Sights And Sounds: Explorations In The Arts
Bringing Baroque Music to Life
When Martin Pearlman joined the faculty of the College of Fine Arts as professor of music and director of the Historical Performance program in 2002, he offered the College more than his expertise as a renowned conductor. Boston Baroque, an acclaimed orchestra and chorus founded by Pearlman in 1973, also joined the School of Music as a resident professional ensemble. This innovative collaboration allows graduate students in the Historical Performance program to work alongside professional musicians.
The orchestra and chorus of Boston Baroque perform Monteverdi's Vespers in Jordan Hall, Boston. Conductor Martin Pearlman is a professor at BU's School of Music, and soloist Kristen Watson (in purple dress) is an alumna.
Boston Baroque has received wide recognition for both its live performances and its many recordings. The most recent season featured two Beethoven symphonies, Handel's Messiah, Mozart's Don Giovanni, and Vivaldi's only surviving oratorio, Juditha Triumphans, composed in 1716. While works by Mozart and Beethoven are certain crowd-pleasers—Don Giovanni, for example, was radio broadcast by WGBH—Pearlman particularly enjoys performing pieces that contemporary audiences rarely hear, such as the Vivaldi oratorio and Cherubini's Requiem in C minor, one of the previous season's highlights. Most audiences are acquainted with Vivaldi's concertos, but not with his vocal music. Juditha Triumphans, Pearlman says, is “not only one of the biggest, but also one of the best Vivaldi pieces that people haven't heard.”
The preparation and performance of little-known music presents a distinct challenge to the conductor, especially if he or she wishes to re-create the music exactly as the composer himself had imagined it. Because instruments and methods of musical notation have evolved over time, Pearlman's historical interpretation of a Baroque piece may differ considerably from a standard modern interpretation. In order to perform a work like Vivaldi's oratorio, Pearlman must first find a suitable score, and then check it against the original manuscript, if it still exists, and against reproductions made over a period of nearly three centuries. Compiling variants and choosing the best among them involves a great deal of painstaking detective work and considered judgment. Because Vivaldi did not include cadenzas or ornamentation in his scores, Pearlman must also decide whether, and how, to ornament the music.
Pearlman must determine what sorts of instruments the composer originally wrote for—is a salmo, for instance, related to the Baroque chalumeau, an ancestor to the modern clarinet?
Determining the piece's instrumentation can also be an arduous task. Contemporary instruments differ—often quite drastically—from their Baroque predecessors, and some manuscripts refer to instruments that no longer exist. Ensembles that wish to perform music in its historical form must determine what sorts of instruments the composer originally wrote for—is a salmo, for example, related to the Baroque chalumeau, an ancestor to the modern clarinet? Pearlman's investigations might continue with a review of recent literature by music historians to determine whether a similar instrument exists, or whether it has to be specially constructed. Last but not least, he must find performers who are proficient with these nearly obsolete instruments.
During a recording session, Pearlman conducts Boston Baroque in Bach's Orchestral Suites.
Graduate students in the Historical Performance program not only learn to play such instruments, they also observe and engage in the research process leading up to a performance. By understanding how a conductor decides to assign a certain instrument to a specific part, or why he might add a cadenza at the end of an aria, students prepare for careers in ensembles like Boston Baroque.
In re-creating music of the 17th and 18th centuries, Pearlman aims to avoid presenting audiences with a mere “history lesson.” “In the end,” he says, “a performance can't be about the research.” The audience should be captivated, oblivious to the months of preparation needed to perform a piece of music in its historical form. A successful performance brings the music to life, making it a part of our contemporary world.
For more information, see www.bostonbaroque.org.
