Musicians of the Old Post Road shoot for the ‘Stars’

By John Zeugner, Telegram & Gazette Reviewer

It’s no secret that classical music, like everything truthful, rational, beautiful and compassionate, has been losing ground lately. And there are lots of attempted cures: live orchestral accompaniment to intensely popular films; flash crowd-sourced concerts; highly flexible small chamber orchestras (A Far Cry, The Knights); new off-beat venues (nightclubs, waterfront penthouses) for contemporary compositions; steep discounts for under age audiences; and the apparent winner — themed programs that subsume composers under bold titles that suggest potential audiences will find a way into something more than music.

Case in point: “Stars in Their Eyes,” Thursday night’s concert at the Worcester Historical Museum by Musicians of the Old Post Road. One could also point to Worcester Chamber Music Society’s recent concerts boldly titled: “Love and Vengeance”; “Vampires and Crocodiles”; “Censored Identity.” What’s in a name? Maybe a wider audience.

SITE’s bold-titled theme encompassed the surprising proposition that fairly obscure 18th century scientists with astronomical interests also wrote music. SITE took an added step and provided an interesting mini lecture before the concert by Harvard astronomer, James Moran, with details about William Herschel, the most celebrated astronomer of his time for his discovery of the planet Uranus. Herschel was a German émigré to Bath, England, where he was that legendary town’s band director and resident composer until his telescope production and successful data mining of the night sky overflooded and buried his musical career. Moran also supplied information about our own father of rocketry, Robert Goddard.

Only hyper cognoscenti have ever heard of scientist-composers Johann Christopher Schmidt, John Marsh, Johan Daniel Berlin or Carl Frederich Baumgarten. The ever energetic Musicians of the Old Post Road had dug out some of those scientists’ neglected scores, and, characteristically, gave them superbly polished performances. Schmidt’s Chaconne from his Les Quatre Saisons certainly had elements of Vivaldi’s better known version, especially in the supple traverso/flute work of Suzanne Stumpf and her guest partner Rachel Carpentier. Their sweet sound in this piece and also in Baumgarten’s enlarged quartet in the concert’s second half spiraled above and through deft string accompaniment by violinists Sarah Darling, and Jesse Irons, Marcia Cassidy viola and cellist Daniel Ryan. As always Michael Bahmann’s gifted harpsichord playing provided solid underpinning.

For this reviewer, Herschel’s “Symphonia di Camera in F Minor” was the most arresting music of the evening. There was a darker, denser tone to his three movements which seem far less derivative. Marsh’s String Quartet seemed a pale mimic of Haydn’s more spritely and beguiling efforts. Herschel’s work, on the other hand, commanded attention and had almost romantic era anticipations in its suppressed energy and churning but sturdy individual lines. A SITE 2.0 might entirely focus on Herschel.

There was one traditional gesture toward well-knowness: the concert ended with three selections from Rameau’s opera “Castor et Pollux,” and featured guest soprano Kristen Watson resplendent in a black sleeveless gown and striking mirror-grey long scarf. Her delivery in the second “Ariette” movement was sumptuous and stunning as she sang out “Shine, shine, new stars” neatly tying up SITE’s theme.

https://www.telegram.com/entertainmentlife/20190503/musicians-of-old-post-road-shoot-for-stars

2019 marks the 300th anniversary of the Dresden Festival of the Planets. In 1719, the Dresden court reached its climax of cultural display for the marriage of the Crown Prince Friedrich Augustus to Maria Josepha, daughter of the Emperor Joseph I of Austria. This weeks-long spectacle centered on musical works created to celebrate the six planets known at that time.

Among the many court activities was the performance on September 23rd of Kapellmeister Johann Christoph Schmidt’s French divertissement, Les quatres saisons, part of the Festival of Venus. An open air stage was constructed for this performance in the Grossen Garten, and it is said to have been danced by more than 100 members of the court.

Our 2018-19 season finale program “Stars in Their Eyes,” features music by 18th-century scientist-musicians and other works inspired by stargazing. We have chosen to include Schmidt's wonderful chaconne from his Les quatres saisons on this concert that concludes our season exploring the impact of the Enlightenment on 18th-century music and culture.

The musician/astronomer Caroline Lucretia Herschel was a younger sister to William Herschel, one of the featured scientist-composers for our “Stars in Their Eyes” program. Like her older brother, she was also an accomplished musician, playing harpsichord and performing as a vocal soloist for the oratorio concerts her brother organized in Bath.

Born in Hanover, Caroline was struck by typhus at the age of ten, which stunted her growth—she never grew taller than 4 feet, 3 inches. After her father’s death, she journeyed to England in 1772 to join William who had been sent there earlier by their father for refuge. She managed William’s household affairs, participated in his music-making activities, and eventually began assisting him with his work in astronomy as that interest came to the fore and began to dominate his career path.

Although she worked with William throughout her own career as an astronomer, eventually she developed more independence in her research pursuits and is credited with the discovery of several comets. She was the first woman to receive a salary as a scientist and was the first woman to be awarded a Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomy Society (1828). The King of Prussia presented her with a Gold Medal for Science on her 96th birthday (1846). She lived to be 97 years old.

by Suzanne Stumpf

In looking back at the art of past centuries today, we all know who the most worthy composers were, right? Names such as Mozart and Beethoven always float to the surface.

It has become part of our mission to not only identify these sidelined composers and to discover their interesting works, but even more importantly to endeavor to understand and convey their language and their pioneering efforts as convincingly as possible for today’s audiences. Although without question there is a reason for the recognition of our popular composers, there are treasures by the colleagues who surrounded them that have been unjustly forgotten or lost by mere happenstance. Finding and presenting the bigger picture can only enrich everyone’s enjoyment.