A baroque organ recital of variations.
St. Gregory's Catholic Church, 10 St James' Square, Cheltenham GL50 3PR
14:00
free entry (retiring collection)
Organiser: St. Gregory's Catholic Church, Cheltenham / 01242 523737; cheltenham.stgregorythegreat@cliftondiocese.com
This recital frames variation and counterpoint as recurring collections of musical curiosities ('Kunstkammern'), each piece revealing its own gathered keyboard idioms, styles, and compositional approaches. One excerpted set comes from Gioanpietro Del Buono's Canoni, Oblighi et Sonate (1641), which merges elements of contrasting seventeenth-century aesthetics. In his canons, one encounters both scholastic constraint and rhetorical freedom. By contrast, the oblighi operate under self-imposed rules, each piece spinning its texture from interlocking pulses and layered melodies. Modal language anchors the sonatas, where chromatic alterations and enharmonic turns hint at regional idioms (or clichés) from Naples and Rome.
Amidst these intricate studies, the noëls variés by Jean-Jacques Beauvarlet-Charpentier interrupt with something lighter in tone. Festive tunes, familiar to the ear, are dressed in newly imagined guises — some running sextuplets that echoes the brilliance of Bach's figuration, others dancing alla polacca reminiscent of Beethoven. Far from simple settings, these variations act as showcases for the refinements of French classical organ idioms in the late eighteenth century.
The programme concludes with a work of remarkable breadth: J. S. Bach's partita on 'Sei gegrüßet, Jesu gütig' , BWV 768. Eleven distinct movements reflect the stylistic lineage of Georg Böhm while marking out new expressive territory. In its final pages, what began as devotional material culminates in a climactic fusion of intellect and emotion — a summation not only of Bach's compositional art, but of the genre itself.
Programme:
Gioanpietro Del Buono: Selected canoni, oblighi et sonate in varie maniere sopra l'Ave maris stella (1641)
Jean-Jacques Beauvarlet-Charpentier: 3 Noëls variés (c. 1780)
Johann Sebastian Bach: Partite diverse sopra 'Sei gegrüßet, Jesu gütig', BWV 768