Primary Source Concerts

Primary Source is a new chamber music concert series at the Goethe Institute in Boston, an intimate space seating approximately 100 people. Each concert is built around artifacts or manuscripts or rare editions of a particular work or works, supplied by Schubertiade Music, antiquarian music and manuscript dealer based in Boston. Each concert will begin with a talk by a musicologist about the concert theme and artifacts (which will be on display) and then the performers will use the original manuscript or editions involved, if in that instance, there are indeed useable parts from which to perform. In every case, some early printed or manuscript edition or program or ephemera has guided the programming of the work or works on each program. The series is an attempt to create a new type of audience dialogue around great music, placing it in relationship to musical artifacts related to the history of the music and its performance and the musical material culture in which it was created. Until now, these artifacts have generally been more the province of musicologists and museumgoers, not widely experienced by the concert-going public or even by many performers. In thinking about the "stuff" of music history and of the history of music performance, our senses of how this music can be heard and enjoyed can be enriched.