Recipient of the Prestigious BBC Music Magazine Awards 2008

“Koopman brings exacting standards and a warm ebullience to his performances.” The Boston Globe

The Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra, one of the preeminent ensembles of the world, brings together the finest Baroque specialists and is firmly established at the pinnacle of authentic instrument ensembles through its frequent international tours and critically acclaimed recordings. Founder Ton Koopman’s boundless energy and enthusiasm guarantees the highest quality of every performance.

Koopman recorded all Bach’s existing cantatas, a project which took over ten years to complete. It is described, by The Guardian, as “the recording project of the 90s” and for which the orchestra and Ton Koopman were awarded the Deutsche Schallplattenpreis “Echo Klassik” and the BBC Music Magazine Awards 2008.

The Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra, conducted by Koopman from the harpsichord, will play works by Bach, Handel, Haydn and Rameau.

For information about Ton Koopman Organ Recital, please click here.

Using the Right Tools

by Michael McClellan

In an interview aired on the Canadian Broadcast Corporation’s Radio 2 in 2007, the Dutch conductor and keyboardist Ton Koopman compared historically informed performance of Baroque music to the repair of a historic building. To restore a building, techniques and tools of the past must be employed. Similarly, to produce more historically sensitive music performances, the “right” tools must be used. For Koopman, period instruments (or reproductions) are particularly appropriate for early music because the scores were composed for those instruments. Koopman has dedicated his career to period performance of music from the late Baroque and Classical periods, and in doing so has helped audiences to hear and understand this repertoire in new ways.

Koopman’s enthusiasm for historically informed performance is based on personal preference. Period instruments allow phrasing and articulation associated with Baroque playing styles. For example, early 18th-century bows were considerably different from their modern counterparts; the lighter, soft-edged sound is extremely difficult to reproduce with modern bows. Because of such differences, Koopman prefers to play with period instruments even when required to relearn certain skills in order to play each instrument; the rewards of doing so more than compensate for the challenges involved.

Koopman has been a major presence within the field of early music, particularly in 18th-century Baroque performance practice, for four decades. While studying in the mid-1960s at the Sweelinck Conservatory, Amsterdam, with the renowned harpsichordist Gustav Leonhardt, he founded an orchestra devoted to Baroque music. Since then, he has pursued a career devoted to music from before 1800. Although highly regarded as a soloist on the organ and the harpsichord, Koopman has unquestionably made his greatest mark as director of the ensemble he founded in 1979: the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra (ABO). This ensemble, comprising many well-known specialists in early music performance, has travelled widely throughout Europe, the Americas and Asia. The works of Johann Sebastian Bach have received special attention from the ABO, and in 1994 the orchestra and the Amsterdam Baroque Choir embarked on an extremely ambitious project to record all of Bach’s extant cantatas. Completing this cantata cycle more than ten years later, the recordings have subsequently earned the orchestra many accolades and prizes, including the Prix Hector Berlioz and the Deutsche Schallplattenpreis Echo Klassik. Other composers whose works Koopman and the ABO have recorded include Handel, Vivaldi, C.P.E Bach and Mozart.

Koopman’s originality, as an organist, harpsichordist and conductor, is rooted in thoughtful attention to detail as well as the ability to bring a sense of vitality to each performance. He does this, in part, by means of clear articulation and a supple approach to rhythm. This is perhaps most evident in the performance of genres that are related to or inspired by dance, and such works will be highlighted in the two performances by the ABO that Koopman will conduct in the coming HKAF. Handel’s Water Music and all four of Bach’s Orchestral Suites will give the orchestra an opportunity to showcase their talent for producing a sense of gesture and movement through sound. The same energetic style of execution will undoubtedly be brought to bear on their performance of Haydn’s witty Symphony No. 83.

Fans of Koopman’s organ playing will be pleased to learn that in addition to directing the ABO, he will also give his first solo organ recital in Hong Kong as part of the HKAF, offering festival audiences the chance to experience his prodigious keyboard skills. Known for his imaginative use of ornamentation, Koopman has programmed a selection of Baroque music that will provide him with many opportunities to demonstrate his flair for embellishment. Among the pieces he will play are chorale preludes by Buxtehude, excerpts from Couperin’s Mass for the Convents, and, of course, a selection of works by Bach, including his majestic Passacaglia and Fugue in C minor along with the concerts by the ABO, this recital will give festival audiences the occasion to judge for themselves the benefits of the tools and techniques championed by Koopman and his fellow early music professionals.

Michael McClellan is an Associate Professor and Chairman of the Music Department at The Chinese University of Hong Kong