Year: 2016

Trondheim Barokk, Vox Nidrosiensis (Siri Thornhill & Ingeborg Dalheim, Ebba Rydh, Hugo Hymas, Håvard Stensvold SSATB), Sigiswald Kuijken
48:54
K617 Chemins du Baroque CDB-003

[dropcap]S[/dropcap]igiswald Kuijken directed these performers, based notionally in Trondheim, for a festival concert in Sarrebourg in 2015. Like other takes on the great corpus of Bach cantatas by groups who are attempting to show us his works in a wider context, this pair is presented in the wider context of the musical expression of the final conflict between the forces of good and evil in the late 17th century. Buxtehude’s cantata Befiehl dem Engel, dass er komm  (BuxWV10) and Christian Geist’s Quis hostis in cœlis  provide the context for Bach’s compositions for Michaelmas in 1724 and 1726.

The CD opens with the vigorous singing of the opening chorus of BWV 19, where the blend and clarity of the vocal ensemble is immediately apparent as there is no instrumental preamble. The trumpets are led by Jean-François Madeuf, so their ringing harmonics are true, and the clean playing of the 2.2.1.1 strings and the four-part oboe band provides an exciting and balanced accompaniment. What is immediately apparent is that in these performances the upper voices do not dominate the four-part singing, as so often happens when four professional singers are pressed into becoming a ‘coro’, with the soprano and tenor singing as if they were leads in a heroic opera.

The soprano has a young and sparkly voice, blending with the others when required, but never overpowering them, though sometimes I was left wishing for a more instrumental tone and less vibrato. A cleaner, more trumpet-like sound would have helped her in 130.i. She sings fluidly with the oboes d’amore and the fagotto in 19.ii, almost a four voice intermedium, but sometimes doesn’t know where to breath in the long phrases. It is the tenor who has the gem of the arias in this cantata (19.iv). His singing is both crystal-clear and lyrical, and the long lines of this extended siciliano, over which the trumpet plays the serene chorale Herzlich lieb hab ich dir, is a model of sustained, apparently effortless phrasing. His singing in this aria has the balance, clarity and sheer musicality that so often eludes the members of a vocal quartet as they come to terms with the fact that they are equal members of an ensemble that includes both instrumentalists, as in the soprano aria, and other voices as in the soprano/tenor accompagnato in 130.iv. The tenor, too, has the charming gavotte of an aria with a traverso in 130.v, Laß, o Fürst der Cherubinen. This young English singer has not only a wonderful voice, but also the skill and imagination to use it in an intelligent and beguilingly modest manner.

To the bass falls the battle stuff, and he is at his best in the heroics of 130.iii, an aria in essentially 12/8, Der alte Drache brennt vor Neid, where the three trumpets and timpani form the accompanying band. This is great playing – but no wonder Bach got the string band to play the brass parts when the cantata was re-presented in the 1732: this must be about as demanding as it comes! The alto on has one recitative to sing on her own in the Bach, but you hear her rich voice well in the choruses and chorales.

The Buxtehude is more straightforward, with two violins and basso continuo with four singers; the Geist is more colourful, and has its origin in a cantata to encourage the young king on his accession in 1672 in his struggle to establish his reign amid the forces ranged against him. Here five voices are joined by five-part strings, two trumpets and continuo. Like the Altbachische archiv, these works are valuable for the context they provide for Bach’s cantatas as well as frequently being fine music in themselves. The notes help the listener understand the context of both these pieces from the often turbulent years of the 17th century.

This is a bright and exciting live performance that the recording captures well, even if some of the vowel sounds might have been smoothed out in a studio recording. I enjoyed it greatly and it is good to hear the splendid Geist, which I’ve never met before.

David Stancliffe

The Bach Players, Nicolette Moonen
73:22
Hyphen Press Music 010
+ Buxtehude: Quemadmodum desiderat cervus, Sonata in C BuxWV266; Erlebach: Sonata in F

[dropcap]A[/dropcap]s well as the iconic BWV 140, this CD has two cantatas by Buxtehude on the chorale Wachet auf  (BuxWV 101 and 100), a Ciaconna aria for tenor, two violins and basso continuo (BuxWV 92) and a sonata for two violins, viola da gamba and basso continuo (BuxWV 266) and a remarkably free sonata for violino piccolo, viola da gamba and basso continuo by Phillip Heinrich Erlebach (1657-1714).

As always with Nicolette Moonen’s Bach Players, there is splendid playing, especially from the strings. The sonatas – new to me – are captivating in their fluid and lyrical forms, and the playing – the tone so pure as to be almost of a glass harmonica quality, especially of the violino piccolo – clearly a wonderful instrument (by John Barrett after Stainer from 1725 and lent by the Royal Academy of Music) with a whole page of the interesting, informative and well balanced booklet devoted to it – means that I cannot imagine a finer performance of the violino piccolo obligato in the duet BWV 140.ii Wenn kömmst du, mein Heil?

Moonen’s comment on lightening the bass line in that aria and the absence of a 16’ in the whole CD are fully justified by the variety and clarity, though by the time BWV140 was written (in 1731) Bach seems to have had a 16’ violone at his disposal.

But the singers do not fare so well. The bass, Jonathan Gunthorpe, has a rather stodgy voice – perfectly correct, but rather unyielding: nor does he sound like a passionate lover in Mein Freund ist mein. The tenor, Samuel Boden, is excellent – neat, perfectly in tune and flexible: I can hear every word. More problematic are the upper parts. Here I am too often aware of that kind of singerly vibrato that so many singers are encouraged to develop not being used as a means of ornamenting a particular note or phrase so much as a pretty universal part of the sound. Both soprano and alto can sing cleanly – in brisker passages both articulate well – but on longer notes that wobble creeps in. Do they think they sound uninteresting without? For instance, in the opening movement of Bach’s Wachet auf, the soprano’s long notes of the chorale are doubled by the (beautifully played) corno. The horn plays the notes straight but shapes the phrases intelligently. The voice seems less sure of where the phrases are going – is she sometimes short of breath? – and her intermittent vibrato means that voice and instrument are hardly ever perfectly together. When the playing style is so clean, the voices surely need to listen to and match the instruments? The OVPP quartets that impress me attend to this like a Knabenchor  of those (largely) Lutheran Academies where SATB choirs of boys all between the ages of 9 and 18 make a perfectly blended sound.

As always with this group’s performances, the music is interestingly and intelligently presented in a minimalist cardboard packet: good notes and an environmentally friendly package. Hearing the two Buxtehude cantatas on Wachet auf  as a prelude to BWV140 was highly instructive, and made me appreciate over again just how varied and sensitively employed Bach’s response to his texts is. In spite of my reservations about the singers, I can wholeheartedly recommend this disc.

David Stancliffe

Claire Lefilliâtre S, Hans-Jörg Mammel T, Chœur de Chambre de Namur, La Fenice, Jean Tubéry
60:25
Christophorus CHR 77404

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]his is a re-issue of a recording made in 2003 and originally available on K617 but long discontinued. It is paired with Schein’s Mach dich auf, an Advent motet, Weckmann’s Gegrüsset seiest Du, holdselige, an illustrative dialogue between the Angel and Mary at the Annunciation, Schütz’s Magnificat  swv468 and Hodie Christus  swv456. It is a Christmastide programme, with the Weihnachtshistorie  at its heart.

The performance is brightly sung and adequately recorded. The choir of 16 with its hautes-contres is capable of providing the two capellae  for Schütz’s polychoral Magnificat  alongside the favoriti, though they mostly sing as a ‘choir’ – more than one to a part. The Schein is delightful – a five-part OVPP instrumental coro, where two of the lines are vocalised by the soprano and tenor, alternates with a five-voice capella  before combining as they exchange the text of Isaiah’s prophecy “Arise, shine for thy light is come… for behold darkness shall cover the earth”, and illuminates the German background of Schütz’s writing. Weckmann’s Annunciation dialogue between the angel and the girl uses a pair of violins in close imitation to paint the overshadowing of the angel’s wings – though I prefer the Ricercar performance for its cleaner, clearer singing.

Indeed, this is my major reservation: the singing feels slightly dated – rather gushing in places. And there are some curious touches: sometimes in the Weihnachtshistorie  a trombone is used as a basso continuo instrument. I am not sure that we would use a bass instrument in addition to the organ and theorbo these days, and the sustained foghorn sound feels particularly odd. Occasionally, I think they misjudge the tempo: the intermedium  for the shepherds with recorders and fagotto needs to be neater if you take it that fast, but I like their version of the opening Sinfonia  in the Weihnachtshistorie.

The liner-notes are sketchy, but the texts available in German (or Latin), English and French, and all the performers – singers and players – are named.

So I don’t rave about this version, but if you would like the Schein – a vastly underrated composer – this may be the only place you’d find it. Whether you choose to buy this re-issue will depend largely I suspect on whether you like this style, or whether you already have enough performances – René Jacobs, Paul McCreesh, Paul Hillier, Hans-Christoph Rademann among the more recent ones or Holger Eichorn of 1985 and the unsurpassed Andrew Parrott of 1988, still my personal favourite.

David Stancliffe

Dunedin Consort, John Butt
141:00 (2 CDs in hardback booklet)
Linn Records CKD499

[dropcap]J[/dropcap]ohn Butt’s Christmas Oratorio with the Dunedins is splendid, from the crisp and perfectly tuned opening timpani strokes onward, and I hope it will sweep all before it as this Christmas’ ‘must-have’ for all EMR  readers.

There are, of course, some things that I would do differently, but the vigour and balance of the ensemble, the quality of the instrumental playing, the perfectly judged tempi, the intelligent singers’ splendid phrasing and breath control and the overall sense of line from all the performers combine to make this the best complete Christmas Oratorio  I know.

In the glossy booklet, and more fully in the digital material on the Linn website, John Butt explains why he uses two four-voice cori: in a matter of twelve days, there is too much to prepare and sing for one group. Bach had a minimum of two four-voice groups at his disposal in Leipzig, so this performance uses the two, and for much of the chorus-work of Cantatas 1, 3 and 6 (those with a fuller scoring, including trumpets and drums), he adds four ripienists to the concerted sections at times. (For how this is done, listen to the opening chorus of Cantata 3, Herrscher des Himmels.) This is not the only or ‘right’ solution, as he is at pains to point out, but it is one way of sharing the load – and this would also be true of a modern concert performance when all six cantatas are performed in the same programme.

So what is novel in the Dunedin’s recording is the make-up of the cori? The first group has many of Butt’s regulars; Nicholas Mulroy and Matthew Brook are joined by the incomparable Clare Wilkinson, with Mary Bevan as the soprano. Bevan’s duets with Brook are fine, but her style is more operatic than I would like, and even in the chorus work she still uses a good deal of vibrato and pushes on some of the notes. So the change when we move to Cantata 2 and the second quartet takes over is all the more striking. Just listen to the first chorale Brich an, o schönes Morgenlicht  and notice the clarity of Joanne Lunn’s very first line, a purity of sound that is equally good in her arias and the important ariosos in Cantata 4: I doubt if you will ever hear a better Flößt, mein Heiland in that cantata. This is a world-class singer at her best.

She is partnered in that coro by Thomas Hobbs – just the right weight and agility for Frohe Hirten with Katy Bircher’s lovely flute obbligato in Cantata 2 and the busy aria with the two violins Ich will nur  in Cantata 4. Again, I cannot imagine a better performance, and this leaves Nicholas Mulroy to sing the more heroic numbers in 1, 3 and 6, like Nun mögt ihr stolzen Feinde schrecken  in 6, that he does so well. I am less convinced by the mezzo Ciara Hendrick: I kept longing for the clarity and phrasing that Clare Wilkinson would bring to that ensemble – she would be such a good partner to Lunn and Hobbs, and I missed her in 5.i, Ehre sei dir, Gott  which goes at a cracking pace, but perfectly in control with the tricky violin figuration in bar 57 perfectly in tune; but at least we have her in the wonderful performance of 3.viii Schließe, mein Herze, where she and Cecilia Bernardini cradle each others lines to perfection.

The bass Konstantin Wolff is new to me, and he does not quite have the warmth needed for the ariosos in 4.iii and 4.v, nor the clarity for the bass line in 2.xii. The bass line is always tricky in Bach: a voice that has enough depth and edge to make a good foundation for a coro and to sing the more rumbustious arias like 1.viii Großer Herr cannot always manage the more lyrical numbers like 5.v Erleucht auch meine finstre Sinnen  convincingly. Matthew Brook can do both, and characterfully, but I am less convinced by Konstantin Wolff.

The singers in 1, 3 and 6, even without the ripienists, make a more robust sound, though Clare Wilkinson is always in danger of being shouted down by the higher pitched singers. Butt’s attention to and feeling for instrumental balance and blend is so very fine, I just wish he would call his talented singers to order more. When I watched the Windsbacher Knabenchor rehearsing this summer, I was struck by the amount of time they spent in vocal training together each day, matching tone and balance between the parts. While the two types of cori are not directly parallel, they are both seeking clarity in Bach’s complex music, whether in chorales or polyphonic and fugal writing. And there are some wobbles even in Joanne Lunn’s otherwise impeccable line in 2.xii: are they ornaments – on weak notes? When John Butt directs Monteverdi madrigals, better control seems to be in place: what is different here?

There are one or two other minor queries. First about the bass line: does the absence of an independent fagotto part (only in Cantata 1 does a part survive) mean that a fagotto should not play in the remaining cantatas? While I realize that John Butt is following the surviving parts strictly, I missed it for example in 2.ix at the bottom of the oboe band, though I realize that Bach frequently seems not to have followed our convention of using the bassoon as the standard bass line for oboes. And should the violone play everywhere if it is always at 16’ pitch? I found it more intrusive than I was expecting in some arias like 2.vi Frohe Hirten. Second, as always with John Butt, we have splendid information about the edition, the pitch and temperament, but nothing about the instruments. And third, why is so much booklet space given to the singers and all the operatic roles they have taken when no details at all are given about the splendid players, who are equal partners in this fine music-making, and a photograph on pp 54/55 which does not relate to this recording, showing a recorder and many more string players than took part.
None of this detracts essentially from what is a first rate and wonderfully musical performance. They deserve every plaudit they will get.

David Stancliffe

Fred Jacobs French theorbo
65:50
Metronome MET CD 1090
Pièces de théorbe  in C, c, d, e, F, g & A

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]his is Fred Jacobs’ third and last CD of music by Robert de Visée. De Visée’s music is quintessentially French baroque, and Jacobs’ interpretation is spot on. He plays with a gratifying tone, and with carefully shaped melodic lines constantly supported by the sonorous bass strings. In his booklet notes Jacobs writes that, from about 1690, De Visée seems to have concentrated on the theorbo rather than the guitar, and there are descriptions of him playing to Louis XIV and his family at court. The music comes from two sources: the manuscript of Vaudry de Saizenay (Besançon, Bibliothèque municipale), and Rés. 1106 (Paris, Bibliothèque nationale). There is much variety – ten different keys, contrasting movements and moods, but always with an overriding feeling of gravitas.

The CD begins optimistically with a short Prelude and cheerful Gigue in C major. De Visée uses the long bass strings throughout, but it is far from ponderous. In contrast are the melancholic Pièces de théorbe  in C minor. They include La Plainte, ou Tombeau de Mesdemoiselles de Visée, Allemande de Mr. leur père, written by De Visée on the death of his two daughters. Slow-moving descending notes, a delicate texture interspersed with lush chords, sweet modulations, and bitter dissonance, all combine to create a heartfelt expression of grief.
The Pièces de théorbe  in D minor include intabulations of works by Jean-Baptiste Lully, and end with variations on the ever-popular tune La Furstemberg.

The opening Prelude of the Pièces de théorbe  in A major firmly establishes the key of A major, beginning with an ear-catching descending scale and insistent diapasons. The restful Allemande gently weaves its way along with soothing melodic lines; the Courante is quite unhurried, and the Sarabande has rich, low-lying, scrunchy chords. An elegant Gigue evokes a jolly old man hopping and skipping along, but somehow still maintaining his dignity. The suite is rounded off with a satisfying Gavotte, charming but never over-energetic. The mood changes noticeably with two pieces in E minor: a short Prelude, and a sombre Sarabande, with unexpected changes of harmonic direction, and anguished dissonance from appoggiaturas. The CD finishes with De Visée’s evergreen Chaconne in A minor, expressively played at not too slow a tempo.

It is unfortunate that the microphone has picked up some of Jacobs’ breathing in the background; it includes a variety of sniffs, snorts and gasps, which are faintly audible. This would not have been so prominent if the microphone had simply been placed further away. The closeness of the microphone also adds a slightly sharp edge to the sound.
Jacobs’ plays a French theorbo made by Michael Lowe in 2004, with string lengths of 83 and 144 cm. Lowe describes the instrument in the CD booklet, and explains how the French theorbo differs from the more commonly heard Italian theorbo. He argues convincingly that the French theorbo should be quite large, and tuned to A.

Stewart McCoy