CARNEGIE HALL PRESENTS
Dame Emma Kirkby
Jakob Lindberg

Weill Recital Hall
Tuesday, October 20th, 2009 at 7:30 PM

Dame Emma Kirkby, Soprano
Jakob Lindberg, Lute

MOULINIE "Paisible et ténébreuse nuit"
GUÉDRON "Cessez, mortels, de soupirer"
BOËSSET "Que Philis a l'esprit léger"
R. BALLARD "Entrée de luth"
R. BALLARD Branles de village
DANYEL "Why canst thou not, as others do?"
DANYEL "Time, cruel time"
DANYEL "He whose desires are still abroad"
DOWLAND Prelude and Fantasia
DOWLAND "Away with these self-loving lads"
DOWLAND "Shall I strive with words to move?"
DOWLAND "Farewell unkind, farewell"
SCHIMMELPFENNIG Dolce tempo passato
SCHÜTZ "Eile mich, Gott, zu erretten"
HUWET Fantasia
D'INDIA "Amico, hai vinto"
PICCININI Passacaglia
H. LAWES "Or you or I Nature did wrong"
H. LAWES "Slide soft you silver floods"
W. LAWES "Why so pale and wan, fond lover?"
PURCELL Seven Short Pieces for Lute (arr. J. Lindberg)
·· Cebell
·· Echo dance of the Furies
·· Ritornell “The Grove”
·· A New Irish Measure
·· A New Ground
·· Hornpipe
·· A New Scottish Measure
PURCELL "She loves and she confesses too"
PURCELL "Music for a while"
PURCELL "Bess of Bedlam"

Encores:
DOWLAND "Shall I sue, shall I seek for grace?"
PURCELL "Now That the Sun Hath Veiled His Light" (An Evening Hymn on a Ground)

Program is approximately 1 hour, 45 minutes, including one intermission

This concert is made possible, in part, by The Barbro Osher Pro Suecia Foundation.

Program Notes:

THE PROGRAM

Orpheus with his lute made trees
And the mountain tops that freeze
Bow themselves when he did sing.

Shakespeare, Henry VIII

We begin our European tour of this repertory in France. “17-century [French] society everyone from the king downwards showed an interest in vocal music,” writes David Cox in The New Oxford History of Music. “The number of distinguished singers, male and female, was immense.” Pierre Guédron (c. 1570–1620) was one of the most esteemed composers of his time, “said to surpass all others in talent, fertility, and reputation” (Cox). His lute parts often achieved a significant degree of independence from the vocal writing, as can be heard in “Cessez, mortels, de soupirer.” Lutenist-composer Robert Ballard (c.1575–1645), Etienne Moulinié (c.1600–1669) and Jean-Baptiste Boësset (1614–1685), grandson of Guédron, followed in turn, each contributing to the rich repertory of airs de cour—refined, courtly songs most often about love, usually short and strophic in form.

Across the English Channel, John Dowland (1563–1626) was the dominant figure in the English lute song. The first important publication of songs with lute accompaniment was his First Booke of Songs or Ayres in 1597. This became immensely popular and went through at least four reprints. Two more Bookes appeared, in 1600 and 1603, followed by A Pilgrimes Solace in 1612, Dowland’s final work to appear in print. In all, 88 songs were published during his lifetime. Statistically, love was the main concern in these songs, followed by gentle philosophical musings and laments. It is customary to detect in the First Booke (from which “Away with these self-loving lads” is drawn) the energy and vitality of youth, in the Second the first intimations of mortality, in the Third (“Farewell unkind, farewell”) the mellowness of middle age, and in A Pilgrimes Solace the quiet reflections of old age (“Shall I strive with words to move?”).

Dowland, and other Elizabethan composers of lute songs as well, were highly adept at combining music and words, often inflecting phrases with great subtlety so that the music follows the natural stresses of the words. But Dowland was virtually in a class by himself. Renowned lutenist Anthony Rooley notes, “Dowland’s unsurpassed skill in taking the listener to a different, ravishing plane of awareness. There is a crystalline quality to his vocal line, such gifts of melodiousness supported by harmony of the sheerest beauty.”
It was particularly Dowland’s lute playing that brought him international fame and many of his solo pieces appeared in sources across continental Europe; from Sweden and Russia in the north to Italy in the south. Those fortunate enough to have heard him play were mesmerized by his performance, as the following quote illustrates: “[his] heavenly touch upon the lute doth ravish human sense” (R. Barnfield, 1598). On tonight’s program is one of his fantasias (DP 1a), which will be preceded by his only surviving prelude.

Another important composer of Dowland’s era was John Danyel (1564–c.1626), whose Songs for the Lute Viol and Voice was published in 1606 and contained mostly serious, polyphonic works. Of a later generation were the Lawes brothers, Henry (1595–1662) and William (1602–1645), both of whom were enormously popular. Henry’s output totaled some 450 songs. Milton wrote his eulogy.

The lute song was not as prolific in some other countries, but Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands all contributed to the repertory. In Germany we find the lutenist, singer, and composer Georg Schimmelpfennig (1582–1637), who spent his entire career in Kassel, and Henirich Schütz (1585–1672), the greatest German composer of the mid-17th century and one of the leading figures of the entire Baroque era. He had the longest life span of any composer on this program, 87 years, most of them spent as Kapellmeister to the Elector of Saxony in Dresden. Schimmelpfennig’s “Dolce tempo passato” is an earnest, highly expressive, and florid musing on the passage of time; Schütz’s “Eile mich, Gott, zu erretten” is more reserved in tone (its text comes from Psalm 70) but no less earnest in its urgent request for divine deliverance.

From Antwerp came the lutenist Gregory Huwet (1550–1617). He spent a good part of his career in Germany, where he met Dowland. Dowland’s son Robert included the Fantasia for lute alone in his 1610 publication Varietie of Lute Lessons. Also for solo lute is the Passacaglia by the Italian lutenist Alessandro Piccinini (1566–c.1638). Already at the age of 16, Duke Guglielmo Gonzaga wanted him at the court in Mantua, but the Piccinini family moved to Ferrara, where young Alessandro spent many years working for the Duke of Este, Alfonso II. Piccinini spent the latter part of his life in Bologna. The Passacaglia on this program comes from the Libro secondo, published in 1638.

Henry Purcell (1659–1695) was the last born of all the composers we hear tonight and the shortest-lived (36 years). For someone as important as Purcell, we know embarrassingly little about him. Not even the circumstances of his birth have been ascertained, and we know the year only from circumstantial evidence. Yet in his short lifetime (about the same as Mozart’s), he produced an astonishing quantity of music, much of it top-drawer. His short opera Dido and Aeneas is one of the few in the active repertory before Mozart. His songs are considered the best in the English language between Dowland (1563–1626) and the 20th century.

Purcell held a number of important positions: organ tuner at Westminster Abbey (at the age of 15), composer at Westminster Abbey, Organist in the Chapel Royal, and Organ Maker and Keeper of the King's Instruments. He served under four monarchs, including Charles II, James II, William III and Queen Mary. In his day, Purcell was renowned for his theater music, which he produced in prodigious quantity. Nearly 50 masques, plays, semi-operas and other entertainments included music by Purcell. The most outstanding of these were The Indian Queen The Fairy Queen, The Tempest, Dioclesian, and King Arthur. Tonight we hear an excerpt from Dryden’s and Lee’s play Oedipus (derived from Sophocles), for which Purcell wrote two songs for a revival in 1692. “Music for a while” comes from Act III, where the blind seer Tiresias uses music to conjure up Laius to reveal the reason for the curse on Thebes. The song employs Purcell’s favorite device, the ground bass, though he does not use it strictly throughout.

In the brevity of his life, the prodigality of his output and the felicity in his bonding of word and music, Purcell is often compared with Schubert. These words of the poet John Dryden, inscribed in the score of Dioclesian, well express Purcell’s feelings about song; they also serve as a thoughtful commentary on tonight’s performance: “Musick and Poetry have ever been acknowledg’d Sisters, which walking hand in hand, support each other … Both of them may excel apart, but sure they are most excellent when they are joyn'd, because nothing is then wanting to either of their Perfections: for thus they appear like Wit and Beauty in the same person.”


Of Special Note

Jakob Lindberg performs on a very rare original lute by Sixtus Rauwolf. Only four other lutes have survived by him, one of which is in New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. The instrument in tonight’s concert is from c.1590 and was originally a seven- or eight-course lute. Inside there is a repair label by Leonard Maussiel, dated Nuremburg 1715, and the present neck, which allows for ten or eleven courses, was probably made by him. Dendrochronology confirms that the soundboard is original and dates the wood to 1418–1560. This means that the pine tree from which it was made were growing (in high alpine altitude) between these years. It is thus probably the oldest lute in playing condition with its original soundboard.

Dame Emma Kirkby, Soprano
DAME EMMA KIRKBY

Originally, Dame Emma Kirkby had no expectations of becoming a professional singer. As a classics student at Oxford University and then a schoolteacher, she sang for pleasure in choirs and small groups, always feeling most at home in Renaissance and Baroque repertoire. She joined the Taverner Choir in 1971 and in 1973, began her long association with the Consort of Musicke. Ms. Kirkby took part in the early Decca Florilegium recordings with both the Consort and the Academy of Ancient Music at a time when most college-trained sopranos were not seeking a sound appropriate for early instruments. She therefore had to find her own approach, with enormous help from Jessica Cash in London, and from the directors, fellow singers, and instrumentalists with whom she has worked over the years.

Ms. Kirkby feels privileged to have been able to build long-term relationships with chamber groups and orchestras, in particular London Baroque, the Freiburger Barockorchester, L’Orfeo (Linz) Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Fretwork, Purcell Quartet, and younger groups Florilegium and the Armonico Consort.

She has made well over 100 recordings, from sequences of Hildegard of Bingen to Italian and English Renaissance madrgials; Baroque cantatas and oratorios; and works by Mozart, Haydn, and J. C. Bach. Recent recordings include Handel Opera Arias and Overtures - 2 for Hyperion, Bach wedding cantatas for Decca, Bach Cantatas 82a and 199 for Carus, J. C. Bach Motets with L’Orfeo for CPO, and Byrd Consort Songs with Fretwork for Harmonia Mundi USA.

Since 2000, Ms. Kirkby’s happiest collaboration has been with the Swedish record company BIS, for whom she has recorded Handel motets and cantatas, Christmas pieces and Couperin with London Baroque, lute songs with Anthony Rooley and Jakob Lindberg, songs by Amy Beach, and many more programs, mostly in the magical acoustics of Sweden’s Laenna Church. This year BIS issued a nine-CD compilation titled The Artistry of Emma Kirkby.

In 1999, Ms. Kirkby was voted Artist of the Year by Classic FM Radio listeners; the following year, she received the Order of the British Empire. 2007 saw her saw her appointment as a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empires and a position on BBC Music Magazine’s “The Greatest Sopranos” survey. In June 2008, she received an Honorary Doctorate of Music from Oxford.

Despite all her recording activity, Ms. Kirkby prefers live concerts and the pleasure of repeating with colleagues; every occasion, venue, and audience combine to create something new to be gained from the repertoire.

Jakob Lindberg, Lute
JAKOB LINDBERG

Jakob Lindberg was born in Djursholm, Sweden, and developed his first passionate interest in music through the Beatles. He started to play the guitar and soon became interested in the classical repertoire. From age 14 he studied with Jörgen Rörby, who also gave him his first instruction on the lute. After studying music at Stockholm University, he went to London to study at the Royal College of Music. Here he further developed his knowledge of the lute repertoire under the guidance of Diana Poulton and decided towards the end of his studies to concentrate on Renaissance and Baroque music.

Mr. Lindberg is now one of the most prolific performers in this field. He has made numerous recordings for BIS, many of which are pioneering in that they presented a wide range of music that had never been recorded on CD. He has brought Scottish lute music to public attention; demonstrated the beauty of the Italian repertoire for chitarrone; and recorded chamber music by Vivaldi, Haydn, and Boccherini on period instruments. He is the first lutenist to have recorded the complete solo lute music by John Dowland and his recording of Bach's music for solo lute is considered to be one of the most important readings of these works.

An active continuo player on the theorbo and arch lute, Mr. Lindberg has worked with many well known English ensembles, including The English Concert, Taverner Choir, the Purcell Quartet, Monteverdi Choir, Chiaroscuro, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, and the Academy of Ancient Music. He is also in demand as an accompanist, and has given recitals with Ann Sofie von Otter, Nigel Rogers, and Ian Partridge. He assisted Andrew Parrott in the musical direction of Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas at The Royal Swedish Opera at Drottningholm Court Theatre in 1995. He also directed from the chitarrone the much acclaimed performances of Jacopo Peri’s Euridice given there in 1997.

It is particularly through his live solo performances that he has become known as one of the finest lutenists in the world today; he has given recitals in many parts of Europe and in Japan, Mexico, Russia, Australia, Canada, Korea, China, and the US. Jakob Lindberg also teaches at the Royal College of Music in London, where he succeeded Diana Poulton as professor of lute in 1979.