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Hats Off to Hamburg

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Welcome to Harmonia…I’m Angela Mariani.

Germany’s thriving port city of Hamburg has been a flourishing center of civic and church music-- and popular music too, for that matter-- for over a thousand years. Home to eighteenth-century heavy hitters including Telemann and C.P.E. Bach, the city nurtured generations of musicians. This hour, music from the city of Hamburg – and then later in the program, we’ll move from Hamburg down to Genoa, Italy, where we’ll hear lute music by Renaissance composer Simone Molinaro, and listen to the piece that inspired the opening of Ottorino Resphigi’s 1917 orchestral work Ancient Airs and Dances.

[Theme music fades]

MUSIC TRACK

Molinaro: Danze e fantasie da intavolatura di liuto libro I
Ugo Nastrucci, lute
Brilliant Classics 2019 / B07M798RL7
Simone Molinaro
Tr. 14 Thomas Crecquillon: Vng gai bergier (4:22) [Ung gai bergier]

“Ung gai bergier,” music for lute by Simone Molinaro after a tune by Thomas Crecquillon. We heard Ugo Nastrucci performing on 2019 recording: Molinaro: Danze e fantasie da intavolatura di liuto libro uno, released on the Brilliant Classics label. We’ll hear more from Ugo Nastrucci later this hour, as we explore music from Molinaro’s 1599 lute publication.

 

Telemann dominated the music scene in Hamburg for over forty years. He directed music at its five major churches, led the opera, taught, and published a considerable body of work. Telemann’s Brockes-Passion was performed for three Lenten seasons in Hamburg even before the composer took up his posts there. Barthold Heinrich Brockes’s text setting of the Passion was set by several baroque composers including Telemann, Handel, Johann Mattheson, and Johann Friedrich Fasch. We’ll hear the Sinfonia from Telemann’s Brockes Passion and an aria, “Mein Vater.”

MUSIC TRACK

Telemann: Brockes-Passion
Berlin Akademie für Alte Musik / dir. René Jacobs
Harmonia Mundi 2009 / B001NZA0HO
Georg Philipp Telemann
CD 1, Tr. 1 Brockes-Passion : Part I: Sinfonia (7:49)
CD 1, Tr. 9 Brockes Passion : Part I: Aria: Arie (Jesus) Mein Vater! — Accompagnato (Jesus) Mich drückt der Sünden Zentnerlast — Aria: (Jesus) Ist's möglich, daß dein Zorn sich stille (4:55)

Tenor Daniel Behle performing with Berlin Akademie für Alte Musik led by René Jacobs. We heard the overture and aria “Mein Vater,” from Telemann’s Brockes-Passion.

Telemann wasn’t the only big-wig to work in Hamburg in the eighteenth century. Telemann’s godson Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach succeeded him in directing music at major churches in Hamburg. Like Telemann, many of [C.P.E.] Bach’s works were performed outside Hamburg—including two of his oratorios: The Israelites in the Desert and The Resurrection and the Ascension of Jesus. Having noticed the success of oratorio productions in the theaters of London at the time, Bach hoped The Israelites in the Desert would be performed [quote] “not only on a solemn occasion, but at any time, inside or outside the Church.”

In this recitative-aria pair, Moses’s brother Aaron pleads with the Israelites to refrain from complaining about their harrowing travel conditions, and rely on God’s protection.

MUSIC TRACK

C.P.E. Bach: Die Israeliten in Der Wüste, Wq. 238, Br-Cpeb D 1
Stuttgart Chamber Choir and Baroque Orchestra / dir. Frieder Bernius
Carus 2014 / B00QXSDX8O
C.P.E. Bach
Tr. 4 Die Israeliten in Der Wüste Part 1: Verehrt des Ew’gen (Aaron) (1:01)
Tr. 5 Die Israeliten in Der Wüste Part 1: Bis hieher hat er (Aaron) (6:59)

“Honored be the will of the Eternal” and “He has brought you this far,” a recitative-aria pair from C.P.E. Bach’s oratorio The Israelites in the Desert. Tenor Samuel Boden performed with the Stuttgart Baroque Orchestra conducted by Frieder Bernius.

You can hear highlights from recent and archival concert recordings of early music on Harmonia Uncut -- our biweekly podcast, curated and hosted by Wendy Gillespie. Listen online at harmonia early music dot org and through iTunes.

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

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

:59 Midpoint Break Music Bed: Molinaro: Danze e fantasie da intavolatura di liuto libro I, Ugo Nastrucci, lute, Brilliant Classics 2019 / B07M798RL7, Simone Molinaro, Tr. 7: Gagliarda in sei modi (excerpt of 2:08)

 

Welcome back! This hour, we’re strolling through the musical streets of Hamburg. There are few musical remnants of Hamburg’s ninth-century origins, when it became the seat of an archdiocese. With the onset of Lutheranism in the 1520s, much of Hamburg’s pre-Reformation musical traditions were destroyed.

Thomas Selle did much to increase the importance of music-making in Reformation Hamburg. During his tenure he garnered enough financial support to ensure regular musical celebrations throughout the year and secure dependable salaries for several singers. Since Hamburg was a thriving port city, it attracted musicians from afar—and their publications—as well as tradespeople and travelers. We’ll hear Selle’s motet “Videntes stellam magi.” The piece begins with a musical quote by Orlando di Lasso, whose music was widely available and fashionable at the time.

MUSIC TRACK

Baroque Christmas in Hamburg
Bremer Barock Consort / dir. Leitung Manfred Cordes
CPO 2019 / B0043KU0H6
Thomas Selle
Tr. 4 Videntes stellam magi à 8 (6:08)

We heard the motet “Videntes stellam magi à 8” by seventeenth-century Hamburg composer Thomas Selle. The Bremer Barock Consort was directed by Manfred Cordes.

Thomas Selle’s successor as Music Director of the Main Church was Christoph Bernhard. It was a hard-earned job; Bernhard only won the city council’s approval by one vote. Still, the city’s leaders must have been excited for Bernhard’s arrival because they remodeled his house soon after. Bernhard dedicated his 1665 Sacred Concertos to the city council. We’ll hear “Aus der Tiefe” from part one of Bernhard’s sacred concertos.

MUSIC TRACK

Bach: Aus der Tiefe
Ricercar Consort
Ricercar 2010 / B003GMW5AW
Christoph Bernhard
Tr. 6 Geistlicher Harmonien erster Theil: Aus der Tiefe ruf' ich, Herr, zu dir (7:20)

Music from Christoph Bernhard’s Sacred Concertos, dedicated to Hamburg’s city council. Soprano Greta de Reyghere performed with the Ricercar Consort.

Traveling now from Hamburg to Genoa -- we find the music of late Renaissance Italian lutenist and composer Simone Molinaro in our featured release, Molinaro: Danze e fantasie da intavolatura di liuto libro uno. Lutenist Ugo Nastrucci explores Molinaro’s music, written at the height of Genoese wealth. It was said that [quote] “Gold is born in America and dies in Spain, but it is buried in Genoa.”

Let’s hear Molinaro’s “Pass’e mezo in otto modi,” played by Lutenist Ugo Nastrucci.

MUSIC TRACK

Molinaro: Danze e fantasie da intavolatura di liuto libro I
Ugo Nastrucci, lute
Brilliant Classics 2019 / B07M798RL7
Simone Molinaro
Tr. 2 Pass’e mezo in otto modi (5:26)

We heard “Pass’e mezo in otto modi” performed by lutenist Ugo Nastrucci, on our featured release Molinaro: Danze e fantasie de intavolatura di liuto libro uno, a 2019 Brilliant Classics release.

Molinaro may not be a household name today, but his music inspired Ottorino Respighi, who reimagines Molinaro’s Canzone “Ballo detto il Conte Orlando” in a piece that opens his 1917 work, Ancient Airs and Dances. Let’s hear a little of the Respighi – it’s a fairly well-known work, and might be familiar to many of our listeners.

[Music bed under voice track: Respighi: Ancient Airs And Dances, Suites Nos. 1-3, National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland/Rico Saccani, NAXOS 1996 B000QQP0Z8, T. 1: Antiche danze ed arie per liuto (Ancient Airs and Dances), Suite No. 1, P. 109: I. Balletto detto 'Il Conte Orlando': Allegretto moderato (excerpt of 2:59)]

With that brief reminder of the musical theme that opens Respighi’s famous “Ancient Airs and Dances,” let’s hear lutenist Ugo Nastrucci play the original “Ballo detto il Conte Orlando” by late Renaissance composer Simone Molinaro.

MUSIC TRACK

Molinaro: Danze e fantasie da intavolatura di liuto libro I
Ugo Nastrucci, lute
Brilliant Classics 2019 / B07M798RL7
Simone Molinaro
Tr.16 Canzone Francese: No. 4. Ballo detto il Conte Orlando (2:55)

Fade in theme music

Harmonia is a production of WFIU. Support comes from Early Music America which strengthens and celebrates early music by supporting the people and organizations that perform, study, and find joy in 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. And, you can follow our Facebook page and our updates on Twitter by searching for Harmonia Early Music.

The writer for this edition of Harmonia was Sarah Huebsch Schilling.

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

The painting View of Hamburg by Elias Galli, circa 1680.

View of Hamburg by Elias Galli, circa 1680, oil on canvas. (View of Hamburg, Wikipedia)

Germany’s thriving port city of Hamburg has been a flourishing center of civic and church music--and popular music too, for that matter--for over a thousand years. Home to eighteenth-century heavy hitters including Telemann and C.P.E. Bach, the city nurtured generations of musicians. This hour, music from the city of Hamburg; then later in the program, we’ll move from Hamburg down to Genoa, Italy, where we’ll hear lute music by Renaissance composer Simone Molinaro, and listen to the piece that inspired the opening of Ottorino Resphigi’s 1917 orchestral work Ancient Airs and Dances.

PLAYLIST

Molinaro: Danze e fantasie da intavolatura di liuto libro I
Ugo Nastrucci, lute
Brilliant Classics 2019 / B07M798RL7
Simone Molinaro
Tr. 14 Thomas Crecquillon: Vng gai bergier (4:22) [Ung gai bergier]

Segment A:
Telemann: Brockes-Passion
Berlin Akademie für Alte Musik / dir. René Jacobs
Harmonia Mundi 2009 / B001NZA0HO
Georg Philipp Telemann
CD 1, Tr. 1 Brockes-Passion : Part I: Sinfonia (7:49)
CD 1, Tr. 9 Brockes Passion : Part I: Aria: Arie (Jesus) Mein Vater! — Accompagnato (Jesus) Mich drückt der Sünden Zentnerlast — Aria: (Jesus) Ist's möglich, daß dein Zorn sich stille (4:55)

C.P.E. Bach: Die Israeliten in Der Wüste, Wq. 238, Br-Cpeb D 1
Stuttgart Chamber Choir and Baroque Orchestra / dir. Frieder Bernius
Carus 2014 / B00QXSDX8O
C.P.E. Bach
Tr. 4 Die Israeliten in Der Wüste Part 1: Verehrt des Ew’gen (Aaron) (1:01)
Tr. 5 Die Israeliten in Der Wüste Part 1: Bis hieher hat er (Aaron) (6:59)

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

:59 Midpoint Break Music Bed: Molinaro: Danze e fantasie da intavolatura di liuto libro I, Ugo Nastrucci, lute, Brilliant Classics 2019 / B07M798RL7, Simone Molinaro, Tr. 7: Gagliarda in sei modi (excerpt of 2:08)

Segment B:
Baroque Christmas in Hamburg
Bremer Barock Consort / dir. Leitung Manfred Cordes
CPO 2019 / B0043KU0H6
Thomas Selle
Tr. 4 Videntes stellam magi à 8 (6:08)

Bach: Aus der Tiefe
Ricercar Consort
Ricercar 2010 / B003GMW5AW
Christoph Bernhard
Tr. 6 Geistlicher Harmonien erster Theil: Aus der Tiefe ruf' ich, Herr, zu dir (7:20)

Featured recording:
Molinaro: Danze e fantasie da intavolatura di liuto libro I
Ugo Nastrucci, lute
Brilliant Classics 2019 / B07M798RL7
Simone Molinaro
Tr. 2 Pass’e mezo in otto modi (5:26)

Music bed under voice track: Respighi: Ancient Airs And Dances, Suites Nos. 1-3, National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland/Rico Saccani, NAXOS 1996 B000QQP0Z8, T. 1: Antiche danze ed arie per liuto (Ancient Airs and Dances), Suite No. 1, P. 109: I. Balletto detto 'Il Conte Orlando': Allegretto moderato (excerpt of 2:59)

Molinaro: Danze e fantasie da intavolatura di liuto libro I
Ugo Nastrucci, lute
Brilliant Classics 2019 / B07M798RL7
Simone Molinaro
Tr.16 Canzone Francese: No. 4. Ballo detto il Conte Orlando (2:55)

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