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Sheet music

New from Peacock Press

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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

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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

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Recording

Telemann: Chamber music treasures from Dresden and Darmstadt

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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

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Recording

Pour la Duchesse du Maine

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ensemble La Française
55:00
Polynie POL 503 314
Music by Bernier, Bourgeois & Mouret

Praise be! A soprano whose vibrato is not the most prominent feature of her sound!! Marie Remandet sings the splendid cantatas by Bernier and Bourgeois with plenty of dramatic commitment but also some welcome self-control so that she does inhabit the same tonal and stylistic world as her instrumental colleagues. Her trills are not always perfect but that’s a price I’m more than willing to pay for what she does the rest of the time. The Duchesse that gives the programme its title was the colourful Louise Bénédicte de Bourbon, who maintained a rich socio-cultural milieu at the Château de Sceaux. None of this music can be directly associated with her, though Berbier’s fifth book of cantatas was entitled Les Nuits de Sceaux and Mouret was for a while ordinaire de la Musique da la duchesse du Maine. His Concert de Chambre is a suite (overture and dances) with unspecified instrumentation which suits the ensemble’s resident flute and violin (I’ll just about forgive them the piccolo in the Tambourin). Here as everywhere else they play with an impressive unity of purpose, with enough life in the continuo when needed, and make a strong case for this relatively unfamiliar repertoire. They do, however, need a better graphic designer (white print on a yellow background is doomed to illegibility) and translator: the English version of the essay struggles.

David Hansell

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Recording

felice un tempo

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Legrenzi | Bononcini | Scarlatti
Paper Kite
61:18
Coviello Classics COV91719

This disc is a first for Paper Kite, an ensemble whose main focus is on ‘the various European traditions of the baroque cantata’. In cantatas the singer is, by definition, crucial but I did not warm to soprano Marie Heeschen. Yes, she does have a focussed sound, engages with the text and adds appropriate ornamentation but I found her frequent portamentos intrusive and her pronounced vibrato when singing high and loud too at variance with anything that the strings did. And while there is always something to be said for the exploration of new repertoire I just didn’t find any of this music especially striking. But it is only fair to say that the instrumental playing itself is very good. This is an ensemble of great promise though I do think there are issues of collective style they need to address. The booklet (Eng/Ger) does its job though there is a mistake in the track numbering on the back of the case.

David Hansell

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Recording

Resonances of Waterloo

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Saint Salvator’s Chapel Choir (University of St Andrews), The Wallace Collection), Tim Wilkinson & Anthony George
Sanctiandree SAND0007
71:22

What? You didn’t know that churches were built to mark the end of the Napoleonic Wars? Or that St James, Bermondsey (one of them) still has its original organ restored pretty much to its original state? Or that Sigismund Neukomm (1778-1858) wrote a Requiem to honour the dead of those wars as well as the memory of Louis XVI? Well, in that case, this CD is for you and you’ll enjoy it! The Requiem is for soloists, choir, organ and brass – keyed trumpet, four hand-horns and three trombones – who make relatively brief but oh-so-telling contributions at key moments. The virtuosity of any brass ensemble led by John Wallace can be taken for granted but the student choir are eminently able co-performers: several of them undertake modest but very capably sung solo passages. The Requiem is complemented by three short but action-packed works for brass ensemble. I really do recommend this, not just as something different, but as something interesting and very well performed. A pat on the back for the recording engineers too, who rise commendably to the challenges posed by these forces. The booklet is pretty much a model of how to do it. This deserves to be an unlikely hit!

David Hansell

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Recording

Francoeur: Sonates à violon seul et basse continue, Livre I

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Kreeta-Maria Kentala, Lauri Pulakka, Mitzi Meyerson
124:12 (2 CDs in a wallet)
Glossa GCD921809

As both listener and performer I’ve encountered and enjoyed isolated sonatas by Francoeur before, so I wasn’t at all surprised by the entertainment provided by the whole of his Livre 1. After a period of study the composer (1698-1787!) joined the ‘24 violons . . .’ in 1730. Further honours followed and he was a close colleague of François Rebel in several prestigious enterprises, though his career had a less happy end. In general, the slow movements of these sonatas are broadly French in character, contrasting most effectively with the more Italianate allegros, and the many skilful nuances in the playing reflect this diversity. Being really picky, I did wonder whether or not the gamba would have been a more likely bass continuo instrument, but I absolutely applaud the unfussy scoring (all harpsichord and cello) and the sensitivity of the playing in support of the spirited top line. The booklet’s essay (Eng/Fre/Ger) is concise but nonetheless tells us what we need to know about the music and instruments, though there is no information about the players.

David Hansell

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Recording

Tallis: Gentleman of the Chapel Royal

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The Gentlemen of HM Chapel Royal, Hampton Court Palace, Carl Jackson
68:22
resonus RES10229

The Enigma Theme in Elgar’s “Enigma” Variations remains an enigma because Elgar never divulged what the theme was (if indeed there ever really was one) although he used to taunt his friends about how obvious it is. Innumerable solutions have been put forward, and in the April 2013 number of the Elgar Society Journal Martin Gough proposed that the theme is Tallis’s Canon, aka the Eighth Tune which Tallis provided for Archbishop Parker’s Psalter of 1567. It is interesting that these two composers are associated in this (albeit improbable) way as, above all other composers, they are hailed as possessing a peculiar but indefinable Englishness. Yet both were heavily influenced by their European predecessors: Gombert amongst others upon Tallis, Wagner, Dvorak and others upon Elgar. In this spirit of Englishness, it can be comforting to listen to one of Tallis’s most Continental works, his majestic Missa Puer natus est nobis a7 sung by the Gentlemen of Her Majesty’s Chapel Royal, Hampton Court Palace, an ensemble equivalent to one, with Tallis among them, that would have sung this very piece during the reign of Queen Mary I. But even in such circumstantial decorum there is no certainty that such an appropriate choir would nowadays perform Tallis’s music to a standard that would transcend such comfortable Englishness. In this instance such concerns can be discarded. The Gentlemen of Hampton Court give excellent performances of every piece on this disc. Another concern might be about how clearly adult male voices in seven parts would project Tallis’s intense music in the Chapel at Hampton Court Palace, the acoustic of which might not be the most resonant. Again there is, in the words of a famous blues song, “no need to worry”. Each line, with two voices to a part, is audible, clear, and well blended with its fellows. Besides the singers themselves – the six regular Gentlemen and the full complement of eight supernumaries – credit must go to Carl Jackson for his judicious tempi, occasioned by his extensive familiarity with every aspect of the recording location.

What of the music itself? Even without the Credo, most of which has been lost, the Missa Puer natus est nobis for seven voices is Tallis’s grandest work, apart from the small matter of Spem in alium in forty. The booklet’s notes by Christian Goursaud, one of the six Gentlemen, competently sets out the competing ideas concerning the circumstances of the work’s composition. It is not only, as he so rightly says, majestic, but it is also seminal, providing in the second Agnus a prominent theme for Byrd’s second consort In nomine a4 besides, at “[Patris] miserere nobis“ in the Gloria, pre-echoes of passages such  as “everlasting“ in Tomkins’ Turn unto the Lord and “auxiliare nos“ as late as Blow’s Salvator mundi; both composers knew Tallis’s music and, while this is not necessarily to say that they deliberately or consciously borrowed this passage or aspects of it, nevertheless it is interesting that Tallis’s plangency was being replicated over a century later. No less musically rewarding is the differently plangent Mass for Four Voices, and it is of further interest because, as Stefan Scot discovered, and has noted in his erudite booklet notes for Priory PRCD 1081 (volume 1 of The Collected Vernacular Works of John Sheppard, sung by The Academia Musica Choir), the Credo is identical, with a few adjustments and details, to the Creed of Sheppard’s First Service.  Stefan will discuss this further in his forthcoming edition of Sheppard’s Anglican music for Early English Church Music.

Exploiting the presence of the supernumaries, the disc begins and ends with motets also in seven parts. Suscipe quaeso starts proceedings in the best possible way, the choir setting out its stall for the rest of the disc with excellent blend and a wonderful fullness of sound, while Loquebantur variis linguis brings it to a jubilant close as Tallis lets his hair down for once. Exquisite performances of the smaller In pace and Miserere nostri separate the two masses.

This disc captures Tallis’s elusive Englishness, being sung by a choir to which he once belonged, in the same way as the recording of his earliest Latin music by The Choir of Canterbury Cathedral (Metronome MET CD 1014), another in which he is known to have sung. All other recordings of Missa Puer natus est nobis have been by adult chamber choirs, such as the self-recommending Stile Antico (Harmonia Mundi HMU807517), but the best of those and the most intriguing version might be the very first, by The Clerkes of Oxenford (Calliope CAL 6623) which, besides seeming to penetrate to the soul of Tallis’s inspiration, also includes what can be retrieved and reconstructed of Tallis’s Credo, which is omitted from all other recordings. The current version of the Missa Puer natus est nobis by the Gentlemen of Hampton Court is unique in being sung by a liturgical choir which has the Mass in its repertory, and it is also superb in every detail: one of the great recordings of music by Tallis.

Richard Turbet

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Recording

Haydn: String Quartets op. 64

Pink chrysanthemum

The London String Quartet
145:21 (2 CDs in a single jewel case)
hyperion CDA68221

This is the seventh in a series that on completion will be a complete cycle of the Haydn string quartets played by the London Haydn Quartet (Catherine Manson and Michael Gurevich [violins], John Crockatt [viola] and Jonathan Manson [cello]). The second of two sets originally issued with a dedication to the Esterháza violinist Johann Tost, the six quartets of opus 64 were composed in 1790, being the last Haydn produced before the first of his London visits. To the great Haydn scholar H C Robbins Landon they represent the composers’ ‘greatest single achievement’ of the period, being ‘six flawless masterpieces’ and I for one am not inclined to disagree. Like the previous set composed for Tost (op 54 and 55) they are characterised by the prominence of the first violin part, and in particular the frequent examples of high lying writing, for the playing of which Tost was apparently especially noted. The famous example here is of course the imitation of the song of the lark in the opening movement of the eponymous D-major quartet (no. 5). It is therefore odd to find Richard Wigmore’s note asserting that there is no evidence to suggest that the first violin part was designed with Tost in mind.

There are, however, many more equally remarkable features in these wonderful quartets. The invention throughout maintains a remarkably high level, suggesting that even as he approached high maturity as a composer Haydn was still probing and experimenting with new ideas. One notes for example the extensive use of chromaticism, not infrequently combined with contrapuntal writing, or the greater freedom of continuing to develop themes in the recapitulation of sonata form movements – a characteristic more usually associated with Mozart than Haydn – as in the opening Allego con brio of the G-major quartet (no. 4), where the further variation of the opening motif is actually more interesting than the development itself. Equally noteworthy are the sublime cantabile movements of the same quartet and the ‘Lark’, the first a hymn-like tune later lovingly embellished, the latter another ineffably lovely movement that moves from its opening serenity to explore darker regions.

That movement, played and phrased with quite exquisite sensitivity, is one of the highpoints of a set of performance notable above all for their consistent musicality, a musicality that throughout eschews extremes of dynamics and tempo. They are indeed performances that stand at the opposite pole to such as those of the Chiaroscuro Quartet, to whose attention-grabbing and excitingly insightful Haydn I have devoted several reviews on this site. That is certainly not intended as criticism of the London Haydn Quartet, though there are occasions when they might have made rather more of the composer’s dynamic contrasts. But there is certainly no lack of character, as the witty, fleet playing the Presto finale of the E-flat quartet (no. 6) or the Mendelssohnian lightness of touch and precise articulation of the final Vivace of the ‘Lark’ convincingly demonstrate.

The use of a set of parts from an 18th century edition by the London publisher Forster is curious, not least because the notes tell us nothing about it, not even its date. It is not among editions mentioned by Robbins Landon, who lists as an ‘authentic British edition’ only a publication of the quartets published by Bland in 1791. Obviously I have no means of comparing it with my version of the quartets (Dover). I did however note several instances where second half repeat indications of sonata form movements vary, for example in the Quartet in C (no. 1), where no repeat is called for at the end of the opening movement, but given here, while the final movement does call for one in the Dover score, but it is not given here.

Ultimately, of course, such things are of little concern, particularly in the face of such quietly rewarding performances, recorded with the same refreshing lack of ostentation that is a principal feature of the playing.

Brian Robins

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Sheet music

Zelenka: Six Settings of “Ave regina coelorum” (ZWV 128)

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Edited by Frederic Kiernan
Recent Researches in the Music of the Baroque Era, 204
xvii+2+64pp
ISBN 978-1-9872-0053-9
A-R Editions, Inc. $120.00

This small volume is an excellent guide to how differently a single composer can treat exactly the same text; even the two settings with matching scoring are quite different – while one is in common time, the other is in triple time. Zelenka’s church music is becoming better known through editions and recordings and I hope fans of his music with perhaps more modest forces at their disposal than some of the concerted masses require will explore Kiernan’s editions of these Marian antiphon settings.

That said, the book could have been even shorter, had all the written-out colla parte instruments been left out. Kiernan opts to drop the oboes out in solo passages in the second setting, yet has the very short five-bar trio section in the first doubled by strings. We are told that the viola part for no. 2 is extracted from the bass line, and yet the music in the first bar is not the same (the viola actually doubles the violins). The added basso ripieno part in nos. 2 and 5 (essentially so that the cello does not play along with the solo passages, some of which are in treble clef anyway) could surely just have been marked “[senza basso]”, and the quaver in bar 10 of no. 2 is too prescriptive – the voices above hold the same note for a full crotchet. In fact, that is probably my overriding impression of the edition as a whole – it is great to have the music available in modern notation, but it could have been done in a simpler fashion without detriment.

Brian Clark