Frederick the Great Playing the Flute at Sanssouci.
Tales of Cities: Paris and Leipzig
Pascale Beaudin, Charles Brink, Krista Feeney, Chloe Fedor, Nicole Divall, Patricia Halverson, Loretta O'Sullivan, and Andrew Appel complete the ensemble with Bach's B minor Ouverture for flute and strings, Brandenburg V, a sonata of J. M. Leclair, and arias by J. Ph. Rameau for an afternoon of German brilliance and French sensuality by the best of Paris and Leipzig.
Concert & Reception: $100
Silda Wall Spitzer and Erik Stangvik, hosts
Germantown, NY
Pascale Beaudin, soprano
Charles Brink, flute
Krista Bennion Feeney & Chloe Fedor, violin
Nicole Divall, viola
Loretta O'Sullivan, cello
Patricia Halverson, violone
Andrew Appel, harpsichord
J. S. Bach
Suite in B minor for flute & strings
Brandenburg V for flute, violin, harpsichord & strings
Jean-Marie Leclair
Sonata VIII in C major, Opus 9 for violin & continuo
Jean-Philippe Rameau
Arias
Temple Sacré
Vien Hymen
Frederick the Great collected paintings of Watteau and hired artists to imitate the Fete Galante. Voltaire was an honored guest at Sanssouci. German princes and paupers idolized and copied the French.
Bach adored French dances and learned their moves and forms as a young man in North Germany. His solo suites were inspired by 17th century Parisian harpsichordists whose works he copied and served as models for his allemandes, gavottes, etc. The flute suite in B minor is a masterwork of French-German art as our greatest German composer puts on courtly attire. The Brandenburg Concertos remind us that Italian music, also available to him, offered an equally powerful model. The limpid beauty of Rameau seduces us today yet Bach was not a fan. Did he find it frivolous? Was the music not sufficiently based in traditional counterpoint? Bach did not know Leclair’s powerful chaconne from the sonata on our program, a worthy companion to his own chaconne for solo violin.