Musik


Baroque music recorded at Catholic Church Stans, Switzerland

Markus Wuersch, trumpet
Peter Solomon, organ

 


Jean-Joseph Mouret (1682-1738)
Rondeau from „Sinfonie de Fanfares“

Around the age of twenty-five, Mouret settled in Paris. News of his arrival did not take long to spread and he was introduced to Anne, Duchess of Maine, whose salon at Sceaux was a center of courtly society in the declining years of Louis XIV. His genial character strongly assisted him in securing the patronage of the Duchess, who made him her Surintendant de la musique at Sceaux about 1708. At Sceaux he produced operas and was in charge of the sixteen bi-weekly Grandes Nuits in the season of 1714–1715, for which he produced interimèdes and allegorical cantatas in the court masque tradition, and other music, in the company of the most favoured musicians, for the most select audience in France. Mouret thus launched his adult career under highly favorable auspices.
Sinking into poverty, Mouret died in a charitable asylum run by the Roman Catholic Church in Charenton-le-Pont.
His dramatic works made him one of the leading exponents of Baroque music in his country. Even though most of his works are no longer performed, Mouret’s name survives today thanks to the popularity of the Fanfare-Rondeau from his first Suite de Symphonies.

 


Giuseppe Tartini (1692 – 1770)
Concert in D, Allegro – Andante

He studied law at the University of Padua, where he became very good at fencing. After his father’s death in 1710, he married Elisabetta Premazone, a woman his father would have disapproved of because of her lower social class and age difference. Unfortunately, Elisabetta was a favorite of the powerful Cardinal Giorgio Cornaro, who promptly charged Tartini with abduction. Tartini fled Padua to go to the monastery of St. Francis in Assisi, where he could escape prosecution; while there he took up playing the violin.
There is a legend that when Giuseppe Tartini heard Francesco Maria Veracini’s playing in 1716, he was so impressed by it and so dissatisfied with his own skill, that he fled to Ancona and locked himself away in a room to practice.
Tartini’s skill improved tremendously and in 1721 he was appointed Kapellmeister at Il Santo in Padua, with a contract that allowed him to play for other institutions if he wanted to. In Padua he met and befriended fellow composer and theorist Francesco Antonio Vallotti.

 


Giuseppe Tartini (1692 – 1770)
Concert in D, Allegro grazioso

 


English Masque Dances (about 1600)

British Library contains the largest collection of dances from the early-seventeenth-century courtly masques to have survived, and it is thought that it was compiled by Sir Nicholas Le Strange of Hunstanton about 1624.
Masque dances tend to fall into a more regular patern most charcteristically of two duple strains followed by one in triple time.
According of various masques it clear that it was played by a collection of lutes and violins plus cornettos, spindels, timbells, rattels or other veneficall instruments „making a confused noyse“ to get a „kind of hollow and infernall musique“. A typical masque would have three elaborately choreographed masque dances which would be followed be Revels, in which the courtly masquers „took out“ the audience to dance.
The masque was an amalgalm of diverse arts, and music and dancing made a vital contribution to its overall richness.

 


Jean-Babtiste Buterne (1650-1727)
Sonate in F, Allegro – Andante – Allegro

Jean-Baptiste Buterne was probably born in 1650 in Toulouse. He was the son of the organist Jean Buterne, who was employed in Toulouse at first, and later in Pontoise. Jean-Baptiste Buterne recieved in 1674, the post as organist in Saint Etienne du Mont in Paris, and became the kings organist after a competition. In 1696, Buterne began to teach harpsichord to the princess Von Savoyen, who later became duchess of Burgund and was the mother of Ludwig XV. Jean-Babtiste Buterne frequently performed in concerts to the visitors of the king in Sceaux castle. After he stepped down from the post at the king’s chapel in 1721, and because of his age and deteriorating health, Buterne requested that one of his students, Claude-Nicolas Ingrain, take over his post, although Ingrain had already been playing there for 3 years. Jean-Babtiste Buterne died in 1727 in Paris.

 


Michel-Richard Delalande (1657-1726)
Suite in D, Grand Air – Marche – Bourée – Rondeau – Premier Tambourin – Second Tambourin – Gigue

Born in Paris, he was a contemporary of Jean-Baptiste Lully and François Couperin. Delalande taught music to the daughters of Louis XIV of France, and was director of the French chapel royal from 1714 until his death at Versailles in 1726.
Delalande was arguably the greatest composer of French grands motets, a type of sacred work that was more pleasing to Louis XIV because of its pomp and grandeur, written for soloists, choir and comparatively large orchestra. According to tradition, Louis XIV organized a contest between composers, giving them the same sacred text and a time to compose the musical setting. He alone was the judge. Delalande was one of four winners assigned to compose sacred music for each quarter of the year (the other composers being Coupillet, Collasse and Minoret).
Delalande left many versions of his works. His earlier versions show adherence to French Baroque style, but the later revisions incorporate more Italian melismatic lines and greater attention to polyphonic counterpoint.

 


Ernst Sachse (1808-1868)
Concertino in Es, Allegretto – Polacca

Ernst Sachse was born in 1813 in Altenburg (near Leipzig). He received his musical training from his father and from Wilhelm Barth, a musician in Altenburg at the time. The military took him on as an oboist to help out the „Sächsischen Linien Bataillons“ music corps, Altenburg. In 1822 he left the service, as another oboist was found to replace him, (officially he had another 6 years of service left). From 1834 he found a job in Weimar and played first and foremost as soloist in the Stadthaus there. In 1842, Sachse became first trumpeter in the duke’s chapel. During 1844 he performed in several concerts in London. In 1850, Sachse was able to play his composition „concertino in Eb for Solo Eb Cornet and Brass ensemble“ for the first time. Over the following 7 years he appeared as soloist in numerous concerts in London, Leipzig, Weimar, Etrecht, Amsterdam and Rotterdam. In 1870, Sachse died after a long spurt of bad health from edema.

 

Alessandro Scarlatti (1660 – 1725)

Rompe Sprezza performed by Regula Mühlemann, Wolfgang Sieber and Markus Würsch

 


Alessandro Scarlatti was an Italian Baroque composer, especially famous for his operas and chamber cantatas. He is considered the founder of the Neapolitan school of opera. He was the father of two other composers, Domenico Scarlatti and Pietro Filippo Scarlatti.
Scarlatti’s music forms an important link between the early Baroque Italian vocal styles of the 17th century, with their centers in Florence, Venice and Rome, and the classical school of the 18th century. Scarlatti’s style, however, is more than a transitional element in Western music; like most of his Naples colleagues he shows an almost modern understanding of the psychology of modulation and also frequently makes use of the ever-changing phrase lengths so typical of the Napoli school.

 

Swiss Carnival Band „Los Problemlos“

 


Juan Luis Guerra „El Costo De La Vida“. Arranged by Markus Wuersch.

 


„Tu Romnie“, a Gipsy Song from Romania. Arranged by Markus Wuersch.

Videoclips filmed at swiss traditional carnival in Gersau, Switzerland, February 2012.

Fastnacht is held in Baden-Württemberg, parts of Bavaria, Alsace, German Switzerland, and Austrian Vorarlberg. The festival starts on the Thursday before Ash Wednesday, known in these regions as Schmutziger Donnerstag, Schmotziger Donnerstag, Schmutzige-Dunschdig or Fettdonnerstag. In standard German, schmutzig means „dirty“, but actually the name is from Alemannic dialects where schmotz means „lard“ (Schmalz), or „fat“.[1] It continues in some parts with the Shrove Monday, though often differently called, e.g. Güdismontag (literally: Paunch Monday) in Lucerne, and the last day before Ash Wednesday on Fat Tuesday (Mardi Gras), in Lucerne known as Güdisdienstag (literally: Paunch Tuesday), often the most intense Fasnacht day.

 

Johann Nepomuk Hummel: Trumpet Concerto in E Major (seconda versione)

 

 

Johann Nepomuk Hummel, who succeeded Haydn as Kapellmeister to the Esterházy family, also composed a concerto for the keyed trumpet virtuoso Anton Weidinger. This concerto was composed in December 1803 and performed on New Year’s Day 1804, to mark Hummel’s succession of Haydn into the court orchestra of Nikolaus II, Prince Esterházy. Weidinger is believed to have changed passages in all three movements, to facilitate performance on the keyed trumpet (seconda versione). It is unknown whether these changes were made with or without Hummel’s approval. The original score was written in E major, but the piece is often performed in E-flat major, which serves to simplify technically demanding fingering when performed on modern E-flat and B-flat trumpets. Hummel also wrote a Trio for trumpet, piano and violin for Weidinger; unfortunately this is now lost. Other composers known to have written for Weidinger and his keyed trumpet include: Leopold Kozeluh (1747 -1816) and Joseph Weigel  (1766–1846).
We know that from 1793 Weidinger worked extensively to improve the keyed trumpet, but Weidinger’s instrument unfortunately has not survived. We have no record of the details of these improvements as Weidinger went to great effort to keep his innovations a secret. According to contemporary accounts, whenever he  appeared as soloist, he hid his instrument from curious eyes. In his own words he spent 7 years „at great expense“ improving the keyed trumpet. He did not want to „simply give away“ the fruits of his painstaking and expensive innovations.

It is to conclude from these sources that Weidinger did not play a normally available keyed trumpet of the period (examples of which exist in museums today), but that he based his virtuoso career on an instrument which he designed and optimized himself. Since his instrument has not survived and he jealously guarded his innovations, Weidinger’s important and critical contributions to the development of the keyed trumpet have been lost.

Today, in building modern reproductions of keyed trumpets for the Haydn and Hummel concerti, it would be unnecessarily dogmatic to consider only exact copies of surviving instruments as legitimate. That such important developments have been lost gives latitude to modern instrument builders in attempting to reconstruct the legendary keyed trumpet developed and played by Weidinger.

According to Reine Dahlquist, (The Keyed Trumpet and its Greatest Virtuoso Anton Weidinger) Weidinger, through his use of wider bore and additional tone holes, was successful in making the low register of the trumpet playable, until then not possible. Also it is thought that Weidinger in performing the Hummel Concerto did not simply change crooks for E Major, but used a newly designed and built instrument which was optimized for E Major.

Note: A new facsimile edition of the Hummel Concerto has recently been published; Johann Nepomuk Hummel: Concerto a Tromba principale 1803. Manuscript Facsimile Reprint, Vuarmarens 2011 (hkb Historic Brass Series, Bd. 4)

 

Georg Philipp Telemann: Sonata D-Dur für Trompete