Harpsichord Lecture-Recital Will Commemorate Death Of Bach

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. - Dr. Claire Detels will perform a harpsichord lecture-recital at 6 p.m. Monday, April 3 in the Fine Arts Concert Hall at the University of Arkansas. The lecture is in commemoration of the 250th anniversary of the death of Johann Sebastian Bach.

The program is entitled "Bach, Before, and After," and will place works of J.S. Bach in context with composers who influenced him as well as composers who have paid homage to Bach since his death.

Works performed will include Bach's Partita #6 in E Minor and George Rochberg's Nach Bach based on the same Partita; Bach's Prelude and Fugue in C Major from the Well Tempered Clavier I and P.D.Q. Bach's Prelude and Fugue in C Major from the Short-Tempered Clavier; the aria "Aus Liebe" from the St. Matthew Passion; and selected works of Girolamo Frescobaldi, Jean-Henri D'Anglebert, Elizabeth Claude-Jaquet de la Guerre, Louis Daquin, Jean-Philippe Rameau, Francois Couperin, Robert Schumann, and Charles Gounod. Professor Detels will be assisted by University of Arkansas flute professor Ronda Mains, soprano Marjorie Taggart, violist Jesse Collett, and flutist Megan Ballif.

Originally scheduled at 8 p.m. on April 3, Detels changed the time to 6 p.m. to avoid a conflict with the NCAA men's basketball finals, which she says, "would have put too many friends and relatives in a painful dilemma."

About the composer to whom the program is dedicated, Detels says, "One concert is hardly enough homage to pay to this incredibly gifted composer. In addition to the skills of harmony and counterpoint that he learned from his musically gifted family and honed over a 60-year period, Bach had as much or more curiosity and fascination in the styles of other composers of his day than has any other musician in the history of music.

"His own works are not only brilliant personal achievements, but they are compendia of the stylistic practices of the late Baroque period, as witnessed by the most brilliant musical mind of the time."

Dr. Detels has been on the music faculty at the University of Arkansas since 1982. Over the past years she has played as soloist and continuo accompanist with many regional early music and chamber music groups such as the Boston Mountain Chamber Players, the Early Music Consort of Kansas City, the Duo Courante, and the Lakeshore Duo, as well as appearing frequently at the University of Arkansas in solo and chamber recitals. Dr. Detels is also head of the music history area at the University and author of the recent book, Soft Boundaries: Re-Visioning the Arts and Aesthetics in American Education.