 1960 he was a chorister in the Choir of St. John’s College, Cambridge; his solo performances included a best-selling recording of Duruflé’s Requiem. In 1980, whilst completing his music degree at Cambridge University, Robert King founded the period instrument orchestra and chorus, The King’s Consort. Since then he has toured throughout the world, conducting in almost every European country, North and South America, and the Far East. He has made more than ninety recordings, which have sold in excess of one million CDs, and won a series of international awards. He made his BBC Proms conducting debut in 1991 and has been invited back six times.

Robert King now divides his time between an increasingly busy international conducting schedule and work with The King’s Consort. Forthcoming engagements include debuts with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte Carlo, Hamburg Symphony, Bergen Philharmonic, NDR Hannover and the New World Symphony, Calgary Philharmonic, Pacific Symphony and returns to the RAI National Symphony Orchestra, WDR Cologne and the Detroit Symphony.

In recent seasons Mr. King has worked with several North American symphony orchestras such as those of Seattle, Houston, Atlanta, Oregon and Washington. In Europe he has conducted the Danish National Radio Orchestra, Netherlands Chamber Orchestra, Zurich Chamber Orchestra, Iceland Symphony, English Chamber Orchestra and most of the Spanish orchestras, including those in Madrid, Barcelona and Seville.

As a choral conductor Mr. King has worked with many European choirs, and his operatic work has included Handel’s Ottone in Tokyo, Osaka and London, Handel’s Ezio in the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, Paris, Purcell’s The Indian Queen in London and at the Schwetzinger Festspiele, and Purcell’s The Fairy Queen in Spain and Britain.

Although noted for his interpretation of Baroque repertoire, Robert King also regularly conducts choral and orchestral works from the Classical and Romantic eras, and the works of early twentieth century English composers, most notably Vaughan Williams. Mr. King is widely regarded as a leading expert on the music of Henry Purcell. He was Artistic Director of Wigmore Hall’s Purcell Tercentenary Festival and the Wigmore’s Bach and his Contemporaries Festival, while his book on Purcell has been hailed as ‘the definitive biography’ of the composer. In addition to his conducting and touring commitments, Robert King presents a variety of programmes on the BBC. In the world of film music he was a music consultant for Ridley Scott’s epic The Kingdom of Heaven and his harpsichord playing can be heard in the hit film Shrek 2. Current Hollywood projects include work for The Chronicles of Narnia and, assisting award-winning composer Hans Zimmer, The Da Vinci Code.

Daniel Taylor

“The beauty of his voice will stop you in your tracks.” (Gramophone.) “Daniel Taylor is now one of today’s most sought-after countertenors and recognized as ‘Canada’s star countertenor.’ There is a sense of conviction that sets him apart from all of the others.” (Opera Canada.)

Daniel Taylor’s debut at Glyndebourne in Handel’s Theodora was greeted with critical praise and followed on his operatic debut in Jonathan Miller’s production of Handel’s Rodelinda (recorded for EMI). He receives invitations from an ever-widening circle of the world’s leading early and contemporary music ensembles, appearing in opera, oratorio, recital and film in Europe, North America and Asia. Recent engagements include tours with Sir John Eliot Gardiner and the Monteverdi Choir, a recital tour with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and Emma Kirkby, his return to the BBC Proms (2005), a European tour of the St. Matthew Passion with the Gabrieli Consort, his debuts with the Cleveland Orchestra and Philadelphia Orchestras and performances of Bach Cantatas with Helmut Rilling and the Bach Academy in Stuttgart. This fall Daniel took the title role in a new production of Gluck’s Orfeo for Opera North at the Edinburgh Festival.

Daniel is Founder and Artistic Director of the Theatre of Early Music (TEM), a period-instrument ensemble based in Montreal. The TEM recently signed a long-term contract with the BIS label and their first CD, Couperin’s Leçons de Ténèbres, will be released November, 2005. To quote Gramophone magazine: “…beauty of artistry that bows to no other.” Future projects include the continuation of their highly-praised Bach Cantata series and a recording of Renaissance duets with countertenor James Bowman with poetry read by actor Ralph Fiennes. Daniel has made more than 60 other recordings on labels such as Decca, Erato, Harmonia Mundi, Sony and ATMA.

Daniel completed his undergraduate work at McGill University (Literature, Music, Philosophy), his graduate degree at the University of Montreal (Music and Religion), furthering his studies with leaders of the Baroque-specialist movement in Europe. He continues now with Michael Chance. Daniel Taylor is a Visiting Professor at McGill University.

Many of you will remember Daniel’s stunning performance at our opening concert last season!

Symphony no. 6, op. 6, in G minor
Johann Christian Bach

J.C. Bach, the youngest son of J.S. Bach, was commonly known as ‘the English Bach’ and learned clavier playing from his brother C.P.E. Bach in Berlin. He went to study with Padre Martini in Italy, where he had several operas performed. In 1763 he went as director of the King’s Theatre to London, where he composed operas and was appointed music master to Queen Charlotte. Apart from a series of operas written for London audiences, Bach wrote many instrumental works — symphonies, overtures, nearly 40 piano concertos. Their felicitous scoring and melodic charm influenced Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven, all of whom benefited from his work. It is sad to know that J.C. Bach died in debt and was buried in a mass grave in St. Pancras churchyard.

J.C. Bach’s second set of symphonies (op. 6) was published in 1770 and is thought to be superior to the earlier set of six sinfonias (op. 3).

Stabat Mater, in F minorfor solo contralto voice and stringsAntonio Vivaldi
Although best known for his many string concertos, Vivaldi was also admired for his vocal compositions; he wrote numerous operas, cantatas, and other sacred compositions. Some sixty of his church compositions have survived, including psalms, antiphons and hymns as well as solo motets. Most of them were written for the Ospedale della Pieta in Venice, where Vivaldi was employed as violin teacher and orchestral director.

However, the Stabat Mater for alto voice and strings was commissioned by the church of S. Maria della Brescia in 1712 and is one of Vivaldi’s earliest sacred works. He sets only the first 10 verses of the text — unlike the other well-known settings of Jacopone da Todis’s poem by Caldara, Pergolesi, Scarlatti and Steffani, who all set 20 stanzas. Vivaldi’s setting of only 10 stanzas is prescribed when the Stabat Mater is sung as a Vespers hymn at the two feasts of the Seven Dolours of the Blessed Virgin Mary — the fifteenth of September and the Friday before Good Friday.

The form of the Stabat Mater is a compromise between strophic and cantata-style setting. Movements 1-3 (on the text of stanzas 1-4) are repeated as movements 4-6 (on stanzas 5-8). The remaining two stanzas and the ‘Amen’ are set individually.

In this closely-knit work, whose sombre mood is dispelled only at the end by a “radiant tierce de Picardie” in the final chord, Vivaldi achieves a remarkable degree of unity as all the movements are either in F minor or C minor, with some sections related in cyclic fashion.

Overture, from Ottone (HWV15)
Georg Frideric Handel

Ottone is the first — but not the last — of the operas with whose original text Handel became acquainted after seeing a performance of Antonio Lotti’s Teofane given at Dresden in 1719. Handel’s opera version, based on a new version of the text by his librettist Nicola Haym, was produced in London in 1723.

According to Prof. Edward Dent, “the music of Ottone is conventional but effective.” The gavotte, which concludes the overture, is one of the most familiar popular tunes by Handel.

Aria: Dove Sei, from Rodelinda (HWV19)
Georg Frideric Handel

Bestarido, King of Lombardy and husband of Rodelinda, has had his throne usurped by Grimoaldo, Duke of Benevento. Bestarido is forced to flee to Hungary, and puts out a report that he is dead.

The faithful Rodelinda mourns the apparent death of her husband Bestarido and firmly refuses the offer of marriage from the scheming Grimoaldo, her new suitor, who erects a funeral monument to the fallen king Bestarido. But the former king is alive and returns to Milan in disguise. He wonders what has happened to his queen Rodelinda and laments his fate as he contemplates his own funeral urn.

Concerto grosso in E minor, op. 3, no. 3
Francesco Geminiani

The year 1714, the English historian Dr. Charles Burney recounts, “was rendered an important period to the progress of the violin in England by the arrival of Geminiani and Veracini, as the abilities of these masters confirmed the sovereignty of that instrument over all others, in our theatres and concerts.” Geminiani did not take long to win the favour of London musical circles; a pupil of Corelli and Scarlatti, his performances were so exquisite that all who professed to understand or love music were captivated by his playing.

Geminiani lived the rest of his life in the British Isles. When playing for George I he was accompanied at the harpsichord by Handel. He wrote several important treatises on music, including The Art of Playing on the Violin (1751). He composed over 40 concerti grossi, 40 violin sonatas and a ballet for Paris (1754), La foresta incantata. He died in Dublin.

Aria: L’empio, sl’eale, indegno
From Giulio Cesare in Egitto
Georg Frideric Handel

Handel’s sixth opera was written for the Royal Academy of Music in London and first performed at the King’s Theatre in the Haymarket in 1724. The opera was a great success both in London and in Germany. With the possible exception of Rinaldo it was the most frequently played of Handel’s operas in the 18th century and it has been the most popular in modern times. The plot deals with Caesar’s intrigue with Cleopatra. Ptolemy, brother of Cleopatra and king of Egypt, plots to assassinate Caesar.

Chaconne,from the masque Terpsichore
Georg Frideric Handel

Terpsichore, a ballet sequence with songs, was composed as a prelude to the revival of Il Pastor Fido in 1734. The ‘passacaille’ from the masque forms the introduction to the second movement and is superficially in the manner of Henry Purcell. Terpsichore contains several examples of vocal pieces followed or preceded by dances based on the same material but treated instrumentally.

Aria: Domero, from Giulio Cesare
Georg Frideric Handel

The King of Egypt, Tolomeo (Ptolemy) admonishes his sister Cleopatra, his prisoner.

 

 

MCO's 2008/09 season is sponsored by The Great-West Life Assurance Company.
Support has been received from Media sponsors The Winnipeg Free Press, CBC Radio One 990,
CBC Radio Two 98.3, Golden West Radio & Shaw Cable. MCO's Chamber Chatter newsletter
is sponsored by PricewaterhouseCoopers. Heartstrings gala
sponsor: Mackenzie Financial Corporation.

© 2008 Manitoba Chamber Orchestra