Margret Köll

Hear, Euterpe, the Sweet Song

Margret Köll Plays Baroque Harp Music from Italy and England

Michael Horst

An essential part of the orchestra of the Romantic era, the harp as a solo instrument is admired mostly by cognoscenti and fans. Margret Köll, however, came to a wider audience’s attention when she performed during the opening concert of the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg in January 2017. Seated high up in one of the balconies of the new hall, she played two songs, together with the French countertenor Philippe Jaroussky: the famous Amarilli by Giulio Caccini, and Emilio de’ Cavalieri’s Dalle più alte sfere (“From the highest spheres”)—less well-known, but perfectly suited to the occasion.

A native of the Tyrol, Margret Köll is one of the most sought-after protagonists of her instrument, and ensembles such as the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, London’s Academy of Ancient Music, and Il Giardino Armonico from Italy regularly perform with her. At the Pierre Boulez Saal, she now presents a solo recital that spotlights the entire breadth of the Baroque harp repertoire. “My program has everything harpists of that era used to do,” she explains, “including harpsichord literature, lute literature, original compositions for harp, but also arrangements specially created for the instrument.”

Margret Köll brings two harps to the Pierre Boulez Saal, selected from the five instruments she currently keeps at her Berlin home. They are tuned to C major and E-flat major—giving the musician more flexibility in the choice of keys and allowing her to select the instrument best suited to the composition at hand. “I also conceived the program in a way that allows me to play both harps in both parts of the concert,” she adds. “This means the sound comes from two sources, which gives listeners the opportunity to compare.” In addition, the sequence of works is determined by the emotion of the composition: contrasting musical moods always serve to heighten the tension of a concert. The harpist would like the audience to associate freely, “bearing in mind that the English composers frequently copied the Italians, something that can be traced very clearly over the course of this concert.”

Unlike many violinists or cellists, Margret Köll does not play original instruments, which are often extremely valuable; instead, she uses two modern harps, copies of the so-called Barberini harp. This instrument, which today can be admired in the Museum of Musical Instruments in Rome, was built between 1605 and 1620 for the Barberini family, part of the Roman nobility, whose coat of arms with its three bees is replicated on the instrument’s wooden column. Unfortunately, the original harp can no longer be played, but it combines all the advantages of the instrument, which was then still in its youth, having only come into fashion during the Renaissance. With a construction featuring three rows of strings, the third of which—similar to the black keys on a piano—enables the harpist to play chromatic half-tones (pedals were not commonly used in those days), the “arpa Barberini” has all the technical requirements for Baroque music.

Tonight’s program includes a surprising number of original compositions, beginning with the first work, the Toccata Seconda by Giovanni Maria Trabaci. In Naples, where he made his home, an art-loving circle had formed around 1600 that was dedicated particularly to harp playing. One of its members was Giovanni de Macque, whose Seconde Stravaganze will also be heard. Born in the Netherlands and a generation older than Trabaci, de Macque had been called to the Neapolitan court early in life and was a close friend of Carlo Gesualdo, the Prince of Venosa and a fellow composer. Ascanio Mayone was also a harpist of high repute, but employed like Trabaci as an organist in the court chapel of the Spanish viceroy. Margret Köll has chosen his Toccata Prima for tonight’s program.

The fourth composer is Gian Leonardo Mollica, whose fame as a harpist earned him the sobriquet “dell’ Arpa” even during his lifetime. He is considered the most important virtuoso of his instrument of the 16th century; contemporaries compared his art with the playing of the biblical King David. Mollica also made a name for himself as a teacher—his approximately 50 students carried the art of harp playing into the 17th century. Margret Köll has vivid memories of her own studies with the renowned harpist Helga Storck at the Munich Musikhochschule. “At the time, works by Trabaci or Mayone were only available in the original prints, which means they were written in four pentagrams, so first you had to transcribe everything into a two-part piano system,” she recounts. Today, many of these compositions are available in modern editions or can be accessed in private transcriptions from anywhere in the world, thanks to the digital Petrucci Music Library.

But there is much to discover beyond the repertoire originally intended for harp as well. To call the other compositions heard tonight mere arrangements would be judging from an all-too-narrow modern perspective—in the 17th century, the term “original” was used far more liberally than today. The first piece by Girolamo Frescobaldi, the Partite sopra la Monicha from the Primo Libro d’Intavolatura di Toccate e Partite of 1615, is a case in point. Frescobaldi, a celebrated organist at St Peter’s in Rome, became famous for his compositions for keyboard instruments—organ as well as harpsichord. “It is nice to see,” says Margret Köll, “that this repertoire was equally compatible with keyboard instruments, lutes, and harps. It is nothing special, and requires no adaptation, to play these pieces on a harp.”

The case is slightly different for the second Frescobaldi work, Se l’aura spira tutta vezzosa (“When the wind blows very pleasantly”) from the Primo Libro d’Arie musicali of 1630. This was originally an aria with continuo accompaniment, which Margret Köll has arranged as a solo piece. The same is true for Odi, Euterpe, il dolce canto (“Hear, Euterpe, the sweet song”) by Giulio Caccini, the

Florentine composer and creator of the first opera based on the myth of Orpheus, L’Euridice of 1600, and also for Io navigai un tempo (“I once journeyed by boat”) by Gian Leonardo Mollica dell’ Arpa. When playing these arrangements of vocal pieces, Margret Köll makes sure to weave her own improvisations into the texture, following historical models. This is also true for the Gagliarda, a dance movement by Carlo Gesualdo, for here, the harpist explains, the theme only exists in the form of a chord sequence whose ornamentations would have been improvised at the time. Improvisation or diminution: both were daily routine for an accomplished instrumentalist of that era. Diminutions—the “filling up” of the basic musical structure by adding shorter notes—were common mainly for works of the early Baroque period, while during the High Baroque, improvisational ornamentations became the focus of attention. Today, this skill must be learned painstakingly—step by step, as Margret Köll explains: “First you must read the tracts of the time—similar to learning vocabulary. Then you must practice improvisation every day, until it becomes part of your DNA.” Occasionally, the composer himself is the best teacher: Caccini, for example, who also wrote Le nuove Musiche, the central work of the “New Style”, provided numerous instructions on diminution in his vocal pieces, offering excellent advice to instrumentalists as well.

In addition to literature originally intended for keyboard instruments, Margret Köll’s program also focuses prominently on music for lute. One of the lute’s most outstanding virtuosos was the German-Italian Giovanni Girolamo Kapsberger, born in Venice to a noble German father, who published the first anthology of his own compositions for the chitarrone, the younger (and highly popular) sister of the lute, at the age of 24. Kapsberger’s Toccata Seconda Arpeggiata—the reference to the harp is found even in the title—also takes us to Rome, where the composer enjoyed a close relationship with the Barberini family, especially with Cardinal Maffeo Barberini, who went on to become an important patron of the arts in the Eternal City when he was elected Pope Urban VIII. Together with the soprano Roberta Invernizzi, Margret Köll has paid musical homage to this era, the first half of the 17th century, on their CD L’arpa Barberini, which includes Kapsberger’s toccata as well.

The trail of the lute takes us directly to England, where this instrument was held in high regard and used more than any other by composers of the time. But Peter Philips was not the only one who looked to the great role model of Italy when he had Caccini’s Amarilli printed in a lute version entitled Amarilli di Giulio Romano in the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book—which also included works by Palestrina and Orlando di Lasso. John Dowland, the epitome of English lute music, also made pilgrimages to Ferrara and Venice to learn about the latest musical ideas. Time and again, his works such as The Frog Galliard and Dowland’s Galliard vary the galliard (French: gaillarde, Italian: gagliarda), a quick dance in three that was popular all over Europe, and whose enthusiastic (and active) admirers also included England’s Queen Elizabeth I. William Byrd is represented tonight by a song arrangement also found in the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book: Lord Willobie’s Welcome Home, a musical salute to the 11th Baron Willoghby de Eresby returning from battle as a general.

In the final part of her concert, Margret Köll focuses once again on literature originally written for her instrument. Domenico Scarlatti, whose more than 500 one-movement harpsichord sonatas brought him fame as the untiring inventor of musical motifs and extraordinary playing techniques, is represented by his Sonata in D minor K. 213. There are two works by Henry Purcell, a hornpipe from the incidental music for the play The Old Bachelor as well as the Suite No. 4 in A minor, which Margret Köll brings to a close with a Minuet by Purcell instead of the original Saraband.

Music of the English High Baroque, which is associated first and foremost with the name of George Frideric Handel, concludes the harpist’s program. But she slightly widens the circle, including music by William Babell, Handel’s harpsichordist, as well. “Fortunately, Babell’s Lessons for Harpsichord have come down to us,” Margret Köll says. “In these, he turns Handel’s operas into medleys, so to speak, combining them with his own improvisations.” These, in turn, form the basis for Köll’s own improvisation in this part of the program. “Of course I will also improvise in between, but it won’t necessarily be noticeable,” she explains. “But Babell is simply a particularly beautiful example of improvisation.”

Which leaves the crowning finale, Handel’s Suite in F major HWV 427, the second of eight Suites de Pièces pour le Clavecin that the composer self-published in London in 1720, outsmarting enterprising competitors who had gotten hold of copies of his manuscripts. The connection with the traditional suite as a sequence of different dance movements is hardly recognizable here anymore. Instead, the work resembles the Italian church sonata: in the repeated sequence of slow and fast movements, the first Adagio, a concert aria on a regular walking bass, and the final three-part fugue stand out in particular—one last opportunity to demonstrate the versatility of the Baroque harp in making works composed for other instruments of the time resound.

Translation: Alexa Nieschlag