Valentine's Day Baroque
14 February 2025/19h00/ Finland / Helsinki
Dazzling dances from Europe
Telemann–Purcell–Rameau–Rebel–Roman
Peter Spišský, violin and leader
Finnish Baroque Orchestra
Finnish Baroque Orchestra
Peter Spišský and Anthony Marini, programme planning
On Valentine’s Day, the violinist Peter Spišský invites FiBO to the dance! The programme is an attractive collection of dances from all over Europe, inviting smaller groups as well as the whole orchestra to whirl around. Spišský has worked for a long time in for instance Denmark and Sweden. In his dissertation, he discussed gestures and dance in relation to violin bowings.
Georg Philipp Telemann (1681–1767) was the most well-known German musician of his time. In his overture suite The Nations, he combines typical French and Italian dance movements with “ancient and modern” dances from Germany, Sweden and Denmark. The musician notices how the lifestyle everywhere has got more intense, but the wittily complaining final number is dedicated to old ladies. Henry Purcell’s (1659–1695) semi-opera Fairy Queen (1692) is based on Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and it gets fairies as well as haymakers to dance.
Jean-Philippe Rameau’s (1683–1764) Dardanus is considered one of the starting points of the opera feud between the lullists, advocating for Jean-Baptiste Lully’s old style, and the reformist ramists. The target of the critique was the excessive use of the supernatural as well as the heterogeneity and mixing of different genres. The modern audience can just sit back and enjoy the sparkling orchestration of the dances. Lully’s student Jean-Féry Rebel’s (1666–1747) success suite Les caractères de la danse (1715) was choreographed by the royal principal dancer Françoise Prévost. The lovely music of the suite travelled all the way to London and Händel’s music stand.
The Nordic countries are represented in the programme by the Swedish royal court composer Johan Helmich Roman (1694–1754) and his Golovinmusiken (1728). The collection of 45 movements altogether was composed for the festivities at the Russian ambassador Golovin’s residence in honour of the coronation of the twelve-year-old Russian czar Peter II. With this music, an original composer, well versed in the different European styles, enters the dance floor.
