Baroque Blog

Jefferson Baroque Orchestra resembles in its makeup a typical early 18th century capella of the type envisaged by Johann Mattheson in ‘Der vollkommene Capellmeister’ in 1738 in which he outlined and codified the knowledge the director of such a group should have. Musicians in the 17th and 18th centuries were not always divided in their training between singers and instrumentalists as today, and musicians were trained in both disciplines. Of the musicians in our chorus, many are also instrumentalists who regularly play in JBO. Of the instrumentalists, several sing in the chorus when their instrumental skills are not required. Instrumental specialization was unusual in the Baroque period when musicians were expected to be skilled in several instruments. When J. S. Bach auditioned a musician named Pfaff for his Leipzig orchestra he reported the man to be skilled in trumpet, oboe, flute, bassoon and several stringed instruments. This is not as astonishing as it may seem, since all woodwinds in the period preceding incompatible key systems, were open-holed instruments whose fingerings were based on simple acoustical principles. Thus, when a composer requires oboes, flutes and recorders in the same composition, they are seldom required at the same time, since the same players were expected to play all three. Telemann’s Water Music typifies this. Telemann requires pairs of oboes in several movements, recorders in others, and transverse flutes in another. Handel’s Water Music is the same. In JBO performances of these works, our players perform on all three. Following is an excerpt from Telemann’s autobiography: ‘Also, the excellent instrumentalists in these cities stimulated in me the desire to improve my own ability to play these instruments. This would not have happened if I had not been driven by a strong fire of enthusiasm to acquaint myself with other instruments besides keyboard, violin and recorder. Now I also turned to learning how to play the oboe, traverso, chalumeau, viola da gamba and even the contrabass and bass trombone.” Elsewhere Telemann describes singing in his own operas and cantatas, characterizing his voice as “lower than tenor, higher than bass, usually referred to as baritone”. Telemann epitomises the spirit of the time, the enquiring, questing mind in search of expanded horizons and new possibilities of expression, the essence of the baroque era. Bin in terms of musical versatility and, more specifically, instrumental doubling, Johann Joachim Quantz offered a different point of view. He deprecated the necessity, in less wealthy establishments, of requiring musicians to play more than one instrument, suggesting that such men usually deserved the epithet of “bunglers”. He himself had once been subject of this necessity, and in the capella of the very opulent Dresden court. When asked what he liked best about his removal from the court of Dresden’s August “der Starke” to that of Frederick the Great of Prussion, his answer was bried and immediate: He no longer had to play the hautbois!