On Thursday, 29 September, 7:30 pm, King’s College Chapel, the Aberdeen Early Music Collective kick off our 2016/17 activities with a new programme, based around composers who tangled with Händel in some fashion, whether with words, in business dealings, in musical battles, or with actual swords! There’s chamber music for varied combinations of recorders, violins, cello, and continuo, and some solo keyboard music, selected from Telemann, Marpurg, Mattheson, Porpora, and Scarlatti (Domenico, natch). And of course, just a bit of (attributed to) Händel to finish: the Gloria for soprano, 2 violins, and continuo.

…received a very nice review from Alan Cooper:

“Today’s song duo gave us a marvellous account of all the songs. Frauke’s performance was wonderfully clean and clear with perfect German and a dynamic vocal range that went from the gentlest whispers to wonderfully passionate crescendos with pure clear firmly held top notes. […] The wide vocal leaps in the Strauss songs, one of this composer’s stylistic signatures, were beautifully smoothly and naturally sung […]. Ralph’s playing here was emblematic of his performances in all of the songs. In Wagner’s Im Treibhaus […]  the original piano score came through more expressively than in any of the orchestral versions I have heard.”

With Ralph Stelzenmüller on piano, I’ll be performing an unusual juxtaposition of three cycles of Lieder: Alban Berg’s Op. 2, Richard Strauss’s Op. 27, and Wagner’s Wesendonck-Lieder. In that order! The texts and tonal language melt from one group of songs to the next, intertwining metaphors of sleep, death, love, and sexuality.

A stiff malt may be warranted afterwards.