Bach to the recorder: “Bach and the Concerto” doubleheader in Tel Aviv

Hands up: anyone started their hands on musical education at school on recorder? Actually, it would probably be simpler to count those who began on a different instrument.

As such, one may be inclined to consider the wind instrument as nothing more than child’s play, something one grows out of before moving onto something more serious, say a trumpet or saxophone.

That bad press vibe has never troubled Doret Florentin, however. For starters, the sextet leader-recorder player founded Ensemble Mezzo back in 2015 with the idea of performing and recording early music, including Baroque and ladino works, as well as traditional music from countries such as Italy, Spain and Greece – whence Florentin hails.

Israeli composers have also written compositions for the group that are performed on early music instruments.

A performance to remember

Florentin and her Mezzo colleagues are now offering a taste of some virtuosic fare composed by Bach, with the “Bach and the Concerto” double header starting out with a concert at Studio Annette located, neatly, towards the southern reaches of Tel Aviv’s Florentin district, on December 29 (1 p.m.). 

The next day, the ensemble players head north, with guest artists Romanian-born British-based violinist Kati Debretzeni, Moscow-born Israeli violinist Lilia Slavny, and Moscow-born Germany-based Israeli harpsichordist Zvi Meniker, for a second performance at the Krieger Auditorium in Haifa, at 12 noon.

Virtuosity appears to be very much the name of the game for the two-parter. Florentin says that goes with the compositional territory. “Bach really devoted himself to writing in a virtuosic way.” 

That applies despite the twist on the original scores, including some courtesy of the man himself. “All the concerti we have opted to play are arrangements, either written by Bach, or revisions he produced of, say, cantatas from which he may have taken a part that was initially an organ solo that he adapted for a harpsichord.”

The repertoire takes in Bach’s harpsichord trio for two flutes and harpsichord, arranged by Debretzeni as a violin concerto; oboe concerto BWV 1059R, arranged for recorder; concerto BWV 1060R, arranged for recorder and violin; and the harpsichord concert in F major, arranged for harpsichord and two recorders.

CONSIDERING BACH’S predilection for making over and refashioning his own scores, having a concert based on new readings of baroque works is not particularly revolutionary. “It’s all new arrangements of arrangements, or material which Bach restored so beautifully,” Florentin observes. “The harpsichord concerto we will play is, in fact, an arrangement of his Brandenburg concerto [no. 4].”

Debretzeni embraced the revamp concept and happily ran with it. “Kati told me that around 1738, Bach had to write something new, on a weekly basis, for coffee house concerts,” Florentin explains. The famed Baroque composer was nothing if not resourceful, as well as being fundamentally pragmatic. “He used to write for the Collegium Musicum (music association) there, for the Zimmerman coffee houses in Leipzig.” 

It seems Bach had his work cut out for him, so he took an innovative shortcut or two, to present his public with something seemingly fresh. “In practice he took material he had written earlier and restored it,” she said. “He wrote scores, for example, for harpsichords and you see all sorts of things he’d written as cantatas, so he’d have charts to be played.”

Bach was clearly blessed with street level nous and was perfectly willing, and eminently able, to rapidly up the stakes and slip seamlessly into Plan B. Florentin and her cohorts also had to adapt to the trying logistics that have evolved here over the past couple of months. “We should have done five concerts with this program,” she notes, “but I feel we are fortunate to be doing this now.”

That sentiment – and the emotional benefits of playing such mellifluous and stirring works, and listening to quality readings thereof – resonates in the program notes which cite Bach’s belief that music “moves the heart.” 

That emotive and curative property is all the more pertinent these days. “In fact I took that quote for the whole, full, original series, which was planned before the war,” Florentin says. 

“Bach believed that the purpose of music is to move the heart. That expression is so appropriate for these days. Music gives air to breathe,” she said, “and a little window of opportunity to take a short break from the reality around us which all of us are experiencing – all of us, wherever we are, even if we are abroad. I spent a month in Greece during the war; I was depressed just like people who were here.”

THE ENSEMBLE leader and recorder player admits to a self-survival instinct behind the forthcoming concerts. “I have to say that this also gives us – the musicians – some air, some respite. I feel bad all the time, even in rehearsals. Even when I do manage to detach from everything around us, I feel I am living in a dream, even for the briefest of moments. The quote by Bach takes on a very different significance today.”

Besides the transient musical balm, audiences in Tel Aviv and Haifa may also get something of an eye opener about Florentin’s choice of instrument, particularly those – presumably many – of us who, indeed, wrapped our childhood lips and fingers round a recorder. 

“I understand why people don’t take the recorder too seriously,” she laughs. “They think it’s just an instrument you learn to play at school, like the mouth organ and darbouka, or xylophone. But they don’t realize what you can really do with it.”

In fact quite a few other baroque composers wrote for the recorder, including Johann Joachim Quantz, Giuseppe Samartini and Johann Gottlieb Janitsch. It also featured in Classical works by the likes of CPE Bach – JS Bach’s son – William Boyce, Andrea Favi and Giovanni Gualberto Brunetti. 

Bach Sr. is evidently in good musical annals company, and Florentin is not short on source material to work with. “If someone is really interested to learn what you can do with a recorder, I send them a recording of a work by Vivaldi. And there are 20 different kinds of recorder you can play!” she exclaims.

Although Florentin won’t be unleashing her full instrumental arsenal later this week, she will be joined on stage by fellow recorder player Maya Zutta, in addition to the other members of Ensemble Mezzo and their distinguished guests from overseas. We may never think of the recorder in quite the same way.

For tickets and more information: Tel Aviv - https://ticks.co.il/event.php?i=O3RXHmuvbS1; Haifa – (04) 836-3804 and hchamber@netvision.net.il.