Arcangelo Corelli was a real star at the age of 17 already.
Ravenna - Bologna - Rome, then, at the age of 37, he was the Master of Music at
the Cardinal Palace. He happened to have patrons of high rank and he had a nice
career; he was a genial program organiser - obviously, in the noble circles of
high society - as we might say today. Famous concert series were organised by
Accademia Arcadia as well as in the lounge of Cardinal Ottoboni where Corelli
introduced and performed the newest pieces on Mondays.
It is weird and
sorrowful that he moved out of the palace in the last years of his life and
kept grieving in spleenful reclusion. He was dead before he turned 60.
Many of his pieces survived. He was keen on violin concertos
and violin - orchestra, a few violins and an orchestra and concertino -
orchestra contrapositions in all variations. It is called concerto
grosso today and the first name coming to our mind at the mention of it is
Corelli.
The piece that nearly all of us know is Concerto Per La
Notte di Natale, the famous Christmas Concerto. It is an old chestnut, played
by each and every orchestra, it has been performed 5 million times, yet, just
like Vivaldi’s Four Seasons it casts off all kind of boredom or overplay or
here-it-comes-again feeling for it is so fine music. There is nothing to do; it
happens that a great hit is really excellent even if it is played trillions of
times.
The average level of performance groped for at random is
delightfully good; the odd case occurs when the oldish records include one that
can be recommended any time.
Also, there are a few phenomenal - Modo Antiquo is such.
It is the 2nd second already that suggests that something
mind-boggling is forthcoming. Then a bit of hiding, some kind of an innocent
slow movement. Listening to it we feel something odd for the few-second
blast-like start and the truth-falsity of the instruments tuned down to
allegedly 415 does not leave us in peace and our subconscious has produced all
kind of variants in anticipation even if it is not familiar to us for we listen
to it for the first time.
The doubt lasts for exactly one and a half minutes then the
real roulade gets started.
The violins are literally whining and there is a genuine
drama, stone-hard rhythm on the other side. And it lasts till the end. It is a
truly grandiose, overarching play. It is not artiness meant for effect or
string-ripping or over virtuoso but pure music touching something deep inside.
This depth is multilayer. It has a metaphysical deepness
peculiar to every fine Early Music record, however, a fine surplus - triumph -
is clearly heard in these days.
Saviour is born.
This performance is oncoming in the street, grabs the
buttons on our coat and shakes us slightly to make us feel the grandiosity of
the moment. You flick forth and back trying to decide whether the concertino or
the orchestra is more to your liking; you cannot decide for both are excellent.
It is sweeping and buoyant, gratifyingly getting rid of the clench of the
counterpoints.
I recommend listening to it two times right away on loud
volume. The rest of the day is guaranteed to be spent in a different mood.
The ensemble is Modo Antiquo led by Frederico Maria
Sardelli; looking at the picture some remote conception passes over us, yes, we
are right, he is a comedian-actor as well.
One more curiosity.
Naples again.
Corelli over 50 and well-known had a concert in Naples in
1708; he played the violin solos himself and the other super star, Scarlatti
was the conductor.
All went absolutely fine, they did it with their whole
heart.
The Viceroy of Naples stood up and left in the middle of the
performance with his company of a hundred...he said that the slow movements
were unbelievably boring...
Now let us see an older disc that was several times
recommended by many sources – including this blog. However, no full article was
published about it so far.
This disc simply opens a new era.
It starts something that is copied further by many
performers. It has thrown something into the water and the waves are still in
progress.
La Folia.
If you are good in English, you might immediately associate
to ‘folie’ or ‘folly’.
There were many odd happenings in the 15th century which were never published in the chronicles,
mostly due to the censorship of the Church. There were some melodies that
caused a strange and mysterious anxiety in the people and they were unable to
stop dancing after hearing it. Complete villages went crazy: they started to go
around dancing not even knowing where they are heading. They grouped into dirty
and wild hoards and started wondering around lead by a mysterious force. It
took a few weeks before they ended up as victims of burglars or illnesses.
Based on the quite inappropriate codices of the time, science describes this
phenomenon as ‘dance epidemic’ or ‘dance tantrum’ but there are only vogue
guesses about what could cause it. The explanation can be either mass psychosis
or a ‘proper’ epidemic spread by a specific germ similar to the plague – nobody
knows.
There is not enough information from that era, in which half of the
population could easily be erased by a deadly disease.
The Church chose the only possible solution: they forbade
playing those melodies by listing them among the infamous Forbidden Dances of
the time. Later the prohibition became less strict, the problematic era came to
an end and the issue gradually went into oblivion.
Most of these melodies are lost. Only two of them survived,
hidden in folk music: one of them is the Italian Tarantella and the other one
is the Iberian La Folia.
The Folia is considered to be of Portuguese origin but
nobody is really sure about it. It was first noted down at the end of the 15th
century. Then this melody has marched through music history in the form of
several transcripts and adaptations.
It was part of the curriculum of musical
studies during the baroque era and the number of possible variations is even
multiplied due to the fact that this melody is also an ostinato, a bass base.
At first it is very charming.
Why?
Because it is very
melodic, very harmonic, even to the point that it is a bit too harmonic, too
perfect. This is certainly an anchor at the area that we call the musical
collective unconscious. Humans have always been driven towards melody
throughout the centuries. However, there were composers, who disdained it
orcompletely left it out from their works. Or those, who were simply incapable
of creating it (J. S. Bach) [the translator of this article disagrees].
Nowadays
the intensive presence of low quality music devalues this important part of the
musical thinking, but the drive for melody is still present as a basic human
quality.
For the second though, Folia is not as innocent as we would
first think. This melody is highly invasive, i.e. it discretely but very
aggressively settles in the mind and sinks down into the unconscious. We
gradually lose control over it and its further actions are unpredictable.
At the later Folias in the good performances an interesting
divergence can be noticed: the slow parts are getting slower and eventually the
music stops, even a few seconds of pause can be inserted into this originally
fast music, while the fast parts on the contrary get faster and faster, so much
that they can escalate into complete madness.
Savall himself said that this dance was unstoppable as well
as playing this music. Even a bucket of cold water could not help ending such
outbreaks in the not so distant Portugal.
Indeed, when listening to this music from the disc the
endings are always a bit forcedas the musicians have to exit this madhouse
somehow.
The other question is why these seemingly innocent chords cause such a
chaos in the human psyche, but this could be the subject of a different,
scientific essay.
Savall has been obsessed with Folia from the beginning; he
made this melody popular in contemporary Early Music and published four famous
discs on this theme.
The first one is solely focusing on Folia. It starts at the
beginning and proceeds to late Baroque. The Zanetti viol is one of the instruments he is playing on this recording. The other one
is an original, six-string instrument from 1550; this one has a special,
slightly pale, flat, wooden tone, this is one of the most beautiful voice of
viola da gamba that we can find on recording. Savall is creating several
unbelievable series of sounds, but sometimes even a simple chord can touch us
very deeply. He is virtuoso, extremely precise, using decorations; he is
emotional but never pathetic. And beyond those there is a delicate, undefinable
element for which we have to say that this music is genius.
We insert the disc.
The first track.
The first sound.
The sound of a tambourine. And it is strange right from the
beginning, as the rhythm is very precise but it is not where we expect it. He
is keeping it between the base rhythm of 4/6 and 5/6. You can try to follow it…
but you might not make it for the first try.
This is an early Folia, its sung
version is known as Rodrigo Martinez. The music and the series of variations
provoked very serious explanations but the lyrics are very simple, we can even
say dull. More or less the song is about Rodrigo, who is a cool guy, about the
way he is steering the geese and later he thinks they are cows instead, hey…
The organ-player monk Martin y Coll got infected too, around
1700.
And at the end Corelli and Vivaldi, who also went crazy from
this melody.
In the first four tracks next to Savall the continuo is
played by Behringer (keyboard), Lislevand (lute), Pedro Estevan (percussion).
Such a magical harmony is very rare. The late folias are mostly performed by
Manfredo Kraemer and what he does on the violin is being copied by many even
now.
The sound quality is extremly good. The original version
from 1999 by Alia Vox is among the first editions; it was republished at least
three times already, now available on SACD.
On HighEnd sets this has a very
hypnotic effect.
The mantra-like repetition of a Renaissance ostinato can
evoke very interesting impressions. Funnily enough, it can easily be connected
to the contemporary technique ofloop
used in pop-music. While the latter can sometimes prove to bea piece of rubbish,
sometimes it can be something very delicate. We shouldn’t underestimate this
effect; the story is never so simple.
This disc is a very good example of something that many
people still don’t understand. They ask: So is this music about a few chords
that are being repeated for several minutes? Is that all? There is no
counterpoint; the fugue technique, which could be on an artistic level here, is
not even represented. So it is like a renaissance dance, one step to the right,
another one to the left, not very special but the dresses are nice, at least.
This approach was so destructive that we had to wait until
these days to finally hear those renaissance pieces and folias played by such
musicians who think in a different way then above. Finally they create
something similar to this recording. And therefore we can start to think
differently about these pieces as well.
But how can we?
We might think that indeed, these pieces are extremely
melodic.
Or that they are intellectually exciting.
That they are disturbing.
That Heisenberg was right, the weight is and has always been
in the progress of definition.
As there are not even two chords on this disc
that sound the same.
Because it moves us from the inside.
Because we completely and deeply understand Odysseus, who is
already at home, well rested, with a freshly cut beard walking on the market,
rummaging around tomato and date, looking at beautiful women and is always
thinking about the music he heard far away on the sea, while he was tied to the
mast…
We start to understand that unity is in the center of
things; therefore it is on the surface. This surface is the form. What is on
the surface of things is what is the most profound in them.
While listening to the several delicately different
variations we start to understand that the nature of the world can be described
by differences, not by opposites. All similar entities differ and all
differences are similar to one another, but in a way that similarities never
fully overlap each other and the differences never become absolute opposites.
We have the chance to learn to hear differences in music,
we, who are mainly thinking in counterpoints and bipolar opposites.
.
.
.
But what about you?
If you are a fan of the great IXth ?
No problem.
It is a great entrance for Early Music.
Absolutely recommended.
Otherwise, just take a guitar, any kind of guitar, it is
worth the effort. Am – E – Am – G – C – G – Am – E and so on. Just make sure
you will be able to stop at a certain point…
