It's sometimes crossed my mind that if we took even half the energy and resources that went on researching offbeat baroque repertoire and "authentic" presentation and put it into new music instead, some rather exciting, up-to-the-minute music-making might result. And at last, here comes something that mingles the two: Baroque on the Edge, which takes place at LSO St Luke's in early January, under the direction of Lindsay Kemp and Lucy Bending. Lindsay, formerly artistic director of the Lufthansa Festival of Baroque Music and the London Festival of Baroque Music, has written a thought-provoking guest post for us about what they're attempting, and how, and why. Enjoy! JD
THE NEW SHOCK OF THE OLD
Lindsay Kemp wonders if there has to be
only one way to programme baroque music
THE NEW SHOCK OF THE OLD
Lindsay Kemp wonders if there has to be
only one way to programme baroque music
Is baroque music about composers or performers? Is what counts the notes as written down or what an inspired musician can make of them? And is it about context – by which I mean historical context – or about 200-300-year-old music serving as raw material for anyone to play with and make contemporary, as if it were a folk song or a jazz standard?
Well of course there are no rules in this
matter, though you could be forgiven for thinking so from the way some people
talk. But while all of the above are certainly valid, I think it’s fair to say
that most festivals that set out to devote themselves to baroque music tend to start
out from the composers/written notes/historical point of view. I know that’s
true of the ones I’ve been involved in over the years, principally the
Lufthansa Festival of Baroque Music and its successor the London Festival of
Baroque Music, in which for ten years I had enormous fun building around themes
which, however widely they might have ranged and however virtuosic and/or
imaginative the musicians I found to realise them, emerged in the first
instance from a historical understanding of the music they contained.
Joanna MacGregor Photo: baroqueattheedge.co.uk |
If it sounds like a dismissal of everything
the early music movement stands for, it certainly isn’t intended to be. I’ve
been a ‘believer’ in it ever since my teens, and my own experience of the kind
of performer who tends to be drawn to it has taught me that there are plenty of
them with the open minds, requisite skills in improvisation and flair for
intimate communication with an audience that make them natural and free
interpreters of baroque music. I’ve invited some of them to the inaugural Baroque
at the Edge: Paolo Pandolfo, the gamba genius who can compel you to silence with
a piece of Marais but also deliver an entire programme of gripping improvisations
that effortlessly blend the baroque with the whatever else comes into his head,
be it jazz or The Beatles; Thomas Dunford, who plays Dowland with heart-melting
beauty while also merging minds and styles with Persian percussion-master
Keyvan Chemirani; and violinist Bjarte Eike, who can play a Biber Sonata with the
best of them and yet channel his upbringing in rural Norway into folk-fiddling mixes
and atmospheric contemporary creations in the company of jazz pianist and
composer Jon Balke.
'Breaking the Rules', Gerald Kyd (centre) as Gersualdo with the Marian Consort Photo: Robin Mitchell for the Lammermuir Festival |
In addition, however, I wanted to find a
context for baroque masterpieces among the music of our own time, which is why
the festival opens with a recital by one of the most adventurous of all today’s
pianists, Joanna MacGregor, who will set pieces by Rameau, Daquin, Couperin, Pachelbel,
Byrd and Purcell among works by Messiaen, Birtwistle, Gubaidulina and Glass.
Another concert will see young recorder virtuoso Tabea Debus and lute-player
Alex MacCartney putting music by Telemann alongside companion pieces specially
commissioned from Colin Matthews, Laura Bowler and
Fumiko Miyachi. And finally, the festival seemed a perfect setting for the
London premiere of Clare Norburn’s highly acclaimed concert-drama Breaking the Rules, which visits Carlo
Gesualdo (played by actor Gerald Kyd) on the last dark night of his life, with
music from The Marian Consort ramping up the tension.
I think Baroque at the Edge may well be
the first festival to set out specifically to explore this approach, and my hope
is that it will appeal to people who know their baroque music and admire many
of these artists already, as well as attract a new audience of curious-minded
listeners for whom genres and conventions are less important than the way the
music actually sounds, and how it can feed the act of musical creation in front
of their eyes. That’s got to be worth a go hasn’t it?
‘Baroque at the Edge’ runs from 5-7
January 2018 at LSO St Luke’s in London.