Terms like baroque music and early music may be interchangeable to those of us who aren’t in the know, but lovers of classical music realise there’s a difference. Baroque is a specific period in the history of music, while Early Music includes other periods, like the Renaissance.
Cape Town lovers of classical music will be treated to a feast of music with the EarlyMusic 2011 festival, which features concerts and master classes.
EarlyMusic 2011 organiser Nele Holm explained that what makes their series of concerts different is that all the musicians play in an authentic way, aka the Historically Informed Performance Practice (Hipp). Their baroque instruments are tuned differently from the way contemporary instruments are tuned.
Holm explained the baroque flute, called the traverso; the baroque hautbois; the recorder; the baroque violin and the baroque cello tune to 415Hz instead of 440Hz. The materials are also different, with the traverso made of wood instead of metal and strings made out of gut, instead of metal.
The background to the difference is that in the 1750s, music was played in front of small audiences, so the instruments were made for intimate spaces. After the French Revolution, more people wanted to enjoy music, big concert halls were built and musical instruments had to be adapted to make sounds that could reach the back rows of audiences.
The aim of Hipp is to get back to the sound and instruments which were played at the time when the pieces of early music were composed and to use original literature to revive what the composers might have heard when they created the music.
While the Hipp movement is not well developed in South Africa yet, European universities have established professorships to research the field.
“But, as we know now from our contact with a lot of music lovers here in the Cape, it is a field much appreciated by the listeners in South Africa,” explained Holm.
“This way of interpreting music challenges the musician to use his or her brain to analyse the score, while feeling the effect the composer wanted to create.
“The challenge is to play the music in such a way that the listener deeply feels these exact same emotions; that they resonate within him or her,” added festival organiser Karen Hahne.
Herself a violinist, Hahne said the playing and listening experience from a good performance of this music can become a spiritual experience, “but it must be of the best, nothing mediocre gets you there”.
She attended a practical course in Early Music about two years ago in Gauteng, where she met Carin van Heerden, one of the performers at this year’s Early Music festival.
“She told me last year that she cannot get over the spirit of South Africans. We have no money, but go to extremes to do what we want to do. She says it is not the same in Europe,” Hahne said.
Holm added that the first concert at La Motte was already sold out, but there was space at the master classes (for listeners and participants) and other concerts.
On the programme will be Antoinette Lohmann, Dutch Baroque violin and viola player, soloist and chamber musician; Balász Máté, Hungarian Baroque cellist, chamber musician and modest continuo player; Carin van Heerden, Capetonian recorder and Baroque oboe player; and Verena Fischer, traverso player, from Wurzburg.
CONCERTS
l La Motte, Franschhoek on Saturday @ 7pm.
l Centre for the Book, 62 Queen Victoria Street, Cape Town, on Sunday @ 6pm. Tickets at door: R100. Antoinette Lohmann, Balász Máté and Mario Nell on harpsichord play works by Ulrich Johann Voigt, Johann Schmelzer, Johan Rosenmueller and Stradella.
l St Andrews, Somerset Road, Cape Town @ 8pm on Friday February 11. Tickets at the door: R97, R70 (pensioners), R40 (students). Verena Fischer, Carin van Heerden, Antoinette Lohmann, Hans Juyssen on Baroque cello and Mario Nell.
MASTERCLASSES
l Saturday: ensemble meeting for stringed instruments in Stellenbosch.
Monday 9am to 1pm: private classes.
l Monday 4pm to 5pm: academic lecture at the Conservatoire of Music at the University of Stellenbosch, titled The Frog and the Nightingale. About very slow and very fast tempi during the 18th century by Dutch harpsichord builder Willem Kroesbergen.
l Tuesday, February 8 from 10am to 1pm and 3pm to 5pm: public master classes for UCT students, public welcome to listen.
l Wednesday, February 9 from 10am to 1pm and 3pm to 5pm: public master classes at University of Stellenbosch’s Conservatoire, public welcome to listen.
l Thursday, February 10 from 9am to 1pm: private classes.
Call Nele Holmes at 076 699 4134 to book for private classes or to find out about the ensemble meeting.