A Look Back: 17th-Century Song and Keyboard Music
Charles Metz, harpsichords
(Metz will perform on an Italian harpsichord made by David Bayer of St. Louis in 1981 and a copy of a 1640
Johannes Ruckers made by Walter and Berta Burr of Hoosick NY in 1979)
Samantha Arten, voice
Jeffrey Noonan, lute, theorbo, and archlute
About the program:
Washington University's Department of Music was one of the earliest American programs to offer advanced degrees in Historical Performance Practice. Over the decades, the program’s faculty and guest artists included many of the top practitioners of Early Music performance and scholarship while alumni of the program found work as performers, scholars and teachers in Europe and across North America. Today's concert brings together three WUSTL Alumni, two products of the Music Department's groundbreaking HPP program and the third, a member of a new generation of scholar/performers with roots at WUSTL.
The program will feature seventeenth-century music from Italy and England for voice, harpsichord, baroque guitar, lute, and theorbo, with music by Claudio Monteverdi, Giulio Caccini, Barbara Strozzi, John Dowland, Henry Purcell, and others. Charles Metz will perform on two harpsichords, one modeled on an early Italian instrument and the other a reproduction of a mid-century harpsichord from the Ruckers workshop, with keyboard solos by the Italian Bernardo Storace as well as a scintillating set of divisions by the Englishman Giles Farnaby. Samantha Arten will offer songs reflecting on the highs and lows of love, and Jeffrey Noonan will join with lute, theorbo and baroque guitar.
Program:
I.
Toccata Arpeggiata by Giovanni Girolamo Kapsperger (c. 1580 - 1651)
(Libro Primo D’Intavolatura di Chitarone, 1604.)
Quel sguardo sdegnosetto by Claudio Monteverdi (1567 – 1643)
(Scherzi Musicali cioè Arie & Madrigali, 1632)
II.
Amarilli mia bella (Le Nuove Musiche, 1602) by Giulio Caccini (1551 - 1618)
Dolcissimo sospiro
Filli, mirando il cielo
Amarilli (Fitzwilliam Virginal Book) arr. by Peter Philips (c. 1560 - 1628)
III.
Passacaille del Seig’or Luigi by Luigi Rossi (c. 1597 - 1653)
Ohime ch’io cado by Claudio Monteverdi
(Quarto scherzo delle arioso vaghezze, 1624)
IV.
Toccata Settima by Giorlamo Alessandro Frescobaldi (1583 - 1643)
(Il secondo libro di toccate..., 1627)
V.
Toccata 6 by Giovanni Girolamo Kapsperger
(Libro Primo D’Intavolatura di Chitarone, 1604)
Amor Dormiglione (Cantate, ariette e duetti, 1651) by Barbara Strozzi (1619 - 1677)
Giusta Negativa
INTERMISSION
VI.
So Beautie on the Water Stood (Ayres, 1609) by Alphonso Ferrabosco, The Younger (c. 1575 - 1628)
Where griping griefs (Mulliner Book) by Richard Edwards (c. 1523 - 1566)
Fortune My Foe (A New Booke of Tabliture, 1596) by John Dowland (1563 - 1623)
In Darkness Let Me Dwell (A Musical Banquet, 1610)
Lachrymae Pavan (Fitzwilliam Virginal Book) arr. by Giles Farnaby (c. 1563 - 1640)
VII.
Ground in D minor, Z222 by Henry Purcell (1659 - 1695)
Ah, how sweet it is to love, Z613 (Deliciae Musicae, 1695)
Sefauchi’s Farewell, Z656
If music be the food of love, Z7379C
VIII.
Wooddy-Cock (Fitzwilliam Virginal Book) by Giles Farnaby
Love’s Constancy (Select Ayres and Dialogues, Second Book, 1669) by Nicholas Lanier (1588 - 1666)
CHAMPAGNE TOAST IMMEDIATELY FOLLOWING THE CONCERT
Biographies:
Charles Metz studied piano at Penn State University, beginning his harpsichord studies through private lessons with the legendary Igor Kipnis. In the process of earning a Ph.D. in Historical Performance Practice at Washington University in Saint Louis Missouri, he studied with Trevor Pinnock. More recently, Charles has worked with Webb Wiggins and Lisa Crawford at the Oberlin Conservatory. Charles has performed across the country with concerts in Chicago IL, Saratoga NY, Bennington VT, Louisville, KY and Liberty Mo in their Baroque music JEMS Fest. He has performed solo recitals at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C., Oberlin Conservatory and appeared as guest artist in Kansas City for the KC Symphony’s summer program “Summerfest”. With the Chamber Music Society of St. Louis, he was the featured keyboard soloist in Bach’s Fifth Brandenburg Concerto under conductor Nicholas McGegan. He has appeared with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, Ars Antigua Chicago and the Newberry Consort of Chicago. Recently he has played with the Desert Baroque in Palm Desert California and did performances including master classes at University of Michigan, Ann Arbor and Penn State University in State College PA. As an early keyboard specialist he is currently performing on his historic Italian virginal, harpsichords and fortepianos. Dr. Metz’s list of performance credits includes international appearances in the Netherlands, Germany and Costa Rica. Dr. Metz also obtained a doctorate in Optometry and worked for twenty years in his own private practice and Clarkson Eyecare in St. Louis before retiring. In addition to his performing activity, he serves on the Board of Directors of Chamber Music Society of St. Louis and The Newberry Consort.
Samantha Arten (soprano) has focused her performance activities in early music, singing primarily in liturgical church choirs and in Baroque ensembles. She is currently a principal singer with the Bach Society of St. Louis, a Young Artist with the Women’s Hope Chorale of St. Louis, and a staff singer in the choir of St. Peter’s Episcopal Church. In past years, she has performed as a soloist with the Raleigh Bach Soloists, the Duke Vespers Ensemble, the Byrd Festival Consort, Musicke’s Cordes (with Jeff Noonan), St. Louis Baroque, Collegium Vocale St. Louis, and the Southeast Baroque Ensemble. She was a founding member of Bull City and Concentus Carolina, and directed the Duke Collegium Musicum (2016) and the children’s choir at First Presbyterian Church of Durham, NC (2015–2018). Her women’s barbershop quartet, Ringtones, won their international competition (Harmony, Incorporated) in 2010.
A music historian, Samantha holds a Ph.D. in musicology from Duke University (2018) and a Bachelor of Music in music history and literature from Washington University in St. Louis (2011). She teaches as a Lecturer in Musicology at Washington University in St. Louis, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, and Maryville University, and is a faculty affiliate with Saint Louis University’s Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies. Her research focuses on sixteenth-century English music printing in the context of Reformation theology and book history. Her work can be found in the Yale Journal of Music and Religion, Early Music, and in The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Bible and the Arts. She is co-editing Elizabethan and Jacobean Praises of Music with Katherine Butler, and completing her first monograph, Reading The Whole Booke of Psalmes.
Trained as a classical guitarist, Jeffrey Noonan (theorbo & Baroque guitar) has played early plucked instruments for over forty years across the Midwest. Based in St. Louis, he has performed regionally with various ensembles including Shakespear’s Bande, Early Music St. Louis, Bourbon Baroque (Louisville), Madison Early Music Festival (Wisconsin), Ars Antigua (Chicago), and Musik Ekklesia (Indianapolis.) In addition to performing across the country in the duo Musicke’s Cordes, Jeff has directed Such Sweete Melodie, a quintet specializing in seventeenth-century vocal repertoire and is a founding member of La petite brise, a trio featuring music for the Baroque flute. As accompanist and continuo player, Jeff performs a varied repertoire ranging from sixteenth-century chanson with solo voice to Handel’s Messiah with the St. Louis Symphony. A scholar of the early guitar, Jeff has produced two books and articles for Oxford Music Online on the subject as well as a recent edition of eighteenth-century violin sonatas by Giovanni Bononcini. Jeff has received funding and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Newberry Library. In 2016, the St. Louis Regional Arts Commission awarded him an Artist Fellowship in recognition of his work as a performer, teacher and scholar.
In 2019, Jeff established Early Music Missouri, an organization dedicated to the performance, study, and teaching of Early Music in the region. EMMo’s concert series, Early Music@First, offers six performances a year, featuring local, regional and national Early Music soloists and ensembles.
Jeff holds degrees from the University of Notre Dame (A.B.), the Hartt School of Music (B.Mus.) and Washington University in St. Louis (M.Mus., Ph.D.) He taught as adjunct faculty at St. Mary’s College, Indiana/Purdue Universities in Fort Wayne, Andrews University, and Washington University in St. Louis. Jeff served on the music faculty of Southeast Missouri State University for sixteen years, teaching upper-level music literature and history courses and directing the classical guitar program. He retired from Southeast as a Professor of Music in 2015.