Ravinia 2023 Issue 6

LISA-MARIE MAZZUCCO (VINIKOUR) nomenclature. These works not only operate in completely distinct national styles, but also employ keys/modes at the widest possible distance—F major and B minor. The Overture in the French Style ( Ouvertüre nach Französischer Art ), BWV 831, begins with a spacious French overture in two sections. Dotted rhythms and elaborate ornaments dominate the slow portion, while the fast seg- ment treats a gigue theme in imitative fash- ion. Three movements— Courante , Sara- bande , and Gigue —belong to the typical French dance suite. (Bach regularly omits the other suite member, the Allemande .) Popu- lar-style dances— Gavotte , Passepied , and Bourrée —come in pairs, but are performed with an added reprise of the first version. The concluding Echo contains built-in piano and forte contrasts, one of the few instances of dy- namic indications in Bach’s keyboard works. JEAN-PHILIPPE RAMEAU (1683–1764) Suite in D from Pièces de clavecin (1724) The most influential French musician of the late Baroque, Jean-Philippe Rameau can lay Johann Sebastian Bach by Johann Jakob Ihle (ca.1717–23) Title page of Bach’s Clavier-Übung, Part II two claims to continued fame. A theatrical composer of incredible dramatic force and musical innovation, he became the most im- portant and compelling writer for the French stage since Jean-Baptiste Lully. More than two centuries after his death, assorted stage works composed between 1733 and 1760—the tragédies en musique ( Hippolyte et Aricie and Casto et Pollux, for example), opéra-ballets ( Les Indes galantes ), acte de ballets ( Pygma- lion and Anacréon ), and comédie-ballets ( Les Paladins )—have been successfully revived for modern audiences. Even more enduring were Rameau’s analysis and codification of Baroque harmonic practices, theories meticulously outlined and rationally argued in more than a dozen book publications beginning with the trailblazing Traité de l’harmonie, Reduite à ses principes naturels (Treatise on Harmony, Re- duced to Its Natural Principles; 1722). Prior to that acclaimed publication, Rameau was a relatively unfamiliar name to most French musicians. The professional activities of his first 39 years, like his father Jean before, had centered on church organ playing. After a short-term appointment at the Avignon Ca- thedral (January 1702), he became organist at the Clermont Cathedral (May 1702). Rameau left the south of France for Paris in 1706 to succeed renowned keyboard virtuoso and composer Louis Marchand as organist at the Collège Louis-le-Grand, a school run by the Jesuits, and to serve as organist to the Fathers of Mercy. He also successfully competed for the organist position at Ste. Madeleine-en- la-Cité but lost that position by refusing to resign his other two posts. After three years, Rameau returned to the town of his birth— Dijon—as organist at Notre Dame, a posi- tion recently vacated by his father. Rameau remained in the south until 1722, when he departed for Paris (permanently, as it turned out) to oversee the publication of his Traité de l’harmonie . Another major achievement of 1706 was Ra- meau’s first musical publication, the Premier livre de pièces de clavecin , a single suite of nine pieces for harpsichord. His proximity to Marchand explains the elder musician’s instantly recognizable stylistic influence. In broad terms, the Premier livre continues the “abstract” suite tradition of Couperin, d’An- glebert, and Marchand: a prelude followed by generically named dances. Rameau’s three later harpsichord collections (1724, 1728, and 1741) embraced the more modern practice of descriptive titles for individual movements. The Pièces de clavecin (1724) is a multipurpose collection containing an essay on keyboard technique, a table of ornamentation, and 19 individual keyboard compositions. Their keys make clear that Rameau conceived two distinct groupings (“suites” in everything but name) centered on the pitches E and D. Of the nine pieces in the first suite, eight are in E minor and one is in E major. The ten pieces in Rameau’s second suite display greater modal variety: six in D major and four in D minor. Several pieces in this collection might be de- rived from Rameau’s recently composed inci- dental music to the opéra-comique L’En- driague (1723), his first composition for Paris. The Suite in D is noteworthy for the titles Ra- meau affixed to each movement, descriptions of their individual musical personalities. Les tendres plaintes (The Tender Complaints) is a melancholic minor-key rondo, one of five movements employing that refrain-based form. A lighthearted major-key melody and continuous eighth-note accompaniment cre- ate a carefree mood in Les niais de Sologne (The Simpletons of Sologne), followed by two variations. Les soupirs (The Sighs) draws on the tradition- al catalogue of expressive harpsichord devic- es, such as quick melodic ornamentation and suspension dissonances. The two rondos that follow portray a frolicking ( La joyeuse ; The Joyous Girl) and happy-go-lucky ( La follette ; The Silly Little Girl) unnamed girl. Rameau returns to D minor for the introspective L’en- tretien des muses (The Conversation of the Muses), music he later orchestrated for an opéra-ballet in 1739, Les fêtes d’Hébé, ou Les talens lyriques (The Festivities of Hebe, or The Lyric Talents). A storm slowly builds in Les tourbillons (The Whirlwind) before unleashing a torrent of notes that traverse the entire keyboard, an effect made possible by Rameau’s innovative hand-crossing technique. Two brief musical cameos—the minuet Le lardon (The Rascal) and lilting La boiteuse (The Rickety Wom- an)—appear before the suite concludes with a menacing rondo in D minor portraying the mythological one-eyed giants, Les cyclopes (The Cyclopes). –Program notes © Todd E. Sullivan 2023 Jean-Philippe Rameau by Jacques Aved (1728) JORY VINIKOUR Recognized as one of the outstanding harpsi- chordists, Jory Vinikour was born in Chicago and studied in Paris with Huguette Dreyfus and Kenneth Gilbert on a Fulbright schol- arship before top prizes in the International Harpsichord Competitions of Warsaw (1993) and the Prague Spring Festival (1994) ini- tiated his global concert career. A concerto soloist with a repertoire ranging from Bach to Poulenc to Nyman, Vinikour recently de- buted with the Cleveland Orchestra and Saint Louis Symphony, and he has performed with such leading ensembles as the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, Rotterdam Philharmon- ic, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, and Lausanne, Netherlands, and Moscow Chamber Orches- tras. Vinikour also collaborates extensively with such artists as sopranos Annick Massis and Dorothea Röschmann, mezzo-sopra- nos Hélène Delavault, Vivica Genaux, and Magdalena Kožená, contralto Marijana Mi- janovic, and tenor Rolando Villazón. Addi- tionally, he has accompanied mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie von Otter for recitals in Sweden, Norway, Spain, and Paris and at La Scala in Milan. Vinikour champions contemporary harpsichord repertoire as well, with works written for him by Harold Meltzer, Frédéric Durieux, Stephen Blumberg, Patricia More- head, and Graham Lynch, and he helped pre- pare Cyril Scott’s 1937 Harpsichord Concerto for publication by Novello. Sono Luminus re- leased his Grammy-nominated recording of contemporary American harpsichord works in 2013, following up his similarly honored album of Rameau’s complete harpsichord works, and in 2016 he recorded Bach’s six partitas for the label. Vinikour is often called upon by opera houses and festivals such as Paris Opera, Netherlands Opera, Salzburg Festival, Teatro Real de Madrid, Baden- Baden, and Glyndebourne for productions ranging from Mozart’s operas to Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress and Zimmermann’s Die Soldaten . He made his operatic conducting debut in 2016 leading Handel’s Agrippina for West Edge Opera, and he has recently led Blow’s Venus and Adonis , Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas , and Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea for Florentine Opera. Vinikour is the founder and artistic director of Great Lakes Baroque. This is Jory Vinikour’s first return to Ravinia following his festival debut in 2019. RAVINIA.ORG • RAVINIA MAGAZINE 29