Classical music: Ton Koopman concerts a highlight of early music in November
Credit to Author: Tracey Tufnail| Date: Wed, 30 Oct 2019 18:00:01 +0000
When: Nov. 1, 7:30 p.m. (pre-concert talk 6:45 p.m.)
Where: Christ Church Cathedral
Tickets and info:earlymusicbc.ca
When: Nov. 12, 7:30 p.m. (pre-concert talk 6:45 p.m.)
Where: Christ Church Cathedral
Tickets and info:earlymusicbc.ca
When: Nov. 15, 8 p.m., Nov. 17, 7:30 p.m.
Where: Chan Centre for the Performing Arts
Tickets and info:vancouversymphony.ca
Music from the 17th and 18th centuries features in a trio of concerts this November.
Early Music starts things off with a program devoted to the music of John Dowland (plus a newly commissioned work by Stacey Brown) performed by celebrated lutenist Nigel North and the Montreal-based ensemble Les Voix Humaines.
This is followed up by another EMV program, also at the Cathedral, and a concert with players from the Vancouver Symphony at the Chan, both featuring renowned keyboard player and conductor Ton Koopman.
Koopman is no stranger to Vancouver audiences. When I chatted with him during his holiday in Verona a few days ago, neither of us were exactly sure when his regular visits to Vancouver began — agreeing that it was either in the late 1970s or the early ’80s.
One of the heroic figures of the burgeoning Early Music movement, Koopman was — and is — at the very centre of the vital authentic instrument/informed performances scene in the Netherlands, an environment significantly before North America back in the day, and still home to countless experts and organizations.
Lucky Vancouver listeners can sample two different aspects of Koopman’s art during his short visit: At the Chan Centre, he will be directing a baroque favourites program that includes an orchestral suite by Bach and two of his Brandenburg concertos, plus Handel’s Music for the Royal Fireworks.
The partnership with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra brings up many areas for discussion: VSO players use modern instruments and although some have specialist training in music before the 19th century, the approaches pioneered by Koopman aren’t part of their everyday bag of tricks.
Koopman isn’t fazed by bringing his methods and attitudes to modern orchestras; he has conducted all over, with satisfying results.
“My experience is that musicians everywhere are eager to learn something new. My job is convince players that if they approach baroque music in a different way, even on modern instruments you can approximate authenticity, try to come close to what it would have sounded like, and some of them will go on to try period instruments. And their audiences will follow them.”
Do old-school players sometimes balk at his ideas?
“It is not a question of age,” he told me. “Though, of course, younger players have been educated differently compared to 50 years ago.”
It helps when instrumentalists play chamber music, which demands a virtuosity and a collaborative spirit entirely different from the conductor-as-generalissimo approach of yesteryear.
Besides, Koopman is unwilling to see music from before the Romantic era vanish from the regular orchestral diet.
“Playing Haydn or Mozart extremely well does everyone good.”
Koopman’s keyboard recital for Early Music Vancouver is implicitly targeted at a different sort of audience than that at the Chan. He will be playing Bach, but also a selection of works by others from the baroque era, including Johann Jakob Froberger, Antoine Forqueray, Jacques Duphly, and Joseph-Hector Fiocco.
“It is always a good thing to hear other music from the same period,” he told me. “For any audience, it is vital to be exposed to different composers from different times and different countries.”
As a (failed) violinist, I was particularly intrigued to note the presence of Fiocco on the program, a composer violinists think of as a one-hit wonder.
“In his Sonata in G major there is one movement known to all violinists,” Koopman acknowledges, noting pragmatically, “It’s a good finale to send the audience home happy.”
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