Thursday, May 22, 2025

Telemann in Paris - Jochewed Schwarz, Gilat Rotkop and Ashley Solomon perform works of Telemann and French Baroque composers at Brigham Young University, Jerusalem

Jochewed Schwarz,Ashley Solomon,Gilat Rotkop (Yitzhak Hochmann)
 

 

"Telemann in Paris", a concert of Baroque music on period instruments, took place at the Jerusalem Center for Near Eastern Studies on May 18th, 2025. The program comprised a selection of Telemann's works alongside those of his French contemporaries. Performing them were Jochewed Schwarz - spinet, Gilat Rotkop - bassoon and Ashley Solomon (UK) - Baroque flute.


France was always present in the music of Georg Philipp Telemann and in his mind, with allusions and references to French music in many of his works. In 1737, Telemann travelled to Paris.  Living in the heart of the Marais quarter with the greatest harpsichord player of the time, Antoine Vater, he had the opportunity to meet the most prominent instrumentalists and composers of Paris, his new French friends including Guignon, Blavet, Forqueray, Mondonville, Naudot, Bodin de Boismortier, Campra and Clérambault. While in Paris, Telemann composed and received the royal privilege to publish at Ballard (publisher of Lully and Rameau's music), thus perpetuating his strong bond with the city.

 

The Jerusalem program opened with Michel Blavet's Sonata No.3, Op.2, “La Vibray”, for flute and basso continuo. A musician who had influenced Telemann, Blavet was one of the most outstanding flautists of his time. His compositional oeuvre consisted almost exclusively of music for his own instrument. Appearing in print in 1731, Blavet's Op.2 Sonatas attest to the Italian model. However, in order to remain in step with the French mindset, Blavet inserted "portraits" of sorts - pieces either bearing the name of an actual or fictitious person or a title evoking a quality. So, who is La Vibray? Probably a French aristocratic lady, I would imagine. Ashley Solomon's playing of the solo line highlighted the grace and agility of "La Vibray", its (her) elegance inviting suave ornamentation. Playing a Palanca flute made by Martin Wenner, Solomon continued with one of  Telemann's Fantasias for Solo Flute, a cycle published in 1727 that has had a great influence on the flautist and recorder player’s world. Telemann himself was a fine flautist, which explains his understanding of the capabilities of the instrument and his ability to write idiomatically for it. Solomon's playing of the A minor Fantasia, with its movements of differing tempi, moods and styles, unfolded as a bold, personal musical adventure, albeit in miniature. Another Telemann work on the program was the Methodical Sonata in E minor, TWV 41:e2. Having left behind the limitations of responsibility towards a single sovereign, Telemann was now catering to a more open musical public. The idea behind the Methodical Sonatas (1728) was to provide amateur musicians, of which Hamburg had a thriving community, with guidance on High Baroque ornamentation of differing stylistic conventions, mainly those of Italy and France. (Telemann provides these guidelines for each of the slow first movements.) Indeed, the sonatas themselves are considerably more attractive than their collective title might suggest. In the artists' finely-chiselled and delicately detailed performance of the E minor Sonata, Solomon's intuitive feeling for Telemann’s idiom is present throughout, as he and his fellow players express the work's playful ideas as well as its touching sense of melancholy, as in the third movement marked "Cunando" (cradling).

 

And to three works of François Couperin. "Les goûts- réunis" (The Tastes Reunited), incorporating elements of the Italian style, were composed for the entertainment of the aging Louis XIV. The artists' playing of Concert No.13 of the collection was effectively contrasted, exuberant and full of dignity and beauty, also characterised by a hint of the nostalgia heard in other Couperin works. Concert No.13 was bookended by Schwarz's refined playing of two  pieces for harpsichord. Couperin le Grand's 240 keyboard pieces provide a fascinating portrait of the composer's time, presenting musical vignettes of his friends and enemies, of important court personalities as well as of people outside of Couperin’s immediate circle. Schwarz's elegant Italian trapezoidal William Horn spinet (inspired by a spinet of the Italian building school of the 16th century) made a robust statement in the fine acoustic space of the auditorium. Written in the arpeggiated style brisé, her playing of the (enigmatic) piece titled "Les Barricades Mystérieuses" (The Mysterious Barricades) was haunting and compelling in its seamless scheme and shifting colour palette. Richly ornamented, "La Ménétou" describes French harpsichordist/composer Françoise-Charlotte de Senneterre Ménétou (1679-1745), who had been a student of François Couperin. Another keyboard solo on the program was the lavishly ornamented Chaconne in F by Gaspard Le Roux, the latter composer being one of the most enigmatic of the late 17th century. The piece is replete with courtly mannerisms but not overlaid with formality. How pleasurable it was to call in on Jochewed Schwarz "in her private music room".

 

After the death of King Louis XIV at the end of the Baroque era, the rising of the bourgeoisie opened up new opportunities for composers in Paris. Joseph Bodin de Boismortier met the demand for works with a vast amount of gallant, easily-playable chamber music, which he also published himself (a practice rare till then.) Playing on a copy of an Eichentopf bassoon (1750) by Olivier Cottet (Paris), Gilat Rotkop gave much lively support to the basso continuo roles throughout the evening. Now, in Boismortier's Trio Sonata in E minor Op.17 No.2, she and Solomon engaged in lively, precise and articulate dialogue, the three artists giving elegant expression to the intricate subtleties of the work's three pint-sized movements and to the composer's keen interest in the technical and tonal characteristics of all three instruments. For an encore, we heard the Largo cantabile from Antonio Vivaldi's Trio Sonata in A minor RV 86 for flute (treble recorder) bassoon and continuo in A minor RV86, indeed, a virtuoso movement for the bassoon!





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