Tag: 17th century

Works by Pandolfi Mealli, Stradella, Albertini and Castaldi
Repicco 60:43
Ambronay AMY 308

[dropcap]R[/dropcap]epicco consists of Baroque violinist Kinga Ujszászi and theorbist Jadran Duncrumb. They have devised the present programme of music from the 17th century by pairing two composers who were murderers with two others who were murdered. At first I thought this was quite a gratuitous way to link these composers, as the two victims were not even the victims of the two murderers, but – on listening to the music and reading the short biographies of the four men – it seemed they had one thing in common, a love of danger, and this character feature comes across in much of the music. Ironically, it is the man who seems from his biographical details to have been the wildest of this musical wild bunch, Bellerofonte Castaldi, who contributes a very mild-mannered short sonata and a tuneful Furiosa corrente  to proceedings. The fiery and impetuous idiom of the others, by contrast, seems symptomatic of their violent and lawless behaviour.

However they may have gathered this repertoire, Repicco play it with great musicality and virtuosity, while the full sound of the theorbo had me constantly having to remind myself that there was just one player and one instrument providing the continuo. In addition to the catalogue of murderers and the murdered, Biagio Marini earns an honorary place on the CD by virtue of the ‘extravagance of his music’, while violinist Kinga Ujszászi contributes a perfectly pleasant but rather irrelevant improvisation at one point. If the linking principle is a bit of a gimmick, it is a good excuse for the very effective performance of an unusual selection of excellent 17th-century music.

D. James Ross

Lina Tur Bonet, Musica Alchemica
133:27 (2 CDs in a wallet)
Pan Classics PC 10375

[dropcap]F[/dropcap]or her interpretations of Corelli’s landmark set of sonatas, Lina Tur Bonet has opted to perform with a large and diverse continuo group (mercifully limited to one combination per sonata!), at A=392Hz (“From this low tuning lacking in tension seem to spring up subdued practices, but not ones devoid of either fantasy profundity, or of the veneer of the Eternal City”…), and to use many of the pre-extant ornamented versions (only sonatas 9 and 10) as well as her own (the cellist is not shy about decorating his line, too). Tur Bonet is a talented violinist with a clear vision, and these accounts reveal a deep affinity with Corelli’s output; she breathes real feeling into the adagios that are such an important feature of this set of 12 sonatas, and I can easily picture her dancing through the livelier movements of sonate da camera. She may be “the new kid on the block” but she certainly has something to say.

Brian Clark

Enrico Gatti violin, Gaetano Nasillo cello, Guido Morini harpsichord
126:30 (2 CDs in cardboard sleeve)
Arcana A 397

[dropcap]R[/dropcap]ecorded in 2003, Gatti’s performances are less fussy than Tur Bonet’s in the continuo department; in many ways, though, that puts the violin playing under even deeper scrutiny. A violinist of his class (and here he keeps the best of company!) is the complete master of these seminal works and is at liberty to mould them as he wishes. Nasillo shows just how attentive he is by sometimes imitating Gatti’s ornamentation. For those who like to know such things, the sonatas are re-ordered (I: 1, 7, 2, 8, 3 & 9; II: 4, 10, 5, 11, 6 & 12); thus, although the sequence is disturbed, the da chiesa  and da camera  pieces are interspersed with one another, while the numerical order within each of the two sets is preserved. (In fact, the key sequence is slightly improved by the change!) Gatti’s introductory essay to the recording makes for interesting reading – especially his rebuke of an English critic who wrote about one of his earlier recordings…

Brian Clark

Concentus Vocum, Michelangelo Gabbrielli
74:55
Tactus TC 621801

[dropcap]S[/dropcap]isto is a composer new to me. He seems to have been one of many ordained composers of church music who moved throughout Italy during the 17th century, visiting important centres such as Modena and Bologna, but also smaller musical establishments. Vital in the dissemination of musical ideas, such composers inhabited the grey area between providing rather mundanely adequate liturgical music and making a genuinely original contribution to musical history. Sisto’s music seems better than mundanely adequate, but not much. The performances by Concentus Vocum are variable. The accounts by the full choir struggle with some of the more fleet figures in the writing, while unanimity of attack and intonation are also a problem. In the manner of singers who are ‘only just hanging in there’, everything is unrelentingly loud and punchy which gets a bit wearing. Some of the motets are sung by solo voices, which addresses the unanimity issues and solves many but not all of the accuracy problems. This CD provides a useful profile of Reina Sisto, but much of the singing is just a little uncomfortable to listen to and I found the limited interest in Sisto’s music insufficient to hold my attention.

D. James Ross