CARNEGIE HALL PRESENTS
Monica Huggett
Kenneth Weiss

Weill Recital Hall
Tuesday, March 23rd, 2010 at 7:30 PM

Monica Huggett, Violin
Kenneth Weiss, Harpsichord

BIBER Sonata No. 5 for Violin and Continuo in E Minor
BIBER Passacaglia in G Minor for Unaccompanied Violin
BIBER Sonata No. 3 for Violin and Continuo in F Major
BACH Sonata for Violin and Harpsichord in B Minor, BWV 1014
BACH Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue in D Minor, BWV 903
BACH Sonata for Violin and Harpsichord in E Major, BWV 1016

Program Notes:

HEINRICH BIBER (1644–1704)
Sonata No. 5 for Violin and Continuo in E Minor
Passacaglia in G Minor for Unaccompanied Violin
Sonata No. 3 for Violin and Continuo in F Major

About the Composer

The early biography of Heinrich Biber relies on good guesses. He was baptized in 1644, but his birthday remains obscure; he may have studied the organ as a child, and may have attended a Jesuit school. He was undoubtedly a court musician in the service of the Bishop of Olmütz in Kromĕříž, a town in central-eastern Moravia, now the Czech Republic. When the Bishop sent Biber on an errand to Austria, however, the violinist and composer surreptitiously took a new position with the Archbishop of Salzburg. Eventually, thanks not to his service as a valet de chamber (“a fire stoker at court”) but to his musical talents, Biber ascended to the ranks of the nobility as Knight Biber von Bibern and, later, as a lord high steward.


About the Works

According to scholar Elias Dann, Biber’s violin sonatas “are elaborately developed, show a keen sense of formal structure, and are completely uninhibited in their virtuosity.” One of Biber’s favorite violin techniques was the double stop, or playing two notes at once.

The Passacaglia in G Minor belongs to another set of works for violin and bass, the so-called “Mystery” Sonatas—each sonata identified in the manuscript collection by one of the 15 Mysteries of the Rosary. The Passacaglia may have been composed for the Feast of the Guardian Angels (October 2). As is characteristic of the form, it is a set of variations built on the repetition—65 times—of a descending four-note pattern. Dann celebrates the piece as “the outstanding work of its type before the Bach Chaconne.”


A Closer Listen

Each violin sonata unfolds as a single movement—with many different sections distinguished by changes in tempo—and features two sets of variations. The Sonata No. 5 begins with a freewheeling passage in the violin part that sounds improvised. The allegro set of variations is but a single phrase; the melody—really just a repeated note in the violin part, with trills—is less important than the harmony. The second set of four variations ends with a wide-ranging adagio colored by chromatic dissonances.

The Sonata No. 3 begins with double stops (chords in the violin part), followed by a discursive florid passage, and then returns to the double stops, now capricious and sprightlier. An aria in triple meter (a series of variations, the first of two in the sonata) ensues. The main melody falls in two halves, each repeated, and the variations follow this formal structure. The violin embellishes the tune, with leaping octaves (in the first variation) and fast passagework (in the second). The harpsichordist introduces the second set of variations, built on a repeating bass line of four notes. The violinist joins in on the third repetition of the main theme.

The Passacaglia begins with just four descending notes and is built entirely on this single gesture, repeated 65 times throughout the ten-minute piece. Biber allows the work to develop slowly. A series of small climaxes and calculated retreats never reaches a decisive conclusion; instead, the Passacaglia fades quietly away.



JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH (1685–1750)
Sonata for Violin and Harpsichord in B Minor, BWV 1014
Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue in D Minor, BWV 903
Sonata for Violin and Harpsichord in E Major, BWV 1016

About the Composer

Three great Baroque masters—Handel, D. Scarlatti, and Bach—were all born in 1685. While Handel pursued a cosmopolitan career, Bach lived and worked in Germany, staying within a small region throughout his life. Bach’s first post was as an organist in Arnstadt, some 50 kilometers west of his birthplace in Eisenach; after a single year in Mühlhausen, he spent nearly a decade at the ducal court in Weimar. In 1717, he took a position as Kapellmeister (choir master) in Köthen, and in 1723 moved to Leipzig to become music director at the St. Thomas Church. Though he was primarily responsible for writing sacred vocal music, Bach also directed the Collegium Musicum, an instrumental ensemble of accomplished amateur musicians. During his tenure as director, he put together some 500 concerts. Not all of the music was his, but most of it was—including the six sonatas for violin and harpsichord, BWV 1014–1019.


About the Works

The six sonatas are from Bach’s years in Leipzig and were composed for the Collegium Musicum. The two instruments—violin and harpsichord—achieve the texture of a trio sonata (a work for two melody-carrying instruments accompanied by continuo), with the keyboardist’s right hand taking the role of a second soloist, the left an accompanist.

The Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue, BWV 903, dates to Bach’s years in Weimar—or at least the earliest version likely does. Bach seems to have carried the piece with him from post to post: from his position in Weimar, to Köthen, and finally to Leipzig, reworking the piece at every stop along the way. Its compositional history extends even beyond Bach’s death in 1750, as musicologist George Stauffer has documented; later editions have added fingering, dynamic markings, and ornaments written out as arpeggios.


A Closer Listen

Bach’s violin sonatas, BWV 1014 and 1016, are each in four movements in a slow-fast-slow-fast pattern, which was used in the sonata da chiesa, or “church sonata” (so called because it was often played during Mass). The slow movements often adopt the character of an improvisatory prelude, being free-form and wide ranging. The first movement of BWV 1016, for example, involves a repeated pattern in the harpsichord, slow-moving harmonies (marked by repeating bass notes), and a highly wrought violin line. Other movements may be more song-like, as in the third of BWV 1016. The second, faster movements are generally fugal, and feature overlapping entries of the same musical material to create an imitative texture. In the second movement of BWV 1014, for example, the violin part begins with a lightly ornamented melody, accompanied only by the harpsichordist’s left hand; the right hand joins in a few beats later and repeats that same melody.

As musicologist-keyboardist David Schulenberg points out, the Fantasia falls in two sections: a prelude and recitative, with the second of these introduced by a “violent tonal lurch” that wrenches the work into a darker, more dissonant, and virtuosic realm. The fugue weaves together two ideas: First is the subject, with its creeping chromatic ascent, followed by a skipping countersubject, identified by figura corta, the pattern long-short-short. The subject enters at the top and moves down: It is heard alone, then iterated underneath—in the middle of the keyboard (akin to the alto voice in a choir), and finally again in the tenor. The three voices then entwine as passages that feature the subject and countersubject interweave with episodes that momentarily forsake both themes.


—Elizabeth Bergman

© 2010 The Carnegie Hall Corporation

Monica Huggett, Violin
Monica Huggett

Monica Huggett was born in London, the fifth of seven children in a family of Irish, English, and French background. During her youth, she and her siblings listened to a great variety of music, from pop and rock to jazz and classical, which had a tremendous influence on her musical personality. While studying the modern violin at the Royal Academy of Music, she was introduced to the Baroque violin and felt an immediate connection with the instrument. She has since been one of its most fervent champions, and today holds an international reputation as one of the foremost Baroque violinists of our time.

Ms. Huggett has a busy international career as a soloist, a director, and a chamber musician. She has recorded for EMI, Decca, Teldec, Erato, and Philips, among other labels. In 2002, she was awarded the Gramophone Early Music Award for her CD of Biber’s sonatas with her ensemble, Sonnerie.

Ms. Huggett has collaborated with many of the great directors in the Baroque-performance world, and particularly values her work with Ton Koopman as concertmistress of the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra, from 1980–1987.

In recent years, Ms. Huggett has devoted more time to directing, regularly making guest appearances with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, the European Union Baroque Orchestra, and the Irish Baroque Orchestra. She is also Artistic Director of the Portland Baroque Orchestra in the US.

Ms. Huggett has performed in England and Scotland with Sonnerie and the English String Orchestra. She has also appeared with the Collegium Pro Musica in Genoa, Italy, and has given solo performances and master classes at the Bach Festival in Berea, Ohio. Additionally, she has led the Orquesta Barroca de Sevilla at Spain’s Festival Internacional de Música y Danza de Granada in a special series of concerts celebrating Don Quixote.

Ms. Huggett was made a Fellow of London’s Royal Academy of Music in 1994. In 2008, she was named Artistic Director of The Juilliard School’s historical performance program. Her recording with Sonnerie of the early versions of Bach’s Orchestral Suites was recently nominated for a Grammy Award.

Kenneth Weiss, Harpsichord
Kenneth Weiss

Kenneth Weiss was born in New York City, where he graduated from the The School of Performing Arts: A Division of the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts. He received a bachelor of music degree from Oberlin Conservatory of Music and studied with Gustav Leonhardt at the Sweelinck Conservatorium in Amsterdam.

Mr. Weiss performs as a soloist with Europa Galante and the Collegium Vocale Gent. Since 2005, he has been giving Bach recitals with Fabio Biondi, including concerts at the Festival d’Aix en Provence and the Théâtre de la Ville in Paris.

Mr. Weiss’s recordings, which can be heard on Empreinte Digitale and Satirino Records, include Bach’s Goldberg Variations; transcriptions of Rameau’s operas and ballets (coproduced with the Cité de la musique and recorded on historical instruments from the Musée de la musique); Bach’s Italian Concerto, French Overture, and Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue; and Scarlatti’s Essercizi per gravicembalo. His most recent release is a live performance of the Goldberg Variations, recorded at the Théâtre Saint Louis in Pau, France.

Mr. Weiss teaches at the Conservatoire de Paris and is a harpsichord professor at The Juilliard School.