Source gallica.bnf.fr / Bibliothèque nationale de France
Source: archive.org
The Prince and the Elephant
Wednesday, March 24th, Noon EDT.
Tune in to hear two narrated stories by Oscar Wilde and Jean de Brunhoff, with music by Liza Lehmann and Francis Poulenc. Professor Charles Abramovic and his Boyer College of Music and Dance students will provide the piano parts, with narration by Melanie Julian.
Charles Abramovic
Melanie Julian
This program will be presented via Zoom. On the day of the program, use this link to join: https://temple.zoom.us/j/92102340144.
All programs are open to all. Registration is encouraged.
Program
The Happy Prince ……………………………………...Liza Lehmann (1862–1918) Story by Oscar Wilde.
The Story of Babar, the Little Elephant ……………………………….Francis Poulenc (1899–1963) Text by Jean de Brunhoff, translation by Nellie Rieu.
About the Artists
MELANIE JULIAN joined the Temple University in 2008 and is currently an Associate Professor at the School of Theater, Film and Media Arts. Prior to her move to Philadelphia, she had been a member of the acting faculty at the University of California at Davis, where she headed the voice
and speech curriculum for the undergraduate and graduate acting programs. She has been an Associate Teacher of Fitzmaurice Voicework since 2004; she was a member of the fourth class to be certified in this vocal training technique. She worked for three years as the National Coordinator for the Fitzmaurice Voicework Teacher Training Program, and she served as Secretary for the international Voice and Speech Trainers’ Association (VASTA). In 2014 she deepened her studies in Voice by traveling to the Centre Artistique International Roy Hart, where she spent time studying Voice with Roy Hart’s esteemed teachers. Melanie is a member of the Actors’ Equity Union, and has performed as an actor in New York, Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Sacramento, Philadelphia, and Pittsburgh with such groups as the Minnesota Orchestra, Soho Playhouse, the Pittsburgh Public Theater, the Mondavi Arts Centre, Mauckingbird Theatre Company and many others. Since arriving in Philadelphia she has also been an active member of the theater community as a voice and dialect coach having worked frequently in that capacity with The Philadelphia Theatre Company, Arden Theatre Company, Theatre Exile, People’s Light & Theatre Company, and several others. Most recently she appeared in Philadelphia’s first live professional theater production since the pandemic began, Samuel Beckett’s Rockaby, produced by EgoPo Classic Theater.
CHARLES ABRAMOVIC has won critical acclaim for his international performances as a soloist, chamber musician, and collaborator with leading instrumentalists and singers. He has performed a vast repertoire not only on the piano, but also the harpsichord and fortepiano. Abramovic made his solo orchestral debut at the age of fourteen with the Pittsburgh Symphony. Since then he has appeared as soloist with numerous orchestras, including the Baltimore Symphony, the Colorado Philharmonic, the Florida Philharmonic, and the Nebraska Chamber Orchestra. He has given solo recitals throughout the United States, France and Yugoslavia. He has also appeared at major international festivals in Berlin, Salzburg, Bermuda, Dubrovnik, Aspen and Vancouver. Abramovic has performed often with such stellar artists as Midori, Sarah Chang, Robert McDuffie, Viktoria Mullova, Kim Kashkashian, Mimi Stillman, and Jeffrey Khaner. His recording of the solo piano works of Delius for DTR recordings has been widely praised. He has recorded for EMI Classics with violinist Sarah Chang, and Avie Recordings with Philadelphia Orchestra principal flutist Jeffrey Khaner. Actively involved with contemporary music, he has also recorded works of Milton Babbitt, Joseph Schwantner, Gunther Schuller and others for Albany Records, CRI, Bridge, and Naxos.
Abramovic has taught at Temple since 1988 and serves as Chair of Keyboard Studies at the Boyer College of Music and Dance. He is an active part of the musical life of Philadelphia, performing with numerous organizations in the city. He is a core member of the Dolce Suono Ensemble and performs often with Network for New Music and Orchestra 2001. In 1997 he received the Career Development Grant from the Philadelphia Musical Fund Society, and in 2003 received the Creative Achievement Award from Temple University. His teachers have included Natalie Phillips, Eleanor Sokoloff, Leon Fleisher, and Harvey Wedeen.
Music of Elisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre
Published: April 1, 2021
Join us for our first Beyond the Notes of fall 2021! Rescheduled from April 2021.
Elisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre
Music by Elisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre (1665-1729)
Wednesday, October 27, Noon, EDT
Harpsichord
Lindorff, Professor of Keyboard Studies
Anna Kislitsyna, Doctor of Musical Arts, 2018
Hanbyeol Lee, Master of Music, 2017
Violin
Eunice China, Bachelor of Music, 2016
This program will be presented via Zoom. On the day of the program, use this link to join: temple.zoom.us/j/97910011782.
All programs are free and open to all, and registration is encouraged.
Register
Many thanks for this blogpost to Gary Sampsell.
Parisian composer and harpsichordist Élisabeth-Claude Jacquet de La Guerre (1665-1729) made her mark very early in life. She first performed for Louis XIV at the tender age of five, impressing the “Sun King” with her prodigious abilities. Thereafter the phenom would serve the court of Versailles until the age of nineteen. Jacquet returned to Paris permanently after wedding the organist Marin de La Guerre in 1684. Despite losing her husband and only child in 1704, she continued to compose, perform, and teach until her passing.
Jacquet de La Guerre possessed formidable musicianship in every respect. In addition to accompanying and improvising on the harpsichord and organ, she could sight-sing the most difficult passages and transpose music on command. But Jacquet’s legacy rests primarily on her surviving compositions, including Céphale et Procris (Cephalus and Procris, 1694), the first opera written by a French woman, and two published collections of suites for harpsichord (1687 and 1707). The latter, of course, comprised the various social dances performed at the court of Versailles—to wit, the courante, gigue, and sarabande. Jacquet infused these binary forms with the style brisé (broken style), emulating the lutenists of her day. A hallmark of French style, this technique expanded the expressive potential of chords through arpeggiation.
Dancing at Versailles was serious business, a tool used by Louis XIV to instill qualities such as majesty, grace, and self-discipline in members of the court. Nobles received instruction from dancing masters and practiced the choreography for hours. They were also examined by the king himself, who would banish subjects for poor execution. Based on the following account of 1671, a superlative performance of the sarabande was nuanced, embodying the affect, agréments (ornaments), and rubato of the music:
“Now and then he [the dancer] would let a whole rhythmic unit go by, moving no more than a statue, and then, setting off like an arrow, he would be at the other end of the room before anyone had time to realize that he had departed.
But all this was nothing compared to what was observed when this gallant began to express the emotions of his soul through the motions of his body, and reveal them in his face, his eyes, his steps and all his actions.
Sometimes he would cast languid and passionate glances throughout a low and languid rhythmic unit; and then, as though weary of being obliging, he would avert his eyes, as if he wished to hide his passion; and, with a more precipitous motion, would snatch away the gift he had tendered.
Now and then he would express anger and spite with an impetuous and turbulent rhythmic unit; and then, evoking a sweeter passion by more moderate motions, he would sigh, swoon, let his eyes wander languidly; and certain sinuous movements of the arms and body, nonchalant, disjointed and passionate, made him appear so admirable and so charming that throughout this enchanting dance he won as many hearts as he attracted spectators.” (McClary 2018, 116-118)
Given the proximity of physical movement to music in baroque-era France, this description also sheds light on the ephemeral art of Jacquet de La Guerre: a succession of musical moments in which color and nuance delight the senses. On Wednesday, March 18, Joyce Lindorff and her studio will present an entire program of music by this extraordinary woman. We encourage all to attend.
Consult the following sources for more information:
Borroff, Edith. 1966. An Introduction to Elisabeth-Claude Jacquet de la Guerre. Brooklyn: Institute of Mediæval Music.
Cessac, Catherine. “Jacquet de La Guerre, Elisabeth.” Grove Music Online. 2001; Accessed 23 Feb. 2020.
Farr, Elizabeth. 2005. Liner notes to Elisabeth-Claude Jacquet De La Guerre: Harpsichord Suites Nos. 1-6, Elizabeth Farr. Naxos 8.557654-55, CD.
McClary, Susan. 2018. “In the Realm of All the Senses: Two Sarabandes by Élisabeth-Claude Jacquet de La Guerre.” In Analytical Essays on Music by Women Composers: Secular and Sacred Music to 1900, edited by Laurel Parson and Brenda Ravenscroft, 109-28. New York: Oxford University Press.
Porter, Cecilia Hopkins. 2012. “Elisabeth-Claude Jacquet De La Guerre: Versailles and Paris in the Twilight of the Ancien Régime.” In Five Lives in Music: Women Performers, Composers, and Impresarios from the Baroque to the Present, 39-77. Champaign: University of Illinois Press.
Gary Sampsell is a second-year PhD student in the Music Studies program at Boyer College. His research interests include the musical culture of baroque-era Saxony and Austro-German reception of early music in the nineteenth century.