A Mapcap Musical Romp Opens Brandywine Baroque's Season

By Christine Facciolo

There’s no denying Karen Flint’s contribution to the cultural life of our region.

Brandywine Baroque orchestra members rehearse "The Woodman."
Photo courtesy of Brandywine Baroque.

As founding artistic director of Brandywine Baroque, harpsichordist Flint consistently presents programs that feature works by the well-known and not-so-well-known — though no less worthy — composers of the period. Moreover, her collection of rare (and playable) harpsichords draws devotees and scholars from around the country and the world to the Centreville venue, The Barn at Flintwoods.

Flint and company opened the 2017-18 season with a performance of as rare a gem as any: The Woodman (1791) by English opera composer William Shield. This all-but-forgotten work is so obscure that Flint and fellow harpsichordist Janine Johnson had to prepare an orchestration from a piano/vocal reduction, the only existing score for the opera.

Shield is one of those composers whose legacy history seems to have erased. Born in 1748 in Swalwell, Shield arrived in London in 1772 to play the violin in the Coven Garden Orchestra. In 1791, he met Haydn who attended a performance of The Woodman. That meeting inspired him to compose more operas and stage works. Shield’s work as a composer got him noticed in royal circles and in 1817 he was appointed “Master of the King’s Musick.”

Like many of his contemporaries, Shield looked toward folk music for source material. In

fact, it was once thought that he wrote Auld Lang Syne, the melody of which appears toward the end of the overture to his Rosina opera. It is now thought that both he and Burns borrowed the melody — or at least the outline of it — from an old folk tune.

Shield’s work is considered to be the forerunner of the modern musical comedy. The Woodman contains features associated with later English comic opera, including spoken dialogue, a frothy theme and the use of popular and folk melodies. The music is pastoral, even bubbly, with flashes of coloratura.

The plot is a madcap thicket of love found, lost and recovered. Emily (Laura Heimes) has fallen in love with Wilford (Stephen Ng) but his nasty uncle does not approve and sends him off to Europe. When Wilford returns, Emily has fled to the forest where three other men fall in love with her. Mistaken identities and all sorts of mischief follow in this lively romp through the woods capped off by a female archery contest for a price heifer.

Flint assembled a stellar cast of singers and musicians for this superb rendering of this woefully overlooked gem. Heimes is vocally striking — as usual — in her portrayal of Emily. Ng brings a full-bodied tenor and lovelorn urgency to Wilford, her lost love.

Bass Daniel Schwartz excelled in his portrayal of the upright and kindly Fairlop, the woodman, while sopranos Abigail Chapman and Rebecca Mariman were convincing as his daughters, the steady Dolly and coquettish Polly, respectively.

Baritone James Wilson played the lecherous Sir Walter to the hilt accompanied by his ever-loyal sidekick Medley in the capable hands and voice of tenor Andrew Fuchs.Tenor Lawrence Jones displayed a much misplaced confidence as he assisted Wilford in his quest to find Emily.

But it was countertenor Augustine Mercante, wigged in bight orange ringlets, who elicited the most laughter in his portrayal of Miss Dinah “Di” Clackit. Mercante not only possesses a sumptuous voice but also impeccable comedic timing that never missed a beat.

Musicians from the ensemble also took part in the action with non-singing roles: flutist

Eileen Grycky, violist Amy Leonard, double bassist Heather Miller Landin served as archers (Grycky also played Bridget the maid). Violinists Martin Davids and Edward Huizinga played Filbert, the Gardener and Bob, respectively.

Imaginative costumes and props transported the audience from Centreville to an 18th Century English forest.

See www.brandywinebaroque.org. 

In Heaven with Brandywine Baroque

By Christine Facciolo
No other composer in the history of Western music compares to J.S. Bach. He excelled in virtually every genre — except opera — and invented quite a few himself, including the keyboard concerto.

Brandywine Baroque devoted the entire program of this year’s Harpsichord Heaven to a performance of the composer’s complete set of concertos for one, two, three and four harpsichords.

Although the piano has dominated the concerto literature for more than 200 years, the keyboard came late to the ranks of concerto soloists. Baroque composers generally regarded the harpsichord as a “utility” orchestral instrument; one that filled in harmonies as opposed to presenting melody. Even Vivaldi — who composed more than 500 concertos — never wrote one for the harpsichord. (He did, however, manage to compose one for the lute.)

Bach was probably the first to compose concertos for the harpsichord. But even these are re-workings of his compositions for other instruments, usually “melody” instruments like the violin or oboe.

As it does every year, the festival brought together an impressive roster of performers and scholars. In addition to Founding Artistic Director Karen Flint, the event featured harpsichordists Davitt Moroney, Arthur Haas, Luc Beausejour, Janine Johnson, Leon Schelhase and Joyce Chen.

Accompanying them were Martin Davids and Edwin Huizinga (violins), Amy Leonard (viola), John Mark Rozendaal (cello), Heather Miller Lardin (bass), Rainer Beckman and Lewis R. Baratz (recorders). John Phillips provided care and tuning of the harpsichords.

The true stars of the event were the harpsichords, as Moroney stated in his pre-concert remarks. Instruments from the Flint Collection included two by the famous Flemish manufacturer Ioannes Ruckers (Antwerp, 1627 & 1635), one by Nicolas Dumont (Paris, 1707) and a recently acquired representative by father-and-son harpsichord builders Nicolas and Francois-Etienne Blanchet (Paris, 1730). Filling out the quarter was a representative by Joannes Goermans (Paris, 1748) on loan from a private collection. The instruments were chosen because they contain d’’’, the highest note of Bach’s harpsichords, explained Moroney.

Oddly enough, the event opened with a performance of the Concerto in A minor for 4 harpsichords, BWV 1065, a faithful transcript not of a Bach composition but of Vivaldi’s B minor Concerto for Four Violins (Op. 3/10). Bach, however, makes it his by expanding both the counterpoint and harmonies and imbuing the solo parts with greater complexity and clarity. Of particular interest is the middle movement where each soloist — Moroney, Flint, Johnson and Chen — produces a different kind of arpeggio on a central propulsive fragment.

Concerto in F minor, BWV 1056 is believed to have been based on a lost violin concerto in G minor. It is unusual in that it sets the soloist off rhythmically from the orchestra, with the strings playing in strict 2/4 time and the soloist playing almost exclusively in triplets. The lovely second movement provides a lyrical respite before a return, with only a slight pause, to the rhythmic vitality of the final movement, replete with felicitous echoes between soloist Luc Beausejour and the orchestra.

Arthur Haas and Leon Schelhase joined together to perform the Concerto in C minor for two harpsichords, BWV 1062. Bach’s well-known Double Violin Concerto in D minor, BWV 1043 provided the basis for this transcription. The opening and closing movements feature much contrapuntal weaving of themes. As for the middle movement, the orchestra takes a back seat as the soloists engage in a kind of Baroque vocal duet. This beautiful movement seems both intense and calm at the same time and one could easily see the emotional involvement on the faces of violinists Davids and Huizinga.

The mood brightened as Karen Flint offered the Concerto in A major, BWV 1055. As always, Flint’s playing was flawless. The outer movements of this concerto are lovely but the middle movement is unbelievably beautiful for its extremely long musical lines which weave so deftly when played, as here, at the proper tempo.

The highlight of the evening, though, was the less hummable — but most frequently performed — Concerto in D minor, BWV 1052. In this virtuosic tour-de-force, Janine Johnson and the accompanying strings wholly delivered on the drama and high-speed prowess of the outer movements, while reaping all poignancy of the middle movement.

See www.brandywinebaroque.org.