Sunday, January 18, 2026
7:00 PM
On WCRB In Concert with Boston Baroque, experience the brilliance and emotional depth of the Baroque era with a program of masterworks from some of its greatest composers. Mezzo-soprano Meridian Prall brings expressive power to Giovanni Battista Ferrandini’s Il Pianto di Maria, a poignant and rarely heard gem. The orchestra shines in a vibrant suite from Rameau’s Les Boréades, Bach’s joyful Sinfonia to Cantata BWV 42, and the timeless elegance of Handel’s Water Music.
Boston Baroque
Christian Curnyn, conductor
Meridian Prall, mezzo-soprano
J.S. BACH Sinfonia to Cantata BWV 42, Am Abend aber desselbigen Sabbats
Giovanni Battista FERRANDINI Il Pianto di Maria
Jean-Philippe RAMEAU Suite from Les Boréades
George Frideric HANDEL Water Music, Suite in F Major
See the program notes for this concert.
Christian Curnyn spoke with Katie Ladrigan about being Boston Baroque's first-ever guest conductor, the moment that sparked his love for Rameau, and how he's been conducting Handel since the ripe old age of 2.
INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT:
Katie Ladrigan I'm Katie Ladrigan with WCRB, here with British conductor Christian Curnyn. Welcome!
Christian Curnyn Lovely to be here.
Katie Ladrigan You are having your Boston Baroque debut, which is also the first time they've ever had a guest conductor. How did this whole thing come about?
Christian Curnyn Well, Sarah [Radcliffe-Marrs] phoned me and offered me the gig, or phoned my agent, and I was very excited, obviously. And I said, absolutely. And then it was only after, when I met Sarah - she came to London in the summer, and we had a little meeting, a coffee - and she told me that basically this was the first time ever that the orchestra had been conducted by someone else, which is very daunting. I mean, Marty [Pearlman] has got such a reputation as somebody-- I mean, he started when Baroque music was really just starting out. And he's now carried the orchestra through this amount of time, which is amazing. So it's a real honor, actually.
Katie Ladrigan Oh of course, yeah. And it's so nice for them to get to experience their history, but also with a fresh take on things as well.
Christian Curnyn Yeah, well exactly. I mean it's evolution, not revolution. I don't want to jump in and say, we're going to do this and we're gonna do this and we’re gonna do this differently. I just want to work with what they are.
Katie Ladrigan Was it really up to you to craft the program that you wanted to do?
Christian Curnyn Well, absolutely. I was given carte blanche to do it, but then there was obviously some things I picked that didn't quite work because somebody else wanted to do that, or they had done that recently with Marty. So the Bach cantata movement came in quite late, but I'm so pleased. It's the most amazing piece. I mean, basically, it's a cantata that was written for the first Sunday after Easter, and it's about the resurrection of Jesus. And the joy which is in this music is just extraordinary. I mean, it just puts a huge smile on my face.
Katie Ladrigan Yeah, it exudes that sort of sunshine, with the walking music...
Christian Curnyn Yeah, exactly.
Katie Ladrigan Was there any of these four pieces that was really first on your mind?
Christian Curnyn The Rameau, Les Boréades, because that's the piece that I take around with me, basically.
Katie Ladrigan Oh, it's sort of like your calling card!
Christian Curnyn I just love it so much. Orchestras cannot fail to be entranced by it, basically, whether they're modern orchestras or baroque orchestras, they all come out smiling. I mean, it’s really extraordinary. And also the Ferrandini piece, which, again, is a knockout piece of music. It's something I've known very well through listening to it, but I'd never conducted it, so it was a lovely opportunity because Sarah said, why don't we get a mezzo? We looked long and hard. Luckily, in the end, Meridian [Prall] came along, who is such a talent. Also her intelligence when it comes to the music and her ideas of ornamentation and speeds and things… She's clearly got her own ideas about the piece, which is always the best when you have a...
Katie Ladrigan Creative tension, yeah. So you're coming to this piece for the first time, having known it for years. I know it was attributed to Handel for a very long time. Does that influence how you look at it, or do you look as that composer in his own right?
Christian Curnyn Well, I mean, basically it was an anonymous score. And at that time, they looked at it and said, this is amazing, it's so good, it could only be by Handel. And actually it's about as unlikely a Handel piece as any. And then basically, now we think that it's by Ferrandini, written around 1735. And I think it probably is by him, but we don't actually know. It's still a mystery, we can't absolutely say it's Ferrandini, but it's certainly more Ferrandini than Handel!
Katie Ladrigan So it's still a Baroque masterpiece, but it's that mystery that still remains.
Christian Curnyn And it's got that kudos now of a masterpiece.
Katie Ladrigan Yeah, as more people hear it as well, you get that as well. Going back for a moment to the Rameau, what was your first experience of that piece? What made you choose it for your calling card?
Christian Curnyn It wasn’t really about particularly that piece. My first experience of Rameau was a production of Castor and Pollux that I did in ENO with a wonderful Australian director called Barrie Kosky who just, again, it was an extraordinary production and also it was an orchestra of modern instruments, and lots of people at that time said modern players can't play Rameau. You know, it's just too weird. And actually, modern players play it extremely well. And a lot of the time I think they play it better.
Katie Ladrigan Oh, okay.
Christian Curnyn It's just such extraordinary music anyone can play, that's the thing, and this wonderful, crazy production that Barrie did, it all sort of melded into one thing. It was extraordinary and wild, and I just got the bug, and then I did Platée in Stuttgart, and Zoroastre in Berlin. I sort of was on a roll of doing Rameau, so it was great fun. The more you notice that music, the more you're into it, the more you get. It's so strange and weird that you have to sort of really throw yourself into it. Doing three or four different productions, you really... At the end I thought, actually I've sort of got 10% of this now, but there's still a lot to go, because it's so extraordinary.
Katie Ladrigan That's such an exciting moment when you have that realization of, that you know something, but you see how much more there is to dig into it. That brings me to a question about the Handel, the Water Music, because it is so well known, really one of his most popular pieces. For you, is it a matter of reinterpretation or bringing it to a new audience? What is that like?
Christian Curnyn The Water Music is sort of, it sounds odd to say, but it's like music by numbers.
Katie Ladrigan Okay.
Christian Curnyn It's very simple. It's so extraordinary, but never really modulates. Apart from the last movement, from F Major you get the odd sort of modulation, but... It's for basically a very big pool party. Going down the Thames, the King was there, and Handel might have been in his yacht because there's a picture, a portrait with Handel and the King together, but I think he can't have been there. I'm sure Handel would have been on the yacht with the 50 musicians playing his music. It's just, again, so joyful. Simple, joyful, but amazing, you know, nothing out of place. Just beautiful. Extraordinary.
Katie Ladrigan So for you, is that really where Baroque music comes from, is the sense of joy?
Christian Curnyn Well, absolutely. Even the Ferrandini, which is all about pain, but it's the joy of pain. It's the sort of agony and the ecstasy mixed up together. So it's a different sort of joy.
Katie Ladrigan Like the Catharsis of the sorrow, yeah. I wanted to ask you a little bit about your background. I know you started with the recorder and then went on to trumpet.
Christian Curnyn Yeah.
Katie Ladrigan And then to harpsichord, so how have those instruments influenced…?
Christian Curnyn I sort of majored in trumpet most of my student life as a schoolchild and then went to university in York and was predominantly a trumpet player. I then started harpsichord, actually started just before that. I wasn't really that keen. I had a go at it and I had a little go at sort of direction from the keyboard, but as I was saying, I didn't think I'd have a career in music at all. And it was only going to see this amazing production of Ariodante at ENO that really gave me the buzz, I remember saying to myself, "In ten years I want to be doing that." It was ridiculous. My friend Rachel started laughing next to me, because I was totally besotted with what I'd just seen. I couldn't even get up in the interval. I said, "I want to do that in ten years." So I just started to put on my little things, little operas myself, got a few invitations. And then 12 years later I got to ENO and conducted there. So, I didn't quite make it in ten years, [laughter] but I got there in the end.
Katie Ladrigan Aw, that’s amazing. You're going to be having your first rehearsal coming up. What are you most looking forward to with Boston Baroque?
Christian Curnyn Just getting to know them. Having a nice atmosphere, playing through this wonderful music, I hope feeling their energy, positive energy from them for this music, and just hearing them and working with them really. As I said, you know, I don't want to make things incredibly different. There's not time for that, but I hope I can affect things in a little way, maybe just small matters.
Katie Ladrigan Bring your point of view.
Christian Curnyn Yeah, exactly.
Katie Ladrigan To the things they already do so well.
Christian Curnyn Yeah, exactly.
Katie Ladrigan Ah, amazing! So, we're starting with this Bach Sinfonia, so beautiful, it's sort of that joyful opening moment. And then moving on to the agony and ecstasy, as you said, of the Ferrandini. And then, moving on to the Rameau with the idea of Les Boréades, the North Winds, and that sort of element. I've been curious, because of your background with recorder and trumpet, this idea of breath and breathing, and then you're talking about the winds.
Christian Curnyn Well that's one thing actually. I think, if I can blow my own trumpet, is I think I can-- obviously I breathe with the singers, that's not difficult, but I can breathe with the orchestra to give them space, but without making it sort of stop. Because I breathe, still… when I think about the music, I always think as if I'm playing it on the trumpet. I don't think of it as a keyboard player, whereas most conductors I think trained initially as keyboard players. In Britain a lot of the people doing Baroque opera and Baroque music trained as organ scholars at the colleges in Cambridge and Oxford and they're wonderful, wonderful musicians, but they don't breathe sometimes. Just occasionally you get that... They don't quite give it... and I don't mean giving [GASPS] huge things to the singers, but the music needs to breathe as well. It's all about rhetoric. It is all about creating sentences with the music.
Katie Ladrigan A conversation. I was wondering, the Handel: if you sort of recall your first experience conducting it and what that was like?
Christian Curnyn The first, I can tell you this, the first experience I had conducting Handel was when I was about two.
Katie Ladrigan Two?! Oh my goodness!
Christian Curnyn When I was two, my dad had the Water Music and the Fireworks Music and he used to always put on that Fireworks Music, and I would apparently cry because I didn't like that. I didn't like all the [EXPLOSION SOUNDS] sort of hugeness of it, but when he turned the disk over and it was the Water Music, I would stand and do this [conducts the air]. So I don't know whether I was being touched by Handel at an early age. [laughter] Dad always said, I always seemed to be in time with the music. It was weird for such a little one.
But seriously, the first time I conducted it was... Yeah, in Budapest, Budapest Festival Orchestra, which is an amazing orchestra, incredible. And what was incredible about them was that they were doing a big Mahler symphony, and I went to hear a little bit of the end of the rehearsal because Iván Fischer was conducting. And then they stopped, and everyone left, and then a couple of them were sticking about. And then, they put down the modern violins, and they picked up the Baroque violins. And they just did it. And the one thing I thought was absolutely beautiful about that orchestra, and I would love to get people to do this, is that every session that Iván did with them, whatever the repertoire, whether it was Mozart or whether it was Tippett, or you know, anything in between, they started by playing a Bach chorale.
Katie Ladrigan Okay.
Christian Curnyn And it just calmed the whole thing. They just listened to each other. He wouldn't conduct. They all played and they just would breathe together. He just said it set everything up. And it was amazing. I heard them do that. Then I heard them start and it was as if they were entering in on something that was already happening.
Katie Ladrigan Of all these pieces, putting them together, what is the sense that you really want the audience to walk away with?
Christian Curnyn Transcendental joy.
Katie Ladrigan Transcendental joy. I love that. It's so wonderful. Well, I want to thank you so much, Christian Curnyn. It has been a wonderful interview and I'm so looking forward to hearing the concert.
Christian Curnyn It’s gonna be fun. Thank you.