The Key of C Major

Arizona Encore turns to the eighteenth century for three pieces in the key of C major. For performers it means starting with a clean staff of music on the page, but that doesn’t rule out flights of fancy from composers.

Luigi Boccherini’s string quintet Op.42/2 employs pairs of violins and cellos with a viola in the middle, a combination he favored. It dates from the period in the 1780s that Boccherini composed for the royalty of both Spain and Prussia. His chamber music was especially prized and displays a sensuality of sound as the most prominent feature. Brendan Speltz, Connie Kupka, Luke Fleming, Jacob Fowler, and Brook Speltz play at the Grand Canyon’s Shrine of the Ages.

The harpsichord and lute are both plucked instruments of the Baroque era so replacing one with the other is not as difficult as it might seem. Silvius Leopold Weiss composed sonatas for two lutes where one part is missing today; they have been reconstructed in various forms including this version of the Sonata No.54 (in total) played by harpsichordist Leon Schelhase for the Arizona Bach Festival.

Of over one hundred surviving overture-suites by Georg Philipp Telemann, the Water Music in C, TWV 55:C3 is possibly the best known today. Other names for it include the Maritime Music, Hamburg Tides, or even “Overture in seven parts, which represents the water with its divinities and maritime commerce.”

Its shorter movements are Baroque dances dedicated to various mythological characters: Thetis, Neptune, Amhitrite, Triton, and Aeolus, besides a vivid depiction of the tide and merry sailors. The Arizona Bach Festival Orchestra is conducted by Scott Youngs.