“Guided by Voices”*

Instrumental virtuosity in the period 1580 - 1660

For this Academy the phrase “guided by voices” signals the indivisible connection between vocal and instrumental music in the period which straddles the end of the sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth centuries. When we think today of virtuoso instrumental music and especially string music of the 17th century, we often go quickly to the middle and late parts of the century, with works of Corelli and Vivaldi. But instrumental virtuosity grew out of a kind of vocality that encompassed enormous agility next to a vocal rhetoric sensitive to the expression of the words and employing a whole palette of ornaments that grew into what we think of as Baroque style. In all instrumental music of this period, voices were the guide. Instrumentalists were admonished at every turn to imitate them. We will explore this concept of imitation investigating how we can make vocal graces sound idiomatic for our instruments, how we can use articulation, dynamics and tone color to imitate both the meaning and sound of the words, and how can we use these tools in playing instrumental music where there is no text. 

We will examine both instrumental music and the instrumental performance of vocal music, during a period which could be seen as transitional, but which we will rather try to see as an evolving sylistic whole. Beginning with highly elaborate diminutions from late 16th-century sources both instrumental and vocal (Bovicelli, Ricardo and Francesco Rognoni, Angelo Notari and others), we will go on to experiment with the instrumental performance of ornamented solo motets and duos by composers including Antonio Brunelli, Luzzasco Luzzaschi, Bartolomeo Barbarino and Carlo G. “Guided” in this way “by voices” we will then move on to instrumental music of Frescobaldi, Cima, Castello, Scarani, Uccellini, Fontana and others. 

The faculty for this Academy will be:

Bruce Dickey - cornetto
Catherine Motuz - trombone
Robert Mealy - violin
Elinor Frey - cello and viola da gamba
Hank Knox - keyboards

Dates: June 27 - July 3, 2022

Activities will involve a combination of individual and group lessons, workshops, both theoretical and practical, coaching sessions and performances. The Academy is aimed at young professionals or advanced students with experience in 17th-century repertoire and is open to players of violin, cornetto, trombone, curtal, cello, viola da gamba, and harpsichord. For information of costs and possibilities of financial assistance, please contact:

Burt Wathen
The Lunenburg Academy of Music Performance
http://www.lampns.ca

* The title of this Academy, Guided by Voices, is taken from the title of a composition for solo cello commissioned by Elinor Frey from composer Scott Edward Godin.