Galanterie specializes in the wonderfully rich and rarely heard 18th-c. repertoire for lute and strings. Galanterie performs music by students of the great Silvius Leopold Weiss: Johann Kropffganss and Adam Falckenhagen, as well as works by Viennese masters Franz Joseph Haydn and Karl Kohaut. This unique, beautiful, virtuosic and sometimes quirky literature has one foot in the baroque period and the other in the classical. Led by lutenist/guitarist John Schneiderman this ensemble features one of North America’s foremost baroque violinists, Elizabeth Blumenstock, and baroque ‘cellist William Skeen, a rising young star on the early music scene.
Lute trios, scored for violin, lute and a part variously described as for ‘basso’ or ‘violoncello’, were the prototype for the later piano trio, brought to perfection in Haydn’s many examples. In the earliest manifestation of the lute trio around 1690-1710, the bowed-string players merely doubled the outer voices of the lute part (which often survives as an independent solo piece) by way of ‘amplification’. Around the 1720s (possibly at the hands of S.L.Weiss) the violin part tended to become more independent of the lute, although it retained a subordinate role in the texture. By the time of Kropffganss’s and Kohaut’s trios, which probably date from around 1760, the process was complete, and even the cello has the occasional fleeting moment of independence - a feature not found in piano trios until Haydn’s much later examples and exploited most magnificently in Mozart’s trios from the late 1780s.
Critically acclaimed virtuoso of plucked instruments since age nine, John Schneiderman specializes in the performance practice and repertoire of eighteenth-century lutes and nineteenth-century guitars. Based in California, Mr. Schneiderman is in demand as a soloist and chamber musician collaborating on recordings and performances throughout North America.
Beginning his performance career as a banjo, guitar, bass and fiddle player, the young Schneiderman was a familiar face on the stages of bluegrass and folk festivals throughout California. He continues his interest in early American music performing traditional Appalachian fiddle tunes in a clawhammer style on the five-string banjo.
Mr. Schneiderman studied with British guitar pedagogue and author Frederick Noad, and continued his studies at the Schola Cantorum in Basel, Switzerland, with the great modern pioneer of the baroque lute, Eugen Dombois. Mr. Dombois' precise and detailed approach to the repertoire continues notably to influence Schneiderman's interpretations today.
He is a member of the chamber ensembles Galanterie, and The Czar's Guitars, and has performed with the Los Angeles Opera, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, Los Angeles Baroque Orchestra, Musica Angelica, Seattle Baroque, Chanticleer, Musica Pacifica and the American Bach Soloists. His extensive discography, much of it rarely or never before recorded lute and guitar music, includes cds on the Titanic, Audioquest, Dorian, Centaur, VGo Recordings, and Profil: Edition Günter Hänssler labels. Mr. Schneiderman is on the faculties of the University of California at Irvine, Irvine Valley College and Orange Coast College and has been on the faculties of the California State University at Long Beach and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.
Elizabeth Blumenstock, whose performances have been called "magical", "rapturous", and "riveting", is one of the country's leading Baroque violinists. Appearing as soloist, leader and concertmaster of San Francisco's Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, American Bach Soloists, Los Angeles-based Musica Angelica, Chicago Opera Theater and the Italian ensemble, Il Complesso Barocco, she has also pursued her love of chamber music as a founding member of several of California's finest period instrument ensembles, including Musica Pacifica, the Artaria Quartet, the Arcadian Academy, and American Baroque. Ms. Blumenstock has recorded for harmonia mundi USA, Virgin Classics, Dorian, Koch International, Conifer Records, New Albion and Profil: Edition Günter Hänssler. She is currently on the faculty of the University of Southern California and has taught at the International Baroque Institute at Longy and the Baroque Performance Institute at Oberlin.
Lisa Weiss performs regularly as a concertmaster and soloist with Philharmonia Baroque, American Bach Soloists, and the Arcadian Academy, and is a frequent guest artist with early music chamber music groups such as Earplay and the Empyrean Ensemble. Her first love has always been the string quartet repertoire, and she was the first person in the U.S. to receive and M.M. in chamber music. In 1997, she organized a project to perform the quartet works of Schubert in honor of the composer's 200th birthday; this was the first complete Schubert cycle performed on historical instruments.
William Skeen currently serves as principal 'cellist of Musica Angelica, Los Angeles Bach Society, Seattle Baroque Orchestra, and Los Angeles Baroque Orchestra, in addition to being a member of the American Bach Soloists. Mr. Skeen is co-founder of La Monica, an ensemble dedicated to the performance of music from the seventeenth century. In addition he performs with El Mundo, Baroque Northwest, Hesperus, Voxfire and Just Strings. Mr. Skeen earned degrees from the Cleveland Institute of Music and the University of Southern California, where he is currently Lecturer in Baroque Cello and Viola da Gamba. William has also served on the faculty of the University of San Diego.
GALANTERIE
John Schneiderman, lute
Elizabeth Blumenstock, violin
William Skeen, ‘cello
Trio in B-flat Major...................................................Karl Kohaut
L’Amoreux (1726-1784)
Le Badinage
Minuetto & trio
La Joye
Cassation in C Major.................................................Franz Joseph Haydn
Presto (1732-1809)
Minuetto & trio
Adagio
Finale-Presto
INTERVAL
Concerto V in G Minor (Op.IV).....................................Adam Falckenhagen
Largo (1697-1761)
Allegro
Tempo di Polonese
Tempo di Minuetto
Concerto in C Minor..................................................Johann Kropffganss
Allegro (1708-c.1770)
Adagio
Allegro
KARL KOHAUT
Karl Kohaut (1726-1784) was one of the last lutenists active in
Vienna. The son of the lutenist Jacob Kohaut, he was employed as a
secretary in the court of Emperor Joseph II and wrote a considerable amount
of chamber music involving the lute. The present Divertimento combines the
three instruments skillfully from the lyrical “L’Amoreux” to an almost
scherzo-like “La Badinage” (trifle). The Trio to the Minuet is
particularly noteworthy for its gracefully arpeggiated lute accompaniment.
The divertimento had its origin in the instrumental suite, which it
superseded as the dance forms of the suite were replaced by movements
inspired by other ideas. Only the minuet survived to eventually appear in
the symphonic works of Mozart and Beethoven.
FRANZ JOSEPH HAYDN
The most familiar name found on this program is undoubtedly that of
Franz Jopseph Haydn (1732-1809), whose Cassation in C Major is a version of
that composer’s String Quartet Op.1, No.6. It was with music such as this
that the young Haydn first earned his reputation as a composer in the years
before 1761 when he entered the service of the Esterhazys. The arrangement
was probably not made by Haydn himself, but by an unidentified lutenist
active at the time, perhaps Karl Kohaut. In this lute version the second
movement has been omitted. The viola part is also missing, but this has
little affect on the integrity of the music since the viola provides mainly
harmonic support, which is here supplied by the lute. The title
“cassation” underscores the work’s informal nature. Originally, cassations
were intended to be played outdoors, although it is unlikely that this
particular piece would have been heard in such a setting.
ADAM FALCKENHAGEN
Adam Falckenhagen studied with Johann Jacob Graf, a student of Silvius
Leopold Weiss, and later with Weiss himself. Falckenhagen was employed at
the court of the Margrave of Brandenburg from 1734 until his death in 1761.
This proved a congenial posting for a lutenist such as Falckenhagen, not
necessarily due to the Margrave himself, but because of his wife, Sophia
Wilhelmine, to whom he dedicated his Opus One in 1740. Two years later
Falckenhagen would dedicate his Opus Two to Wilhelmine’s mother, Sophia
Dorothea, the Prussian queen. Wilhelmine (1709-1758) is a patron of more
than passing interest. She was the elder sister of Frederick II of Prussia
(better known to history as Frederick the Great) and apparently the only
member of his family in whom he confided. Frederick was a keen amateur
flutist and Wilhelmine played both the lute and the harpsichord.
JOHANN KROPFFGANSS
Johann Kropffganss II (1708-c.1770) was born in Breslau, Silesia (now
Wroclaw, Poland). Both his father Johann the Elder and his grandfather,
Johann Casper, had been lutenists before him. The young Kropffganss was a
favorite pupil of the great Silvius Leopold Weiss. In 1739, Kropffganss
met and played for Johann Sebastian Bach. Bach’s cousin, Johann Elias
Bach, who was serving Sebastian as secretary at the time, reports of a
visit paid by “the two famous lutenists Mr. Weiss and Mr. Kropffganss” who
were “heard several times at our house.” Kropffganss is reported to have
written 32 lute trios, although perhaps only a third of that number have
survived. The work(s) on this program are preserved in the Bibliotheque
Royale, Brussels.