Christmas festival. Christmas in Venice

Performers: Early  Music  Ensemble "Hortus Musicus"

Andres Mustonen (violin, artistic leader), Anto Õnnis (tenor, percussion instruments), Tõnis Kaumann (baritone, percussion instruments), Riho Ridbeck (bass, percussion instruments), Olev Ainomäe (shawms, schalmei, recorders, duduk), Tõnis Kuurme (curtal, rauschpfeiff, recorders), Valter Jürgenson (trombones), Imre Eenma (violone), Taavo Remmel (double bass), Ivo Sillamaa (harpsichord, organ)

Two part concert

Programme

Part I

1. Carmina Burana
Songs from the XIIIth c. manuscript

2. Anonymous, Italy, XIVth. c.
Saltarello

3. Songs from Carmina Burana
„Ecce torpet probitas“
„Nomen a sollempnibus“

4. Anonymous, France, XIVth. c.
“Danse Royale”

5. Songs from Carmina Burana
„In taberna quando sumus“
„Celum non animum“

6. Anonymous, France, XIVth. c.
La quinte estampie real

7. Songs from Carmina Burana
„Tempus transit gelidum“
„Bache bene venies“

8. Anonymous, Italy , XIVth. c.
“Istampitta La Belicha”

9. Songs from Carmina Burana
„Vite perdite me legi“
„Presens dies“
„Clauso chronos“
„O varium fortune lubricum“

Part II

La Folia

1. Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643)
„Interrotte speranze, eterna fede“ (Libro VII, 1619)

2. Giorgio Mainerio (1530?/40? – 1582)
Dances from the collection „Il primo libro de balli“ (1578)

3. Claudio Monteverdi
„Zefiro torna e di soavi“ („Scherzi musicali“, 1632)
Giorgio Mainerio
Dances from the collection „Il primo libro de balli“ (1578)
Claudio Monteverdi
„S’el vostro cor, madonna“ (Libro VII, 1619)
„O mio bene, o mia vita“ (Libro IX, 1651)

4. Arcangelo Corelli (1653 – 1713)
La Folia op. 5 nr. 12 ( arranged by Tõnis Kaumann)

5. Anonymous catalan composer XVIth. c. (Cancionero de Palacio)
„Dindiridin“

 

Carmina Burana (Songs of Beuern) is a large manuscript from the XIIIth. century. It includes 254 poems, most of them are in Latin. The manuscript received its name only in the XIX century, because it was kept in the Benedictine monastery Benediktbeuern. Historians agree that the manuscript is not originally from there, but could come from the areas of Carinthia or Tyrol. Carmina Burana is the most important source of XII century non-religious Latin poetry. Most of the texts are satirical and even obscene, but the collection also includes moralizing songs, love songs, drinking songs and fooling songs. Several texts have been preserved with melody.
Today Carmina Burana is mostly associated with a cantata, composed by Carl Orff in 1936. Orff used twenty four texts from the original manuscript for his work, but not the music. Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana has become very popular and it’s one of the most performed classical music piece.

Folia is a Portuguese dance in a triple time signature from the late fifteenth century. Loosely translated it means “crazy” or “dazed” and at first it was a very fast and noisy dance in which the dancers seemed to be going out of their minds. By the end of the seventeenth century became known a new, slower version of La Folia and this new version is also the basis of Arcangelo Corelli's, Alessandro Scarlatti´s and Antonio Vivaldi's variations on this dance.
During the sixteenth century, certain specific and short, 4-8 bar harmonic sequences became very popular, they were repeated dozens of times and musicians used them as background for improvising and demonstrating their fantasy and virtuoso performance. Besides La Folia also bergamesca, moresca, passamezzo antico, romanesca, etc., were popular forms. Passacaglia and ciacona became popular during the baroque era.
La Folia has inspired hundreds of composers over the centuries. Besides the above mentioned we could also name such well known composers as Lully, Marais, Geminiani, Handel, J. S. Bach, Salieri, Liszt, Beethoven and Rachmaninoff.
Great power and magic lies in constant repetition of short sequences of harmony, it enchants and captures the listeners. Composers of all ages, up to rock and blues artists, have realized that.

Hortus Musicus performed their first concert in 1972, therefore being the oldest continuously performing ensemble in its field in Eastern Europe and one of the few of such longevity in the world. The ensemble was founded by Andres Mustonen, a violin student at the Tallinn State Conservatory at the time.
Born in the Soviet conditions of isolation, a group of enthusiasts found the path and image of Hortus Musicus by joining their youthful energies and using minimum outside help (as there was not much available). Andres Mustonen was the key figure as the generator of ideas. His implacability with the established regime and the stale notions that had evolved in music made the group discover the world of the previously unknown pre-Bach music.
The musicianship of Hortus Musicus is most aptly characterised by the cliché free creative attitude towards the music that is far from us in time, but not in content. Hortus Musicus has never directly contradicted the ‘authentic’ or ‘historically informed’ type of performing, but they have never aimed for that either. Therefore, the concerts and recordings of Hortus Musicus sound fresh, clear, and powerful – this is the living music of the people of today.
Within 45 years, Hortus Musicus has researched and performed European music from the 8th to the 21st century: Gregorian chants, organums, mediaeval liturgical dramas, hymns and motets, works of the Franco-Flemish school, Italian masters of Trecento, the rigid polyphony of the 16th century, French chansons, Italian madrigals, frottole and villanelle, many suites of Renaissance dances from all across Europe, early sonatas and large-scale religious works from the 17th and 18th century, and the music of 20th century composers (often written specifically for Hortus Musicus).
For a long time now, Hortus Musicus has not limited themselves to performing only early European music. Borders are crossed temporally, geographically, and genre-wise. Besides the so-called classical early music, the set lists of the ensemble include modern music, jazz, as well as the traditional and folk music of exotic countries.

Andres Mustonen discovered music in a very unusual way. His early fanatic interest in contemporary music made a U-turn in 1970 in the direction of early and Christian music. In 1972 it led to establishing the early music ensemble Hortus Musicus, which lives an active concert-life today also. Over the years Andres Mustonen has found a wide circle of friends among musicians he works with: Natalja Gutman, Aleksei Ljubimov, Dmitri Sitkovetski, Michel Lethiec, Inesa Galante, Juri Bašmet, Gidon Kremer, Ramon Jaffe, Francois Leleux, Marcel Peres, Yoshiko Arai, Pascal Gallois, Seppo Kimanen and Vasili Pantir. “I have never been on stage with someone who I do not know, who is not my friend and whom I do not love.” Andres Mustonen is also active as a solo violinist and a conductor, and he has grown as a conductor through his interpreter and musical career.