Categories
Recording

Boismortier: Six Sonates, Op. 51

Elysium Ensemble (Greg Dikmans flute, Lucinda Moon violin)
71:24
resonus RES10171

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]his is the second in a series exploring ‘neglected or newly discovered chamber music 1600-1800’. The first was of Quantz’s Op. 2. There’s certainly plenty to explore with the prolific and very capable Boismortier: has anyone heard or played all eight of his collections of flute duets? Here, however, we have Op. 51 for flute and violin and very charming they are, a most agreeable and varied listen. Much of the time the violin part is a high bass line to more ornate flute writing but there also more democratic contrapuntal movements as well as quasi-three-part writing via double-stopping. The playing is very accomplished (though there is an odd-sounding moment in the middle of track 10) with clear articulation, neat ornaments and sense of space to the phrasing. The booklet is as comprehensive as one could wish (though in English only) but there is one incorrect cross reference to the track list.

David Hansell

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Recording

Rameau: Pièces de clavecin en concerts

Korneel Bernolet, Apotheosis

Et’cetera KTC 1523

[dropcap]I[/dropcap]t may not bother others, but for my taste these performances tinker too much with Rameau’s instrumentation to earn a recommendation. Yes, I know that alternatives are offered by the composer but I find it ineffective and fussy to change instrumentation between the movements of a concert, let alone within them. And while there’s no reason not to transcribe other Rameau movements for these forces please present these movements as a discrete suite. Had J-P wanted the second concert  to start with an overture he’d have written one. There are some nice touches in the interpretations but I’m afraid I may have been too irritated to notice them all. The booklet does not include a track list.

David Hansell

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Categories
Recording

Campra: Messe de Requiem

Salomé Haller, Sarah Gendrot, Rolf Ehlers, Benoît Haller, Philip Niederberger SSATB, ensemble3 vocal et instrumental, Hans Michael Beuerle
59:35
Carus 83.391

[dropcap]C[/dropcap]arus has become quite a force in the vocal/choral music world, publishing excellent editions at sensible prices and a very useful series of companion recordings, some of epic proportions (anyone for 10 CDs of Rheinberger’s sacred vocal music?). They publish both the works on this recording and I for one will be buying and performing them. Campra’s Requiem  may be mysterious in origin and have an unorthodox tonal scheme but it is nevertheless a really fine work, well served by this recording in which the forces are conspicuously all on the same side. The integration of choral, instrumental and solo elements is consistently neat. There are a few intonation issues in the Sanctus  for the baritone soloist and solo ensembles in general do not always meet perfectly on unisons at cadences but none of this prevented my enjoying either the mass or the accompanying De profundis, also a very strong work. The booklet (Ger/Eng/Fre) is not immune from minor translation oddities but is both thorough and complete (essay, biograghies, Latin translated into all the modern languages used elsewhere).
David Hansell

David Hansell

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Categories
Festival-conference

JACOB 3.0

[dropcap]O[/dropcap]n Sunday 4th September I attended the world premiere of a new collaborative venture to promote the life and music of Jakob van Eyck. Known to millions of recorder players around the world due to the many sets of variations he wrote for the instrument based on popular tunes of his day, he is less familiar to the citizens of Utrecht (where he worked for most of his adult life) and of the Netherlands in general. This project, which also opened the 2016 season of Cultural Sundays (Culturele Zondagen), aimed to correct that wrong by making van Eyck’s music relevant in the 21st century, and to give music history a new “local hero”.

photo of performers at Jacob 3.0

The Grote Zaal in the Vredenburg had been transformed into something resembling a jazz club by purple lighting and synthetic smoke. On the central stage there was a large DJ’s mixing table with a variety of turntables and other devices, and a second table with an Apple device. These were the domains of Arjen de Vreede (DJ DNA) and Jorrit Tamminga respectively. I learned that recorder sound samples had been cut onto vinyl discs to allow the background use of chords. Another machine, which had been acquired at great expense from Kraftwerk in the 1990s, transformed sounds into growls. While the DJ accompanied using a variety of techniques, Tamminga sampled and mixed and looped the live performance of star recorder player, Erik Bosgraaf. In a dramatic white suit, he made his entry playing one of the later variations of a van Eyck piece, and worked backward until he ended up at the relatively long notes of the original tune. He then progressed up some stairs and transferred to a metallic instrument upon which he produced flashes of white noises. Up another flight of stairs saw him encounter and play what he later called his great bass ikea flute (similar to those shown below). From here he descended once again to the stage, played some more van Eyck on a different, higher pitched recorder and then walked off, leaving DNA and Tamminga to wind down the accompanying sounds and the impressive light show to a subdued ending.

Paetzold recorders

I must be honest and say that I found the concert a challenge. I understand that van Eyck and his music deserve to be more widely known. I also appreciate that new approaches have to be taken to give it modern currency. The concert hall was packed and the audience highly appreciative of the performance. I found it a powerfully thought-provoking experience – if slightly shocking in the context of the early music which filled the rest of my time in Utrecht – but having one’s preconceptions challenged and boundaries pushed is never a bad thing. Samples from the show are available HERE, so you can listen for yourselves.

Brian Clark

My thanks to:

  • Residenties in Utrecht
  • Festival Oude Muziek
  • Gaudeamus Muziekweek​
  • Culturele Zondagen
Categories
Recording

C. P. E. Bach: Cello Concertos

Nicolas Altstaedt, Arcangelo, Jonathan Cohen
64:37
Hyperion CDA68112
H432, 436, 439 (Wq 170-172)

C. P. E. Bach’s three concertos for cello and strings date from the early 1750s, existing also in versions for harpsichord and flute. Between them they represent fine examples of the variants to be found in Bach’s highly distinctive style, the A minor dominated by the nervous intensity and fragmentary writing typical of Sturm und Drang, the B flat a more relaxed work that comes closer to Rococo sentiment. The most original of the trio is the A major, with its central Largo con sordini, mesto  (sad) that, as Richard Wigmore observes in an excellent note, might be seen as the epitome of the impassioned Empfindsamkeit  style associated with Bach and North German colleagues such as the Benda brothers.

Nicolas Altstaedt is a German-French cellist who has come very much to the fore in recent years both as a modern and period instrument performer. The first thing to say about his performances here is that they are as technically near-flawless as it is possible to come and that the solo playing throughout owns to a rich tonal beauty evoking a bewitching sensuality. If that sounds like sufficient to entice you, then you probably need read no further.

The overriding objectives of both Sturm und Drang  and Empfindsamkeit  – in both their literary and music forms – was to stir the deepest of passions and, in the case of the latter, profoundly touch the heart. Both are open to sentimentality of the modern variety and it is here that my own reservations about the present performances have their roots. Too often I have an uncomfortable impression that they are skating too close to the surface. Yes, Arcangelo’s strings dig into the notes with trenchant vigour and, yes, yearning themes yearn, but awakening the passions or potentially inducing the tears of ladies? Perhaps not. We can take that remarkable central movement of the A major Concerto to provide a clear example that illustrates the point. Here the sighing, longing unison theme sets out too slowly for an 18th-century Largo, tempting Altstaedt and Cohen into a self-conscious interpretation that in its overuse of such imposed effects as portamento loses much of its spontaneity. Interestingly, an earlier version of this concerto I have to hand by Alison McGillivray and the English Concert (harmonia mundi, 2006) takes the movement only marginally faster, but achieves an inner intensity that is for me lacking in the present performance.

A further example of Altstaedt’s self-indulgence that might be cited is his heavily-underscored direct quote of ‘Es ist vollbracht’ (from the St John Passion) in the cadenza of opening movement of the A minor Concerto on the grounds that it bears a resemblance to the cello’s opening theme. Well, so it might, but it’s not that close and the equally vague resemblance of the opening theme of the B-flat Concerto to ‘Where‘er you walk’ does not receive similar treatment. As suggested above, many will be unconcerned by these caveats, choosing instead simply to relish the ravishing beauty of the playing. There are certainly many passages and moments when I can do that, but overall the CD left me less engaged than I felt I should have been.

Brian Robins

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Categories
Recording

The Haydn Album

Daniel Yeadon cello, Erin Helyard harpsichord, Australian Haydn Ensemble, Skye McIntosh (dir).
ABC Classics 481 206
69:25
Cello Concerto in C, Symphony No 6 in D ‘Le matin’, Harpsichord Concerto in D

[dropcap]B[/dropcap]ehind the prosaic title lie vital, perceptive period instrument performances of three of Haydn’s most popular orchestral works. Both the C-major Cello Concerto and the Symphony No. 6, part of a trilogy devoted to the times of the day, date from the mid-1760s, a period when the young Haydn was settling into his new post at Esterházy.

With its many concertante elements, ‘Le matin’ gives a strong sense of the composer delighting in assessing the strength of his newly acquired orchestra. The fine evocation of dawn is here given a real sense of expectancy, though the keyboard continuo flourishes seem to me out of place. When day breaks the main allegro is given a bright-eyed, sharply observed focus, the concertante wind playing full of character and technically outstanding. The improvisatory second movement features a splendidly played violin solo from Skye McIntosh, but the rhythm of the central andante section sounds a little mannered and I’m unconvinced by Erin Helyard’s note arguing justification for the use of organ continuo in this movement. The peaceful suspensions of the final pages sound truly lovely. The Minuet is finely rhythmically sprung, the central trio section again given real character by the bassoonist, while the concertante element is again to the fore in the zestful Finale.

The Cello Concerto opens at an agreeably comfortable tempo allowing full reign to its lyricism, while at the same time not neglecting rhythmic impetus. Daniel Yeadon’s solo playing is technically accomplished and tonally secure across the register, with some particularly sensitive playing in the development. The central Adagio is felicitously phrased, with some subtle use of portamento and rubato along the way, while the final movement carries real nervous intensity in its strong forward momentum. Is the cello a little too forwardly recorded? Maybe, but it’s only in the busy activity of the finale that such thoughts really comes to mind.

Erin Helyard’s performance of the well-known D-major Keyboard Concerto (1784) is given on a copy of a Goujon of 1749 by Andrew Garlick. It’s a mellifluous instrument with an especially attractive silvery upper register, played here by Helyard with firm-fingered accomplishment. If I’m marginally less taken with the performance than the other two, it is because some of the tempo fluctuations made in cause of dramatic effect in the opening Vivace seem to me to come dangerously close to mannerism. But the cantabile of the operatic central Adagio is compellingly laid out, while the famous Hungarian rondo finale is given with all the unbridled élan that anyone could want.

This is a disc that serves as an eloquent reminder that there are few more rewarding experiences than an hour or so spent in Haydn’s company.

Brian Robins

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Categories
Recording

Sweet Melancholy

Works for viol consort from Byrd to Purcell
cellini consort
59:13
Coviello Classics COV 91604

[dropcap]F[/dropcap]or an apparently restricted genre, the English viol consort enjoyed a surprisingly long life. From its first stirrings in the 1520s until Purcell’s final homage to this highly refined and cultivated genre in his great 3 and 4-part Fantazias, the viol consort remained at both court and country the chamber music-form par excellence in England.

The present disc gives a survey of this repertoire for two- and three-part consort across most of the period it was at its highest point. Superficially music for viol consort developed relatively little throughout its long history. We find the same equality of parts exploring an often dense labyrinth of counterpoint that obviously owes its genesis to the great tradition of vocal polyphony. Yet as the two opening and cleverly juxtaposed items on the CD clearly demonstrate there is world of difference between the gravely dignified Fantasia of Thomas Lupo (1571-1627) – a piece that might well qualify under the disc’s ‘Sweet Melancholy’ rubric – and the first of Purcell’s 3-part Fantazias. There, although the emphasis on contrapuntal complexity remains fundamentally unchanged, the textures are more open, with contrasted sections that owe their place to 17th century Italian influences on the form.

Although the discs title might serve as a catchy handle, it also implies a restriction of mood that is not borne out by the repertoire included. Take, for example, the first of three fantasias by Orlando Gibbons, a piece that employs brief, almost fragmentary motifs to create a dynamic thrust that hints at the restless impetuosity of William Lawes. Consider, too, the music of Matthew Locke, given a more generous share than anyone. The first of a pair of 2-part Fantasias finds Locke exploiting chromaticism to disquieting effect, while the second owns to the new expressivity imported from Italy.

The performances by the Swiss-based Cellini Consort are exceptionally accomplished, give or take the occasional rough edge, with richly expressive and musical playing from its three members, all of whom apparently play both treble and bass viol on the disc. The disc might indeed well qualify as a fine introduction to the repertoire, though it should be remembered that much its greatest music was composed for larger consorts.

Brian Robins

Brian Robins

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Categories
Recording

Pleyel: 3 Sonatas for Keyboard, Violin & Cello, B 437-9

IPG Pleyel Klaviertrio
ARS 38 203
TT

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]oday it is hard to imagine that in 1790s London (and indeed in Europe) the music of Ignaz Pleyel enjoyed a reputation nearly the equal of that of Haydn, although efforts to pit them as rivals in England foundered on the friendship between Haydn and his one-time pupil. Incidentally, the generally poor notes for the present disc garble the story of Haydn’s unfortunate ‘appropriation’ of two of Pleyel’s trios; it is surely absurd to suggest that Haydn did so because he recognised that the latter’s fame had ‘eclipsed’ his own.

There were certainly a sufficient number of Pleyel piano trios to choose from. Between 1784 and 1803 he composed no fewer than 49 trios for keyboard, ‘with accompaniment for violin (or flute) and violoncello’ as such works were invariably designated during the 18th century. The present group dates from 1790 and was published in various European centres across Europe. All three are poised, highly agreeable works that display their composer’s craftsmanship in spades; if not the masterpieces the notes would claim them to be, neither do they measure up to H C Robbins Landon’s dismissive verdict that the mature Pleyel ‘debased the whole Haydn style’ when he started to ape the latter’s ‘popular style’. On the present disc both B 438 in G and B 439 in E flat conclude with the kind of ‘catchy rondo’ to which HCRL objects and while that of the G-major is not especially distinguished, among the many felicitous moments in the E flat-major’s Rondo is an episode with a delicious counter-melody for the violin. It is in fact the two-movement B 439 that is probably the pick of this group. The opening Allegro con fuoco of the same work is unusually dramatic by Pleyel’s standards, with some gruff Beethovenian exchanges between the piano’s lower register and the violin. Both the other works are in the expected three movements, the secondary subject of the opening Allegro molto adding spice to the proceedings with touches of chromaticism.

I have little but praise for the period instrument performances of the Austrian-based IPG Pleyel Klaviertrio, which are not only technically highly impressive, but also exceptionally musical. The fluency of fortepianist Varvara Manukyan’s playing of an 1830 Pleyel is especially admirable, the passagework absolutely even, beautifully phrased and cleanly articulated. This is one of an extensive series issued under the auspices of the Internationale Ignaz Pleyel Gesellschaft (IPG), based in the composer’s birthplace, Ruppersthal. I’m rather ashamed to say I haven’t previously come across it, but will now certainly look out for future additions.

Brian Robins

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Categories
Recording

Handel: Apollo e Dafne, HWV122

Ensemble Marysas, Peter Whelan
69:00
Linn Records CKD 543
+Il pastor fido (Overture)

A sparkling new recording of Handel’s lovely pastoral cantata

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he composition of Apollo e Dafne  was probably begun towards the end of Handel’s extended youthful Italian tour, but it was completed (and presumably first performed) in Hanover, after he had become Kapelleister to the Elector, in 1710.

It is a work of considerable dramatic force and subtlety. Dafne’s well-known physical metamorphosis into a laurel tree, just as she is on the point of being ravished by Apollo, is matched by Apollo’s mental transformation, from self-satisfied confidence to humility; the music, as so often with Handel, characterises both with unerring skill. Try, e. g., either of Apollo’s first two arias – both are in major keys, with triadic and wide-ranging melodic lines and much showy coloratura. Then compare these with his (and the cantata’s) final movement – a deeply felt minor-key tribute to the newly-created laurel tree, with a sublimely simple, syllabically set, melody of few notes and narrow compass. Lest we should think Apollo’s change of heart too abrupt, Handel prepares the ground for us with his deeply lyrical ‘Come rosa’ in the midst of the cantata, with its luscious cello obbligato.

Dafne, too, is drawn with much care. Her delicious opening ‘Felicissima quest’alma’ is the essence of pastoral innocence, the upper strings pizzicato, the bass ‘arco’, a wondrous oboe obbligato and a vocal line of seemingly-endless melody. Her energetic next aria, after Apollo declares his passion, is in complete contrast – her repeated ‘sola’ makes her angry rejection of his advances abundantly clear.

Their two duets are also extremely cleverly contrasted; the first is a virtuoso slanging-match, with both voices hurling similar phrases back and forth. The next, however, pits Apollo’s slow, flute-laden lovesick yearnings against Dafne’s rapid rejections, with no shared musical material whatever. The lady is clearly not for turning….

The final chase is vividly portrayed – rapid solo violin figuration is pursued by slower solo bassoon, and all comes to an abrupt stop, just when one’s ear expects a da capo, in tumultuous accompagnato, as Apollo is thwarted.

Mhairi Lawson, as Dafne, and Callum Thorpe, as Apollo, are in complete command of all this glorious music, and bring it to life with enormous dramatic energy, ably partnered by Ensemble Marsyas’s superb playing (particular plaudits to all the splendid ‘obbligatisti’!) Peter Whelan shows equal virtuosity as bassoon soloist and as overall director.

The orchestra (and solo instrumentalists) shine further in the extended overture to Handel’s second London opera, Il Pastor Fido, (which may well have originated in Hanover as a separate orchestral work). I particularly enjoyed Peter Whelan’s bassoon solo in the Largo 5th movement, and Cecelia Bernardini’s sparkling passagework in the finale (Handelians might recognise the latter’s later reincarnation in the Organ Concerto, op. 7 no. 4)

The disc is completed musically by a couple of rarely heard movements for wind band (with energetically improvised percussion from Alan Emslie) which may have been written for Handel’s opera orchestra in the 1720s.

David Vickers provides characteristically scholarly and informative booklet notes.

Alastair Harper

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Categories
Festival-conference

A wonderful weekend in Utrecht

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he Utrecht skyline may have changed dramatically since I last attended the early music festival, but some things remain reassuringly familiar – the friendliness and helpfulness of the Dutch, the wonderful array of foreign cuisine available to visitors, the quaint old buildings in the middle of the Netherlands’ fourth largest city and – most important of all – the fantastic quality of the concerts!

I was fortunate enough to enjoy several events on the last weekend of the festival which this year was devoted primarily to Venice. An hour or so after being guided to my extremely comfortable hotel (a stone’s throw from the main railway station and a brief walk from the main focus of the festival, the city’s amazing multi-space music venue, the Vredenburg), I attended one of the Eventalks, a series of diverse seminar-like lectures covering a broad spectrum of topics related to the theme of the festival and framed by music. Sandra Ponzanesi‘s “Postcolonial Italy: Quo vadis?” sought the roots of at least some of the current migrant crisis in Italy’s rather tardy forays into the European land grab in Africa; the suppression of native cultures and denial of education (typical of all colonial powers) and later generations’ acceptance of responsibility for such actions adds another level of meaning to how the death toll amongst aspiring migrants risking the crossing to an Italian island (the closest outreach of Europe to the Libyan coast) is perceived not only in Italy but elsewhere in the world. Olga Pashchenko  introduced and followed the talk with a nicely contrasted selection of harpsichord music by Bernardo Storace.

Later even that planned, my second musical event of the evening was a concert of Monteverdi by Cantar lontano, directed by Marco Mencoboni. As an earlier concert had overrun, we were obliged to wait for a while before we started, but the organisers very kindly laid on liquid refreshments – though it seemed a great idea at the time, as the minutes ticked by and the red wine kicked in, the likelihood of falling asleep became a very real one… Finally we started a little over half an hour late; however, barely had the first segment ended than another large crowd joined the audience, so the first piece was reprised to welcome them! This was followed by the Lamento dells ninfa, one of the composer’s (rightly!) most popular pieces. If the singing was dramatic, there was something of Monteverdi’s own instruction missing – while the three men’s voices are to keep time with the descending continuo bass, the soprano (who here had the most glorious voice!) is instructed to sing rather more freely, as if agitated by the letter she is supposedly reading. Similarly in Il combattimento  that followed, Tancredi and Clorinda (the protagonists of the work) were placed on opposite sides of the stage, facing outwards and rarely interacted with one another; the narrator, on the other hand, wandered around the stage – at times looking rather manic, if I’m honest – but giving the most passionate delivery of the wonderfully expressive text I have ever heard; indeed, although my lady friends had a particular interest in one of the lutenists, for me Luca Dordolo as Il testo was the star of this show. Another highlight was the virtuoso wide-ranging voice of the bass, and the pointed dissonant chords in Hor ch’el ciel.

On Saturday morning, I joined a guided tour of the Dom tower where the town carillonneur, Malgosia Fiebig, gave an amazing recital including three of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. Climbing more than 100m above the city was a thrill in itself, with the history of the building explained along the way. Then, after she played another concerto by Il prete rosso, she explained how, as well as the automated quarter hourly tones, the instrument can, and is, regularly used for recitals. The physicality of playing the carillon has to be seen to be believed, and yet she was able to coax different dynamic levels from what seemed an uncompromising instrument – it was very impressive!

One of my Utrecht hosts then took me and a colleague on a boat trip around the Utrecht canals with Wineke van Muiswinkel, one of the organisers of JACOB 3.0 (about which more HERE), which was a nice way to find out more about the city’s rich history. More of the afternoon was spent on touristy activities (including a trip to the charming Spelklok Museum – its motto “the most cheerful museum in the Netherlands” says it all!) and then I took in the various stalls at the early music trade exhibition in the Vredenburg. Mostly these consisted of instrument makers, but there were a couple of publishers, some music/book shops, and one promoting Alexander Technique.

The main event in the evening was Ensemble Correspondances, directed by Sébastien Daucé, exploring Charpentier’s time in Italy and its possible influence on his own music. This required a very large ensemble, since the main work in the second half was his mass for four choirs, which were assembled in four corners of the centrally placed main stage. They had ended the first half with other four-choir music but two of the choirs had been elevated to opposite galleries for this which gave an entirely different aspect to the music due to dynamic variation between the groups. Other music included a psalm setting for solo bass with violins, a motet for two sopranos with cornetti, and – for me the pinnacle of many high points – a portion of Legrenzi’s sequence for the dead which, as I have commented before, in at least one movement sounds more French than Charpentier’s himself; perhaps that is why it drew these performers’ attention? While I shared my friends’ overall delight with a fabulous concert, I had reservations about the orchestration of such music (not only doing so at all, but the actual choice and numbers of instruments, and – for example – the allocation of cornetti to double soprano lines of the two “less important” choirs), and I found the constant relocating of players and singers around the space distracting (especially for an encore).

The first half of Sunday was devoted to Jacob van Eyck. Well known by recorder players in the UK (where his increasingly virtuosic variations on popular tunes of his day often feature on exam syllabi) but unfamiliar apparently to the majority of Utrechters (as well as entertaining the population in a local park with his playing, he was among the city’s first carillonneurs!), van Eyck has largely been put on the map by Dr Thiemo Wind. He led a guided tour of the principle locations associated with the composer, explaining the history of the city as he went and offering contemporary images of the city that van Eyck never saw – he was blind! A rather special moment was Wind’s rendition of a set of variations on “What shall we do in the evening?” in the beautiful cloisters of the Domkerk.

A couple of hours later van Eyck’s music provided the inspiration for a new project, JACOB 3.0 – check out my review HERE.

The afternoon concert that I opted to go to was given by Cappella Romana, directed by Alexander Lingas, in the Willibrordkerk. The programme featured sacred music for the imperial Russian chapel by composers during the reign of Catherine the Great. Two not especially well-known Italians, Baldassare Galuppi and Giuseppe Sarti, were interspersed with pieces by Berezovsky and Bortnyansky and other slightly later Russian composers. The music was only occasionally formulaic in the sense that there were verses and responses – sometimes, rather oddly for unaccustomed ears, simultaneously. Otherwise, these were fine motets, beautifully sung by twelve voices, with solos all taken by members of the choir. If there was something that I missed it was the dark vowels typical of that part of the world, and the lack of any excursions off the bottom of the bass clef which are so typical of later orthodox music. And while it was technically impressive that the huge conference booklet reproduced the Old Church Slavonic texts in their beautiful script, perhaps a transliteration might have been a more useful addition to the Dutch translation.

After yet another delicious curry from NAMASKAR (a fantastic Indian place directly opposite the music venue!) I went to my second Eventalk, this time a very brief discussion of two early republics – the Venetian and the Dutch. James Kennedy touched on aspects of both that modern republics might like once again to consider adopting; honesty (the concept of which, he told us, was a renaissance extension of the notion of honour which came about through the development of international trade), compassion for the poorest in society (for both the Venetians and the early Dutch this was considered an obligation) and a sense of communal agreement in the political sphere – decisions should be made by discussion and compromise for the greater good of society at large, rather than a few vested interests. As usual, the talk was framed by keyboard music, once again nicely played (on organ and harpsichord) by Olga Pashchenko.

Then it was time for the very last concert of the season. Festival director Xavier Vandamme  gave a very brief introduction, confirming that the 2016 was the most successful Festival oude muziek in recent years, with ticket sales up over the past seven years by an incredible 80%!

There is a tradition of saving the best till last and in Le concert spiritual and the consummate showman Hervė Niquet, Utrecht certainly did that. Vivaldi with only women’s voices was the theme; not a new idea, of course, but there were slight differences in approach here. Not only were the tenor and bass parts transposed up an octave, but the solos were all sung chorally (so even those who sang tenor in the chorus also sang the solo soprano parts, etc.). The concert was exhilarating – tempi were brisk, the singing was fabulous, the instrumental playing was incisive and Niquet took every opportunity to play with the audience – which they lapped up and afforded him (of course) a standing ovation. Yet, from a musicological point of view, or even a HIP perspective, there were deficiencies, too – where were the wind instruments? (That said, I doubt if a baroque trumpeter could have played the final movement at such a speed!) If all the voices sing the solos, why don’t all the cellos play the continuo part? Why did one from each orchestra play some? Why were there even two orchestras, when only one work required that layout? One might argue that none of that matters, but if the programme notes ask “Does this mean we more closely approach Vivaldi’s intentions?”, such aspects of performance practice must be brought into question.

But let’s not end on a negative note! These were two and a half days of fairly hectic activity – though the festival and its fringe events offered many, many more! – giving a taste of music and life in Venice and its influence in musical history from Willaert (one of the feature composers, though I did not manage to hear any, alas…) to Catherine the Great’s Russia. Terrifically well-attended concerts, with deeply appreciative audiences and an army of ever-smiling, always helpful festival staff – Utrecht, thank you; it was an absolute pleasure!

Brian Clark

Thanks to the following for arranging my visit:

  • Residenties in Utrecht
  • Festival Oude Muziek
  • Gaudeamus Muziekweek​
  • Culturele Zondagen
  • Centre for the Humanities
  • Tourisme Utrecht

And on a personal note, I’d especially like to thank Marthe van der Hilst, Lidy Ettema and Juliëtte Dufornee for making my stay such fun!