Musical past masters: Performing on period instruments, The Arcadia Players break history's sound barrier

By JENNIFER GABRIELLE Gazette Contributing Writer

Published on November 28, 2008

Hip may not be the first word a Baroque music performance brings to mind, but, say members of Arcadia Players of western Massachusetts, when they use the harpsichords, wooden flutes and viols of the music's time period, it's a fitting description of their concerts.

"Historically informed-performance (we like to say 'hip' for short) practice means basically trying to figure out as best we're able how music was performed in its own time," said Robert Eisenstein of Pelham, who plays the viol, a 16th-century member of the violin family.

Writing in a recent email he added, "In a nutshell I'm convinced ... that music sounds best as it was intended to sound."

Arcadia Players is celebrating its 20th season of doing just that. The group will perform Claudio Monteverdi's Vespers of 1610 on Dec. 20 at St. Mary of the Assumption Parish in Northampton. And, to celebrate its beginnings, in January at the Helen Hills Hills Chapel at Smith College, Arcadia will revisit Handel's pastoral masque Asis and Galatea, which the players performed in their first season two decades back.

Softer, clearer sound

Many of the instruments the players use are smaller than modern instruments, like the five-and-a-half-octave pianoforte Monica Jakuc Leverett of Florence plays. It is two octaves smaller than a modern piano.

The size of musical instruments increased over the years, says Leverett, which allows them to be louder and to have a more sustained sound, and, in the case of some of the stringed instruments and winds, a more brilliant sound.

A "hip," or historically informed-performance, will be much different because of this, says tenor Peter W. Shea of Amherst, who sang in Arcadia's all-Beethoven concert in October. "It's not as overpowering like a modern orchestra can be when it's full blast," he said. "You can hear things a little more clearly. The string players don't use as much vibrato. It's not as rich in sound as a modern orchestra."

From Shea's perspective as a singer, the softer sound of early instruments is an expressive advantage. "One can sing softer without worrying about being covered up," he said. "I can color my voice more rather than just keep the standard beautiful tone that projects well over a modern orchestra."

Leverett agreed: "In our modern day, there's so much about consistency ... most of the modern pianos made today are on the Steinway model. In the 19th century, there were like 50 different kinds of pianos."

That variety brings greater expression to her playing, said Leverett, who also owns a six-and-a-half octave pianoforte. On her pianofortes, she said, "there's something that's more like a human voice, more like speech."

Another of the period instruments Arcadia Players use is the viol, which is the English term for the Italian viola da gamba.

"Viola is a generic term for a stringed instrument," said Alice Robbins, who moved to the Pioneer Valley in 1979 when she was hired by the Five College Early Music Program. Around 1500, she says, two families of instruments developed to produce different ranges of sound. These two families were the viola da braccia ("viola of the arm") and viola da gamba ("viola of the leg"), played as their names indicate. The modern violin family comes from the viola da braccia.In Arcadia Players' repertoire, both families of strings are used.

Robbins first saw a viola da gamba at the age of 9 when she finished a cello lesson and passed by another student playing the unusual instrument. Unlike the cello, the viol has frets like a lute, and the tuning is different.

"I guess I just fell in love at first sight," Robbins said. "It's not a very loud sound, but it's very warm and resonant. They blend beautifully."

A consort of viola da gambas usually consisted of six to eight instruments in the Baroque period.

"Later on, in the 18th century," said Robbins, "the size of the orchestra was changing. People wanted louder and more outgoing things in those days."

To adapt to these social developments, she said, the instruments were redesigned: The necks of the stringed instruments were angled back to put more pressure on the lower section, creating a louder, brighter sound.

Local focus

While the group looks to the 17th and 18th centuries for music, throughout its 20-year history, Arcadia Players has focused on the Pioneer Valley to find musicians.

Keeping it local gives the group an edge, said Leverett, a longtime player with the ensemble and a board member for five years. She retired last year from Smith College in Northampton, where she taught classical piano as the Elsie Erwin Sweeney Professor of Music. Arcadia Players, she said, is the only group of its kind in western Massachusetts. "In Boston there are several, but ... this is our own period instrument orchestra. It does fill a niche, I think, that no one else fills."

Ian Watson of Worcester, Arcadia's artistic director, notes that the choral element has grown since he joined the organization in 2004. "We have a really excellent group of singers drawn from the rich local pool," he said.

One of those singers is Shea, who has been on Arcadia's board of directors for 10 years and has performed regularly with Arcadia Players since their second season.

Alice Robbins of South Amherst, who teaches viol with the Five College Early Music Program and is one of Arcadia's founding members, says recruiting local musicians was a goal from the organization's start in 1989.

Grooming young listeners

In addition to exposing the public to early music, teaching has become an offshoot of the organization's mission. Last fall, led by Anna Polesny Bartoli, who was board president at the time, Arcadia Players brought their first annual Concert Education Program to 700 fifth-graders in the Springfield public schools with a curriculum developed by two Arcadia members who are music teachers, Jane Hershey and Laurie Rabut. The curriculum included a demonstration of the early instruments and attendance at the "Messiah" concert at Springfield's Old First Church.

Arcadia Players was recognized for this work by the national organization Early Music America, based in Seattle, which presented the group with a $1,000 Educational Outreach Award to continue the program this school year.

With the funding from the award, an additional 400 students are expected to participate this year.

Robbins points to herself as a prime example of why it's important for people to see and hear early instruments in a live setting. "You never know what's going to strike someone or inspire them," she said. Playing on "old" instruments is a practice that should be thought of "not so much going back as coming up to [the music] with fresh ears."

Arcadia's "hip" factor, said Watson, "enables us to hear the composer's voice without the layers of 'tradition' which inevitably accumulate. It is very similar to removing the layers of varnish from an old master and allowing the original colors to be seen."