[00:00:08] Speaker A: This is Hannah Dupriest welcoming you to another exclusive Salon Era podcast episode. This time, we're highlighting Arcadian Dreams, a new program and forthcoming album from Les Delys, featuring me, violinists Shelby Yaman and Kako Boga, art artistic director and oboist Deborah Nagy, Viola de Gambist, Rebecca Landell, and harpsichordist Mark Edwards. In this episode, you'll hear clips from a live performance of Arcadian Dreams captured back in October 2024. This concert was part of the Early Music America Annual Summit, and it was a fantastic audience full of local fans and national leaders, musicians and students from across the country. I also spoke to Deborah, Shelby, and Mark about their experiences of this music and our recording project, so you'll hear insights from them as we go. Before we get to the music, let's get some background on Arcadian Dreams from Deborah Nagy.
[00:01:08] Speaker B: Deborah, it's great to talk to you and it's great to, like, cast our minds back to this project that was just in October, but kind of feels like another lifetime.
[00:01:18] Speaker C: Yeah, it's been an incredible season so far for Lady Elyse and honestly, Hann, this was such a highlight this late October program and of course, the CD recording sessions that accompanied it. And I'm really excited to have part of my work later this spring and certainly into the summer, be about spending a lot of time with this audio and turning it into a beautiful CD that'll come out early in 2026.
[00:01:49] Speaker B: I know. I'm so excited. I still remember the feeling when you first emailed me about the idea of doing a CD project. And then Arcadian Dreams kind of like grew in this Google Doc that we shared. And one of the coolest things about this CD and something that you really encouraged me to think about was having.
[00:02:15] Speaker A: Some stuff that really felt like a.
[00:02:16] Speaker B: Discovery for audiences and for us, and then stuff that really felt like it could almost be like a calling card.
[00:02:23] Speaker A: For what Lady Lys does really well.
[00:02:25] Speaker B: For what I do really well. And I thought that was such a.
[00:02:28] Speaker A: Great way of approaching the program.
[00:02:30] Speaker B: And it is what kind of happened. And the discovery piece, one of them was this really lovely Lefebvre cantata. And we're gonna hear a little bit of it to kick things off. Can you talk us through a little.
[00:02:44] Speaker A: Bit about this, why it appealed to.
[00:02:47] Speaker B: And about this particular moment, this pastoral, lovely scene that we're about to hear?
[00:02:53] Speaker C: Yeah. I have been interested in Louis Antoine Lefebvre for a little while, actually, just pre Pandemic, I had planned to perform a solo motet for Tenor with orchestra. And I just was so struck by the orchestration. In particular, Lefebvre is a contemporary of Rameau's. And so this kind of delicacy and refinement, beautiful, complex ornamentation, gorgeous, rich harmony, is really part of a shared language with Rameau. And I really wanted the opportunity to delve a little further.
And so when I came, when we started planning and thinking about this project, I naturally wanted to look into some composers whose work I wanted to get to know better or that perhaps had not been recorded previously. And to my knowledge, this full cantata by Lefebvre has not been recorded previously. And I mentioned the orchestration of Lefebvre that I was really taken with. So there's this gorgeous musette that comes about a third of the way through this cantata which has the text Je ne titire eveillez vous, which is, you know, come on, get up, it's time to go. And it's time to take the flocks into the fields and participate in the day in the fullest sense. And it's just a beautiful and gorgeous kind of musette in the French tradition that also is this great wake up call, as it were, literally and metaphorically.
[00:04:44] Speaker A: Let's listen now. This is Je ne titire et veillez vous from Louis Antoine Lefebvre's Leuve de l'au Ror or the Rising of the Dawn.
[00:05:57] Speaker D: Jes.
[00:07:42] Speaker A: We're back again with Deborah Nagy to preview another highlight from Arcadian Dreams and aria from Handel's cantata Mi Palpita il cor with oboe Avogado. Deborah, can you tell us a bit about this piece?
[00:07:55] Speaker C: Well, we're about to hear Jotan ti Afani from Handel's cantata Mi palpita il cor and actually Mi palpita Alcor. It's a piece that I was introduced to as a student actually learning the barrocobo. So it was kind of also this fantastic kind of walk down memory lane to revisit it and, you know, and create it in a very new way with you, Hannah.
But it's rather rarely done. Mi palpita and as many of Handel's smaller cantatas are rarely done, and it survives in a few different versions of which some are incomplete as well, which. So there's also, you know, question marks around like, well, I mean, how do you. How do you do this piece?
And so what we hear here is the second aria, the sort of big, beautiful central aria. So I want to take a moment and just read the text of this Aria or the translation, which is, I have so much suffering in my breast that a greater oppression cannot be described. I know well that I give harbor to a bitter and cruel torture and that I am dying. This is about love, don't forget.
But so it is this incredibly pained text, and yet the music is absolutely ravishing. And it's in G minor, which is, of course, a key full of pathos, but it's also in 6, 8, and 6, 8. Is usually has a kind of lilting kind of lightness that is also quite pastoral in a way that provides a little bit of cognitive dissonance with the text, which I think is cool, since that meter is kind of associated with pleasure and relaxation.
I also love both the oboe and the vocal lines. They're very imitative. They have all these incredible leaps and chains of suspensions.
And for me, it becomes like this. Again, this sort of opposition or cognitive dissonance where, like, the shepherd's supposed misery is kind of incongruent with the object of his desire. So there's all this, like, pleasure and pain all wrapped up in how this really gorgeous aria works. And, of course, you sang it so beautifully.
[00:10:29] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, it's so easy when you're playing with someone who's just so aware of every choice that you're making and so flexible. And it was just such a pleasure. This was. This was one of the parts of the project that I was, like, most excited about was this specific aria. And it was just so fun to do.
[00:14:16] Speaker D: Ra.
[00:17:28] Speaker A: Harpsichordist Mark Edwards and Gambist and cellist Rebecca Landell form a linchpin of Les Delices. Together, they are our basso continuo section. In Baroque music, the basso continuo provides harmonic and rhythmic structure with a bass line from the bowed bass and chord progression. Harpsichord or organ.
But these two don't just bring their skill and creativity to bass lines. Mark and Rebecca are both incredible soloists. At our live performance of Arcadian Dreams, we got to hear Marc Edwards perform Domenico Scarlatti's Keyboard Sonata in D minor, K213.
Before we listen, let's hear my chat with Mark about this special piece.
Mark Edwards, it's so great to talk to you. Thank you for being on the Solanira podcast.
[00:18:14] Speaker B: I'm not sure you've been on one of our little podcast exclusives, but our audience definitely knows you're playing. We're about to hear your recording of this sonata by Scarlatti, his Sonata in.
[00:18:28] Speaker A: D minor, K213, and I was wondering.
[00:18:31] Speaker B: If to kick things Off. Could you describe it to us in three words?
[00:18:36] Speaker E: Sure. Three words that describe this sonata. Yeah.
Mysterious. There's a whole lot of mystery in this sonata. It begins with this rising arpeggio figure that's sort of asking a question, what's going to happen?
It's hypnotic in a way, in that it has these repeated patterns that just sort of draw you in and. And cast a spell on you. And it's extremely expressive, that it has a lot of dramatic, expressive gestures in the melody that really give it a lot of character.
[00:19:20] Speaker B: So your words were mysterious, expressive and hypnotic, which I would totally agree with. Can you talk a little bit about how or the ways in which this sonata feels really Scarlattian? Like, what are the aspects of it that feel really particular to this composer?
[00:19:38] Speaker E: For me, one of the sort of hallmarks of Scarlatti's style is how he relies on compositional cells. They're little units of music that function in ways that can be repeated, transposed, sometimes varied. And so what Scarletti loves, loves to do is he takes one of these cells and he repeats it a couple of times, and then you change to another key and he repeats it a couple more times. And on the face of it, it probably looks a little bit tedious. But what I found that when playing it is that actually, in all of that repetition, there's a real opportunity for you as the performer, to stay something with that and to ask the question, well, why are we repeating this cell so many times? What is that repetition, say? So I think that's one of the hallmarks of the style. Another hallmark is probably just how Scarlatti loves these sort of characteristic dissonances that to most of us, sound a bit unusual.
There are a variety of possible inspirations for it, one of which is. Is probably really Portuguese and Spanish guitar music, I think.
But you'll. You hear a lot of that in the sonata of. Of chords that have crunchy little dissonances baked into them that also. Scarlatti likes to repeat several times to kind of.
To kind of make an impact. And I think that's also that. That that sort of repeating over is partly what gives the piece that hypnotic feeling that I described before of being sort of gradually lured into Scarlatti's world.
[00:21:46] Speaker A: Let's listen now to Mark perform Domenico Scarlatti's Keyboard Sonata in D minor, K213.
Thanks for listening to this episode of Salon Era, which features excerpts from a live performance by les Delys from October 2024. In a moment, we'll get back to the episode. But first, I hope you'll consider making a tax deductible gift in support of Salanira. With your support, we can continue to collaborate with engaging guests from across the country and around the world. You can support Salanira by subscribing to this podcast and by
[email protected] your donations make every episode possible.
Thanks again for supporting Laetalisse and Salon Era by listening and subscribing to this podcast.
[00:27:12] Speaker C: Tune in on April 7 for the premiere of Myth Then and Now, which considers mythology's contemporary resonance. Our conversation will span classical mythology, Catholic hagiography and Confucian philosophy as we sample recent performances of Myth inspired cantatas by Rameau and Montaclair. Guests Sophie Michaud and Adam Simon of Tiny Glass Tavern share a recent performance. Centering St. Cecilia and Les Delices previews their recent world premiere of A Moment's Oblivion by composer Viet Quang featuring Tanner Nicholas Pan.
[00:27:55] Speaker B: Today we have a really special treat on the podcast, especially for me because I'm interviewing Shelby Yaman and Shelby is one of my best friends and our history together. I was thinking about this Shelby, like it really kind of dovetails with the history of Solan era in this beautiful way because before 2020, like depths of the Pandemic, I had no idea who you were. And yeah, and it was really Deborah and Solanira that brought us together. So I always thought like, to start you could maybe like talk a little bit about like cast your mind back to those sort of like early days and like the onboarding of you to Solania and I guess the onboarding of.
[00:28:44] Speaker F: Our friendship, we met and had a purely virtual relationship for a good year and because of the pandemic, I think we were. Everything was virtual. So it didn't feel like, it felt like all my friendships and working relationships with colleagues was virtual. So it didn't feel any different. And so I think that really led us to being close both professionally and personally. And then when we got to play together for the first time and we actually stayed in an Airbnb together, it was like we had known each other forever. And I think through working with Salon Era, which took a lot of work and a lot of collaboration, especially in the early days, yeah, we kind of got to know how each other's minds worked. And the funny thing in looking back about our first collaboration is that we actually had played together on Solaniera with I believe at that point we had done remote recordings together. And so I was so familiar with your voice And I think I feel this way about my playing with Deborah, too, is that I had such a journey, let's say, with the remote recordings, where you're listening to someone in your ear and trying to fit in, and you're listening so critically and you're listening in such a different way without the impulse of being in a room with someone. And so I definitely feel like I got to know Deborah's playing in such a unique way, which I'm grateful for now, even though those recordings were so frustrating to just not play with real people for sure.
[00:30:31] Speaker B: Actually, it's so funny that you bring that up. I mean, I think I have kind of like a trauma wall built around. I think for so many people, whether or not you're a musician, thinking about the pandemic is a complicated thing for any of us. But that's a really beautiful thing to carry through. And I think it's kind of beautiful, too, now to think about the way that our working relationship and your relationship with Lady Lys has developed. It started off with these recordings, which I remember feeling also, like, really high stakes because there wasn't a lot going on. And just like, nailing it felt really important not to dwell on that, on that aspect of it, but just like this idea of the close listening that we all had to do to kind of like, fit ourselves together. And then, as you said, there was this relief where we could just like, oh, my God, rehearse in person. That was so fun. And even that recording all being in the same room felt so different from those remote recordings.
[00:31:30] Speaker F: Yeah, that was a really unique experience because we were preparing the concert for several live performances and subsequent live performances, so we knew we would be playing in a bunch.
And also in the midst of that kind of in the middle, we recorded the cd. And I'm really glad you mentioned, like, we're listening today to a live version of that, which kind of, as we were discussing over the pandemic, recorded content versus live content. It's a very different experience to play and a very different experience to listen back.
It does take a really good team to keep you motivated and energized and awake and playing your best. And I have to shout out Elaine. I don't know if you've talked about her on the podcast yet, but Elaine and Elaine Martone.
[00:32:24] Speaker G: I mean, luxurious to. To even think that she was the producer of this album. So she's like, she. She's fresh off another, I think her career.
[00:32:37] Speaker F: Oh, yeah, seven in a row.
[00:32:39] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:32:40] Speaker G: Her producer of the year Grammy win I mean, she is top notch.
So supportive. I mean, the pep talks, the candy.
[00:32:52] Speaker F: She really, she really had us in a good place. And Andrew, who was also there. Andrew Tripp.
[00:32:59] Speaker G: Andrew Tripp.
[00:33:00] Speaker F: Yeah, we, we were really lucky.
[00:33:04] Speaker G: There's something about the recording process where you're right, like you are, you are in the details and you want to nail every little moment, but at the end of the day, like, you're not the one with the headphones and you're not the one like totally in charge of the situation. And that's actually kind of a beautiful thing for someone like me to have someone just be like, yeah, that's it or that's not it. And you thought it was, but it wasn't. So you have to do it again or you don't have to do it again.
Like, it was kind of like being taken out of my own head, which was like, it was hard, but then ultimately kind of a crazy good feeling in its own weird way.
[00:33:46] Speaker F: Yeah, I agree. And I think that for all the painful, like self realization that happens in a recording studio, it really is an environment of self exploration. Different people bring out different parts of your personality and different people, certain things or, you know, we all know, like certain people trigger some negative things in us. And I, I just feel really lucky playing with, with you guys in this experience. Always playing with Deborah.
[00:34:12] Speaker G: For me, there's something about Deborah's playing. I mean, first of all, it's so sensitive and for as a singer, like, it's so voice, like and so beautifully phrased, you know. This summer in Boston, I'm doing my first major mainstage role. And when I got the score, I looked through it and I was so excited that one of my arias is going to be with Deborah playing oboe Abogado.
And it was just this moment of like, oh, it's going to be okay.
[00:34:43] Speaker B: Like, yeah, someone who gets me is.
[00:34:46] Speaker G: Going to be in that pit. And of course, like, I mean, they would be excellent musicians. Even if it wasn't Deborah, it would be someone amazing doing that. But just knowing it will be her, it means so much and.
Yeah.
[00:34:59] Speaker B: Is that kind of what you're talking about?
[00:35:01] Speaker F: Exactly. Yeah. And just, you know, surrounding yourself by people who bring out the version of you that you aspire to. And I also. Yeah. That you like and that you.
Yeah. I also have to shout out our amazing continuo team because that is having that foundation. They're so flexible and inspiring.
[00:35:22] Speaker G: This is Mark Edwards and Rebecca Landell and yes, I agree.
[00:35:26] Speaker F: Yeah.
[00:35:27] Speaker B: I mean, I just say like, as.
[00:35:28] Speaker G: Your friend, but also someone who's had the privilege of being in the room, watching you work, watching you perform in lots of different concerts and contexts. You're just one of those musicians who just is like, Deborah, like, just always reading the room and just so aware of every detail. And it's probably honestly one of the reasons why it's so exhausting for you to record, because you're not just feeling. You're not just feeling your feelings. And, like, definitely, you could feel my feelings all the time, which, like, again, I feel so lucky to be your friend, but also felt a little guilty because I. I think I was leaning on you as a friend that week and also forcing you to watch a lot of basketball.
[00:36:10] Speaker F: Well, like I said, you're my princess, and I treated you as such that week.
[00:36:16] Speaker B: Well, Deborah, we're coming back to you to talk about.
I think the biggest cantata in this program was for sure, the Rameau, the Faithful Shepherd.
And it's one of those works that's just. It's so iconic. And then Rameau is such an iconic composer, and as you're singing it, you're like, oh, this is why.
[00:36:45] Speaker C: Yeah, I think it's fabulous to explore the cantatas of Rameau. They're also very rarely, of course, we think of Rameau as like, the great, you know, opera composer from France from the first half of the 18th century, even though he didn't get started writing operas until 1733 and he was already in his 50s.
[00:37:09] Speaker B: I love this story.
[00:37:11] Speaker G: I, like.
[00:37:11] Speaker B: I wish that we would highlight this more in music history, this, like, idea of the late bloomer, which is so. I mean, now that he wasn't doing other things earlier in his life.
[00:37:20] Speaker C: So that's the interesting thing about, you know, the few cantatas that we have of Rameau. He's really, you know, he moves to Paris, and I think of him as sort of like, professionally finding his way, if you will, and publishing in a variety of different genres, whether that's, you know, theory treatises, keyboard pieces, and even a few cantatas, including this Le Berger Fidel. And I always, you know, find remarkable actually how innocuous the title is and how deeply, deeply dramatic the. The piece is. You know, his lover, Amaryllis, you know, is. Is destined to be sacrificed to the goddess Diana. And, you know, he says, well, you know, take me instead of her. I should sacrifice myself. And ultimately, she is so moved by the fidelity of this shepherd, Myrtille, that she takes pity on them and basically blesses their union. It starts out with this deep, deep turmoil about anticipating sacrifice and even a kind of hopelessness.
And it then goes on to have these absolutely gorgeous, heart wrenching arias. But that opening I always feel like, especially with these cries from nothing, I think at the start of the B section with this ah that enters on a high G, totally unaccompanied and totally apart and different from everything that's come before is just, you know, it's like a dagger to the heart, quite honestly.
[00:40:50] Speaker D: Jesus Samaritan Ra sa Samaritan.
[00:44:32] Speaker A: I hope you've enjoyed the music and interviews on today's episode. It is a huge pleasure and privilege to work both behind the scenes and as a performing artist with ladelise. I look forward to sharing this album with you next year, but for now let's hear one more musical selection. Returning to the Handel cantata Mi Palpita il Cor to hear its concluding aria, sun di Madora. I love this bright, optimistic song which looks forward to a time when all trouble and drama is long forgotten and our shepherd and shepherdess at last fall into a mutual and abundant love.
[00:45:11] Speaker D: Samiya Ha Ra La.
[00:48:20] Speaker A: Thanks so much for listening to this episode of Salon Era. This episode was created by Executive Producer Deborah Nagy, Associate Producer Shelby Yaman, and me, Hannah DePriest, script writer and Special Projects Manager. For this episode, I spoke with Laetalis Founder and Artistic Director, Director Deborah Nagy, violinist Shelby Yaman, and harpsichordist Mark Edwards.
Support for Salon Era is provided by.
[00:48:43] Speaker B: The National Endowment for the Arts, Cuyahoga Arts and Culture, the Ohio Arts Council.
[00:48:48] Speaker A: And audience members like you. Special thanks to project sponsors Deborah Malamud and Neil Plotkin. Thanks also to our Salon Era seasoned sponsors Deborah Malamud, Tom and Marilyn McLaughlin, and Greg Nosen and Brandon Rood. This episode featured musical performances by Les Delys. Huge thanks to our audio engineer Andrew Tripp for his recording work at our live concerts. Please subscribe and leave a review on whatever platform you're listening on.
[00:49:13] Speaker B: It really helps the show from all of us.
[00:49:16] Speaker A: Thanks for listening and have a great day.
