The weird and the wonderful

lira organizzata by Wolfgang Weichselbaumer

This strange-looking instrument copy of an 18th century instrument is called a lira, or lira organizzata. The composer Haydn wrote five lira concertos. This recording of the first movement of Haydn's Lira Concerto in C will give you some idea of what it must have sounded like.

Thierry Nouat and Matthias Loibner playing liras

In this photo of a rehearsal of The Ensemble Baroque de Limoges in 2005, you can see the two lira players turning cranks with their right hands, while manipulating sets of keys with their left. Matthias  Loibner says the instrument is an organised hurdy-gurdy. Harry Edwall's article in The Musical Quarterly gives more detail about how the instruments worked.

I'm going to play a couple of movements at Bathurst's U3A Music Appreciation class tomorrow. I hope the class will enjoy the unusual sound.

U3A welcomes people over 50 who are no longer working full time. We meet at Mitchell Conservatorium on the first six Mondays of Term 4 each year at 11 AM for a one hour varied program.

If you would like to hear a full program of Early Music, please come along to the Baroque Ensemble concert on Saturday, 3rd November at 7.30 PM, where you'll hear

Andrew Baker - violin
Philip Braithwaite - flute
Tracey Callinan - harpsichord
and Sybbi Georgiou

playing some wonderful music from the time of Purcell, Bach and Handel. Please ring 6331 6622 during office hours, Monday to Friday for more information about this delightful musical feast.

Britney Spears goes Baroque

Remember the Lady Gaga fugue? The very clever Giovanni Dettori has done it again: this time with his Baroque version of Britney Spears's songs Hit Me Baby One More Time and Oops, I Did It Again in his new composition called Counterpoint.

Mr Dettori has kindly made the sheet music available, too.

Counterpoint refers to the unique ability musicians have of saying two or more things at once and making sense! Lots of pieces of music have several tunes going at once, but this was developed to a high art in the Renaissance Period of Music (1450-1600 AD) and perfected by Johann Sebastian Bach in the Baroque Period (1600-1750).

The Naxos summary of periods in Music history is pretty well written and useful.

Giovanni Dettori teaches counterpoint via his Youtube website, which is well worth investigating.

I like the way you can listen to this piece and follow the scrolling score. Well done, Maestro Dettori!




Did I mention that Britney Spears is an anagram of Presbyterians?