Christ Church Cathedral
Subscriptions: To purchase tickets to this performance as part of a subscription to 3 or more concerts and receive a 25% discount off the full ticket price, please call Early Music Vancouver’s box office at 604-732-1610 or email boxoffice@earlymusic.bc.
Artist: David Greenberg, violin, EMV 2022 Artist-in-Residence
David Greenberg takes us on a musical journey that meanders between Baroque solo violin repertoire and traditional folk-style tunes. David’s rare fluency in both Baroque and Cape Breton playing styles allows him to approach each moment of music in an imaginative and deeply personal way.
The end of the Baroque era coincided with the Golden Age of Scottish fiddling, a time when rural fiddler and trained concert musician alike participated in the bloom of a national music. Soon afterwards, thousands of Scots displaced by the Highland Clearances settled on Cape Breton Island, the northeast portion of Nova Scotia, where the fiddle tradition continues to flourish.
“What I especially love about these pairings of Bach and folk tunes are the surprising things that one genre learns from the other. Unconventional musical techniques and expressive vocabulary become newly available as one world meets another. The joyful and elemental rhythmic drive of Cape Breton music meets the wondrous fantasy of Bach’s musical tapestry, creating an unfolding story that is rich and waiting to be told.”
– David Greenberg
This concert is generously supported by Mark De Silva, .
PURCHASING TICKETS
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Subscriptions: To purchase tickets to this performance as part of a subscription to 3 or more concerts and receive a 25% discount off the full ticket price, please call Early Music Vancouver’s box office at 604-732-1610 or email boxoffice@earlymusic.bc.
PROGRAMME
McG & G
Minuet in A with variations (William McGibbon 1690-1756, arr. D. Greenberg)
Grateful for These Gifts (waltzing air, D. Greenberg b. 1965)
Sleepy Maggie’s Messenger
Allemande & Double (1st Partitia in B minor, J.S. Bach 1685-1750)
Mo Chuachag Laghach [The Gentle Milkmaid] (old Scottish/Cape Breton reel)
Sleepy Maggie (reel set by James Oswald 1710-1769, the Caledonia Pocket Companion, 1747)
Messenger Reel (Owen Greenberg b. 1993 and D Greenberg)
Gloomy and Enthralled
Gloomy Winter’s Now Awa’ (slow air, George Cameron collection, 1854)
Adagio (2nd Sonata in A minor, J S Bach)
Enthralled (Oliver Schroer 1956-2008)
Savage Sarabande
Sarabande (1st Partita in B minor, J S Bach)
Mrs. Savage’s Whim (triple hornpipe, Young’s Dancing Master vol 1, 1713)
Young Damon’s Flight (triple hornpipe, Young’s Dancing Master vol 2, 1718)
Susan’s Klezmer Corrente
Corrente (2nd Partita in D minor, J S Bach)
Susan’s Reel (D. Greenberg, written for Susan Hunter of Halifax NS)
Caledonia’s Corrente
Caledonia’s Wail for Niel Gow Her Favorite Minstrel (slow air, Simon Fraser collection, 1816)
Corrente & Double (1st Partita in B minor, J.S. Bach)
Barbara’s
Barbara’s Reversed Passacaille (D. Greenberg, written for Barbara Butler of Mahone Bay NS)
Allemande Joy
Allemande (2nd Partita in D minor, J.S. Bach)
Joy Go With My Love (jig, Neil Stewart collection, 1761)
Andrew Carr (slip jig, Niel Gow 1727-1807, The Complete Repository collection, 1799)
Marching to Mimbastica (marching air, D. Greenberg, written for Maria Blair of Corvallis OR)
Doug MacPhee’s Reel (D. Greenberg, written for Doug MacPhee of New Waterford NS)
PROGRAMME NOTES
Multiple Voices for One refers both to playing more than one musical line at a time as well as to the intermingling of three musical aesthetics. Having fluency in both Baroque and Cape Breton playing styles allows me to approach each moment of music armed with the possibilities of their combined musical palettes. The third aesthetic is the intangible quality of the living moment. Together, the result is a style that I’ve named Cape Breton-Baroque Integration (CBI).
The end of the Baroque era coincided with the Golden Age of Scottish fiddling, a time when rural fiddler and trained concert musician alike participated in the bloom of a national music. Soon afterwards, thousands of Scots displaced by the Highland Clearances settled on Cape Breton Island, the northeast portion of Nova Scotia, where the fiddle tradition continues to flourish. The majority of the program meanders between Bach’s works for solo violin and folk-style compositions. What I especially love about these pairings are the surprising things that one genre learns from the other.
Unconventional musical techniques and expressive vocabulary become newly available as one world meets another. The joyful and elemental rhythmic drive of Cape Breton music meets the wondrous fantasy of Bach’s musical tapestry.
An example of one world meeting the other is in each style’s attitude of rhythmic impulse—what I call ictus. They are at very different places on the rhythmic spectrum: where Baroque rhythmic impulse is more refined and initiated by a larger body motion, the Cape Breton ictus tends more naturally to a hot-edged dance groove and syncopation.
A living moment is music that is imagined spontaneously into existence in a way that delights and moves. These moments feel newly created (even if they’re not). The moments that succeed in moving and delighting us will almost never be an exact copy of an earlier moment. Therefore, creating living moments includes much variation and experimenting, often trying something out that the composer didn’t have in mind, unleashing out-of-the-box creativity and a sense of fun or naughtiness. It’s hard to create living moments if we’re always following the rules, or always playing exactly what is in the score. And what a missed opportunity!
- David Greenberg
David Greenberg, violin
For three decades, David has enjoyed a double career as a Baroque violinist and Cape Breton fiddler. His fluency and experience in these two genres makes him uniquely qualified to interpret the wild music of 18th-century Scotland.
David is a graduate of Indiana University’s Early Music Institute, where he studied with Stanley Ritchie. He has performed, taught, and recorded primarily in North America and Western Europe, as well as in Australia, New Zealand, and the Far East.
David has performed with Tafelmusik, Red Priest, Les Musiciens de Saint-Julien, Concerto Caledonia, Apollo’s Fire, Ensemble Caprice, La Nef, Toronto Consort, Seattle Baroque, Les Voix Humaines, Chris Norman, Suzie LeBlanc, Doug MacPhee, and Musica Pacifica. He has performed as guest soloist/director with several orchestras, including the Calgary Symphony Orchestra and Symphony Nova Scotia.
He has recorded over 80 CDs, including with most of these ensembles and collaborators, as well as three groundbreaking Scottish-Cape Breton-Baroque recordings with his own ensemble Puirt A Baroque in the 1990s.
David co-authored The DunGreen Collection (1996), an influential treatise on Cape Breton fiddling. He is also a composer and arranger. Many of his tunes have been recorded by Cape Breton musicians such as Buddy MacMaster, Carl MacKenzie, Jerry Holland, and The Rankins.
David enjoys sharing his passion and knowledge about Baroque and Cape Breton music in workshop settings. His current solo touring program is called Bach & Tunes: Multiple Voices for One.