Tage Alter Musik – Almanach 2011

knew. Everyone knew! ANd everyone was laughing behind their back. So did Thomas Morley, and his way of showing his amusement was to write this Frog Galliard because the Queen called her lover "my little frog." RF: And she thought nobody knew that either. Lindal: Exactly, and every time she entered the room the musicians started playing the Frog Galliard. So it must have been quite annoying for him. Musik (Rebaroque) Thomas Morley's Frog Galliard, the frog's voice coming from the bassoon in Rebaroque, the ensemble from Sweden to whom the notes on the page are not terribly sacrosanct. The burgeoning creativity of the ensemble clearest in this next piece called Reben's Offering. In 2003 Rebaroque's harpsichordist, Andreas Edlund, wrote a version of Bach's "Musical Offering" for an octet consisting of musicians from his own klezmer band and from the "Extraterrestrial Baroque Orchestra". In the process he created "Reben's Offering," juxtaposing an old klezmer tune, the "Rebbetanst" with the main theme from the musical offering. So we'll hear the Bach theme introduced by the bassoon and then turn- ing up in various trappings. Statement Maria Lindal: We played a concert with Musikalisches Opfer, which of course is the peak of intellectual music for those of us who play classical music. RF: The Musical Offering. Lindal: Yes, and so we took the end of the theme of this and put it together with the klezmer dance called "Rebbetanst" . Well that's his love for the music and the connection with Bach. Bach is so complex harmonically. And with the klezmer music which also has dance has similarities with the rhythm and the melody. I don't think honestly Bach would like that version. Maybe he's not so uptight about his compositions as we think. We tend to put him somewhere high up and say, "He's holy, don't touch Bach!" I think he wants to be touched! Reben's Offering, by Andreas Edlund, with a healthy dose of Bach Musik (Rebaroque) The story goes that King Frederick the Great gave Bach a melody he'd written himself, and that Bach, on the spot, improvised a multi-voiced fugue on that complex motif. The ensemble Rebaroque took the idea further, the famous melody from Bach's Musical Offering given the Rebaroque treatment, klezmered-up through the inventiveness of harpsichordist Andreas Edlund. Beaming faces all around in this crowd in the Imperial Hall in Regensburg, whose Early Music Days 2010 featured Rebaroque. The Swedish ensemble not being let go without an encore: Musik (Rebaroque) Music for the dance floor in the Forlane movement from the Suite in C Major by Johann Sebastian Bach. Rebaroque is the eight-member ensemble from Sweden that presented that unforgettable concert on the hot and humid afternoon of June 13 in Regensburg's Imperial Hall on the final day of the Early Music Days in Regensburg 2011. Deutsche Welle's recording truck positioned outside and capturing it all for this broadcast produced by Greg Wiser and sound engineer Thomas Schmidt. I'm Rick Fulker, and I've found out that programs like this really generate reactions from those listening, so I hope you won't disappoint me. Send your feedback please to this address: music@dw-world.de . Artemandoline im Reichssaal