Alexander Weimann, Music Director, Harpsichord; Chloe Meyers, Violin, Ensemble Mentor; Natalie Mackie, Gamba, Ensemble Mentor; Baroque Mentorship Orchestra
A collaboration between Early Music Vancouver, the UBC School of Music, and the Pacific Baroque Orchestra, the Baroque Orchestra Mentorship Programme gives student and community players the chance to play side by side with experts in historically informed performance. This unique mentorship initiative is designed to foster the next generation of early music performers. Members of the Baroque Mentorship Orchestra reconvened at the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts in July, 2020, to record this varied programme of German and Italian instrumental music. Smaller chamber ensembles and the full baroque string orchestra play the music of Arcangelo Corelli, J.G. Janitsch, and J.B. Bach, one of J.S. Bach’s talented cousins.
EMV’s Baroque Orchestra Mentorship Programme is generously supported by Vic & Joan Baker
HOW TO WATCH:
Online: Watch the concert online by clicking here
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Concert will remain online one year from premiere date.
Programme
Arcangelo Corelli (1653-1713)
Sonata op. 5 no. 5 in g minor
Adagio
Vivace
Adagio
Vivace
Allegro
Johann Gottlieb Janitsch (1708-c. 1763)
Sonata da camera op. 1 no. 2 in G major
Largo
Allegretto
Johann Bernhard Bach (1676-1749)
Overture no. 1 in g minor
Overture
Air
Rondeau
Loure
Fantaisie
Passepied
Programme Notes
The members of the Baroque Mentorship Orchestra are delighted to be able to offer you this programme, which spans over a half-century of instrumental music from Italy and Germany.
Arcangelo Corelli (1653-1713) was in some ways the revelation of Europe’s musical world around the turn of the eighteenth century; despite his relatively small output, he changed the way music would be written and instruments (particularly the violin) would be played for decades after his death.
Corelli spent his career as an influential teacher and composer in the vibrant cities of Bologna and Rome, but made his name internationally as one of the first music printing sensations. Corelli’s trio sonatas, solo sonatas, and concerti were reprinted countless times, and inspired innumerable imitators across the continent.
The violin sonatas of Corelli’s op. 5, first published in 1700, were the most popular of all—they were reissued a whopping 42 times (at least) over the next century. Corelli once mentioned in a letter that the main goal of his compositions was to “show off” the violin, and this he certainly does—but with unique lyricism, balance, and clarity that enraptured his contemporaries and successors.
Johann Gottlieb Janitsch (1708-c. 1763), about two generations later, worked in one of the most flourishing cultural centers of his day: the Prussian court in Berlin. Originally from further east in Silesia (modern-day Poland), Janitsch, like C.P.E. Bach a few years later, studied jurisprudence at the University of Frankfurt an der Oder (1729-1733), but he too found music his true calling. Janitsch impressed powerful patrons with his performances, and in 1736 he was called to the personal orchestra of Crown Prince Frederick (later Frederick the Great) of Prussia. When Frederick acceded to the throne, Janitsch followed him to Berlin and continued as a “contraviolinist” in his orchestra.
In Berlin, Janitsch worked alongside leading musicians such as C.P.E. Bach and J.J. Quantz. A respected and sought-after composer, Janitsch also arranged a series of “Friday Academies,” weekly concerts open to professional and amateur music enthusiasts. These popular concerts inspired similar events elsewhere in the German-speaking world.
Janitsch’s surviving work is composed mainly of chamber music that may have been played at those Friday gatherings in his Berlin home. His Sonata da camera op. 1 no. 2 in G major was published with two other sonatas in 1760. Janitsch was justly famed for such quartets, in which he brought imaginative combinations of three melody instruments together over a basso continuo. These pieces embrace the later eighteenth century’s style galant, joining an elegant, sometimes ornate, sense of melody with a spirit of animated dialogue between flute, violin, and viola.
Johann Bernhard Bach (1676-1749) was a slightly older second cousin of the famous Johann Sebastian, and like him an accomplished musician. After all, to be a Bach in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Thuringia was to be a musician. Bearers of the name were born into a large and thriving clan of organists, fiddlers, town musicians, and music directors. They learned their craft much as others might inherit the family secrets of carpentry or goldsmithing—immersed from a young age and trained by skilled relatives, many Bachs played several instruments and occupied important musical positions in their communities.
Johann Bernhard’s branch of the family was based in the city of Erfurt, where he was born and received his musical education at the hands of his father, Johann Aegidius, and possibly also of the revered organist Johann Pachelbel. Johann Bernhard took an organist’s post in his hometown and later in Madgebourg, finally settling as a church organist and court harpsichordist in Eisenach, the town of Johann Sebastian’s birth.
A successful career awaited Johann Bernhard in Eisenach, where he must have rubbed shoulders with Georg Phillip Telemann, the most celebrated composer of the day, who directed the court Kappelle from 1708 to 1712.
Only a handful of Johann Bernhard’s works, all instrumental, survive today. Of these, his four overture-suites are the most impressive. Johann Sebastian evidently valued them highly; he had copies of them made for performance by his own collegium musicum later in his career in Leipzig.
J.B. Bach’s Ouverture no. 1 in g minor bears resemblances to his cousin’s orchestral suites and to those of Telemann. An imposing overture—two slow-moving passages with dramatic dissonances and dotted rhythms in the French style encasing a quick and fiery central section—leads into a series of dance movements, by turns plaintive, poised, and energetic. As well as the usual French dances, J.B. Bach’s overture-suites include evocatively titled character movements, such as the G-minor overture’s pensive Fantaisie. Uniquely among the composer’s surviving overtures, each movement of the G-minor has a “Violino Concertato” part, giving one violin soloist a chance to soar above the four-part string orchestra.
Notes written by Connor Page
Alexander Weimann, Music Director, Harpsichord
The internationally renowned keyboard artist Alexander Weimann has spent his life enveloped by the therapeutic power and beauty of making music. Alex grew up in Munich. At age three he became fascinated by the intense magic of the church organ. He started piano at six, formal organ lessons at 12 and harpsichord at university (along with theatre theory, medieval Latin and jazz piano.) He is in huge demand as a director, soloist and chamber player, traveling the world with leading North American and European ensembles. He is Artistic Director of the Pacific Baroque Orchestra in Vancouver and teaches at the University of British Columbia where he directs the Baroque Orchestra Mentorship Programme.
Alex has appeared on more than 100 recordings, including the Juno-award-winning album “Prima Donna” with Karina Gauvin and Arion Baroque orchestra. His latest album series “The Art of Improvisation” (Volume 1: A Prayer for Peace; Volume 2: Ad libitum; and Volume 3: Caravan Variations, released on Redshift, 2024) unites his passions for both baroque music and improvisation on organ, harpsichord, and piano.
Chloe Meyers, Violin, Ensemble Mentor
Violinist Chloe Meyers is a regular guest leader and orchestra member of baroque ensembles all over North America. She has worked with ensembles including Les Violons du Roy, Tafelmusik, the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, Ensemble Les Boréades, the Theatre of Early Music, Les Idées Heureuses and Les Voix Baroques. She recently joined the Pacific Baroque Orchestra as concertmaster and will continue to play principal second with Arion Baroque Orchestra in Montreal. Most recently she played first violin on a Juno Award winning recording of Handel arias featuring Canadian soprano Karina Gauvin on the Atma Classique label.
Natalie Mackie, Gamba, Ensemble Mentor
Natalie Mackie studied cello at the Conservatoire de Musique (Québec), followed by a degree from the School of Music, University of British Columbia. While at UBC she was introduced to the viola da gamba, and following graduation, she pursued further studies at the Koninklijk Conservatorium in The Hague. Natalie has played with many ensembles in Canada and the US, including New World Consort, Les Coucous Bénévoles, Tafelmusik, Portland, and Seattle Baroque Orchestras, Les Voix Humaines, Tempo Rubato, Les Voix Baroque, Oregon Bach Festival Orchestra, Victoria Baroque, and Vancouver Intercultural Orchestra among others. Natalie is a member of Pacific Baroque Orchestra and the chamber ensemble “La Modestine”- both Vancouver-based ensembles. She has toured throughout Canada, Europe, and the US and recorded for Radio France, German Radio, BBC, CBC, and NPR, as well as the Canadian label Atma Classique. Natalie is a regular performer in the Pacific Baroque Festival, held annually in Victoria, BC, and teaches in the Baroque Orchestra Mentorship Program at the University of British Columbia.
Baroque Mentorship Orchestra
About five years ago a new and exciting educational initiative took root in Vancouver, a Baroque Mentorship Orchestra in which the seasoned professionals of the Pacific Baroque Orchestra rehearse and perform side-by-side with students and aspiring young artists from the community. The programme is made possible by the collaboration of Early Music Vancouver, Pacific Baroque Orchestra, and the University of British Columbia, and thanks to the generosity of Vic and Joan Baker. The mentorship orchestra is directed by Alexander Weimann. Chloe Meyers and Natalie Mackie serve as regular mentors, aided by many other specialist coaches for strings, woodwinds, and brasses. The orchestra has offered an ambitious variety of music from the 17th and 18th centuries: highlights have included Telemann’s Don Quixote Suite, Handel’s Fireworks Music at the Chan Centre, a spicy programme of Mediterranean music entitled Fandango!, excerpts from Handel’s magnificent early opera Agrippina, and a festival of Telemann concertos and suites.
