MUSIC
Gwendolyn Toth & Audrey Fernandez Fraser: Found in a Flea Market: The Carlo G Manuscript
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 2023
1:15 PM
Gotham Early Music Festival Midtown Concerts
St. Malachy’s Church In Person & Live Stream
239 West 49th Street, Midtown, Manhattan
The backstory here is so delicious that it’s worth luxuriating in. The Carlo G Manuscript was, indeed, found in a flea market, outside Vienna. It was purchased for all of €60. When musicologists got their hands on it, they discovered it was a priceless musical document of the Baroque. Here’s why: in most Baroque scores, ornamentation is unannotated — and so is the continuo, the ostinato accompaniment of low and/or plucked instruments that functions as the rhythm section, the bottom, of a current jazz or pop ensemble. So in modern performances/reconstructions of Baroque music, those important elements have been left to guesswork (often educated guesswork, of course) (but sometimes not). The Carlo G Manuscript, however, had those parts filled in! At last we can see how a concentrated dose of them was supposed to be played. But maybe the best part: the surname of the composer/compiler of the manuscript was smudged, so all that could be seen was the first letter. One of the more prominent musicians active at the time and place of the manuscript’s creation was the crazed composer/murderer Carlo Gesualdo. And as much as it seems too good to be true, the consensus appears to be that Gesualdo is indeed the “Carlo G” of this manuscript! This afternoon, the superb harpsichordist Gwendolyn Toth and her student, soprano Audrey Fernandez Fraser, will show what they’ve learned from this priceless €60 document.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: In person, I’m not gonna even tell you what El Mil Sabores puts on their Torta Loca sandwich. You have to see it for yourself. Streaming at home, see if you can find a pre-1996 bottle of Fiorano wine, made in Rome by one of Carlo Gesualdo’s crazed successors as Prince of Venosa.