>> Anne McLean: Good evening.
It's a great pleasure to
be opening our season,
our 95th season, with the run
of six exceptional concerts
for the month of October.
I think, I hope, we're living up
to our track record for the best
of the best in quite
a few genres.
Tonight, we present Fretwork,
which has been called the finest
viol concert on the planet,
with the extraordinary
countertenor Iestyn Davies,
truly superb artist.
I'm Anne McClain, from the
library's concert office
and with me is -- Fretwork
founder Richard Boothby;
also a founder of
the Purcell Quartet,
an equally pace setting
ensemble.
Welcome, Richard,
and I'm thrilled
to have you demonstrate our
Peter Rombouts viol from 1708.
[ Applause ]
>> Richard Boothby: I'd
thought play a short piece
by Karl Friedrich Abel, who
was the last great virtuoso
of the viol.
And he lived in London for the
last 20, 30 years of his life.
And this is part
of a collection,
which is actually
housed in New York,
which may have been a
collection of pieces written
down for his friend
Thomas Gainsborough
of the celebrated portraitist.
And it goes like this.
[ Music ]
[ Applause ]
I chose the piece because
Abel was a German musician,
German viol player.
He came from a family of viol
players who were friendly
with Bach and the Bach family
through several generations.
And Abel probably played
mostly German instruments.
And although Roberts
is a Dutch maker,
Dutch and German viols
had a lot in common,
and very often difficult
to distinguish this
national styles.
The first thing you would
notice about an instrument
like this [inaudible].
First thing you notice is
[inaudible] that the belly
of the instrument is
given a very big curve.
And you can see that when I
hold it sideways, like that.
If you see that -- just
noticing in those cases there,
those celebrated Stradivari and
Amati and Guarneri instruments,
the Italian style
was quite different,
was to have very
really shallow arching.
The high arching tends to
give a rather sweeter sound
to the instrument,
but not so powerful,
not so strong a projection.
So, the Strads and the and the
Amati's were, have become more
and more, how can I say,
they're more preferred
because as concert life
has got louder and louder,
the stronger instrument
tends to carry through.
Whereas the sweeter sounding,
but weaker sounding instruments
from Steiner and the German
makers have tended to lose out.
However, for viols, that's, it's
a slightly different dynamic.
We tend not to play concerti and
play with orchestras and so on.
So, power and volume
[inaudible] so much of an issue.
So, it's, I mean it's
an enormous pleasure
to play an original
17th century.
The difference between
the violins and the viols
in this respect is
that violins and violas
and cellos have been used
continuously in great numbers.
And viols were, fell
out of fashion during
the 19th century a lot.
And so a lot of instruments
were thrown away, they were,
they became disrepaired
and forgotten about.
Some of them were
converted into the cellos,
or sometimes smaller ones
to convert it into violins
or something like that.
But conversion is not, it's
generally not very successful
and it tends to ruin
both instruments.
The viol on the first part,
and it doesn't make a
particularly good cello.
So, but on the other hand we
have had a few instruments
survive simply because they
have been preserved as cellos.
So, we'd be able to
deconstruct and reconstruct them
from those instruments.
So, the number of viols
that have survived
through to this present day is
relatively small by comparison,
with violins and cellos.
I don't, I can't remember,
there is somebody is doing
a database even as we speak
of how many viols there are.
But there are hundreds rather
than thousands is
the result of that.
>> Anne McLean: You know,
when you were talking,
this is one of the questions
I was hoping you'd touch
on is what happened to the viol
and why we don't
have more of them.
And I was looking at this
treatise by Hubert Le Blanc,
and he talks about how
he's making a defense
of the viola da gamba against
the enterprises of the violin
and the pretensions of
the viola and cello.
[Laughter].
But, it's great to
hear you, to try this.
We don't often have it played;
we like to have it
played more often.
And I was going to
ask you how you felt
when you saw our
stuff this afternoon?
We took Richard and his
colleagues into the basement,
which is like a city
blocks worth of music
under the building across the
street, a massive archive.
And you're not expecting this,
and you go into a
vault of instruments.
So, how did you react to that?
>> Richard Boothby: Well
it was, [inaudible].
Of course.
Does this one work?
No, yes? It does.
Of course, I was expecting
to see the Rombouts file.
I wasn't expecting to see
the, there was several violas.
The Marais, there.
There was a Guersan
pardessus de viole,
which is like a treble
viol but even smaller.
And, what else was there?
>> Anne McLean: A
thousand, or 2000 flutes.
>> Richard Boothby: Well,
I didn't see the flutes.
>> Anne McLean: Didn't
see the flutes.
[Laughter].
>> Richard Boothby: But it's
true, one doesn't expect
to see quite so many instruments
stashed away there like that.
>> Anne McLean: In
the dark, sort of.
And then of course nowadays
the flute vault is much more
high-tech than it used to
be, it's got beautiful cases
and it's climate
controlled and so on.
But it was just very
special to take you there.
And you guys are
really, what you've said,
are you're evangelists
for this instrument.
And Richard himself has been
extraordinarily influential
in bringing back and
revitalizing and so forth
for many, many decades.
But one of the things, I
know your time is limited,
one of the things
that's so exciting
about your concert tonight and
about your work is that you are
so involved with
contemporary music.
And that may not be something
that we all would expect.
But some of the pieces tonight,
like the Michael Nyman,
this is your doing.
>> Richard Boothby: Well, yes,
there's, it's not just me.
[Laughter].
There are other people.
But with Fretwork, we started
playing contemporary music
in about 1990, because it wasn't
something that we sought to do.
But in that year George Benjamin
heard an album that we made
and was struck by the sounds.
And approached, he wrote
to me and I went along,
and I demonstrated
the possibilities
on the viol to him,
at his house.
And he went away and, you know,
in typical fashion for him,
produced many charts of choral
possibilities, and all these,
all the technical possibilities
for the instrument,
as he saw them.
And then wrote this remarkable
piece called Upon Silence,
which was, I -- how can I say
-- [foreign language] sort of,
it was an astonishing piece.
And it took us fully,
I think probably
about ten years before we
could really play it properly.
Many of the things that he came
up with were not at
all obvious to us.
And so, we -- and
in fact he was sort
of teaching us how to play them.
There were many arpeggios
for instance, going across,
and we were trying
to finger them up
and down the instrument
like that.
And he said no, no, I was just
imagining you put your finger
across the strings like that,
and so he was teaching us how
to play his piece,
you know, on the viol.
But it was a remarkable
experience,
and it opened our eyes
to the possibilities
of contemporary music.
And without actually realizing
at the time, it becomes clear
that you have to have
contemporary music
for these instruments in
order for them to be relevant,
to have a living repertoire.
Although, it's great though
the repertoire is, which I love
of course, in the
16th and 17th century,
it is absolutely limited.
It finishes on the
31st of August in 1680,
with Purcell's Last Fantasy,
and that's it, you know?
There is no more music
written for viol consort until,
I don't know, sometime in the
middle of the 1960s I imagine.
So, in order to create
a living repertory,
we need to get composers
to write for us.
>> Anne McLean: You're doing a
new piece that is so fascinating
about the history of the
Francis Drake journey,
with the Golden Hind.
Tell them about that
a little bit.
It's an hour long piece, right?
>> Richard Boothby:
Yes, yes, I'd love to.
It was, gosh, many years ago a
friend of mine put on a concert
of music for gamelan, and --
English viol consort music --
and said that it was related
to Drake's experiences
on his circumnavigation of
the globe in 1577 to 80.
And I sort of thought that was
bizarre, an extraordinary idea.
And then thought
no more about it.
Then, a few years ago, it came
back to my mind, and I thought
that that there was something
absolutely extraordinary
about the encounter between
Drake and his musicians,
and the people living in Java in
the 16th century, who had never,
presumably never seen or
heard any western music.
And vice versa, and that Western
musicians would never have heard
any Javanese music.
And then I learned that Drake
actually took four viol players
with him on his journey
around world.
And that they played for Drake's
supper, during his supper;
they played when they
prayed during the day.
There was 15 minutes of hymns
which viols accompanied.
And they played to the native
people that they met, and so on.
So, this -- and we
even know their names.
I can't actually
remember them off the top
of my head right now,
but we actually can
tell you who they were.
>> Anne McLean: Were
they sailors as well?
>> Richard Boothby: Well,
I imagine they must
have been pretty useful.
I can't imagine them
just sitting
around doing nothing
[laughter] waiting
for the dinner time to arrive.
So, [inaudible] they did
other useful things as well.
But anyway, so using
that as the idea,
we commissioned a
composer, Orlando Gough,
to imagine what musics these
viol players might have come
across in this remarkable
journey.
And he sort of thought
to himself about well,
how do I express that,
this music, for viols.
And so his, the idea
he came up with was
when the viol players
got back and somebody,
all their friends
said what was it like?
What was the, what did you hear?
What was the music you heard?
And they said, well it
went something like this,
and they got their viol
out and they started trying
to imitate the musics of the
places that they visited.
Of course we've got no
idea what the music,
you know 16th century Far
Eastern music was like.
We've got absolutely
no ideas whatsoever.
So, it's an absolutely
imaginative journey
for Orlando to make.
So, we made a patchwork of
original 16th century music,
viol music, which they might
have played on the journey.
And Orlando's imaginings
of this different music.
>> Anne McLean: Wonderful.
>> Richard Boothby:
They encountered.
And then we wove
into it a narrative,
taken from the accounts
of the journey.
And several other
things, like the pilot,
they captured a Portuguese
pilot in the Cape Cod Islands
and took him round with them
till they got to Mexico,
and then dropped
him off in Mexico.
And he was questioned
by the Inquisition.
And that account survived
so we know what he
said about the journey.
>> Anne McLean: So, it's
really a theater piece?
This is wonderful.
Where will it be done?
Or has it been done yet?
>> Richard Boothby: It hasn't
been done as a theater piece,
but we've performed it
many times and recorded it.
And yes, we love playing
it, it's a great piece.
>> Anne McLean: And
this, the Nyman pieces
that you'll hear tonight, the
beautiful songs If and Why,
you've been associated with
Nyman for quite a while.
And you transcribe, this is one
of the many things you've made
gorgeous transcriptions of,
right?
>> Richard Boothby:
Well, I, yes.
Well, Michael wrote
us a piece in 1993
which we're doing
later on the tour.
But yes, that was originally
written for James Bowman and us.
And, so Michael's music is
absolutely totally different
from George Benjamin's music.
You couldn't imagine
more different music.
So, but it was wonderful to
have that variety already.
And as an ensemble, not
having really any contact
with the contemporary
music world at all,
we hadn't realized the
bitter divisions there were
within the world of contemporary
music and how one, you know,
the many sides and the many
genres all hate each other
with a passion.
Being performers we have to
be, and are, extremely catholic
in our taste for
contemporary music.
So, we play at all.
And, but anyway, Michael wrote
this piece, and then later
on I came across some more
of his songs and suggested,
asked if I could arrange
them and he said yes.
He's extremely unprecious
about his music
and how it might be arranged.
If it works, he's
happy, you know?
And so, I arranged If and Why,
and then also a piece
called Balancing the Books,
which was originally
for [inaudible] singers.
So, wordless vocal music, which.
>> Anne McLean: Perfect.
[Inaudible].
So, this is really a wonderful
three century tour, trajectory,
of music, a lot of which you've
been involved with transcribing,
or refitting, retrofitting.
But also including, I
love the song Silent Noon,
the Ralph Vaughan Williams song.
There are two of them.
Just gorgeous songs and I
can't wait to hear what you do
with them, because the palette
that these partners come
up with is extraordinary.
It's gorgeous.
And that leads me to a
question about the articulation.
I read an interesting quote
from Iestyn about how working
with the viol has given him
a different sense of singing,
how you articulate with viols
as opposed to other instruments.
>> Richard Boothby: Yes.
Well, I think, gosh, that's
very kind of him to say that.
[Laughs]. I think that viols
have a rather vocal way
of producing their sounds.
And it's difficult to put your
finger on exactly what it is.
There is a great affinity
between the countertenor
voice and viols.
There's a sort of, there's a
straightness about, not the,
yes, or any counter, there's a
particularly straighter voice
than other voices.
But they are tuned to the
viols more easily, somehow.
And it's a question of the
amount of vibrato that's used.
I mean, because viols
use very little vibrato.
That's closer to how a
countertenor produces its voice
as well.
And what's, but also that the
sort of shapes that the viols,
but without having the
left hand vibrato so much.
The viols are forced to make
more shapes with the bow,
and I think that relates
to the sort of shapes
that a vocalists would
use with vowels and so on.
So, I think, I can
there's an affinity there.
>> Anne McLean: Well,
yeah, it really struck me,
I've never found
such a quote before.
But he talks about emphasis and
phrasing for the singer's point
of view relates to the
performance technique
and practicalities
of playing the viol.
And then he says
something that relates
to our performance
tonight in the Coolidge,
because he says it affects the
way the singer perceives the
sung sound from within
and without.
His own song sound, and
that is affected by the size
and space of the room.
So, I'm very curious to hear
how this sounds in the Coolidge,
which is of course
is so resonant.
And I hope you will
enjoy it, and the space.
>> Richard Boothby:
We have already, yes.
>> Anne McLean: Good, good.
Okay. He said something else
that I was going to ask you.
Well, I should go
back and talk to him.
He's an amazingly thoughtful
artist as is Richard.
He says a relative -- relevant
response to ancient music is
to give a performance
that is timeless.
I love that.
[ Inaudible ]
>> Richard Boothby: Yes, yes.
The time is -- the time of the
composition is both crucial
to the how you perform,
how you approach the music
to perform it.
And at the same time,
utterly irrelevant.
Because the music is now,
the music is the sound
that you hear, sound that we
make, that sound the you hear.
So, there's a, you know,
there's a paradox there
between those two things.
And, I mean, our, the historical
approach of trying to get closer
to original concept --
with sound conceptions of
composers is merely a way
of exciting the imagination
in a way
about how music might
be performed.
As soon as it becomes rigid and.
Unflexible, inflexible, then
-- it needs to be thrown out,
because it will stop
imaginative performance.
I think that's the.
>> Anne McLean: Have you
recorded, besides the Nyman,
what have you recorded
with him, or anything?
>> Richard Boothby: Well, we did
the album with him last year,
with Nyman and Purcell.
That's the, that was
the content of it.
We've got another disk planned
next year, or the year after,
I can't -- yeah, next
year I think it is.
I'm not sure what we're going
to put on it yet [laughter],
but we definitely want to
carry on working with him.
He really is exceptional
singer and a joy to work with.
>> Anne McLean: Tonight we have
in our cases a Handel opera,
one of the Handel operas that
he's singing that's open.
We have several Handel original
manuscripts that are nice to see
if you have a moment
to take a look at them.
And I know that from
in the Giulio Cesare,
there is a gamba
part that's written
out I understand from 1724.
So, there were still,
at that point,
people were very much
writing for them.
>> Richard Boothby: Well,
yes, yes, oh well absolutely.
Handel's wrote and handful
of pieces for the viol.
>> Anne McLean: The sonata.
>> Richard Boothby: [inaudible].
There's a canticle called
[foreign language], which.
>> Anne McLean: Oh, I
don't know that one.
>> Richard Boothby:
Which was written in Rome
for the great virtuoso
[inaudible],
who was visiting
Rome at the time.
And at the same time,
Handel wrote the viol part
for [foreign language].
Which is also got a very big
and virtuosic part for him.
And the interesting feature
about all those works is
that he, Handel wants the viol
to be the continuo player.
That the part, viol
part has figures in it,
and he expected the --
part to be played --
so he, in [foreign language]
for example, he starts off
with the first bar and
a half, or two bars,
fully written out chords.
And then, just the bass line
with figures underneath.
So he expects the
bar player to carry
on playing chords throughout.
And, so that's very much how
Handel approached the viol
that [inaudible].
>> Anne McLean: And for
you, I know you have a lot
of solo projects and solo
recordings, and the Jenkins CD
that you made is stunning.
I just wondered what projects
you have on your own in mind.
Just for your own.
Or just on your own.
>> Richard Boothby: Oh,
myself, yes, I'm going to be.
>> Anne McLean: In
your spare time.
>> Richard Boothby: In
my spare time I'm going
to be recording an album
of the -- [inaudible].
Whole tranche of sonatas
has just been discovered
in in a castle in Poland
that were virtuosic sonatas
for violin continuo, and
which we haven't got any
of at all by Able [inaudible].
They were discovered in
this castle in Poland,
an interesting story because
the castle had been owned
by the ambassador, the
Prussian ambassador to London,
who was a viol player.
And he lived in London
during Abel's lifetime.
Was recalled -- to Prussia
before Abel's death,
and then reappeared in London
for the year of Abel's death
when his effects were
sold by his brother.
And it's highly likely that this
man came back to buy the sonatas
from [inaudible] at auction.
And there they resided until,
I don't know, about five
or six years ago,
somebody discovered them
and published them.
>> Anne McLean: Serendipity.
>> Richard Boothby:
Yeah, wonderful.
>> Anne McLean: Well, I know
your time is very limited.
Are there just one
or two questions you might
have for Richard now?
Before he has to warm up?
>> Audience Member: What was
the piece that you played?
>> Richard Boothby:
That just then?
Oh, that was Abel.
It doesn't really have
a title, but it's,
it comes from this collection
of probably written
down improvisations.
And Abel was famous
for his improvisations.
And my contention is that
he wouldn't have written
down his improvisation,
because he had no need to,
he just made them
up as he went along.
So, I think he wrote them down
for [inaudible], his friend,
who was an excellent
viol player, a really,
really fine viol player.
And very, and sometimes
mistaken for Abel
when people heard him play
without knowing who was playing.
So, he was really
a fine viol player.
>> Anne McLean: Anyone else?
Any viol player kinds
of questions?
No? Do you have one?
[ Inaudible Question ]
>> Richard Boothby: [Laughter].
Well, yes it can
take a long time.
Yes, it does.
[Laughter].
You have got, so for the most
point you have gut strings.
And gut strings are
more susceptible
to atmospheric change.
Not so much temperature
as humidity.
So, today it's being
very wet here,
and yesterday was quite dry.
So, all our instruments were
getting, the bass going sharp
and the treble were
going flat all the time
as they absorb the
moisture in the air.
And now, people tell me
it's, the skies have cleared,
so the moisture will
disappear out
and the exact opposite
will happen.
And which is, you know, that's
what we have to put up with,
that's all, we're used to it.
And yes, so I think
you can do it quickly.
[Laughter].
And it's always a playoff
between tuning absolutely
perfectly, and realizing
that you're, you need
to get on with it
because people are
waiting to hear you play.
[Laughter].
[ Inaudible Question ]
>> Richard Boothby:
Yeah, good question.
Well, I mean, usually
contemporary composers have
little knowledge
of, or interest in,
historical performance
practices.
What they're looking for with
the viol is particular sound,
and they come to us
with technical demands
which enhance our -- technique
of playing, in that sense.
So, there is a sort of,
there's a negotiation going
on between the way
we play, I mean,
obviously the way we play
contemporary music is quite
different from the way modern
string players would play
contemporary music.
And so, that they get something
of the historical attitude
towards string music.
But then we get a lot of
demands, like, you know,
like just normal things that you
would expect in music; forte,
piano, crescendo, accents,
all that sort of thing,
which we're not terribly
good at doing I have to say.
It's quite hard to get used
to following those kind
of instructions when you're used
to doing what you like, really.
[Laughter].
>> Anne McLean: Maybe one more.
Anyone else?
No? Well, thank you so much.
Oh, yeah one more?
Okay. Yeah.
>> Audience Member: Did
you say the instrument,
or the Abel score was from the
[inaudible], could you comment
about sets of viol instruments.
Are any of your five
instruments related,
and how long did aristocrats,
European aristocrats,
continue to hold on to match
sets of viol instruments.
>> Richard Boothby:
You mean sort of,
what are they called,
chests of viols?
>> Audience Member:
Chests of viols, yes.
>> Richard Boothby: Yeah, well
the, of course, certainly in the
in the 16th and 17th
centuries viols were often made
as of as a set.
So, you get instruments made by
the same maker to sit together
and to play together
in that sense.
But I don't really know of, I
can't, that hasn't survived.
I mean, because so few of viols
have survived, no complete set.
And I mean, it would be
difficult to identify them
as a set now, these days.
So, we don't know.
The last real evidence we have
for people talking about sets
of viols was the chap
called Thomas Mace in 1670,
he talked about how you would
have six viols, two trebles,
two tenors, two basses, and then
you'd have another three lira
viols, and you might
have a theorbo
and it all sounded terribly
expensive to me, frankly.
And, yes, so I think they
talked about it then.
But of course, consort music
fell out of fashion around then,
about sort of the 1670s.
And people stopped
playing tenors --
and tenor and treble
viols at that time.
And you see makers like
Barak Norman, and Lewis,
and other people from the late
17th, early 18th centuries,
they don't make treble
and tenor viols,
they are only making bass viols.
So, the aristocratic usage of
a set of viols really ended
in probably more like
of the 17th century.
But the, interestingly
the viol, the viols held
on during the 19th century
mostly through painters,
through visual artists who were
as much interested in the shape
and the iconography
of the instrument
as they were the music for it.
Well, they weren't actually
interested in the music for it
at all, they were
just interested in it
as a historical thing.
An object that excited --
because, because of course
there were plenty of paintings
or viols that it had a similar,
similar status to the lute
as something that told, said
oldness, you know, said ancient.
So, you see these rather
ridiculous paintings,
ridiculous depictions
of viol like objects
in the pre-Raphaelite paintings
couldn't possibly work kind
of instruments, but
they had something
of the shape and
the iconography.
>> Anne McLean: They
looked good.
Wonderful.
Well, this is so
great to be able
to chat with you about this.
I wish that you didn't have
to warm up and get ready,
but he's asked for
a little extra time.
So, thank you so much.
[ Applause ]