TRULY MADLY BAROQUE

Principle Tour Partner

“For sheer technical wizardry, charismatic showmanship and expressive devilment, Red Priest is in an exhilarating class of its own.” – BBC Music Magazine

Please respect the music, the musicians, and your fellow audience members, by switching off all cellphones, pagers and watches. Taking photographs, or sound or video recordings during the concert is strictly prohibited unless with the prior approval of Chamber Music New Zealand.

Kia ora tātou I am delighted to welcome you to the first concert of the CMNZ 2019 Concert Season. Here at CMNZ it is always exciting to see the intensive planning which goes into curating a season come into life as a concert experience. We look forward to sharing that experience with you. We were thrilled when Red Priest accepted our invitation to open the 2019 Season. These extraordinary musicians showcase the extravagance of the Baroque era performing with their wonderful charisma and irreverent humour. As they travel the country, Red Priest will also be giving a family concert in Napier and education performances in Wellington and Dunedin. With a renewed interest in recorder playing across schools in Aotearoa, this is a very special opportunity for young people and families to see and hear the virtuosity of recorder player Piers Adams alongside his superb fellow musicians on violin, cello and harpsichord. Through this encounter, our musicians and audiences of tomorrow can find out just how much fun making music in a chamber group can be! Right across 2019 we will be presenting engaging and diverse music that both respects the long heritage of the genre and, like Red Priest this evening, expands the meaning of chamber music. I hope you enjoy this concert and I look forward to seeing you at the next. Ngā mihi nui,

Catherine GibsonChief Executive Chamber Music New Zealand

“Red Priest is like no other early music instrumental ensemble you have ever heard… transforming Baroque clichés into vivid drama, often at terrific speed and with practised coordination” – Daily Telegraph

ANTONIO VIVALDI (1678-1741) Concerto in A minor (orig. B minor) RV580 Allegro – Largo – Larghetto – Allegro

JOHANN PACHELBEL (1653-1706) Canon and Gigue in D major

PIETRO LOCATELLI (1693-1764) Labyrinth

TOMASO ALBINONI (1671-1751) Concerto in D minor op 9 No 2 Allegro e non presto – Adagio – Allegro

JACOB VAN EYCK (1590-1657) The English Nightingale

JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH (1685-1750) Adagio from Sonata in G minor BWV 1029

GEORG FREDERICK HANDEL (1685-1759) Passacaglia in G minor

~Interval~

JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH (1685-1750) Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 in D major (BWV 1050) Allegro – Affettuoso – Allegro

JOSEPH-NICOLAS-PANCRACE ROYER (1705 –1755) L’Amiable

HENRY ECCLES (1670-1742) Adagio and Presto in G minor

GASPAR SANZ (1640-1710) Canarios

GIUSEPPE TARTINI (1692-1770) “The Devil’s Trill” Sonata Largo – Allegro – Andante/Allegro/Adagio

Truly Madly Baroque Auckland, Napier, Palmerston North, Christchurch & Dunedin

DURATION: (First half 39 mins, second half 38 mins) *The Artists reserve the right to make changes to the programme.

The Auckland concert will be recorded for live broadcast by RNZ Concert

Red Priest

Red Priest is the only early music group in the world to have been compared to the Rolling Stones, Jackson Pollock, the Marx Brothers, Spike Jones and Cirque du Soleil.This extraordinary acoustic foursome has been described by music critics as “visionary and heretical,” “outrageous yet compulsive,” “wholly irreverent and highly enlightened,” “completely wild and deeply imaginative,” with a “red-hot wicked sense of humour” and a “break-all-rules, rock-chamber concert approach to early music.”

Founded in 1997, and named after the red-headed priest, Antonio Vivaldi, Red Priest has given over 1000 sell-out concerts in many of the world’s most prestigious festivals, including the Hong Kong Arts Festival, Moscow December Nights Festival, Schwetzingen Festival, Prague Spring Festival, Ravinia Festival, Bermuda Festival, and in most European countries, Japan, Australia, and throughout North and Central America.

The group has been the subject of hour-long TV profiles for NHK (Japan) and ITV (UK) - the latter for the prestigious South Bank Show in 2005.

In 2008 Red Priest launched its own record label, which is now the home for all of the recordings of the ensemble and its members, and has attracted much attention in the music press worldwide. Gramophone said of the group’s ‘Handel in the Wind’ CD “Quite brilliant… some of the most extraordinary instrumental playing you’re likely to hear”, whilst their iconic recording of Vivaldi’s ‘Four Seasons’ was hailed in the same publication as one of the four all-time best recordings of the work. Other releases have included a swashbuckling collection entitled ‘Pirates of the Baroque’, the group’s all-Bach blockbuster, ‘Johann, I’m Only Dancing’ and ‘The Baroque Bohemians’, which surprised the major labels by reaching No.1 in the UK Specialist Classical Chart in October 2017.

UKPiers Adams RecordersAdam Summerhayes ViolinAngela East CelloDavid Wright Harpsichord

Piers Adams has been heralded in the Washington Post as “the reigning recorder virtuoso in the world today”. He has performed in premiere concert halls throughout

the world, including London’s Royal Festival, Wigmore and Queen Elizabeth Halls, and as concerto soloist with orchestras such as the Philharmonia, the Academy of Ancient Music, the Singapore Symphony, the Chamber Orchestra of Hong Kong and the BBC Symphony and Concert orchestras. Piers has made several solo CDs reflecting an eclectic taste, ranging from his award-winning Vivaldi début disc to David Bedford’s Recorder Concerto – one of many major works written for and premiered by him.

Current projects include ‘Wild Men of the Baroque’ with Red Priest harpsichordist David Wright; an eclectic mix of classical, world, jazz and folk music with pianist Howard Beach entitled ‘Flight of the Eagle’, regular festival gigs with Adam Summerhayes’ Dodo Street Band, and an innovative baroque chill-out recording with synth artist Larry Lush, entitled ‘Baroque Dream’.

Adam Summerhayes learnt first from his grandfather who studied the violin with Joachim’s last pupil, and with Adolf Brodsky, the violinist who premiered the Tchaikovsky concerto.

Adam then learnt from the great Yfrah Neaman.

He was introduced to the Baroque violin by Roy Goodman in the 1980s, initiated into period instrument performance by Paul McCreesh and studied with Micaela Comberti. He has been highly acclaimed as a chamber musician, particularly for his recordings of previously unknown repertoire, including works by Aaron Copland. He has also given many concerto performances in Europe, Russia and the USA. Adam has recorded over 20 CDs for Harmonia Mundi, Chandos, ASV, Meridian and others. A disc of his gypsy fiddle playing was described as “heady stuff … thrilling virtuoso playing” (Gramophone).

This led to a cameo appearance in Guy Ritchie’s blockbuster movie ‘Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows’ in which a performance of one of his own tracks is also featured. In addition to his work with Red Priest, Adam runs his own orchestra, and is founder and director of the Dodo Street Band, described as the last word in Celtic Gypsy Klezmer.

The Musicians

Angela East is widely respected as one of the most brilliant and dynamic performers in the period instrument world, praised in The Times, London, for the “elemental power” of her

cello playing. She has given numerous concerto performances in London’s Queen Elizabeth and Wigmore Halls, and has performed as soloist and continuo cellist with many of Europe’s leading baroque orchestras, as well as with her own ensemble, the Revolutionary Drawing Room.

Among her impressive list of concert credits are La Scala, Milan, Sydney Opera House, Versailles and Glyndebourne. Her disc of Bach’s Cello Suites was released on Red Priest Recordings, together with a recital disc of popular baroque cello sonatas.

Angela is very active as an educator, running workshops and training courses at home and abroad for the Suzuki Institute, as well as running her own Alexander Technique practice from her London home.

David Wright was an almost entirely self-taught musician before gaining a scholarship to the Royal College of Music, where he won several prizes, including the International Broadwood

Competition, and graduated with distinction. Since then he has worked with some of the world’s leading musicians including Emma Kirkby, James Bowman and Steven Varcoe, and as a soloist with many groups of international renown.

He has directed numerous concerts from the harpsichord, including the first modern performance of Arne’s ‘The Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green’, and is guest conductor to several European orchestras.

Much of David’s time in recent years has been devoted to performing Bach’s Goldberg Variations, which he recorded in 2007 and has since toured extensively, and performed on TV and radio.

He joined Red Priest in 2011, taking over from his predecessor in a Dr. Who style regeneration event in Brighton Early Music Festival in 2010. Since that moment his life has slowly but surely started to unravel.

The word ‘baroque’ means many different things: irregular, strange, bizarre, florid, over-the-top, extravagant… words that sum up one of the most extraordinary periods in the history of music. This was a time when musical rules were cast out of the window in favour of constant change and invention, leading one well known theorist at the time to state “rules are what I like, and when I like it!” It is in this spirit that we try to reach to the true, and occasionally mad, heart of the baroque…

Antonio Vivaldi, the original Red Priest of Venice, was certainly a man who liked to live – and perform – on the edge. He was often criticised for the dizzying speed of his violin playing, as well as his hot-headed dealings with his musical employers and promoters, ultimately resulting in his demise in a paupers’ grave; but the quality of his music has never been in doubt. The Concerto in B minor—originally written for four solo violins (and subsequently arranged by J.S. Bach for four harpsichords) – typifies the composer’s infectious energy and invention.

When Johann Pachelbel composed his Canon – possibly for the wedding of J.C. Bach in 1694, although its exact origins remain unknown – he can hardly have imagined what a monster he had released on the world! For the past half century this exquisite composition has become so overused – as relaxation music, background music, music for weddings and funerals, and as the harmonic basis to many pop songs (and, of course, as a concert piece so popular that promoters refer to it as the ‘Pack’em-in’ Canon) – that the genius of the original composition has been all but forgotten. The jaunty little

Truly Madly Baroque

Gigue which follows is less often heard, but equally appealing and well crafted.

Another baroque movement which has transcended its context and become a popular concert piece in its own right is the Capriccio from Pietro Locatelli’s ‘Labyrinth’ Violin Concerto in D – an extraordinary feat of violin pyrotechnics, and the natural precursor to Paganini’s Caprices.

The composer wrote the following inscription beneath the Capriccio: “Laberinto armonico: ‘Facilis aditus; difficilis exitus.” This can be translated to mean, “Harmonic Labyrinth: Easy to enter; difficult to escape!”

If Vivaldi was the acknowledged king of the baroque concerto his Venetian compatriot Tomasso Albinoni would certainly have been a close contender to that throne. His Oboe Concerto in D minor – one of many he wrote for that instrument – is a small masterpiece, with a gloriously mesmeric slow movement which should be known as the real Albinoni Adagio (as opposed to the spurious work by Giazotto which bears his name).

Chief amongst its many applications in the world of baroque tone painting – from love to death to the supernatural – is the recorder’s natural affinity with the sound of birdsong. Not only did composers frequently use the instrument to this effect in operatic works, but the recorder was even used to teach songbirds to sing! The English Nightingale variations by the Dutch recorder player Jacob Van Eyck remains a classic in the instrument’s repertoire.The music of Johann Sebastian Bach needs little introduction, although it is worth noting that his reputation as the greatest of all baroque

composers is a relatively recent one, and in his day he was never held in such high esteem. More than with any other composer of his era, his music seems to transcend its cultural heritage and work in virtually any context.

The tear-jerking Adagio from the Viola da Gamba Sonata in G minor was made famous through its inclusion in the 1990 movie ‘Truly, Madly, Deeply’ – hence its place in this programme – whilst the fifth Brandenburg Concerto remains an epic masterpiece and possibly the all-time greatest showpiece for the harpsichord! Similarly no programme of baroque ‘greats’ would be complete without music by Georg Frederick Handel, here represented with our transcription of the famous Passacaglia, the conclusion to his Harpsichord Suite in G minor.

The short works by Pancrace Royer, Henry Eccles and Gaspar Sanz give us a glimpse into the sound worlds of baroque France, England and Spain. Royer is best known for his virtuosic compositions for the harpsichord, although the gentle little work presented here has the timeless eloquence of French café music; Eccles’ music (like that of many composers working in England at the time) combines French and Italian influences, but in a quintessentially English mix; and Sanz’s Canarios is a guitarist’s favourite, possibly one of the most hummable tunes of his day!

And so to our final piece, Giuseppe Tartini’s famous “Devil’s Trill Sonata”. The composer claimed that the work came to him in a dream, in which he was visited by the devil, who picked up his violin and began to play

the most extraordinary music on it… upon waking Tartini hurriedly scribbled down what he could remember, and out of that came this sonata, which he acknowledged as his

finest work – “but one which falls so far short of the piece which that stunned me that night that I would happily have smashed my violin and given up music forever if I could but possess it!” Although arguably devoid of actual demonic inspiration, we hope that our arrangement of this work contains a little of the true, mad spirit of the baroque! Adam Summerhayes, 2018

“Astonishing, all-out virtuosity” – The New York Times, March 2018

Founders' Circle MembersAnonymousGraeme EdwardsArnold and Reka SolomonsThe Estate of Jenni CaldwellThe Estate of Aileen ClaridgeThe Estate of Walter FreitagThe Estate of Chisne GunnThe Estate of Warwick Gordon HarrisThe Estate of Joan KerrThe Estate of Monica Taylor Ensemble ($10,000+)Anonymous Robin & Sue HarveyKaye & Maurice ClarkGill and Peter DavenportPeter and Carolyn DiesslProfessor Jack Richards

Octet ($5,000+)M Hirschfeld Children's TrustHylton LeGrice and Angela LindsayThe Lyons Family - in memory of Ian Lyons Murray ShawKerrin and Noel VautierLloyd Williams and Cally McWha

Quintet ($2,500+)Joy ClarkJohn and Trish GribbenAnn HardenJane KominikCollin PostArnold and Reka SolomonsPeter and Kathryn Walls Quartet ($1,000+)Anonymous (2)Donald and Susan BestRoger and Joanna BoothPhilip and Rosalind BurdonMD and MA CarrRick and Lorraine ChristieRoger ChristmasThe Cranfylde Charitable Trust Graeme and Di EdwardsPeter and Rae FehlFinchley TrustDame Jennifer GibbsPatricia GillionDavid and Heather HuttonLinda MacFarlaneElizabeth McLeay

Roger and Jenny MountfortBarbara PeddieRoger ReynoldsMartin and Catherine Spencer Basil & Jenny StantonAlison ThomsonAnn TrotterJudith TrotterAnna WilsonBruce Wilson and Jill WhiteAnn WylieDavid Zwartz

Trio ($500+)Anonymous (6)Diane BaguleyPhilippa BatesHarry and Anne BonningJD CullingtonJonathan CweorthHanno FairburnTom and Kay FarrarJohn FarrellAnne French Consulting LtdBelinda GalbraithC & P GibsonLaurie Greig Gary and Helena HawkeDouglas and Barbara HolborowE Prof Les HolborowMichael Houstoun and Mike NicolaidiCaroline ListFiona Macmillan and Briony MacmillanMargaret MalaghanRaymond and Helen MatiasAE McAloon Fiona McAlpineAndrew and Mary McEwen Heather Miller Margaret NielsenPrue Olde Robert and Helen PhilpottMiles RogersSylvia RosevearPeter and Juliet RoweJohn and Kathryn SinclairRoss Steele Mary SmitPriscilla TobinDavid TrippPatricia UngerRichard and Elaine WestlakeTim Wilkinson

Thank You!To all of our generous donors who support CMNZ throughout the year

Touring NZ 23 April – 1 Maychambermusic.co.nz/septura

Touring NZ 28 March – 16 Aprilchambermusic.co.nz/julien-james

REGIONAL CONCERTS

JULIEN VAN MELLAERTS & JAMES BAILLIEUMotueka 28 March Cromwell 2 April Wanaka 3 April

Christchurch 4 AprilWarkworth 7 AprilTauranga 8 AprilHamilton 10 April

New Plymouth 12 AprilWhanganui 13 AprilWaikanae 14 April

Napier 16 April

NEW ZEALAND STRING QUARTETWarkworth 27 AprilWhangarei 28 AprilMotueka 30 April

Christchurch 1 MayWellington 5 May

DUO COL LEGNO Gore 12 May

Wanaka 14 MayOamaru 15 May

Whanganui 18 MayGisborne 21 May Kerikeri 23 May

Warkworth 25 May Tauranga 26 May Rotorua 27 May

Board Kerrin Vautier CMG (Chair), Hon Chris Finlayson, Quentin Hay, Andreas Heuser, Matthew Savage, Vanessa Doig

Staff Chief Executive, Catherine Gibson Acting Artistic Manager, Jack Hobbs Artistic Administrator, Lizzie Bisley Outreach Coordinator, Beckie Lockhart Operations Coordinator, Rachel Hardie Marketing & Development Manager, Will Gaisford Senior Designer, Darcy Woods Marketing Executive, Aja Lethaby Ticketing & Database Executive, Laurel Bruce Content Producer & Comms Executive, Anna van der Leij Marketing & Fundraising Coordinator, Rafaela Gaspar

Branches Auckland: Chair, Roger Reynolds; Concert Manager, Bleau Bustenera Hamilton: Chair, Murray Hunt; Concert Manager, Sharon Stephens New Plymouth: Concert Manager, Cathy Martin Hawkes Bay: Chair, June Clifford; Concert Manager, Jamie Macphail Manawatu: Chair, Graham Parsons; Concert Manager, Virginia Warbrick Wellington: Concert Manager, Rachel Hardie Nelson: Chair, Annette Monti; Concert Manager, Clare Monti Christchurch: Concert Manager, Jody Keehan Dunedin: Chair, Terence Dennis; Concert Manager, Richard Dingwall Southland: Chair, Rosie Beattie; Concert Manager, Jennifer Sinclair

Regional Presenters Marlborough Music Society Inc (Blenheim), Christopher's Classics (Christchurch), Cromwell & Districts Community Arts Council, Geraldine Academy of Performance & Arts, Musica Viva Gisborne, Music Society Eastern Southland (Gore) Arts Far North (Kaitaia), Aroha Music Society (Kerikeri), Chamber Music Hutt Valley, Motueka Music Group, Oamaru Opera House, South Waikato Music Society (Putaruru), Waimakariri Community Arts Council (Rangiora), Rotorua Music Federation, Taihape Music Group, Tauranga Musica Inc, Te Awamutu Music Federation, Upper Hutt Music Society, Waikanae Music Society, Wanaka Concert Society Inc, Chamber Music Wanganui, Warkworth Music Society, Wellington Chamber Music Trust, Whakatane Music Society, Whangarei Music Society.

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