Thursday at the Boston Early Music Festival

Recorder Masterclass with Paul Leenhouts

The first player at this class was a conservatory-level student named Joe, who played the Telemann Fantasia in C major. This is a very complicated piece, and Joe not only played well but had the flexibility to take direction from Paul well, so we got to hear a lot of different possible ways to play the piece.

One discussion of interest was how to play the echoes. The easiest method to pull off was to just turn around and play the echo phrase with the instrument pointing away from the audience. Of course, this isn't usable in all settings. Joe made a face when someone suggested alternate fingerings, so Paul made him play some and suggested he should practice them harder.

The next performer was a committed amateur from Illinois named Jim, who played a Frescobaldi Canzona with his wife Ina at the harpsichord. The first two points Paul made were:

• The soprano Jim was using was an octave higher than Frescobaldi had envisioned the piece. Jim said he normally played it on tenor, but hadn't wanted to pack the tenor from Illinois.
• If he were playing a piece like that in concert, he would learn 3 or 4 of them, because otherwise it wouldn't be enough of the same thing. Jim said he usually played in church, and one was the right number for a prelude or postlude.

So then Paul moved on to the technical issues. He worked on tuning and ornamentation and ensemble listening skills.

The last player was named Jean, and she played a Loeillet sonata movement. Paul's impression of her was that she'd have more fun playing if she had more technical ability, so he showed her how to practice breathing and long tones to improve her tone, and how to practice the difficult finger passages.

Erin Headley & Anne-Marie Lasla, violas da gamba, Kristian Bezuidenhout, harpsichord and organ

This was the eleven PM concert. I went because although I'm not normally a big fan of solo viol playing, Erin Headley has provided some of the more memorable instances of it that I've ever heard. I wasn't disappointed in the playing; both the viols and the keyboard were very good, and the music from the French Baroque is beautiful and elegant.

Kristian Bezuidenhout's constant head-bobbing is distracting, but I got used to it. I especially enjoyed the courant from the Couperin suite, as it was one of the few fast, danceable things on the program.

The person I was sitting next to remarked at the end, "They should maybe play livelier music on these late concerts." I couldn't disagree with that -- even in the Follia at the end I was having trouble keeping my eyes open. But I also couldn't disagree with the friend I rode home with on the train, who had been to all three of the official concerts, at 5, 8, and 11, and said "Glorious music for 7 hours; I didn't want it to end."

Notes from the exhibition

After the masterclass I spent an hour or so at the exhibition.

I dropped off three recorders with their makers, so that they could be looked at.

Then I checked out the Early Music Shop to see if they had more brass instruments than I'd seen. They did have a Moeck cornetto diritto. The Moeck cornettos don't have a very good reputation in the cornetto community, and nothing I managed to get out of this one should modify that. But it is an easier stretch than you'd expect for a cornetto that size.

The rumor was that Frank Hubbard and maybe some other keyboard makers were exhibiting at one of the churches instead of paying the exhorbitant rentals for a room at the Raddison (see yesterday's post for a discussion of how empty the ninth floor was). But I needed to get to the exhibition to unload the instruments, so I couldn't stop and check it out.

Then I saw a friend buying an alto recorder from Tom Prescott. She was vascillating between two instruments of the same model. They both sounded like good instruments to me, and the flute maker at the next booth wasn't sure which was better, either. So then Tom Zajac, my friends recorder teacher, walked by and he told her which one he preferred, so she took that one. He admitted that he was heavily influenced by the pretty wood grain pattern -- they were, as you'd expect, very similar in sound.

So then three of us went off and had supper, which we all needed because we hadn't really eaten lunch. They see each other all the time, but I hadn't seen either of them recently, so it was good to catch up.

So how's business?

The board doesn't share their numbers with me, but here are my observations:

• The viols supported Erin Headley even worse than the recorder players supported Paul Leenhouts, so the downstairs in Jordan Hall might have been half full.
• I'm told the audience at the 8 PM concert of the BEMF Chamber Ensemble was respectable -- not sold out, but no large sections unoccupied.
• My impression is that the exhibition is about as well attended as usual -- of course the large crowds come on Saturday, so I'll let you know more about that later. The recorder maker who sold my friend her instrument seemed also to be closing another sale at the same time, so he seems to be doing well.
• The recorder masterclass was not as well attended as it has been in previous years, but they've usually had it on Saturday.

Related posts:

1. Wednesday at the Boston Early Music Festival
2. Sunday at the Boston Early Music Festival
3. Saturday at the Boston Early Music Festival