Watch Ignaz von Held's Sonata accompagnée d'une Flûte (circa 1798), with
Jeffrey Cohan, 8-keyed flute, made in London in 1820, and
Oleg Timofeyev, 7-string guitar made in about 1820.
please see www.salishseafestival.org/whidbey
RUSSIAN GUITAR and BEETHOVEN'S FLUTE FOR OUR FRIENDS IN UKRAINE
Oleg TImofeyev and Jeffrey Cohan
• Wednesday, March 16, 2022 at 7:00 PM •
ST. AUGUSTINE'S IN THE WOODS EPISCOPAL CHURCH
5217 South Honeymoon Bay Road in Freeland on Whidbey Island
~ Masks and vaccination required ~ (360) 331-4887
Suggested Donation: $15, $20 or $25
(a free will offering - everyone welcome) • 18 and under FREE
A world premiere: Oleg tells me he knows for sure that our performance of Ignaz Held's Sonata will be the first live performance anywhere in modern times as no one has this music! We encourage you to become somewhat familiar with it through the Youtube video above which we performed and recorded "pandemic style". It will be such a pleasure to work together less than 2,000 miles apart on Wednesday evening. Please join us!
Particularly interesting to us is the set of variations composed collaboratively by guitarist Louis Ange Carpentras (1786-1852) and flutist Antoine Tranquille Berbiguier (1782-1835) ... what an idea! We know of other instances of this format in Beethoven's era of virtuosi, but otherwise it is rarely to be found throughout history. We'll experiment with this idea however ourselves in thinking of our dear friends in Ukraine in our own variations on both the Ukrainian national anthem and the popular Ukrainian folk song "The Cossack went beyond the Danube", otherwise known as "Schöne Minke" and used during this time especially as a theme for sets of variations by Beethoven and many others. The program will include a sonata composed by Theodor Gaude for the flutist Raphael Dressler and solos for the early 19th-century 7-string guitar and the 8-keyed flute including Ukrainian Dance by Vasily Sarenko (1814-1881).
Oleg Timofeyev’s notes on this Sonata for Flute and Seven-String Guitar by Ignaz von Held:
In terms of his military and private adventures, Ignaz von Held (aka Ignacio de Held) would make an excellent protagonist for a historical novel. Born in Hohenbruck (now Třebechovice pod Orebem, today’s Czech Republic) into a doctor's family, Ignaz was able to receive excellent education in the humanities, with a strong emphasis on music. Following the early death of his father, Ignaz moved to Poland in 1781 to pursue a military career. His next destination was St. Petersburg where, due to his many talents and elegant manners, he received the patronage of Prince Grigory Potemkin. Held’s military achievements included participation in the 1787-1791 Crimean War against Turkey. After his benefactor Potemkin died in 1791, Held returned to Poland where he was promoted to the rank of major and acquired the status of nobility. But soon he got involved in Tadeusz Kościuszko’s 1794 uprising against the Russian rule. Upon the ultimate failure of the revolt, von Held was moved back to Russia to serve a sentence as a prisoner of war. Fortunately for him, Catherine the Great soon died in 1796. Paul I disagreed with his mother on a number of issues and as soon as his monarchy began in 1797, he liberated most of the Polish fighters.
So, von Held found himself in Moscow, with no military future, and no money. The time was right to remember about his musical talents, and he published his 1798 Guitar Method, which is the key event in the history of the Russian seven-string guitar. Not only was it the historically first publication for the new instrument, but the words on the cover strongly suggested that the Russian guitar was conceived as a hybrid instrument owing its origin to both gut-strung, figure-eight-shaped Spanish and metal-strung, pear-shaped English guitars. The Sonata for Flute and Seven-String Guitar included in Held's Method is the earliest known sonata to involve the Russian guitar.
Wednesday, April 27, 2022 at 7:00 PM •
II. CONCERTI from the COURT of FREDERICK THE GREAT
David Schrader ~ harpsichord
Jeffrey Cohan ~ baroque flute
Elizabeth Phelps ~ baroque violin
Courtney Kuroda ` Baroque violin
Lindsey Strand-Polyak ~ baroque viola
Annabeth Shirley ` baroque cello
Special guest renowned Chicago harpsichordist David Schrader joins Jeffrey Cohan and a small orchestra of baroque players for harpsichord and flute concerti from the court of Frederick the Great by Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, Johann Joachim Quantz, King Frederick the Great II of Prussia and other composers associated with the Prussian king’s renowned musical establishment. David and Jeffrey presented Concert Spirituel at the Church of the Ascension in Chicago for several years.
Wednesday, May 11, 2022 at 7:00 PM
III. BAROQUE QUARTET
Susie Napper ~ viola da gamba
Elisabeth Wright ~ harpsichord
David Greenberg ~ baroque violin
Jeffrey Cohan ~ baroque flute
Internationally known period instrument specialists Elisabeth Wright (harpsichord), Susie Napper (viola da gamba), David Greenberg (baroque violin) and Jeffrey Cohan (baroque flute) join forces to present baroque quartets by Marin Marais, Georg Philipp Telemann, Johann Sebastian Bach and others.
Wednesday, May 25 2022 at 7:00 PM
IV. JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH
BRANDENBURG 5 & TRIPLE CONCERTO
Jonathan Oddie ~ harpsichord
Jeffrey Cohan ~ baroque flute
Carrie Krause~ baroque violin
Elizabeth Phelps ~ baroque violin
Courtney Kuroda ~ baroque violin
Lindsey Strand-Polyak ~ baroque viola
Martin Bonham ~ baroque cello
In a favorite program we have twice offered in previous seasons, harpsichordist Jonathan Oddie, newly named professor of harpsichord at the Jacobs School of Music in Bloomington, Indiana, returns to perform two of the most moving and difficult works for harpsichord and orchestra with baroque violin soloist Cari Krause, baroque flutist Jeffrey Cohan and baroque string orchestra.
