Ensemble Musica Nova - "Versailles" - contemporary and Baroque music for period instruments performed at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art

Idit Shemer,Shira Legmann,Tal Arbel,Tali Goldberg (courtesy Musica Nova)

 

“Versailles” - Contemporary Music for Historic Instruments”, performed by Ensemble Musica Nova at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art on May 22nd 2021, was an uncommon musical event on these shores. Played on historic instruments, it was an encounter between early and contemporary music. Performing were Tali Goldberg-Baroque violin, Idit Shemer-Baroque transverse flute, Tal Arbel-viola da gamba and Musica Nova artistic committee member Shira Legmann-harpsichord. 

 

The program presented works of two contemporary composers alongside early works, all written for this typically Baroque ensemble combination. Linda Catlin Smith (b.1957) hails from New York, but studied in Canada and has lived in Toronto for over 25 years. Two of her works were performed at this concert: “Sleeping Lady” (2013), commissioned for the Teatru Manoel (Valletta, Malta), takes its inspiration from the sculpture of a reclining woman that is said to be thousands of years old. Catlin Smith writes:” For me, the harpsichord itself is like this sculpture, something that is old and a little bit forgotten in most contemporary music”.  Throughout the work, the music evokes a feeling of being anchored to a tonic note, its atmosphere suggesting times long gone. Shira Legmann’s performance of it was contemplative, carefully paced, the piece’s otherworldly, harmonically rich course ever returning to its dreamy point of departure. As to “Versailles” (1988), from which this concert takes its name, it was the shifting of the geometry, as seen when walking through the gardens of Versailles, that gave rise to this piece, performed by the quartet. In this ruminative work, one of lucid, fragile textures, ambiguity of harmony and narrative, however, bearing some tonal references, the artists performed with outstanding precision and teamwork as each new motif loomed, to be commented on briefly but resolutely by the flute (Idit Shemer). A plangent, beautifully shaped solo, begun by the violin (Tali Goldberg), was then taken up by the flute. 

 

Swiss composer and sound artist Jürg Frey (b.1953), best known as a member of the Wandelweiser experimental music group of composer/performers, takes a unique compositional approach, his musical language creating a sense of wide, quiet sound spaces. His works have an air of elementary understatement, delicacy and precision. The four artists at the Tel Aviv concert presented the world premiere of “Anonymous Melodies” (2021), the commission of the piece having been made possible by the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation. In keeping with Frey’s musical world, this is a quiet, sparse work. In playing that was highly focused, the artists gave articulate expression and transparency to its motifs, its atonal elements and tonal allusions, but also to the fragile and disturbing mood Frey sets before us, as he creates a kind of spatial balance. The players’ intense focus gave expression to the four-movement work’s precept via its quiet presence, its colours, sensations, shadows and duration lengths. 

 

A sprinkling of small representative Baroque works woven through the program created a sparkling reminder of the style originally tailored to these instruments and, no less, of the expertise of these four outstanding Israeli Baroque specialists. Tal Arbel performed the Prelude from Suite no.1 in D minor (1685) by Machy (also known as Le Sieur de Machy). Machy was a French viol player, composer and teacher, remembered principally for his “Pièces de Violle en Musique et en Tablature”, a major source of information on performance practices of his time. Creating interest with versatility, spontaneity, presenting noble passages and dramatic runs, also forays into the extremes of the instrument's registers, Arbel’s playing highlighted the qualities of the viol. Playing Jacques-Martin Hotteterre’s “L’autre jour ma Cloris (Ma Brunette) (c.1710), Idit Shemer took the listener into the world of the transverse Baroque flute and the contribution made by Hotteterre in his ground-breaking document on the manner in which preludes and practice studies could be improvised. Shemer’s playing is descriptive, fragile, indeed, amply ornamented, reflecting Hotteterre’s portrayal of a declaration of love to a coquettish young shepherdess:

“The other day my Cloris, 

For whom my heart sighs, 

With a sweet smile, 

Bent very low to ask me: 

My shepherd, my love, 

Will you love me always?...”

For the program's concluding work, the audience was transported to the court of Johann Wilhelm of Saxe-Eisenach, where Georg Philipp Telemann had held the post of Kapellmeister, providing music aimed at entertaining the connoisseur. The Adagio from Sonata No.2 TWV 43:F1 (1752) comes from the composer’s elegantly and idiomatically crafted pieces scored for flute, violin, viola da gamba and harpsichord. Suavely played, the small movement’s singing style and charming dialogue between flute and violin made for a closing item of pure delight.