Typical Baroque!?
The year 2021 and the seventh season of the concert series Baroque & umzu begins with the question: What actually is Baroque? The title of the program “Typisch Barock!?” plays with the many possible answers to this question and the subconscious expectations. The Bremer Barockorchester answers: diversity and emotion.
The focus of the February concert is on the Recorder and the Viola da Gamba, two genuine baroque instruments that are completely absent from the modern orchestra. The warm sound no longer suited the sound conceptions of the following era, in which the assertiveness of the instruments in the growing symphony orchestra became more and more important.
In the Baroque era, however, these two instruments were favorites of many composers, professional musicians and the amateurs at home. For example, G.P. Telemann masterfully uses them in his Concerto for Recorder and Viola da Gamba in A minor. What is astonishing about this work is not only the specific combination of instruments for a solo concerto, but also the stylistic diversity, with which the Hamburger always knew how to surprise the audience. His compositions take us across Europe. The use of folk music mixed with courtly dances creates an unmistakable sound. In addition to works by the Hamburg music director, a Concerto Grosso by G.F.Händel is also included in the program. Like his colleague Telemann, Handel composed in London in the so-called “mixed style”. In Handel’s case, however, he uses mainly French and Italian elements that mix with the contrapuntal notation of the German composers, creating that magnificent concert that sounds to us today like “typical Handel”.
Program:
Georg Philipp Telemann (1681-1767)
Concerto for Recorder and Viola da Gamba TWV 52: a1
Georg Friedrich Handel (1685-1759)
Concerto Grosso HWV 329
Georg Philipp Telemann
Suite La Bizarre TWV 52:G2
February 19, 2021, Kirche Unser Lieben Frauen in Bremen