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Recording

H. Praetorius: Missa Tulerunt Dominum Meum

Siglo de Oro, Patrick Allies
59:27
Delphian DCD34208
+ Music by A. Gabrieli, Handl (Gallus), Hassler, Lassus

[dropcap]A[/dropcap]lthough not related to the more famous Michael Praetorius, Hieronymus Praetorius is part of a musical dynasty based in Hamburg, a city in which he seems to have spent his entire life. This is slightly surprising in that his music exhibits a number of external influences, not least that of Venetian polychoral music, but it a useful reminder that, while some Renaissance composers accrued influences by working and studying abroad, many others simply studied the latest manuscript or printed music and learned its secrets that way. This certainly seems to be the case with Praetorius’ magnificent Holy Week Mass Tulerunt Dominum meum, which displays a heady mixture of influences, including that of the Gabrielis. The rich warm tones of Siglo de Oro recorded in chapel of Merton College Oxford are ideal for this opulent repertoire, but it is clear that both choir and conductor, Patrick Allies, carry a torch for this overlooked masterpiece. Praetorius’ music receives the ultimate test here by being placed in a context of some of the finest Holy Week music of the period written by composers such as Lassus, Handl, Hassler and Andrea Gabrieli. While all of these composers undoubtedly helped Praetorius mould his musical style, what is perhaps more remarkable is the individuality his music demonstrates. Through this remarkable mass, the motet on which Praetorius based it and a luminescent setting of O vos omnes, Siglo de Oro have cast a whole new light on a composer hitherto largely known for a few stock Christmas pieces and little else.

D. James Ross

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Recording

Telemann: The Concerti-en-Suite

Tempesta di Mare
62:34
Chandos Chaconne CHAN 0821
TWV 43:g3, 51:F4, 54: F1

[dropcap]I[/dropcap]n some regards, the accomplished baroque ensemble Tempesta di Mare are emulating the very musicians for whom these two extravagant concerti grossi  or concerti-en-suite in F were almost certainly intended, the Dresden court orchestra under J. G. Pisendel. Telemann not only knew this famously skilled concertmaster well, but also the eminent abilities of the musicians active in this well-honed orchestra.

This recording opens with one of my favourite Telemann concerti-en-suite, TWV 54:F1, which for many years was only to be heard without the pair of Bourees I/II found only in the Schwerin source on an early Berlin Classics CD; and to compound matters further, it was often confusingly catalogued simply as “Suite in F”! Thankfully, Tempesta di Mare take into account both sources of this really vivacious and almost mischievous piece; they spread their musical wings wide and fly; additionally, Richard Stone has astutely filled in the “bridging” trio in the da capo menuet, with an excellent reconstruction after extant horn parts in Schwerin. This is now the fourth recording of a fine work, truly welcome for all the reasons above, and the lively and polished performance. The following concerto di camera  for recorder and strings now has more than a dozen recordings, and feels like a concession to the ensemble’s co-director Gwyn Roberts, who nevertheless exhibits her agility in Telemann’s fluent and accommodating music; that said, two other concerti-en-suite, TWV 53:g1, 53:a1, or even the later 50:21, would perhaps have better fitted the “billing”, i.e. main focus of this CD. Finally, we come to an outstanding example of the genre, in scope, instrumentation, style, and forward-looking, almost symphonic textures. TWV 51:F4 was definitely conceived with virtuoso violinist Pisendel in mind, and the seasoned orchestra behind him. The use of the very same paper as for the composer’s St. John Passion of 1749 TWV 5:34 gives a rough date of composition. Again Tempesta di Mare capture the ebullient drive and wonderful contours of this grandiose piece, flattering both the talents of the orchestra, and with Polish royal connections through Dresden’s Elector of Saxony, King Augustus III of Poland! One begins to sense what a well-aimed and perfectly conceived exposition of music this is. It is worth noting that they eschew Telemann’s alternative  trumpet parts for the penultimate “Pollacca” movement, before the closing stately menuets; a seven-movement tour de force  which Tempesta di Mare tackle with typical flourish and flair.

David Bellinger

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Recording

Telemann: Six Overtures

Gaku Nakagawa harpsichord
64:20
Naxos 8.573819
TWV 32:5-10

[dropcap]B[/dropcap]ehind the unforgettable front cover image of a sad-looking lion door knocker from Leipzig’s Thomaskirche lurk two very fine talents; one the often underrated keyboard composer, Telemann, and the other a wonderfully gifted 24-year-old Japanese harpsichordist who, without a single lesson on period instruments, won the 27th Yamanashi international competition for Early Music. He now studies under Prof.Glen Wilson at the Musikhochschule Würzburg. For his debut CD recording, he has selected these fascinating pieces which were published in Nürnberg between 1745 and 1749 and display a fusion of national styles in condensed form. These interesting works both highlight and reflect Telemann’s own musical spectrum, offering us some conventional Ouvertures with their fugato workings as well as more sonata-like movements; the second of these with hints of the Polish mode in the final Scherzando  sections. Ouverture V (Track 13) has a much more Italianate feel, and that of Ouverture III (Track 7) is a freestyle French Gigue in 6/4. These works do not follow the conventional choices of dances following after the opening Ouverture; further examples of this form may be found in TWV32:13-18. But let’s not stray from the remarkable musicianship of this gifted young man, who brings out the various elements of these blended pieces with a skill beyond his age. The future is bright and will give Gaku Nakagawa the opportunity to plunder the riches of the harpsichord repertoire of these nations in evidence and much more for years to come. Would have been nice to know what the instrument used was?

David Bellinger

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Book Recording

The Art of Fugue: Book AND recording

Martha Cook: L’art de la fugue: une méditation en musique
250pp
Paris: Fayard, 2015
ISBN 978-2-213-68181-8

Bach: Die Kunst der Fuge
Martha Cook harpsichord
73:62 (2 CDs)
Passacaille 1014

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he Art of Fugue has long intrigued performers and musicologists alike and much time has been spent seeking to explain its genesis and organization. The question is complicated by differences in layout in the two main sources: Bach’s autograph, which originally had twelve fugues and two canons, and a published version, hastily put together by C. P. E. Bach in 1751, which changed the order and added two further fugues and two canons, plus other pieces. Martha Cook has recently written a book, published in French, in which she proposes that Bach built the cycle around eight verses from Luke’s Gospel, beginning at Chapter 14, Verse 27. These numbers correspond to the gematrial equivalent of J. S. Bach’s name (27+14=41). Cook also noticed that the opening words of Luke 14:27 in German ‘Und wer nicht sein Kreuz trägt und mir nach folgt’ can be made to fit the Art of Fugue’s main theme. Her book expands on all of this and finds rhetorical correspondences between the verses from Luke and successive movements of the Art of Fugue (in its original order) which has led her to accept the plausibility of this theory of origin. While Bach’s deep knowledge of the bible and his interest in numerology are well substantiated, the evidence for a biblical genesis of the Art of Fugue is largely circumstantial and, to my mind at least, not ultimately convincing. Another recent theory, propounded by Loïc Sylvestre and Marco Costa (in Il Saggiatore Musicale  17 (2010), 175-195) and based on bar numbers, suggests that the whole structure is based on the Fibonacci sequence, an intriguing but again circumstantial explanation.

[dropcap]U[/dropcap]ltimately it is the music that counts and, while Cook’s theory must have informed her preparation for this recording, there is nothing about her playing or her interpretation which follows directly on from it. Indeed, while the theory would have suggested recording just the autograph version, Cook (while using its order) incorporates the two extra fugues and canons from the print but omits the two mirror fugues; this presents us with an odd hybrid. It is, of course, very unlikely that the Art of Fugue was intended for public performance in one sitting, and listening to it straight through on a single instrument like this can lessen the experience. That said, Cook presents a straightforward interpretation of what she calls the ‘ideal solo harpsichord version’. All the contrapuntal and canonic procedures are very clear in her playing but I find it a bit lacking in expression: the cerebral is emphasised at the expense of the rhetorical or the emotional. She plays a harpsichord by Willem Kroesbergen based on a Johannes Couchet original and uses a temperament reconstituted from an Andreas Silbermann organ of 1719 which works very well. This was clearly a labour of love from Cook and both her book and recording show a deep commitment to the Art of Fugue and its many facets. Both are certainly worth having for their insights into this endlessly fascinating work.

Noel O’Regan

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Benevoli: Missa “In angustia pestilentiæ”, 1656

Cappella Musicale Santa Maria in Campitelli, Vincenzo Di Betta
56:21
Tactus TC 600201

[dropcap]C[/dropcap]omposed during a plague which hit Rome in 1656, and probably performed behind closed doors in St. Peter’s Basilica in order to prevent contagion, Benevoli’s Missa In angustia pestilentiæ  is typical of the large-scale Roman baroque. It is performed here by the eighteen singers of the Cappella Musicale of S. Maria in Campitelli, one of Rome’s larger baroque churches. It currently houses a restored small organ ‘ad ala’ of 1635, made in Viterbo by Pellegrino Pollicolli in the Roman tradition, used to good advantage here to accompany the choir, as well as in organ pieces by Frescobaldi, Froberger and Tarquinia Merula, played by Franco Vito Gaiezza. Merula’s Intonazione cromatica  with echoes is particularly effective. The disc presents a plausible reconstruction of a festal Mass with plainchant propers and other items, well sung by the church’s schola, as well as the organ interludes in appropriate places. The polyphonic singing is enthusiastic – often overly so, without much subtlety and with a couple of voices over-dominant in the full texture. They are accompanied by two trombones and theorbo, as well as the organ, and the resonant acoustic tends to emphasise the lack of contrast. The result is somewhat to trivialise Benevoli’s carefully considered antiphonal repetitions, without sufficient separation in the recording to mimic the surround-sound effects and contrasts intended by the composer. The reduced-voice sections like the Christe and the middle section of the Credo fare better; the latter’s seemingly endless ‘non erit finis’ is particularly effective. This is an enterprising project and it is good to see a contemporary Roman church choir tackling this music.

Noel O’Regan

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Cardoso: Magnificats, Missa secundi toni, motets

The Choir of Girton College Cambridge, Historic Brass of the Royal Academy of Music, Gareth Wilson
77:51
Toccata Classics TOCC 0476
+de Brito, Magalhaes, Morago & anon

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]his disc represents a fruitful collaboration between the choir of Girton College, directed by Gareth Wilson, and the historic brass players of the Royal Academy of Music under the tutelage of Jeremy West. They show a welcome commitment to the music of Manuel Cardoso and his Portuguese contemporaries, having toured with this programme to Evora and other cathedrals associated with these composers before recording it. Much of the music is recorded here for the first time, particularly Cardoso’s Missa Secondi Toni  and two of his alternatim Magnificats, as well as two anonymous Portuguese organ pieces, played by Lucy Morrell; one is a delightfully sprightly Passo de Segundo Tom. The Cardoso Mass displays all the features familiar to us from other works by this fine composer while individual pieces by De Brito, Magalhães and Morago confirm the high standard of Portuguese music in this late Renaissance-early Baroque period. The choir sings with commitment and mostly rises to the challenge, though the vocal sound is perhaps a bit restrained and some more articulation of the words would have been welcome. The balance, when accompanied by the brass, is not always to the choir’s advantage – it is, of course, difficult to make this work on a recording when light young voices in groups have to balance with penetrating solo instruments. When playing on their own in three pieces, the instrumentalists show a real flair for stile antico polyphony, particularly in Morago’s Commissa mea pavesco  where some very expressive playing brings out the subtleties of the suspensions and other contrapuntal devices. The two Magnificats are particularly effective: they are well orchestrated between voices and instruments, and the verses flow steadily between chant and polyphony. Booklet notes are excellent and the whole enterprise represents a very successful presentation of some beautiful music.

Noel O’Regan

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A. Scarlatti: Responsories for Holy Week: Holy Saturday

La Stagione Armonica, Sergio Balestracci
70:20
dhm 1 90758 02412 7

[dropcap]S[/dropcap]carlatti’s settings of the nine responsories from the Tenebrae office for Holy Saturday are performed here in their three nocturns, preceded and separated by four Lenten motets and four organ pieces by the same composer. It makes for a satisfying programme which showcases Scarlatti’s more restrained side, using the developed stile antico  idiom commonly found in late 17th-century liturgical music. This refers back to late 16th-century style but uses more advanced harmonic shifts, sometimes becoming quite chromatic in response to the words. The listener can have some fun looking out for influences from earlier composers of responsories like Victoria and Gesualdo. Those recorded here survive in a single source, now in Bologna; although not attributed, they have long been thought to be by the elder Scarlatti – probably composed for the Medici in Florence – and certainly match the style of his more authenticated motets on this disc. The source provides a basso continuo, and organ is used to accompany the set here. The CD opens with an organ toccata and fugue, played by Carlo Rossi, which provides a full-bodied introduction in Italian style; the organ is a copy of a late 17th-century South German portable organ by Zanin of Udine. The sixteen voices of the choir produce a full choral sound, also in a typical Italian manner. Blend is good, even if tuning is not always spot on. The singing does have a strong sense of commitment and brings out the subtleties of the harmony and of Scarlatti’s word-painting devices. The final Miserere  is particularly heartfelt.

Noel O’Regan

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Corrette: Sonatas for Harpsichord & Violin, op. 25

Michael Jarvis harpsichord, Paul Luchkow violin
73:55
Marquis 774718147523 (MAR 81475)

[dropcap]C[/dropcap]orrette was active in many musical fields – a prolific pedagogue as well as composer. Le Phénix  may still be his best-known piece either in its original form for four basses de viole  or in one of the many arrangements which circulate (I first heard it on bassoons). However, in recent years a number of his more weighty works have been recorded giving us a rather more rounded view of his output. These sonatas, for the then newly fashionable combination of duetting violin and keyboard were published in 1742, in the wake of Mondonville’s op. 3. Each has three movements fast-slowish-fast and some programmatic content: this is just an overall title for sonatas I-V but extends to the individual movements in VI – Les Voyages d’ Ulysse. The players do a lively, engaging and committed job, taking these indications as a starting point though, given that the keyboard is definitely the musically dominant instrument, it is a shame that it is not a little more forward in the aural image, though I do stress the ‘little’. The booklet notes are sound in content though do incorporate some strange hyphenation and perhaps needed a little more thought about fonts.

David Hansell

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Recording

William Mundy: Sacred Choral Music

Choir of St Mary’s Cathedral, Edinburgh, Duncan Ferguson Organist and Master of the Music
65:15
Delphian DCD 34204

[dropcap]“[/dropcap]They order, said I, this matter …” differently in Scotland. St Mary’s Cathedral, Edinburgh, which is in the Scottish Episcopal Church, part of the Anglican Communion, has the only surviving choir school in Scotland, where the Church of Scotland, aka The Kirk, which is presbyterian (no bishops!), is the Established Church. For some decades the choir has had a mixed treble line, and the occasional female alto lay-clerk. Since the arrival as OMM of Duncan Ferguson, the Choir has made many highly regarded recordings of demanding music throughout all generations, including two featuring Latin compositions by, respectively, Taverner and Sheppard. Their relatively neglected but equally gifted contemporary William Mundy is the focus of this new release, with another Latin programme that is demanding to sing, stimulating to hear, and altogether delightful.

To be clear, all the tracks listed above are interesting, rewarding and enjoyable, but two stand out: first, the Mary antiphon Maria virgo sanctissima. This is a premiere recording – not too surprising, as there are a certain number of Mundy’s motets which get the nod for recordings but quite a few others that continue to languish unrecorded. But apart from the fact that it is a magnificent piece which the Edinburgh choir drives to a fine climax in a quite glorious final amen, it also represents a collaboration with the most exciting project in recent years to feature Tudor music: this is “Tudor Partbooks: the Manuscript Legacies of John Sadler, John Baldwin and their Antecedents” which has been supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and led by an outstanding scholar of the music from this period, Magnus Williamson at Newcastle University. That the AHRC has provided funding for this initiative is massively praiseworthy. Part of the project involves digitizing these precious original manuscripts that – most significantly in the case of Sadler – are in a dangerously fragile state, but it also involves, where possible, making usable editions of works which are to a greater or lesser extent fragmentary. Maria virgo sanctissima lacks its tenor, and it has been provided by Magnus Williamson in the edition used for this recording; it is only appropriate that the logos of AHRC and “Tudor Partbooks” appear in the accompanying booklet.

The other stand-out work on this disc is the tripartite In exitu Israel  in which the first and longest section is by Sheppard, the senior composer of the trio; the second section is by Byrd (the booklet correctly disposes of suggested alternatives to the then (late 1550s) adolescent William); and the third section is by Mundy himself. The Cardinall’s Musick first recorded this historical oddity on the second disc of their Byrd Edition (Gaudeamus CD GAU 178) but the two versions could hardly be more different. It is a work to be sung in procession, and while TCM presents it as a static performance, albeit recorded in a Roman Catholic church, St Mary’s sings it while processing in the Cathedral, even with audible thurible at the required moment (disappointingly the thurifer is not credited in the booklet!). They sing the polyphonic sections at TTBarB pitch with their trebles chanting the plainsong, while TCM sing at SSAT with men chanting. Neither of these versions follows precisely the instructions in the Sarum liturgy in which the decani side of the choir should sing the plainsong and cantoris the polyphony. This would of course provide spatial differentiation during a live service or performance. Nevertheless both versions have the benefit of perhaps providing more aural variety for those listening to discs, when the spatial differentiation between decani and cantoris would not be so apparent. The sense of movement in a procession is well sustained by St Mary’s, and given that the disc features Mundy, it is appropriate that the polyphony becomes most distinct for his concluding contribution to this work. The booklet is clear about which verses are set by each composer.

There are two further premieres, both settings of Alleluia. Per te Dei genetrix  either side of the exquisite motet Sive vigilem  which is joined by two other fine shorter works, Beatus et sanctus, another motet, which gets the disc off to an excellent start, and the psalm setting Adolescentulus sum ego. We have had two stand-out works already, but without doubt the outstanding work on the disc, and the one best known, most discussed and most recorded, is the giant votive antiphon Vox patris caelestis. This has been the subject of two major articles in recent years by Kerry McCarthy and John Milsom. As in the Mary antiphon, there are resonances of the pieces in the Eton Choirbook, as Mundy marshals his vocal forces in a virtuoso display of contrasts, all the way using strong melodies, punctuated by occasional homophony as at “Te omnes” in a dramatic intervention towards the conclusion, to drive the music forward.

Performances are of a uniformly high level. The sound is unlike that of The Sixteen on the other disc devoted to Mundy’s music: that is very much the adult chamber choir giving perfect renditions in a selected (unspecified) acoustic (Helios CDH55086). St Mary’s is a liturgical choir, singing in its own cathedral, with trebles rather than sopranos and therefore, the presence of some girls (and a female alto) notwithstanding, closer to what Mundy would have expected. The overall sound seems more focused than on previous Tudor recordings by St Mary’s, giving a grainier texture to the lay clerks (there is one bass with quite an old-fashioned vibrato) and some grit to the trebles, but this is never to the detriment of the music, and reflects the authenticity of the performance: short of being there in Edinburgh, this is the next best alternative as a compact disc. Credit to all concerned: for choosing such a rewarding composer as Mundy, whose style effortlessly migrates from the floridity of the Eton Choirbook to the conciseness of the Elizabethan motet without losing his personal touch; for selecting a varied and interesting repertory; and for performing it in an accessible and engaging way.

Richard Turbet

Categories
Recording

Portraits & Caractères

Martin Gester harpsichord, Stéphanie Pfister violin
Lidi 0301314-17
74:00
Music by Corrette, Duphly & Mondonville

[dropcap]C[/dropcap]orrette can rarely have had it so good! Three of the discs in my current heap contain at least one sonata from his op. 25, this one claiming to be a first recording, though as it is duplicated on one of the others I have, I’ll leave the artists and/or their recording companies to sort that one out!

This is a very satisfying programme overall, two harpsichord/violin duos (Mondonville as well as the Corrette) being framed and separated by groups of harpsichord ‘solos’ (some of which have subsidiary violin parts) drawn from Duphly’s 2nd and 3rd books. In these Martin Gester plays with an exemplary blend of control and relaxed authority, making full but sensible use of his fine instrument (a copy of the Russell Collection’s remarkable 1769 Taskin). Once or twice I felt he was over-stretching the beat, but this is a tiny issue. More of an issue is the balance between violin and harpsichord in the duos. In general, and given that the keyboard is often the primary instrument, I feel that the violin is too forward in the aural picture and that there are also places where its material is “accompanimental” and simply should be played a little more softly. The supporting material (Eng/Fre) is sound though white print on a dark red background doesn’t make for the easiest reading.

David Hansell

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