Preludes & Vollenteries 21
St James Garlickhythe –(Sir Christopher Wren 1676-1683, Spire completed by Nicholas Hawksmoor 1717)
Friday May 7th 2019
Peter Sheppard Skærved – Violins –(Girolamo Amati 1628, Anonymous Brescia circa 1560, Sebastian Klotz 1750)
Giovanni Battista Vitali (1632 – 1692) – Partite sopra diverse sonate
Toccata
Bergamasca (with N Matties Prelude)
Ruggiero (with N Matties Ricercar as Prelude)
Cinque Passi
Tromba
Furlana
Passo e mezzo
Tomaso Antonio Vitali (1663-1745)
-D minor Prelude (Published London 1700)
Giuseppe Colombi (1635 – 1694)
-D Major Tromba a violino Solo, Allemanda, Corrente a due corde
Giovanni Bononcini (1670 – 1747)
– D minor Prelude (Published London 1700)
Giovanni Maria Bononcini (1642 – 1678)
– La Guelpha, L’Incognita (Scordatura Bflat-D-A-D)Published Bologna 1671)
Giuseppe Torelli (1658 – 1709)
– E minor Prelude (Published London 1700)
Nicola Matteis (Matheis) (fl. c. 1670 -after 1713)
D minor Allemand a due corde (Published London 1676)
Peter Sheppard Skærved writes: ‘It is a delight to bring Preludes & Vollenteries to St James Garlickhythe. Our first attempt to play at this wonderful church was foiled by building work, and we were around the corner at St Michael Paternoster Royal as a result. It has been especially inspiring to think about working in this space, as Fr. Tim Handley, Priest in Charge at St James, has been a wealth of ideas and information on Wren’s intention with regard to this interior, most particularly the various levels within the building. In this building, it seems, Wren experimented with light, perhaps most of all. With the exception of St Pauls’ Cathedral, he made no higher ceiling than here.
‘The acoustic and grace of this church led me to bring the music of the violin school of Bologna & Modena, much of which found its way to London after the 1671 Marriage of the Duke of York, later James II, to Maria Beatrice Anna Margherita Isabella d’Este. or ‘Mary of Modena’, who would become the ‘Queen over the water’, after the 1688 Revolution. Mary’s brother, was Francesco, Duke of Modena. He was a keen violinist, and gave concerts with Bononcini senior from the age of 11.
Over the past 18 months, this wandering thread of salon concerts has found its way to a score of the miraculous churches of the Square Mile, to All Hallows by the Tower, St Anne and St Agnes, St Botolph Aldgate, St Botolph Bishopsgate, St Clement Danes, St Clement Eastcheap, St James Garlickhythe, St Lawrence Jewry, St Margaret Lothbury. St Mary Abchurch, St Mary Aldermary, St Mary Woolnoth, St Mary at Hill, St Michael Cornhill, St Michael Paternoster Royal, St Stephen Walbrook, St Vedast Foster Lane.
The architecture of Wren, Hooke, Hawksmoor and Hooke has been counterpointed by contemporaneous music by Albinoni, Anonymous, Bannister, Baltzar, Barrenclow, Bassani, Bassano, Biber , Bononcini, Colombi, Corbett, Corette, Corelli, Cosimi, Dean, de Machy, Dowland, Eccles, Van Eyck, Finger, Gabrieli, Galli, Gasparini, Gijsbrechts, William Gorton, Handel, Hills, Hotteterre, Hyme, Keller, King, Klagenfurt Handskrift (Anon), Laurentini, Locatelli, Lonati, Marais, Marini, Matteis, Matteis Junr., Mell, Morley, Ortiz, Montanari, Pepusch, Philidor, Pisendel, Playford, Purcell, Riccardo, Rost (Copyist) Saint Colombe, Schemelzer, Simons, Simpson, Smith, Tartini, Telemann, Torelli, Vilsmayr, Utrecht, Vitali, Welltern, Westhoff, Ziani.
Each concert has featured a guest from our time, pieces by some of my treasured collaborators/friends, Richard Beaudoin, Judith Bingham, Nigel Clarke, David Gorton, Hafliði Hallgrímsson, Sadie Harrison, Michael Hersch, Alistair Hinton, Nicola LeFanu, David Matthews, S?d?ka Özdil, Paul Pellay, Gregory Rose, Evis Sammoutis, Peter Sculthorpe, Peter Sheppard Skærved, Andrew Toovey, Mihailo Trandafilovski, and Dafina Zeqiri Nushi.
Instruments have been heard by Andrea, Girolamo and Niccol Amati, Antonio Stradivari, and more from Italy, but, perhaps more excitingly, by the luthiers who lived and worked within yards of this church; Barak Norman, Richard Meares, Collingwood, and there has even been the earliest dated English violin, an anonymous instrument from 1664, inlaid with the crown of Charles II.
I am honoured to work with the various communities and groups who keep these extraordinary buildings alive, and to share this intimate music in the ‘auditorys’ which sprang from the imaginations of Wren, Hooke, Hawksmoor, and Dance.Thanks to Jane Ramsden & Jonathan Sparey for the generous loan of two of the violins used in this concert, to Fr Tim Handley (Priest in Charge) for welcoming me here. This modest project has only been possible from such kindnesses.’