A SPECIAL WEEKEND FOR LOVERS OF EARLY MUSIC
Period instruments used as festival plumbs sounds from Tudor England to 18th century
The Edmonton Early Music Festival, which runs from Friday through Sunday at the downtown First Presbyterian Church, has not only been an entertaining weekend in its own right, but it has also — along with its organizer, Early Music Alberta — been successful in encouraging local musicians to take up early music on original instruments.
When the festival started in 2011, such musicians were few and far between, but now there are a number of amateur early-music groups. So this year the festival comes full circle by bringing together some of those groups that it had original encouraged, in one of the centrepiece concerts of the festival at 3 p.m. Saturday.
The Divertimento Chamber ensemble play Vivaldi, Marcello and Telemann, while the second half is given to the La Folia baroque string ensemble. It features Bach’s Violin Concerto BWV 1041 in A minor, with a keen amateur violinist, Lois Harder, as soloist. She is the chairperson of the department of political science at the University of Alberta.
“It’s magic!” says Harder, who explains that she joined Early Music Alberta’s director Josephine van Lier’s baroque group about five years ago. “I had played all my life, but this meant purchasing a baroque instrument and learning how to play with gut strings. It’s really been incredibly engaging, a supplement to my academic pursuits.”
The concert also includes a rare instrument, the archlute, a kind of oversized Baroque lute. It will be played by Renée Pérez Rodríguez, in an arrangement of a Vivaldi trio, with Stephanie Wong on the harpsichord.
“We wanted to create context for these amateur groups,” says van Lier. “It’s great that they are all doing it — from very advanced to musicians, to super enthusiastic players. This concert will show off what happens in the community.”
The festival opens with English music from the period of the Tudor monarchs, Henry VIII and Elizabeth I on Friday. This was a time of a wonderful flowering of English music, especially vocal music, and the a cappella concert is being given by Edmonton’s only professional choir specializing in early music. Under its director, John Brough, the 16 singers will be performing music by the most celebrated of the 16th century English composers, including Byrd, Orlando Gibbons and Tallis.
At 8 p.m. Saturday there will be a concert by hand-picked Alberta early-music specialists from Banff to Edmonton — with one exception. The period bass player Joëlle Morton is not only known across North America for her playing but also curates the Hart House collection of antique viols at the University of Toronto.
The program consists of that popular Baroque form, the concerto grosso, a multi-movement orchestral work in which a number of instruments act variously as soloists.
The master of the form was the 17th century Italian composer Arcangelo Corelli, whose music forms the bulk of the concert, but it also includes works by a less-familiar 18th century Italian composer, Francesco Saverio Geminiani. He spent much of his life in London and is best known for his concerti grossi and for his treatise, The Art of Playing the Violin, invaluable for understanding late-Baroque violin technique.
The final concert — at 8 p.m. on Sunday — will have another overall sound that is less often heard, even by early music specialists.
Consorts of viols, that family of early string instruments, have become a staple of the early music scene, but they usually consist of treble, tenor and bass. The so-called ‘low consort’ — with two tenors, two basses, and a violone, a bass instrument that
was the forerunner of the double bass — is much more rarely encountered.
Van Lier has reassembled a consort of international players for this concert, from the United States, Switzerland, and Canada, to recreate a concert that they gave in Toronto in 2015. All the music they will be playing are arrangements of Bach works, including two of the Brandenburg Concertos (No. 6 and No. 7), and two of Bach’s organ works.
“It’s a really different and exciting sound — a lush sound,” said van Lier.
The three evening concerts are preceded at 7 p.m. by talks about the music and its historical context. This educational aspect has always been part of the festival, and this year it continues its tradition of learning and participation opportunities.
The Renaissance reading session, in which Edmontonians of any playing level can come and join in playing early music, takes place at 9:30 a.m. on Saturday under the leadership of Bill Damur.
“I know people often feel a little shy,” said van Lier. “But they should come and play with other people in the same situation. And it’s free!”
Cath Jackel and Borealis Renaissance Consort lead an early music and dance session at 12:30 p.m. on Saturday afternoon, a free workshop where you can learn how to do period dances from the pavane to the bransle. No previous experience is required, but, say the organizers, “comfortable shoes are a must!”
Finally, there are master classes for musicians on Sunday afternoon, led by the Australian viola da gamba player, Elizabeth Rumsey, who now lives in Switzerland, and who will be playing in Sunday evening’s concert.