Tempesta Di Mare Chamber Players Present Music For 'Unmatched' Instruments By Vivaldi, Telemann, Janitsch, And Zelenka

Tempesta's 2023-24 concert season continues with a program that balances the individual colors of flute, recorder, oboe, bassoon and violin against one another in kaleidoscopic musical compositions accompanied by harpsichord and theorbo.  Concerts will take place December 1 and 2 in Chestnut Hill and Center City respectively. A third performance follows on Dec 3 on tour in Stroudsburg, PA.  

 

UNMATCHED centers around Vivaldi's Concerto in G Minor, RV 105, written in 1720 for the extraordinary female virtuosi at the Ospedale della Pietà, where Vivaldi taught for many years. The concerto features the bassoon as a soloist. Tempesta is engaged on a multi-year project highlighting the “Ugly Virtuosas” of the Venetian orphanages, further details of which can be found here: https://tempestadimare.org/in-focus/a-fuller-story/ugly-virtuosas/ 

 

Vivaldi's mixed compositions created a sort of craze across Europe, inspiring the leading musicians of their time to follow suit with unmatched works on their own. In fact, all works on this program are specifically written for the instruments on which Tempesta will perform them, not a generic 3- or 4-part writing that might be performed on any mix of treble and bass instruments. 

 

Other works on the program are:  

Quatuor in G Major, TWV 43:G2 (Musique de table, Part 1, No. 2) by Georg Philipp Telemann   

       for flute, oboe, violin and continuo 

Sonata in D Major, FaWV N:D1 by Johann Friedrich Fasch  

       for flute, violin, bassoon and continuo 

Sonata No. 3 in B-flat, ZWV 181/3 by Jan Dismas Zelenka  

       for oboe, violin and continuo 

Quadro in G Major, Dr. 15 by Johann Gottlieb Janitsch  

       for recorder, oboe, violin and continuo  

Concerto à cinq parties in E Minor, PB 441, Op. 37 No. 6 by Joseph Bodin de Boismortier  

       for recorder, oboe, violin, bassoon and continuo 

The ensemble is comprised of Tempesta di Mare's principal performers, all top-tier musicians on their respective instruments: Gwyn Roberts, recorder & flute | Gaia Saetermoe-Howard, oboe | Emlyn Ngai, violin | Stephanie Corwin, bassoon | Richard Stone, theorbo | Dongsok Shin, harpsichord  

 

The Janitsch Quartet comes from the singular collection of baroque music by Jewish salonniere Sara Levy, part of Tempesta's A Fuller Story project. More about Sara Itzig Levy, this collection, and its storied history are here: https://tempestadimare.org/in-focus/a-fuller-story/the-itzig-sisters/ 

 

Fanfare magazine has hailed Tempesta di Mare for its "abundant energy, immaculate ensemble, and an undeniable sense of purpose." Led by directors Gwyn Roberts and Richard Stone with concertmaster Emlyn Ngai, Tempesta performs baroque music on baroque instruments with a repertoire that ranges from staged opera to chamber music. The group performs all orchestral repertoire without a conductor, as was the practice when this music was new. The ensemble has presented over 350 concerts-projects with music by more than 70 composers, emphasizing a sense of discovery for artists and audiences alike. Their Philadelphia series launched in 2002, and has included over 50 modern world premieres of lost or forgotten baroque masterpieces, leading the Inquirer to describe Tempesta as "an old-music group that acts like a new-music group, by pushing the cutting edge back rather than forward." In June 2023 Tempesta di Mare was awarded the Fasch Prize of the City of Zerbst/Anhalt, Germany for “their outstanding contributions to the performance, recording and promotion of the work of Johann Friedrich Fasch.  Its supporters include the William Penn Foundation, the Paul M. Angell Foundation, the Presser Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts.   

  

In a marketplace dominated by European ensembles, Tempesta is the only American baroque music group to record for the prestigious British label, Chandos. Current releases are Weiss: Lute Concerti (2004), Handel: Flaming Rose (2007), Scarlatti: Cantatas and Chamber Music (2010), Fasch: Orchestral Music, vol. 1 (2008), vol. 2 (2011) and vol. 3 (2012), Bach: Trio Sonatas, BWV 525–530 (2014), Mancini: Sonatas for a Flute, (2014), and Comédie et Tragédie: French baroque orchestral music for the theater, vol. 1 (2015), vol. 2 (2016). 2018 saw two additional discs: Janitsch: Rediscoveries from the Sara Levy Collection, and the first complete recording of Georg Philipp Telemann's Concerti-en-Suite. A fourth volume of Fasch premiere recordings is expected in early 2025. National broadcasts of live performances include SymphonyCast, Performance Today, Sunday Baroque and Harmonia. Live concert recordings are distributed worldwide via the European Broadcasting Union, a global alliance of public service media organizations, with members in 56 countries in Europe and beyond.   
   

International appearances have included the Prague Spring Festival, the Göttingen Handel Festival, the International Telemann Festival Magdeburg, the Mendelssohn-Remise Berlin and the International Fasch Festival in Zerbst. Recent North American appearances have included a return engagement at the Frick Collection and the National Gallery of Art. Other notable presenters have included the Miami Bach Festival, the Oregon Bach Festival, Abbey Bach Festival, Whitman College, Cornell Concerts, the Yale Collection, the Flagler Museum and the Garmany Series, Hartford.  

 

For further details about Tempesta di Mare, please visit  http://tempestadimare.org 

 

PROGRAM DETAILS 
 

Unmatched: Multicolored Chamber Music for Mixed Instruments 

 

Tempesta di Mare | Chamber Players 

Gwyn Roberts, recorder & flute | Gaia Saetermoe-Howard, oboe | Emlyn Ngai, violin | Stephanie Corwin, bassoon | Richard Stone, theorbo | Dongsok Shin, harpsichord  

 

Friday, Dec. 1, 2023 at 7:30 PM | Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill, 8855 Germantown Ave 

Saturday, Dec. 2, 2023 at 7:30 PM | Trinity Center for Urban Life, 2212 Spruce St 

(On Tour performance: Sunday, December 3, 2023 at 3pm | Stroudsburg, PA | https://beaconhillconcerts.com/) 

 

Season Passes for 3-, or 5--projects of the season are on sale now, and range in price from $84 - $175.  

 

Single Tickets for UNMATCHED are on sale now. Prices are $35-$45 in advance and $40-$50 at the door; FREE for full-time students and youth (recommended for ages 12 and older). A limited number of pay-what-you-wish tickets are available online between November 20-27, 2023. 

  

Program:  

• Vivaldi: Chamber Concerto à 5, RV105 

• Telemann: Quadro from Tafelmusik, TWV 43:G2 

• Zelenka: Trio Sonata No 6, Z181/3 

• Janitsch: Sonata da Camera in G Major, Dr 15 

• Fasch: Sonata in D Major, FaWV N:D1 

• Borsmortier: Concerto à cinq parties in E Minoe, PB 441, Op. 37 No 6 

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