Categories
Recording

Bach: The Partitas

Richard Egarr harpsichord
154:59 (2 CDs in a wallet)
harmonia mundi USA HMM 907593.94

[dropcap]R[/dropcap]ichard Egarr plays the Partitas – Bach’s ‘Opus 1’ – on a 1991 harpsichord by Joel Katzman of Amsterdam after a Ruckers from Antwerp of 1638 which is tuned in his version of a 6th comma 18th-century temperament at a=399.

The instrument sounds rich and springy at this pitch, giving a bloom and mellow resonance to each note that Egarr can use to advantage to sustain the tone in the slower movements, while offering sufficient life and clarity in the faster passagework. I was never conscious of any artificiality in his chosen tempi, and the result of listening to all six partitas through at one stretch is of being mesmerised by the apparently effortless rightness of it all. So fluent, so sparkling, so dance-like, and yet so engaged, well-planned and serious a journey. Where did he get all this from?

Then I read his remarkable essay in the liner notes which describe what Egarr calls ‘the mind-boggling abilities of Bach to infuse this seemingly effortless music with godly patterns and personal algorithms of stunning brilliance.’ First he explores the numerology derived from the name, then moves to the mathematics of the Trinity and of Tempus Perfectum, paying careful attention to the cross shapes of the sharps in the key signatures in Partita 5 and then turns to Partita 6, where he finds Bach at the foot of the cross. ‘These cross figures contain predominantly intervals of the third and seventh. The three voices of this fugue, which takes us to the end of this world, enter in the first, third and seventh bars of each half. Is it a coincidence that Bach chose to delay publication until 1731?’

I can only give you a flavour of the theological and mathematical brilliance with which Egarr is convinced Bach’s music is infused, but I have never heard either such convincing arguments or such convincing playing. The more Bach I study, the more I am clear that it is not only the more obvious church music, performed in the service of the Lutheran rite, that reveals Bach’s comprehensive and coherent expression of his faith in all that he wrote.

This is a very good recording. Not only is the actual recording of a very high quality, but the performance could not be bettered either technically or cerebrally.

David Stancliffe

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Recording

Bach: Goldberg Variations

Davide Pozzi harpsichord
61:19
Pan Classics PC 10374

Pieter-Jan Belder harpsichord
77:40
Brilliant Classics 95471

[dropcap]O[/dropcap]ne of the things that struck me about two more Goldbergs to add to those by Christine Schornsheim (reviewed last October) and Ignacio Prego’s (reviewed last November) is the difference in timing. Pozzi, without seeming hurried (though he is very nimble) takes a mere 61.19 to the 79.08 of Prego, the 74.05 of Schornsheim, and the 77.40 of Pieter-Jan Belder. A second distinguishing mark is the instrument.Both Schornsheim and Pozzi play copies of a Mietke, though a different instrument: Schornsheim’s is a copy by Christoph Kern after a ca. 1710 instrument, while Pozzi’s is by Cornelis Bom after an undescribed Mietke: the mellow tone of both of them reveals a family likeness. Most distinct is the instrument used by Pieter-Jan Belder who chooses to play on a recent copy of a Ruckers of 1624, dating almost a century before the others. The action is noisier, and I instinctively associate the more clunky sound with composers a generation of two earlier than Bach like Sweelinck and his pupils.

Of the notes accompanying the CDs, Pieter-Jan Belder’s are the fullest and most detailed for those who do not know the music so well or do not have a score in front of them. His notes tell us that this is a replacement for his 1999 recording (already a second version!), and will be his last. In spite of that, I find his playing more staid, and, although more flexible than Schornsheim’s, a trifle mannered. That and the more ‘old-fashioned’ sound of his Ruckers-type instrument, tend to give us a more schoolmasterly performance as opposed to Pozzi, who has grace and fluency abounding. Even when Pozzi is playing in a slow tempo, the momentum derived from the essential dance rhythms behind so many of the variations tell you where the whole movement is headed. I like it, in spite of the very minimalist essay (in German, English, French and Italian), which is hot on structure and numerology but thin on Belder’s kind of exposition.

This minimalist essay, though, is revealing. Looking at the way the 30 variations and two statements of the Aria can be divided, Pozzi points to the Trinitarian 10 by 3, with groups of 3 – two variations and a canon in each – but notes also the two sixteen-fold divisions, with the French Overture opening the second part. He tunes his instrument to a modified Werkmeister IV at 415, while Belder discloses nothing except the maker’s name – Titus Crijnen 2014.

So in preference to the scholarly and considered third version of Belder and second of Schornsheim, I find myself more captivated by Prego, and even more by Pozzi. Which version you would like to have – you may already have many – is very much a matter of individual taste. Both versions reviewed here are excellently recorded and faultlessly – though differently – played. You will need to hear them both before deciding for yourself, but of all four, I will tire least, I think, of Pozzi.

David Stancliffe

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Recording

M. Praetorius: Gloria sei dir gesungen

Choral concerts after hymns by Luther, Nicolai and others
Gli Scarlattisti, [Capella Principale,] Jochen Arnold
71:41
Carus 83.482

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]his CD is a product of the Reformation anniversary, and is devoted to elaborate settings of chorales, with texts mainly by Luther, by Michael Praetorius. His German Magnificat is the centerpiece, and the collection begins and ends with settings of well-known chorales Wie schön leuchtet die Morgenstern  and Wachet auf  by Nicolai. The order of the pieces chosen seems somewhat arbitrary rather than following a scheme like the Liturgical Year, for example; Arnold gives us a rationale in his liner notes, but I am not convinced.

The singing is frequently charming – listen to the two sopranos with the pair of violins in the opening of Nun freut euch  (5), though this number is pitched slightly higher than is comfortable for one of them, and the male alto in Halleluja Christ ist erstanden  is below par – but not up to the clarity and blend we expect these days for music of this period from such groups as Vox Luminis or the Gesualdo Consort. Gli Scarlattisti (6.6.5.4) was founded by Jochen Arnold in 1995, and from the photo in the booklet I imagine that many of them are the founder members. And while perfectly competent in this music, the sound of the full choir sometimes overbalances the instrumental group, who are miked as if placed in a strictly ‘accompanimental’ role instead of being treated as equal partners. This treatment gives us a stylistically slightly old-fashioned feel of soloists, choir and accompaniment instead of being at the forefront of today’s HIP.

That said, I found much to enjoy – not least being the value of hearing a whole recital of these rich and inventive polychoral settings. I would have been helped by some more detailed notes on pitch and tuning – I suspect that the pieces were being performed at A=465, which is why the sopranos sounded occasionally beyond their comfort zone – as well as the instrumental scoring of each verse. And the single organ was a small box organ, I think. I hope we may get more Praetorius this Reformation year, and it would be good if Vox Luminis did a companion CD to their fine Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott: Luther and the Music of the Reformation  which in performance terms is in a different class to this worthy but rather dull performance.

David Stancliffe

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Recording

Bach & Sons 2

Zürcher Kammerorchester, Sebastian Knauer
69:50
Berlin Classics 0300764BC
BWV1044, 1055, 1056, J. C. Bach: Concerto in f; C. P. E. Bach: Concerto in G

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]his is a second CD produced by the pianist, Sebastian Knauer, of keyboard concertos by Johann Sebastian coupled with two by his sons to link the ‘old’ Bach to the coming age.

You may think it curious, but it isn’t the modern Steinway grand that I have any problems with: this is beautifully and lightly played by Knauer, who quotes Roger Norrington’s dictum ‘Period performance is in the mind, and not in the hardware’, and provides a powerful advocacy of that in these performances. It is more with the overall style including the tuning of the string band, and in particular the way they shape and play through their lines especially in the violins. I did not imagine that the effect in one of my favourite Klavier concertos, the A major BWV1055, would be so striking. It is partly that 21st-century approaches to phrasing, to long lines, to sustaining or even growing phrases that are in themselves less significant is such a contrast to the shorter bow strokes and floating lines we are used to in period instrument ensembles.

Their approach seems to me to pay off splendidly, especially in the Johann Christian F minor concerto with its pre-Sturm und Drang drive, and in the C. P. E. Bach G major concerto with its lyrical, classical lines, but to be essentially at odds with the different sort of partnership between strings and keyboard (and the flute and violin in BWV 1044) demanded in the concertos by J. S. B., where a more interlocked partnership is surely required.

So while I enjoyed Knauer’s musicianship, it was Bach’s sons whose music fares best in this collection.

David Stancliffe

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Recording

Musical Offering

The Bach Players
54:13
Hyphen Press Music HPM 011
BWV1057 + BuxWV257

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]his is a first-rate performance of a late and intriguing work that is under-performed. There is a CD by Ton Koopman from 2009 and a more recent one by Ricercar in 2015, but this version was prepared and scored by Silas Wollston, the group’s harpsichordist, whose excellent essay in the booklet Bach the orator  is a model for what research and performance practice can create, and I doubt if it could be bettered. He convincingly summarises Ursula Kirkendale’s thesis that the rhetorical basis for the order of the movements is to be found in Quintilian’s Institutio oratoria, and displays how this works in practice.

Everything is good, except possibly the choice of a Buxtehude trio sonata as a filler: there are a lot of underperformed J. S. Bach fragments among his more canonic writing, (BWV 1072-8), or his arrangement of Fasch’s trio for organ (BWV 585) which might play more interestingly alongside The Musical Offering  than BuxWV 257.

But this is really beside the point. The playing – apart from a slightly lumpy start to the Ricercar à3 – is neat, balanced and fluid. Each of the players in Nicolette Moonen’s group (flute, violin, gamba and harpsichord) is confident without being exhibitionistic and the clarity of the recording in a sufficiently yeilding acoustic is a tribute to the seasoned producer, Roy Mowatt, and the editor, Nick Parker. Silas Wollston plays a Clayson & Garrett copy of a Dulcken 1745 instrument.

David Stancliffe

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Recording

Giuseppe Sammartini: 6 concertos in 7 parts, op. 2

I Musici
61:52
Dynamic CDS7777

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he HIP world owes a lot to I Musici. I am fairly certain I had at least one boxed set of LPs of them playing complete Vivaldi concerto editions and it was partly through them that I discovered Baroque music. Unfortunately, around that time I also bought an LP of the new kids on the block, The Academy of Ancient Music under Christopher Hogwood, and my ears were forever opened to the possibilities of period instrument performance (squawky oboes and all!). Yet, if the arrival of this new disk raised an eyebrow, that is more a reflection on my pre-conceptions that anything else. Sammartini’s concertos (four in three movements, two with only three) contain such a rich variety of material that the attention never wavers and while their bowing arms remain steadfastly in the 21st century, at least I Musici have engaged with earlier left-hand techniques – open strings resound brightly, trills start on the upper note and are shaped rather than automated, ornaments are added with imagination and relentless vibrato is banished. And all for the good, I would say. Even on modern instruments, it is perfectly possible to produce fine performances of this unexpectedly gripping music.

Brian Clark

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Recording

Tobias Michael: Musicalische Seelenlust

Weser-Renaissance, Manfred Cordes
63:35
cpo 777 935-2

[dropcap]I[/dropcap]t is only 18 months since another recording with this title appeared. Fortunately, where Ensemble Polyphonique chose works from both of the composer’s sets (1634 for five voices and continuo, and 1637 for different combinations of voices with and without instruments), Weser-Renaissance’s survey focuses on the earlier set, and, of the 17 pieces on the disk (of a total of 30), only eight are duplicated. They have chosen 10 of 12 settings of psalm texts, and no fewer than four from Isaiah. Where the earlier recording had gamba and theorbo with organ continuo, Cordes has opted for harp and chitarrone. As regular readers know, I am highly sceptical of harp continuo, and I cannot help but wonder if cash-strapped musicians during the 30 Years War could afford to string such an instrument. That said, the absence of stringed instrument on the bass line does mean that the singer’s words in the depths are much clearer than they might be. Where EP interspersed the five-voice madrigals with smaller-scale solos and duets, there is no relief from the soundscape here; even though three sopranos are listed for only two vocal lines, the voices are similar enough for me not to be able to distinguish who is singing (very fine though most of the singing is!), and I cried out for some variety. That is certainly not to suggest that Michael’s music lacks quality – quite the reverse. On several machines, the recorded sound lacks the roundness and warmth of the Raumklang disk, which may have drawn me into the intimacy of those performances. The good news is that there are four more pieces from the first set and 43 (!) from the second set (which features printed ornamented alternatives) that remain for another recording.

Brian Clark

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Recording

Monteverdi: L’Orfeo

Mirko Guadagnini Orfeo, Emanuela Galli La Musica/Euridice, Marina De Liso Messaggiera, Cristina Calzolari Proserpina, Matteo Bellotto Plutone, José Maria Lo Monaco Speranza, Salvo Vitale Caronte, Vincenzo Di Donato Apollo, Francesca Cassinari Ninfa, Giovanni Caccamo Pastore I, Makoto Sakurada Pastore II/ Spirito I, Claudio Cavina Pastore III, Tony Corradini Pastore IV/Spirito II, La Venexiana, Claudio Cavina
114:52 (2 CDs in a cardboard box)
Glossa GCD 920941

[dropcap]O[/dropcap]riginally recorded in 2006, but out of the catalogue for some time, this reissue of La Venexiana’s Orfeo  has obviously been timed to contribute to the celebrations for the 250 anniversary of the composer’s birth. Claudio Cavina came to it on the back of a cycle of the composer’s madrigals, an intégrale  that in my view served the earlier books better than the later ones. In any event Orfeo  is a rather different undertaking, though of course it contains madrigalian choruses, so it is interesting to discover – I missed the set first time round – that my principal reservations are much in line with those I had about some of the madrigals.

These reservations can be summed up in one word: portentousness. As he did with the later books of madrigals, Cavina has sought to impose a layering of flexible expressiveness that is surely foreign to the music. This makes itself manifest in some curious rhythmic decisions, but above all in tempos that result in what may be the longest performance of the opera on CD. If one takes as just a single example ‘Possente spirto’, Orfeo’s appeal to Charon (the boatman of the Styx) and the most famous set piece in the opera, is much the slowest performance I’ve ever heard. Not only does this undermine the whole point of the song, which becomes tedious rather than seductive, but it also causes problems for the singer Mirko Guadagnini, who is at times unable to sustain accurate pitch. Guadagnini is in any event a rather average Orfeo, missing much of the passion of the role and coping only moderately well with the florid ornamentation that is such an integral part of ‘Possente spirto’. While on the subject of ornamentation, there is throughout the set a disappointing lack of it, the topic going un-remarked in a long and somewhat pretentious essay on the subject of the performance practice adopted.

The remainder of the cast is variable. Emanuela Galli sings both La Musica and Euridice. The instrumental introduction to the former is introduced in heavily mannered style, but I like the way Galli varies each of the five strophic verses and she is very good indeed with dramatising the text. Her Euridice is fine, if not especially remarkable and her sad return to Hades after the fatal glance is nothing like as moving as that of the young British soprano Rachel Ambrose Evans in the performance by I Fagiolini I’d seen just a couple of weeks earlier. The large cast of supporting singers varies in accomplishment from a poor Speranza to the excellent Plutone of Matteo Bellotto, but is in general terms more than serviceable, although again some of Cavina’s tempos are most likely responsible for the odd pitch problem experienced by some of them. Given that Cavina would surely not dream of employing multiple voices to a part in Monteverdi’s madrigals, it seems curious (and unconvincing) that he has expanded the chorus here. The overall excellence of the instrumental playing is one of the unreserved plusses, but in sum this is not a performance I would feature in a recommended list of Orfeo  recordings.

Brian Robins

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Sheet music

Walter Porter: Collected Works

Edited by Jonathan P. Wainwright
A-R Editions, Recent Researches in the Music of the Baroque Era, B194
xxxiii + 10 facsmilies + 256pp, $250.00
ISBN 978-0-89579-846-6

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]his volume presents Porter’s Madrigales and Ayres  of 1632, his Mottets of Two Voyces  of 1657 and four pieces of dubious attribution in an appendix, and is thus the first to contain the complete surviving music by an important but little-known composer. The comprehensive introductory material includes all that is known of Porter’s life, including a table identifying the likely dedicatees of his music, and the full texts in poetic format.

The music itself is impressive. The 1632 set (for two to five voices with continuo, 22 of the 27 pieces also featuring two violins) display an array of genres. Smaller pieces have instrumental introductions followed by the vocal music which is repeat for subsequent verses, while the larger settings are through composed and alternate extended solos very much in the Italian vein (he styled himself a friend of “Monteverde”) with tutti passages (violins double the sopranos) that are predominantly homophonic but often hint at imitation. The Mottets  are similarly short and once again predominantly melody and bass, rather more reserved in style than the virtuosity of Italian duets of the 1650s – the lower voices is always a bass, mostly doubling the continuo line. The appendix has a simple strophic song for soprano and continuo, and three catches (canons) for three basses.

The edition is nicely laid out with differences between the bass viol and continuo parts shown with minimal fuss. Typically of A-R Editions, they are generously spaced but with the wide syllables of English, in this case that is a good thing. All original accidentals are retained (also on consecutive notes) and very few are added. I was struck by the choice to split Orpheus’s wife-to-be’s name as “Eu-rid-i-ce”, and I cannot begin to describe the ugliness of the hyphens placed tight to the right of each syllable. My only musicological reservation is – once again – the inconsistency of bar lengths in non-tripla; Wainwright argues that rather than indicating a minim count per bar, the two time signatures are more like tempo markings than metrical, but he does not explain why he has chosen to divide some measures into four minims and some only two.

Brian Clark

Categories
Sheet music

Giuseppe Antonio Bernabei: Orpheus ecclesiasticus

Edited by Michael Wilhelm Nordbakke
A-R Editions, Recent Researches in the Music of the Baroque Era, B195
xii + 6 facsmilies + 203pp, $175.00
ISBN 978-0-89579-849-7

[dropcap]W[/dropcap]hen this volume arrived, I espected a collection of church music. Instead, it is a set of 12 sonatas (prefaced and concluded with texted canons for six and four voices respectively), dedicated to Leopold I, the Holy Roman Emperor, dated 1698.

The 12 Symphonias  (as they are called) are divided into two groups; the first six are for two violins with continuo, while the second half features a (lost) chelys gravior  (Nordbakke calls this cello) or pentachordum  (gamba). In producing this edition, the editor has added the missing line. Nos. 1–6 have between four and six movements and average 165 bars, while the other six range from six to eight movements and are around 240 bars. Tempo markings are in Latin (just as the instrument names are in Greek), which may reflect the composer’s perception of Vienna as a seat of learning, and the Emperor as a highly educated man.

I would like to hear the music, perhaps alongside pieces by Colista and Henry Purcell; while it lacks the “perfection” of Corelli, this is precisely the kind of music that informed the latter’s contributions to the genre.

Brian Clark