Cornucopia – An Autumnal Musical Feast

Programme notes

We’ve had some fun with the concept behind this concert. We realized that it was going to be presented around Thanksgiving, so the idea of a Thanksgiving feast seemed sensible, especially since EMSI’s theme for the 2026/27 season is “A Musical Feast”. One thing led to another and we started amusing ourselves coming up with a “menu” for the feast. It’s admittedly a bit eclectic, but I figure it fits quite well with the musical offerings. I dare anyone to try to actually prepare the meal we came up with!

The other theme that we had from the beginning was that this was a concert that should feature a couple of unsung instruments (pardon the play on words). In Baroque music, and, indeed most western music, the bassoon and horn are relegated to support roles. Yet, we are lucky enough to have two incredibly accomplished performers of these instruments here on the Island: Katrina Russell and Andrew Clark. It’s about time we had a chance to feature them in a solo capacity.

We are also featuring Island Temperament. Over a year ago, I approached Paul Luchkow with the concept of creating a resident Baroque ensemble for EMSI. He has put together an ensemble of some of the finest local (Victoria, Vancouver and the Island) Baroque specialists; an opportunity to showcase the amazing talent of early music specialists in our own back yard.

The repertoire for this concert was chosen by Paul, Katrina and Andrew. In designing the programme, they took on the mind set of a chef, mixing common ingredients in creative ways to create new dishes.

Consequently, we hear the familiar tunes of Handel’s Water Music, but in the less-familiar suite known as the “Appendix” or “Mr. Handel’s Celebrated Water Piece or A Choice Sett of Aires”. This was a contemporary arrangement of parts of the Water Music, published by a rival publisher with whom Handel had an exclusive agreement. Originally scored for trumpet, strings and basso continuo, in our performance, horn takes the place of the trumpet.

Vivaldi’s concerto for bassoon, RV481, closely resembles his cello concerto, RV406, so the two have been combined, taking the first and last movements of the bassoon concerto and inserting the second and third movements of the cello concerto. The result is a kind of cello sandwich!

We’re playing with the Purcell Fantasia on One Note by having the ubiquitous sustained note of the title passed around between different instruments, creating different tonal combinations as the piece progresses.

Introducing the Telemann Concerto for 4 Violins into the program provides a contrasting palate to the heavier dishes – in addition to giving the wind and continuo players a break before launching into the Handelian finale.

Not much need be said about the lives of the major composers on the program, familiar as they are to early music audiences, but some details about the two lesser-known composers may be informative.

Andreas Oswald (1634 – 1665) was an organist and composer of the early Baroque period. He was apparently also considered a very accomplished performer on violin and other instruments. He served as court organist in Weimar and town organist in Eisenach. On his death at the age of 30, he was succeeded in that position by Johan Christoph Bach, the uncle of J. S. Bach. Although he was an organist, his skill on other instruments showed in his surviving compositions, which consist mostly of sonatas for violin and other instruments including bassoon and trombone. An early Baroque composition, with an echo of the Renaissance, his Sonata à 4 is comprised of a single-movement with a duple-metre section followed by a triple-metre section.

The Bohemian composer Antonin Reichenauer was born in Prague around 1694. He was choirmaster at the Dominican church of St. Mary Magdalene in Prague and frequently composed works for the Count Wenzel Morzin, later a patron of Franz Joseph Haydn. His compositions were influenced by the school of Antonio Vivaldi, as evidenced by frequent mentions of Vivaldi in his surviving works. His output included many sacred works and a series of concertos for violin, oboe, bassoon and cello. Like Oswald, Reichenauer died young, at the age of 35.

It should be noted that the practice of changing the scoring for music to suit the available instrumental forces was a common practice in the Baroque. In the Renaissance, instrumentation was rarely specified. In the Baroque, music might be written with specific instruments in mind, but personnel were not consistent in the courts and churches where it was performed, so practical considerations dictated the necessity of improvising on scoring. Baroque composers were less interested in the textures of the music, and more in the individual line and in rhetorical expression. The Telemann suite in the second half of the programme is originally scored for two horns and two “dessus” instruments, meaning treble instruments. Consequently, the dessus lines could presumably be played by violins, cornetti, oboes, recorders or flutes. Furthermore, as the Water Music “Appendix” suite in D illustrates, rearranging by composers and others of well-known works was very common.

All in the service of a satisfying epicurean experience.

Notes by Bill Jamieson, with contributions from Katrina Russell