Behind the Musik: Baroque & Folk

Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra
Directed by Miloš Valent

Performances:
March 7–9, 2025 at Jeanne Lamon Hall, Trinity-St. Paul’s Centre

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Program

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Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra

Access full bios for core orchestra members at tafelmusik.org/orchestra

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Program Notes

by Miloš Valent

The genesis of MUSICA GLOBUS dates back to the time when I began to familiarize myself more intensely with collections of Slovak dances and songs from the baroque period: the collection from Uhrovec 1730, and Annae Szirmay-Keczer’s collection of 1720. Later I also studied the 18th-century collections Saltus Hungarici (from Trenčín) and Pestini, among others. They became an astounding source of inspiration for me—in them I found many lost melodies. All of this led me to think of the works of Georg Philipp Telemann that were tied to the period and place where he stayed in his youth: in 1704 he accepted the position of Music Director at the court of the Count Erdmann II von Promnitz in the Polish Upper Silesian manor Żary. During his travels through the country he acquainted himself with Polish as well as Hungarian and Roma folk music—many of the cities belonged to the Kingdom of Hungary at the time. The young Telemann was inspired by this music to such an extent that he later wrote in his biography: “One evening with these musicians inspired me for the rest of my life. On one occasion I had an opportunity to listen to 36 bagpipe players and 8 violinists playing together; I can describe only with difficulties the virtuoso variations played by the musicians during their improvisations when the dancers rested […] If you wanted to write down all that was played, after a week you would have enough musical ideas for the rest of your life. Later I wrote concertos and trios in this style, though I dressed them in an Italian vestment, naming them Adagio and Allegro.”

The pieces from his “Polish” period were written down by Telemann in simple keyboard sketches in the so-called Rostock Manuscript. Many known dances, such as Mezzetin en Turc from his “Burlesque” Suite, are originally from this collection. Telemann later reworked them and incorporated them into various suites and overtures.

It was the similarity of the dances from the Slovak collections and from the Rostock Manuscript that brought me to the idea of compiling a program inspired by the folk tradition. The result is a kind of “musical travel book” which leads us through various countries of the 18th century. Besides Telemann, I’ve also included other composers (Antonio Vivaldi, Henry Purcell, John Playford) and their compositions comprising folk elements.

One of the most surprising moments of the program is the alternation of Telemann’s dances with pieces from our collections. The goal is to bewilder the listener a bit, who after hearing a series of dances might wonder whether he had been listening to Telemann’s music, or to dances from one of the collections.

I have arranged the music into larger groupings, according either to the country of the composer, or to the mood they create together. The opening piece, Perpetuum mobile from an orchestral suite by Telemann, passes directly to the Vivement from the Rostock Manuscript. According to Telemann himself, despite having a title usually seen in courtly music, the piece is of a folk character. Hungaricus from the Uhrovec collection concludes the introductory part of the program.

Our journey then starts in France, for which I have chosen the opening Entrée from a Telemann suite. We arrive in The Netherlands with a Branle from the collection Der Fluyten Lust- Hof (The Flute’s Garden of Delights) by the composer and recorder player Jacob van Eyck. We head to Russia with Telemann’s depiction of the Moscovites, and to the Americas for his L’espérance de Mississippi, depicting the hope of investors in the riches of distant lands in his humorous suite La Bourse (The Stock Market). We travel to Scotland, where the folk music tradition remains strong, and which influenced John Playford in his New Hornpipe from the collection The Division Violin (1685), and Henry Purcell in the Scotch Tune from the play Amphitryon. Our journey ends in Italy, where the famous Antonio Vivaldi was inspired by folk music in his Concerto for strings Alla rustica.

In the section titled Ashkenazi Europe we pair two melodies from Slovak collections that bear the melancholic mood of Hebraic tunes with En Kitzvo, from a collection of Jewish music from 18th-century Berlin.

Barbaro is an apt title for a group of dances and melodies that evoke the atmosphere from the time of the cruel, merciless Ottoman janissaries, as depicted in Telemann’s Les Janissaires, to which we join the dances of rebels and deserters from Hungary (kuruks)—Nota Kurucz I and II from the Uhrovec collection. The murder ballad Žela trowke, from Annae Szirmy-Keczer’s collection, draws us into the passionate story of the song, when a woman calmly returns from the fields to feed her cow, but in a dramatic turn of events she sharpens her axe and swings it into her husband’s back until he bleeds to his death.

The selection of dances in the Polish section presents the closest concordances in genres and melodies of the concert, as dances from Annae Szirmay-Keczer’s collection are said to be related to the territory of Spiš and northern Slovakia, bordering the Polish region where Telemann resided. We begin with the dance Hanaquiose by Telemann (a reference to the Slavic people living by the river Haná, in Moravia), followed by dances from the Rostock Manuscript in alternation with songs and dances from Annae Szirmay-Keczer’s collection. This is all concluded with an Allegro from the appropriately Concerto alla Polonese of Telemann.

A march by Telemann introduces the Hungarian set, which features dances typical of the Central-European folk tradition, including Verbunk from the Pestini collection in Hungary, and Saltus Hungarici from a collection in Trenčín (in which one finds melodic motifs used later by the Spanish violinist Pablo de Sarasate in his famous virtuoso piece Gypsy Airs). The keyboard literature is represented here by the Hungarice from the Collection Esztergom, and by a song from Annae Szirmay-Keczer’s collection that is still popular in Slovakia 300 years later.

Our journey around the globe ends in Anatolia. Turkish motifs were extremely popular in 18thcentury music. Dances with melodies typical of the Middle East can also be found in our Slovak collections. Telemann‘s Mezzetin en Turc and Les Turcs frame dances and the song Lei Lei from a unique 17th-century collection recently discovered in Istanbul. It comprises the oldest written records of Turkish music in two volumes named Mecmûa-i Sâz. The author of the records is Ali Ufki, originally Wojciech Bobowski, a Pole who was captured and taken to Turkey, where he made his living as a clerk, musician, and interpreter at court.