Songs wi thout Words Wordless Song Eric Milnes: Prelude (improvisation) Marin Marais: Les Voix humaines Feeling Wistful Jean-Baptiste de Bousset: Pourquoi dous rossignol Billy Strayhorn: A Flower is a lovesome thing Johnny Mandel: Emily In a Secret Garden Joseph Chabanceau de la Barre: J’avois juré La Barre: Allez Bergers Marc-Antoine Charpentier: Sans frayeur Chains of Love Charles Dollé: Les Regrets Jean-Baptiste Lully: Recit de la beauté Crazy Patsy Cline/Willie Nelson: Crazy Folies d’espagne after Marin Marais, arr. Les Délices Edith Piaf: La Foule

INTERMISSION Love’s First Blush John Lennon: In my life, I loved you more de Bousset: De mes soupirs Erroll Garner/Johnny Burke: Misty Burning Passion Bénigne de Bacilly/Hotteterre: Rochers je ne veux point Michel Lambert: D’un feu secret Heartbreak Jean-Philippe Rameau: Tristes apprêts from Castor et Pollux Stephen Sondheim: Send in the Clowns Never give up Marais: Prelude in d minor Nina Simone: Tomorrow is my turn I wouldn’t have it any other way… Lambert: Vos mespris Joseph Kosma/ Johnny Mercer: Autumn Leaves

Debra Nagy, baroque oboe Mélisande Corriveau, viola da gamba & pardessus de viole

Eric Milnes, harpsichord

NOTES ON THE PROGRAM

As performers of old music, we’ve committed our lives to reaching new understandings about music and instruments that inspire and excite us. These instruments’ sounds and their inherent technical flexibility (or limitations) can suggest ways to articulate or shape musical phrases that inform or reinforce what we might read in a book or score from the same period, yet it’s inevitable that we’re left with incomplete information such that our work is part reconstructive and part creative leap of faith.

Lacunae, a missing piece of our knowledge, can pose the greatest challenges. They leave us facing difficult choices, yet they also represent an opportunity to think creatively and be inspired by whatever sparse information remains. Tonight’s program, Songs without Words, is motivated by such a gap in our knowledge: Baroque woodwinds (oboes and flutes) were developed in the 1660s and ‘70s and were clearly being played by sophisticated, professional players, yet there is no published solo repertoire for them until after 1700. The question that Songs without Words seeks to answer is: What do you suppose they were playing during those 30+ years?

In fact, the invention of Baroque woodwinds in 1660s and ‘70s was quite possibly inspired by developments in French art songs, known as airs sérieux. For one thing, the composers of serious airs and the first generations of wind players were linked by time, place (Louis XIV’s court at Versailles), aesthetics (the desire to have an instrument capable of imitating the sweet flexible quality of the human voice and pronouncing its words), and even by marriage. In addition, publications of vocal airs for woodwinds dating to the 1720s appear to testify to a long-standing practice of instrumental players adapting vocal music as a solo repertory. Furthermore, we can imagine the gorgeous, languishing sounds of René Pignon Descoteaux (one of France’s very first flutists), whose 1728 obituary reported that “he scarcely played anything but little delicate airs (petits airs tendres).”

Although thirty to sixty years removed from the repertoire they contain and the performance practices they illuminate, eighteenth-century arrangements of airs and brunettes (a nickname for simpler pastoral songs) for woodwinds deserve to be understood as one of our most important tools in recovering the lost art 17th-century wind players. As a result, Songs without Words takes the adaptation of 17th-century songs for instruments as its point of departure and brings the concept into the 20th century with jazz standards arranged for and improvised by the ensemble. Ok, you may be saying, I get your rationale for playing baroque vocal music on the oboe, but what’s with the inclusion of jazz on this program?

One of the most fascinating and challenging elements of performing 17th-century vocal airs (besides the inherent difficulty in expressing the flow and sentiments of the texts) is the highly ornamented style of the second verse of a song, which was called a double. The rhythmic freedom and virtuosity of some of these doubles was almost impossible to notate. I’ve always been struck by the fact that notated doubles are not so different from how a transcription of a jazz solo can’t truly represent an artist’s performance. Besides this improvisatory style of delivery, I began hearing links between the rich, expressive harmonies of French 17th-century song and the bluesy chords of tunes that belong to the canon of jazz standards. I have also been inspired by the flexible “voice” of my instrument and eager to find a way to play tunes that are part of my contemporary world (in much the same way that airs tendres or brunettes became a repertoire for 17th-century players to adapt to their instruments). Finally, torch songs’ universal sentiments – love, longing, loss – seemed an apt way to bridge the centuries in this program.

Sure, programming jazz on baroque instruments is a risk, but I hope you’ll find that it’s one worth taking! Not only that, but I think you’ll find that the interleaving of these tunes with French baroque airs makes us hear all the music differently. Just as the great viol player Marin Marais warned when

advocating the adaptation of his solos to woodwinds (among other instruments), picking the “right” tunes is half the battle. I’ve been aided in this exploration by my wonderful colleagues onstage as well as by bassist Aidan Plank, who is a dear, old friend and an inspiring fixture in the Cleveland jazz scene. Aidan suggested tunes I didn’t know (but now love!) and helped me with arrangements, including writing bass lines and solos for the viol.

The French airs that I’ve chosen for this program are by the greatest songwriters of the age. Michel Lambert (1610-1696) published the first book of airs with basso continuo engraved in France in 1660. Widely recognized as the greatest singing teacher of his age, Lambert’s 330 surviving songs represent only a small fraction of his output. Vos mespris (a rondeau constructed over a 4-note descending ground bass) endures as one of Lambert’s most famous and satisfying songs while D’un feu secret (a secret, burning passion) is a prime example of the composer’s rhetorical sensibilities with its chromatic ascending lines that signal yearning and heightened expectation leading towards climax. We’re also pleased to introduce the deeply-moving elegy Tristes apprêts from Rameau’s opera Castor et Pollux (1737) in a new arrangement.

Lambert’s style also exerted a strong influence on French opera, which would later be cultivated by his son-in-law, Jean-Baptiste Lully. Though Lully and Lambert collaborated on early theatrical works, Lully ultimately eschewed the florid double ornamentation. His Récit de la beauté from Le mariage forcé (a 1664 collaboration with the playwright Molière) depicts the chains of love and the languishing lover as its bass line threads steadily down across the span of nearly two octaves. By comparison, Jean-Baptiste de Bousset’s tender and languid airs such as Pourquoi doux rossignol (another ground bass) and De mes soupirs (of my sighs) represent the next generation of song composers. Though little-known today, de Bousset (1662-1725) was noted for the “true expression of the words, his noble, natural and pleasing melody, and his variety, astonishing given the size of his output.” Having composed 875 songs over the course of his career, his oeuvre is ripe for rediscovery.

– Debra Nagy

PERFORMER BIOGRAPHIES:

Les Délices (pronounced Lay day-lease) explores the dramatic potential and emotional resonance of long-forgotten music. Founded by baroque oboist Debra Nagy in 2009, Les Délices has established its reputation for unique programs that are “thematically concise, richly expressive, and featuring composers few people have heard of.” The New York Times added, “Concerts and recordings by Les Délices are journeys of discovery.” The ensemble’s debut CD was named one of the "Top Ten Early Music Discoveries of 2009" (NPR's Harmonia), and the group’s performances have been called "a beguiling experience" (Cleveland Plain Dealer), "astonishing" (ClevelandClassical.com), and "first class" (Early Music America Magazine). Since Les Délices’ sold-out New York debut at the Frick Collection, touring highlights have included Music Before 1800, Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, San Francisco Early Music Society, the Yale Collection of Musical Instruments, and Columbia University’s Miller Theater. Les Délices also presents its own annual four-concert series in Cleveland art galleries and at Plymouth Church in Shaker Heights, OH, where the group is Artist in Residence. Les Délices has been featured on WCPN, WCLV and WKSU in Ohio, WQXR in New York, NPR's syndicated Harmonia and Sunday Baroque, and had their debut CD featured as part of the Audio-guide for a special exhibit at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art (Watteau, Music, and Theater). Les Délices 3rd CD, "Age of Indulgence" was released on the Navona label in June 2017. Learn more at www.lesdelices.org. Praised for her “dazzling technique and soulful expressiveness,” (Rocky Mountain News), and a musical approach that’s “distinctly sensual…pliant, warm, and sweet,” (New York Times), Debra

Nagy is one of North America’s leading performers on the baroque oboe. A dedicated chamber musician, Debra is the founder of Les Délices and indulges her love of late-medieval music as a regular guest with Boston’s acclaimed Blue Heron and Chicago’s Newberry Consort. Debra has received many awards for her creative and scholarly pursuits including first-prize in the American Bach Soloists Young Artists Competition and a 2010 Creative Workforce Fellowship from Cuyahoga Arts & Culture. Debra is also an unabashed foodie and loves commuting by bike from her home in the heart of Cleveland’s historic Ohio City neighborhood. Visit www.debranagy.com.

Critically acclaimed for her “virtuosic, delicate and elegant playing,” Mélisande Corriveau performs on viola da gamba, cello, recorder, and is one of the few performers in the world specializing in the pardessus de viole. She is co‐founder and Artistic Director of the ensemble L'Harmonie des saisons, whose debut CD release ''Las Ciudades de Oro'' (Cities of Gold) was the 2016 winner of the coveted Canadian JUNO Award, for best classical CD of the year in the vocal and choral category. Her recent duo release with harpsichordist Eric Milnes, ''Pardessus de viole'' featuring the 18th century French repertoire for the pardessus de viole, recently won an Opus prize from the Quebec Council of Music, was named among the 10 best classical discs of the year (2016) by CBC Radio, and selected as Classical CD of the Year by Radio Canada. Mélisande is a core member of ensemble Masques, Les Voix Humaines consort of viols, Bande Montréal Baroque, Sonate 1704 and Les Boréades. Her discography numbers over 40 titles on the ATMA Classique, Analekta, Harmonia Mundi, Paradizo, Zig‐Zag Territories and Alpha labels. A native New Yorker, Eric Milnes, is director of La Bande Montréal Baroque, and L'harmonie des saisons, Quebec. He has received critical acclaim for performances as conductor, organist and harpsichordist throughout North and South America, Europe and Asia with recent appearances at the Regensburg, Potsdam, Bremen, Utrecht, Bruge and Lufthansa festivals, at The Forbidden City Concert Hall, Beijing, on tour throughout Japan and at the International Baroque Festival, Bolivia. North American performances include Mostly Mozart Festival, Boston Early Music Festival, Berkeley Bach Festival, Santa Fe Festival, Montreal Festival and as conductor with Seattle Baroque Orchestra, Portland Baroque Orchestra, New York Collegium, and Les Voix Baroque. His latest CD release, Cuidades de Oro (sacred music from colonial New Spain) won the 2016 JUNO (Canadian Grammy) for the best Classical Album of the Year. ATMA Classique features him directing the recording of the complete Bach sacred cantatas - eight volumes are completed. He has collaborated in recording and performance with Gustav Leonhardt, Wieland Kuijken, Sigiswald Kuijken, Bart Kuijken, Andrew Parrott, Reinhard Goebel, and Christophe Rousset, among many others. He takes greatest pride in the accomplishments of his daughters Mary Leah (Vanderbilt University, ’15) and Hannah (Columbia College, ’16).