The spotlight shines on Baroque music this month when a performance dedicated exclusively to 17th- and early 18th-century music will be inaugurated at Juilliard. The first annual Jerome L. Greene concert, which honors the memory and legacy of Mr. Greene, a trustee of the School for many years and one of its staunchest supporters, will take place at Alice Tully Hall on April 10. Through the generosity of the Jerome L. Greene Foundation, headed by his widow, Dawn Greene, Juilliard has received a significant endowment gift which will be used to provide scholarship assistance for our dancers, actors, and musicians. Hopefully, this event will open the doors to Juilliard students to seriously address the performance of Baroque and early Classical music under the direction of faculty coaches.

Harpsichordist and 2002 William Schuman Scholar Lionel Party presenting a lecture in January 2002 in Paul Hall. This month he will lead a student ensemble in the first annual Jerome L. Greene concert of 17th- and early 18th-century music. Photo by Ira Rosenblum

The idea of creating a series dedicated exclusively to the performance of 17th- and early 18th-century music grew out of conversations between President Joseph W. Polisi and Mrs. Greene, whose husband was a lover of all music, but particularly enjoyed works from the Baroque and Classical periods. Since the School does not have an early-music program per se, the Greene concert not only honors a great benefactor, but will also enhance Juilliard artistically and academically in providing a performance opportunity that currently does not exist on a regular basis. It is significant that Baroque music arouses great interest among Juilliard students, whose in-class readings and chamber-music sessions inspired the choice of program for the first Jerome L. Greene concert.

At present, most period-instrument ensembles that perform in America and command respect from audiences and critics come from Europe; audience interest in these ensembles is also reflected in the huge number of their recordings available in this country and in radio broadcasts of them. A partial list of European ensembles that perform in New York City includes the England-based Academy of Ancient Music, whose complete recordings of the symphonic works of Mozart have become a standard by which performances of this music are judged; France's Les Arts Florissants, which comes to BAM almost every year to perform staged as well as concert versions of Baroque operas (it will appear later this season in Lincoln Center's Great Performers series); the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra; the Gabrieli Consort, which will perform Bach's St. John Passion later this season, also as part of Lincoln Center's Great Performers; and the Italian group Europa Galante. (North American groups or organizations that have promoted the early-music movement in this country include the Aston Magna Foundation, founded by Juilliard faculty member Albert Fuller; the Boston Early Music Festival; Music Before 1800, an early-music series at Corpus Christi Church in Manhattan; and the Canadian ensemble Tafelmusik.) With concerts by groups such as these taking place virtually in the School's back yard, our students have a unique opportunity to listen to and experience live some outstanding historically informed performances of Baroque music. In our positions as educators and leaders, we owe it to our students to expose them not only to this repertoire, but to historically informed styles of performance; in so doing, unforeseen career opportunities very well might open to them.

Jerome L. Greene Concert Alice Tully Hall Thursday, April 10, 8 p.m. For ticket information, please see the calendar.

The revival of ancient instruments began in earnest on the East Coast of the United States in the 1950s with reproductions of 18th-century harpsichords. Though the harpsichord had been revived in the late 19th century after some 100 years of dormancy, with very few and notable exceptions, the instruments of the first half of the 20th century bore no relationship to historical harpsichords, except for the fact that they were made of wood, had strings and keyboards, and were plucked. Their sound was small, lacking adequate balance between fundamental and overtones; their action was extremely heavy, which forced performers to play much slower than required; they didn't keep the tuning well; and they weighed more than three times as much as historical harpsichords. The instruments of the violin family and the woodwinds followed quickly--whereas viola da gamba players never had to use modern instruments, since gambas were never "modernized." Performances on period instruments, having started with Baroque music, have reached back in time to both the Renaissance and Middle Ages, and forward into late Classical and even Romantic music.

It is important to note that the Juilliard students performing in the Jerome L. Greene concert will not be playing on period instruments; at this time, Juilliard simply does not have the necessary resources in its instrument collection for that. The debate on the relative merits of modern versus historical instruments, which once stirred much heated discussion, is no longer a real debate. Rather, it is widely accepted that playing Baroque music on period instruments enhances the success of the performance. While this topic is too big to be addressed in a short article such as this, it is undeniable that student awareness of historical performance practices has a positive influence on performances even on modern instruments, in choice of tempo, ornamentation, articulation, vibrato, temperaments, rhythmic alteration, and dynamics.

The beginnings of the Baroque in early 17th century Italy--when the violin reached its present shape, stringing, and tuning, and an independent instrumental style with idiomatic writing emerged--will be represented in the Greene concert by violin music including Giovanni Battista Fontana's Sonata Seconda, Biaggio Marini's Sonata Terza, and Girolamo Frescobaldi's Canzona a Canto Solo detta la Bernardinia and Toccata per Spinettina e Violino. This last piece has an obbligato keyboard part, while the others use a basso continuo accompaniment.

We owe it to our students to expose them not only to the Baroque repertoire, but to historically informed performance styles.

The concerto and concerto grosso forms that originated in 17th-century Venice were the result of experiments in contrast and space, perhaps inspired by the architecture of the interior of the Basilica of San Marco. Our program features a concerto, the Concerto in C Major for two trumpets, strings, and continuo, by the Venetian Vivaldi, and two concerti grossi, one by Handel and one by J.S. Bach. The instrumentation in Handel's Concerto Grosso in A Major, Op. 6, No. 11, is one originally conceived in Northern Italy at the end of the 17th century. It consists of a solo ensemble; the concertino, made up of two violins and basso continuo (cello and harpsichord); and a ripieno or concerto grosso consisting of two violins, viola, and basso continuo (cello, bass, and harpsichord).

The concert will begin with the popular "Brandenburg" Concerto No. 6 in B-flat Major. Bach's extant concerti grossi (a great deal of his instrumental music has been lost), the six "Brandenburg" Concertos depart from the late 17th-century Italian model by never using the original concerto grosso instrumentation described above. Instead, the "Brandenburg" Concerto No. 6 has a concertino of low violins--two violas and cello--and a ripieno of low violas da gamba--two bass gamba, violone (a double bass gamba)--and a harpsichord.

Join us for a spirited evening of music making, as we usher in a new and welcome event at The Juilliard School.

Harpsichordist Lionel Party, a faculty member since 1977, was the 2002 William Schuman Scholar at the School.