Linden Baroque and its place in history
- taken from the programme for our 21st birthday concert at St John’s Smith
Square in 2006 - Alan Selwyn
The public amateur orchestral concert in London
Peter Holman declares in ‘Companion to Baroque Music’ that dating from the late 17th century
“the public concert was an English invention though until the end of the eighteenth century given
by amateurs as often as professionals”. Roger North writing in the early eighteenth century
describes such a concert at the York Buildings comprising a succession of solo or small group
pieces being “not under the rule or order of any person, and every one forward to advance his
owne talents and spightfull to each other”, so rather more anarchic than a Linden Baroque
concert. Larger ensembles, to save money, mixed amateurs and professionals to form bands
coming together in musical societies. One such, the ‘Castle Concerts’ which performed at the
Castle Tavern in the city from 1724 was made up of performing members, ‘gentlemen and
merchants of the city’, who paid two guineas a year subscription for the privilege of playing and
‘auditors’. There were weekly performances without rehearsals and it gave a chance to perform
and hear pieces several times over (imagine a world without CDs and MP3s!). Many other
taverns hosted similar performing groups and we believe the time is ripe for an exploration of this
historical informed performance practice!
Orchestras were also found of course in the Opera Houses and theatres, the Pleasure Gardens
and ad hoc celebratory events. London was thronging with musicians in the 18th century.
The “gentleman amateur” was a familiar figure in eighteenth century English musical circles.
Professional, military or land-owing families would often educate their children in music, which
was considered an acceptable pastime for men. The term ‘gentleman’ was further defined in the
‘Castle Concerts’ by-laws by exclusion of vintners, victuallers, tailors, wig makers, barbers,
apprentices, jouneymen and bankrupts. Women were not allowed to play though they could join
to listen. Though Linden Baroque tends to follow the former by-law we’d be unable to form an
orchestra if we followed all their rules!
Perhaps the most famous of these societies was the Academy of Ancient Music founded in the
1720s. Its leader and many of its members, especially the violinists, were amateurs. Apart from
the highly civilised flute, wind and brass instruments were not considered seemly for true
gentlemen and were played by professionals from the theatres and military bands.
Outside London, in towns from Canterbury to Newcastle, amateur orchestras flourished but in
London, as the orchestral music became more sophisticated, the bands became ever more
professional and by the mid to late 18th century the JC Bach-Abel concerts sparked the growth of
a lively and competitive professional musical scene in new, specially constructed concert halls.
What is Linden and why is it? – a musico- socio- historical discourse
Musical historians disagree about most things and the exact birth date of Linden Baroque is no
exception; moreover founding members’ memories are now becoming unreliable. 1982 appears
as close as we can get but the first public appearance is documented as participation in a church
service on Christmas Day 1984 and so, like the Queen, we shall designate this the official
birthday.
In the early 1980s if you had an interest in playing baroque music you might have been thought of
as a little eccentric – why nibble at this simple, undemanding stuff when there was Brahms,
Mahler and Shostakovitch to chew on? The main professional period instrument bands in this
country such as The Academy of Ancient Music and The English Concert, both founded in 1973,
still had relatively small followings and the available recorded repertoire was limited with most of
today’s well-known orchestras and ensembles having not yet been formed. If you tried to play on
the apparently uncontrollable and frankly unpleasant sounding instruments of the period you were
considered distinctly nutty and there was much derision from the musical mainstream. Two
hundred years of development and improvements had, after all, eradicated their intolerable faults
and idiosyncrasies. To be fair, at the time there did seem a preponderance of rather unusual and
interesting, though undeniably lovely people attracted to the curious art of coaxing sensible
sounds from a gut string or anything remotely in tune and non duck-like from a baroque oboe.
And so it was that a few independent-minded friends secreted themselves behind closed curtains
in a house in West London to perform unnatural acts with some rather strange objects.
Simon Galton, one of the founders and main mover, takes up the story: “Linden Baroque was
born in the home of Geoff and Kate Kemp in Linden Gardens, Chiswick. These early music
enthusiasts, along with Robin Boothby, organised many musical evenings at their house,
becoming ever more ambitious, from trio sonatas to Bach cantatas and beyond and crucially,
using only period instruments. When we grew from a small chamber group to the size of a
baroque orchestra we felt the need for someone to direct us. I was having oboe lessons at that
time with Paul Goodwin, the foremost baroque oboist of his generation, and had the temerity to
ask him. In his usual enthusiasm for anything musical he readily agreed. It is entirely due to his
wonderful musicianship and charming personality that Linden flourished. Everyone felt inspired
yet he was also demanding and determined to get the very best out of the orchestra. He raised
my appreciation and understanding of music to a different plain as I'm sure he did for all others
who came under his direction. In addition to the enthusiastic amateurs, many students came and
played with the orchestra thereby gaining valuable experience in baroque playing which at that
time could not be gained elsewhere.
Many of the early concerts in and around West London were organised by our flute player Len
Marchant, who coined the name ‘Linden Baroque’. Paul Goodwin conducted the orchestra for
nearly ten years despite his extremely busy work schedule playing the oboe for just about every
baroque orchestra in the country.
Some of the original members from the Linden Gardens days are playing tonight including
Mathew Dart, Simon Galton, Nicholas Jackman, Linda MacDonald. Gertrude Evans, Robin
Boothby and others promise to be in the audience”.
Another early member, Tatty Theo, will also be playing with us tonight. Like
many others, she has gone on to a highly successful career, with her
award-winning Brook Street Band. “I joined the orchestra in its very early
days when it still rehearsed in Linden Gardens. I must have been about 15
and right from that time I was adamant that I wanted to be a baroque
cellist, so playing in the orchestra gave me invaluable experience. I learnt
loads of different repertoire and worked out how to deal with nerves (I did
my first cello concerto with Linden), follow a conductor (thank you Paul!),
play continuo cello, mark up parts, settle differences of opinion, and
generally work as part of a team, all whilst having enormous fun. There
were some great trips, parties and concerts too – our visit to Rome one Christmas particularly
stands out.
In 1996 I founded the Brook Street Band, specialising in Handel’s music. The majority of my work
is now chamber music, so I am delighted to come back tonight, catch up with old friends and join
the cello section again for Linden’s celebrations.”
The first proper public concert was at the Hammersmith Hospital in March 1985 to raise money
for the Friends of the hospital. On the programme was one of tonight’s pieces, the Telemann
Water Music, which has become a favourite of the band. Encouraged by the few relapses
suffered amongst the audience, concerts became a regular feature of Linden’s activities. A small
but enthusiastic and faithful audience started to follow Linden around various south London
churches. Some of them, too, were a little eccentric, including a flamboyantly made-up, crossdressing gentleman in a racing wheelchair who often arrived in style after the start of the concert.
At one concert more recently in St Paul’s, Covent Garden we were interrupted in mid
performance by a ‘gentleman of the road’ dressed as a cowboy who swaggered drunkenly down
to the front of the church after first asking the audience loudly if there were any police present.
After listening to us for a short while he asked us to stop as there were cats trying to sleep in the
church-yard.
St Paul’s, a frequent venue in recent years, though a wonderful and historically apt setting,
always had its problems with aural incontinence from the amplified entertainments in the Piazza.
On one occasion a tender aria by Hasse, being delivered in a particularly affecting manner by the
inimitable James Bowman, was rudely interrupted by a raucous rendition by a busker of
‘Jailhouse Rock’. Street performers and police sirens hastened our move to the lovely St Alfege
Church, Greenwich which has become our preferred concert base.
From the start Linden attracted, as well as ordinary amateurs, music teachers and other
professional musicians wishing to try their hand at early instruments or merely enjoying their
‘second’ instrument. The band was most fortunate to have as leader an experienced pro’ in Nicola
Hayston who had been a recent member of ‘Les Arts Florissants’. So the musical potential was
pretty good. She was also a fantastic organiser and ‘fixer’ and for many years she and the rest of
the committee was supported by a most efficient and delightful secretary in Valerie Warner (nee
Cullen), cellist, until her sad death in 2002.
In 1988 a collaboration began with the Finchley Chamber Choir exploring some of the great
choral and orchestral works under the direction of David Lardi.
Other early collaborative efforts were with Imperial Opera, the
newly formed Essex Baroque Orchestra, Europa Singers,
Abbeyville Choir and venues became more varied, including St
James’ Piccadilly, The Horniman Museum, Penshurst Place,
Knole House, Waterperry Gardens and Cley, Norfolk and later,
Eton College Chapel. Our most distant venue was Rome in 1992
when we undertook our ‘world tour’. It was a joint venture with
the Coro da Camera Italiano, one of the world’s better looking
choirs. They accommodated the band members and we had a fantastic week, giving two sell-out
concerts of Purcell’s King Arthur, apparently for first time in Italy and to a wildly enthusiastic
audience.
Sometimes we have dressed up, once in particular for a three day stint at
Finchcock’s, that extraordinary museum of keyboard instruments in Kent. It
had been transformed into a recreation of the Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens
and the performers and many of the audience wore 18th century costume,
wigs and make-up and perambulated around the various entertainments in
the grounds while we attempted to make ourselves heard in a large
marquee flapping loudly in the stiff breeze that had grounded the period
style hot air balloon. It was here that we first came across a wünderkind, still
in his teens, known as Steven Devine, who played with us brilliantly the very
same concerto we perform tonight. Little did either of us know what a fateful
meeting that was…..
In 1997 Paul, increasingly busy as a conductor, handed over the baton to
Walter Reiter, soloist and section-leader of the second violins in the English Concert and leader of
several other baroque orchestras such as the King’s Consort and the Hanover Band. For the
string players it was a real privilege to have one of the most respected baroque violin teachers
coaching them. Walter also introduced a regular stream of talented
postgraduate students to play with the band and many are now well
known figures in the professional baroque world. Another delightful
thing about Walter is that he is married to Linda Perillo who has sung
radiantly with Linden on a number of occasions. Paul stays with us as
Honorary President of Linden Baroque.
Financing something like Linden has always been tough. Rehearsal
venues, for instance, are very costly; gone are the days when we
rehearsed in a dark and draughty church in Clapham for only an
obligatory and interminable cup of tea with the lonely caretaker.
Concerts tend to lose a lot of money and we cannot afford sufficient fees for conductors or
soloists that would stop them accepting proper paid work elsewhere. So we have always traded
on goodwill and had to work concert dates around small windows in the director’s diary, inevitably
meaning not planning far ahead. Hiring ourselves to choral societies brings in enough money to
subsidise our own promotions. We are significantly cheaper than equivalent professional
orchestras and so the choral societies are able to employ a period instrument band economically
and because we play and rehearse together our standards are much better than a ‘scratch
orchestra’ put together on the day at greater cost.
In 1988 we were awarded an ‘Arts for Everyone’ grant from the Arts Council which allowed us to
book a series of concerts with Walter for a period of over a year. This allowed continuity and saw
an inevitable improvement in standards. This period culminated in a fantastic Bach B minor Mass.
At this time we had the Linden Baroque Choir, a hand-picked group coached by Deborah MilesJohnson who is a busy mezzo-soprano with an international career and choral coach, particularly
with the BBC Symphony Chorus and the Philharmonia Chorus. She joins us tonight in the viola
section as she often used to and we have been privileged to have her as vocal soloist on many
occasions often with excellent soloists she managed to entice to work with us.
The choir was formed initially to give the first performance in this country of the Requiem by Jean
Gilles, a hauntingly beautiful piece from around 1704. We were commissioned by the parents of
the harpsichordist David Pollock. They came across it on honeymoon in France and wished to
hear it again on a significant anniversary. We later performed other works of Gilles, again for the
first time in this country.
We had become enthused with the re-emerging music of J F Fasch, an obscure though prolific
German composer of Bach’s time. Thanks to the scholarship of Brian Clarke we gave the first
modern performances of a Suite for 3 Oboes, 2 bassoons and strings and with our choir, a Missa
Brevis. Though beaten to a first recording of the former piece by The English Concert, we
recorded, with Walter Reiter, both works as well as a lively violin concerto with soloist Catherine
Martin, for the Meridian label. This was commercially released in this country and abroad and was
played on Radio 3 and Classic FM. There will be a few for sale at the end of this concert.
By 2004 Walter’s growing solo and chamber music career was taking up more and more of the
time he wasn’t teaching or touring the world with The English Concert and so with fewer
opportunities to plan concerts he handed over the Musical Directorship to Steven Devine. We are
lucky indeed to have one of the brightest stars of the early music world and look forward to
planning future events before he also becomes too busy.
A player’s experience of Linden
Having grown up with mostly plodding, thickly textured ‘modern instrument’ recordings of baroque
music which lulled me into indifference for works of that period, I began to be aware of another
way of performing this repertoire which relied on clarity, rhythmic vitality, bringing out the
character of the individual instruments and their different voices rather than blending them all into
one aural ‘smoothy’. Suddenly the music leapt into vivid life. Though those pioneering recordings
weren’t always pleasant sounding and the intonation sometimes dodgy, I was enticed into a world
full of exquisite beauty, sparkling wit, lively dance rhythms and a variety of colour just not readily
available on the super-smooth modern instruments. The differences created the need for a
different approach to the music, technically, philosophically and emotionally. Around this time I
upgraded my violin, so having had the Linden experience described to me most charmingly by a
member - I am forever indebted, Debbie! - I thought, what better chance to join the experiment? I
had my old instrument ‘baroqued’, borrowed a baroque bow and attended my first rehearsal. After
the first aural shocks at the unfamiliar sounds and the disturbing low pitch I took courage and
applied horsehair to twisted sheep’s intestine. Barely had I played the first note than several
people turned to ‘shush’ me. The same happened throughout. By the end I thought I was playing
quietly enough not to be heard at all but found out it was not just the volume; the attack, the
shape and end of each note, my phrasing and articulation, it was all so horribly wrong: a little like
discussing the finer points of ballet in a loud, upper class public school accent in the middle of
Liverpool’s Anfield Kop. Gradually I learned not to ruin the whole effect and to become part of the
band. Then I really started enjoying it!
Having abandoned the chin and shoulder rests that help anchor a violin
in place there was now nothing to stop my delicate and ancient lump of
wood from plummeting earthwards – somehow it had to defy gravity and
rest delicately on my collarbone. This and the different bow changed
everything technically, yet also created a new freedom.
Through playing with Linden I have learned – am still learning - about
the essence of music; about truly listening and responding to the other
musicians, breathing with the music, how the music must dance,
communicating through the rhetorical gestures, tension and resolution, the direction and flow that
give musical phrases their sense and structure, building the harmony from the bass, the shocks
and surprises, drawing out the many voices and colours of my instrument, the infinite variety of
bow strokes, about allowing the instrument to resonate naturally rather than forcing out the sound,
the art of tasteful and idiomatic ornamentation, learning how to play something the way a singer
would sing or a trumpeter would trumpet, about making the music always interesting, how quiet
music can be more exciting than loud, about the social and historical context of the music…and
there is so much more, always. I am immensely grateful to all the professionals, who, having
played all day themselves are still happy to give their time and phenomenal energy late into the
evening and over precious weekends to share their experience and create more music with the
likes of me (and certainly not for money!). I feel privileged that as an amateur I have been able to
learn from and perform with some of the luminaries of the musical world, people such as our
Three Directors, Cat Mackintosh, Peter Holman, James Bowman and the many other fine
musicians we’ve worked with, including the postgraduate students who join us.
It has also been a fascinating process to professionally record a CD (and then walk through HMV
or Tower records and see it on sale, listen to it in the audition room and recommend it, entirely
disinterestedly, to fellow shoppers!). And to hear it played on the radio.
I am eternally grateful to Simon and his friends for having the courage and enthusiasm to start
something unique in all Europe if not the world at that time. Though other opportunities have
sprung up around the country in recent years for amateurs to play in an original instrument band
or on courses, Linden remains pre-eminent! Typical of the spirit of Linden, one of our cellists,
Lynn Selwood, unable to play in this concert due to a professional booking, has still been turning
up for some of the rehearsals, just for the experience!
The continued existence and good health of the band is due to the amazing efficiency, knowledge
and good sense of Louise and Ilana and the other committee members, Diane, Maggie, Alex,
Michael, Barbara and Nick as well as the aforementioned generosity of our professional friends.
Lastly, we thank our audiences, with whom we share our efforts and whose warm and
enthusiastic responses and loyalty inspires us to carry on.
Alan Selwyn 2006