Early Music

Sequentia is among the world's finest ensembles for the performance of early music. This Saturday at Howard Community College, the Berlin-based instrumental-vocal group will perform in the Candlelight Concert Series.The first half of the program will consist of excerpts from the Icelandic Eddas. The Eddas are perhaps the greatest European heroic poems -- they were presumably sung to instrumental accompaniment -- of the early Middle Ages. The program's second half will concentrate on music of the 13th century from Southern Europe.

An excellent and early Valentine's Day musical bouquet can be enjoyed at 8 p.m. Saturday when the Candlelight Concert Society presents the New York Chamber Soloists at Smith Theatre on the campus of Howard Community College. Music of the 19th century is labeled Romantic music as a reflection, in part, of the late 18th- century German Romantic movement in literature and the visual arts initiated by writers such as Goethe and Schiller and visual artists such as Caspar David Friedrich and Philipp Otto Runge.

Encounters with Shakespeare are supposed to be uplifting occurrences, and that's exactly how things worked out for the Ensemble Galilei. The early music consort, so popular in Annapolis because of its annual concert series at St. John's College, recently began combing libraries and anthologies of 16th-century British music in search of songs and instrumental pieces that might have been heard during early performances of Shakespeare's plays. The result of the group's efforts, a 65-minute compact disc titled "Come, Gentle Night: Music of Shakespeare's World," has just been released by Telarc International, the largest American-owned independent classical recording company.

Hardly anyone can resist tapping their toes to the music of Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741), one of the most famous and important Italian composers of the Baroque period. His music is infectious, charming and impassioned. At 8 p.m. Saturday, the Candlelight Concert Series presents REBEL (pronounced "re-Bell"), an early-music ensemble in an all-Vivaldi concert of concerti and sonatas. The concert's title ("Antonio Vivaldi: Shades of Red") refers to the composer's nickname, the Red-Headed Priest, and also implies a vividness that will be apparent in the music and the performance.

Barry Bishop, 62, a National Geographic Society official and member of the first American team to reach the summit of Mount Everest, was killed Saturday in an auto accident in Bozeman, Mont. He recently retired as chairman of the society's committee on exploration and research. He was the official glaciologist and climatologist on Sir Edmund Hillary's 1960-1961 Himalayan expedition.Teddy Buckner, 85, a jazz trumpeter who emulated the style of his idol, Louis Armstrong, died Thursday in Los Angeles.

There was a time not long past when music lovers -- even knowledgeable ones -- pretty much figured that great music began with Bach and Handel.Early music from the medieval and Renaissance periods was the exclusive province of musicologists and a few dedicated ensembles that performed and recorded in relative obscurity.But as anyone who cruises the CD bins knows, those days are over.Early music has become big box-office as many conductors and their groups have been navigating through this once-forgotten territory, turning up many remarkable pieces and composers in the process.

When Ludwig van Beethoven traveled to Vienna in 1792 at the age of 22 to study with Joseph Haydn, he carried with him a rather astonishing prophecy written by his patron, Count Waldstein: "You shall receive Mozart's spirit from Haydn's hand."This oft-repeated remark provided the raison d'etre for Pro Musica Rara's illuminating performance of fortepiano trios by the three composers at the Baltimore Museum of Art yesterday.Fortepianist and Pro Musica Artistic Director Shirley Mathews, violinist Cynthia Roberts and cellist Allen Whear are exemplary participants in the so-called "Early Music" movement.

"It is one of the laws of nature that we often feel nearer to remote generations than to those which immediately precede us," wrote composer Igor Stravinsky, and this weekend Annapolis' cultural scene will attest to his wisdom. Tomorrow, Saturday and Sunday, Chamber Music Annapolis and Historic Annapolis Foundation are co-sponsoring the first Maryland Early Music Festival, which will be held at sites throughout downtown Annapolis as a spring celebration of the arts in the capital city.

If the phonograph had been invented in Bach's time, we'd know exactly howhe intended his Brandenburg concertos to sound.Given that there's no such definitive recording, however, musicians rely on the next best thing: the notes Bach wrote, the instruments he used, and the accounts of his contemporaries regarding how they were to be played.All of these sources inform the lyrical music-making of Pro Musica Rara, Baltimore's resident early- music ensemble, which will present a program of baroque masters today at 3:30 p.m. in its second concert of the season at the Baltimore Museum of Art."

You've heard of a pack of wolves, a gaggle of geese and a pride of lions. Now, courtesy of Candlelight Concerts, you can thrill to a "noyse of violins." This Saturday evening at Columbia's James Rouse Theatre, Candlelight Concerts will present the King's Noyse - North America's only performing Renaissance string band. Ensembles of roving violinists entertained rich and poor alike in the 16th and 17th centuries. And this quintet of violins, violas and viols still led by its founding fiddler, David Douglass, has been bringing the hearty songs and dances of Renaissance Europe to life for audiences since 1988.

Michael Eagan, 55, a classical musician and composer who co-founded Musica Angelica, a highly regarded early music group based in Los Angeles, died of an apparent heart attack last week at his home in Los Angeles. His body was found Wednesday but the coroner's office had not yet determined the day he died. Widely considered one of the foremost lute players in the country, he performed and recorded with a variety of chamber orchestras, including San Francisco's Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra and the Boston Baroque Orchestra.

"It is one of the laws of nature that we often feel nearer to remote generations than to those which immediately precede us," wrote composer Igor Stravinsky, and this weekend Annapolis' cultural scene will attest to his wisdom. Tomorrow, Saturday and Sunday, Chamber Music Annapolis and Historic Annapolis Foundation are co-sponsoring the first Maryland Early Music Festival, which will be held at sites throughout downtown Annapolis as a spring celebration of the arts in the capital city.

Tomorrow, 8 p.m. St. Mary's College Choir, Larry Edward Vote, conductor Heinrich Schutz: Musikalische Exequien St. Anne's Church Admission: $24 adults/ $18 students and seniors Saturday, 1, 2 and 3 p.m. (45-minute programs) Sarabande: 18th Century Oboe Band The Brice House Admission: Free Saturday, 1, 2 and 3 p.m. (45-minute programs) David and Ginger Hildebrand: "Colonial Music for the First President" Annapolis City Hall Admission: Free Saturday, 1:30 and 2:30 p.m. (45-minute performances)

HOLLYWOOD -- If you're among those whose holiday bounty included either a DVD player or DVDs -- or, just as likely, if you're hankering to exchange those Brother Bear fluffy moose slippers for some movies on disc -- know that you have options beyond hot holiday titles like Finding Nemo and Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl. Two vintage musicals that recently made their DVD debuts may fit the cinephile bill. Singin' in the Rain illustrated in high comedic terms the problems moviemakers had when Hollywood switched from silent films to sound in the late 1920s.

Given a lineage that includes two Holy Roman Emperors -- Charlemagne on his father's side, Leopold II on his mother's -- it's fitting that eminent Austrian conductor Nikolaus Harnoncourt made his reputation as a ground-breaking explorer of the noblest music from the distant past. And those all over the world involved in the early music movement now can trace their artistic lineage to him. But that tells only part of the story about Harnoncourt. You can hear more of it this week when the Washington Perform-ing Arts Society presents the Vienna Philharmonic, one would argue the greatest orchestra in the world, in its first appearances in 10 years at the Kennedy Center.

LOCAL MEMBERS of the Piano Technicians Guild, who 13 years ago logged 700 hours rebuilding that old Stieff baby grand for the shockingly talented baby pianist Jermaine Gardner - he was only 4 at the time - will be pleased to know that both are thriving. The piano fills a third of the front room of the Gardner house, off The Alameda in Northeast Baltimore, and the other night Jermaine sat behind it to play Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 18, the allegro. He performed it wonderfully. I felt lucky to have been there.

Why Clinton?As a former Washington Post reporter, I am aware that:* The press protected Vice President George Bush when they knew the name and address of his Washington mistress.* The press protected Lyndon Johnson when they knew of his many escapades -- in office -- including taking a lady upstairs during a state dinner.* The press protected John Kennedy, though his affairs -- in office -- earned him the nickname Jack the Zipper.So why is the press frothing at the mouth, straining at its leash and destroying its own credibility to get at President Clinton in any way it can, while the man is doing his best to drag this country, kicking and screaming, into the 21st century?

How invaluable an organization Pro Musica Rara is was demonstrated yesterday at the Baltimore Museum of Art in the last work on the program. The piece was Georg Philipp Telemann's Quartet in D Minor for two flutes, bassoon and harpsichord-and-cello continuo. This was one of those occasions when the argument for original instruments in early music never seemed stronger. The woody tones of these instruments at their lower pitch made the music sound unusually inviting and accessible. This listener is willing to bet the excellent musicians -- flutists Nancy Andrews and Sara Landgren, bassoonist Phillip Kolker, cellist Allen Whear and Amy Rosser -- spent much rehearsal time together.

You've heard of a pack of wolves, a gaggle of geese and a pride of lions. Now, courtesy of Candlelight Concerts, you can thrill to a "noyse of violins." This Saturday evening at Columbia's James Rouse Theatre, Candlelight Concerts will present the King's Noyse - North America's only performing Renaissance string band. Ensembles of roving violinists entertained rich and poor alike in the 16th and 17th centuries. And this quintet of violins, violas and viols still led by its founding fiddler, David Douglass, has been bringing the hearty songs and dances of Renaissance Europe to life for audiences since 1988.

Encounters with Shakespeare are supposed to be uplifting occurrences, and that's exactly how things worked out for the Ensemble Galilei. The early music consort, so popular in Annapolis because of its annual concert series at St. John's College, recently began combing libraries and anthologies of 16th-century British music in search of songs and instrumental pieces that might have been heard during early performances of Shakespeare's plays. The result of the group's efforts, a 65-minute compact disc titled "Come, Gentle Night: Music of Shakespeare's World," has just been released by Telarc International, the largest American-owned independent classical recording company.