Prepare for a classical concert so authentic it鈥檒l rip your guts out and make sweet, sweet music with them.
La Folia returns to Jasper for a fourth consecutive year on May 28, bringing with them about eight performers playing baroque music written prior to 1850 from traditional manuscripts on traditional instruments complete with strings fabricated from intestines.
Conductor Josephine van Lier, who immigrated to Edmonton from the Netherlands in 1995, said there are all kinds of benefits to playing the music this way.
鈥淚f you play the music the way it is meant to be played, it sounds very different from the 21st century approach to music,鈥� she said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a lot more exciting, getting away from 19th and 20th century stuffiness of classical music. When you go to see classical music now you walk into a big concert hall and everyone is dressed in black. That is very different from how it was experienced at the time.鈥�
Where contemporary violins and cellos have steel strings, the strings of their baroque ancestors have DNA, the instruments鈥� necks are set at a different angle and there are a number of other variations to the internal build, like a shorter bass bar.
鈥淭hese instruments are where my heart lies,鈥� van Lier said, adding one of the instruments she specializes in, the baroque-period viola da gamba, will also make an appearance.
What鈥檚 more, the original 鈥渕anuscript鈥� music they play from is so different it is incomprehensible to most trained sheet music readers today.
鈥淓verything is written in bass or treble clefs today,鈥� she said. 鈥淭here are a lot of clefs that are not even used anymore plus there are also other differences, some of the handwriting and scripts are very different for sharps, et cetera.鈥�
Songs transcribed in the 19th or 20th centuries are also much more likely to have been edited, re-arranged or otherwise meddled with by a contemporary composer.
van Lier said she grew up in the 70s and 80s in the Netherlands, a period and place where taking the authentic approach to pre-1850 music was just how it was done. When she came to Alberta, she set out to make that a cool idea in the Prairies, too, founding Early Music Alberta.
鈥淲hen I moved here, it wasn鈥檛 so much a thing so I started the organization to grow it in Alberta,鈥� she said. 鈥淭here were other places in North America that have a centre for this, but Edmonton wasn鈥檛 one of them.鈥�
Now local musicians can train with experts in traditional music from around the world.
The Jasper concert is set for 2 p.m. at the Anglican Church on May 28.
Compositions including music by Bach, Vivaldi and Chelleri are expected to be on offer. Tickets are $15 for adults, $10 for seniors and children 12 and under.
Craig Gilbert | [email protected]
