[00:00:08] Speaker A: Welcome to this special episode of the Salon Era podcast. Salon Era is a series from Les de Lys that brings together musicians from around the world to share music, stories and scholarship. In this episode, we'll hear excerpts from Le Delisa's 15th anniversary season, closer seasons transformed, plus interviews with ladelies artistic director, founder and obois Debra Negi, bassoonist Clay Zeller Townsend, who made his ensemble debut at these concerts, and violinist Shelby Yaman. Seasons Transformed is a new spin on Vivaldi's beloved four seasons. Originally published 300 years ago, Vivaldi's collection of four violin concerti remains wildly popular today. Unusually, each concerto was published alongside an accompanying sonnet, a poem that explained the elements of each season. The music was intended to evoke making seasons a vibrant, prototypical example of program music.
In seasons transformed, Les de Lys artistic director Deborah Nagy daringly rearranged autumn, winter, and spring for a diverse ensemble of soloists, dividing up the material originally written for solo violin to be passed between two violinists, Julie Andrzecki and Shelby Yaman oboist Debra Negi, flutist Joseph Monticello, bassoonist Clay Zeller Townsend, harpsichordist Marc Edwards and viola de gambist Rebecca Landel.
For summer, Deborah was even more ambitious, a new concerto inspired by Vivaldi's original sonnet, but crafted from music by Jean Philippe Rameau, a french baroque composer known for theatrical flair.
Youve probably heard Vivaldi's Four Seasons before, but we guarantee youve never heard them like this. Throughout todays episode, youll hear tunes, you know, reimagined in Technicolor, embracing the full spectrum of colors, textures, and expressivity of its peerless ensemble of period instrument musicians.
Rearranging the Four Seasons. What is this, a modern gimmick? Well, actually rearranging these works for different forces is a historical practice that can be traced back to the time they were originally published. I'll let Debra explain.
[00:02:34] Speaker B: All right.
[00:02:35] Speaker C: Welcome, Deborah Nagy. It's always so nice to talk to you. I love kind of getting the inside scoop on your programming decisions. But before we dig into seasons transformed, which is what this episode is all about, can we just take a moment to recognize that this is the capstone of Ladelies 15th anniversary season?
It's been a really, really busy year for us at La de Lys, so I wanted to ask just how you're feeling.
[00:03:07] Speaker D: I'm feeling great about how this season has gone. It sounds really silly, but I was on the plane the other day and I was doing one of those spacey things that you do, which is like, look through your photos on your phone. And I was reminded of all the fantastic programs, fantastic people, places we've been, places we've performed, from the power of music program that we did with kaleidoscope that opened our season to these really fantastic, thrilling shows and bars as we released the Highland Lassie and Noel Noel in November. And people were thrilled. We had a sing along, which was fabulous, or the hills and far away. Les de Lys was in Hawaii doing medieval music.
We have done so much. We just had this fabulous song of Orpheus show, and I'm so looking forward to seasons transformed. We had our collaboration with Nicholas Pon doing Bach in January. It's been all over the map, and there's been a lot of really rewarding and wonderful stuff. And of course, the solanira season has been super rich, and I can't wait for the last few episodes to come out. As we wind down the year, thinking.
[00:04:26] Speaker C: About all of the different kinds of music we've covered through our concert series, also through outreach programs, touring, and through Solanira, it's just, I think it's really true that ladelise has an uncommonly huge appetite when it comes to different styles and genres.
And I think it's an interesting choice, maybe that what we're ending on for this season is Vivaldi, maybe, and his four seasons. You know, can you tell us in broad strokes what your ambitions with seasons transformed was?
[00:05:05] Speaker D: Well, there's a lot going on with this program, but I will tell you the origin story for it, which is that a few years ago, violinist Shelby Young and played for our spring benefit, which at the time, I think was called Spring Soiree. It was right at the end of the pandemic, and she said, it's called spring Soiree.
What would you think if we did Vivaldi's spring in a trio Sonata arrangement? I will do it. And I said, okay, well, that sounds fun.
And it was fun. And quite honestly, the most fun part was the audience reaction to hearing a spring concerto performed by violin and recorder playing the birdsong and the viola da gamba depicting the murmuring of the running Brooks. And I found myself thinking, first of all, what a wonderful audience response. And second of all, how could this be even better? Like anything that is tailor made, how can you make something, like, truly idiomatic? So if we were thinking about arrangement of Avalde's four seasons, how could we accomplish that? And I also had long been interested and inspired by different 18th century arrangements of Vivaldi's seasons. One of those was arrangements, believe it or not, for hurdy gurdy or musette, of all these seasons by a french composer named Nicholas Shedville, and they're from the 1730s, published in France.
And, you know, there are all these interesting ways in which those pieces were adapted for these instruments that have drones that can't even, you know, that don't modulate to other keys, you know. So I just. I found this idea of transformation and adaptation so interesting. So what we're doing with seasons transformed is taking a sort of expanded instrumentation that is very french in its inspiration. We have flute, we have oboe, we have bassoon. Like the Shedville arrangements. We have two violins in basso continuo, which is, say, cello and harpsichord.
And through this kind of range of tone colors, we have adapted these famous concertos to these instruments. Spring, as Jean Jacques Rousseau actually arranged it for solo flute, is in d major, not e major.
The autumn concerto is still in f major, but its horn calls and sounds of drunk and depictions of drunkards.
And now turn it, I think, think quite effectively into a double concerto for oboe and bassoon.
And the slipping and sliding and crackling of ice and howling winds of winter are going to be given over to the gomba and the harpsichord respectively.
[00:08:19] Speaker C: I'm so excited for our audience to hear some of what we're talking about come to life through these concert excerpts we're about to listen to. So the first thing we're going to hear is not VivalDi actually, but is rather spring by Giovanni Antonio Guido. Can you tell us a little bit about this guy and this composition?
[00:08:41] Speaker D: Yeah. Giovanni Antonio Guido is not a household name, but he was actually a well known violinist, obviously in Italian, working in France from the late 1690s through the 1730s, which was actually a period of extreme fascination with italian music and culture, was really infiltrating and inspiring, actually, french composers. So this is this weird sort of reverse inspiration. Guido knew and learned Vivaldi seasons when they were printed in 1725, and he wrote his own response. But at that point he'd been living and working in France for decades. And so it's a very frenchy response to Vivaldi's seasons in Vivaldi's spring. And like Vivaldi, he gave a little text that shows his inspiration. Even this first movement of spring is in multiple sections and it starts with, like, time running le ton vol. And we've actually arranged that, if you will. So what was very common and popular as an instrumentation in this moment in France, in the late 1720s or early 1730s was pieces for three violins with Quintinuo. So we've taken these three parts and sort of actually, they divide up beautifully into different pairs and distributed them all around the ensemble. So it also becomes a sort of, like, arrangement and like a wonderful ensemble piece and a way to open. So you have the running of time. There's this beautiful moment of the stillness of night, and then there's more kind of violinistic activity with lots of sequences in the sort of italian inspired style where he says, the seasons all pass in turn, one after another.
So it's a great way to sort of begin the show and to introduce something new by an admirer of Vivaldi seasons.
[00:10:59] Speaker A: Let's listen now to the first movement, Presto, from Le Pratin Spring by Giovanni Antonio Guido. With special thanks to our audio engineer, Andrew Tripp, for capturing this audio from a live performance of seasons transformed.
[00:14:24] Speaker D: Sa.
[00:16:10] Speaker A: In a moment, we'll hear an interview with bassoonist Clay Zeller Townsend, who made his late Elise debut with seasons transformed.
Clay is the founder of the critically acclaimed baroque band Ruckus, and as a bassoonist, he plays with leading period instrument ensembles across North America. A fierce advocate for the arts and rural communities, he teaches k eight general music twice a week in Stamford and Reedsboro, Vermont. Welcome, Clay.
[00:16:37] Speaker C: Clay, you are one of two musicians who made their ley delice debut with seasons transformed. So did you ever think that you would get hired as a bassoonist to play the solos in the four seasons?
[00:16:49] Speaker E: Never, ever, ever did I imagine that I would play the solos in Vivaldi's four seasons. Not only do I never play the four seasons as a continue a player, but, you know, it's always just a string band, and I've like, I don't think I'd actually ever even listen to the whole thing.
[00:17:12] Speaker C: Wow.
I love that.
[00:17:16] Speaker E: It's like, oh, yeah, that's that piece that, you know, everyone loves, and it's like the string player party. And I was just like, I didn't even.
I really hadn't given it much time of day. But, hey, what do you know? It's great. Like, the hype is there is worth it.
[00:17:36] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:17:36] Speaker C: What was it like? I mean, I know Deborah has spoken a lot about how she really wanted to use the different kind of characters of each instrument. What was the bassoon in her imagination?
[00:17:51] Speaker E: Yeah, the bassoon fits really well into the autumn season because, you know, we've got peasants dancing, we've got a hunt going on. This is what the bassoon has been doing since the bassoon existed. It's usually like the voice of the outdoors. It's. It's. And so this, like, drunken peasant scene is just perfect. It's really perfect. And, you know, I think it. It's. It's a great, great arrangement that Deborah made. And not only does the autumn season just work really well, and the added vividness of the double reed colors makes this pastoral, earthy character come out. Her arrangements of her reaction composed summer, is also really, really, really special, as you know, as part of this program.
So I'm very happy to play the role that I was meant to play, which is the drunken country bumpkin. And there's one moment in autumn where we get the sort of the secondary color of the bassoon. So, yeah, often hunting, rousing, big, sort of beefy sound that the bassoon can add. But also, you know, when Handel wants to write something truly devastating, you know, he'll use the tenor, baritone range of the bassoon as sort of like, to evoke the starkness of a cemetery scene in an opera, you know, like. And just this one moment at the end of the first moon of the Autumn Concerto, where there's these, like, very still somewhat high notes that have this just like, really, it's a really nice moment of this sort of atmosphere, one of the more delicate atmospheres that the bassoon can offer.
[00:20:18] Speaker A: Let's listen now to excerpts from autumn by Antonio Vivaldi, rearranged by Deborah Nake as a double concerto for obo and bassoon. You'll hear Deborah Nagy on oboe and Clay Zeller Townsend on bassoon.
[00:24:09] Speaker B: Sa.
[00:25:27] Speaker A: Sa.
[00:25:53] Speaker E: Ha.
[00:32:29] Speaker C: All right, welcome back, Deborah.
So we've heard a little bit more now from seasons transformed. And I remember in discussions that we had around language we wanted to use to promote this program, we kept coming back to this idea of this as a baroque Peter and the wolf, which is, of course, Prokofiev's charming musical story that introduces listeners to each of the sections of the orchestra. So can you kind of take us through that analogy a little bit more?
[00:32:59] Speaker D: Pravaldi supplied a written program to accompany and kind of underline the musical effects across these concertos.
And that also helps us to understand the different characters, if you will, that are associated with each section or each movement.
And, of course, we also have other kinds of associations with different instruments and sounds. So, like, the bird is sort of, like, prototypically, classically associated with the flute or possibly the recorder.
So it makes a lot of sense. For instance, just as Jean Jacques Rousseau thought that Vivaldi spring, especially the first movement, which is full of birdsong, would work beautifully on the flute.
The other adaptation that I'm super interested to hear and excited for are the different kind of characters that we've brought to the winter concerto. So the first movement of the winter concerto is all about, um, you know, howling winds and, um.
And in this case, I've really given that first movement over to the viola da gamba. Viola da gamba, of course, you know, is great at playing chords. That's what's so particular about it, and that it has this huge, huge range with six, or in some cases seven strings. And, um, I thought that it would be super fabulous to use the entire range of this instrument, from high to low, and especially in all this stuff that is kind of whooshing and whirling around. And the last movement of winter is an interesting one, too, in which there's all of this kind of slipping and sliding on ice and then a paranoia and fear about ice cracking. So there's this tremendously brittle quality to the sounds of ice and slipping and sliding and imminent danger, and that's kind of brittleness, if you will. Really made me think about the sound of the harpsichord.
[00:35:24] Speaker C: In addition to arranging winter, spring and autumn, you had even more ambitious designs on summer, which is actually a totally new concerto pulled from music by Jean Philippe Rameau. Can you tell us about this by Frankenstein?
[00:35:47] Speaker D: In all seriousness, I actually found myself thinking about, you know, in winter there's a big storm, and in summer there's a totally different storm that emerges. And I actually just felt like that was so string oriented. I wasn't really sure how I was going to adapt it to our forces.
And I also thought that there was room for something new on the program. What I decided to do was take the sonnet that accompanies the Vivaldi summer and use that as the sort of structure for a new piece. And Rameau was famous not just for his programmatic music, but also for how virtuosic it was. And when I say programmatic music, I mean, really his theatrical music, it's amazing, amazing, very powerful, very vigorous music, which is often how we think of music by Vivaldi.
So I decided to take Vivaldi's sonnet and basically hang music by Rameau on top of it. And a lot of different things happen in the first movement of the sonnet for summer. And so I used a variety of different pieces, you know, bits and pieces of remote to bring that to life. And I think I think that the results will be really fun.
[00:37:22] Speaker A: We'll now hear the first movement allegro from summer, a new concerto arranged by Deborah Necky of music by Jean Philippe Rameau, including selections from les al Galantes and piece de Craft. As Deborah mentioned in our interview, when crafting this new concerto, Deborah took inspiration from the poem that was published alongside Vivaldi's summer just for fun. I thought I would read that to you. So this is that poem.
Under the heat of the burning summer sun languish man and flock. The pine is parched, the cuckoo finds its voice, and suddenly the turtle dove and goldfinch sing. A gentle breeze blows, but suddenly the north wind appears. The shepherd weeps because overhead lies the fierce storm and his destiny.
This is such an exciting time for Les de Lys and Salon era seasons transformed marked the end of La de Lyses 15th anniversary season, and we will soon be announcing the details of our 20 24 25 season.
This podcast episode was created as an audio exclusive, produced as part of Solanira's landmark fourth season.
Thanks so much for being part of our global community of music lovers as listener to Solanira. With your support, we can continue to collaborate with engaging artists from across the country and around the world.
You can support Solanera by subscribing to this podcast and by
[email protected] dot your donations make every episode possible.
Thanks again for supporting Les Elyse and Solanera by listening and subscribing to this podcast.
Our next segment is an interview with Shelby Yaman, a violinist who performs regularly with Les de Lys and many other acclaimed period instrument ensembles around the country.
Shelby is also my colleague and friend as associate producer of Solon era.
[00:43:32] Speaker B: All right, welcome, Shelby.
It's great to talk to you, as always.
So earlier in this episode, I was talking to Clay Zeller Townsend, and I asked him, of course, he's a bassoonist. I was like, did you ever dream that you'd be asked to do the four season solos? And so for you, I'll ask, did you ever imagine having to share your four season solos with such a merry band of different kinds of instruments?
[00:44:01] Speaker F: I have played many different arrangements of these pieces and things. I've arranged myself, like to play the solos with, not full forces. So I've played the violin solos with harpsichord and gomba, or even in the Lady Scala, where we arranged spring for our kind of random assortment.
But no, I guess these pieces are so connected with the violin.
[00:44:28] Speaker B: How long has your relationship with the four Seasons gone on? Like, when did you play your first one?
[00:44:35] Speaker F: Definitely some of the movements I've played growing up, learning the violin, it's definitely one of my most frequently encountered pieces nowadays with groups and in different kind of configurations, both on modern and, like, I guess I would say it's one of these pieces that's equally popular. Like, back when I used to do a lot of modern violin playing. And now that I'm so immersed in the historical world, these pieces have been coming up forever for me.
[00:45:11] Speaker A: So, given that you are asked to.
[00:45:14] Speaker B: Play them so frequently, I'm just wondering what keeps it fresh every time or.
[00:45:19] Speaker A: What keeps you engaged?
[00:45:22] Speaker B: I mean, we can't always pick the gigs on our schedule, but just for you, when you're playing it, what keeps.
[00:45:27] Speaker A: You engaged with it?
[00:45:30] Speaker F: Well, that's a great question, because part of the reason why I love playing historical music and lesser known music is that it always feels fresh with the four seasons.
These pieces are well known to audiences, well known to performers, but just like we were kind of joking about each of our performances of these pieces in Cleveland were slightly different. We were kind of joking around together that, you know, every time winter comes around every year, it's not always the same. It's not always as cold or it doesn't snow as much. And so that's kind of how these pieces feel. We have the. We have the parameters, we have the text painting. We have all the ingredients that Vivaldi has given us, but it always kind of comes out a little differently. And one of the gifts of performing pieces over and over again that you know so well that you can take chances and be a little more creative and really dive deep into the score in a way that if you're just playing a piece one time and have to learn it and play it in one concert, you're not really afforded that kind of familiarity or comfort or sometimes inspiration. Sometimes we play pieces that were just, you know, for one concert, and we don't get to sit with it or live with it for over the years. Yeah.
[00:46:51] Speaker B: I love what you said about how we're always changing, and so our approach to these pieces would also always be changing. But even more so than any other performance of the four seasons, it strikes me that this season's transformed performance was really unique because of these arrangements. So you are still doing a lot.
[00:47:16] Speaker A: Of solo work within this concert, but.
[00:47:17] Speaker B: You'Re also taking kind of, like, the backseat accompanying these other instruments. You're hearing them play these solo lines that you've played.
Is that something that was particularly fun about this project to hear your solos interpreted by flute, bassoon, that sort of thing?
[00:47:36] Speaker F: Absolutely. I came out of this program with a lot of inspiration. The more you play something, the more developed my own sense of the piece or how the pieces go and my little ornaments and the things that I tend to lean on in my performances of these pieces. It gets a little bit more and more specific each time. And what I loved so much about hearing these pieces with different instrumentation and with different players and the, I mean, the band on stage for this concert was just so mind blowingly creative, talented, inspiring. It's also so refreshing to hear people playing these pieces for the first time, to hear what their initial approach to this music is.
[00:48:26] Speaker B: All right, so now we're going to listen to the first movement of winter.
So please tell us, Shelby, like, what should we be listening out for as we listen?
[00:48:35] Speaker F: So in the Winter Concerto, in this first movement of the winter Concerto, Deborah gave the violin solos to Rebecca on the gomba and the familiar opening where it kind of stacks, the cords are stacked, each part comes in one by one, and it's this kind of chilly landscape. And then the first solo is these sweeping kind of arpeggios and these sweeping winds coming in and out. Rebecca plays it so brilliantly.
[00:49:09] Speaker A: Let's listen now to that icy wind of the opening movement from winter by Antonio Vivaldi. Arranged by Deborah Negi. This movement spotlights Rebecca Landell on viola da gamba, Mark Edwards on harpsichord, Julian Drudeschi and Shelby Yaman on violin.
[00:49:42] Speaker F: SA.
[00:58:51] Speaker A: Thanks again for listening. Also out right now is Sancho's songbook, a new salon era episode celebrating the unique life of Charles Ignatius Sancho, an entrepreneur, writer, composer, and the first black british man to vote in a general election.
We also have one more salon era episode to come this season, Gilded Age Chicago, an episode I researched and hosted that focuses on two black american women who found artistic community in Chicago during the early 20th century, Florence Price and Margaret Bonds. Premiering June 17, I am thrilled to say this episode features interviews and performances by three of the most intelligent and talented women I have ever had the chance to meet, Doctor Samantha Egay, Doctor Christine Jobson, and Michelle Kennedy. I am so excited to bring their remarkable insights and performances to you in this episode. So please tune in June 17 for that episode. Now, I couldn't let you go today without sharing one of my favorite moments from the four seasons, so please enjoy a bit of spring featuring the fantastic Joseph Monticello on flute.
Thanks so much for listening to this special episode of Salon era support for Solan era is provided by the National Endowment for the Arts, Cuyahoga Arts and Culture, the Ohio Arts Council, early Music America, and audience members like you. Special thanks to our program sponsors for seasons transformed, Charlotte and Jack Newman, and to Solonira season sponsors Deborah Malamud, Tom and Marilyn McLaughlin, Greg Nozin and Brandon Rood and Joseph Sopko and Betsy McIntyre. This episode was created by executive producer Deborah Nagy, associate producer Shelby Yaman and me, Hannah Dupriest, scriptwriter, episode host, and Leid Elise, special projects manager. This episode featured selections from seasons transformed, recorded live at performances in April 2024. You heard Les Elyse, musicians Julie Andrzewski and Shelby Yaman, Deborah Nagy, Joseph Monticello, Clay Zeller Townsend, Mark Edwards, and Rebecca Landau.
To support this podcast, visit salanera.org. Hit that subscribe button to be notified when our next episode, Gilded Age Chicago, is released on June 17.
