WILLIAM CHRISTIE: So, we're going to start out with Guignon .
Chloe, why don't you...you know...
Why don't you tell us a little bit about Monsieur Jean-Pierre Guignon?
CHLOE KIM: Yes...So, we can't talk about Guignon without
speaking about Le Claire, of course.
They were bitter rivals, or at least characterized
to be in all of the histories.
Both of them...they were separated by five years
and they were both actually...
Sorry Guignon was a native Italian.
He was born in Turin and he studied with the same teacher as Le Claire.
Louis XV hired them both to be concert master of his orchestra.
And, actually, Le Claire retired within one month because
he wouldn't want to play second to Guignon.
CHRISTIE: Yeah, so the essential sort of information is that
he's not French, he's Italian, but he
lives in France and he's under royal patronage.
In fact, he was a very close friend of the Queen.
And what did he write?
KIM: Guignon?
CHRISTIE: Yes.
He's essentially what?
[inaudible]
CHRISTIE: Yes, yes, yeah he was the incomparable violent sort of master
at the time and we're going to hear what?
KIM: This is Folies D'Espagne...
It's based on the famous folio.
CHRISTIE: Yeah and where does that come from?
KIM: Sorry?
CHRISTIE: Where does that piece come from?
That folio?
Is it French?
No, it's a base, isn't it?
KIM: Yes. CHRISTIE: Yeah.
[inaudible]
Very famous, yes?
KIM: Yes. CHRISTIE: Yeah.
How would you describe... this particular kind of music?
KIM: Wild and madness.
CHRISTIE: Wild. That's synonymous on the violin with popular appeal, yeah?
Wild gypsy playing, yeah?
Sort of...yeah. Yes.
And what is it exactly?
It's for two violins? For harmony?
KIM: For two violins, but there's an option, actually.
Guignon writes that a third violin could join us and play the baseline.
CHRISIE: Important because in these three pieces
we're going to listen to, the Guignon and Telemann
and the Couperin, the options are multiple in terms of how
many instruments or what kind of
instruments are playing and what would the third instrument played?
If she or he were not here?
KIM: He actually specifies the violin--
CHRISTIE: Yes, he talks about what? What part? It's an essential part.
[CHRISTIE speaks in a foreign language]
That means he plays what?
He plays the bass, yeah?
Good. So, on we go.
♫ ♫ ♫ [Baroque string music]
[applause]
CHRISTIE: There wasn't enough.
[laughter]
We could have heard some more.
This is the kind of piece, if you played this
on the street corners anywhere in New York,
you'd have a lot of people listen to it.
It's easy to listen to--
it's popular music essentially because there's nothing much aside from virtuoso
violin playing and/or a very simple harmonics of the bass and it just gets
as, you said, wilder and wilder.
It says a lot about France, it says a lot about how
the violin has been sort of evolving since the early part of the 17th century.
A few things to talk about are just information.
What is it...is this a
manuscript, is it an engraved edition, is it published?
[inaudible]
CHRISTIE: It's engraved, yeah, which means that it's going to be sold, yes?
Yes! And it's gonna be sold to a lot of people.
Yes, yeah, and this is something we're going to be able
to tie into Telemann and to Couperin as well.
Why do you engrave an edition in the 1730's?
Well, it's to make money, but also to provide happiness to a greater
number of people and they're called amateurs, essentially, they say.
Did amateurs try to play this music?
Yes--probably not as well as you did, so
it was not only used by professionals but it was used by a very large number
an increasingly large number in the 18th century of non-aristocratic
so not simple folk by any means, but I mean you know it wasn't court music this is
very important this was probably all his stuff that he published was because
essentially this music has a very wide appeal.
Now let's talk about your performance.
Are you happy with it?
Yeah.
There's a fair amount of input found in your part isn't there I mean what I was
looking at didn't correspond all together with the notes that I was
looking at or the rhythm that I was looking at or the rubato playing that I
was looking at so yeah these were decisions as to you two made, yeah.
I liked them...I like them because they essentially it
gives more personality to the piece and it also is something which I think all
now especially students at the jury hardened when in early music should
understand that the personal input your input is far more important then let's
say a piece of Shostakovich or... what have you you know when
I was teaching a while back I would take a piece...a print of
sixteen hundred and seventy artists and then pull out one page of Pierre Boulez
There were 70...I think 72 indications of tempo phrasing dynamics on one page
of the Boulez and zero for Lily, which means it
you know and it's the same thing here.
Do we have dynamics?
KIM: Very few. CHRISTIE: Very few--
Just loud and soft stuff yeah, yeah.
What else?
KIM: Occasionally, articulation.
CHRISTIE: A few articulation patterns, yeah, but that's a pretty small technical note....
Yeah, yeah, so, yes.
What I thought your input
was very, very effective, yeah.
Do you play it differently every time?
KIM: It's been different most of the time...[laughter]
CHRISTIE: That too, of course, is something
which is an important part of the early music
aesthetic in the 18th even in the 17th century--essentially spontaneity.
If this piece can sound like it was written
the day before yesterday, you've won.
If it starts to smell of archaeology or musicology,
it starts to smell a little bit musty as if you know...
Yes, I remember that treatise back in 1687 that says you must, you must, yes.
That kind of thing you know it can go very far in this and that's one of the
nice things about early music, you can pretty much do what you want, in a sense.
By the way, so I talked about with Ben [Sosland] a couple of days ago
we were talking about the fact that there are a lot of visiting artists,
specialists and I say to myself and I said to Ben, "It's a good thing even you
know because essentially there is many ways of playing this piece as there are
people who you know interpreters or
people who are gonna coach you in it, you know?"
Yes.
And that's important to spontaneity is individuality
know your personality and what you've got to have a framework of course...
You can't just do anything you know, but the within those limits there's a lot to do.
Yeah, I know, Chloe, because she played with me this summer and we played
actually an extraordinary sonata of Handle a while back at the...
Morgan Library, which was I think one of my most favorite moments in 2018.
Don't know you as well, but it's a very nice duo.
Do you have anything to say?
Aside from appreciation?
Yeah, yeah, you're setting a very high standard right now.
Are you gonna stick around?
KIM: Of course.
CHRISTE: Good. Okay.
Let's go on.
[applause]