Birthday Concert - Baroque Music

The Rudolf Kempe Birthday Concert of 2018, The Joy of Baroque, was Programme III of the Rudolf Kempe Society’s 2018 Songs of Apollo Word and Music season at Stratford-upon-Avon: an oboe-focused programme of Baroque music for woodwinds and harpsichord played by Ensemble Montbel. It took place on Sunday 17 June 2018 at 7.30 pm at the Kempe Studio at The Muses, 58 Waterside, Stratford-upon-Avon, in aid of the Rudolf Kempe Society International Young Artists Platform. The artists gave their services out of veneration for Rudolf Kempe and in recognition of the Society’s work.

Performers

• Ensemble Montbel
  • Jane Eminson – flute
  • Hans Martin Ulbrich – oboe; he had played under Rudolf Kempe and remembered him vividly as a conductor and as an inspiring teacher
  • Robert Chalmers – bassoon
  • Peter Morris – harpsichord (named in the programme booklet; the poster names Peter Eminson)

Programme

Part I

• Giuseppe Cambini – Trio in D major, Op. 45 No. 1, for flute, oboe and bassoon: Allegro maestoso
• Girolamo Frescobaldi – Tre canzoni per canto solo (oboe and basso continuo): La Donatina, La Lucchesina, La Bernardina
• Antonio Vivaldi – Concerto in G minor for flute, oboe and basso continuo: Allegro ma cantabile – Largo – Allegro non molto
• Johann Sebastian Bach – Sonata (Partita) in A minor for solo flute, BWV 1013: Allemande
• Johann Joachim Quantz – Trio Sonata in C minor for flute, oboe, bassoon and basso continuo: Andante moderato – Allegro – Menuetto – Vivace

Interval

Part II

• Johann Friedrich Fasch – Sonata in C major for bassoon and basso continuo: Largo – Allegro
• Johann Christoph Pepusch – Trio Sonata in G minor for flute, oboe, bassoon and basso continuo: Adagio – Allegro – Adagio – Menuetto
• François Couperin – Suite pour clavecin, Sixième Ordre: Les Moissonneurs (Gayement), Les Moucherons (Légèrement)
• Jean-Baptiste Loeillet – Sonata in F major, Op. 1 No. 1, for flute, oboe, bassoon and basso continuo: Grave – Allegro – Adagio – Gavotte (Allegro)

About the programme

Dame Judi Dench’s welcome in the booklet noted that one of the evening’s musicians had played under Kempe, and that the oboe-focused programme might well include music Kempe himself had played as a young oboist.

A note on the Quantz Trio Sonata explained its source: the library of the Electoral Court Orchestra in Dresden – today the Staatskapelle, the orchestra that “brought up young oboist Rudi Kempe”. Its famous Schrank II (“Cabinet No. II”) holds rare original manuscripts of early music that survived the Thirty Years’ War, the Seven Years’ War and the bombing of Dresden on 13 February 1945. Robert Chalmers helped with this research. The booklet also carried a portrait of Rudolf Kempe, portraits of the composers, and Antoine Watteau’s paintings The Surprise and Les Charmes de la vie.

Credits

• Publicity, printing and archive recording: Max Ross
• Dame Judi Dench, Patron; Richard Pearce, Chairman of the Society