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Main Concert Series at Unity Church - 2:“Strike the Viol”:
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 Concert Details |
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Catherine Webster soprano
Les Voix Humaines Consort of Viols (Montreal):
Margaret Little
Mélisande Corriveau
Elin Söderström
Susie Napper
We gratefully appreciate the travel support from
and 
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Friday, November 6, 2009 | Generously sponsored by an Anonymous Donor |
| Pre-Concert Introduction at 7:15 | Concert at 8:00 pm | ||
| Unity Church | ||
| 5840 Oak Street (at West 42nd Avenue) | directions |
for information on Ticket Prices and Seating Plans.
Tickets for each concert at $33 (students & seniors $3 discount) are also available by phone from the office of Early Music Vancouver, and also from Sikora’s Classical Records, from Kestrel Books, or from Tickets Tonight (surcharges apply): 604 684-2787 or www.ticketstonight.ca.
Rush Seats for Students with valid ID on sale for $10, at the door only, from 7:00 pm on the evening of the concert.
This concert is included in our “Bring a Youth for Free” programme.
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Special Offer for Dinner at Shaughnessy Restaurant at VanDusen Garden: |
| Programme |
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Henry Purcell (1659-1695):
Overture: Dance for the Green Men – Monkey’s Dance
Prelude for Juno
Strike the Viol (Birthday Ode for Queen Mary)
Fantasia #9 in 4 parts in a minor
Fantasia #10 in 4 parts in e minor
Fantasia #13 in 4 parts a minor *
Songster Chaconne - One Charming Night (Fairy Queen)
Symphony while the swans come forward
If love’s a sweet Passion (Fairy Queen)
Fantasia #3 in 3 parts in g minor
Fantasia #12 in 4 parts in d minor
Fantasia #7 in 4 parts in c minor
Fantasia Upon One Note (in 5 parts) in F major
She loves and she confesses **
i n t e r v a l
Chaconne for Chinese Man and Woman
Cold Song (King Arthur)
Fantasia #2 in 3 parts in F major
Fantasia #6 in 4 parts in F major
Fantasia #4 in 4 parts in g minor
Dido’s Lament (Dido & Aeneas)
Fantasia #11 in 4 parts in G major
Fantasia #1 in 3 parts in d minor
Fantasia #8 in 4 parts in d minor
Now the night (Fairy Queen)
Fantasia #5 in 4 parts in B flat major
Fairest Isle (King Arthur)
* completed by Matthias Maute, Montreal composer, for Les Voix humaines
** arranged by Susie Napper
– programme subject to changes
| Programme Notes |
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Historical Backdrop
When His Majesty Charles II returned from exile in 1660, England was ready to put the bitter taste of Cromwell’s Puritanism behind it. The country was ripe for drastic change and the hope of a return of the simple pleasures that had been proscribed during the eleven years of civil war. Charles, the “Merry Monarch”, arrived home from the continent in a bluster of wine, women and song! The song, however, was new to the Fairest Isle!
Under the influence of his distant cousin, the young Louis XIV, and enamoured of the latest, most fashionable continental musical styles, Charles established his own “24 violons” and modernised his “private music” banning those old fashioned viols he now despised! The greatest composers might learn to adapt their ditties to the all too stylish French dance suites and chicer-than-thou Italian Sonatas, but there were those who regarded the noble English “Fantasia” or “Fancy” and its virtuoso divisions to be amongst the greatest of musical forms.
Likewise, opera, which thrived under the brutal baton of Lully in France, took decades to take hold in England. Theatre dominated in the Fairest Isle. Incidental music that included solo songs, choruses and instrumental dances, served to illustrate the action of a play, much like a Broadway musical!
The Merits of the Viol
Thomas Mace, Musick’s Monument, 1676.
Thomas Mace despised the “new fangled violin”, and argued fervently for the merits of the viol. Viol consorts were one of the few purely instrumental musics of the Renaissance. A mainstay of musical life in the British Isles for a hundred and fifty years, and a source of comfort for many amateurs during the arduous years of the interregnum, its advocates wouldn’t let this gracious tradition suffer an ignominious death at the hands of some continental fad for frivolous forlanes or trendy trio sonatas!
The Programme
The fantasias for three, four and five viols are interwoven with instrumental overtures and dances from Purcell’s operas and a selection of songs that speak eloquently of viols, love, loss, death and patriotism!
The Fantasias
Henry Purcell’s fantasias are the perfect example of a melding of the old and new styles. The exquisitely balanced sound of consorted strings is peppered with virtuosic Italianate passages, operatic recitativo sections and quasi-French dances designed to please all!
The Montreal composer, Matthias Maute, followed Purcell’s example of speed-composing and gave himself the challenge of completing the unfinished Fantasia #16 in an evening!
The Songs
Unluckily for Purcell, he built his fame with such perishable materials that
his worth and works are daily diminishing . . . and so much is our
great musician's celebrity already consigned to tradition that it
will soon be…difficult to find his songs or at least to hear them…
Burney would be pleasantly surprised to know that these perishable materials have survived the test of time! Purcell started early as a choirboy under the tutelage of John Blow. He was known to have composed a “catch” at the tender age of eight years old! He went on to become one of England’s greatest theatrical composers. Comedy (She Loves and She Confesses), tragedy (Dido’s Lament) and word painting (Cold Song), are each dramatic mini-masterpieces. Operatic forms borrowed from Lully and the court of Louis XIV, such as “grand airs” (Fairest Isle), dance forms such as chacones (She Loves and She Confesses), and catchy ground basses (Strike the Viol), demonstrate the versatility, creativity and humour that ensure this great musician’s ongoing celebrity!
| The Artists |
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Catherine Webster soprano, is engaged regularly with many leading early music and chamber ensembles in North America. Deemed one of the finest rising young singers of baroque repertoire, she has appeared as a soloist with Tafelmusik, Tragicomedia, Theatre of Voices, American Baroque Orchestra, Magnificat, Musica Angelica, Camerata Pacifica, El Mundo, Four Nations Ensemble, Ensemble Masques, Les Voix Baroques (Montreal), Early Music Vancouver, and in the Berkeley and Boston Early Music Festivals. Active also in contemporary music, Webster has appeared with The Kronos Quartet in Terry Riley's Sun Rings and with Theatre of Voices and the Los Angeles Philharmonic in John Adam's Grand Pianola Music. Webster is a frequent collaborator with baroque opera directors Stephen Stubbs and Paul O'Dette, appearing under their direction in Festival Vancouver's production of Monteverdi's L'Incoronazione di Poppea and the premiere of Mattheson's Boris Goudenov for the Boston Early Music Festival. She has recorded for Harmonia Mundi, Naxos, Musica Omnia, Analekta and Atma. Catherine holds a Master's in Music from the Early Music Institute at Indiana University and has been a guest faculty member and artist for The San Francisco Early Music Society's summer workshops and the Madison Early Music Festival. She now resides in Montreal.
Les Voix Humaines Consort of Viols
Susie Napper and Margaret Little, the two gambists of the duo Les Voix Humaines, have been thrilling audiences worldwide with dashing performances of early and contemporary music for viols since 1985. They are renowned for their spectacular arrangements of a wide variety of music for two viols and have become a world reference for the music of Sainte-Colombe. After being awarded a Diapason d'Or for their fourth volume of Sainte-Colombe’s Concerts a deux violes esgales, they just received the Opus Award 2007 for Performer of the Year from the Conseil québécois de la musique.
Les Voix humaines has invited prestigious artists to join them in concert and recordings, such as Wieland and Barthold Kuijken, Charles Daniels, Suzie LeBlanc, Rinat Shaham, Matthew White, Eric Milnes, Skip Sempe and Stephen Stubbs. The duo is regularly joined by some of Montreal’s finest young gambists to form the Voix Humaines Consort of Viols specializing in the vast 17th-century repertoire for viol consort and presents joint projects with Les Voix Baroques (Matthew White’s vocal ensemble).
Les Voix humaines has recorded over 30 discs which have received critical acclaim and prestigious awards (DIAPASON D’OR, Choc du Monde de la Musique, Repertoire-Classica 10, Goldperg 5, Classics Today 10/10, Prix Opus, etc). They include the complete Poeticall Musicke of Tobias Hume, The 4 Seasons of Christopher Simpson, the complete Le Nymphe di Rheno of Johannes Schenck, several discs with soprano Suzie LeBlanc and countertenor Daniel Taylor, a Telemann disc with renowned Belgian flutist Barthold Kuijken and a Marais disc with world famous gambist Wieland Kuijken. Their recording of the complete Concerts a deux violes esgales by Sainte-Colombe (4 double CDs) is a world premiere. Les Voix humaines record for the ATMA label.
The ensemble has toured in North America, Mexico, Europe, Australia, New Zealand and Israel, performing is prestigious festivals such as Early Music Vancouver, the Festival Internacional Cervantino, the Brighton International Music Festival, the Festival Oude Muziek (Holland), the Boston Early Music Festival, the Summer Festivities of Early Music in Prague and the Israel Festival.