Ravinia 2023 Issue 2

Above: Jeannette Sorrell conducts Apollo’s Fire from her harpsichord, providing the musical “grounding” in every sense. Below: As the musicians access the emotions written into Baroque music to evoke the Affekt , unsurprisingly the moments of humor also play out in their stage presence. Sorrell continued her studies at Oberlin and in the conducting program at Tanglewood, where she studied with Leonard Bernstein and Roger Norrington. She was soon on faculty at Oberlin’s summer Baroque institute and conducting at Aspen. Apollo’s Fire was still in the future, but it was clear that Sorrell was destined for greatness. Her opportunity came in an oddly unorthodox manner. Sorrell was asked to interview for a position as assistant conductor with the Cleve- land Orchestra. She hadn’t sought it out. “I didn’t even know I was on their list,” she clarifies. Upon attend- ing the interview, Cleveland’s music director, Christoph von Dohn ányi , told her point–blank that he would not offer her an audition because she was a woman. Sorrell was stunned. “This was 1992, not the dark ages.” She countered Dohn ányi with some blunt force of her own, reminding him that she didn’t call them, they called her, and as an early-music specialist she wasn’t much interested anyway. “It was not a politic thing to say, but it was the truth. It’s deeply ironic, as I now look back on it as a lesson in the value of being true to yourself.” Indeed, it was. Roger Wright, the orchestra’s artistic administrator, had long admired Sorrell’s music; now he was impressed with her extraordi- nary moxie. Wright drew her aside to share that he had long wanted to launch a period-instrument orchestra in Cleveland, and felt she was just the conductor to make it happen. Apollo’s Fire was born. Sorrell and her Grammy Award– winning ensemble now have over 26 commercial recordings to their credit and have performed all over the world in a repertory ranging from the great works of Bach, Handel, and Vivaldi (Chicago audiences will particularly remember a glorious performance of the Monteverdi Vespers last season) to the folk music traditions of America, Britain, and the Middle East, all pre- sented with 17th-century flair. The or- chestra is guided by strict observance of the foundational Baroque ideal of Affekt, or The Doctrine of Affections. Ravinia audiences, equally familiar with the Ohioans’ affective affinity for potpourris of the Baroque period, may experience one of Maestro Sorrell’s most intriguing conceptions to date on July 8 when Apollo’s Fire returns to the Martin Theatre with The Road to Dublin, Sorrell’s creative sequel to the much beloved Sugarloaf Mountain: An Appalachian Gather- ing. Ravinia sat down with Sorrell to discuss this delightful new program as well as to glean her thoughts on period performance practice and its relationship to the more rustic world of traditional folk music. Explain the Baroque ideal of Affekt. This is the concept that music writers of the 17th and 18th centuries talked about, the idea that music has the power to move emotions. The role of the performer was to consciously ma- nipulate the emotions of the listeners. Early Baroque composers, especially in Italy, were trying to re-create the emotional power of ancient Greek music, which was said to be able to cause a crowd to go into a riot or be peaceful. The main tool for this is what they called “rhetoric.” Think about ancient orators; they could ma- nipulate a crowd through the pacing of their speech and the rising power of their voices. They could build up excitement, and suspense—then gently bring it down to quiet contem- plation. When I started Apollo’s Fire, I knew this is what Baroque music was supposed to be about, but many period groups at the time didn’t seem to be focused on this. I decided this was going to be our ‘thing.’ We focus on Affekt and rhetoric and moving the emotional needs of listeners. We’re conscious of that with every phrase we play. Apollo’s Fire has enjoyed tremendous success in ‘classical’ Baroque rep—but then we hear your wonderful collections of Appalachian music like Come to the River and Sugarloaf Mountain , as well as explorations of Jewish Sephardic music. What does Baroque music have in common with ancient folk tradition? In the 17th century there wasn’t a high wall between art music and popu- lar music. The great composers like William Byrd and his colleagues, who wrote elaborate masses, were also writing variations on popular tavern songs. In Italy, the early Baroque RAVINIA.ORG • RAVINIA MAGAZINE 77