FEBRUARY 2017
PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE
This month’s message includes some miscellaneous news. My “Music Trivia” feature follows the “Conductor’s Corner.”
MPRO Receives a Grant! In December 2016, the San Francisco Early Music Society awarded grants for eleven projects proposed by its affiliates. The funds were provided by the California Arts Council (CAC) to strengthen the regional early music network that SFEMS supports. MPRO received $500 to help defray expenses for our January 2017 workshop. Many thanks to SFEMS and the CAC!
The American Recorder Society’s 25th annual "Play the Recorder Month" is coming up in March. March 18 is Recorder Day. The ARS encourages its members to play in public places such as libraries, bookstores, museums and shopping malls, and to demonstrate the recorder in school settings. Information is available at:
http://www.americanrecorder.org/play_the_recorder_month.php. If your small ensemble will be playing "gigs" in March (or at any other time), please make any recorder players you meet aware of MPRO and invite them to attend one of our rehearsals as a guest. Speaking of gigs, the East Bay Recorder Society's "Gig Book" is back online. This free publication includes sheet music for 50 short pieces suitable for playing at community events. To download a copy, see http://www.symbolicsolutions.com/ebrs-web2015/pdf-items/Gig-Book-w-bookmarks.pdf
The ARS web page also features a "New Music for Recorder" page, which currently includes free sheet music by five different contemporary composers. The link is http://www.americanrecorder.org/new_music_for_recorder.php
-Judith Unsicker
CONDUCTOR’S CORNER
Dear members of the Mid-Peninsula Recorder Orchestra,
Listed below is the music for the orchestra's next three meetings. Please note that there will be sectional seating for the Frank Gloria Patri, qui creavit nos with those in Primus Chorus on the right as they face the conductor and those in Secundus Chorus on the left. Please observe this seating arrangement when you choose your place at the beginning of all three meetings. Also, please note that sopranino, great bass and contrabass recorders, bassoons and krummhorns will be needed at all three meetings as well.
February 8
Franck: Gloria Patri, qui creavit nos
Praetorius: La Canarie
Vivaldi: Concerto RV 531
Fortuna desperata
Trenet and Lasry: La Mer
February 22
Franck: Gloria Patri, qui creavit nos
Praetorius: La Canarie
Vivaldi: Concerto RV 531
Fortuna desperata
Trenet and Lasry: La Mer
March 8
Franck: Gloria Patri, qui creavit nos
Praetorius: La Canarie
Vivaldi: Concerto RV 531
Fortuna desperata
Trenet and Lasry: La Mer
I look forward to seeing you at these upcoming meetings.
Sincerely,
Fred Palmer
MUSIC TRIVIA: THE MOST INTERESTING CLASSICAL COMPOSER YOU PROBABLY NEVER HEARD OF
Joseph Bologne (1745-1799) deserves his own Amadeus- type movie! (There is even a theory that Mozart was jealous of the attention he received from French royals and cast him as the villain Monostatos in The Magic Flute.) Bologne, later known as the Chevalier de Saint-Georges, was born on the island of Guadaloupe in the West Indies, the son of a French plantation owner and his slave mistress. His father had connections at the court of Louis XV, and he was sent to Paris as a child for an education. As a teenager he attended an aristocratic academy that specialized in swordsmanship. He first became a celebrity in Paris society as an expert fencer and all-round athlete. Upon his graduation, he was made a chevalier (knight) and a member of the king’s bodyguard. He stayed fit into his forties, when he was still giving fencing exhibitions, and fought his way out of two assassination attempts. These attacks may have been related to his connections with abolitionist groups in England and France.
Saint-Georges was also known as a virtuoso violinist by the mid-1760s, when several composers dedicated works to him. In the 1770s and 1780s, he directed two different orchestras sponsored by aristocratic patrons and performed music with Marie Antoinette during her private musicales at Versailles. During this period Saint-Georges composed a variety of music including string quartets, sonatas, symphonies, symphonie-concertantes, and comic operas. The Concert des Amateurs performed in court dress, because the queen might drop in on short notice. A patron of the Concert de la Loge Olympique commissioned Haydn to write what became his six “Paris Symphonies.” Saint-Georges traveled to Austria to meet with Haydn and his orchestra premiered the symphonies in 1787.
In 1790, Saint-Georges joined the National Guard on the revolutionary side. In 1792, he became colonel of an all-black cavalry regiment that was informally named after him. During the Reign of Terror, he was denounced by a subordinate officer (the father of novelist Alexandre Dumas, who was an ally of Robespierre) and was imprisoned for about a year. Upon his release, he returned to the army but was dismissed from his command for political reasons. He is believed to have traveled to the West Indies in the late 1790s, possibly as part of a commission sent to abolish slavery. This effort was unsuccessful. Saint-Georges returned to France and started a new orchestra before his illness and death in 1799.
There are several detailed biographies of the Chevalier de Saint-Georges online. This one includes a list of his musical works: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevalier_de_Saint-Georges
This is a newspaper story on the possible rivalry between Mozart and Saint-Georges:
Recordings of Saint-Georges’ music are available on YouTube. This one includes the overture and suite de ballet from his 1780 opera L'Amant Anonyme. Click on the words “Show More” below the video screen to see links to individual pieces:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPP4FNhiKcI
This is a Quartet in F Minor:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOYJu_IWqhU
This is a longer recording of Saint-Georges’ symphonies-concertantes:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqdmuSC1OLw&feature=youtu.be
-Judith Unsicker
The Board: President: Judith Unsicker; Treasurer: LouAnn Hofmann; Recording Secretary: Helen Shamble; Membership: Chris Flake; Publicity: vacant; Graphics: Mary Ashley; Newsletter Editor: vacant; Workshop Coordinator: vacant; Hospitality: vacant; Music Sales: Laura Gonsalves; Historian: vacant; Webmaster: Dan Chernikoff; Music Director: Fred Palmer; Assistant Music Director: Greta Haug-Hryciw.
MPRO website: http://www.mpro-online.org
