BY CIARA NICHOLLS, VAN DIEMEN’S BAND
Rare and fragile manuscripts in remote corners of Europe. Striking long-necked instruments from the 17th Century. A journey through the authentic Bohemian world.
These are the ingredients of a unique musical adventure presented by Tasmania’s new Baroque music ensemble Van Diemen’s Band. This May 17 and 18, local audiences will travel to Bohemia: a place with such a strong national personality that it eventually came to describe an entire state of mind.
“The music being written there in the 1600s is so out of the box for its time,” VDB artistic director Julia Fredersdorff says.
“I’m not surprised Bohemians became renowned for their unconventionality – the epitome of the wild artistic type. Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody has nothing on this!”
Julia’s research for this concert’s program began to resemble something from The Da Vinci Code.
“You can’t just buy some of this over the counter in a music store,” she says of the manuscripts from which the musicians will perform.
“Tracing the very first item on the program (the Sonata in D by Pezel) took me to the Kroměříž Collection in a former bishop’s palace in Moravia – where part of the movie Amadeus was made – and a manuscript that had hardly been touched for nearly 350 years.
“The trick was to translate the notation made by the composer or his copyist into something the VDB players could easily read.
“We even had to verify we had the right person. In his day, Pezel was also known as Petzold and Pecelius.”
You might find other pieces on the program a little more familiar – including the widely performed Baroque piece Pachelbel’s Canon and Gigue.
“How many weddings do you think have used the Pachelbel Canon for the bride’s walk down the aisle?” Julia asks. But we bet you haven’t heard it performed her way.
“For a piece that became popular only 50 years ago, it’s almost a cliché. That is, until you hear it played in the original way, with some help from our gorgeous theorboes.”
The Hobart and Launceston concerts will feature two of the striking long-necked instruments; a sort of love-child of a lute and a giraffe. One of the instruments will be flown from the United States (with its player Simon Martyn-Ellis, of course: an expat-Australian now resident in Cleveland).
Of Simon’s performance with the group, Julia remarks: “Same old story: Australian travels overseas to study and becomes one of the best in the world”.
“Having two onstage (the other theorbo played by Nicholas Pollock, who recently appeared with the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra) is a unique treat, and will give our sound some real grunt.
“These are the bass guitars of the Baroque.”
And the music itself? Julia says it has an originality.
“You listen to something like the Sonata by Weichlein on the program – another piece we had to ‘decode’ from the ancient manuscript, by the way – and you just reel at how stunning, how totally beautiful it is.
“How many more centuries would it have stayed locked away on its yellowing paper in a European castle until some Tasmanian detectives came along?”
See the Van Diemen’s Band detective work in action in VDB: Bohemia, 6pm May 17 in Launceston’s Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery; and 6pm May 18 in St David’s Cathedral, Hobart. Tickets at trybooking.com and at the door. The group will perform with guests Simon Martyn-Ellis and Nicholas Pollock (theorboes) and Karina Schmitz (baroque viola).
Images supplied.
