Tempesta di Mare and 1807 & Friends

On the Saturday before Thanksgiving, Tempesta di Mare presented a period instrument program that focused on Telemann’s Paris Quartets and other music composed in Paris around 1737. Then on the following Monday, 1807 & Friends presented a Baroque program performed on modern instruments that covered the first half of the 18th Century and ended with, yes, Telemann’s third Paris Quartet.

Musicians have played Baroque music on modern instruments ever since the Vivaldi revival took off in the 1950s. It’s a perfectly satisfactory way to play most Baroque music, assuming the musicians playing those modern instruments understand Baroque performance practice. The period instrument movement has lately become an established part of the contemporary music scene, but we wouldn’t hear half as much Baroque music if we limited ourselves to period instrument concerts.

Davyd Booth’s solution

The tricky issue is the role of the harpsichord. Eighteenth-Century instruments weren’t as loud as modern ones. Placed in a group of modern instruments, the harpsichord becomes almost inaudible. But you can’t play most Baroque music properly without it.

What to do? You could substitute a piano for the harpsichord, but that changes the character of the music. The harpsichord plucks its strings; the piano strikes them with felt hammers.

David Booth, 1807’s resident harpsichordist, overcame the audibility problem by playing a Challis harpsichord— an instrument with a case reinforced by metal braces.

Ordinarily, the strings on harpsichords and pianos exert a pressure that would collapse the case unless it was reinforced by internal braces. In a historical harpsichord, the braces are made of wood. The metal braces in Booth’s harpsichord can withstand more pressure, and the builder can outfit it with heavier, tighter strings that produce a bigger sound.

The big tradeoff

When Booth accompanied Lloyd Smith in a cello sonata by Benedetto Marcello, you could hear the harpsichord all through the piece. When he played with several instruments, the sound produced by the ensemble always included the clang of the harpsichord.

The Challis design is a reasonable compromise if you’re going to team the harpsichord with modern strings and winds, but there’s a tradeoff. The lightly strung, historically faithful harpsichord that Adam Pearl played at the Tempesta di Mare concert produces faster rippling effects and captures some of the gentle grace of the lute and the harp.

Played on modern instruments, Baroque music acquires extra brilliance and heft. Played on historical instruments, it’s permeated with a set of values like warmth, courtliness and the serene beauty of its best slow movements.

Baroque jam session

One of the best features of both concerts was the way the instruments engaged in genuine dialogues. In the quartet that ended the Tempesta di Mare concert, the musicians traded musical phrases like 18th Century dancers exchanging bows and curtsies.

Both concerts, interestingly, evoked the atmosphere of a jam session. At 1807, it was a jam session for musicians. The four musicians all obviously enjoyed playing the music they’d selected, They played solos for violin, flute, and cello in the first half, with Booth accompanying, and finished the concert with everyone working together in high style in the Telemann quartet.

Tempesta di Mare’s concert reproduced a jam session for composers. When Telemann visited Paris in 1737, he participated in a series of concerts with French composers, and Tempesta’s program included samples of their works. The result was a concert that created the ambiance of a good-natured historical event built around music designed primarily to please.

If the composers featured in these concerts could visit our time, they’d probably applaud both approaches to their work. But Telemann and Vivaldi would probably also be fascinated by the possibilities created by modern instruments. And they’d have no trouble understanding modern composers, like Kile Smith, who exploit the possibilities created by the revival of the 18th Century instruments.