WOODPECKERS RECORDER QUARTET

BORROWED, NOT STOLEN Click HERE for tickets 

Caroline Eidsten Dahl

Clara Guldberg Ravn

Pernille Petersen

Kate Hearne

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)

From Die Kunst der Fuge BWV 1080:

Contrapunctus I 

Contrapunctus IX

Ruaidhrí Dall Ó Catháin (1580-1653)

Tabhair Dom Do Lámh (Give me your hand) (arr. Fredrik Österling)

Coxetown

from Aria da Camera, A Choice Collection of Scotch, Irish & Welsh Airs, London 1727 (arr. Kate Hearne)

Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741)

Konsert i Bb-dur “Il Corneto da Posta” RV 363

Allegro-largo-allegro

Georg Philipp Telemann (1681-1767)

Concerto in G major TWV 40:210 Largo e staccato - allegro - adagio - vivace

Turlough Carolan (1670-1738)

Turlough Óg Mac Donough from

A Collection of the Most Celebrated Irish Tunes, Dublin 1724 (arr. Kate Hearne)

Trad. Denmark

‘Mikkel’s Journey’ - Fætter Mikkel - Vetter Mikkel - Erru Gæren Gutt

A fantasy by Pernille Petersen over variations by Herrn B... (ca. 1750) & Scheidienst (1815)

Trad. Norway

Gamle Guro

Johann Sebastian Bach

Fugue on a theme by Corelli, BWV 579

Antonio Vivaldi

Concerto in C major RV 443 (arr. Bertho Driever)

Allegro-largo-allegro

When four friends create an ensemble where their biggest love is playing Baroque music on recorders, one has to get creative. There is a serious lack of original Baroque repertoire for this combination, and that’s how the concept ‘Borrowed, not Stolen...’ was brought into being. All the works in today’s programme are arrangements or transcriptions of works from the 17th and 18th centuries, including some of our favourite folk melodies from our countries of origin: Ireland, Denmark and Norway.

Bach’s Contrapunctus I is a piece in which we feel very grounded, and to which we return again and again to find each other, our ensemble sound, and unity of phrasing. It is unclear whether Bach intended his momentous Art of Fugue purely as a didactic exercise, or whether the lack of clarity over instrumentation renders it open to endless performance possibilities. Presenting this work through the medium of four recorders results in an organ-like quality of sound, while at the same time allowing for musical flexibility and expressiveness to shine through the individual lines. We see it as some kind of ultimate chamber music experience.

We lead directly into Bach’s feisty Contrapunctus 9,  the title alla Duodecima referring to the subjects being presented against each other either a 12th up or down, rendering the interval changes between the subjects ever changeable- sometimes appearing an octave apart, sometimes a fifth apart.

Georg Philipp Telemann, a good friend of J.S. Bach and godfather to his son Carl Philipp, was much loved during his lifetime and hugely prolific in his output of music. No one composer has written more for the recorder than Telemann. A bit ironic then, that we have chosen to play one of his concertos for four violins, taken from the manuscripts held at the Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek in Darmstadt. Telemann was a shrewd businessman and knew how to make money from his compositions. He published works one movement at a time in his own magazine, Der Getreue Music-Meister, forcing people to keep buying his publications if they ever wanted to play complete pieces. For the most part, he was open to his music being played by any instrument, which ensured a greater intake of income in sales. The concerto in G-major, transposed here to fit the range of the treble recorder, has four short but distinctive movements, displaying Telemann’s ability to write superb melodies, harmonic counterpoint, while also intertwining folk elements and humour into his music.

The Irish harpist Ruadhrí dal Ó Catháin, Blind Rory O’Cahan, as his name suggests, was born blind, and thus his pathway to becoming a musician was set. He spent most of his life in Scotland, as a patronised, eminent composer and performer. As the story goes, in around 1603, the Scottish noble Lady Eglinton, being unaware of his rank, managed to offend the harpist during a musical soirée at her home. On realising his rank and status, she later wrote a letter of apology, which in turn prompted Ó Catháin to write Tabhair dom do Lámh, Give me Your Hand, which he sent in acceptance of her apology. The piece became a sensation, being played far and wide throughout Europe, prompting invitations from royalty, and ensuring its continuous inclusion in collections of Irish music after it was first published in the Lady Margaret Wemyss manuscript of 1643, under the latin title Da Mihi Manum. 

We move seamlessly into the lively Scottish country dance, Coxetown, which appears as the opening tune in the compilation Aria da Camera, A collection of Scottish, Irish and Welsh Airs, published by Daniel Wright in 1727.

For the average person living in the 18th century, the sound of the post-horn was a regular and meaningful part of their everyday lives. The importance of these horns, and the music they produced, inspired many composers to incorporate these signals and sounds into their works. Vivaldi’s concerto Il Corneto da Posta is truly programmatic in nature, the horse drawn postal carriage, the horse’s galloping hooves and the call of the post-horn clearly depicted. As the horses slow down, a love letter is delivered, depicted in Vivaldi’s slow movement as a flourishing, reflective moment between the smallest and largest recorders. The work concludes with a hunting movement, not unlike that found in the last movement of his Autumn from The Four Seasons. Although the original concerto is written for violin, we have chosen to present the work on the sopranino recorder, an instrument with which Vivaldi was known to like, and which we think depicts the sound of the post-horn just as well as a violin can!

The haunting lament written on the passing of counsellor Turlough Óg McDonough is presented here in two versions, the first from the earliest existing set of tunes from the Irish language tradition, A collection of the most celebrated Irish tunes, compiled and published by the Neal brothers in Dublin in 1724, and the second from Edward Bunting’s A General Collection of the Ancient Irish Music , published in 1797. Both sources attributed this tune to the famous blind harpist and composer Turlough Carolan. 

Mikkel’s Journey is a compilation of different aspects of the old Danish folk melody Fætter Mikkel. The melody appeared far and wide during the 1700s within Denmark and Germany, alternating between the sung version and a dance in the Polish style. It became so popular that it was adapted and used by many composers during the second half of the 18th century. Our journey passes through different landscapes, crossing over several centuries from the Norwegian countryside to the Baroque courts, to a German beer garden (Where Mikkel has clearly had a little too much to drink!), and back to Denmark. Our arrangement includes variations by Von Herrn B. (from the Gieddes Collection, Royal Danish Library, mid 1700s) and Scheindienst (Germany 1815), while also incorporating the Norwegian folk melody Erru gæren gut. 

Gamle Guro is an old folk dance or ‘springar’ from Telemark in Norway. Written for a flute called the sjøfløyte, or ‘sea-flute’, the tune is closely associated with the legendary sjøfløyte expert Knut Juveli. Today the sjøfløyte is mainly used in Norwegian folk music, but it most likely began life as a recorder which travelled by sea to Norway from Germany, and which then was copied and adapted into the instrument played today.

We move seamlessly over to Bach’s Fugue on a theme by Corelli. Even the eminent J.S. Bach was prone to borrowing music, not only from himself, but from other composers. His fugue BWV in 579 is no exception. The theme and counter theme come from the second vivace movement of Corelli's Trio Sonata in B minor, Op.3 No.4, published in 1689. Bach significantly expanded and elaborated Corelli's original, adding a fourth voice and creating a more complex and elaborate fugal structure. The resulting stylistic assimilation is pleasing mixture of Bach’s strict German organ writing and Corelli’s "joie de vivre”.

We conclude the concert with Vivaldi’s uplifting C-major concerto RV 433, a well-loved standard in any recorder players’ repertoire. Vivaldi most likely wrote it for one of his talented students at the Ospedale della Pietà in Venice. The arrangement for four recorders gives in to our indulgences, presenting the piece in a new and interesting way. Bertho Driever of the Amsterdam Loeki Stardust Quartet has added some twists of his own in the arrangement, the odd extra bar, and lots of interesting middle part writing. The slow movement, as is so often the case in Vivaldi’s music, emphasises his talents as a stellar melody writer.

©Kate Hearne 2025