New Music for "Old" Instruments with Cincinnati Opera

Cincinnati Opera is creating a brand new production of John Adams' opera A Flowering Tree, a beautiful opera set in India about the power of true love. I was able to sit through part of a sitzprobe (opera lingo for a music rehearsal without staging) in our beautiful Music Hall. I was struck by the variety of sounds and incredible textures of the music with the composer’s skilled use of the orchestra. One instrument that he seemed to delight in using was the recorder. There were two recorder players in the orchestra: Rob Turner and David Dyer. Rob has taught at Catacoustic recorder workshops, and he agreed to answer some questions about this experience playing with Cincinnati Opera.

What types of recorders are you playing? How does it work with balance with the rest of the orchestra?

We're playing the top-of-the line plastic Yamaha soprano and alto recorders that have a woodgrain finish. The pitch of the orchestra is "officially" a=441, and when things warm up it's probably closer to a=442. Since even higher pitches are common in Japan these days, the Yamaha recorders work well in this regard. It is hard for us to hear what the balance is like, but the Yamahas project very well and we are told that the balance is good. There is also a sound designer who has microphones distributed through the orchestra for the purpose of tweaking balance (rather than amplification for its own sake).

John Adams seems to know about how to use the recorder, and I love how it comes through with the orchestra. Have you played much contemporary music for old instruments, such as the recorder or Baroque flute (which I believe you play)? Do you feel that other composers know how to write effectively for the recorder? What is your advice to composers interested in writing for the recorder?

John Adams' use of recorder in this piece is very interesting. And Joana Carneiro, the conductor, is absolutely wonderful! The writing is not, on the face of it, note-to-note, so difficult, and Adams does not use any of the extended techniques that are often associated with contemporary recorder music. HOWEVER, the first recorder entry is at measure 382, and by that time there have already been 66 meter changes, including things like going from 2/2 to a couple of measures of 3/2 to a single 3/8 measure (the relative duration of the quarter-note would be the constant) and back to 2/2 for a measure before settling into 5/8 (subdivided 2:3, then 3:2 for two measures, then back to 2:3 for several more measures) oh, and did I mention that within these all meter changes we're playing quarter-note triplet figures in some of the 2/2, except where it's eighth/quarter or quarter/eighth triplets... My first entry is m. 480, by which time there have been 103 meter changes. OYYYY!!! But it sounds absolutely beautiful!

I've heard the conductor say that this has been the easiest, quickest-to-come-together production of this opera that she's led, including shows in places like Citè de la Musique in Paris. But even some of the regular CSO players have been walking around looking a little shell-shocked. One thing is for certain: it's not Vivaldi! The recorder part also has quite a few percussion cues written in, for maracas, rain stick, etc. This is reminiscent of Carl Orff's "Schulwerk," which uses recorders as well as "rhythm band" instruments to introduce young children to rudiments of music. In this performance the percussion is given to the professional percussionists (thank goodness!!!).

I really have not played much contemporary music for recorder. It's interesting enough to me when I listen to it, but I have always been interested in recorder primarily because of its baroque repertoire, and much less because of the instrument itself. In a way, for me to play in a contemporary piece with a symphony orchestra is probably not so different than it would be for, say, someone whose day-to-day musical life focuses on auto-harp or dulcimer in roots music like that of the Carter Family. The idioms and the musical approach are that different. I do find this opera a fascinating challenge, and have really enjoyed getting to know more members of the CSO, but baroque music is where I really feel "at home."

Among "early" instruments, the recorder is unique: while there is contemporary repertoire for baroque transverse flute, harpsichord, or baroque violin (or viola da gamba?), for instance, familiarity with contemporary music and its techniques is a "must" for recorder players in a way that simply is not the case for, say baroque violinists. Players of other "old" instruments are usually taken seriously for devoting themselves to their instruments' "Golden Age" repertoire, while for recorder players at most conservatories and in almost all recorder competitions a knowledge of contemporary repertoire and extended techniques is simply de rigueur. Perhaps this can be traced back to teacher virtuosos like Frans Brüggen and Hans Martin Linde and
their own interest in contemporary music in the 1950’s-80’s, when they were bringing the recorder back to the attention of the music world. At that time some of the people in the "serious" music world who were most open to the HIP (historically-informed performance) approach were people who were also very interested in contemporary music. Because of the acoustical differences between period and modern instruments and early woodwinds' relative lack of keywork, there are certainly sonic effects that are only available on period instruments. I think that it would be essential for composers to work closely with recorder players in developing a clear sense of the recorder's musical possibilities, especially since our culture reinforces the sense of the recorder as a toy ("play recorder in third grade, and next year you'll get a "real" instrument like a flute or a trumpet or a clarinet") and not as a legitimate instrument like any other, with its own sets of possibilities and issues. In the end, though, I really leave all that to others!

I know that people will be impressed by hearing the recorder as played by professionals, rather than by little grade school kids. What is your advice for someone who is interested in learning the instrument?

For those interested in learning to play recorder, lots of listening to live and recorded recorder music is essential. A good teacher is always helpful, and there are a few around. Some music lovers would agree with the seventeenth-century diarist Samuel Pepys on the subject of the recorder, "the sound of it being, of all sounds in the world, most pleasing to me." For many of those people there's no better way to experience that sound than to play recorder themselves.

Tell me about what you are doing these days. I know you are living in Dayton. How are things there? Are you keeping busy with music? Any instrument making? Briefly talk about what instruments you have made in the past.

I'm living in Dayton, looking after my 88 year-old mother, teaching and performing. While for many years I made recorders and flutes based on period originals found in museums and private collections around the world, I stopped making instruments a few years ago when I could no longer see with the kind of acuity needed to do the work. (Now I can "only" see .0025" with my good eye whereas before it was more like < .001".) So, I'm focused on making music, instead, which was what I meant to do all along. My primary instruments are, and have been for many years, baroque transverse flute and recorder.

For more information about Cincinnati Opera’s upcoming performances of A Flowering Tree, see http://cincinnatiopera.com/performances/a-flowering-tree/.

(Please note photo credits for first and second images go to Jennie Chacon and Chris Yelton, and the third photo credit goes to Cincinnati Opera employee Aimee Sposito Martini. The fourth photo is Rob Turner with his recorder, credit to Phillip Jones.)

Interview with Francesco Vitali, Filmmaker of Voluptas Dolendi: I Gesti del Caravaggio

I had the pleasure of corresponding with Francesco Vitali, the fascinating director of the film Voluptas Dolendi that Catacoustic recently screened as the Western Hemisphere premiere - right here in Cincinnati! This exquisitely beautiful film used music and visual art to recreate the mood of paintings by the great Caravaggio.

1) The thing that struck me about this film is that so many art forms are brought together with such high quality. It seems like an overwhelming project for one person! This project intricately interweaves dance, gesture, visual art, history, film technique, early music, and poetry. How did you come up with this concept, and how did it all come together in such a unified artistic manner?

The theatrical performance for harp and dance (Voluptas Dolendi: I Gesti del Caravaggio) was born in 2002 from an idea that harpist Mara Galassi developed with dancer/actress Deda Cristina Colonna, costume designer Barbara Petrecca, and myself as lighting designer. This was initially performed as part of the Marco Fodella Foundation’s 2002 concert season and received great success touring Italy and Belgium through 2006. I later directed this as the film you saw in Cincinnati, and it was also sponsored by the Fondazione Marco Fodella. The film’s title Voluptas dolendi (the pleasure caused by pain) refers to a specific aspect of seventeenth-century aesthetics, typical of Caravaggio’s contemporaries.

The film was born as a synthesis of different artistic expressions: music, dancing, acting, and painting. It deals (through different filming, post-production, and montage techniques) with the problems connected with the staging of a theatrical performance limited to a theatrical space that is well-defined, neuter, and recognizable. This film suggests glimpses of the Baroque, developing like a painting in slow evolution through allusions to Caravaggio’s works. Mara and Deda felt that between the gestures in the paintings of Caravaggio and musical gestures, there should be a form of communication and emotional rhetoric. So, the meeting point was physical gesture, which helped to evoke Caravaggio’s paintings.

My job was to translate this project, through camera and lights, the manner of thinking that already existed in its theatrical performance into a motion picture. I consider this film to be a continuation of the path initiated by Deda, Mara, and myself in 2002 with the original show.

I did not want the film to only be a television shot of the theatrical play. For example, Mara’s harp could not follow Deda as happened in the live show, because the sound of the harp would have responded differently from slot to slot. Mara taught me that an ancient musical instrument requires a precise location for the "natural" sound - not amplified. Thus, in the film I chose the monumental sacresty as a suitable place for her to play her double harp. She remained in the same place from the beginning to the end of the film. Deda, instead, moved around in the 15th-century Cathedral of San Marco, where the film was shot in Milan.

Keeping in mind the theatrical origins of this film, I wanted to maintain a synthetic vision of settings and scenery, processing this vision through a filming method I particularly love: steadycam. I used it for 70 per cent of the scenes, finding interesting suggestions in Alexandr Sokurov’s Russian Ark (2002), especially as concerns its rhythm, which empathetically involves the spectator. The steadicam is a special camera that is hooked on the operator's body, becoming almost a part of the body, and through a system of counterweights allows soft turns without sharp cuts. The operator can easily follow the movements of the dancer, and the viewer enters the movie in a much more empathetic manner.

This film is an imaginary voyage, in which the protagonist Deda Cristina Colonna accompanies us, through acting and dancing, into apparently recognizable places, given the ambiguous architectures evoking ancient palaces or sacred basilicas, revealing then an intimate, neutral nature. Space is continually modified and dried out until its final hiding and annulment. I built a clear image and sense of drama. In this film, the camera explores, approaches, and makes sure that everything that is foreign to the audience during the theatrical performance can be seen more closely, but also more emotionally, and irrepressibly.

Music from Caravaggio’s time, played by the harpist Mara Galassi, sometimes dilates the perception of space and time and sometimes accelerates it. The music creates a suspended level – a limbo, and with its rhythm it guides the spectator in the obscure meanderings of the mind, the emotions felt by the protagonist. The camera moves, approaches, wraps, and investigates, as in a continuous dance. Light witnesses events. As an absolute protagonist, light reveals its double, divine, and material origin, thanks to the contrast with shadows, which sometimes seem to devour both dancer and harpist, cruelly and realistically.

I think the uniqueness of this project is about a specific historical period through the art of Caravaggio, as a starting point to enjoy the music and dance of that time, without falling into banality simply talking about the biography of Caravaggio. Few people know that Caravaggio was a great lutenist. This helps us better understand the context in which he lived and his art.

2) From conception to completion, how long did this project take? What was the time frame for this project? How many people were in your crew? How did this compare with other projects?

The film was shot in five days in the Cathedral of San Marco in Milan with a crew of 22 people between church services. During the daytime, Mara recorded the songs in the sacristy, which was then used by Deda, dancing during the night. Only in two specific moments did Deda and Mara film together. In these two moments the sound and video recording was unique because it was impossible to dub the music played on harp by Mara.

3) In the US, the popularity of Facebook and YouTube has created a demand for marketing Classical music with video in a creative manner. It is becoming quite popular and almost necessary. Do you see this as a trend in Europe with Classical music? With early music? Do you see the impact of social media on film and music in Italy?

I think that technology can greatly help spread this kind of music, especially among the youth. In Italy it happens less than in the U.S. We are fortunately or unfortunately still bound to tradition, and a live concert can never be compared to the post of Facebook or YouTube. These social networks could
be a fantastic start, but depth should always be a rule in each and every century and everywhere, not just an option.

I just returned to San Francisco after 15 years. I was shocked when a dear American friend of mine, an opera singer, told me that the libraries in your country are closing. I think that in Italy this unlikely to happen. At least for now the technology coexists with tradition. I love iTunes, but I also love to touch a CD and handle it to get the feeling of really "owning" something that remains over time. If my computer breaks or the harddrive dies and is not backed up, I lose my virtual files. With a book in-hand or a CD or vinyl record, I still savor and reflect. With technology I run faster and am not sure where I'll end up.

Voluptas dolendi I gesti del Caravaggio has thus far been presented in various places of great cultural significance in the Mediterranean: Mola di Bari, Venice, Athens, Milan, Modena, Trieste, Naples, Palermo, Messina, Siracusa, Padua, Rome, Argentario, Bari, San Giorgio di Nogaro, Haifa, Tel Aviv, Crema, Saint Jean Cap Ferrat; in Europe: Vilnius, Strasbourg - European Parliament, Helsinki, Copenhagen, Dublin; in East Asia: Shanghai, Kyoto, Osaka; and now in America (Cincinnati). In the days between April 10th and May 6th, SKY Classica.tv (satellite channel 728) will show the film six times to their subscribers in Italy.

For more information on the film, see: www.fondazionemarcofodella.it. If you missed the Catacoustic Consort's screening of this film at the Cincinnati Art Museum, you may purchase a copy of the DVD in European format at the Libreria Pecorini by contacting them via email: pecorini@iol.it or at their website at www.pecorini.com.

Baroque Opera Superstar Singer Moves to Cincinnati

In October, 2011 Catacoustic performed a magical program with male soprano Michael Maniaci. It was a beautiful program of 17th-century Italian music with Daniel Swenberg on theorbo. Michael has a real command of that repertory, and is an effective performer. It was a concert that will remain in so many people's minds for a long time.

I first met Maniaci in Houston around ten years ago when we were performing Monteverdi's Coronation of Poppea with the Houston Grand Opera and Opera Atelier. I was amazed the moment he opened his mouth to sing. The sound and delivery was so powerful and exciting! He has had an amazing career, including winning the Met competition, singing with the great opera houses, such as La Fenice, and just a few weeks ago a concert with the LA Phil. He has a recent recording of Mozart arias with Boston Baroque that has had huge success and critical acclaim. Since we first met, I began scheming on how to bring him to Cincinnati to perform with Catacoustic.

The perfect opportunity presented itself when I was asked by the Student Tribunal at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music (CCM) to present a Catacoustic concert and masterclass there. Michael studied at CCM with David Adams and has family here in town. It was perfect! Michael graciously accepted my offer to present a concert and was a lovely collaborator. We had a great week preparing the program and sharing it with enthusiastic students and the Catacoustic family.

I was shocked when Michael mentioned that he was thinking of moving from his NYC apartment to Cincinnati. He is constantly on the road and wanted to move from the "concrete jungle" of New York to our beautiful "Queen City." And, he would be close to vocal coaches, his family, Catacoustic, and an international airport.

A friendly guy, and a world-class talent, it has been a pleasure and an honor to have him live here in Cincinnati, and it will be wonderful to share his talent with Catacoustic's audience many more times in the future!

Cincinnati Resident Dedicates Herself to Baroque Guitar

I met Tina Gutierrez some years ago through Catacoustic concerts. She was very enthusiastic about early music and since has come to every Catacoustic concert. Tina is a Northside (Cincinnati neighborhood) resident and has had music in her life for many years. She runs European Bridal in the Reading bridal district during the day and practices whenever she can fit in the time. As a Classical guitar major in university, she later picked up the Renaissance and Baroque guitars. In addition to working with local lutenist Rod Stucky, she takes intense lessons with Catacoustic lute/early guitar players, when they are in town, (Michael Leopold, Daniel Swenberg, Ronn McFarlane, and David Walker). And, she has now started a group with Alice Nutter (viola da gamba player). Tina recently played in a masterclass in Columbus, Ohio with the great Baroque guitar player Hopkinson Smith. It was wonderful to have a representative from Cincinnati in this masterclass!

Tina, how long have you been playing early plucked instruments? How did you become interested in them, and what do you love about them?

I have been playing early plucked instruments for three years, although I played Classical guitar since I was fourteen years old. As a teenager, I heard lute music on WGUC (Cincinnati's classical music radio station), and I loved it. My guitar teacher, Brian Deyo, had a lute that he would bring around occasionally. I am interested in history, too. I love the purity of sound of the Baroque guitar and lute. When I met my husband, lute maker Larry Brown, it was a natural fit. The exact moment I knew that I had to play Baroque guitar was when I heard the recording of the Harp Consort's Spanish dances. I instantly knew what I had to do with my life. It was perfect that Larry then built one for me.

While Cincinnati's early music presence is now growing, it wasn't always like this. How did you deal with being somewhat isolated? What would you recommend to others who play early music instruments and do not live in centers where there are other people like them to play with?

It made all the difference having a husband who shared the same interest in early music. I recommend YouTube. The internet makes the world smaller. It is so easy to find good recordings and communicate with people of similar interests online. I also recommend going to an early music workshop at least once a year. The community that you meet there makes a real difference, and you can learn so much.

Tell me about your group and what your goals are for it, as well as your personal goals? What would you like to be doing, musically, in five years? Ten years?

We have no set goals. We get together and enjoy ourselves. We plan to have performances to push ourselves to improve. I am a very goal-oriented person, and I need that kind of structure to keep going. In ten years, I would love to be a professional Baroque guitar player. Ten years? I don't know... It takes so long to get really good, I don't know how long it would take. I would love to play music at a serious, high level. Right now I am enjoying working toward that.

You played for the masterclass with Hopkinson Smith last weekend. What did you learn from him? What do you gain from taking lessons from these different players from around the world?

The main thing I learn from most great teachers is how important it is to go back to the basics and make each musical line seem and appear like a simple, clear thought... to have it come off with ease, clarity, and understanding that people are hearing something that says something to them. One of the things Smith said was, "I don't want to hear the guitar. I want to hear the music." The touch has to be clean enough that the noise doesn't have to interfere with the line. The difference between the good players and the great players is tone.

First Ever Student Gamba Recital at CCM

Micah Fusselman, a doctoral candiate in cello performance at CCM, gave the first ever student viola da gamba recital at the University of Cincinnati's College-Conservatory of Music last week. Micah has been working with me for the past several years, taking the one credit elective viola da gamba class. He has excelled in every way possible. During the second week of class, he came with his viol and asked, "how long until I can play this?" He began playing one of the Bach gamba sonatas. I told him that it seemed that he was already playing it! This was during a period when all the other students were struggling just to hold the instrument. Micah has surpassed being a student and has turned into a colleague. He has played in four Catacoustic concerts and numerous outreach performances.
Micah hopes to finish his degrees (music theory and cello) and leave Cincinnati for a university job, which he will surely attain. There, he also hopes to be able to offer his skills as a gamba player for the community and possibly to the university students. How exciting!
Micah's recital was a virtuoso performance, including the music of Hume, Simpson, Marais, and Schenck. In his concert talk, he said that many people have asked him why in the world he would bother with a non-degree/non-credit recital for an instrument that does nothing to further these pieces of paper and does not help support his two children. The answer at first was "because it is good for me." But, that later proved not to be enough. The answer showed itself. "Because I love the music." Micah's love for the viola da gamba and its repertory was fully evident in his recital last week, and I can only hope that this will not be the first of such events at this extraordinary music school!

Monteverdi Vespers at CCM

Last weekend, The Cincinnati Conservatory of Music performed Claudio Monteverdi's Vespers of 1610, under the direction of Dr. Earl Rivers. I was pleased that Dr. Rivers asked me to participate in this performance. He has conducted this work at CCM - usually about every five years, and he feels that this is a masterpiece in choral and solo vocal literature and needs to be performed. It is a huge task for a vocal program that is so steeped in the romantic opera tradition. But, things are changing at CCM. I am convinced that it is one of the finest schools in the country for vocalists. They continue to send out the best singers into the field of opera, and it is not so well known that they are sending out singers who also sing early music: Youngmi Kim, Michael Maniaci, David Daniels, Mischa Bouvier, and many more! Their vocal teachers are sensitive to the fact that their students will need to do a be strong in a variety of styles in the professional musical world. Mary Henderson-Stucky, the head of the vocal department, performs early music as a normal part of her repertoire. Robin Guarino, the CCM opera director, would like to offer one Baroque opera each year. It was no surprise that the soloists excelled in the Vespers. It was easy to see some careers in the making.
Dr. Rivers was very interested in absorbing more historically informed style into this performance. He asked Catacoustic regular Michael Leopold to play theorbo, me to play lirone, Vivian Montgomery on harpsichord and organ, Rod Stucky for archlute, and Micah Fusselman for gamba. Elizabeth Motter had her first Vespers experience on harp. Kiri Tollaksen and Shawn Spencer played cornetto.
Dr. Rivers was quite interested to participate in discussions with the continuo players about chord choices and stylistic decisions. Topics such as cadencing on major as a norm, soft resolutions/cadences, and instruments playing rhetorically (imitating singers) - to the extent of it being helpful for us to have text in our parts were exciting to him. I was thrilled to have such an excellent conductor be so open!
The orchestra improved in the intense week of rehearsals, although this style is very difficult for instrumentalists to grasp in only a week or two. I would have loved to have been able to begin work with them several months in advance. Ideas like playing words and imitating singers are foreign ones and can take a while to absorb. Often, "modern" musicians play this music with everything detached, thinking that more space in between notes makes it sound more Baroque. I find that this style of playing makes it rather static. The idea is to play with direction, with articulation determined by the text. The CCM instrumentalists (students and faculty) are becoming more interested in Baroque music at CCM and hope that there are opportunities to work with them in the future!
It was such a pleasure to bring this piece to Cincinnati and collaborate with CCM. The audience was thrilled, and gave an enthusiastic standing ovation. This only bodes well for more early music in Cincinnati!
For more reading on the CCM Vespers performance, see:

http://www.musicincincinnati.com/site/reviews/Splendid_400th_for_Monteverdi_s_Landmark_Vespers_of_1610.html

http://www.musicincincinnati.com/site/features/Quadricentennial_at_Christ_Church.html

http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20101119/ENT03/11190318/-Vespers-by-Monte

Recorder Workshop with Anne Timberlake

Catacoustic hosted Anne Timberlake in a workshop for local recorder enthusiasts last night. Seven people participated, in addition to my bass viol student Alice Nutter, who played bass lines.
Several months ago I asked people what they wanted out of a workshop. I have offered recorder workshops in the past to mixed reviews, so it was important to make sure that the participants get something out of such an event. The response was that it would be good to learn about ornamentation - especially with regard to slow movements of sonatas. Another suggestion was ensemble skills. There are numerous recorder players in the area. You would be surprised to know that there are several local groups that meet to play consorts on a regular basis. I want to create a real community through early music in Cincinnati, which will in turn fulfill part of the mission of Catacoustic.
So, it was perfect when I contacted Anne (currently in Richmond, Virginia) and found out that that very day she was planning a trip back to visit her family in Indiana. She stopped by Cincinnati on her way.
The workshop was excellent. She communicated about ornamentation that made it seem quite accessible. She thought a lot about this topic to prepare for the workshop and had a step-by-step process for everyone to follow. She asked people to prepare a slow movement of a Handel sonata with and without ornaments. Things she talked about:

1) Why does one ornament?
2) When to ornament and when to leave the music alone
3) Types of ornaments - vibrato, mordents, trills, turns, fast scalar passages, rhythmic alteration, short versus long (articulation as ornament), etc.
4) Stylistic appropriateness and grasping the composer's intentions
5) Understanding the bass and rudimentary theory - looking at the bass line for dissonance, parallel octaves and fifths
6) Call and response with ornaments: she would play an ornament and ask everyone to play what she had just done.

Anne played several versions of recordings of this movement and asked people why they liked or didn't like them. She also demonstrated some tasteful and not-so-tasteful ornamentation examples.
Following the ornamentation session, everyone played consorts. Anne got people to talk about musical ideas - that before one plays a piece, you should figure out what the composer is trying to COMMUNICATE. Is the piece a battle or warlike piece? About sighing, about love, etc. After that she talked about having similar ideas of articulation and gestures based on what the piece is trying to communicate. She also got most everyone to take a turn leading the group with cues.
It was a great way to spend an evening, and everyone learned something, which I hope they will take back to their own personal musical lives.