The majesty of a baroque-style bow, as shown by Ana Ackerberg '95, HLS '00.

This Sunday, a set of baroque-style violin bows donated to the Memorial Church by the Business School will be used in a live, early music performance.

The concert of baroque orchestral music, to be performed by the Harvard Baroque Chamber Orchestra at the Memorial Church, will inaugurate the set of violin bows. The gift was made in honor of Professor Samuel L. Hayes III, Jacob H. Schiff Professor of Investment Banking Emeritus, who retired last fall. Hayes, along with his wife, Barbara, are supporters of the Harvard Baroque Chamber Orchestra at the Memorial Church, and of other student early music productions at Harvard. This gift supplies the appropriate tools for playing music of the baroque period.

It was a lack of knowledge of early music performance practice that sparked the creation of the Harvard Baroque Chamber Orchestra.

"When I first arrived at Harvard, I was frustrated by this lack of knowledge when I would engage student orchestras to accompany the Harvard University Choir in concerts at the Memorial Church," says Murray Forbes Somerville, University organist and choirmaster. "It surprised me, as Boston is the only U.S. city with two professional baroque orchestras." Initially, Somerville and chamber orchestra co-founder Robert Mealy '87 hoped to be able to afford one bow a year. "This gift has enabled us to realize our dreams much faster, and the Church and orchestra are very grateful," says Somerville.

One of the newly donated bows is used by Wesley Chinn '98 during a rehearsal for thie weekend's concert.

The design of violins has changed over time as the style of music has changed. For example, modern violins evolved because of the change in concert venues. "The 'modern' bow that we all recognize from symphony orchestras was invented in the 19th century to play the modern music of the time," explains Mealy. "It was created to realize an aesthetic of long, seamless melodies, with a brilliant carrying power necessary to fill the new large symphony halls.

"Baroque bows are the sophisticated technology that was designed to play baroque music," says Mealy. Baroque bows are lighter, more flexible, and can easily realize the highly inflected musical rhetoric of their time; they bring out all the spirited gestures that make up this music. The donated bows are constructed after an 18th-century design and are made of snakewood, a wood with a speckled brown and black grain (hence the name). The major physical differences between these and modern bows are the wood, the lighter weight of the stick, the narrower horse-hair, and the lighter tip, which features an elegant 'swans head' on the end.

Tis Marang, the bowmaker, is a resident of the Netherlands, and makes between 50 and 100 baroque bows each year. The bows are used by players in many top European and American period orchestras.

This gift of bows is exciting because it allows a group like the Harvard Baroque Chamber Orchestra to play early music as it was intended by the composer.

"Any string player truly interested in Bach, Vivaldi, Corelli, Purcell, and dozens of other great composers will want to see how it feels, and how it sounds, to try the music with the equipment for which it was written," says Thomas Kelly, professor of music. "These bows are a resource that ought to have the widest possible utility." The bows are an especially important resource as Boston is known as a center of early music in this country, but surprisingly little in the way of early music performance education is available at local universities.

"Having the appropriate tools for music-making is an important part of the early music movement," says Wesley Chinn '98, founding president of the Harvard Early Music Society and a baroque violinist. "Advancing early music at Harvard can play a key role in fostering the future of this genre in America."

The concert, at 3 p.m. on Sunday, March 7, will feature music by Bach, Vivaldi, Corelli, Purcell, and Handel, and will be directed by Somerville and Mealy. Tickets are $10 ($5 for students and senior citizens) and are available at Sanders Theatre box office and at the door.