Tage Alter Musik – Almanach 2011

That section concluded with "The Duke of Norfolk." The ensemble Rebaroque was founded in Stockholm in 1998, and first appeared at the Early Music Days in Regensburg in 2006. Its music director, violinist Maria Lindal, has worked with leading European baroque orchestras like Concerto Köln and Les Musicians du Louvre. Rebaroque is now one of Swedens' leading baroque ensembles. It's not hard to imagine why, hearing them play in Regensburg in this Deutsche Welle Festival Concert. In the 17th and 18 th centuries Europa was a musical melting pot where the best known tunes spread like wildfire from one country to the next and became a common musical heritage. Now long ago, dancing was mostly a group thing, but at one point, dancing in couples became an exciting new trend, and that inspired many new pieces. Traveling people like the gypsies exerted a great influence on the flood of music that came in the 16th and 17 th centuries. And that can still be found today in Swedish folk music, which clearly inspires the ensemble Rebaroque, back now with a rather jazzy take on this "table music" by Georg Philipp Telemann. Musik (Rebaroque) Two movements from a Tafelmusik suite, or table music by Telemann. Why only two? Maria Lindal isn't embarrassed to reveal the surpris- ing answer. Statement Maria Lindal: We take this music that we like and want to play, and we make it our own. And having these eight characters onstage, as we are, something's bound to happen. We just recorded the whole Telemann, called Telemania, but here we didn't play the first two movements because we didn't have money enough to pay for the gamba on the plane! Rebaroque is back now with a relatively familiar baroque tune, the Minuet by Boccherini. Musik (Rebaroque) Hard to tell where Boccherini leaves off and Rebaroque begins, a re-arrangement, in the truest sense of the word, of Boccherini's famous Minuet. Next, a composer from Sweden. The Early Music Days in Regensburg are always good for a surprise, and I confess, I hadn't ever heard of this next composer, Andreas Weström, who came from Sweden and lived from 1720-1781. Concert master Maria Lindal is the best source of information: Statement Maria Lindal: Andras Weström: an extremely talented violinist, at a young age in Sweden. And Sweden at the beginning of the 18 th century was really the North Pole, no culture whatsoever. And so he was lucky to be sent off to Italy. He came to Maestro Tartini. He was so talented, on the violin and had this explosive temperament. Unfortunately his money ended, and he was asked back to Sweden. In those days you made a grand tour under the protection of someone who paid for you and when that person said no no no you have to come back, you had to go back. He was very unhappy in Sweden, had a fight with everything in the universe and no one understood him. One thing let to another and he looked very deeply into the bottle, dead quite young. He's written some fantastic pieces, especially for violin, extremely difficult, big concert violinists refuse to play Weström. He also has unlogic in his way of thinking, I think he was crazy. This flute quartet where we play the last movement is a polska and it's folk music but it's written, so it comes between two chairs. Musik (Rebaroque) A piece called Polska by Andreas Weström. Next, Rebaroque has some music by Bach, but by now I think you've gathered you can expect more than a straightforward, note-for-note rendition. This next section contains elements from "Erbarme dich," the aria from the St. Matthew Passion, and the Brandenburg concerto Number Five. Maria Lindal: Statement Maria Lindal: Since we have Lars Warnstad is a real fiddler, and Andreas Edlund is a complete improvisation music, he never plays with music, he plays by ear almost all the time. That makes it really exciting. I find also playing Bach in the way that think he would have liked. You have sources that tell you that played Bach played so that you had a difficult time sitting still. He had such a rhythm and swing and improvised a lot, so why don't we? Musik (Rebaroque) Bach swings, as rendered by Swedish ensemble Rebaroque. The next piece, by Jean-Marie Leclair, is called Tambourine, but, says Maria Lindal, the name doesn't just mean the instrument: Statement Maria Lindal: Well the tambourine is something that if you were a composer in France in the 18th, I don't think you could call yourself a composer if you hadn't written a Tambourine. It was that important. It's like a passacagalia or Chaconne, a set of music and dances. And this one is quite fun, I like it. And I like the story about Leclair who was found murdered. And we don't know who did it, but his wife disappeared afterward with her lover. We don't know! Musik (Rebaroque) Tambourine by Jean-Marie Leclair. Maria Lindal has a story to go with the next piece titled The Frog Galliard by Thomas Morley: Statement Maria Lindal: The story that goes about Thomas Morley, who wrote the Frog Galliard, is that the queen in England had a lover, and she thought that no one