New York Early Music Celebration

The Old Becomes New

Jack Sullivan

During a fascinating week and a half in October, I church-hopped on New York’s upper west side to hear four concerts in the sixth New York Early Music Foundation Celebration. The theme this year was “The Low Countries— Flanders and Holland” with music of Flemish and Dutch origin. The music ranged from simple mesmerizing chant to complex polyphony; each concert was utterly unlike the others, and each church offered a special atmosphere. Many of the concerts in this superbly organized series supplied detailed program notes by early music scholars and musicians.

The most delicate music was performed by Barthold Kuijken, Immanuel Davis, and their guests, harpsichordist Donald Livingston and gambist Arnie Tanimoto. The program called “The Royal Flutes: Music from the Court of Louis XIV” unveiled some of the earliest music for flute and flute duo in the repertory, including sonatas, suites, and short pieces by Couperin, Marais, Lully, Philidor, and others. The pre-concert remarks were a bit pedantic and difficult to hear, but the music was charming, ranging from the abstract lines of unaccompanied flutes to complex chaconnes. The players gave the gigues and minuets a nice swing, and the long sinuous melodies in the sarabandes and other slow sections were exquisite. “Unhappy love” was the theme announced from the floor, but I doubt if the music’s suave melancholy—something the French do so well—made anyone unhappy for very long.

A more startling and dramatic experience was offered by Geert D’hollander’s Carillon recital at the Riverside Church, where D’Hollander played the huge Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial Carillon, which has 74 bells, including one weighing 20 tons. From his cabin high up in this imposing neo-Gothic cathedral, D’Hollander rained down chimings in pieces by Willem de Fesch, Josse Boutmy, Ioannes de Gruijtters, M Vanden Gheyn, and others—repertory we don’t hear every day. A giant video screen in front of the altar showed his athletic performance. (I was told by management that his hands were bloody by the end.) The music was from the 1700s; but the many overtones, layers, and sonic clouds had a surreal effect, almost like Ives or Berio. I went outside the cathedral to hear the music on the street, and it was even more novel: blending with a blustery wind, the music sounded like a mysterious force of nature. Whether outdoors or in the church, one had to somehow listen with more than two ears to hear the beautifully articulated contrapuntal music inside the massive sound masses and bells.

A varied range of sensibilities was offered in a program called “Via Amsterdam”, performed by the New York ensemble, The Sebastians. This was a concert about musical immigration: Amsterdam was a major capital for books and music, with hundreds of compositions published over an 80-year spread. “Lots of it was stolen” said keyboardist-conductor Jeffrey Grossman in his mischievous and informative remarks before each piece. Copyright was not a reality in those days (in the digital age it seems to be disappearing once again). Much of the plunder came from Italy, and this program presented unfamiliar Italian music. It opened with the silken elegance of Corelli’s Trio Sonata in B-flat, then ventured into wilder terrain. Grossman played Vivaldi’s Concerto in F, but in a harpsichord transcription by Bach full of fun and invention, with lots of extra counterpoint.

One of the more obscure composers was Giovanni Mossi, whose Violin Sonata in D minor had a touch of the fantastic, especially in the otherworldly slow sections. Violinist Nicholas di Eugenio played with rapturous poetry in these passages, and really let himself go in the fast music. Nonetheless, the most virtuosic music of the evening was Locatelli’s Violin Sonata in D, full of double stops, thirds, and high-wire antics—dizzying effects 100 years ahead of their time. According to Grossman, this marked the invention of 19th Century violin virtuosity. He also raised the old “question of substance” about Locatelli and said, “I’ll let you decide.” For me, the decision was easy: the virtuosity is the substance, and there is enough of it to keep one riveted, at least through a short work. Daniel S Lee played this one with sizzling, daredevil authority.

Grossman admitted that The Sebastions were “cheating a little” with the inclusion of Lully’s Suite from Les Fetes de l’Amour et de Bacchus in an Italian program, but they felt justified because Lully was actually born in Italy. Opera transcriptions were popular in Amsterdam, but the audience wasn’t told anything about the plots, so the music had to speak for itself. This rarity opened with a sensual overture (a rejoinder to the notion that early music is not sexy) and delivered several robust dances.

The concert ended with something more familiar, Vivaldi’s Folia, played with so much dynamic contrast and so many eccentric angular gestures that it sounded new. Cellist Ezra Seltzer was freed up from continuo assignments in other pieces to show off his scampering virtuosity; the violins had moments of quiet playing so spectral that they sounded like they were backstage. Everything came through clearly in the acoustic of the small First Church of Christ, Scientist, an austere but music-friendly space.

The earliest music I heard in the festival was in Corpus Christi Church by the Cappella Pratensis from Holland, which champions the polyphony of the 15th and 16th centuries. Led by Stratton Bull, the eight men in the group bunched together and sang from a large choir book on a central music stand—the practice of the time, creating a powerful sense of intimacy enhanced by the clear, concentrated acoustic. It was as if they were one entity. The program captured a moment in time when music was at a crossroads—the spare harmonies of the early Renaissance before the more intricate layering of Tallis and Palestrina.

The title of the program, “Triptych: The Musical World of Hieronymus Bosch”, is deceptive: this was not the lascivious or demonic music depicted by Bosch in “Ship of Fools” or “The Garden of Earthly Delights”, but the austere jubilation of Pierre de la Rue and his contemporaries, along with the prescribed chant for Mass celebrated weekly by the Marian Brotherhood, which Bosch belonged to.
From the simplest modal chant to the most complicated canons, the concert conveyed a remarkable timelessness and unity. The event was well attended, but the people were so quiet they seemed to disappear. When I left the church I didn’t quite know where I was—a feeling intensified by the way Corpus Christi, with its small facade, is tucked away into a narrow street, like a secret gateway to another world. It was a world I was happy to be in.

January/February 2018 The American Record Guide