Preview
PAUL O’DETTE
Friday, January 31
Rozsa Centre (U of C)
It’s not very often that Calgary audiences have the opportunity to witness the music of past eras come to life so vividly as it does in the hands of internationally acclaimed lutenist Paul O’Dette.
Known the world over as the leading performer of early lute music, O’Dette is also a scholar in the field of historical performance practice. He has made more than 100 recordings, many of which have won or been nominated for Gramophone magazine’s record of the year. His mammoth five-CD release The Complete Lute Music of John Dowland has also been received with high acclaim. His performances at various early music festivals around the world have garnered praise from audiences and critics alike.
It is through this active international performing career that O’Dette has been able to continue sharing his love of early music and, fortunately for Calgary audiences, is finding his way here after a whirlwind concert tour in France.
Having started his musical career in a rock band in high school, one might think that his interest in early lute music is a bizarre turn for O’Dette. Yet he says that he was immediately fascinated by the sonorities that early music offered.
"I was first introduced to the lute by Julian Bream's magnificent recordings of the 1960s," says O’Dette. "It was really love at first hearing. The delicate expressivity of the lute immediately attracted me and I found the energy, character and variety of the music extremely appealing. The rhythmic vitality and earthiness of the dance music, alongside the serene beauty and complexity of the fantasias and ricercars, provides a range equivalent to an artist performing rock and classical music on the same program."
Since he had played electric guitar for many years, O’Dette found the role of improvisation very exciting. He says the fact that more than 50,000 pieces survive for the lute, many of them of the highest quality and most of them unperformed for the past 400 years, was another allure
In performing early music, the concept of "authenticity" is always foremost in the performer’s mind. Through his work as director of early music at the Eastman School of Music and artistic director of the Boston Early Music Festival, O’Dette has found that there are as many challenges as there are rewards in the area of historical performance practice.
"There’s such a large body of unexplored repertoire," he says. "The rediscovery and application of performance approaches to different repertoires have revolutionized our perception of a great deal of music. A lot of music, which heretofore was thought to be second rate, turns out to be extremely exciting if performed in the right way….
"The disadvantages are that since each repertoire was written for a different instrument, it is a great challenge to work out programs, which only require one or two different kinds of lutes at a time."
O’Dette’s Calgary performance will feature music by Italian and English late Renaissance composers, including fantasies and dances by Giovanni Antonio Terzi and John Dowland. Much of the music O’Dette tackles seems daunting to other performers of the instrument. He notes that Terzi is considered to have written the most difficult, and at times seemingly unplayable, music ever written for the instrument.
"This is unfortunate since his two collections of 1593 and 1599 contain some of the most inspired works of the late Renaissance," says O’Dette. "One contemporary marveled, ‘with the sound of his lute Terzi vied with the harmony of the angels.’"
O’Dette adds that Dowland was the most celebrated lute composer of his day, with his music becoming extraordinarily popular throughout Europe and appearing in print in more cities than the works of any other composer of the period.
Even having accomplished so much in the past decades, O’Dette is humble about his contributions to the world of early music.
"I would be delighted if I have contributed in some small way to the revival of the lute," he says.
What is most rewarding for him is when audience members tell him they were afraid lute music would be dry and boring, but that after hearing it they found it to be beautiful and exciting.
"I have insisted on presenting unknown masterpieces because of their great musical and theatrical qualities," he says. "The fact they are currently unknown is only an accident of history, not the result of careful analysis and consideration. These great works enrich our lives in a way the standards never can for the simple reason that they surprise and delight us with new and unexpected twists and turns." |
