Music at Paxton: The Printing House of Estienne Roger
Paxton House 18/7/26
Music at Paxton: The Printing House of Estienne Roger
Dunedin Consort, John Butt director & harpsichord, Catherine Martin violin, Hilary Michael violin, Lucia Capellaro cello
Music at Paxton, the summer festival of chamber music at Paxton House in the Scottish Borders, celebrates its 20th anniversary this year. On a perfect summer’s evening we waited in the glorious grounds to be admitted to a much-anticipated concert by Scotland’s local world-leading Baroque ensemble the Dunedin Consort. It was held in the Ballroom, a grand chamber with duck egg blue walls and a soaring oval cupola. Paintings from the House’s collection on display include several portraits of stern ancestors glaring their disapproval at our presence. Angus Smith, Music at Paxton’s Artistic Director, welcomed us and explained that by some quirk of fate and festival timetabling this was the Dunedin Consort’s long-overdue debut at Paxton. And what a debut it was.
The concert’s theme was the Amsterdam printing house of Estienne Roger and his successor Michel de la Cène, which in the early 18th century was pivotal in spreading new music across Europe, enabling composers to reach fresh audiences and musicians and influencing style and performance practice. The result was a repertoire untrammelled by geography but unified by its approachability and popularity. The first piece was Sinfonia à 3 in C, Op.5 No.2 by Giuseppe Torelli (1658-1709), a short and satisfying palate cleanser, followed by the stately Sonata da Chiesa in F, Op.3 No.1 by Arcangelo Corelli (1653-1713), which embodied the Baroque ideal of harmony in all things: society, the body, and music.
John Butt’s instrument came to the fore in a suite for solo harpsichord from 10 Suittes de Clavessin by Johann Jakob Froberger (1616-67). Froberger was cosmopolitan, studying and working in Germany, Italy, and France. John Butt explained that we should listen to this work backwards, as it were, and piece it together after hearing the whole thing - rather like a jigsaw puzzle, where you can only see the full picture when it is finished. The delicate tracery of the notes was like the complicated footsteps of a dance. The Sonata à 3 in D minor, Op.5 No.5 ‘Pastorale’ by the virtuoso violinist and composer Pietro Antonio Locatelli (1695-1764) was full of harmonic surprises, not least the cello droning like rustic bagpipes in the final movement. My ears were fully occupied with the music, but my eyes wandered to some of the huge canvases depicting classical ruins and picturesque countryside. We were listening to music composed to be heard in surroundings such as this.
After the interval came more dance with the Balletto à 3 in D, Op.3 No.7 by Tomaso Albinoni (1671-1751), as the intricate melody scampered across the violins and cello. Catherine Martin, a frequent guest violinist with the Dunedins, took centre stage for the impressive Violin Sonata in A, Op.5 No.6 by Arcangelo Corelli - like Locatelli a virtuoso violinist and composer, who probably wrote this piece for himself. It included later ornamentations (twiddly bits) in the style of Corelli.
Then came the heavy hitters in the form of two early works by Handel and Vivaldi. The stately Trio Sonata in G minor, Op.2 No.2 by George Frideric Handel (1685-1759) was sublime and all-enveloping, with each instrument representing a separate character in the overall story of the piece. Finally we heard the Trio in D minor, Op.1 No.12 ‘La Follia’ by Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741), with its 20 variations on the short and simple melody known as ‘La Follia’, popular across Europe. The strings each took it in turn to embroider the simple tune in myriad ways: fast, slow, flowing, darting, twining around each other, and dragging notes out of the earthy sounding gut strings. Vivaldi’s blocks of sound and permutations on a short theme posed a marked contrast to the linear patterns in Handel’s piece.
The four musicians played together as if they could read each other’s minds. My companions, both amateur cellists, were enraptured by Lucia Capellaro’s sublime playing, as was I. John Butt’s majestic harpsichord anchored the programme, and had its own moment in the spotlight, and the two violinists shone. The musicians’ broad smiles at the end of the concert showed they had enjoyed the evening as much as we had. Music at Paxton is a picture-perfect music festival. If you haven’t yet visited, I strongly urge you to do so without delay. This was my first visit, but I’ll be Bach.
Music at Paxton: https://www.musicatpaxton.co.uk/
Dunedin Consort https://www.dunedin-consort.org.uk/
Photo credit: Dunedin Consort
