Categories
Sheet music

Edition Walhall – April 2015

Catena Sammlung (Mus. ms. Landsberg 122-Berlin).
Inta­vo­latura mit Werken von Frescobaldi, Tarditi u. a. für Orgel (oder Cembalo).
(Frutti Musicali 19) Band I (EW 919), 2013.
[vi] + 50pp. €21.80

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This is edited by Jolando Scarpa. There are 30 pieces in Vol. I. Only two each are ascribed to Frescobaldi and Tarditi, the rest are anonymous. It should be interesting getting a class of students to allocate the merits of the pieces by skill as well as by style.


Schmelzer: Sonata Lanterly fur 2 Violinen, Viola da Gamba und Basso Continuo
(Harmonia Coelestis vii.) (EW 763), 2013.
iv + 14pp + 5 parts. €16.50

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The title probably implies a vagabond’s music. The opening section in C starts with that tune. There’s a change to 3/2 at bar 69 which is simpler – but I’m not sure that the editor can call it even a “a sort of galliard”. The 12/8 Allegro starts at bar 112 definitely as a gigue, ending at bar 141 with C tempo again as coda. Adding editorial figures to the bass is, I would have thought, more useful than printing a blank treble stave – the whole point of learning to play continuo is to show the chords, not the notes. It seems odd not to treat the beaming in a more logical way. For instance, in bar 6 vln II has two groups of eight semiquavers, whereas the same phrase in the gamba part is in groups of four semiquavers. It was sensible to include a viola part in C3 clef.


Schmelzer: Ciaccona fur Violine und Basso continuo
(Harmonia Coelestis xi) (EW 648), 2014.
7pp + vln & unbound score for Bc. €10.00

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The ground is (:a|Ae|F.|D.|E:||:e|Ef|D.|E.|A:). [Minims are capitals, crotchets are lower-case.] Rather than bar numbers, it is more useful to number the ground for the violinist, eg 1a, 1b, 2a, 2b etc. The bass & Bc only need to know how many times the bass is played. Simple pieces like this don’t really need the occasional missing barline (eg bars 91 & 96) to be indicated by dotted lines nor do I understand why there is a single eight-note semiquaver group in bar 83.


Georg Muffat: Sonata Violino Solo (Prag 1677) Violine und Basso continuo
(Harmonia Coelestis, x) (EW 874).
vi + 16 + 3 parts. 2014. €14.80

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I first heard this played by John Holloway on Radio 3 and we decided that it needed publication. It’s an amazing piece lasting 198 bars, the first 37 of which are Adagio and the rest Allegros and Adagios which don’t offer gaps for page-turns. My edition (£6.00) is more straight forward and cheaper for those who don’t need a score with realised keyboard.


Georg Muffat: Vier Partiten fur Cembalo (B-Bsa SA 4581)
(Harmonia Coelestis IX) (EW 769).
xi + 28pp. €17.50

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The four Partitas (C, F, E, e) are from the Berlin Sing-Akademie. Three (C, E and e) are new discoveries, while the set in F amplifies the previously known sections. The MS was copied 30 years or more after the elder Muffat had died. These are interesting to play, but it’s not clear whether straight lines are to warn the reader that two notes are in a single part even if not notated with stems in the same direction, though sometimes they might be of some musical significance. The editor seems to be a bit pedantic, but the selection is worth playing.


Clérambault: Simphonia Va : Chaconne fur Violine und Basso Continuo.
(Frutti Musicali 21)
v + 6pp + 2 parts. €11.50

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This does not have the repetitive bass of Schmelzer’s Ciaccona, whose bass has no variety apart from what the players can inspire. This sensibly avoids a blank right-hand stave, though reading it through in my head, far too much seemed to follow the violin – perhaps I’m out of touch! Two pages of MS are shown, displaying nothing odd as in the earlier pieces considered here.


Johann Ulich: Sechs Sonaten fur Blockflöte und Cembalo.
Band I (Collegium Musicum). (EW 921)
34 pp: two scores with facsimiles. €19.80

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I don’t know the composer at all, so it’s worth giving his dates (1677-1742). His father was organist at Wittenberg, which is presumably where he acquired his skill. He was organist at Zerbst from 1708, active in St Bartholomew’s church and as court musician. The VI Sonaten à Flauto con Cembalo was published in 1716 in two separate parts. The treble part is named Flauto, but that almost certainly implies recorder, whose notation is for the G on the bottom line going up two octaves. This has the first three of the six sonatas. There are two copies in score, one of which also has the recorder part in facsimile and the other the bass, both with the original prelims and the three first sonatas. The only complete copy is in the Russian State Library in Moscow, which justifies making the facsimile available. There’s a recording of 2013. Well worth buying.

Clifford Bartlett

Categories
Sheet music

Henle Verlag – April 2015

J. S. Bach: Invention und Sinfonien…
edited by Ullrich Scheideler…
HN 589. ix + 91pp, €18.00.
[HN 590 clothbound, HN 1589 without editorial fingering]

I deliberately ignored the name of the fingerer, and would personally prefer HN 1589. The figuring twists the movement to make everything legato, which is a challenge but a gross oversimplification avoiding variety of texture. Just because a piano usually sounds smoother than a harpsichord, that doesn’t mean that is what you have to do with it. In other respects, though, this is a fine edition, with a thorough editorial commentary. Curiously, the intro­duction is in German, English and French, but the French need to know German or English for the commentary. The unfingered version would be the ideal edition for early performers.


C. Ph. Bach: Flötenkonzert d-moll
Klavierauszug
HN 1207. vi + 37pp, €16.00.

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The pedantic reader will wonder why there is no Wq or Helm number. It is one of those concertos that were written for flute or keyboard – in this case, not for cello as well. The keyboard version is Wq 22 or Helm 425. It is now thought that the flute version existed before the keyboard, so there is no need to doubt its authenticity.


Beethoven: Duo fur Violine und Violoncello: fragment
edited and completed by Robert D. Levin.
HN 1265, €10.00.

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I find it difficult not to think of it as rather curious piano music – perhaps that would be less obvious if the bar lines only went through the staves. Levin has been a regular completer of the incomplete, and this seems to work well – any pro should be able to manage it. It dates from around 1792.


Mozart: Concerto for Horn and Orchestra in D major with two Rondo versions, K 412/514…
completed and edited by Henrik Wiese
Breitkopf/Henle (P-B 15128). [vi] + 29pp, €22.90.

K.412 is the normal form, though it seems now that it is no longer accepted as K412 but put back to K386b (1782). There is no slow movement. The finale comes in two versions. RV 412 was added by Süssmayr, who includes a quote from the Lamentations of Jeremiah, and was probably performed at Easter in 1782. K514 is the sketchy form of Mozart’s version, with comments written above the horn stave and translated on page v. By that time Leutgeb’s musical range was getting smaller, down to a ninth. The introduction isn’t quite as clear as I expected – perhaps the German was clearer. I presume the Henle involvement is in the horn/piano version: the score is in the Breitkopf manner.

Clifford Bartlett

Categories
Recording

Handel in the Wind – The Messiah and Other Masterworks

Red Priest
71:59
Red Priest Records RP012

[dropcap]R[/dropcap]ed Priest albums are always stylish, entertaining and controversial, and this one is no exception. It took me a little while to become accustomed to the sound world of Red Priest – recorder, violin, cello and harpsichord – as applied to Handel’s Messiah but I found I soon entered into it and really enjoyed their imaginative interpretations of such well-known music. There is a lot of very fine, conventional playing, contrasting with sections of virtuosic mania. The arrangements, originally by Angela East but developed and re-worked during the rehearsal process, are extremely ingenious and half the fun lies in picking out the little snippets of other pieces which creep in. There are some wonderful variations for Piers Adams in The Recorder Shall Sound, followed by a lovely duet for bass recorder and violin in Despised and Rejected. Siciliano Pedicuro (“How Beautiful are the Feet”) is another gorgeous duet, this time for violin and cello, and the only funny thing about it is the title. The jazzed-up “Hallelujah”, on the other hand, had me laughing as, after snatches of “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life”, “Czardas” and other familiar tunes, it somehow turned into “Happy Birthday to You”.

“Lascia ch’io Pianga” from Rinaldo marks the start of the second half of the performance with some lovely violin playing by Julia Bishop. The Trio Sonata in F major op.2 no. 4 is the only piece in the programme originally composed for the Red Priest instrumental line-up, five hyper-active fast movements contrasted with beautifully ornamented slow ones. We are allowed to recover from the breath-taking “Harmonious Blacksmith Variations” with the beautiful Largo from Concerto Grosso op.3 no. 2. This leads into some very silly pizzicato which turns out to be the Passacaglia from the Keyboard Suite in G minor which has serious moments before becoming more and more manic. The finale is Zadok the Red Priest in which, as Piers Adams describes in his booklet notes, Zadok the Priest and the Queen of Sheba become unlikely but fervent lovers. Handel finally disappears into the wind with the bonus track, Aria Amorosa taken from the CD Priest on the Run.

Victoria Helby

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[wp-review]

Categories
Book

Schubert’s Winter Journey: Anatomy of an Obsession

by Ian Bostridge
Faber and Faber, 2014
528 pp, £20.00
ISBN 9780571282807

The shocking impact on its first hearers of Schubert’s Winterreise is well documented; his friends were ‘dumb­founded’ by the overwhel­ming power of the grief expressed in the 24 settings of Wilhelm Muller’s poems. It is hugely popular today, but you have to prepare yourself for a performance – rather like going to King Lear – and Bostridge notes that silence usually follows the closing song, The Hurdy-Gurdy Man… the “sort of silence that otherwise only a Bach Passion can summon up”.

This guide to its grip on us, by someone as experienced in singing it and as authoritative about its background as Ian Bostridge, is a most welcome arrival. The book looks at each song in order, giving the text in the original German and then in translation, after which Bostridge explores its historical context then finding “new and unexpected connections – both contemporary and long dead – literary, visual, psychological, scientific and political”. There is a refreshing lack of musical analysis which will recommend him to the general reader, but his wide knowledge of history and art and above all his personal engagement with this great work as an ‘obsessed’ singer make his insights absolutely fascinating.

The range of associations, anecdotes and illustrations make the book an unfolding treasury: behind the songs are perhaps the failed love and dread of approaching death of the tragically young composer, and the repression and censorship of the Biedermeier world of Schubert and his friends.

But they were written in the wake of the “Winter journey to end all winter journeys”, Napoleon’s retreat from Moscow, which Bostridge describes in horrifying detail. This is linked to much later history… for example, the first performance by Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, given when he was a schoolboy on January 30th 1943 and interrupted by a British bombing raid. The terrible conditions of the trenches in Stalingrad are considered, and Bostridge imagines German officers and soldiers listening to a recording made by Hans Hotter: “the Winterreise might have been a consoling companion in that other winter journey in 1942, abstract emotions allowing an escape from the concrete”

More contemporary resonances are struck with C. S. Lewis, Krapp’s Last Tape, Bob Dylan and Amy Winehouse. There are some unique insights given into 19th century marriage laws in Austria, and into changing attitudes to tears and weeping. Snippets of autobiography, illustrating the writer’s own journey, are revealing and touching.

Ian Bostridge’s scholarship and mastery of such a wide range of material (the bibliography alone runs to 10 pages) is hugely impressive but his touch is light; this is immensely readable, enjoyable and enlightening. His ‘obsession’ reaches out to the mind and heart of the reader, ensuring a much deeper response to this transcendental work.

Cathy Martins

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Categories
Book

The Musical Life of Joseph Martin Kraus…

by Bertil H. Van Boer
Indiana University Press, 2014.
[viii] + 371 pp, $55.99.
ISBN 978 0 253 01274 6

[dropcap]A[/dropcap]s someone who has long enjoyed listening to Kraus’s music, it has come as something of a disappointment that he seems to have been a rather unlikeable person. Most of the letters that comprise the first part of this volume are full of requests for money from his parents, and complaints about his lot in life; of course, these are very real considerations for all of us, and it makes it all the more remarkable that he chose to strive to make a musical career rather than become the lawyer his parents would have preferred. And while reading the letters, one constantly has to put on one’s Jane Austen hat and try to understand what he writes in the context of the period – not to mention all the arcane references he shares with his family. In this one is sometimes aided by Van Boer’s footnotes to the 116 letters, but some of his comments are fairly pointless (“The promised piece of music is unidentified”, Letter 54, note 2 is but one example of notes dedicated to mysterious people and things), while others are contentious (discussing the Handel Centenary that Kraus attended in London in 1785, “Presumably the Dettingen “Te Deum,” not the Utrecht “Te Deum.”,” Letter 77, note 2 – need one speculate at all, I would ask).

The book has four appendices, devoted to the composer’s will (and a discussion of the value and dispersal of his estate), and three sets of letters written to Fredrik Silverstolpe (Kraus’s first biographer) – 11 from members of the family and the answers to two questionnaires he had sent them, three that the family had asked Kraus’s former teachers to write and nine from the composer Roman Hofstetter, who was one of the young Kraus’s major influences. The latter tells Silverstolpe (among other things) that “the late Herr Kraus had for the most part nothing good to say about Italian composers”; from his own letters, it seems this extended to the majority of French and German composers, too.

I suppose the real value of this volume (aside from the many titbits of information about travel and postage in the late 18th century) is the insight it gives into the daily drudgery of composers’ lives at this time, constantly struggling to make ends meet, and at the beck and call of fickle royal employers (in Kraus’s case constantly at risk of being ousted by one or other of the factions at the Swedish court); it makes it all the more remarkable that he produced such beautiful music.

Brian Clark

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Categories
Book

Messiah: Understanding and Performing Handel’s Masterpiece

by Helmuth Rilling in collaboration with Kathy Saltzman Romey
Carus-Verlag (CV F 24.070), 2015.
128pp, €16.50.
ISBN 978 3 89948 223 2.

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]his strikes me as the work of an old-fashioned conductor born in 1933 – six years older than me. However, I kept my eyes on the musicology, and was refreshed when the early-instrument movement became common. I sang the work regularly in my teens, at first in the old-fashioned way from the Novello Prout edition of 1902 and later in the over-marked Watkins Shaw edition of 1959. Later I played continuo in the more fashionable style, generally reading from a complete score. I was honoured to be asked to produce a new edition of Messiah by Oxford University Press, published in 1998.[note]My Oxford University Press full-score edition of 1998 lists the 1754 and 1758 payments and parts on p. viii. The premiere in Dublin probably had 20 singers from the two Dublin choirs of Christ Church and St Patrick’s Cathedral. The 1749 must have been larger forces, both for choir and instruments, the latter having senza & con ripieno: there’s no such evidence for the later performances.[/note] I haven’t done any work on it since then.

Rilling has some good points, especially in pointing to Jennens’ complex and skilful arrangement of the Biblical text to inspire the composer. But two basic points are not discussed. (a) How many singers are appropriate for a choir? Information from the Foundling Hospital in the mid 1750s gives fairly accurate details of the forces concerned. I’m surprised that Rilling did not quote them – around 13 singers including soloists: perhaps stage performances may have had a few more singers. Rilling gives no attempts of the size of the choir or the orchestra, yet he quotes specific smaller groups without relating them to the full-scale modern orchestras that he seems to anticipate. (b) What pitch is being used? Rilling comments on high parts without referring to the lower semitone pitch, which must make some difference. And (c) he misunder­stands the presence of dynamics. The general indication of volume in the period is that the opening of a movement uses the full forces played with confidence, but piano is basically to make oboes and bassoons silent and the strings play at a lower level (though not necessarily as soft as piano).

In fact, Rilling fails by adding markings other than those that are obvious for the score but not necessarily for individual forte and piano. What he needs to think about is the shaping of individual phrases. That’s why there are so few indications of musicality within music of the period. More important than marking dynamics is the shaping of the phrase. The first Accompagnato begins with four bars of strings. The dynamic is quite low (but not low enough to warrant piano). The tenor enters on the chord in bar 4 with Com-fort ye. This has three notes: the singer requires presence, but not particularly high volume. The other half of the bar – for two violins & viola – contrasts, but the absence of a bass makes it plausible to keep the strings at a moderate volume: the two sounds are different but the strings do not need to be echoes. Bar 5 starts with the strings, but con Rip (added in 1749) implying a louder volume, but probably not a forte.[note]The OUP edition has included f and p where there are con & senza ripieno marks; Carus omits f and p.[/note] The voice enters on a top E on the second minim, with a longer phrase: Comfort ye my people. The long Com– should have a brief accent from the first letter (C), then cutting back lower at once followed by a crescendo –om– then lightening fort, semiquaver #f and #g, continuing noticeably to ye my leading slightly on to the semiquaver at the end of the bar ye, ending the phrase with a slight rise on the first note of bar 7 people, followed by diminuendo. Throughout there’s a vast pattern of shaping small phrases.

Similarly, choruses should sing in the same way. The opening of the Hallelujah Chorus presents problems since the crucial word has no fixed stress. Bars 4 & 5 make sense with a strong first syllable, but more plausible is accenting the third syllable in bar 6, but in bar 7 the strong point is the first note in the bar again, with a slight diminuendo for the strings to follow more quietly. I’m not necessarily following the accents on the Hallelujahs; they need to be shaped.

This sort of detail is rare. I think that the shaping of most baroque music is discovered within the phrases, without dynamics that became essential in the 19th century, and we eventually find modern 20th-century scores that can have a separate dynamic on and between each note – let alone pieces that flippantly have dynamics in silent bars! There’s too much about size and volume, while the shaping of phrases is ignored. It is ironic that the Carus edition (55.056) of 2009, by Ton Koopman and Jan H. Siemons is recommended by Rilling, but is more in accord with earlier editions over shortening upbeats. Rilling needs to be much more subtle. The premiere of my edition was given by the Huddersfield Choral Society for the famous Christmas events. The choir was quite large, the orchestra a substantial chamber orchestra, a big organ, a packed audience and a marvellous conductor who hadn’t played the piece before. The musical style isn’t entirely dependent on the size of the choir. Rilling oversimplifies by not commenting on different forces – both size and whether modern or early instruments.

However, the remarks on each number will encourage conductors and performers to think about the work, even if it is rather too general and often repetitive.

Clifford Bartlett

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Recording

Music in the time of Velázquez

Ensemble La Romanesca, José Miguel Moreno
62:45
Glossa GCD C80201

[dropcap]I[/dropcap]t is hard to believe that this sparkling recital was originally issued in 1993; the repertoire it explores, that of 17th-century Spanish secular music, remains relatively little known. Much of the vocal half of the disc is devoted to the theatre music of Juan Hidalgo, who was closely associated with the great dramatist Calderón. Marta Almajano’s delicate and precise soprano negotiates his teasing and rhythmically complex lines with aplomb – try the delightful ‘Cuydado, Pastor’ for an appetite whetter. I particularly enjoyed Sebastián Durón’s lovely ‘Sosieguen, descansen’, with its haunting gamba-obbligato’d triple-time refrain. Unfortunately the booklet only gives the texts in Spanish; with such dramatically conceived music, translations would have been very helpful. Moreno and the instrumentalists of Ensemble La Romanesca come to the fore in the remaining half of the disc, with a dazzling display of variations on well-known grounds of the period, e. g., the lovely Sanz Canarios, along with a couple of more extended fantasias; that by Salaverde is especially memorable.

Alastair Harper

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Recording

Schultzen: Recorder Sonatas & anonymous Viola da Gamba sonatas

Barbara Heindlmeier recorder, Ensemble La Ninfea
70:33
Raumklang RK 3402

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]his is the first recording of the six recorder sonatas by Schultzen which were published by Roger in Amsterdam and survive in a copy in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France. Although they appear in Roger’s 1737 catalogue they are known to have existed as early as 1704 and the identity of A. H. Schultzen, the composer named on the print, is somewhat mysterious. The writers of the booklet notes, which are a little confusing at this point, have concluded that he is Andreas Heinrich Schulze, an organist at Hildesheim who attended the same school as Telemann. He appears in Walther’s Musikalisches Lexicon (Leipzig 1732) where there is also a separate adjacent entry for A. Schultsen, a composer of six recorder sonatas who may or may not be the same person. The specified instrumentation is “flauto solo con cimbalo overo fagotto” but La Ninfea’s varying continuo line-up of combinations of gamba, baroque lute, theorbo, harpsichord and organ is very effective and I like the little preludes which introduce some of the movements. The lovely warm performances by Christian Heim and Marthe Perle, who share the solos in the three anonymous gamba sonatas, contrast well with Barbara Heindlmeier’s incisively played allegros and elaborately ornamented slow movements in the recorder sonatas. Readers who wish to play this attractive music themselves will be pleased to know that the very legible Roger edition of the Schultzen sonatas is available on the Petrucci web site. The gamba sonatas are from the library of Princess Louisa Frederica of Württemberg (1722-1791) and are now in the library of the University of Rostock. There doesn’t appear to be an available edition but they would be well worth publishing.

Victoria Helby

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Recording

Allegri: Unpublished works from the manuscripts of the Collectio Altæmps

Musica Flexanima Ensemble, Fabrizio Bigotti
74:06
Tactus TC 550007
Allegri Missa “In lectulo meo” a8, Salutis humanæ sator a8, Cantata (attrib), 5 Canzone
Anerio 3 Canzone
Bonomi In lectulo meo

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he three sets of partbooks which were copied for Duke Giovanni Angelo Altaemps in the early 17th century constitute the most significant set of sources for early Baroque Roman music, both polychoral and small-scale concertato. They are also a rare source for non-Frescobaldi Roman instrumental canzonas, of which five by Gregorio Allegri and three by Giovanni F. Anerio are included here. All are for two instruments and continuo and show well-developed sophistication and variety, especially those by Anerio; it is good to have them recorded here for the first time. They are played by the popular Roman combination of violin and cornett, or in two cases by two violins (oddly, there is no mention of the cornett player among the list of instrumentalists). These are the unpublished works of the CD’s title and are the only works from the Altaemps partbooks here, apart from the motet by the Flemish Bonhomme/Bonomi which provided the model for Allegri’s Mass. The latter is found in a Cappella Sistina choirbook, as are the lamentations and hymn, while the cantata is attributed to the composer in a Naples manuscript. All are competently sung, though the instrumental performances definitely outshine the vocal ones. The singing is patchy, often pedestrian and with suspect tuning but occasionally rising above that to provide convincing moments. The acoustic is overly resonant and the recording tends to emphasise the choir’s insecurities. The cantata is poorly performed, making it difficult to judge its merits; it needs a more leisurely pace and more attention to the words. There are better recordings of most of this vocal music but this is certainly worth listening to for the instrumental canzonas. The booklet does not provide texts, which is a pity, but they can be accessed on the Tactus website.

Noel O’Regan

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Recording

Guillemain: Sonates en quatuors

Ensemble Barockin’
56:26
Raumklang RK 3304
Sonatas in d & G (op. 12, 1743), c & D (op. 17, 1756)

[dropcap]E[/dropcap]MR will readers will surely be able call to mind Quantz’s advocacy of the quartet and his admiration for Telemann’s works in the genre. Well, here’s music that seriously rivals GPT and that’s a clause I never thought I’d type. The instrumentation is the same as the ‘Paris’ set – flute, violin, gamba and continuo – and the musical style is much same with a judicious balance of conversation and counterpoint and even a touch of drama. The playing is very accomplished and the straightforward approach to the continuo (as requested by the composer) is more than welcome. There are a few lumps and bumps in the note though I enjoyed the Guillemain biography. Either the engineers or her colleagues could have done the flautist a few more favours in terms of the instrumental balance but overall this is a welcome discovery. Two of the works are claimed as first recordings.

David Hansell

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