Showing posts with label Christof Richter. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Christof Richter. Show all posts

Wednesday, October 10, 2018

Mélomanie Opens Season with New Venue, New Music

By Christine Facciolo

Mélomanie welcomed a new season on Sunday, October 7, with a new venue, a new cellist and a couple of eclectic works new to Delaware audiences.

The award-winning ensemble, known for its provocative pairings of early and contemporary works, has established a relationship with the Delaware Historical Society, which will host its Wilmington performances at Old Town Hall adjacent to the organization’s museum on North Market Street in downtown Wilmington.

Mélomanie also welcomed the addition of Ismar Gomes, award-winning cellist who has performed throughout the U.S. and Europe as soloist, recitalist and chamber musician.

The ensemble performs Christopher Cook's piece, Hubble's Eye. Photo by Tim Bayard.
The season-opening concert also served to introduce first-time audience members to the ensemble’s repertoire as well as the individual talents of its musicians as each performed a solo work showcasing his or her capabilities.

The entire ensemble opened the program with a technically accomplished and courtly rendering of Couperin’s La Sultane, one of the composer’s most colorful instrumental works.

Two members of the ensemble chose to perform works by contemporary composers writing in the “old style.” Violinist Christof Richter captured the fragile delicacy of Alfred Schnittke’s Pantomime, a piece that despite its charming melody features bare, exposed rhythms, striking pizzicati and searing dissonance.

Gomes offered some very impressive playing in works by Benjamin Britten and Luciano Berio. Berio’s Les mots sont alles for solo cello uses as its foundation Britten’s Tema Sacher, a musical rendering of Swiss conductor Paul Sacher’s last name. Gomes’ handling of this complex miniature masterpiece was riveting.

Gomes joined with gambist Donna Fournier for a performance of Jean Daniel Braun’s Sonata Sesta in D major for two bass instruments. It’s not often that two such instruments get paired in a composition, so this was a rare treat indeed. Their beautiful burnished tones produced goosebumps, especially in the slower movements.

Fournier gave a splendid performance of Telemann’s intimate but technically difficult Fantasia in G minor, one of 12 works discovered in 2015.

Harpsichordist and Mélomanie co-artistic director Tracy Richardson gave a spot-on reading of Jacques Duphly’s finely wrought and thoroughly enjoyable Courante (from Book 1) for solo harpsichord.

Flutist Kimberly Reighley (also co-artistic director) offered one of the most interesting pieces of the afternoon. Le Vent a Travers Les Ruines by Yuko Uebayashi. Reighley’s pristine tone and perfect intonation underscored the placid, non-judgmental character of the work, the later stages of which explore the instrument’s lower register as it moves to bring this intriguing work to an understated conclusion.

The ensemble (sans cello) regrouped for the Delaware Premiere of Christopher Cook’s ethereal Hubble’s Eye, a multimedia musical interpretation of the jaw-dropping images taken by the Hubble space telescope.

While one might be tempted to draw comparisons with Holst’s The Planets, Cook has undoubtedly imbued this seven-movement work with his own voice. Saturn is mysterious yet delicate. Mars is definitely a strong character with decisive rhythms and emphatic chords but hardly bellicose. The work exhibits some programmatic elements as well: the harpsichord “climbs and descends” the Mystic Mountain of the Carina Nebula, while the Supernova Bubble is buoyant and whimsical.

The trio of Reighley, Richter and Richardson concluded the event with another Delaware Premiere, Café au Triolet by Cynthia Folio. Folio, a Temple University music professor, wrote the work for Ensemble Triolet, which premiered it in 2016 at the National Flute Association Convention.

The first movement (Caramel Macchiato) takes the instruments out of their comfort zones to explore the full range of their capabilities. Special attention is given to the harpsichord, which Folio says she got to know up close and personal in the harpsichord room at Temple’s Boyer School of Music. The second movement (Café do Brazil) is a lively fugue spiced with Brazilian rhythms and harmonies.

Monday, October 8, 2018

A Musical "Thank You" from Music School's All-Star Orchestra

By Christine Facciolo
Select members of The Music School of Delaware faculty with a little help from Rossini, Bach and Mozart, opened the school’s 2018-19 season on Wednesday, October 3, with a concert thanking donors and fans for their support.


The Music School's string chamber orchestra featured faculty and guest artists.
This short but very sweet program opened with Rossini’s String Sonata No. 3 in C major. Rossini wrote the six string sonatas at the age of 12, in the space of three days in 1804 at the home of a wealthy grain merchant. Years later, the composer confessed he didn’t think they would have amounted to anything but wrapping for salami when in fact they had already proven to be perennially popular.

Granted these sunny compositions are the “light music” of their time, but there’s no mistaking the talent that produced them. Like its siblings, this is a delightful work played here by a group that clearly enjoyed it. Brief solo passages were ably executed by violinists Amos Fayette, Lingchin Liao, cellist Jennifer Stomberg and guest bassist Arthur Marks.

J.S. Bach’s Concerto for Oboe and Violin in C minor delivered a more serious tone. Though the original manuscript to this concerto was lost, a reconstruction was possible because in 1736 Bach had arranged it as the Concerto for Two Harpsichords and Orchestra (BWV 1060), a work whose score had survived and served as a model for the original.

Soloists Christof Richter (violin) and Meredith Hite Estevez (oboe) captured the rhythmic vibrancy and catchy themes of the first movement and by contrast, the dreamy serenity of the Adagio second movement. The sense of energetic playfulness returned for the finale, as the soloists engage in essential contrapuntal commentary and other colorful writing.

Mozart’s perennially popular Eine Kleine Nachtmusic provided a pleasant post-intermission palette-cleanser to the Bach. The superbly disciplined ensemble served up as fine a performance as one could wish for with a mixture of legato, springing exuberance and elegant phrasing that produced a most delightful result.

The concert ended the way it opened, with a Rossini string sonata 
 this time, No. 2 in A major. It, too, exhibited the lightness and humor that would be evident in much of the composer’s mature work as well as his distinct gift for melody. There was something a bit more earnest and serious about No. 2 but still eminently enjoyable and beautifully played.

See www.musicschoolofdelaware.org. 

Tuesday, October 2, 2018

Delaware Ensemble ‘Launches' to Space for Opening Season Performance


This post content comes from a release from Melomanie...

Mélomanie — the Delaware music ensemble known for ‘provocative pairings’ of baroque and contemporary works — celebrates its 26th season with a Launch Party & Concert on Sunday, October 7, at 3:00pm in their new performance home, Old Town Hall of the Delaware Historical Society in downtown Wilmington.

The event, which leads off at 2:00pm with a wine & cheese reception and tours of the Delaware Historical Society, will feature the Delaware Premiere of two pieces — Hubble's Eye by Christopher Cook and Café au Triolet by Cynthia Folio. Hubble’s Eye will be performed with accompanying video projection of photos taken by the Hubble Deep Space Telescope.

Additional music on the program includes baroque works Sonata Sesta in D Major by Jean-Daniel Braun and La Sultane for baroque ensemble by François Couperin.

Tickets for the performance are $25; $15 students age 16 & older; youth through age 15 are admitted free. Tickets can be purchased at melomanie.org or at the door via cash or credit. The Delaware Historical Society is located at 505 N. Market Street in downtown Wilmington.

This season, Mélomanie will present new music by composers Suzanne Sorkin, Richard Belcastro, Roberto Pace, Christopher Cook and Larry Nelson. From the baroque era, they will perform works of Couperin, Telemann, Abel and Rameau throughout the season. Also new this year is a special collaboration with Delaware jazz composer Jonathan Whitney and his quintet

Mélomanie was founded in 1993 by co-artistic directors and ensemble members, Kimberly Reighley and Tracy Richardson. Mélomanie has delighted audiences throughout the East Coast and internationally with their brand of musical 'provocative pairings'. Mélomanie is: Donna Fournier, viola da gamba; Ismar Gomes, cellos; Kimberly Reighley, flutes; Tracy Richardson, harpsichords; and Christof Richter, violins. Mélomanie's artists also appear as soloists and with orchestras and ensembles in the region, including the Delaware Symphony Orchestra, Reading Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, OperaDelaware, Tempesta di Mare, La Bernardinia Baroque Ensemble, and Le Triomphe de l’Amour. In 2014, Mélomanie was invited to Rio de Janeiro to perform in Compositores de Hoje (Composers of Today), an international festival of contemporary music. Mélomanie has recorded works of Telemann on Lyrichord Discs and can be heard on Winterthur's benefit CD, Playing in the Garden: Musical Inspirations from the Winterthur Garden (2008). Their contemporary music CDs, Florescence (2011) and Excursions (2014) from Meyer Media, each feature five pieces written for and premiered by Mélomanie. The ensemble is currently recording their next CD project.

Friday, September 28, 2018

The Music School of Delaware Honors Supporters with a Musical 'Thank You'

This post content comes from a release from The Music School of Delaware...

The Music School of Delaware welcomes a new concert season with its first Music Masters performance, Opening Night - The Magic of Music! A Thank You Concert, on Wednesday, October 3, at 7:00pm at its Wilmington Branch at 4101 Washington Street in Wilmington.

The musical event is a thank-you performance for its families, faculty and donors, with an 'all-star orchestra' of its distinguished faculty as well as guest artists from regional ensembles and orchestras. They will perform noted works by Rossini (String Sonatas #2 in A Major and #3 in C Major), J.S. Bach (Concerto for Oboe and Violin in C Minor) and Mozart (Eine Kleine Nacht Musik). Soloists on the program are violinist Christof Richter and oboist & Meredith Hite-Estevez, who are both on the faculty of the Music School.

The complete orchestra also includes Violins: Amos Fayette, Kate Ransom, Stefan Xhori, Julianne Ruiz, Lionel Thomas and Lingchin Liao; Violas: Maria Rusu, Nina Cottman, and guest Marka Stepper; Cellos: Jennifer Stomberg, Eric Coyne and Lawrence Stomberg; Bass: Arthur Marks; Harpsichord: Tracy Richardson.

Tickets for the event are only $10 or $5 for students and seniors and may be purchased at brownpapertickets.com.

The Music School boasts of busy fall of performances, both student and professional. Additional Wilmington Branch professional concerts will feature the music of the 1930s; the 50th anniversary of Woodstock; and an annual Martin Luther King, Jr. celebration. Additionally, faculty recitals at both Wilmington and Milford Branches will be presented throughout the season. The Wilmington Community Orchestra, under the baton of Tiffany Lu, will perform works from Mozart to Mahler. Alumni return to share their musical stories in concert. 

And, the school continues to host its Classical Cafe sessions (complimentary coffee and donuts included) where attendees engage in lively discussion with faculty on music-related topics. The Music School also hosts and presents events from classical to rock, including Open Mic Nights, a monthly Bluegrass Jam, and jazz and rock ensemble performances.

ABOUT THE MUSIC SCHOOL OF DELAWARE
It is the mission of The Music School of Delaware to provide excellence in music education, training and experiences for people of all ages and levels of ability. Founded in 1924, The Music School of Delaware is a nonprofit organization that reaches thousands of new people from Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Maryland through its instructional programs and over 100 public performances each year. The Music School is the only nationally accredited program of its kind in Delaware and is the only statewide accredited community music school in the nation. The Music School offers standard-setting instructional programs for all ages and has a faculty of nearly 100 expert artists and educators with branch locations in Wilmington and Milford and over 20 satellite and outreach sites statewide. 

For more information, please call the Wilmington Branch at 302.762.1132, the Milford Branch at 302.422.2043 or visit the website at musicschoolofdelaware.org.

Thursday, January 18, 2018

Mélomanie Starts the New Year with World Premiere

By Christine Facciolo
Mélomanie returned to The Delaware Contemporary on Sunday, January 14, 2018 with a concert that included a World Premiere, selections from the French baroque and a contemporary tribute to an early French composer.

Mélomanie performs with guest soprano, Clara Rottsolk. 
The first half of the program featured early music, opening with a performance of the Suite 1 in C Major from Pieces en trio 1692 by Marin Marais. Marais’s Pieces en trio have taken second place behind his solo viol works, but these trios are exquisitely crafted miniatures requiring the same care and stylistic sensitivity as his solo virtuosic repertory. 
Mélomanie’s performance showed mastery of the idiom, as it relished Marais’s rich harmonic language while making the most of its musical rhetoric.

Guest soloist Clara Rottsolk then joined the ensemble for a performance of the cantata Leandre et Hero by Louis-Nicolas Clerambault (1676-1749), the master of the genre in France. The instrumentalists introduced the work with sensitivity and style, after which Rottsolk entered with a quiet Recit. Rottsolk’s diction was impeccable. Her soprano soared with clarity and control, although at times her high notes were somewhat jarring. But her capacity for dramatic expression was superb, and she held the audience in rapt attention until the story concluded with the joyful reunion of the young lovers.

Contemporary works filled the second half of the program beginning with — appropriately enough — Tombeau de Marin Marais, a tribute to the Baroque French composer by 20th Century French composer Max Pinchard (1928-2009). Gambist Donna Fournier took the lead with a compelling yet delicate performance. Flutist Kimberly Reighley and violinist Christof Richter provided contrasting color with modern instruments.

The concert concluded with the World Premiere of the cantata Lenten is Comen/Worldes Blis by Thomas Whitman. Whitman, chair of the department of music and dance at Swarthmore College, and his colleague Craig Williamson, gave a lively and informative introduction to the piece with a discussion on the language and spirit of the two poems that form the basis of the composition. (Williamson also participated in a post-concert Q&A session, gave a primer on his years of linguistic research with some interesting examples for members of the audience who stayed on.)

Rottsolk was accompanied by members of Mélomanie on baroque instruments as well as guest Naomi Gray on baroque cello. Rottsolk captured the contrasting moods of the text — the exuberance of spring, the melancholy of a loveless life — with the nuances of her voice. Whitman’s music was melodic and mysterious, joyful and foreboding punctuated with some interesting harmonies for the instrumentalists. The second poem was sung unadorned in its original setting. The audience was left with thoughts of the coming spring on this frigid January day “in bleak midwinter.”

Tuesday, October 10, 2017

Music School Opens Season with All-Bach "Thank You" Concert

By Christine Facciolo

If it were possible to gather together composers — both living and dead — and ask them who they thought was the greatest composer of all time, chances are one name would surface more than others: J.S. Bach. And with good reason. Bach is one of the few — maybe the only — composer to succeed in combining masterful craftsmanship with such profound expressivity.

TheMusic School of Delaware used the artistry of J.S. Bach to say thank you to its patrons for their generosity on Wednesday, October 4, as it opened another season of its Music Masters Concert Series with an all-Bach program.

Maestro Simeone Tartaglione led a 15-member chamber orchestra comprised of music school faculty and guest artists.

Tartaglione bookended the program with two works from Bach’s most imaginative and celebrated oeuvre: the Brandenburg Concertos. The concert opened with a formidable rendering of the short but robust third Brandenburg. Bach composed two substantial movements for this work, leaving the players to improvise a transitional movement, for which he provided only two chords.

Tartaglione and his players executed the Allegro movements at an authentically robust tempo. Bach’s contrapuntal mastery was vividly brought out by this ensemble that interacted with each other like the cooperative soloists Bach intended them to be.

Concerto No. 5, however, makes demands on the harpsichord soloist that far exceeds anything else in the repertoire. As Tartaglione pointed out, this work is, for all intents and purposes, the first keyboard concerto.

Bach gives the harpsichord (here in the capable hands of Tracy Richardson) a most unusual role: it starts out playing a basso continuo, proceeds to play solo melodies in dialogue with the flute (Dr. Lynne Cooksey) and violin (Christof Richter) and then gets carried away with virtuosic scales that leave the others in the dust. Richardson delivered with great panache and rhythmic sensibility, showing what top-tier musicianship can bring to a familiar work.

Christof Richter soloed in a polished performance of the Violin Concerto in E Major. The opening is Bach at his sunniest, and Richter and the group exuded pure joy as they eased into the mellow mood this music demands. The expressive Adagio was exquisite as it contrasted a dark intensity with moments of golden light. The finale was cheerful and full of energy.

Dr. Lynne Cooksey was equally impressive in the Suite No. 2 in B Minor. Cooksey played with style and agility, executing the piece’s fast passages with note-perfect ease, playing a lovely duet with the cello in the sixth-movement Polonaise, producing lovely sighing effects in the Menuett and pulling out all the stops in the appropriately fast final-movement Badinerie, earning her a round of enthusiastic applause from the very appreciative audience.    
  

Wednesday, October 4, 2017

Audiences Enjoy 'Up Close & Personal' Look at Mélomanie's First Performance

Harpsichordist Tracy Richardson and Violinist Christof Richter
of Mélomanie. Photo by Tim Bayard.
By Christine Facciolo
Mélomanie members Christof Richter (violin) and Tracy Richardson (harpsichord) combined their talents to showcase the versatility of the violin in a program that featured works by the well-know, the not-so-well-known and the downright quirky. The concert, called 'Up Close & Personal: The Violin,' took place on Saturday, September 30, at Old Town Hall in downtown Wilmington.

Despite the role it plays in the modern orchestra and the repertoire that’s grown up around it, the violin was considered a “low-brow” instrument, played largely from memory throughout the late 16th and early 17th Centuries. But once written music appeared, the violin became a major driver in the development of instrumental music as a whole.

Saturday’s performance opened with a performance of Johann Paul von Westhoff’s Partita 6 in D Major for solo violin. Unlike his contemporary Heinrich Biber, little attention has been paid to von Westhoff. But lesser-known hardly means insignificant. In fact, it is very likely that von Westhoff met J.S. Bach during their time in Weimar, and that these Partitas were a direct inspiration for Bach to compose his sonatas and partitas for solo violin.

Richter performed with a natural and effortless charm, concluding with an exhilarating reading of the Gigue.

Heinrich Biber — von Westhoff’s more famous contemporary — was represented with a performance of Sonata 4 in D Minor (The Presentation) from his Rosary Sonatas. This ever-intriguing work is the finest example of Biber’s exploration of scordatura, alternate tunings of the violin strings that produce otherworldly sonic textures and performance challenges. The Presentation is a chaconne and variations tuned to D minor. Tuning the top string down a step and the bottom string up one produced an alto-like quality, where one would expect soprano brilliance. Richter’s execution of these blazing virtuosic variations was breathtaking, making the listener long for a full performance of this work.

The Italian Baroque was represented by Biagio Marini’s Romanesca Variations and Giuseppe Tartini’s Sonata in G Minor (The Devil’s Trill). “Romanesca” is actually a song form popular in the period 1550-1650, characterized by a sequence of four chords which form the groundwork for improvisation (think: Greensleeves). The work consists of four variations and two dances, the gagliarda and corrente. Richter and Richardson took a spirited approach with regard to tempo and meter long before the dance variations impose triple meter toward the end.

Richter imbued Tartini’s Sonata with the appropriate pyrotechnics: delicate turns and swift runs, dark moods, commanding multiple stops and double-note trills. And while the work can be performed solo, the inclusion of the continuo added depth and harmonic texture.

Richter and Richardson made a fine duo in Mozart’s Sonata in G Major (KV 301). Richter’s intonation is always exact and his articulation in the fastest passages clear and precise. These sterling qualities were matched by Richardson’s accompaniment on harpsichord, which she notes was still in use alongside the up-and-coming fortepiano during this time.

No Mélomanie concert would be complete without some contemporary offerings. In an afternoon of surprises, there were some pretty interesting choices. Schnittke’s Suite in Old Style is a wry nod to the Baroque — actually a pre-Classical-style pastiche of movements drawn from the composer’s film scores. Unlike a true Baroque suite, though, there is little for the soloist to show-off. Richter brought a fragile delicacy to the final movement, Pantomime, the only movement performed in this program.

Richter and Richardson offered yet another interesting piece from a most marginalized 20th Century composer, Josef Matthias Hauer. Hauer’s claim to fame (or infamy) is that he developed his own 12-tone system, publishing his findings in 1919 slightly ahead of rival Schoenberg. But whereas Schoenberg manipulated tone rows, Hauer based his atonality on systematically organized chords.

Toward the end of his life, Hauer wrote a collection of short (the longest runs five minutes) pieces called Zwolftonspiel, literally 12-tone games. Richter and Richardson collaborated on the one dated 26 August, 1948. This music is a welcome respite from the angular tones of Schoenberg’s serialism, and Richter and Richardson captured its joy and playfulness in this very capable rendering.


Monday, April 10, 2017

NYC Composer's Work Highlight of Diverse Repertoire from Mélomanie

By Christine Facciolo

Mélomanie, the critically acclaimed ensemble known for its provocative pairings of early and contemporary works, capped off its 2016-17 season with a program tilted a bit more toward the contemporary than usual.

Joining regulars Kimberly Reighley, flute; Christof Richter, violin; Donna Fournier, viola da gamba; and Tracy Richardson, harpsichord were guest artists Naomi Gray, cello and Joshua Kovach, clarinet.

Mélomanie performs at The Delaware Contemporary near the Wilmington Waterfront.
Photo by Tim Bayard.
Mélomanie also welcomed flutist/composer Bonnie McAlvin whose work Sandstone Peak received its World Premiere at this concert. McAlvin explained how her fascination with mountains — in this case the highest peak of the Santa Monica Mountains — inspired the composition. The work is in four movements: Illusion, Conversation, Throne of Sand and Everywhere at Once, throwing a nod to Richard Bach’s Jonathan Livingston Seagull.

McAlvin is a clever composer who skillfully adapts the serial technique to tell a story of illusion, erosion and feeling exposed. Throughout the composition, the row becomes dismantled and recombined reappearing in each movement in various guises and instrumental textures. The effect is one of fantasy and vulnerability.

Gray and Kovach combined their talents to perform Private Games by Israeli composer Shulamit Ran and Night Music by Parisian Nicolas Bacri. The former is a brief, jagged work full of disjointed gestures that somehow manages to convey a lyrical underpinning. The duo — both as an entity and as individuals — tossed off the fiendishly difficult passages with grace and ease.  They convincingly brought out the chill in Night Music, a non-lyrical piece that glumly muses suggestions of inimical fate.

Richardson, Reighley and Kovach collaborated in a charming performance of the Sonatine en Trio, Op. 85 by Florent Schmitt, the most important French composer you probably never heard of, according to self-styled Schmitt expert Phillip Nones, who offered his thoughts on the composer and the work.

Schmitt (1870-1958) had no affinity for atonality or neo-classicism. Instead, he composed lushly lyrical music bursting with a profusion of ideas. Nones noted that this particular work has also been scored for flute, clarinet and piano as well as violin, cello and piano. But the musicians noted, in a post-concert discussion, that the harpsichord gave the work a lighter, brighter tone.

The flute and clarinet combined to produce another interesting aural feature. At times they seemed to blend so thoroughly that resulting sound was neither that of flute nor that of clarinet but a seemingly altogether different instrument with a sound all its own.

Vittorio Rieti’s Variations for Flute, Clarinet, Violin and Cello on When From My Love by John Bartlet was written in 1964 and dedicated to the memory of composer Paul Hindemith. This was a charming performance of this delightful little work consisting of nine variations and a code. It was an apropos selection for a Mélomanie program, as it combined the baroque with the contemporary.

The musicians of Mélomanie gave a nod to the Baroque with a performance of Marin Marais’ Suite 6 n C minor (from Pieces en Trio 1692) which preceded the two halves of the program.


The ensemble’s final performance for the 2016-17 season will be a special Mother’s Day Brunch and Concert on Sunday, May 14. Tickets are available at www.melomanie.org

Thursday, February 9, 2017

Mélomanie Premieres Local Composer's Work, Features Violin Duos in February Performance

By Christine Facciolo

Mélomanie opened the second half of its 2016-17 season with an eclectic program that showcased the talents of two virtuoso violinists and featured the World Premiere of a commissioned work by organist/conductor David Schelat.
Violinists Daniela Pierson and Christof Richter. Photo by Tim Bayard.
The ensemble welcomed Daniela Pierson, principal violist with Philadelphia’s Tempesta di Mare and conductor of that city’s Musicopia String Orchestra. In addition, she has performed on violin or viola with many early music groups including New Society, New York Collegium and Washington Cathedral Baroque Orchestra.

Pierson teamed with Melomanie resident violinist Christof Richter to perform selections from Bela Bartok’s 44 Duos for 2 Violins, which were interspersed throughout the program. Although the composer never intended these pedagogical exercises to be played in concert, these fine artists performed with a style and accuracy that helped to reveal composer’s limitless imagination and his ability to write in the historic styles of Eastern and Central European ethnic groups.

Pierson said the duo chose to perform the selections on Baroque violins rather than modern instruments because, as she explained in an interview during the concert, that’s probably the way the composer heard the original folk melodies.

Pierson and Richter also delivered an outstanding and refined interpretation of Les Folies d’Espagne by the Italian Jean-Pierre Guignon, who brought that country’s musical style to Paris via the famed Concert Spirituel.

Pierson and Richter were joined by Tracy Richardson on harpsichord and gambist Donna Fournier in a performance of Archangelo Corelli’s Sonata de Chiese in A Major, the last of the set of twelve published as Op. 3 in 1689. Though modest, the music of this Italian composer-violinist was key to the development of the modern genres of sonata and concerto, in establishing the preeminence of the violin and in the coalescing of modern tonality and functional harmony.

Pierson and Richter engaged in a lovely duet in thirds during the second movement. Fournier provided heroic support, confidently executing demanding semiquavers. The piece concluded with three short Allegros, the last of which an attractive fugue in gigue form.

By far, the lengthiest work on the program belonged to Couperin’s well-known La Piemontoise, the fourth Ordre from Les Nations, his masterful dictum on the merger of the French and Italian styles. The concert opened with the Italianate sonata of the ordre and closed with its elaborate French dance suite. Mélomanie executed the ornamentation crisply and with ease, and did a beautiful job with Couperin’s harmonic color.

Just a Regular Child for flute and harpsichord by organist/conductor David Schelat added a charming levity to the program. Schelat introduced the work by explaining how he took inspiration from growing up as a regular kid in a regular home in a regular town in Ohio. The work consisted of three movements. “Rough and Tumble” and “Full of the Old Nick” conjure up the delightful — and sometimes misguided — energy of a very active and curious child while the loping melody of “Dreaming” catches him in his quieter moments.

Schelat wrote to flutist Kimberly Reighley’s amazing virtuosity, and she did not disappoint. Reighley executed the first and last movements with a pearly lightness and purity of tone while rendering a gauzy quality to the middle movement. Richardson supplied the contemporary harmonies which gave the work a mischievous quality.


See www.melomanie.org. 

Saturday, October 15, 2016

Mélomanie Opens Wilmington Series at The Delaware Contemporary

By Christine Facciolo

Mélomanie opened its 2016-17 Wilmington concert series at The Delaware Contemporary on Sunday, October 9 with a program that was both demanding and fascinatingly varied.

The program started off with a delightful rendering of Telemann’s Paris Quartet 3 in G Major. A description of the performance can be found in the titles of the movements themselves: Gracieusement, Vite, Gai. Gracious and spirited are exactly the qualities this music requires 
— and what the ensemble delivered.

Flutist Kimberly Reighley played a magical Baroque flute, rich in tone with spot-on intonation. She blended perfectly with Christof Richter’s violin, making their intertwining lines an endless source of listening pleasure. Gambist Donna Fournier supplied a judicious bass line: prominent where needed yet merging seamlessly with Tracy Richardson’s sublimely supportive harpsichord.

In a rare treat, Richardson soloed in a World Premiere of Michael Stambaugh’s Suite for Harpsichord. Stambaugh is a rising young (b.1990) Philadelphia-based composer whose unfettered imagination shows that an 18th Century instrument has just as much to say in the 21st Century.

The work — written during the summer — unfolds in four short movements (a fifth is being reworked): The Machine Comes to Life, A Mischievous Prelude, A Light Dance and Invention. Opening with a blizzard of notes and fluctuant harmonies and rhythms, the piece is a whimsical mélange of jazz, rock, heavy metal and funk which, oddly enough, did not seem so far removed from the 17th Century. One audience member thought it quasi-programmatic, as it followed the path of a machine from its “birth” to its taking on human characteristics and capabilities 
 a notion that surprised and intrigued the composer.

The playing was often difficult and taxing, but Richardson was superb and her efforts were appreciatively received by the audience.

The history of Western music is littered with tales of lost masterpieces and what-might-have-beens. Philipp Heinrich Erlebach (1657-1714) became one of those unfortunates when in 1736 when all but 70 of his 1000 compositions were destroyed in a fire at the court library at Rudolstadt.

The Sonata 5 in E Minor is just one of six sonatas to survive. As was common for the time, it was scored for violin, viola da gamba and basso continuo. But Erlebach’s sonatas differ from those of his contemporaries in that he gives the viola da gamba a genuinely independent part. In addition, Erlebach aims for a mixture of German, Italian and French styles: the dance movements being mainly Italian while German polyphony dominates the opening and closing movements.

Violinist Richter and gambist Fournier exhibited a deep appreciation for the strong character of this sonata, and their performance offered a pleasing and effective balance in their dialogues.

The concert closed with the Promenades for Flute, Violin and Harpsichord by Czech composer Bohuslav Martinu. Written between 1937 and 1944, the piece reflects the composer’s reaction to the horrors of World War II. The work opens calmly enough with a Bach-like allegro and air but then morphs into a sinister scherzo and a bitter, edgy finale. Reighley is impressive, playing with the precision and pristine quality she’s noted for, yet somehow managing to deliver a strident tone the music demanded.

See www.melomanie.org.

Tuesday, February 16, 2016

Mélomanie Delivered Musical Treats for Wilmington Valentines

Mélomanie performed at The Delaware Contemporary on Feb. 14.
By Christine Facciolo
Music lovers who braved Sunday’s frigid temps got treated to a concert of sweet musical morsels from Mélomanie.

The program was an eclectic one, featuring the works of the definitely Baroque Telemann, the stylistically fluid Ibert and neo-Baroque contemporary Kile Smith.

The program featured a reprise performance of Smith’s The Nobility of Women, which was commissioned by 
Mélomanie and premiered in 2012. Mélomanie Co-Artistic Director Tracy Richardson commented that the ensemble gave Smith the choice of an additional instrument to be played by a guest artist. He chose the oboe — an instrument not uncoincidentally played by his daughter, Priscilla Herreid. Herreid reprised her role as guest soloist for this concert.

Smith’s composition proves that musical styles never really disappear, they just go out of fashion until inspiration or musical necessity spark their resurrection. Smith took his cue for this eight-movement work from the name of the 16th Century dance manual Nobilita di Dame by Fabritia Caroso. Each movement bears the name of a Baroque dance form: Allemande, Sarabande, Musette, Ciaccona.

The work is a pretty staid affair until Richardson breaks out with a dazzling harpsichord solo in the third movement. Herreid did herself proud, soloing in the Sarabande, which features a delicate italianate melody of great beauty. The Ciaccona served as a fitting finale, packed with interesting flourishes.

Smith’s work paired quite nicely with Telemann’s Quartet in G Major from the “Tafelmusik” collection. “Tafelmusik” — literally meaning table music — is a mid-16th Century term for music played at banquets. 
Mélomanie imbued the piece with a vigor and flourish that would compel anyone to put down their fork and defer to the music.

The program also featured the Two Interludes for flute, violin and harpsichord by 20th Century French composer, Jacques Ibert. The first interlude was slow and stately, in triple meter, reminiscent of a Baroque sarabande. The second was fast with swirls of color and a Spanish flavor thanks to inflections of the Phrygian mode. Both pieces were rich in tone yet balanced a perfection union of lushness of Impressionism and the clarity of Classicism. Flutist Kimberly Reighley, violinist Christof Richter and harpsichordist Richardson strike the perfect balance between lushness and clarity of tone and texture.

Rounding out the program were selections by two all-but-forgotten French composers: Louis-Antoine Dornel, a contemporary of J.S. Bach and Benoit Guilemant, an 18th Century flutist.

Herreid once again showed her mastery of the Baroque oboe — a notoriously difficult beast to tame — in the former’s Sonata n G Major, which featured a lively interplay between soloist and bass.

Cellist Douglas McNames and gambist Donna Fournier — this time on cello collaborated on a lively performance of the latter’s melodic Sonata No. 4 in C Major, Op. 3.

Tuesday, February 3, 2015

Mélomanie at the DCCA with La Bernardinia Baroque Ensemble


Night Watch by Dan Jackson
A grey Sunday in February brought an overflow crowd to the DuPont 1 Gallery of the Delaware Center for the Contemporary Arts. The big crowd was made to order to create the most wonderful acoustic effect in the small room with the cold hard stone floor, so that Mattheson’s Sonata in G Minor for two harpsichords played by Marcia Kravis and Tracy Richardson sounded clear, crisp, rounded and exciting. Swirls of sounds flew as they traded fast scales and flying double thirds.

After the harpsichord duo, guest artists La Bernadinia Baroque (Donna Fournier, Rainer Beckmann and Marcia Kravis) performed the Ciacona allegro, also a Baroque piece by Benedetto Marcello –Following this, the entire Mélomanie ensemble playing Menuet-Fantaisie – a modern musical interpretation of Baroque music with a recurring motif passed from instrument to instrument, which they had commissioned Anthony Mosakowski to write in 2012. The composer, who introduced the piece, seemed as pleased as the rest of the audience.

The delightful and melodic Allemande and Sarabande, from a different harpsichord duo suite by Mattheson, brought us back to Baroque comfort and lute stops until we were blasted into the 21st century by Tracy Richardson and Rainer Beckman in their interpretation of Liduino Pitombeira’s Sonata for recorder and harpsichord no. 2, Opus 156. Mr. Beckman, who knows Brazil and the composer, introduced the piece and showed that he can make the alto recorder leap forward a few centuries to create a sound reminiscent to honor Stravinsky, Boulez and Bartok.

And, following that tradition of lulling us with Baroque delights and then rocking us out of chairs with modern sounds on Baroque instruments, the two groups played a delightful rendition of a Vivaldi's Concerto in G Minor, RV 107 in which the alto flute (Kim Reighley), soprano and alto recorders (Rainer Beckman) and Baroque violin (Christof Richter) performed as soli and Doug McNames (cello), Donna Fournier (viola da gamba) and Tracy Richardson and Marcia Kravis on harpsichords performed the orchestral continuo.

After the raucous applause for the great sound of the Vivaldi, the larger ensemble played an encore of a Chaconne by Jean Baptiste Lully. The experience was heightened by the surrealistic art of Dan Jackson on display in the gallery – the faces in his works so photographically alive and vivid that they seemed to have been listening as well.

See melomanie.org.

Tuesday, March 11, 2014

An Afternoon of Colorful Music with Mélomanie

By Guest Blogger, Chuck Holdeman
Chuck is a regional composer of lyrical, contemporary classical music, including opera, orchestral music, songs, chamber music, music for film, and music for educational purposes. www.chuckholdeman.com.

 
On Sunday afternoon, March 9 at the Delaware Center for Contemporary Arts, Mélomanie, Delaware's half-and-half chamber group (half baroque, half new music) played its third performance of its third program of the season. Themed "Ultraviolet," the program celebrated beloved longtime Wilmington Friends School music teacher Violet Richmond with the premiere of Ultraviolet, written in her honor by local composer Mark Hagerty. His piece Context also received its premiere, along with music by 18th Century composers G.P. Telemann and Anna Bon and 20th Century American composer, Alec Wilder. The virtuoso guest percussionist was Chris Hanning — a star in the international drumming firmament, and who, like Mélomanie flutist Kim Reighley, is on the faculty of West Chester University. Reighley also had a big day, performing in all five works on the program. 

Anna Bon di Venezia traveled with her parents as a prodigy, attended the music school where Vivaldi taught, and became a professional in the court in Bayreuth, Germany. While containing few surprises, her D major flute sonata is an extremely well-crafted example of the gallant style, which sounded beautiful on Reighley's wooden baroque flute, balanced so well with its harpsichord and baroque 'cello accompaniment. Telemann's A minor Paris Quartet, which opened the second half, was full of charming surprises, especially in its Coulant (flowing) middle movement — basically a set of variations interspersed with a beautiful ritornello. The unaccompanied flute and violin duet was striking, as was a solo variation, performed by Christof Richter on baroque violin. Viola de gamba player Donna Fournier also got a feature, and the tasteful continuo was provided by harpsichordist Tracy Richardson and Douglas McNames, baroque 'cello.


It was a rare treat to hear two new works by Mark Hagerty, a composer who has contributed so much to Mélomanie's repertoire, including his gorgeous Trois Rivieres, featured on the group's Florescence CD. I confess I'm a fan of Hagerty's work and have poured over his fascinating recordings. So it was a special pleasure to hear two works in which he seems to have broken new ground, also distinguished by the fact that Context and Ultraviolet have a virtually opposite point of view. Both use modern instruments, the former for alto flute and harpsichord, and the latter for the entire Mélomanie quintet with the addition of percussion. 

While Context is slow, meditative, with a limited though arresting arpeggiated harmonic palette, enhanced by the lovely timbres of the two instrumentalists, Ultraviolet has many highly contrasted episodes, and a completely unbuttoned point of view, including a rock-out drum solo, thrillingly improvised by Chris Hanning. But that is only one end of the spectrum, because the work begins and ends with the most delicate sounds of the ocean drum — John Cage would have enjoyed that these sounds balanced well with the building's ventilation system. In between there were numerous well-graded explorations, including a quiet shimmer of strings, delicately accented by metal interjections from a flute, a harpsichord string, or a bowed crotale. How surprising it was when a poetic harpsichord cadenza suddenly morphs into an uptempo ensemble romp, or when Reighley picked up her alto flute for a sensuous duet with the middle eastern doumbek drum. And since the theme was color — or anyway the imagined nuances of light frequencies normally invisible — Hagerty managed to excel with a succession of colorful instrumental combinations, often quasi static, but then bursting into rhythmic complexity. Bravo Mark! 

The program concluded with Alec Wilder's Flute and Bongos 1 and 2, composed in 1958, and still fresh and vital. Wilder wrote jazz standards as well as lots of classical chamber music, and we could hear his sophistication in both worlds. Reighley was virtuosic and Hanning's elaborate bongo drum accompaniment was apt and arresting. The drum part was so together with the flute, and so complicated, that I assumed it was all written out and then executed to perfection. Just now I read the program notes and found that Hanning was improvising — wow!

Mélomanie's next program at DCCA is Sunday, May 11, at 3:00pm. 


See www.melomanie.org