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Recording

From Byrd to Byrd

Friederike Chylek harpsichord
Oehms Classics OC 1702
67:24

This is the second recording by the German harpsichordist Friederike Chylek of early English keyboard music. I gave Time Stands Still a warm welcome (7 February 2017) and so I began listening to its successor with a sense of eager anticipation. The programme is built around a fascinating conceit, somewhat in the form of a rondo, featuring Byrd as fons et origo of harpsichord music, with forays into the works of his pupils and, further afield, to composers from the seventeenth century all of whom benefited from his pioneering. The disc is given a particular significance for including a rare Byrd premiere, of sorts.

The programme begins with four varied pieces by Byrd himself, beginning with The Bells. There are over twenty versions of this classic currently available, and more than one of the recent procession of releases featuring Byrd’s keyboard music have included it. Nevertheless, even a jaded palate will be stimulated by Chylek’s superb performance. I was brought up on Fritz Neumeyer’s version (on a 10” LP from 1957!) which pulled off the trick of being metronomic while allowing Byrd’s music to express how he had been inspired by the sound of pealing bells. Frau Chylek goes further, maintaining an ideal balance between the disciplined requirements of campanology, and a subtle ebb and flow as Byrd revels in the ringing. Some recordings tend to over-interpret this piece. Chylek confirms that the only requirements are the composer’s notes, allied to the performer’s momentum and sensitivity. The other three items in this opening section are Byrd’s first setting (of three) of Monsieur’s Alman; Lord Willoughby’s Welcome Home – always welcome (sic) especially when played as vivaciously as this; and the Prelude in G which is the first item in the volumes of Musica Britannica devoted to the composer.

It might seem perverse to conclude what is obviously a separate section of a recording with a prelude, but in fact it leads fittingly to an anonymous setting of Dowland’s Piper’s Pavan & Galliard (MB 96/28) which is in the same key. This is followed by the disc’s significant premiere. There is an LP recording of the setting of Piper’s Galliard aka If my Complaints, played by Paul Maynard, from 1962, but this is the first version on CD, providing an interesting comparison with the anonymous setting of the same galliard that is the previous track. The attribution to Byrd in its unique source is now universally rejected (BK 103, MB 96/38) not least because yet another anonymous setting (Tuttle 26, BK 118, MB 55/20) is now regarded as likely to be by Byrd, and has been recorded as such by Davitt Moroney on his boxed set of Byrd’s complete keyboard music (Hyperion CDS44461-7) and by Aapo Hakkinen on William Byrd: Late Music for the Virginals (Alba ABCD 405) which I reviewed appreciatively for EMR (published 20 November 2017 q.v.). Although Frau Chylek makes the best possible case for the amiable setting now rejected from Byrd’s keyboard canon, it is not difficult to agree with Oliver Neighbour’s dismissal of it as “a thoroughly amateurish version” of Dowland’s galliard, even going on to call the attribution to Byrd “impertinent”. The piece is not mentioned by Martin Hoffmann in the booklet, and is described accurately and with restraint on the sleeve as “arr. attributed to Byrd”. Incidentally, according to Stephen Tuttle and pace Moroney, the now accepted anonymous setting was first attributed to Byrd as early as 1929, by Hilda Andrews in part II of the Catalogue of the King’s Music Library (London: British Museum).

We remain with Byrd for his second setting of Monsieur’s Alman which is the longest of the three (the brief third is on Hakkinen’s disc mentioned above; Neighbour was wrong to be dismissive of these settings, as Chylek and Hakkinen give thoughtful performances that answer his criticisms) before setting off for the Baroque. Here we are treated to a Suite in D by Matthew Locke from Melothesia, then a Symphony and Saraband in g by William Lawes, numbers 48-49 from Playford’s Musick’s Handmaid of 1663 (numbers 343 and 345 in the Viola da Gamba Society’s Thematic index of music for viols under William Lawes), followed by the Suite in d (Z 668) by Purcell; the subtitle of the almand “Bell-barr” refers to Bell Bar, a hamlet in the parish of North Mimms or Mymms in Hertfordshire, close to Hatfield and St Albans. Chylek’s touch in these tuneful Baroque items is as sensitive to her material as it is in the earlier pieces from the Renaissance.

And then it is back to Byrd again for three more works. The Pavan & Galliard pair “Bray” is thought to be dedicated to the expatriate Jesuit priest Fr William Bray. It is one of Byrd’s less recorded pairings in its original version for keyboard, the pavan being more likely to crop up on disc, minus its exquisite varied strains, in its arrangement for lute by Francis Cutting. The third work in this section is Byrd’s Fancy for My Lady Nevell aka Fantasia in C (BK 25) which begins with an upward scale of C major which, as I have suggested in previous reviews in EMR,echoes Byrd’s setting of the word “lux” in his motet Descendit in coelis from his second book of Cantiones sacrae 1591. Her execution of “Bray” captures the character of what is among Byrd’s more pensive, and most beautiful, pavans, while she captures the sheer tunefulness of the galliard, not least in its second strain where there is one of Byrd’s delightful sleight-of-hand key-changes towards the end. Nor is her response to what is one of Byrd’s most performed fantasias at all like the usual cavalry charge with which it can be despatched, again preferring a pensive approach to show the piece in a different light.

After this return to Byrd, we are off again, this time to his more immediate successors. First, Gibbons’ Mask: The Fairest Nymph, a miniature that transcends it miniaturity, if there be such a word. Dowland is then revisited, in two settings by Bull of Piper’s Galliard, both of them effervescent, the second like a shower of musical meteorites. Chylek abides as distantly as possible by Thurston Dart’s pronouncement – solemnly echoed by most subsequent performers and editors of this piece – that “the formidable brilliance of this setting enforces a slow tempo”, without sacrificing any musicality, a thrilling account. Morley’s very C-major Alman goes some way towards slamming the brakes on, though even here the varied strains throw caution bracingly to the winds, as the disc approaches its final item, Byrd’s Hornpipe.

In Byrd’s day the hornpipe was a dance in triple time that could be either fast or slow. It had no nautical connotations until the eighteenth century, when it seems also to have begun to be danced in quadruple time. Byrd’s piece is structurally a ground, and incorporates both the slow and, from bar 121, fast manifestations of the dance. From a staid start, Byrd subtly winds up the musical action using syncopation and varied note values, until the change of tempo at bar 121, when it seems as though some source of extra creative energy bursts forth, such as younger and more energetic dancers taking over from more mature performers, with increasing terpsichorean elation. Or so Friederike Chylek’s playing could persuade one to believe.

This disc is a luminous justification of the concept of the long-playing record and the compact disc. It is beautifully constructed on two levels. First, it provides a programme in which interesting individual pieces are juxtaposed, meaning, for example, that the listener with a penchant for Byrd can be introduced to the superb music of Matthew Locke, who was born two years before Byrd died, with which they might not be familiar. Secondly the programming is inventive and sensitive. Byrd’s Prelude in g BK 1 concludes the opening section devoted to his music but it leads decorously into an anonymous setting, in the same key, of Piper’s Pavan & Galliard by Dowland. The galliard is followed by another setting, attributed – albeit probably wrongly but nonetheless interestingly – to Byrd. Later in the programme there are two dazzling settings by Bull of the same galliard, the second an even more spectacular “variatio” of the first. There are two settings of Monsieur’s Alman by Byrd to compare, and a hornpipe by him and another by Purcell also to compare. As I mentioned at the outset, the entire programme keeps flowing from Byrd to Byrd, interspersed with forays to those who were his pupils, and further afield to those influenced by him more distantly.

The booklet’s notes are an object lesson in informed enthusiasm. It seems churlish to mention that they still give the date of Byrd’s birth as 1543 (recte 1539/40) but this can be excused in view of Martin Hoffmann’s appreciative, almost evangelistic, focus on the repertory of this recording. 

Neither the excellence of the programming nor of Dr Hoffmann’s notes would be worth much without the superlative quality of Friederike Chylek’s playing. With this recording her mere name becomes self-recommending. Her tempi are unerringly judicious, her faultless interpretations exuding profound sensitivity expressed lightly. She is aided by a fine instrument, copied by Matthias Griewisch from an original of 1624 by Ruckers. It has an almost silvery tone yet is strong when required, and depicts every note with clarity and appropriate emphasis, revealing individual lines within the more contrapuntal pieces while blending them into the totality of each piece. This is of course a compliment to Friederike Chylek’s technique.

I cannot recommend this disc too highly. Anyone familiar with some or all of these works will find them interpreted in so many new lights. It is also an ideal disc for someone setting out to discover early English keyboard music – a wonderful repertory complimented by this wonderful disc.

Richard Turbet

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Recording

Monteverdi: Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria

Floral design

Monteverdi Choir, English Baroque Soloists, directed by John Eliot Gardiner
185:50 (3 CDs)
SDG 730

Those looking for a HIP recording – and I assume that would apply to most readers on this site – of this marvellous product of Monteverdi’s old age should be warned this is not it. In a long and to me at times pretentious note John Eliot Gardiner makes clear that he views Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria not as an up-to-date opera in mid-17th century Venetian style, but as a continuation of that encountered in his earlier operas and works. This surely contradicts not only practicalities, but also the changed ethos of opera. Monteverdi cannot have been unaware of developments that had taken place, particularly since the advent of public opera in Venice three years before Il ritorno was first produced in 1640. Moreover the libretto, based on Homer’s Odyssey, with which Giacomo Badoaro had tempted him to the public theatre presented a totally different approach to the operas of the early years of the century. It is, for example, quite unthinkable to image the comic glutton Iro in Orfeo or any other opera of the first decades of the century.

Gardiner’s contentious proposal enables him to do two things. Firstly, to indulge in some tenuous comparisons with Shakespeare, who had not only died a quarter of a century earlier, but belonged to a different milieu and culture. Secondly, and more importantly, it allows him to indulge his preference for inflated and unidiomatic performing forces. So here, rather than the modest forces found in Venetian opera houses, Gardiner unapologetically fields a sizable orchestra including not only 6-4-1-1 strings but cornetti, recorders and dulcian in addition to a sizable continuo group that includes four archlutes (or guitars), harp, organ and harpsichord. Experienced Monteverdians will thus at times find themselves thinking they are listening to Orfeo rather than Il ritorno. This may to some sound pedantic. In fact it is not, because the use of such substantial forces tends to obstruct clear projection of text, crucial in works of this kind. Neither is the non-continuo contribution always restricted to ritornellos, as was customary in 17th century Venetian opera. Among a number of examples the worst is the addition of a tasteless violin solo to the sensuous duet at the conclusion of the delightful scene (act 1, sc 2) between the young servant lovers Melanto and Eurimaco.

It’s an unnecessary and vulgar intrusion that jars, especially as the scene is one of the best performed episodes in the opera. Otherwise there is much to be questioned, particularly in the treatment of the stile recitativo that still dominates the opera. In his notes Eliot Gardiner makes much of the work that was put into making sure both singers and instrumentalists understood the fusion of the all-important text and Monteverdi’s music. Yet to my mind much of the recitative is delivered in far too deliberate a manner, with much fragmentation, exaggeration of rhythmic flexibility and unnatural dynamic extremes. The result is not only self-indulgent and mannered but paradoxically also stilted and at times lugubrious.

The multi-national cast assembled by Gardiner has both strengths and weaknesses. I have mixed feelings about the Penelope of French mezzo Lucile Richardot. The voice itself is disconcertingly unusual, with an almost masculine quality in the chest register contrasting with pleasingly feminine head notes, the break always too apparent. Yet she brings a strong dramatic sense to the role and it is probably not her fault if the great opening monologue at times sounds more like whinging than the dignified distress of a queen. But she sings ornaments with greater conviction than most of the cast and the final, long-delayed reunion with her Ulisse is intensely moving, not least since Gardiner here allows text and music a more natural flow, enabling the drama to speak for itself. Her Ulisse is capably sung by the veteran baritone Furio Zanasi, who brings authority and long-established understanding of musical and textural syntax to the role. The voice may no longer be free of the odd rough edge – he was superior in a performance under Rinaldo Alessandrini given at the 2010 Beaunne Festival – but overall this is an impressive assumption of the role. The outstanding performance here is that of the Polish tenor Krystian Adam, whose Telemaco is perhaps the finest I’ve heard. The youthful fervency he brings to his relations with both his mother and father coupled with excellent articulation of text is totally compelling. Mention has already been made of the fine performances of the servants Melanto and Eurimaco, sung with appealingly youthful vivacity by Anna Dennis and Zachary Wilder. The remaining roles are filled with varying degrees of success.

The recording was made at live performances given in 2017 in Wroclaw, Poland, coming at the end of an extensive and, as I understand, highly successful tour of Europe and the US, during which the three extant Monteverdi operas were given in semi-staged productions. I regret not being able to add my endorsement, but feel that, as with his continued refusal to countenance Bach performances that conform to those of Bach’s own day, Sir John simply has this wrong. My recommendation remains the considerably more idiomatic performance by La Venexiana (Glossa).

Brian Robins

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Recording

Tilting at Windmills

Dark green flowers

Mico Consort
74:58
Son an ero 12

The Mico Consort, based in France, consists of three violists and an organist. This would not seem an ideal combination for playing a programme such as this, a proportion of which consists of music for viols, much of it in four or five parts, by Byrd and his English contemporaries Tye and of course Mico. Of these only Tye’s Sit fast is performed by the forces, three viols, for which it was composed. They also play pieces by Locke, Coprario, Jenkins and Baltzar appropriate to their personnel, and the organist Anne-Marie Blondel plays four pieces.

Three of Byrd’s five-part In nomines and his Browning are played by 3 viols and organ. Why? The textures are all wrong, impeding and unbalancing Byrd’s narrative. The same is true regarding the two fantasias and, especially, the pavan by Mico. Byrd’s two In nomines in four parts fare better, because the organ plays the cantus firmus and the three viols the contrapuntal parts. Gibbons’ fantasia a6 (MB48/33) is played on the organ. Again, why? Is it because a short score survives and is interpreted by the musicians as indicating the possibility of contemporary performance on the organ alone? Mme Blondel follows this short score in places, and expands upon it in others. The number of surviving fantasias for keyboard by Gibbons runs well into double figures, and their textures differ from this example. Some of them have had all too few recordings. The other three performances on the organ are a vivacious rendition of Tomkins’ Ground (MB5/40); an impressively engaged version of Byrd’s The Bells,surprisingly one of the first commercial recordings of the work to be played on the organ; and to conclude the disc, a radiant performance of Bull’s Salve regina (MB14/40). Here is also a modern piece by Geraud Chirol which gives the disc its title, an incongruous work for the forces of the ensemble.

The presentation is unsatisfactory. Some works are identified merely as ”Ground”, “Fantasia/e” or “Ayre”. There is also a weird piece of translation in the booklet, where a Pavane en la mineur by Jenkins, played on the instruments for which it was intended (see below), is described in the English translation as “a rather tamely written piece” while the original French says “une piece de facture assez sage”. Sage = tame? And if it is tame, why record it? Jenkins’ pavan is not tame, nor is anything in his vast and distinguished oeuvre. This piece also provides a good illustration of the inadequate identifications mentioned above. A search of the Viola da Gamba Society’s thematic index under Jenkins for a pavan in A minor among his hundreds of works proved initially fruitless. By sheer good fortune, on the Presto website there is a “Pavan for 2 bass viols in A minor” listed on a disc of Jenkins’ music performed by Fretwork, with recorded incipits of each track. This turned out to be the same piece. Returning to the VgGS thematic index, I went again to the section on music for bass viols and, having previously scanned the index looking for pieces titled “pavan”, I found the work under the title “[Ayre]”. This took the best part of an hour. It was interesting before it became frustrating, after which I emerged triumphant, albeit rather fortunately, but it was also a huge waste of my time. The item is no 1 in the VdGS listing of Jenkins’ music for two bass viols, and is available from Fretwork Editions and Dovehouse Editions.

This is a curate’s egg of a disc.  Performances by the ensemble tend to be uninspiring and, in the case of the works by Byrd and Mico, are unnecessary. One of the pieces played as an organ solo is a waste of a track but, to conclude on a positive note, the other three organ solos are all estimable.

Richard Turbet

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Recording

Haydn Symphonies

Pink chrysanthemum

HAYDN: SYMPHONIES, VOL 1 – LA PASSIONE
Il Giardino Armonico, Giovanni Antonini (cond)
70:52
Alpha 670
Symphonies 1, 39 & 49; Gluck: Don Juan

HAYDN: SYMPHONIES, VOL 3 – SOLO E PENSOSO
Il Giardino Armonico, Giovanni Antonini (cond)
68:57
Alpha 672
Symphonies 4, 42 & 64; Overture – L’Isola disabitata; Cantata – Sole e pensoso

HAYDN: SYMPHONIES, VOL 4 – ‘IL DISTRATTO’
Il Giardino Armonico, Giovanni Antonini (cond)
68:57
Alpha 674
Symphonies 12, 60 & 70; Cimarosa: Il maestro di cappella

HAYDN: SYMPHONIES Nos. 79, 80 & 81
Capella Savaria, Nicholas McGegan (cond)
68:10
Hungaroton HCD 32823

HAYDN: SYMPHONY No. 82 – ‘L’OURS’
Le Concert de la Loge, Julien Chauvin (cond)
64:38
Aparté AP186
Davaux: Sinfonia Concertante for 2 violins; Devienne: Sinfonia Concertante for flute, oboe, bassoonn & hornn

There can surely be few compositions more suited to binge listening than the symphonies (or indeed the string quartets) of Haydn. With him you get just about everything: unfailing invention and compositional technique of the highest order; drama; pathos; wit; and of course genial companionability, the reputation for which has arguably done the composer more harm than good. So the accumulation in my in-tray of no fewer than five CDs featuring Haydn symphonies reaching from the first of them, composed around to 1758, to No. 82, ‘The Bear’, composed for Paris in 1786, offered a rare opportunity to survey nearly three decades of prolific symphonic output.

Three of the discs included come from an ambitious project to record the complete symphonies, planned for completion by 2032, the year in which the 300th anniversary of Haydn’s birth will be celebrated. The musical director of the series is the Italian conductor Giovanni Antonini, who has directed his own Il Giardino Armonico and the Kammerorchester Basel in the seven issues so far released (reviews of volumes 2 and 5 can be found elsewhere on this site). In his notes that preface volume 1 Antonini writes of attempting to find a ‘code’, or key to the logic behind Haydn’s music, concluding ‘I don’t know if Haydn performed his music the way I do it; probably not. But taking a conscious approach to historical music also includes adding a good dose of your own creativity’. Indeed it does and although one doesn’t have to agree with everything Antonini does (this listener doesn’t) the overwhelming single impression made by his performances is that every bar is intensely alive and compelling in a way that is rarely experienced on a recording.

As one progresses through the series, certain common characteristics emerge. One of the most obvious is the extreme dynamic contrasts employed, from barely heard whispers of sound – superlatively sustained by outstanding orchestral playing – to furious, at times brazen outbursts. Tempos, too, tend to follow the modern taste for extremes, but so compelling are the performances that only in a movement like the Allegro di molto (ii) of ‘La Passione’ (No. 49 in F minor) might the listener perhaps occasionally pause to question the very brisk speed. In these quicker movements articulation is extremely precise, short-bowed and again arguably at times guilty of not allowing notes their full value. But that is a post-listening observation; at the time of experiencing the music the listener tends to be so caught up by the rhythmic spring and exuberant, sinewy muscularity of the playing that such thoughts are swiftly banished. Neither is a lighter, often enchanting and engaging grace excluded, a quality already apparent both in Haydn’s writing and Antonini’s performance of the exquisite Andante of Symphony No. 1 in D, one of the more impressive symphonic debuts in the repertoire.

Antonini’s way with Haydn’s slower movements (and it is rarely appropriate to write of slow movements in the Classical symphony) never ceases to remind us that he is an Italian, that his ability to draw beautifully structured and shaped cantabile lines is one of the great beauties of the cycle. Among many examples, perhaps one might take the Andante (ii) of the Symphony in D (No. 70), considered by the great Haydn scholar H. C. Robbins Landon to be greatest symphony of the period (the late 1770s). The movement features exceptionally learned compositional technique, being a double canon. Yet what the listener hears is a grave, understated nocturnal march, played with the utmost finesse, with warm winds contributing to sounds of quite magical delicacy. Finally, it would be wrong to leave Antonini’s Haydn without paying the highest tribute to the playing of Il Giardino Armonico, which in all departments is throughout so outstanding that I hope singling out the fabulous playing of the four horns in the G-minor symphony (No. 39) on volume 1 will not be thought too ungallant.

Not the least of the attractions of the Antonini series is the inclusion of music other than symphonies by either Haydn himself or his contemporaries. Volume 1 includes a substantial ‘extra’ in the shape of the original version of Gluck’s ballet Don Juan of 1761, though the fact that it is incomplete is not noted in the booklet. The scenario, with small variations, will be familiar to anyone who knows Mozart’s Don Giovanni. The score, which originally consists of 31 mainly brief movements (or dances), is colourfully varied, culminating in the demonic scene in which the Don is dragged to hell, here played with fiercely incisive drive. Volume 3 includes two additional works, the overture to Haydn’s opera L’isola dishabitata (1779) and the scena for soprano ‘Solo e pensoso’, Haydn’s setting of the magnificent sonnet by Petrarch, also set by Marenzio as a magnificent five-part madrigal. Here it is beautifully done by the lustrously-voiced Francesca Aspromonte, who captures the vulnerability and fragility of the poem to near-ideal effect. A very different kind of vocal work makes a substantial contribution to Volume 4. Cherubini’s effervescent Il maestro di Capella (1795) is a work that takes us firmly into the world of opera buffo. It takes a popular 18th-century conceit – a work about musicians performing music (c.f. Mozart’s Impressario) – to introduce a hard-pressed Kapellmeister trying to get his musicians to perform correctly his latest ‘masterpiece’. Into his increasing frustration are introduced sly digs relevant to contemporary music making. Needless to say all ultimately comes out well. Baritone Riccardo Novaro is outstanding, capturing every mood and nuance in richly hued but never overplayed fashion.

During Nicholas McGegan’s days as artistic director of the Göttingen Handel Festival, I recall several exceptional Haydn symphony performances, one of the ‘London’ Symphony (No. 104) lingering particularly in the mind. It is no surprise therefore to find his CD with a trio of symphonies from the period immediately before the ‘Paris’ symphonies of the late 1780s to be most attractive. If the playing of Capella Savaria, the Hungarian period instrument orchestra with which McGegan has a long association, cannot quite match that of Antonini’s superb band, it is never less than extremely capable and well balanced, with some especially good wind playing. This is less radical Haydn than that of Antonini, but the urbane geniality of No. 79 in F in particular suits McGegan’s own affability to a tee. No. 80 in D minor is a different matter altogether, termed by Robbins Landon ‘mock-heroic’ because of the huge contrast between the opening Allegro spiritoso’s tautly dramatic main subject and the unexpected lightness, almost triviality, of the secondary idea in the major. It is almost as if the composer is having a laugh at our expense. McGegan captures ideally this duality with all his masterful experience, going on to provide a satisfying account of this strangely quirky symphony.

Le Concert de la Loge is (unsurprisingly) a French ensemble that derives its name from the organisation that commissioned and performed six Haydn symphonies in the mid-1780s. Its CD includes the first numbered of them (though not the first composed), No. 82 in C, which bears the nickname ‘The Bear’ after the heavy ‘bear dance’ theme of the final movement. Le Concert de la Loge Olympique – to give it its full name – boasted a large orchestra and the symphonies Haydn wrote for it are the most ambitious he had yet undertaken. The performance is closer to those of Antonini than McGegan, lithe and vibrant with well-sprung rhythms both in fully and lightly scored passages. The ‘bear dance’ finale is especially rumbustious and characterful, the only drawback being odd moments of rhythmic disruption, which introduce an unwelcome degree of affectation. In addition Julien Chauvin adds two works of a kind particularly associated with Paris, the sinfonia concertante, a kind of cross between symphony and concerto with two or more soloists integrated into a symphonic texture. It’s a difficult genre, dominated by one incontrovertibly great work, Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante for violin and viola, K364. Neither of the two examples here are remotely in that league, that by Davaux being in the potpourri form fashionable around the turn of the century. The concertante by Devienne, who will be known to all flautists, is the better, falling as it does agreeably on the ear. There is some felicitous writing for the four soloists, though it suffers from the form’s usual problem – finding space for all the soloists to have solo passages employing the same material and thus tending to become somewhat longwinded and repetitive.

To sum up. It is noteworthy that all these CDs would grace a collection. The three Antonini discs especially are part of a series that demands the attention of all serious Haydn collectors. It is now firmly established as the on going cycle de nos jours, though some of us are unlikely to live to see its completion! McGegan’s attractive CD brings to attention three lesser-known works, while the French recording includes a compelling version of an outstanding work, though it will be less appealing to anyone not attracted to the sinfonia concertantes.

Brian Robins

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Recording

Monteverdi: Vespro della Beata Vergine

Floral design

Ludus Modalis, Bruno Boterf
Ramée RAM1702

A recording of the Monteverdi Vespers with minimalist scoring and the six-voice Magnificat is a welcome alternative to the plethora of versions with a Praetorius-inspired monumentality that could only have been realised in very few establishments in the early 17th century. While more minimalist versions – beginning with Andrew Parrott’s landmark recording in 1984 – are now the preferred way of hearing performances of the large-scale version that includes the opening toccata, the sonata and the seven-part Magnificat, Ludus Modalis are to be congratulated on providing us with a pared down version, with twelve singers grouped around an organ built by Bernard Boulay after Costanzo Antegnati for the church in Prazac near Angoulême, where this recording was made.

The singers are not random soloists, with little experience of consort or choral singing, but members of the group Ludus Modalis – five sopranos, two altos, three tenors (including Boterf himself) and three basses – formed primarily to sing music of the Renaissance. Their sound is homogeneous, free of modern vibrato and in many ways ideal for the prima prattica. But for some of the singers, the seconda prattica episodes in the psalms as well as in the concerti make demands rather beyond their comfort zone. Like the organ, tuned in a meantone temperament at A=440 with a lot of perfect thirds, the group sing with clarity of sound and clean chording. Their blend with the organ can be heard at its best in Audi Cœlum, where the single notes in the organ bass at cadences can be appreciated.

But there are some question marks in my mind. The first concerns the bassus generalis which Boterf sees as an incipient basso continuo part.  Accordingly he has no qualms in adding to the basic organ two harpsichords (one strung in brass, the other with gut), a bass viol, a bass sackbut and a bass cornett. He uses this array to colour the bass line – and sometimes to reinforce a cantus firmus, as in Nisi Dominus – in a way that seems to me anachronistic and sometimes unmusical: hearing the crochets in the verses with the running bass in Laetatus sum played on a bass sackbut is as odd as using the bass viol with a harpsichord to over-rigidify the fluid bass in Nigra sum. The incongruity is heightened when we hear the ritornelli between the verses of the hymn Ave Maris Stella played on differing combinations of these basso continuo instruments, with the wind and string members taking what are sometimes tenor lines in the ritornelli. Why – since he properly omits the ritornelli in Dixit Dominus – does he choose to retain them in these highly questionable instrumentations in the hymn?

Boterf is aware of the liturgical context of this part of Monteverdi’s 1610 publication and adds antiphons from the Common of the Blessed Virgin Mary, repeating them after each psalm. His solution to the gap left by the un-performable Sonata is ingenious. He uses a Recercar con obligo di cantar la quinta parte senza toccarla by Girolamo Frescobaldi, where he gives the wordless sung fifth part to the sopranos, fitting the words: Sancta Maria, ora pro nobis to it; and he doubles the organ tenor with bass cornett and the bass line with the sackbut.

But his treatment of the opening versicle and response is muddled liturgically. He has the opening Versicle: Deus in adjutorium sung by the cantor (officiant) and answered by all the male voices in plain Gregorian tone for Domine ad adjuvandum, but then breaks into the D chords of Monteverdi’s six part Response at Gloria Patri, only to have the Gregorian resume at Sicut before reverting to Monteverdi’s setting at Et in saecula, creating a liturgically unwarranted break up in the lines, presumably to preserve Monteverdi’s setting of Alleluia.

In the psalm settings, Boterf does not always make a clear distinction between the alternating verse structure – a feature of both Dixit Dominus and Laetatus sum; and not everyone will like his rather wooden approach to the tempi and changes in proportion in Laudate pueri and the Magnificat.

As we reach Lauda Jerusalem we realise that he is transposing Lauda down a tone, but when we come to the Magnificat there is no downward transposition at all. This makes a number of the soprano entries in the Magnificat seem terrifyingly high – those on high A in Fecit potentiam and in Sicut locutus est seemed particularly out of the sopranos’ comfort zone. Another curiosity is the relation between the voice-parts in Suscepit Israel where the sextus part, notated in a G2 clef, is suddenly transposed down an octave, so that the voices sing in sixths rather than thirds. It also brings the sextus part well below the organ part in measures 52 to 52. What is the textual (or musical) justification for this rearrangement? But I did warm to the beating rank on the organ from measures 22 to 38 in Quia respexit as Monteverdi stipulated.

In spite of these caveats, I like the overall feel of this performance, even if the recording in this small church does not quite have either the bloom or the clarity we might hope for. So I hope listeners will gain in understanding, and singers will be encouraged to perform this version, for which you need no more than an organ for accompaniment.

David Stancliffe

Categories
Recording

Schubert: String Quartets

Pale green early floral

Chiaroscuro Quartet
62:47
BIS-2268 SACD
D173, D810

I confess that on hearing ‘Death and the Maiden’ now I cannot help but think of Woody Allen’s Crimes and Misdemeanors, where it accompanies the scene in which we see the contract killer on his way to murder the tiresome ex-mistress played by Anjelica Houston. The juxtaposition is done without signalling and I’ve often wondered how many film goers have been aware of the relevance of the apparently incongruous emergence of a string quartet on the soundtrack.

But I digress. The Quartet in D minor, which takes its name from the use of Schubert’s song of 1817 as the theme of the variations that form its second movement, was composed in 1824 – not as the notes claim ‘between 1824 and 1826’ – and is the composer’s penultimate string quartet. A massively proportioned work, it explores a gamut of emotions from fear and stark grief to tender expressions of regret. From the fiercely trenchant opening chords that emotional world is explored by the Chiaroscuro Quartet (Alina Ibragimova and Pablo Hernán, violins; Emilie Hörnlund, viola; Claire Thirion, cello) with an all-embracing totality that is ultimately overwhelming. It is rare to hear period instrument playing of such technical accomplishment and perfect sense of balance. When those fortissimo opening chords are answered with real pianissimo playing, delicately articulated and perfectly chorded, we start to suspect that we might be in the presence of something special. And so it proves to be. Throughout all four movements the listener is treated to a compass of sonority ranging from near orchestral power – try the third variation of Andante con moto for just one of the most spectacular examples – to a Mendelssohnian lightness of touch. The second half of the initial statement in the same movement is an especially magical case of the latter. Neither is lyricism neglected, the profound sadness and sensitive phrasing of the distant, haunted dance in the Trio section of the Scherzo making for yet another unforgettable moment. Yet above all it is the epic drama of this beautifully structured performance that leaves so strong an impression.

The String Quartet in G minor dates from nearly a decade earlier, 1815, a year of extraordinary fecundity for Schubert that witnessed, among other things, the composition of some 150 songs and Symphonies 2 and 3. As might be expected, the quartet belongs far more to the world of Haydn and Mozart than as a relation to ‘Death and the Maiden’. Here the potent key of G minor is used not as a highly personal expression of tragedy as was the case with Mozart, but more as a vehicle for drama in the sense it was employed by Haydn. Indeed, the opening theme of the Allegro con brio first movement introduces a spirit of Haydnesque poise, while the second idea, with pizzicato cello, seems to consist of a passage that might have consisted of discarded fragments from the act 2 finale of Le nozze di Figaro. Not until the development, the most striking part of the movement, do we encounter hints of real discomfort. The performance, naturally scaled down from the heights stormed in the D-minor Quartet, is nonetheless as satisfying in its own right, again being skillfully structured; listen, for example, to the wonderfully graded and nuanced dynamics in the closing pages of the Andantino second movement.

BIS’s splendid SACD engineering enables these marvellously accomplished performances to realise to the full their powerful but also often extraordinarily subtle impact.

Brian Robins

Categories
Sheet music

New from G. Henle Verlag

Modern floral

The first title in the most recent batch we received from this publisher is a piano reduction of Neruda’s Horn (or trumpet) concerto (Henle 561, ISMN 979-0-2018-0561-0, €15) by Dominik Rahmer (editor) and Christoph Sobanski (piano reduction). Famed for his stratospheric playing, Neruda was one of the outstanding Bohemian hornists at the Dresden court. The set includes three parts for a variety of brass players – one notated in C for a natural horn player (presumably playing an F horn to be in tune with the piano?), one for trumpet in E flat (the music in C an octave below the horn part) and for the concert trumpet in B flat (the music in F). All three have the same idiomatic (though virtuosic for the natural instrument!) cadenzas by Reinhold Friedrich. An excellent and very reasonably priced addition to the horn player’s repertoire.

Mozart’s Erste Lodronische Nachtmusik is a sequence of dances, written for the name day celebrations of Countess Antonia of that ilk in 1776. Felix Loy’s Urtext edition sensibly pairs it with a March written for the same celebrations and, based on his belief that it was performed by the musicians (strings with two horns) as they assembled for the divertimento, it comes first in the volume (Henle HN7150, ISMN 979-0-2018-7150-9 study score, €14, Henle 1150, ISMN 979-0-2018-1150-5 parts €32), although that causes the two Köchel numbers to be reversed. As you would expect, the edition is meticulous with succinct critical notes, and the parts are beautifully laid out, with fold-out pages when movements are too long to be accommodated on a two-page spread. First class attention to detail.

The remaining two editions sent are from the on-going Beethoven piano sonata series from Norbert Gertsch and Murray Perahia (who is credited as joint editor and for supplying the fingerings). There is not much I can say that I did not already cover in my previous review – same beautiful engraving with carefully planned page-turns, and the same footnotes providing on-the-page important information or insights. The A major sonata op 2/2 (Henle 772, ISMN 979-0-2018-0772-0, €12) and that in C major, op 2/3 (Henle 1222, ISMN 979-0-2018-1222-9, €10) were dedicated to Haydn – even relatively early in Beethoven’s career, we must wonder what his former teacher made of them when he heard the composer play them in 1796.

Categories
Sheet music

New from Peacock Press

Floral design

We recently received a bulky packet containing volumes from this publisher. I will go through them as they emerged. All are neatly printed and professionally finished in A4 format with nice covers.

Alan Howard has recreated Sampson Estwick’s Trio Sonata in A minor from the sole surviving Violin 1 part (catalogue number PEMS 33 V, costing £7). It is a continuous movement with alternating sections in different styles and will be a welcome addition to any chamber group’s repertoire, with both upper parts fleixble in their instrumentation.

Hotteterre’s Deuxième Suite de Pieces (op. 6, 1717) has long been popular with flautists. Gordon J Callon has now transposed it for treble recorders (PEMS 048, £7). After six pages of performance advice come 17 of music. While the musical notation is clear enough, a lot more effort might have been invested in the layout; simple things like having six systems on pages 2-3 rather than seven on the first and five on the second, of spreading out the music on pages 4-5 rather than having far too cramped seven staves on the first and only two (with LOTS of blank space) on the other would certainly help. Why does the Contrefaiseurs not reach the bottom of pages 16-17? These might be thought of as aesthetic considerations, but actually the easier one can follow the shape of music on the page (with petites reprises, Da Capos, Dal Segnos and whole-movement repeats to take account of) the more enjoyable the players’ experience. Personally, if there have to be blank pages, I prefer them to be on the left – I don’t know if I’m alone in this… somehow it seems odd to me to have a blank right page; it’s like a sign saying “you’ve finished – no need to turn the page”.

Thalia, A Collection of Six Favourite Songs was originally printed in 1767. Simon D. I. Fleming has produced a new edition (PEMS 079, £13.50) of settings of the famous actor David Garrick’s words by Thomas and Michael Arne, Barthélémon, Battishill, Boyce, and the younger John Christopher Smith (an index would have been useful, and could easily have been provided by squashing up the overly spacious “Editorial method”. The paper is different from the two preceding publications, but it nice that the performing set includes a second copy of the score without the thick cover. The typesetting is neat though, given that the scoring (soprano/tenor, 2 violins and continuo) never changes, I wonder why every staff on every page needs to be labelled. Although I understand why having a keyboard part that is more of a reduction than anything else facilitates the performance of these attractive songs without the extra instruments, it makes it more difficult for non-specialists if they are unable to play from a figured bass. I’m not sure why the editor felt the need to add a second violin part to the Boyce song; I would also suggest that the second figure in bar 35 should have been interpreted literally, giving a far neater temporary shift to A minor than Fleming’s explicit F sharp!

“Purists will hate this – but they don’t have to buy it,” writes Moira Usher in her introduction to two volumes entitled Introduction to Unbarred (Book I ATTB, PEMS 075, £10.50, Book II SATTB, PEMS 076, £12.50). In fact, this purist thinks it quite a sensible idea, even though he didn’t immediately twig that the music she has chosen to present this way is not intended for use by singers. Once again, an index would have been useful. The works are by Lassus, Byrd, Morley, Palestrina and Victoria (Book I) and Byrd, Guerrero, Weelkes and Palestrina (Book II). In a world where more people want to play from original sources, I see this as an excellent starting place. Starting with relatively easy repertoire (and with a score to hand to check if someone can’t quite “get it”), groups can, first of all, see the shapes of phrases (with the aid of the natural rhythm of the texts – what a great idea to choose vocal music!) and liberate themselves from the tyranny of the barline. Next step, learn to read C clefs. Far from rubbishing Usher’s editions, I’d encourage her to go further – if a part ends with a lunga, use that notation (there must be a way!), and similarly use multi-bar rests. Or maybe these are developments planned for Books III and IV and the whole endeavour is a great learning experience?

Andrew Robinson’s Rameau Duets – Volume Two (PAR 465, 8.50) includes 16 movements mostly for a pair of trebles (three of the pieces in this volume require a descant, too). The typesetting and layout are nicely done (even the page I would typically object to where the music doesn’t fill the page, the systems are spaced out and carefully aligned so I respect the typesetter’s effort). Having a common index for the three volumes is fine, but if you are also going to use the same “here’s how to play (or avoid) difficult high notes” advice, at least put them in volume and page order. Small gripes for a book that is bound to bring a lot of fun to Rameau-loving recorder players!

Simple divisions in quavers is the title of Robinson’s editions of four madrigal’s by Cipriano de Rore which appeared in Girolamo dalla Casa’s Il vero modo di diminuir of 1584 (PAS 501, £12.50). The set includes a score, a part with the original de Rore lines, another with dalla Casa’s diminutions, the same transposed up an octave, and finally a mini guidebook to dalla Casa’s advice (and exercises) on tonguing. I was left a little confused about the target audience; if there is a tonguing guide, why do lots of the passages spend so much time below the clef where recorder players cannot reach? Should that not have been printed an octave higher, too? If the editor suggests performing the pieces as four-part madrigals, shouldn’t there be parts for the three lower voices, too? Which could double as parts for a recorder (or other) consort? Since the diminutions always start on the melody note from the original voice part, would it not have been better to omit the voice version from the score and added the text to the instrumental part, thus saving space and (in theory) helping the player see where the textual stresses lay? I think it is a noble project, but it could have been thought through a little better.

Brian Clark

Categories
Recording

Beethoven: Symphony No 3 ‘Eroica’

Pale green early floral

Nizhny Novgorod Soloists Chamber Orchestra, Maxim Emelyanchev
64:26
Aparté AP191
+Brahms: Variations on a Theme by Haydn, op. 56a

The most frustrating thing about this beautiful CD is the lack of information about the performers. Typically, readers of these pages would probably not take any notice of it, given that one assumes the orchestra plays on modern instruments, and that they would not expect the Russian school would bring any worthwhile revelations to two such well-known pieces from the repertoire. Yet, from the opening bars, both the sound world and the energy of the performances held my attention and I have ended up listening to the disc several times which, when one has a room full of other things awaiting review, is no small achievement. So often with modern chamber orchestras, the bass parts lack “air”, the wind players find it awkward to fit in with string sections that have turned off their vibrato (because that’s what they think HIP playing means!), and there is just a lack of vitality that overpowers the good intention. The out-of-date website that I found for the group suggests the orchestra is made up of 16 elite students specialising in orchestral playing, the photo suggesting that the figure refers to string players only. This modest number would be about what Beethoven would have expected and allows Emelyanchev to treat the programme more as expanded chamber music, lending their sound a clarity to too often escapes non-HIPsters. I played the “Haydn Variations” with my university orchestra, but I can guarantee it never sounded anything like this! I hope this is not the last we hear of this combination.

Brian Clark

Categories
Recording

Telemann: Chamber music treasures from Dresden and Darmstadt

Floral design

64:13
Les Esprits Animaux
Musica Ficta MF8029

It is straight away obvious when an ensemble has taken due care and attention over what they choose to present on their recording. Here Javier Lupiáñez and Les Esprits Animaux are to be commended for their smart choices. Straddled by two fairly familiar works, opening with “Concerto alla polonese” (TWV43:G7) tackled with just enough rustic flair, and ending with the beautiful D-minor work (TWV43:d2) here in the earlier string version, composed circa 1711-15 (aka one of the 4th Book of Quartets, Leclerc Paris 1752) we find two of those “deest” works, that is to say, absent, not to be found in any known catalogue listings; the first of these in D major, seems to my ear to contain more departures from Telemann’s usual musical “modii” than commonalities, but the second (in B flat major) seems to passingly quote from one of the cantatas from the Harmonischer Gottesdienst (TVWV1:447) in the 2nd movement “Adagio”. Interspersed we have two fine premieres: TWV43:G8, which brings us back to some familiar fleetness , and dynamic expression; the 3rd movement “Grave” has a kind of vocalised effect, not overdone by the ensemble’s leader Javier Lupiáñez with his embellishments. Finally, mention goes to the quite excellent TWV42:D10, a marvellous five-movement work, which has a typical mellifluence and design we recognize in other Telemann pieces; even the blending of stylistic elements from Italy and France strike the ear, with movements running from Menuet to Balletto, in this accomplished hybrid, all wonderfully captured by this vivacious and alert ensemble. We feel back on firm, idiomatic ground. This is a most worthy exposition, and we can only hope for more insightful, well-researched explorations to appear in the future. On page 10 of their fine CD Booklet, a neat explanation of the ensemble’s name is provided, coming from a philosophical term used in the Baroque period; we live and learn!

David Bellinger