[Theme music begins]
Welcome to Harmonia… I’m Angela Mariani.

The long bow strung with horsehairs is pulled rapidly across strings of sheep gut. The lefthand jumps from string to string with intricate patterns. Few sounds are as compelling as virtuoso violin. Whether at the head of a larger orchestra, or fiddling away alone, works featuring the violin captivate us. Solo violin music can be both intimate and overwhelming. This hour, we’ll hear music featuring the violin and compare Italian- and French-style Baroque-era virtuosity. Plus, 0ur featured release is Regina Angelorum: Hans Leo Hassler, sacred music by a Renaissance master; Ensemble Vox Arcangeli is led by organist Manuel Schuen.

[Theme music fades at :59]

MUSIC TRACK
Violin Concertos
Théotime Langlois de Swarte, violin; Les Ombres (orchestra)
Harmonia Mundi 2022 / Naxos HMM902649DI
Jean-Marie LeClair
Tr. 4. Violin Concerto in A Minor, Op. 7, No. 5, III. Allegro Assai (4:44)

Allegro Assai from Jean-Marie LeClair’s Violin Concerto in A Minor, played by violinist Théotime Langlois de Swarte with orchestra Les Ombres. LeClair was a virtuoso violinist who came to a tragic and mysterious end, stabbed to death “with a sharp tool.” // Did I mention that his wife was an engraver? 

Italian violinists dominated virtuoso performance and composition for generations in the Baroque era. Nicholas Matteis and Giuseppe Tartini were two of the most well-regarded violinists of their time.

Matteis brought Italian violin style to London, complete with the double stops, where the violinist plays two notes at a time throughout a phrase. This technique was new in England, and it dazzled audiences in both fast and slow music.

Giuseppe Tartini was perhaps the greatest violinist of his generation. He was such a melodically inclined performer that his harmony parts are easily dispensable—and he often played his own compositions without accompaniment even if they were written to include a supporting instrument. Here are three movements from a pastiche solo violin suite with music by Matteis and Tartini from Martin David’s Album, Baroque and Alone. 

MUSIC TRACK
Baroque and Alone
Martin Davids, violin
Martin Davids 2022 / Amazon music
Giuseppe Tartini
Tr. 9 Suite No. 2 in G Major, Allegro Assai Tartini (2:09)
Nicholas Matteis
Tr. 10 Suite No. 2 in G Major, Sarabanda Matteis (2:57)
Tr. 11 Suite No. 2 in G Major, Ostinatione Matteis (0:54)

Violinist Martin Davids performed Sarabanda and Ostinatione by Nicholas Matteis, and before that, Allegro Assai by Giuseppe Tartini.

Pietro Antonio Locatelli was the Paganini before Paganini. He was rumored to have studied with Corelli and may have had contact with Vivaldi. His playing was flashy, extravagant, and powerful—and so was his personality. One account from the court of Augustus the Strong indicates that Locatelli [quote] “appeared in a velvet-blue costume richly embroidered with silver.” He was also wearing diamond rings and sporting a sword. We’ll hear Allegro – Capriccio from Locatelli’s Concerto in D Major, ‘the Harmonic Labyrinth’.

MUSIC TRACK
Il Labirinto Armonico
Ilya Gringolts, violin / Finnish Baroque Orchestra
BIS 2020 / Naxos BIS-2445
Pietro Antonio Locatelli
Tr. 7 Concerto in D major, Op. 3, No. 12, ‘Il Labirinto Armonico. Facilis aditus, difficilis exitus’, I. Allegro – Capriccio (7:14)

Allegro – Capriccio from Locatelli’s Concerto in D Major, ‘the Harmonic Labyrinth’. Ilya Gringolts led from the violin with the Finnish Baroque orchestra.

Speaking of sword-wielding violinists, Pandolfi Mealli wielded sword, pen, and violin bow. His sonatas are representative of seventeenth-century baroque solo violin playing—they move from slow, emotive playing to moderate speech-like patterns, all the way to rapid frenzies of virtuosity. Pandolfi dedicated his works to musicians in Sicily, where he lived and worked. One of these musicians was the castrato Giovanni Marquett. After a heated debate in the Messina Cathedral, Pandolfi took Marquett’s sword and killed him with it!

Let’s hear violinist Andrew Manze with ensemble Romanesca slay Pandolfi’s Violin Sonata, Op. 4, No. 3 “La monella romanesca.”

MUSIC TRACK
Phantasticus: 17th-century Italian Violin Music
Romanesca / Andrew Manze, violin
Harmonia Mundi 1998 / Naxos HMU907211DI
Giovanni Antonio Pandolfi [Mealli]
Tr. 1 Violin Sonata, Op. 4, No. 3, “La monella romanesca” (6:10)

“La monella romanesca” violin Sonata by Giovanni Antonio Pandolfi. Andrew Manze performed with ensemble Romanesca.

[Theme music begins]

[Theme Music Bed: Ensemble Alcatraz, Danse Royale, Elektra Nonesuch 79240-2 / B000005J0B, T.12: La Prime Estampie Royal]

Early music can mean a lot of things. What does it mean to you? Let us know your thoughts and ideas. Contact us at harmonia early music dot org, where you’ll also find playlists and an archive of past shows.

You’re listening to Harmonia . . .  I’m Angela Mariani.

[Theme music fades]

Mid Break:
MUSIC TRACK
Phantasticus: 17th-century Italian Violin Music
Romanesca / Andrew Manze, violin
Harmonia Mundi 1998 / Naxos HMU907211DI
Nicolò Corradini
Tr. 11 Il prino libro de canzoni francesi: Sonata a 4, “La Sfondrata” (excerpt of 5:05)

(fades out)

Welcome back. We’re exploring music written and performed by virtuoso violinists. We just spent some time in Italy. Let’s move to France, the stylistic rival to Italian violin playing. If the Italians were known for flashy, bombastic playing with surprising new techniques, the French were known for impossibly elegant and melodic playing—at all speeds.

Elizabeth Jacquet de la Guerre dedicated her Sonatas for Violin and Keyboard to Louis XIV. The Sun King was obsessed with displaying France’s economic and military might through artistic dominance. His substantial investment in the palace and gardens at Versailles was complemented by his patronage of music. Jacquet de la Guerre benefited from this patronage—she grew up and was educated at Versailles, eventually becoming a respected and published musician living in Paris. We’ll hear Allemande, Presto, and Aria from Elizabeth Jacquet de la Guerre’s Sonata no. 6.  

MUSIC TRACK
Elizabeth Jacquet de la Guerre: Violin Sonatas (1707)
Lina Tur Bonet, violin; Patxi Montero, bass viol; Kenneth Weiss, harpsichord
Pan Classics 2017 / Naxos PC10380
Elizabeth Jacquet de la Guerre
Tr. 28 Sonata no. 6 in A major, Allemande (4:16)
Tr. 32 Sonata no. 6 in A major, Presto (1:30)
Tr. 33 Sonata no. 6 in A major, Aria (2:03)

We heard the Allemande, Presto, and Aria from Sonata 6 by Elizabeth Jacquet de la Guerre. Lina Tur Bonet, violinist, performed with Paxti Montero on bass viol and harpsichordist Kenneth Weiss.

The rivalry between French and Italian violinists was usually more beneficial than brutal. Jean-Marie LeClair met Italian virtuoso Locatelli, ‘glittering rings’ ‘brutal playing’ and all, in Paris. The jester at the Kassel court compared the two masters: “This one [Leclair] plays like an angel, and that one [Locatelli] like a devil.” The two stylistically different violinists remained friends for decades. Next: Allegro ma non troppo from LeClair’s Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 10, No. 3.

MUSIC TRACK
Violin Concertos
Théotime Langlois de Swarte, violin; Les Ombres (orchestra)
Harmonia Munci 2022 / Naxos HMM902649DI
Jean-Marie LeClair
Tr. 13 Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 10, No. 3, III. Allegro ma non troppo (5:12)

Allegro ma non Troppo from Jean-Marie LeClair’s Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 10, No. 3. Théotime Langlois de Swarte, violinist, performed with orchestra Les Ombres.

We move now to something completely different - from the devilish yet elegant world of virtuoso violinists to the sacred music of late-Renaissance master, Hans-Leo Hassler. Today, we might hear Hassler’s Mass for Eight Voices in a concert hall. In Hassler’s day it would have been heard by parishioners in sacred spaces during religious services. Let’s listen to the Kyrie and Gloria from Hassler’s Mass for Eight Voices.

MUSIC TRACK
Regina Angelorum: Hans Leo Hassler
Ensemble Vox Arcangeli / Manuel Schuen, organ
Gramola Records 2022 / Naxos Gramola99256
Hans Leo Hassler
Tr. 18 Missa octo vocum, Kyrie (3:48)
Tr. 19 Missa octo vocum, Gloria (3:23)

Kyrie and Gloria from Hassler’s Mass for Eight Voices. Manuel Schuen led Ensemble Vox Arcangeli from our featured release: Regina Angelorum: Hans Leo Hassler.

Hassler admired Giovanni Gabrieli —but Hassler didn’t always have the double choirs of voices and instruments that Gabrieli would have enjoyed in Venice. Hassler and his contemporaries regularly wrote for smaller forces—and sometimes for organ or instrumental ensemble only if singers were unavailable. We’ll hear Hassler’s setting of the motet Dixit Maria in a keyboard version by Heinrich Scheidemann. 

MUSIC TRACK
Regina Angelorum: Hans Leo Hassler
Ensemble Vox Arcangeli / Manuel Schuen, organ
Gramola Records 2022 / Naxos Gramola99256
Heinrich Scheidemann
Tr. 2 Dixit Maria (Coloring of the motet for four voices by H. L. Hassler) (4:23)

Dixit Maria by Heinrich Scheidemann after Hans Leo Hassler on this week’s featured recording, the 2022 Gramola Records release: Regina Angelorum: Hans Leo Hassler by Ensemble Vox Arcangeli. Organist Manuel Schuen performed on the Sieber Organ at St. Michael’s Church, an instrument made by Moravian builder Johann David Sieber in 1715. 

[Fade in theme music]

Harmonia is a production of WFIU and part of the educational mission of Indiana University.

Support comes from Early Music America: a national organization that advocates and supports the historical performance of music of the past, the community of artists who create it, and the listeners whose lives are enriched by it. On the web at EarlyMusicAmerica-dot-org.

Additional resources come from the William and Gayle Cook Music Library at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music.

We welcome your thoughts about any part of this program, or about early music in general. Contact us at harmonia early music dot org. You can follow us on Facebook by searching for Harmonia Early Music.

The writer for this edition of Harmonia is Sarah Schilling (or Sarah Huebsch Schilling).

Thanks to our studio engineer Michael Paskash, and our production team: LuAnn Johnson, Wendy Gillespie, Aaron Cain, and John Bailey. I’m Angela Mariani, inviting you to join us again for the next edition of Harmonia. 

[Theme music concludes]