When Alfred Deller was chosen by Benjamin Britten for the role of Oberon, in the premiere performance of his gala opera, "Midsummer Night's Dream," this was a recognition of the fact that quite aside from his revival of the forgotten art of the counter-tenor, Deller is one of the most distinguished interpretive singers of our time. He is known to the Vanguard and Bach Guild public in many musical roles; among them, oarticipant in and director of the Deller Consort, the foremost performers of the "consort" literature of English and continental madrigal and part song, and a hauting singer of old English folk songs and carols. In this program, however, he takes again up the role which more than any other has made him an outstanding figure in today's musical life. Few have done more than he in bringing to life, with a fanatical devotion to stylistic nuances and effortless conquest of technical difficulties, the hidden treasures of the late Renaissance and Baroque song literature.
Earliest on the program is the selection by Cipriano de rore, presented in a transcription of a half century later, which shows the transition from madrigal to ornamented solo song. Then we move through the Baroque cycle to its close in Bach and Handel. In its course, a welcome light is thrown on the lesser known English masters of the age of Purcell.
Gustav Leonhardt, who divides his time between his native Holland and the Vienna Academy, is a preeminent harpsichordist, organist, teacher and scholar who has made notable recordings for The Bach Guild, including the harpsichord version of Bach's "Art of Fugue."

1. VIADANA: Exaudi me Domine - Cento Concerti Ecclesiastici, Venice, 1602
Alfred Deller, solo with organo

"Exaudi me Domine, quoniam benigna est misericordia tua; secundum multitudinem misarationum tuarum, respice in me. Et ne avertas faciem tuam (a puero tuo): quoniam tribulor, velociter exaudi me."
"Hear me, O Lord, for thy loving kindness is good; turn unto me according to the multitude of thy tender mercies. and hide not thy face from thy servvant, for I am in trouble; hear me speedily. (Psalm 69:16,17)"

Lodovico Grossi (1564-1645 took the name Viadana from his bithplace. Since the full title of his publication of 1602 bears the words, "con il basso continuo per sonar nell'organo," and the composer said that the music had been performed in Rome five years previously, he has a claim to being the inventor of the "basso continuo" or "thorough bass." Be that as it may, this revolutionary innovation, on the foundation of which the melodic, harmonic and contrapuntal freedom of baroque music was built, was "in the air" at the time. In this grand an moving prayer, with its opposition of equals between the strong melody and bass line (this opposition being what was meant at the time by "concerto"), we have a splendid example of the new style being formed.

2. SCHÜTZ: In te Domini speravi - Symphoniae Sacrae, Venice, 1629
Alfred Deller, solo with vilin, 'cello and organ

"In te, Domine, speravi, non confundar in aeternum. In justitia tua libera me. Inclina aurem tuam, accelera ut eruas me."
"In thee, O Lord, are my hopes that I do not die for eternity. Let thy justice be my liberation. Bend thine ear, quickly pluck me out of the despondence."

Heinrich Schütz (1585-1672, born in Saxony, studied the music of two great and stylistically different Italian masters. One was Giovanni Gabrieli, who at St. Mark's in Venice brought the Renaissance to a glorious close, and with whom Schütz worked in 1609; the other, Claudio Monteverdi, the first genius of baroque opera, whose art Schütz hear in 1628. Schütz had the genius to absorb these lessons, and create with them a body of German church music that had his own strong individuality, loveliness of melody and firmness of structure.

3. LOCKE: Organ Voluntary in G - Melothesia, 1673
Gustav Leonhardt, organ
A composer of stage, chamber and church music, as well as a noted thinker on musical problems, Matthew Locke (1630-1677) kept high the standards of musical integrity in an age, that of the English Restoration, which tended somewhat towatds the frivolous. This work appears in his treatise entitled, "Melothesia, or Certain General Rules for playing upon a Continued Bass, with a Choice Collection of Lessons for the Harpsichord or Organ of all sorts."

4. PURCELL: The Queen's Epicedium - Elegy on the Death of Queen Mary, 1695
Alfred Deller, solo, with harpsichord

"Incassum, Lesbia, incassum rogas, Iyra mea, meus est immoldulata; terrarum orbe lachrymarum pleno, dolorum pleno, rogitas tu cantilenam? En nymphas! En pastores! Caput omne reclinat junctorum instar! Admodum fletur! Nec Galatea canit, nec luditTutyrus agris, non curant oves, moerore perditi. Regina, heu! Arcadiae regina periit! O! damnum non exprimendum! Non suspiriis, non emitibus imis, pectoris aut queruli singultre turbido. Miseros Arcades! O quam lugentes! Suorum gaudium oculorum reversurum! Stella sua fixa coelum ultra lucet."
"In vain, Lesbia, in vain do you beseech me. The mood of my lyre is discordant; when the world is filled with tears, filled with grief, do you entreat me to sing? Lo, the nymphs! Lo, the shepherds! All heads are bent low as if gathered in a heard! There is much shedding of tears! Galatea sings no more, nor does Tityrus play in the fields; they are not caring for flock, but are lost in mourning. The Queen, alas the Queen of Arcadia is gone forever! O loss that cannot be expressed, neither by sighs, nor by deepest grioans, nor by lamenting breast's unrelenting sobbing! Deeply affected Arcadians! O, how they are grieving! The happy look of their eyes is gone, never to return! Her star, immovable, shines on in the heavens."

So glorious was the genius of Henry Purcell (1659-1695) that he was able to triumph over the most flat and uninspired texts that any composer was offered. after writing in successive years six odes for yhe birthday of Queen Mary, who died on December 28, 1694, he had the sad task of composing a funeral anthem, and then an elegy. This touching elegy exhibits his ability to weave theshort-spanned recitative and air into a larger form of noble expressiveness.

5. LOCKE: Organ Voluntary in F - Melothesia, 1673
Gustav Leonhardt, organ
6. HUMFREY: A Hymn to God the Father - Harmonia Sacra, Book I, 1688
Alfred Deller, solo and organ

"Wilt thou forgive that sin, where I began,
Which was my sin, tho' it were done before?
Wilt thou forgive that sin, through which I run,
And do run still, tho' still I do deplore?
When thou hast done, thou hast not done,
For I have more.
Wilt thou forgive that sin by which I've won
Others to sin, and made my sin their door?
Wilt thou forgive that sin, which I did shun
A year or two, yet wallow'd in a score?
When thou hast done, thou hast not done,
For I have more.
I have a sin of fear, that when I've spun
My last thread, I shall perish on the store;
But swear by thyself that art my death,
Thy sun shall shine, as he shines now and heretofore,
And having done that, thou hast done,
I fear no more." (John Donne)

Pelham Humfrey, or Humphryes (1647-1674) was Master of the Children of the Royal Chapel when Henry Purcell was singing in this group as a choir boy. An admirable composer, Humfrey's setting of John Donne's poem is worthy of the text. The publication Harmonia Sacra, Vol. 1, which includes with this several works of Purcell, has a pun on its title page; namely a canon in three parts, to the words, "Where Musick and Devotion joyn, the way to Canaan pleasant is."

1. CIPRIANO DE RORE: Ancor che c'ol partire - 1550, with ornaments by Bovicelli, 1594
Alfred Deller, solo with harpsichord

"Ancor che c'ol parite
Io mi senta morire,
Partir vorrei ogn'hor ogni momento,
Tant è il piacer ch'io sento.
De la vita ch'acquisto nel ritorno.
Et così mill' e mille volte il giorno,
Partir da voi vorrei
Tanto son dolci gli ritorni mei.
"Whenever I part from You, I feel it as death, and yet I would part from you every hour and every minute, such is the joy of life won back when I return. And so I would part from you a thousand times each day, so sweet are the returnings."

The Flemish-born Cipriano de Rore (1516-1565) followed his compatriot, Willaert, to Italy, where he became one of the most distinguished and popular of madrigal composers. An outstanding success was the madrigal he wrote to the above text (itself used by a number of composers). This madrigal was reprinted in many collections, arranged for lute, and paraphrased by other composers, and its melody became the basis for a Mass by Philip de Monte. This transcription is from a book by the monk and singer, Giovanni Battista Bovicelli, which is also a treatise on the practice of vocal figuration and ornamentation in his time.

2. FRESCOBALDI: Toccata terza - Primo Libro, 1615
Gustav Leonhardt, harpsichord
Girolamo Frescobaldi (1583-1643) was known in Mantua and Rome as a stupendous master of the organ and harpsichord, at a time when this term by definition meant not only performer but improvisor and composer. The Toccata was an extremely free and experimental form, with bravura display and a combination of recitative-like and contrapuntal passages, and Frescobaldi handles this form in a kind of restless, introspective, pre-romantic spirit.

3. BLOW: The Self-Banished
Alfred Deller, solo with harpsichord

"It is not that I love you less
Than when before your feet I lay,
In vain alas! for everything
That I have known belongs to you.
Your form does to my fancy bring
And makes my old wounds bleed anew.
But to prevent the sad increase
Of hopeless love I keep away."

John Blow (1648-1708) succeeded Pelham Humfrey (see above) as Master of the Children of the Chapel Royal. One of his pupils in composition was Purcell, on whose early death Blow wrote one of his most moving odes. "The Self-Banisched" is a vocal minuet, and exemplifies Blow's sweetness of melody.

4. WELDON: The Wakeful Nightingale
Alfred Deller, solo with harpsichord

"The wakeful nightingale that takes a rest
While Cupid warms his little breast
All night how sweetly he complains
And makes us fear that love has pains.
No, no, no, no, 'tis no such thing
For love that makes him wake, makes him sing."

John Weldon (1676-1736) was a pupil of Purcell, and succeeded John Blow as organist of the Chapel Royal. Charming songs like this were published in the popular song books of the time, like "The Monthly Masks of Vocal Musick... Made for the Play-houses, Publick Comforts and other occasions," with the added inducement to the nuyer that they were also "in the Compass of the Flute."

5. HANDEL: Dove sei - from "Rodelinda", 1725
Alfred Deller, solo with harpsichord

"Dove sei, amato bene? Vieni, l'alma a consolari! Vieni, vieni, amato bene!
Son oppresso de tormenti, ed i crudi miei lamenti, sol con te posso bear." (Da capo.)
"Where are you, my dear beloved? Come and comfort my heart. Come, come, beloved.
I am overcome by torments, and by my sad lamentations, but with you there will be peace."

The setting of George Frederick Handel's (1685-1759) opera is ostensibly 6th century Milan, but is actually the chivalrous fantasy-land of early 18th century opera librettos. Bertaric, a deposed Lombard king who is thought to be dead, secretly returns, and sings this air (Act I), of longing for his wife, before his own commemorative mortuary urn.

6. FROBERGER: Toccata in D minor
Gustav Leonhardt, harpsichord
Johann Jakob Froberger (1616-1667) was court organist in Vienna, and a composer who made a notable contribution to the development of German organ and clavier music. He studied with Frescobaldi in 1637-41, when the latter was organist at St. Peter's in Rome. This toccata, in comparison to Frescobaldi's, shows the stronger demarcation between "recitative" and rhythmically charged passages that marks the developing barique style.

7. J. S. BACH: Bist du bei mir - from "the notebook for Anna Magdalena Bacg", 1725
Alfred Deller, solo with harpsichord

"Bist du bei mir, geh' ich mit Freuden
zum Sterben und zu meiner Ruh'.
Ach, wie vergnügt wär' so mein Ende,
es drückten deine schöne Hände,
mir die getreur Augen zu."
"If thou be near me, I go joyfully to death, which is my rest. Ah, how blissful will be my end, if thy beautiful hands will close my faithful eyes."

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) wrote this song for his second wife, who copied it into a notebook along with other little pieces for voices and keyboard, to be used for home entertainment and for the musical education of their children. A far cry from the stormy passion of the great organ works, and the splendor and tragedy of the church works, it is one of the most tender, lovely, simple and perfect songs in all music literature.