Some notes on the Opera Lafayette programme
This evening’s concert explores the timeless connection between music and love, inviting the audience to experience both joy and heartache through a selection of remarkable works. Each piece has been carefully chosen to reflect the many facets of romantic expression, from gentle longing to fervent devotion, ensuring a rich and emotionally resonant program for all attendees.
‘If Music be the food of Love’ is not only the opening of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night but also the text of a song which Henry Purcell set three times in increasingly elaborate versions. This programme also puts Love and Music together; something very appropriate for a concert close to St. Valentine’s Day. We have songs of longing and desire and since, as Shakespeare also notes, ‘the course of true love never did run smooth’, songs of unrequited passion too.
Of the composers, Henry Purcell and Claudio Monteverdi are the best known. Purcell wrote extensively for the London theatres and many of his wonderful songs originally appeared in plays. Monteverdi is the first great composer of opera as well as of smaller vocal madrigals and dialogues on the subject of love. ‘Pur ti miro’ is one of the great love duets in the repertoire but the characters who sing it, the murderous Roman Emperor Nero and his second wife Poppea, are among the most reprehensible in the genre. This is hardly true love rewarded.
The less well-known composers are a fascinating bunch. Nicola Matteis came from Naples but in the 1670s apparently left for London on foot with his violin strapped to his back. When he arrived, he was, according to Roger North ‘inexpugnably proud’ but ‘good counsel and starving’ soon rendered him more agreeable. His music is a delightful mixture of Italian and English styles.
Pelham Humfrey sadly died at the age of only 26. The diarist, Samuel Pepys clearly despised his character: Little Pelham Humphreys is ‘an absolute monsieur as full of form and confidence and vanity, and disparages everybody's skill but his own…… he and the King are mighty great! and that he hath already spoke to the King of Grebus (a rival composer) would make a man piss’
William Mountfort made his name as an actor and achieved posthumous fame because of his untimely death. He was murdered in 1692 defending the honour of a fellow thespian, Anne Bracegirdle. The man who killed him was a rake and bully but, since he was a member of the House of Lords, he managed to get himself acquitted at trial before his peers.
The Lawes brothers were closely associated with the Court of Charles I. Both were accomplished song writers as well as producing viol consorts for the King and his friends to play. Sadly, William was shot to death at the siege of Chester by the Royalist Army in 1645. His elder brother Henry lived to see the restoration of Charles II.
Matthew Locke was a mentor to the young Henry Purcell and a composer at the court of Charles II. He is first known as a chorister at Exeter Cathedral where he naughtily carved his name on the organ case. You can still see his little act of vandalism to this day.
Thomas D’Urfey was a playwright and wit as well as a composer of songs. He wrote the original version of ‘Old McDonald had a farm’ and published much of his lyrics in a work called Pills to Purge Melancholy.
Joseph Haydn is of course very well-known but mostly as a composer of instrumental music and oratorios. However, while in service at the court of Prince Nicholas Esterházy, he wrote nearly 15 operas. Orlando Paladino is one of the finest and is occasionally revived today.
Giovanni Paisiello was an important composer of Italian opera in the second part of the 18th century. His works influenced Mozart and later Rossini. The piece you will hear tonight comes from L’Amor Contrasto which was composed in 1789 for Naples. The aria achieved great popularity partly as a concert piece performed by Angelica Catalani, the most famous diva of her day who sang it all over Europe. The version you will hear this evening even claims to include her own ornaments.
Little is known about Honoré D’Ambruys except through his publications which appeared during the reign of Louis XIV.
Jane Austen was a dedicated pianist who by her own account, practiced for several hours every morning before the rest of the family came down to breakfast. She also copied a lot of her favourite songs and piano arrangements into the family music books. There a fifteen of them and they have recently been made available online. They are a fascinating mirror of Regency taste. The anonymous song ‘Somebody’ seems very poignant in view of her own unsuccessful quest to find a soulmate.
Love is a theme that musicians have always been inspired by. As Mark Twain commented ‘Love is friendship set to music!’