A Musical Walk in the Garden

[Music] saw [Applause] [Music] hello everyone good afternoon thank you so much for joining us here at the Steven and Peter Sachs museum at the Missouri Botanical Garden my name is neska and I'm the curator and I've been uh collaborating with the boach Society of St Louis for a few years now and this fabulous concert has actually been 5 years in the making much much to the sugrin of the fact of the pandemic so we're just so thrilled to have Charles Mets here and to have you here to um enjoy his performance um I just want to give a brief thank you to Melissa pton and Rachel Jones who are staff members from the box society as well as Shane Divine who is one of my volunteer researchers who helped do some of the research on what you're able to read in the program about the instrument um but next I'd like to introduce uh the music director and conductor of the box society of St Louis Dennis sparker please welcome him good afternoon it's great to see all of you here and it's wonderful to talk in front of audience without wearing a tuxedo this is much much more comfortable although it's chilly enough in here I wouldn't mind having a jacket on well what a treat we have for you today uh that you know hearing a Harps Accord is is quite a wonderful experience it's a unique experience but to hear it in person to be so close and the only competing noise we have is the air conditioning unit otherwise it would be even more clear uh the program will tell you a lot of information about Dr Mets about his his background how he studied piano first and then uh did a degree of PhD in music performance and then became an optometrist in fact for 20 years he was my family's optometrist uh I knew all of the detail that he put into playing harpsicord would be exactly what he would do as a as an optometrist and that was exactly it that we got just outstanding care and then he retired early and is devoted the the rest of his life to a performance of harpsicord Music we've heard him play several different harpsicord instruments and even a virginal which is yet a smaller instrument yet and several years ago he found a a piano Forte uh this is one of the early examples of the piano and he played it in an intimate uh living room setting where the sound was just magnificent now I think all of you know Beethoven's Fur elas yeah well we've heard it so much but to hear it performed that day was an experience I'll never forget the music just truly came alive on the instrument he was created to be heard on uh I met uh Charles in 1977 uh when I needed a harpsicord for a Madrigal feast and he played so brilliantly I thought we've got to do this again and when I became conductor of the boach society in 1986 well you can probably imagine we do a lot of music by Bach uh and that then quite often that calls for a Harps Accord so Charles has been our our wonderful Harps Accord in our Orchestra uh for all of the all of these years you to think now I've known him 43 years that's more than half my life uh but uh just a wonderful player I think you'll be thrilled by today's performance and all the music has been so carefully selected to complement what happens here at the Garden as well so will you please give a warm welcome to Dr Charles Mets [Applause] thank you Dennis thank you uh Nea uh it's a great honor to be here today um It's a Wonderful space um I'm really happy to play for you the recital went well this morning fingers crossed it goes well this afternoon um i' like to actually just play my first piece uh and not talk too much so let me do that and then I'll I'll explain more about the instrument in the music [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] the [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] is [Music] is [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] this Harps Accord is quite unique um it is different than the run-of-the-mill uh French Harps Accords that one normally hears this is a much earlier in copy from a 1640 that you have in your program and it's interesting to note that that piece that I just played would have been contemporary music for this instrument when it was built so uh it was uh served for the music quite beautifully at the time the Elizabethan music is uh very dense it's coming from the Renaissance so there's lots of sort of voices they're going through so one of the things to listen to on that the next piece I play the wood so wild is the the uh voices as they you'll hear it one voice and then you'll hear it and another uh lower and then another lower one so just try to follow the melody and you'll hear it uh just like a poliany just like different voices in a choir singing so that's what to listen for there um just wanted to say that um this instrument is a Flemish type instrument and um it's Unique because it has just two sets of strings which gives it more resonance a lot of the bigger harps of cords have three strings which puts more pressure on the bridge which then also creates more uh dampening on the soundboard so it doesn't has a free and open sound like this instrument does [Music] for [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] up [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] is [Music] the [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] now I'm going to change styles greatly this uh next piece is by franois koan and now we're in the late 17th century in the area of the French court and a more Galant kind of style so you hear on the melodic line a much more sustained and ornamented line a clearer Melody with just more of an accompaniment in the base so it's quite different in its sound uh this particular piece does not describe anything in particular but it just describes the beauty of flowers is [Music] [Applause] [Applause] a [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] the next two pieces are definitely what we call programmatic music because he's actually trying to describe something so the next one is the butterflies and we've all seen butterflies and we know that they don't fly at a straight line like a bird does that they're all over the place and so Coan uh imitates that so the Baseline in this is rather jagged [Music] so he tells that throughout the whole piece so you really get the idea of the butterfly just sort of flapping around and being quite um erratic in the way it flies for [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] l [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] as I mentioned at the beginning this instrument has two sets of strings one is the one I've been playing which is called the 8-foot and then there's a smaller set that comes across a smaller Bridge it's called the forfoot and it sounds an octave higher so because this next piece is the gnat and of course who has not walked through the garden and not had a fly or or Gat buzzing away uh so Kuan knew this and um he writes this piece uh in such a way that um there's a section in the in in the second half where he has a very incessant uh little bit of ornaments that go like um so it's really you know it's just B let you alone so it's definitely there so um I'm going to play this little piece now on the forfoot so it'll sound an octave higher and hopefully uh really try to depict a gnat as close as I can e [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] n [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] can you imagine the Delight of the audience in a small chamber room when Coan played that piece for the very first time I'm sure they had a great laugh uh people ask me the last hour when I'm out here what am I doing over here and the harpsicord has a row of jacks we call them and there's a pleora that comes out and it's um iuse just like they did in the 17th century a bird feather this is actually a seagull feather I cut and shave it like a quill pen and I put it through a mortise which then allows it to pluck the string on the way up it swivels past on the way down and there's a B's bristle a pig's hair that acts as a spring um that brings it back to position after the concert if you would like to come up I'd be more than happy to demonstrate that for you but um the um um registers are the two things that control what plays so I can move it so that nothing plays at all on the keyboard or I can have just the the for foot or just the 8 foot or I can combine them so those are the different colors that I can get and remember on the harps chord no matter how hard you hit the key it's always the same loudness there's no Dynamics so this is the only way I can approxim at some differences in color or sound so just very quickly uh before the cuckoo just a personal story I was uh fortunate enough to be in Italy last um spring and with a group of friends we rented a house near Parma we were out in the country quite beautiful very quiet and Serene um and the first morning I woke up and I heard this cuckoo clock and I thought that's odd what why would there be a cuckoo clock in in a rental house so I don't know I asked the other people that were staying with me in the house I said who has the cuckoo clock in their room and they all said we don't have a cuckoo clock and then I suddenly realized it was the cuckoo bird outside my window that was doing the cuckoo I mean it sounds so much like a cuckoo clock I just couldn't believe it so we don't have the cuckoo bird in this country so that was my first time I'd ever heard a real life cuckoo so but the cuckoo sound is something that they used a lot in music as an imitative thing so this is another French piece by docen uh that does imitate the cuckoo [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] n [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] a [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] so I'm going to play one more bird piece the Woody is a bird that's in Europe I think there are some in America but not many um and this was a tune at the time based um sort of on this bird um this piece is another Elizabethan piece so again it'll be very thick in its textures and we'll use a lot of the bass notes this is actually one of the most virtuosic pieces written during Elizabeth Elizabethan time so I've taken it as a personal um goal for myself to learn how to play this so uh wish me luck [Applause] the [Music] [Applause] [Music] a [Music] [Applause] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] he [Music] [Applause] [Music] he [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] thank you very much for taking a walk in the garden with me a musical walk um that's is going to open up for some questions yes we actually um booked in time to include a Q&A with Charlie because I know it's not all that often that people are able to see uh proper live Harps Accord is perform at Harps Accord in a museum so um I actually have a question for you Charlie um like I asked before um the harpic the all of the compositions that you chose for today's concert um were written you know mostly contemporarily with the harpsicord and they there are so many nature and floral themes can you explain like were they really motivated to capture nature and music yeah absolutely uh we think we have the uh ultimate understanding of everything uh but uh no we don't um and just by evidence of the um Latin motto uh from 1640 actually before that music is the companion of joy and the medicine for sorrow so they understand music in a very intrinsic and basic way and that also goes into nature um and the soundboard which you're welcome to come up and look at some of the descriptions in your program of these wonderful flowers some highly prized were all part of this music and nature all coming together so it's very much in keeping that they would write pieces that were related to um nature and Gardens wonderful thank you if anyone has questions just let me know and happy to bring the um microphone over to you so it's a little bit easier for everyone to hear thank you this was wonderful um is there a St Louis connection with the harps Accord I'm looking at the dates when these pieces were created and I'm wondering um and I know that the original to your Harps Accord is in Connecticut is is there a St Louis connection was it popular was the harps of cord popular with St Louis rich people yeah well you know when this music was written this was still Indian Territory so there wasn't uh what not much happening in St Louis but there have been several harpsicord builders in St Louis Peter takach who sadly passed away a few years ago built a number of wonderful harps of cords uh David Byer who I own two of his harps of cords um also lives in St Louis so yes there are harpsicord connections to St Louis um but not not this particular instrument yes can you tell us a little bit about the makers berda and Walter Burr because I know there's a little bit of mention in the program but it's a special relationship that you have with those makers yeah I think I've known them longer than I've known dentis actually that's a long time um Walter and Berto Burr is a husband and wife he builds the harps of cords and she does all the painting so they've never had children they live in Upstate New York they have lived together worked together 24/7 for some 40 years they have not killed each other yet um but um I go visit them from time to time I actually have two three three Harps Accords of his and um a a virginal an instrument that he did a restoration of which was a 400y old instrument that I found in Fairview Heights about 12 years ago um so uh the Burrs are very very interesting people um very knowledgeable and they have come to St Louis occasionally to hear me play the brandenberg 5 or something um so they've been supporters of mine over the years and um so they're they're just lovely down toe people I mean for years they didn't even have a telephone answering machine I mean they they just they still live in the 18th and 17th century world the downstairs of their house is an old farmhouse is basically the workshop and her her painting Studio and they live upstairs there's a kitchen and one bathroom and one bedroom and that's that's it so very interesting very knowledgeable but quirky I would say yes in the in the history of the development of the harpsicord where does this one stand um very early keyboards were first sort of developed by organs and they didn't even have a keyboard or they had levers that they would have back in the 12th and 13th century eventually they started putting more levers and they needed more facility and they started doing a keyboard which is quite amazing that this keyboard that goes onto a modern piano that plays the everything we need was developed basically in the 14th century and we haven't changed it you know it works but anyway going back to the harps Accord um the earliest known instruments are from the 15th century there are none that are extent um but then they start to become more I think the earliest harpsicord now is from uh 1515 or something or so that still extent um and then I as I said I have a 1590 uh virginal Italian virginal so it's an early instrument but um the the harps cords rained for about 300 years and it wasn't until christop uh christophy invented the piano which by basically taking out the plucking mechanism and putting in a little hammer that would go up hit the string and then fall away cuz the hammer couldn't go up and hit the string and stay on the string cuz it would make the string not ring so that was the technical thing that was the real difficult thing to do but once they figure out how to throw a hammer and it would come back and be able to be in position to repeat again quick enough then the piano took off from there um I currently have a very early English piano it's in the the program notes um these were the very first little square pianos that changed the history of music making and and keyboard playing CU they were affordable by middle class um families um so they didn't have to buy a big expensive grand piano but it's um so the harps Accord as I said was a very important through the basically 16th 17th and 18th century but by the end of the 18th century the piano took over you mentioned the uh piano um I know pianos Go Out Of Tune do uh herps herps Accords Go Out Of Tune as well oh even much more so um you probably didn't notice it but it was in perfect tune this morning but when the sunlight came down and put the sun on the soundboard it caused the soundboard to change a little bit its shape so this is not perfectly in tune by my standards uh but no because they're all wood they'd Go Out Of Tune very much I put it in here yesterday so it could climatized to the humidity and then I tuned it this morning before the first concert so they're much more go out or tune the Pian do any other questions no um thank you so much for taking this musical walk in the garden with us thank you again Charlie for performing um and uh please come and take a look at the instrument before um you head out uh of the museum and enjoy the garden the rest of oh you have another question okay sorry sorry so if you're from Connecticut is did you have to haul this thing here oh yes can you tell us about that I didn't I I live parttime in California now I didn't bring it from California although I have taken it to California and back in the back of my van a number of times um but um uh they were very generous enough to pay me to rent a van when I got here so I just have a like a Chrysler you know whatever it is and so I just put it in the back uh and I have a a condo here St Louis that I've had for like 20 years um and so I have it there and so I just moved it here yesterday so yeah have Harps cord will travel so you so you can tune a Harps Accord how do you do it do you use your phone or do you use instruments in the old days I had a tuning fork and I would tune the A and then I would tune a temperament from there nowadays I do have an iPhone that gives me all these historical temperaments and it's it makes it really quite easy to tune and I can set it at any pitch I want so they're they're quite amazing so yes I do use an iPhone now but in the day I could and I still can tune by ear yes two questions one is about the base you have sit it's sitting on and what did they use I'm gathering it sitting on that uh I don't know if it's attached but what might a base have looked like back in the 1600s and also how how is it how much more fun is it to play 8am versus those I'm sorry hops but well hsic cords vary a lot in terms of number of keys this one only has 50 so it's very small so but is it more fun to play on 88 no this is much more fun to play on this guy you get the most out of what what you know the little little that you have but to answer your question about the base yes it's just a wooden stand it just sits on that um and they would have sometimes put these on tables if you look at paintings from the time um they'll sit on a table especially virginals which are a little bit smaller and they would gather around um but they would also have some stands the original of this one has a a Flemish that has the big ballustrade thing in the middle of it it's a big bulb as if you think about uh jackan furniture um their big heavy legs and so some of them are like that so yeah the the Sands would have been uh appropriate to the furniture that was popular at the time yeah um my my introduction to the harps Accord as an instrument came from listening to um a recording by by Trevor pinnick the armonious blacksmith by handle when I was a teenager and I was wondering you know it's um really before like like eor Kipnis with whom also studied um harpsicord performances you know in performers were they they were much rarer you know and in many ways there's been a sort of a Revival of of not only sort of interest in in in performing in the harps oford but in the history of of um of the technology you know of the music theory involved and of technique um to what extent has your your career as a Harps Accord also demanded you do historical research and you know it's um and AC mic work you know in both theory and practice yeah great question you know the the piano dominated for a long time in terms of concert stages and The Pianist would just come out he didn't have to move the piano he didn't have to tune it and he just sat down and he played because everything was taken care of for him then W landowska came along she was one of the early people who started playing harps of chords and then everything sort of changed in the 50s and 60s and one of the reasons I came to St Louis was the program at Washington University which is historical performance practice so it's exactly that we had to go back and study the treatises look at contemporary writing about this music and these instruments so part of my education is understanding how where and when uh they play these instruments and why and so I've become very fascinated with that and all of my performances now I like to talk to the audience because I do have this knowledge and I think it's best for audiences to understand some of the background not for me just to walk out play and walk off again so that's why we do it but uh yes you're right they're they're not as frequent as you would think but um I you know I'm happy to do Harps recitals you know here in Big St Louis uh there's only two of us and and Maurice Carin of course is the other and you know and she's not here full-time either so even in this Metropolitan City there there are no full-time harpsicord so that tells you something there are plenty of pianist so great questions everybody thank you thank you all so much please another round of applause for Charlie [Applause]