An Excerpt from the Liner Notes of the Archival Rerelease
of Camerata’s Dido & Aeneas
As the Music Director Emeritus begins writing this brief afterword, Boston and New England are currently (February 2015) nearly buried under seven feet of snow, accumulated over four storms, with yet more snow forecast in the coming days. And, O yes! it is bitterly cold.
What does the winter of 2015 have to do with a production of Henry Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas? The link with catastrophic weather has to do with the conditions under which this interpretation of Purcell’s masterpiece, was rehearsed and initially performed, during and just after the Great Storm of 1978.
Amazingly, given the terrible weather and the multi-day, near-shutdown of public services in the Boston area, the Boston Camerata’s pioneering project, the first known performances of this major work on early instruments, went onstage, in concert version, as scheduled, despite a shortened rehearsal period. How the première managed to come about, with snow everywhere, no public transportation, and even a ban on private automobiles in the Boston area, is quite a story.
Because the concert was held at Harvard’s Sanders Theater, near Harvard Square, many potential audience members were within walking distance of the event. And a surprising number of Camerata “regulars” in fact turned out. The Harvard administration, concerned about cabin fever among its young, encouraged students to attend (this was at a time in American history when many of student age appreciated and supported classical music in general, and early music in particular). Harvard then scheduled a post-Dido dance the following evening. For the concert, the harpsichord, whose case looked something like a coffin, was transported to Sanders in a station wagon by a retired Episcopal priest, the late Roger Geffen. He had resumed his ecclesiastical look and white collar for the occasion (“Go on right through, father,” said the compassionate Irish cop, having stopped the wagon and its “corpse” at the checkpoint). The hardy Aeneas, baritone Mark Baker, actually walked from Marblehead, and delivered his part undaunted, or perhaps primed, by his extensive workout.
It was hard to do, but it was exhilarating beyond words.
This recording, made post-storm at Boston’s Emmanuel Church, with David Griesinger as engineer, is a memento of that effort. Most of us were young and green, and on this old tape our inexperience shows in places. But a great deal of energy and goodwill went into that pioneering product. Originally scheduled as a release on Nonesuch, but withdrawn from that label after the late Tracey Sterne’s abrupt departure, it was released about two years later, to much acclaim, by the French Harmonia Mundi label, just before Camerata sold out five shows of Dido at the Théatre de la Ville in Paris. That Paris week, too (with current Artistic Director Anne Azéma singing in the chorus), was an exhilarating highlight of Camerata’s long and ongoing love affair with French audiences. …
Thirty-six-odd winters have passed, some mild, and some turbulent, since this recording was made. And so we also wish to remember, with respect and enduring affection, the musicians heard here who, having braved the storms of life, are now at rest: Fred Goldstein, Nancy Joyce, Ken Fitch, Alison Fowle (a founding member of the original Camerata of the Museum of Fine Arts), Tom Coleman. The force and bounty of their work continues.
Joel Cohen
Amesbury and Paris
February, 2015
