JS Bach's forebears (PDF) - Academy of Ancient Music

Academy of Ancient Music
Back in 1973, most orchestras played old music
in a modern style. Centuries of change had
eroded the sound-worlds known to Bach,
Handel, Haydn and Mozart: the instruments were
different; the pitch was different; the number of
players was different; the very essence and spirit
of performances was different.
But change was in the air. Wouldn’t it be
wonderful, people asked, if we could turn the
clock back; if we could find out more about
composers’ original intentions and get closer to
the style in which music was originally
performed? This was the spirit in which
Christopher Hogwood founded the AAM. It was
revolutionary. Centuries of convention were cut
away and baroque and classical masterworks
were heard anew. The stringed instruments in
Hogwood’s new orchestra had strings made of
animal gut, not steel. The trumpets have no
valves. The violins and violas didn’t have chinrests,
and the cellists gripped their instruments
between their legs rather than resting them on
the floor. It wasn’t just the instruments or the
sound of the music which changed, though; it
was how it felt. AAM performances were full of
energy and passion and joy.
From these beginnings, one of the world’s great
orchestras was born. Over the next three
decades the AAM’s fame spread to every corner
of the globe as it built up a celebrated
discography of well over 250 CDs — Brit- and
Grammy-award-winning recordings of the great
baroque masterworks; opera releases starring
Cecilia Bartoli, Dame Emma Kirkby and Dame
Joan Sutherland; pioneering cycles of the Mozart
and Beethoven symphonies. It performed live
on every continent except Antarctica, inspiring
music lovers worldwide with the passion and the
power of its music-making.
Richard Egarr — a leading light in the next
generation of early music specialists —
succeeded Hogwood in 2006. In his first four
years as Music Director his recordings with the
orchestra have won the Edison, Gramophone
12 ACADEMY OF ANCIENT MUSIC, 2010-2011 SEASON
and MIDEM Awards; and he has directed
hundreds of performances across four
continents. The orchestra continues to work
with a roster of guest directors including Pavlo
Beznosiuk, Giuliano Carmignola, Paul Goodwin,
Stephen Layton and Masaaki Suzuki, ensuring
that new ideas and approaches continually
inspire the group. In 2009 the AAM made history
with the world’s first-ever live choral “cinecast”: its
performance of Handel’s Messiah was beamed in
real time from the King’s College Chapel,
Cambridge to tens of thousands of people in
over 250 cities around the globe.
“The ultimate raspberry to anyone who
says baroque music is predictable”
THE INDEPENDENT, 2009
Today, the AAM’s concert series in London and
Cambridge lies at the heart of its work. This
season’s programme is based around The Bach
Dynasty — a major new concert series exploring
the music of JS Bach and his many composerrelatives.
Other highlights include Mozart’s early
opera La Finta Giardiniera at the Barbican, and an
intriguing programme showcasing the littleknown
baroque and classical music of South
America. The orchestra will collaborate with the
likes of Bernard Labadie, acclaimed director of
Les Violons du Roy, singers James Gilchrist,
Rosemary Joshua, Andrew Kennedy and
Elizabeth Watts, cellist Steven Isserlis, and the
Choir of King’s College, Cambridge.
The AAM’s international touring schedule in
2010-11 is as wide-ranging as it has ever been.
Among this year’s highlights are performances of
JS Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos and Haydn’s
The Creation at the Shanghai Concert Hall and in
Perth; concerts with the star Korean soprano
Sumi Jo at the National Centre for the
Performing Arts in Beijing and around Singapore,
South Korea and Taiwan; and performances in
leading European venues including the
Concertgebouw in Amsterdam and the Théatre
des Champs-Elysées in Paris.