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Oberlin’s Baroque Performance Institute gears up to celebrate the music of England

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by Stephanie Manning

When Oberlin’s Baroque Performance Institute (BPI) began more than half a century ago, dedicated programs for studying and performing early music were almost nonexistent.

“ In the early seventies, it was really the only place where you could study that repertoire in the States,” artistic director Kenneth Slowik said in a recent interview. Thankfully, “nowadays, there are several different options.”

Throughout the decades, the renowned summer workshop has continued its annual meetings, with only a brief pause for the pandemic. From June 15–29, BPI will mark its 53rd year when it welcomes a group of both professional and avocational musicians to Oberlin Conservatory. Performers ages 15 and up will participate in workshops, master classes, and large ensembles under the theme “Music in England from Purcell to Handel.”

Where does BPI fit into today’s early music landscape? “ It still has its place, I think,” Slowik said. “Certainly, the people who come take away a two-week experience that’s unlike anything else they’ve done.”

[Read more…]

Michael Lynn acquires 18th-century book with unique flute music by Marin Marais, includes selections on BPI faculty concert

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by Daniel Hathaway

The Oberlin Baroque Performance Institute faculty concert on Tuesday afternoon, June 20 featured flutist Michael Lynn, harpsichordist Mark Edwards, and gambist Rebecca Reed in recently-discovered works by Marin Marais and Michel de la Barre.

The pieces were drawn from a large collection of dance suites offered for sale at a book auction earlier this year in Paris. Lynn learned about it in an email from the auctioneer, who wrote that there was “something related to the flute” in the collection being sold.

“As it turned out there was only a single music book in a very large library of books described as being from the Chateau de Champagne, but it is a superb collection of the earliest traverso solo and duo music written and published in France,” Lynn said during a recent conversation in the Special Collections room at the Oberlin Conservatory Library prior to Tuesday’s concert. “The composers, de la Barre, Hotteterre, and Marais, were all employed by Louis XIV and the music is all from his lifetime.”

[Read more…]

Oberlin BPI’s Dido and Aeneas: ten minutes with Lucas Harris

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by Daniel Hathaway

The 48th year of Oberlin’s Baroque Performance Institute sports a remarkably inclusive theme: “Music of the Enemies of Louis XIV.” BPI’s promotional materials note that in addition to engaging in four large-scale conflicts, the French Sun King managed to ruffle the feathers of nearly every major power in Europe during his 72-year reign.

Last week’s faculty concert featured music by Joan Cabanilles, Johann Joseph Fux, Johann Heinrich Schmelzer, Heinrich Biber, Johannes Schenck, Tomaso Albinoni, Henry Purcell, and Arcangelo Corelli in a performance that filled Kulas Recital Hall to capacity just with BPI participants.

This Friday evening, June 28 at 7:30 pm, the big faculty/guest concert moves into the much larger space of Warner Concert Hall for Arcangelo Corelli’s Concerto Grosso in D, Op. 6, No. 4 in D, Petronio Franceschini’s Sonata for Two Trumpets, and Johann Joseph Fux’s Ouverture in d. The evening will close with a semi-staged production of Henry Purcell’s tragedy Dido and Aeneas, based on Book IV of Virgil’s Aeneid. [Read more…]

Oberlin Baroque Performance Institute: faculty perform Couperin & Charpentier (June 30)

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by Daniel Hathaway

Even with a Baroque organ case looming over its stage, the utilitarian design of Oberlin’s Warner Concert Hall has nothing in common with the overwrought exuberance of the Palace of Versailles. But if you closed your eyes last Friday evening, June 30, and let your ears take over, the faculty of the Baroque Performance Institute — plus some advanced students and choral scholars — successfully transported you back three centuries to the court of Louis XIV (aka the Sun King) in extended works by François Couperin and Marc-Antoine Charpentier. [Read more…]

Oberlin Baroque Performance Institute marks anniversaries of Couperin & Charpentier

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by Daniel Hathaway

“We’ve always treated French music as something very special,” Kenneth Slowik, artistic director of the Oberlin Baroque Performance Institute, said in a telephone conversation. “It’s one of the two reigning styles in Baroque music that we have to come back to on a regular basis.”

BPI originally rotated annually between studies of the four main national schools of Baroque performance practice — English, German, Italian, and French — but now organizes its summer institutes more thematically. Currently in the second and final week of its 47th season, the BPI faculty is busy teaching the finer points of French Baroque style to 101 students of all ages and levels of accomplishment. “We try to instill in our students some sense of how we do what we do — and why — through teaching, lectures, and by example,” Slowik said.

Before they can assign those students to the weekly chamber groups in which much of the teaching takes place, the faculty have an immense puzzle to put together. “It’s always mysterious who’s going to show up,” Slowik said. “This year we have a raft of bassoonists. Some years we’re light in the flute department and some years it’s overflowing.” [Read more…]

Oberlin Baroque Performance Institute: Week Two, Day Six (Saturday, July 1)

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by Daniel Hathaway

StudentOrchWeek2(Gascho)If Saturday began with the fatigue that accompanies the end of an immersive two-week experience, it ended with the adrenaline rush and afterglow of some wonderful performances.

The last day of Oberlin’s Baroque Performance Institute was devoted almost entirely to preparations for the final participant concert, which would begin at 1:30 pm in Warner Concert Hall with performances by the Student Orchestra and Choir and the Intermediate and Beginner Dance Classes.

Before that, most of the 16 ensembles who would play on the second part of the event in Kulas Hall got a 15-minute dress rehearsal — really more of a sound check — onstage. That necessitated a number of furniture moves by the agreeable and accommodating stage crew, and not in the same order as the concert itself. [Read more…]

Oberlin Baroque Performance Institute: Week Two, Day Four (Thursday, June 29)

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by Daniel Hathaway

Skip-Coaching-Peter-LimSkip Sempé was in rare form in Thursday morning’s harpsichord class. In Lully’s Chaconne de Phaëton, he noted that there are three possibilities of playing in triple meter: beat two can be on time, late, or early, and beat three can be long or short, depending on the second beat. He confessed that he didn’t really read music until his 20s or 30s because things didn’t make sense to him on the page. And in discussing a Rameau Sarabande, he entered a long monologue about orchestral vs. opera conductors, the latter being more effective at accompanying voices and dancers.

He also noted — in a discussion of playing difficult trills — that he had stopped admiring effort over results (he related that to grant writing), and had less than complimentary things to say about the traverso, though he suggested trilling like a flute would. [Read more…]

Oberlin Baroque Performance Institute: Week Two, Day Three (Wednesday, June 28)

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by Daniel Hathaway

BackToBackContinuo(Clarner)When I went into this two-week immersion, I thought I’d pursue all the daily activities of a harpsichord student and then toss off an article about the experience every evening. Silly me. That plan evaporated the day I realized that I’d left my room before 8 am and hadn’t returned until after ten in the evening. BPI keeps you busy all day! I’ll stick to the article-a-day schedule, but there’s some catchup writing to be done.

On Wednesday, the harpsichord master classes split into two concurrent sessions, one led by Lisa Crawford, the other (mine) by Mark Edwards. After hearing the C-minor Prelude from The Well-Tempered Clavier Book One (advice: use wrist rotation to mirror the texture of the music; differentiate between speaking and singing) and Antoine Forqueray’s La Montigni (originally a viol piece, so prioritize how to play the notes in the bass line; to avoid “claw hand,” let the hands free fall onto the keyboard from overhead height), I was up next with a rather bizarre piece by an English virginalist. [Read more…]

Oberlin Baroque Performance Institute: Week Two, Day Two (Tuesday, June 27)

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by Daniel Hathaway

Beginning-Gamba-ClassBPI people don’t tend to sleep in (no matter how late they’ve been up the night before), but perhaps the most reliable early birds are the beginning viola da gamba players, who circle their wagons every morning at 8:00 sharp.

That’s an instrument that inspires ardent devotion among experienced historical string players and great curiosity in neophytes — some people who have never picked up a bow are giving the gamba a try this week. We’ll hear more from both types of gambists as the week continues.

Oberlin graduate and BPI alumnus Skip Sempé joined the faculty for week two, making his first official appearance in Tuesday morning’s harpsichord class. [Read more…]

Oberlin Baroque Performance Institute: Week Two, Day One (Monday, June 26)

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by Daniel Hathaway

TheorbosLobbyAfter an intense first six days, it was essential to take a day off. While some of us enjoyed extra practice time, others took care of practical matters like laundry. One group of students recharged their musical circuits by taking over a piano practice room and playing multiple-hand versions of non-Baroque music like Carmina Burana.

The second week coincides with Oberlin’s Summer Trumpet and Percussion Institutes, so there are new groups on campus vying for rooms in an already tight situation because of construction. Harpsichordists showed up for their master class to watch a group of percussionists discussing the finer points of tambourines. Trumpeters are taking over the Methodist Church next door.

Since rooms are at a premium, you can encounter groups using every available space — like the gaggle of theorbos meeting with Lucas Harris in the lobby of Warner Concert Hall (above). [Read more…]

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