ARTEK plays Erlebach

ARTEK
Laura Heimes, soprano
Cynthia Freivogel, violin & piccolo violin
Arnie Tanimoto, viola da gamba & treble viol
Daniel Swenberg, theorbo
Gwendolyn Toth, harpsichord & director
After the Fire: Music of Philipp Heinrich Erlebach (1657-1714)
Sonata Prima in D major for violin, gamba, and basso continuo (Nuremberg, 1694)
Adagio, Allegro, Affettuoso, Allemande: un poco adagio, Courante, Sarabande - Varatio, Gique
Harmonische Freude musicalischer Freunde, volume I (Nuremberg, 1697)
Glückliches Fügen - Vivace
Harmonische Freude musicalischer Freunde, volume II (Nuremberg, 1710)
Schweiget ihr Seufzer - Adagio, Allegro, Adagio
Sonata Seconda in E minor for violin, gamba, and basso continuo (Nuremberg, 1694)
Adagio, Allegro, Adagio, Allemande, Courante, Sarabande - Varatio, Gique
Harmonische Freude musicalischer Freunde, volume I (Nuremberg, 1697)
Angedenken - Largo
Kommt ihr Stunden - Lento
Sonata Sesta in F major for piccolo violin, gamba, and basso continuo (Nuremberg, 1694)
Affettuoso - Allegro - Grave, Allemande, Courante, Sarabande & Varation, Gique: Vivace & presto
Harmonische Freude musicalischer Freunde, volume I (Nuremberg, 1697)
Fortuna - Allegro, Adagio, Allegro
Meine seufzer - Adagio e piano
Sonata Terza in A major for violin, gamba, and basso continuo (Nuremberg, 1694)
Adagio - Allegro - Lento, Allemande, Courante, Sarabande, Ciaconne, Final: Adagio
About Erlebach:
He was one of the leading baroque composers in central Germany, specifically Thuringia; he wrote church music and in particular several hundred cantatas; he also wrote instrumental works including many chamber music pieces for the violin and the viola da
gamba; his music is noteworthy for its synthesis of the French dance style with the Italian sonata style. Oh! This must be the great Johann Sebastian Bach, yes? Well, no. This is Philipp Heinrich Erlebach, who has the unlucky distinction of the being a composer known to have been a major influence in his time, but whose legacy is largely lost to us because
nearly all his works perished in a fire in 1735. Erlebach lived from 1657 to 1714, a generation before Bach. His contemporaries, composers who were born within five years of
Erlebach, include well-known composers such as Georg Muffat (b. 1653); Johann Pachelbel (b. 1653); Marin Marais (b. 1656); Arcangelo Corelli (b. 1653); Henry Purcell (b. 1659); and Alessandro Scarlatti (b. 1660). Composers in Germany found themselves at the crossroads of the prevailing international styles of the second half of the 17th century: the flowering of French operatic and instrumental style under Lully, and the Italian operatic and instrumental style exemplified by Scarlatti and Corelli. Both influences can be readily heard in the trio sonatas of Erlebach. The songs of Erlebach that were collected in Harmonische Freude musicalischer Freunde volume I (1697) and volume II (1710), published in Nuremberg, are often described as sacred chamber music; but in fact most of them come from lost German language operas of Erlebach. This list of works that did not survive the fire of 1735 helps us understand how much was lost of Erlebach’s music:
24 masses, 6 complete cantata cycles (about the same number Bach wrote), Passions and other large works, about 300 other pieces of sacred vocal works, 4 German operas, 193 ballets, secular cantatas, serenades, and other secular vocal works, about 120 instrumental overtures and sonatas for 1-13 instruments.
Erlebach worked at the court of Rudolstadt as Kapellmeister from 1681 until 1714; he also traveled to the courts of Weissenfels and Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, and visited Mühlhausen in 1705 and Nuremberg. Johann Sebastian Bach and Erlebach were just 37 kilometers distant from each other while Bach worked in Weimar in 1703 and again in 1708-1713. Erlebach considered his greatest achievement to be the oratorio cantata, a form of sacred cantata in which music and text work together dramatically through form, motive, and instrumentation, as in the secular operatic style. You can hear his expressive
text-painting in the songs this evening, each a miniature scene of emotional affect, and each preceded by the “moral of the story” headline which is not sung but is printed with the song.
Performed live, January 27 & 28, 2024
Saint Ignatius of Antioch Episcopal Church, New York City
ARTEK concerts and events are made possible, in part, with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature, and with public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.