Picking Flowers in the Recorder’s Garden of Delights
Valletta Baroque Festival 2024
Performer
Erik Bosgraaf, solo recorders
Programme
Mediaeval Times
Anonymous
L’Ontellecto Divino
The 16th and 17th centuries
Giovanni Bassano (1550–1617)
Ricercate Terza & Quarta
Jacob van Eyck (1589/90–1657)
Selected pieces from Der Fluyten Lust-hof
(The recorder’s garden of delights)
Preludium of Voorspel
Phantasia
Comagain
Lavolette
Psalm 118
Engels Nachtegaeltje / Den Nachtegael
Wat zalmen op den Avond doen
The 18th century
Georg Philipp Telemann (1681–1767)
Fantasia 1 in C major TWV 40:2
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750)
Partita in C major
after BWV 816 (arr. Thiemo Wind)
Allemande – Courante – Sarabande – Bourrée
New music for an old instrument
Igor Stravinsky (1882–1971)
Piece No. 3
Luciano Berio (1925–2003)
Gesti (1966)
Luc Houtkamp (1953)
Selection from Suite in Old Style
Theo Loevendie (1930)
Reflex (2017)
Erik Bosgraaf (1980)
Appoggiatura
Programme Notes
Erik Bosgraaf – Solo Through the Ages
From mediaeval to our modern times, music has become increasingly complex and multi-layered. Nevertheless, throughout the ages there have always been composers and performers who have continued to believe in the power of monophony. Recorder virtuoso Erik Bosgraaf is such a performer, as he demonstrates on this musical time travel. After a mediaeval piece and ricercata by Giovanni Bassano, a special place has been set up for Jacob van Eyck and his Der Fluyten Lust-hof (The Recorder’s Garden of Delights). This blind municipal bell player of Utrecht entertained the strollers in the city’s St. John’s Churchyard on beautiful summer evenings with virtuoso recorder variations on the top hits of his time. During the baroque period, Telemann was one of the greatest advocates of monophony, as demonstrated by a large number of fantasies for various instruments including the flute or recorder. Beautiful solo partitas and sonatas by Bach have survived for violin, cello, and flute. However, behind four movements from his French Suite BWV 816 for keyboard, a monophonous partita seems to be hidden as well. In the 20th century, Luciano Berio began to explore and stretch the possibilities of instruments by composing solo works that he called Sequenza. The piece he made for Frans Brüggen based on this idea, however, was given the title Gesti. Air, fingers, tongue, even the performer’s voice: the playing technique is completely deconstructed here. Luc Houtkamp and Theo Loevendie composed their solo works especially for Erik Bosgraaf. The master concludes his journey with notes that resulted from his own imagination.