roman: flute sonatas and a swedish mass

In her new two-CD set Johann Helmich Roman’s flute sonatas (Caprice 2007; CAP 22060), flutist Maria Bania provides a well-written short biography of this “father of Swedish music”. Stockholm-born Roman (1694-1758), a talented violinist, was in London between 1716 and 1721 and played in Handel’s orchestras (the King’s Theatre and later the Royal Academy). Thus he participated at at least seven of Handel’s operas; “operas at the highest European level and with the most eminent singers of his time.” Unsurprisingly, “it was a reluctant Roman who returned to a Stockholm that had neither opera house nor public concerts.”

I have sympathy for the man.

harpsichord and nyckelharpa

To participate in the St Matthew Passion means that you meet another continuo player, which is something that doesn’t happen very often otherwise. While two oboists at the left and two oboists at the right huddle together and compare reeds between arias, while two plus two flutists practice their passionate bits of duo during the coffee breaks and while the assorted singers fine-tune their smiles and the pronunciation of words like “zerknirscht,” the keyboard section exchanges stories of life and talks about bold new projects. Andreas Edlund (organ, Choir I) whom I (organ, Choir II, plus some stray chords from the harpsichord) hadn’t seen for two years (a shame because his artistic and culinary tastes are impeccable) brought me his new CD with harpsichord and nyckelharpa (keyed fiddle).

remembering school concerts

Where in the world would one encounter a traverso player who performs larger solo sections from Vivaldi’s “Il Cardellino” at 9:00 in the morning for an audience of 80? Where can we see a fight between two rooster-dressed Baroque violinists who simultaneously play an adapted version of Biber’s Battaglia? How does one arrive at the unbelievable record of having tried to publicly perform the first half of Rameau’s La Poule on a pentagonal Virginal (but giving up because of being interrupted by a bunch of unruly chickens) approximately 750 times?. How many baroque musicians have been allowed, no: expected to snore on stage while their colleagues performed Vivaldi’s Winter? What institution allows a harpsichordist to experiment with various fingerings in the fast bits of the fifth Brandenburg concerto’s cadenza on stage, ten or eleven times a week?

For all these treats, you need to be in a Swedish basic school