Yale in NY Presents Stylus Fantasticus, Avant-garde Music Of The 17th Century

Monday, April 25, 8:00pm in Weill Recital Hall, the adventurous YALE IN NEW YORK series presents STYLUS FANTASTICUS, a fascinating program that features the Yale Baroque Ensemble-the ensemble-in-residence at the Yale Collection of Musical Instruments-in its Carnegie Hall debut. Using the Yale School of Music's collection of baroque bows, and under the direction of the esteemed violinist ROBERT MEALY, the Yale Baroque Ensemble will perform brilliant and rarely-heard chamber sonatas from the 17th century in the "stilo moderno."

A revolutionary new musical style was born in the early 17th century, and as composers in Italy and Germany embraced its liberating power, their music reached new heights of invention and expressiveness. The stylus fantasticus (fantastic style) freed composers from old conventions and encouraged abstract expression. In Italy it gave birth to an early form of the instrumental sonata and in Northern Europe ensemble music filled with brilliant color.

The violin made its debut as a solo instrument in a series of 17th century works published in Italy. Giovanni Battista Fontana, Dario Castello, and Biagio Marini wrote ground-breaking music for the instrument that called on players to reach new levels of expression.

The courts of Vienna heard music by Antonio Bertali (an Italian living in Vienna), Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber, and Johann Schmelzer that challenged the conventions of ensemble string playing and resulted in a dramatic virtuoso music.

Robert Mealy, one of America's leading baroque violinists, plays and leads the young period instrumentalists of the Yale Baroque Ensemble in a program featuring virtuoso sonatas and vibrant ensemble music that typifies the wildly extravagant 17th century avant-garde, the stylus fantasticus.

PROGRAM INFO:
Yale in New York presents "Stylus Fantasticus" at Weill Recital Hall on April 25 at 8PM

Dario Castello (fl. early 17c): Sonata decimaquarta (two violins, two cellos, harpsichord from Sonate Concertate in Stil Moderno, Libro II, Venice 1629)

Giovanni Paolo Cima (c. 1570-1622): Sonata a tre (two violins, cello, harpsichord from Concerti Ecclesiastici, Milan, 1610)

Castello: Sonata quarta (two violins, harpsichord)

Giovanni Battista Fontana: (c. 1589-1630): Sonata seconda (violin, harpsichord from Sonate... per il violino, Venice 1641)

Michelangelo Rossi (1602-1656): Toccata settima (harpsichord)

Castello: Sonata decima (two violins, cello, harpsichord)

Tarquinio Merula (1594-1665): Ballo detto Eccardo & Ciaconna (violins, cello, harpsichord from Canzoni ovvero Sonate Concertate, Libro III, Venice 1637)

Johann Rosenmüller (1619-1684): Sonata quarta (two violins, cello, harpsichord
from Sonate a 2, 3, 4, 5 stromenti d'arco, Nuremburg 1682)

Intermission

Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber (1644-1704): Battalia (full ensemble)

Johann Heinrich Schmelzer: (1620-1680): Sonata a tre violini (three violins, continuo)

Johann Jakob Froberger (1616-1667): Toccata (harpsichord)

Schmelzer: Sonata quarta (violin, harpsichord from Sonate unarum fidium, Vienna 1664)

Henry Purcell (1659 -1695): Three Parts upon a Ground (full ensemble)

Arcangelo Corelli (1653-1713): Concerto Grosso in D major, Op. 6, No. 4 (full ensemble)

The Yale Baroque Ensemble
Robert Mealy, violin, director
Avi Stein, harpsichord

2010-11 members:
Johanna Novom, violin
Jessica Park, violin
Jae-Won Bang, violin
Jacques Lee Wood, cello

With members from 2009-10:
Daniel Lee, violin
Katie Hyun, violin

And from 2008-09:
Alex Woods, violin
Ezra Seltzer, cello

with guest Wen Yang (MM 2009), bass

YALE IN NEW YORK
Yale in New York is the acclaimed series in which distinguished faculty members-many of them famous soloists-share the limelight with exceptional alumni and students on Carnegie Hall's stages, capturing the intense collaboration found on every level at the Yale School of Music. The 2009-10 season showcased the classical legacy of Benny Goodman; undiscovered Prokofiev works; the Oral History of American Music project; and Penderecki conducting Penderecki. The 2010-11 season has featured Sleeping Giant, Yale guitarists, the Yale Percussion Group, and rarely-performed 20th century concerti grossi. The series is curated by David Shifrin.

YALE BAROQUE ENSEMBLE
The Yale Baroque Ensemble, directed by Prof. Robert Mealy, is a postgraduate trio sonata ensemble of two violins, cello, and keyboard dedicated to the highest level of study and performance of the Baroque repertoire. String players in the Ensemble, who are graduates of the Yale School of Music, go through an intensive one-year program of study, immersing themselves in the chamber and solo repertoire from 1600 to 1785. The program is designed for modern players to develop virtuosity and fluency in various historical styles, and to allow the participants to find their own eloquent voice on baroque instruments. Through coachings and individual lessons, the participants learn to read early notation, develop a familiarity with primary source material and treatises, and become fluent with improvisation in various styles. The ensemble prepares and performs a series of concerts together during the year.

ROBERT MEALY
Robert Mealy is one of America's leading historical string players; his playing has been praised by The Boston Globe for its "imagination, taste, subtlety, and daring." He is a frequent leader and soloist in New York, where he was recently appointed concertmaster of Trinity Wall Street's resident baroque orchestra, which in their latest Messiah played "commandingly" (The New York Times). He has recorded and toured in a wide variety of repertoires with many early music ensembles both here and in Europe, including Sequentia, Ensemble Project Ars Nova, the Newberry Consort, the Folger Consort, the Handel & Haydn Society, the American Bach Soloists, Tragicomedia, and Les Arts Florissants. He recently toured with the Mark Morris Dance Group to Moscow, and has accompanied Renée Fleming on the David Letterman Show. Mr. Mealy has led the Boston Early Music Festival Orchestra in three Grammy-nominated recordings and many festival performances, including a special appearance last fall at Versailles. A devoted chamber musician, he directs the new 17th-century ensemble Quicksilver and is a member of the Renaissance violin band The King's Noyse and the medieval quartet Fortune's Wheel. He is professor of early music at Yale University, where he directs the Yale Collegium and the Yale Baroque Ensemble. In 2004 he received Early Music America's Binkley Award for outstanding teaching and scholarship at both Harvard and Yale. He has recorded over fifty CDs on most major labels.

THE YALE SCHOOL OF MUSIC
The Yale School of Music, established in 1894 and one of four graduate schools in the arts at the University, has a long tradition of leadership in the training of performers and composers. It is a graduate-professional school and the only school of music in the Ivy League. The school is highly selective, with approximately 200 students who come from the finest American and international conservatories and universities to study with a distinguished faculty. The school's alumni are found in major positions in virtually every sphere of music making and administration. Yale graduates perform in most of the major American symphony orchestras, and voice alumni have enjoyed great success in joining professional opera companies throughout the world, with over a dozen Yale graduates on the artist roster of the Metropolitan Opera. The list of composition alumni, faculty, and guest professors is a virtual Who's Who of the creators of new music of the past century. Along with artistic accomplishment, Yale School of Music graduates have demonstratEd Strong leadership in guiding the course of numerous academic and cultural institutions. The Yale School of Music engages in cooperative partnerships with several leading international conservatories and schools, including: the Central Conservatory of Music (Beijing, China), Korean National University of the Arts-School of Music and Seoul National University-College of Music (Seoul, Korea), Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatory (Russia), Royal Academy of Music (London), and the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music (Budapest, Hungary). The Yale School of Music offers the Doctor of Musical Arts, Master of Musical Arts, and Master of Music degrees, as well as the Artist Diploma and the Certificate in Performance. In Fall 2005, the Yale School of Music received an unprecedented gift of $100 million, allowing the school to solidify its international position of leadership by expanding programs, renovating facilities, and offering full-tuition scholarships to all students.