Lute and Voice

Tonight I went to hear two of the top early music performers in the world: Paul O'Dette, a lutenist, and Ellen Hargis, a soprano. (Let me just say that I LOVE student tickets. Top seats for $15? Incredible.) Mr. O'Dette has been nominated for five Grammys, and boy does it show. He plays so fluidly and with such virtuosic expression, his fingers arpeggiating easily across all the strings. Tonight, he played the theorbo. Ms. Hargis is equally skilled and colors her notes with an almost boy soprano quality. She also has incredibly technical control with her dynamics, able to diminuendo with seeming ease. (Diminuendoing is the hardest technical act for a singer.)

In case you're not familiar with the theorbo, this is basically a lute with an extra-long neck. (A lute is kind of like a guitar with a pear-shaped body.) The theorbo was used from about the 16th through the 18th centuries. Tonight's instrument was about 5-6 feet in length. Mr. O'Dette had to set it on the floor and reach above his head to tune the longest strings. It has a very soft sound, and only some of the strings are fretted.

Tonight's music was a mix of vocal/theorbo and theorbo-only works. The pieces for voice and theorbo were written in Medieval Italian, which has some words and pronunciations that remind me of French. Luckily, translations were provided. Most of the pieces dealt with love in its various monstrosities, but the final one ("Aspettate! Adesso canto!" by Antonio Cesti) was all about the prima donna who was singing. She went through various pieces, trying them out one after another for the presumably adoring audience, got fed up, and finally closed with "What, are you still here? Don't you know that when I say "wait" (and listen to me), I really mean "Get out of here!"?

The performers were not chary of acting and fully exploring the comedic nature of some of these pieces. At one point, Mr. O'Dette donned a Renaissance character mask with a long, sharp proboscis. In her first piece (L'Astratto by Barbara Strozzi), Ms. Hargis leafed through music and crumpled sheets as she "discarded" the various refrains her character was trying to sing. At one point, she even folded one piece of music into a paper airplane and launched it at the lutenist. The stage manager got in on the act by huffily picking up the papers when it was her turn to reset the stage.

The music from this era is interesting but can seem a bit monotonous in color to me. That's why I think it's so great when performers really bring it to life dramatically. Tonight, they did.

~Hope

PS Here's the full program in case you're interested:

L'Astratto by Barbara Strozzi (1619-1677)

Tocatta arpeggiata by Giovanni Girolamo Kapsberger (c. 1580-1651)
Ritornello by Kapsberger
Bergamasca by Kapsberger
Kapsberger by Kapsberger (no, this isn't a typo)
Ciaconna by Kapsberger (described by Mr. O'Dette as the "earliest piece of rock music." I think this was because it had so many ornaments that were basically like modern guitar riffs. The tonality was sort of similar, too, and he had some energetic strumming.)

Respira mio core by Strozzi
L'amante segreto by Strozzi
Questa e la nuova by Strozzi

Orfeo by Alessandro Scarlatti (1660-1725)

Toccata VI by Alessandro Piccinini (1566-c. 1638)
Corrente VII by Piccinini
Partite variate sopra l'Alemana by Piccinini
Corrente sorpa l'Alemana by Piccinini

Aspettate! Adesso canto by Antonio Cesti (1623-1669)