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1 LP -
1C 065-45 645 - (p) 1979
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1 CD - 8
26520 2 - (c) 2000 |
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LAUTENGALANTERIE |
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Adamo Falckenhagen
(1697-1761)
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Sonate c-moll (op. 1 Nr. 1)
- aus "Sei Sonate di Liuto Solo" (Nürnberg
1740) |
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- Largo |
4' 50" |
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- Allegro un poco |
3' 00" |
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- Tempo giusto
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4' 34" |
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Ernst Gottlieb Baron
(1696-1760) |
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aus Sonata
B-dur |
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Aria |
4'
00"
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- Tempo di Menuet |
2' 38" |
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Adamo
Falckenhagen (1697-1761) |
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Sonate F-dur (op. 1 Nr. 5)
- aus "Sei Sonate di Liuto Solo" (Nürnberg
1740) |
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Largo |
7' 04" |
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- Allegro |
2' 23" |
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Vivace |
3' 06" |
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Joachim Bernhard Hagen (?-?) |
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Sonate
c-moll (ca. 1766) |
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Andante |
3' 53" |
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Allegro |
4' 40" |
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Allegretto |
3' 28" |
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Anthony
Bailes, Laute
von Martin Hoffmann, Leipzig 169?
(Sammlung historischer Musik-instrumente
im Germanischen Nationalmuseum Nürnberg) |
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Luogo
e data di registrazione |
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Ecangelische
Kirche, Séon (Svizzera) - 4-7
dicembre 1978 |
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Registrazione: live /
studio |
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studio |
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Producer / Engineer |
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Gerd
Berg / Johann-Nikolaus Matthes
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Prima Edizione LP |
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EMI
Electrola "Reflexe" - 1C 065-45
645 - (1 lp) - durata 44' 20" -
(p) 1979 - Analogico |
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Prima Edizione CD |
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EMI
"Classics" - 8 26520 2 - (1 cd) -
durata 44' 20" - (c) 2000 - ADD |
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Note |
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LAUTEN-GALANTERIE
In comparison with the lute
music of the Baroque era
which, under the influence of
the French school of the
seventeenth century, offers us
an art that is precious in the
double sense of the word -
triumph of refinement and of
the unsaid - the music of the
preceding periods, which
originated from the
renaissance of polyphony, on
account of its solidly
established structures and its
logic discourse would seem to
be infinitely more accessible
to the public and equally more
rewarding for the interpreter.
With the exception of the
remarkable works and the
movement led by Hans Neemann
(1901-1941) which championed
the cause of the Baroque
repertoire in the first
quarter of our century, the
music of the “Renaissance”,
eagerly propagated by the
guitarists, seems to have held
the field almost exclusively
However, it looks as though
the balance has been
re-established during the past
ten years thanks to the joint
efforts of musicologists,
musicians and
instrument-makers. Yet how
many unexplored fields,
holding neglected treasures,
do there still remain - a fact
which is due to our
indifference rather than to a
lack of meticulous studies!
This is particularly true with
regard to the rococo period
which saw the decline of the
lute in the Germanic
territories, the last place of
refuge of an instrument that
was unfit to survive the
aesthetic upheavals of the
pre-classical era. After the
esoteric art of the Pièces de
Luth (EMI 1C 063-30 938 2) and
after the surpreme mastery of
Silvius Leopold Weiss (EMI 1C
065-30944 2) the present Lauten-Galanterie
imparts a slightly melancholy
note to the musical history of
the period of German
“Empfindsamkeit”.
Western
Europe, where the lute had first
become established, had long
ago turned toward new
horizons. As though quite
exhausted by the task of
providing the basso continuo,
which had been their function
for more than a century, the
lute and its cousins, theorbo
and chitarrone, were hardly
able to fire the composers
imagination or attract the
publics interest any longer.
In France, where until
recently its literature had
been in full flower, the lute
by the beginning of the
eighteenth century had become
an anachronistic instrument
which found favour only in the
form of the vielle
(hurdy-gurdy) to the greater
pleasure of a society which
was in the throes of a craze
for rustic amusements. On top
of that, in this Age of Reason
the instruction in the
tablature notation was
regarded as “pernicious” even
by the masters of the
instrument themselves. In the
preface to his collection of Pièces de
Théorbe
et de Luth mises en
Partition, Dessu et Basse
(Paris, 1716) Robert de Visée
declares sadly but with
perspicacity: “Some authors
might perhaps have wished that
I had put a third staff
underneath the score, or that
the piece had been engraved in
tablature notation: but the
number of those who understand
the tablature is so small that
I did not think I should
needlessly let my book
increase in volume. Besides,
one will find me quite
prepared at any time to give
the pieces in that manner to
those who want them that way.
The aim of the present edition
is the clavecin, the viol, and
the violin, on which
instruments they have always
been played.” Half a century
after this, at the time when
Rameaus life was drawing to an
end, Wenzel Joseph
Kohaut (whose exact
relationship with the Prague
family of lute players of that
name we do not know),
Ordinaire de la Musique de
S.A.S. Monseigneur le Prince
de Conty and composer of comic
operas which were successfully
staged in Paris, made another
attempt at getting the lute
out of the street and the
drawing-room where it had been
confined to. Jointly
with the violoncellist Jiean-Pierre
Duport he made two appearances
at the Concert spirituel in
1765 and 1764. But the
audience at the Tuileries,
totally absorbed in its
passion for the symphony, only
paid them an attention that
was a mixture of surprise and
noble boredom. It was not
purely by chance that it was a
musician from Central Europe
who made this “Gothic”
instrument sound forth for
Parisian ears. Various printed
collections and a large number
of manuscripts prove that,
beyond all changes of taste,
the tradition of the lutenists
had remained alive in those
parts of Europe and did not
decline until at the end of
the century when the
fortepiano was increasingly
gaining ground. In this
period, it seems, the intimate
and refined art of the
lutenists was more in keeping
with the cultural aspirations
of the Germanic civilization
and its immediate neighbours
than with the more
individualistic temperament of
the Latin mind who is inspired
with the desire to shine, and
to whom music is synonymous
with entertainment.
Imbued with the feeling of the
dignity of their mission which
was “to conquer the hearts, to
excite or calm the passions,
and to inspire the listeners
now with this emotion, now
with that” (Quantz, 1752), the
18th century musicians, and
above all the German musicians
of the age of Empfindsamkeit,
developed a musical rhetoric
which required as much
subtlety on the part of the
instruments as on that of the
interpreters. In that period
the clavichord, the lute and,
later, the glass harmonica
became the favourite
instruments of Germanic music
on account of the rich
sonority of their harmonies,
their expressive resources and
their wide range of tonal
nuances. So the lute, far from
being chucked away to the
musty junk of an archaic
society adapted itself
gracefully to the accents of
the new language, the earliest
manifestations of which begin
to make themselves felt about
1720. Textural lightness,
rhythmical variety, brevity,
articulation and periodicity
of the phrases, a taste for
parenthesis and ellipsis (the
literature of the period is
typified by the same traits) -
they become the chief
characteristics of the rococo
music which was born, so to
speak, with the death of J. S.
Bach in 1750. The lute players
whose works are presented on
this record all belong to the
first generation of the
eighteenth century and
therefore are contemporaries
of such progressive modernists
as Johann Adolf Hasse, Johann
Stamitz, Wilhelm Friedemann
and Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach.
Yet even so they all persisted
with the traditional tablature
which, although much maligned
by the progressists, had
proved to be much more
suitable for the purposes of
the lute than the abstract
system of notation: “The
reason why we do not write our
galanterie pieces, e.g.
concertos, suites, in notes
but in our special tablature”,
Baron writes, “lies in the
fact that the tablature
enables us to distinguish the
‘tonos unisonos’ in the most
judicious manner, which is
impossible if one employs the
signs that are commonly used
for the other instruments,
although a master should have
command of that system, too.”
Their repertoire is markedly
different from that of the
musicians of the preceding
generations: the lute pieces
of dance-like character, which
were grouped into ‘suites’
according to their tonality
are succeeded by sonatas,
concertante music, free
fantasies and other "à la
mode pieces" such as minuets,
marches, polonaises and airs.
Freed from the severe rules of
counterpoint these worls
display a remarkable
simplicitiy of style which
lends itself particularly well
to the cultivation of the
elegant ‘cantabile’ without
which this bourgeois style,
which we call ‘galant”, is
quite inconceivable.
The growing refinement of
sensitivity no doubt has also
determined the last
modifications which the lute
underwent during the rococo
period. The pieces here
recorded were all written for
a lute with thirteen strings
tuned according to the ‘ton
nouveau ou extraordinaire’
(A-1 - B-1 -C1-D1-E1-F1-G1-A1-D2-F2-A2-d3-f3)
which had become established
since the first third of the
seventeenth century. On
account ofits corpulent body
the lute is distinguished by
the wide range of its low
register which the covered
(gimped) strings (their
invention about 1764 is
attributed to the French bass
viol player Sainte-Colombe)
endow with an extraordinarily
sumptuous sonority. Like the
clavichord, the lute became an
essentially Germanic
instrument when Paris and
Venice began to neglect the
making of lutes. The great
number of instruments
preserved in the museums
demonstrate the great zeal and
virtuosoship with which the
lutemakers East of the Rhine
carried on the tradition of an
art which ]oachim Tielke in
Hamburg, Martin
Hoffmann and his son ]ohann
Christian in Leipzig or Thomas
Edlinger in Prague were to
bring to the peak of
perfection.
Ernst Gottlieb Baron was born
on 17th February 1696 in
Breslau, the capital of Silesia,
where the tradition of the
lutenists was still very much
alive, since it was here that,
among other celebrities, Johann
Kropffganss and S. L. Weiss
had come into the world and
the works of Reussner Senior
and Junior as well as of Le
Sage de Richée
had been published. After his
first musical instruction,
which was obtained from
the Bohemian lutenist Jacob
Kohaut, he studied law and
philosophy at Leipzig
University. A two years stay
at Jena from 1720 onwards
offered him the opportunity to
receive profitable
instructions from Jacob Adlung
and to earn the most
flattering eulogies for his
playing. In
1727, while staying in
Nuremberg, he published the
work which was to perpetuate
the memory of his name: the Historical,
Theoretical and Practical
study of the Lute
(Historisch-Theoretisch und
Practische Untersuchung des
Instruments der Lauten).
In this
epoch, which did not take much
interest in its own past, it
is a highly remarkable Hitt
that Baron with this
publication gives us a summary
of first-hand
knowledge which, even though
it is not always marked by an
absolutely irreproachable
exacrness, represents an
invaluable source of
information on the history,
construction, music and
playing of the lute. in
writing this study, Baron had
intended to respond with a
concise treatise to the
sarcastic attacks Mattheson had
again and again directed
against the lute. The argument
continued with diatribes from
either side, and either side
persisted in its opinion.
Baron resumed his activities
as a touring virtuoso, and
some stages of his travels
were of decisive importance
for his further career: there
was Dresden where he met Weiss
whose influence was to hold
strong throughout Barons
musical existence; there was
Rheinsberg, the residence of
the Crown Prince of Prussia
(the future Frederick II),
where in 1735 the title of "Cammertheorbist"
was conferred upon him; and
finally there was Berlin where
he spent the rest of his life
beside C. P. E. Bach, Quantz
and Graun as ‘Koniglicher
Cammermusicus’ (Royal
chamber-musician). The great
reputation which he enjoyed
secured him a place in the
“Parnassus of German
musicians”, Telemanns Getreuer
Music-Meister (1728) as
well as the honourable task of
illustrating the fascicle
which Immanuel
Breitkopf published in 1757
“as a specimen of a new method
of printing music for the lute
by means of typographic
characters”. During the course
of his active career Baron
also found time to contribute
to publications of Marpurg and
to translate several French
works which dealt with
aesthetic matters. He was one
of the most ardent advocates
of the doctrine of emotional
expression ("Affektenlehre")
applied to music. In this
context we feel unable to
resist the pleasurable
temptation to quote a charming
anecdote told by Gustav
Schilling (Encyclopädie
der gesamten
musikalischen
Wissenschaften,
Stuttgart, 1835) which throws
interesting light on the
character and ideas of our
musician: "In
Jena he
had met with the kindest
reception, not only on account
of his admirable lute playing,
but also on account of his
amiable manners. Une
peculiarity which offered the
students plenty of opportunity
for many a jest and practical
joke was the extremely high
conception he had of the
beauty and the power of his
own art. He insisted that all
the ancient myths of Arion and
Amphion etc. be regarded as
events that really may have
happened, and there was
nothing that would infuriate
him more than the assertion
that the more recent music
could not boast the same power
and impact which the ancient
music was said to have
possessed. This once happened
at a social gathering with
numerous guests, one of whom
was J.
Ch. Günther
who later became a famous
poet. Baron was asked to play
so that he might prove his
assertions. Baron sends for
his lute, takes his seat right
in the middle of the circle of
the attentive listeners, plays
(like Antigenides hut
Alexander), and by exploiting
all possible means and devices
tries to express the emotion
of love. And lo and behold!, the
impact of his playing upon the
listeners who are crowding
round him seems to be
miraculous, all-powerful
indeed: they were tenderly
embracing one another and
their faces reflected the most pleasurable
feelings. Then, by enharmonic
changes, he suddenly passes to
highly bizarre melodies, and
bringing the whole range of
his ability into play, he
depicts wrath and ire with
powerful chords. Soon all the
listeners jump from their
seats; the longer he plays,
the wilder grows the frenzy;
chairs, tables, glasses, pipes
- everything is smashed to
pieces, épées are
unsheathed, a scuffle arises.
Baron is highly delighted at
this result of his playing,
but his lute gets broken and
he has to take to his heels.
On gaining the street he hears
roars of laughter. He returns
and learns to his utter dismay
that the whole affair had been
prearranged by the wanton
students who for once wanted
to make fun of the credulous
Baron, this good-natured and
trusting Orpheus who thought
no end of the importance of
his own art. Baron went home,
full of shame and indignation,
but on the following
morning he was presented with
a lute incomporably more
beautiful
and better than his last
instrument had been. Despite
this adventure Baron in Jena
and everywhere else was
regarded as a highly cultured
artist and as the best lute
player of his day.”
As a composer he has left
behind him solo pieces for the
lute and some concertante
works which have remained in
manuscript and are scattered
all over Europe. His style is
always limpid and melodious,
his phrasing direct and free
of extravagant features, as is
demonstratecl by the Aria and
the Tempo di Menuetto
which form the concluding
movements of the Partie in B
flat major written about 1730.
The autograph is preserved in
the Bibliothèque
Royale at Brussels. When Baron
died on 12th April 1760 in
Berlin, there were still
numerous zealous disciples of
the lute left, among them
Falkenhagen and J. B.
Hagen.
We have very scant
biographical information of
the two musicians, no doubt,
but the record in hand largely
compensates us for this
shortcoming by offering a
comprehensive musical
documentation.
Adamo Falkenhagen first saw
the light on 26th April 1697
in Gross-Dalzig not far from
Leipzig. The dictionary of
Johann Gottfried Walther
informs us that he received
instructions ‘in literis et
musicis’ from a parson of the
neighbouring village of
Knauthain. This was the native
place of Johann
Christian Weyrauch who
transcribed works by Bach for
lute tablature which hir a
long time were believed to be
original compositions for the
lute. After Falkenhagen
had perfected himself through
studies with Johann Jacob
Graf a pupil of Weiss, and
after having received further
instructions from Weiss
himself during a stay at
Dresden, he embarked on a
carreer similar to that of
Baron, travelling from court
to court, until an invitation
from the Margrave
of Brandenburg-Kulmbach in
1734 made him stay at Bayreuth
to the end of his days (1761).
He met with a very friendly
reception at the Margrave’s
court, the more so since the Margrave’s
wife Wilhelmine,
the favourite sister of
Frederick II,
was an able musician herself
who off and on would play the
lute instead of the keyboard.
It was
to her that Falkenhagen
dedicated the products of his
‘picciol talento’: his Opera
prima comprising the six
Sonate
di Liuto
Solo which were
published at Nuremberg between
1736 and 1742. These sonatas,
the Sei Partite Op. 2
and a collection of varied
chorales (Erste Dutzend
Erbaunungsvoller gestlicher
Gesänge
auf die Laute...)
represent the whole of his
known publications which have
come down to us. In
addition to his printed works
there circulated numerous of
his pieces in manuscript form.
Several of these belong to the
concertante category but their
accompanying parts, it seems,
are irretrievably lost today
In the preface to his Opus 1
Falkenhagen points out to his
patroness that he “endeavoured
to work in the modern taste
which today meets which
general approval in the field
of music”. The sonatas, all of
them in three movements, show
a design which depends on
whether they are written in a
major or a minor key: slow -
mode-rate
- quick in the Sonatas in E
flat major, B flat major and F
major; slow - lively -
moderate in the Sonatas which
are in the respective relative
minor keys of C minor, G minor
and D minor. The Sonata I
in C minor is characterized by
a touch of noble reserve. The
opening Largo creates this
atmosphere by employing the
“Scotch snap” with its
inverted order of dotted notes
and by the measured tread of
the bass. The composer is at
pains to diversify the musical
discourse by making use of the
dynamic indications for:[te]
and pia:[no]; the
conclusion with is descending
chromaticism admits of a
suspension of the tempo just
before the beginning of the
Allegro un poco in which short
phrases alternate with
colourful arpeggios. The final
movement is a minuet, the
theme of which is partly
reminiscent of an analogous
movement by Weiss, but the
pulsation of the ornaments and
the progression of the rhythm
animate it with a tender
liveliness. By comparison, the
Sonata V
the design of which admits of
a rising dramatic gradation,
strikes us as less
conventional. The first
movement takes the form of a
free fantasy which at that
time was cultivated especially
by C. P. E. Bach.
A conspicuous feature are the
cadenzas Falkenhagen
provides for each of
the repeats, the first soaring upwards
to the highest registers of
the instrument. After a robust
Allegro instrumental
virtuosoship carries the
day in the Vivace which has a
Telemannian flavour
about it.
The
successor to Falkenhagen in
Bayreuth was the lute player Joachim
Bernhard Hagen from Hamburg of
whom we have regrettably scant
personal information. He is
said to have been the pupil of
the Capellmeister Johann
Pfeiffer who died at Bayreuth
in the same year as
Falkenhagen. In 1766 he
got an official appointment to
the court of Frederick, the
last Margrave
of Brandenburg-Kulmbach
(died
1771), whose Concerto for Lute
and Strings, which is
mentioned by Mendel, may well
have been written for his new
'Cammermusicus'.
These are the only known facts
of Hagen's
biography; everything else is
pure guess-work.
This is the more to be
regretted since we are in the
presence of a composer who
shows great talent and
indubtable originality. Strangely
enough, none of his works
appears to have had the honour
of being published in print,
although the 1769 Supplemento
to the catalogue of the
publishing firm of Immanuel
Breitkopf lists nine pieces
for the lute as being in his
posession. But the bulk of his
surviving music forms an
essential part of an important
collection of manuscripts
which is preserved in the
Library of Augsburg. In this
collection he takes his place
alongside his predecessor
Falkenhagen, the Sigr.
Pfeiffer, S. L. Weiss, Carl
Kohaut and Joseph
Haydn, the latter as likely as
not “adapted for the lute” by
Hagen himself. His chamber
music with lute as well as his
pieces for solo lute present
us an imaginative and
resourceful composer who
displays a strong gift for
movements tinged with tender
lyricism, as is also to be
inferred from his predilection
for such indications as
`cantabile’, ‘amoroso’,
`gustoso', ‘affettuoso'... The
Sonata di Liuto
in C minor, one of eight which
are contained in the
above-mentioned collection,
exhibits the tripartite design
slow - lively - moderate
which, as we have learned from
Falkenhagen's
works, is characteristic of
pieces in minor tonality. The
first movement brings
to mind the clavichord meditations which
Hagen's contemporaries put at the
beginning of their sonatas.
Its rapid passages and its
hesitations
reveal a passionate character
which asserts itself also in
the Allegro. It shows a more
conventional construction, but
is animated by the
irresistible pulsation which emanates
from the flow of the
semiquavers. After this tearaway vehemence
the breathless theme of the
Allegrctto and the surging arpeggios
are twice interrupted by the
descending scale - a reference
to the tonic key which heralds at
pcueeliil conclusion. Through
the works of F. W. Rust (a
direct forerunner of
Beethoven) and Christian
Gottlieb Scheidler (died c.
1815) who was Germany's
last lute player and first
guitarist, the tradition of
the galant lutenists extends
to the brink of the new
Century. However, this is not
a melancholy leavetaking, for
at the dawn of the Romantic
age Scheidlers lute bids
farewall to us with Mozart Champagnerlied.
Claude
Chauvel
Transaltion
by Jürgen
Dohm
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