Tag: Baroque

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English Keyboard music 1650-1695: Perspectives on Purcell

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Purcell Society Edition, volume 6 PC6
Edited by Andrew Woolley
xlii+190pp, linen bound. £85
Stainer & Bell ISBN 979 0 2202 2345 7; ISMN 978 0 85249 930 6

This volume will be welcomed by anyone interested in 17th-century English keyboard music. With typical Purcell Society thoroughness and equally typical Stainer & Bell beautiful book publishing, it comprises 32 pages of introduction and facsimiles, then 126 movements (plus variants), divided into sections:

  • Organ music from Restoration Oxford (six works, mostly anonymous)
  • John Cobb (including two dubious and four anonyma)
  • Commonwealth and early Restoration suites (Mell, Locke, two dubious, two anonyma)
  • Pieces by or associated with Frnacis Forcer (including Blow, Farmer and Lully)
  • John Blow and his milieu (three dubious, seven anonyma, Lully & Lebègue)
  • Pieces collected by Charles Babel
  • Giovanni Battista Draghi (four suites)

There follow two appendices, the first an Almain in D minor by John Cobb, the second a suite in F by Davis Mell, then a thoroughly detailed Textual Commentary giving all the variants of the multiplicity of sources. Just this description of the layout of the contents gives some impression of just what a massive undertaking the project was, and what an achievement its realisation is. Woolley and co. (and Stainer & Bell!) have produced a book that is both unparalleled in its informative value and inclusive scope, and in the presentation of that which is most important, i. e., the music itself, in a performable format. Where variants are too complicated to describe in detail (or are, perhaps, deemed of equal value?), third and (especially in the music by Draghi) fourth staves are very cleverly added to allow musicians to have both versions available in a single score.

I did find it rather tiresome to see the editor credited on every page of music, likewise the Purcell Society Trust asserting their copyright similarly but in this age of digital reproduction it is quite right of them to ensure that everyone knows who has invested so much time, effort and money into producing such a monumental and excellent contribution to our understanding and appreciation of this repertoire.

Brian Clark

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Recording

Schütz: Madrigale & Hochzeitsmusiekn

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Dorothee Mields, Isabel Schicketanz, David Erler, Georg Poplutz, Tobias Mäthger, Feliz Schwandtke SSATTB, Dresdner Kammerchor, Hans-Christoph Rademann
78:42
Carus 83.277

Volume 19 of Carus’s complete recording of Schütz’s music is an absolute cracker! From the cover, I had expected to hear the set of Italian madrigals that resulted after his first visit to Venice; instead, I got 15 German-language pieces ranging from two duets for alto and tenor with continuo, to more lavishly scored pieces like the glorious Ich beschwöre euch for SSSSATB and continuo, or Haus und Güter erbet man von Eltern which contrasts a group of SSB with three trombones and a tenor with three cornetti, and another tenor with TBB chorus! The disc opens with the composer’s contribution to his brother Georg’s wedding in 1619, Siehe, wie fein und lieblich ist’s, which must have pleased everyone concerned; scored for SSATB, violin, cornetto muto and dulcian, it was reworked for inclusion in the third volume of Symphoniae Sacrae of 1650 (with very good reason!) This is the first volume of this series I have reviewed in a long time, and I must say that the standard is incredibly high; Rademann has gathered a group of singers and instrumentalists who make every work stand out. The recording is crisp and bright, like the execution of the music – everything about this disc is excellent!

Brian Clark

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Recording

The Trio Sonata through Two Centuries

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London Baroque
568:25 (8 CDs in a box)
BIS-9050

This boxed set of 8 CDs is so much more than the sum of its parts. Over forty years, London Baroque has accrued experience at playing Baroque trio sonatas which is probably without parallel. This set could so easily have been a celebration of this substantial back catalogue, incorporating their greatest hits, but it isn’t. It is something much more ambitious and much more important. By the careful choice of recordings, pairs of CDs chart the history and development of the Trio Sonata in England, France, Germany and Italy. As far as possible, the tracks on each CD, recorded during the decade between 2002 and 2012, are arranged chronologically by date of composition so the process of evolution is plainly audible, and the comprehensive nature of London Baroque recordings and the sheer authority and musicality of their playing makes this set seem satisfyingly definitive. The English CDs start in the fascinating world of Lawes, Jenkins, Coprario, Locke, Simpson, Blow, and Purcell when the concept of the Trio Sonata was still emerging from the viol consort and bring us gradually step by step through the music of Ravenscroft, Handel, Avison, Boyce, Arne and Abel to a Trio Sonata by Thomas Erskine, Earl of Kelly (actually a Scot) in which the very concept of the Trio Sonata teeters on the edge of string quartet. It is fascinating to listen to the broad arc of development demonstrated here from the quintessential ‘English’ sound, quirkily traditional in the manner Playford’s Dancing Master tunes and reaching back to the Elizabethan era, through the arrival of influences from Europe, chiefly Italy and arriving at the Germanic pre-classical idiom demonstrated by the Stamitz-trained Kelly. Similar journeys of discovery await in the other three pairs of CDs, which also draw in composers whose music is hardly familiar, but who play a vital role in the development of this genre. The playing of London Baroque is wonderfully expressive throughout, capturing perfectly every nuance of the gradually evolving musical styles, while forty years of rapport is apparent in their perfect coordination. Ornamentation, dynamic variation and subtleties of tempo are thoroughly organic, and the rich, full sound of the ensemble is vividly captured by the BIS engineers. This boxed set is an absolute delight – buy it and indulge!

D. James Ross

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Recording

the ear of theodoor van loon

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il primo caravaggisto fiammingo
huelgas ensemble, paul van nevel
66:39
cypres CYP1679
Music by Anerio, de Ghersem, a Kempis, Marenzio, Mazzocchi, Philips, Quagliati, Rimonte, Soriano & Zamponi

This is one of those CD programmes which seek to use a visual artist as a hook for music of the period – this concept has always struck me as rather strange, as the visual, literary and musical arts tend to be at relatively different stages of development at different periods, and in my experience have little to say to one another – think of contemporary artists, writers and composers. Anyway, Theodoor van Loon, a practically unknown Flemish follower of Caravaggio, did at least travel between Brussels and Rome, where he could conceivably have heard all of the music on this CD. And quite honestly I would accept any excuse, however far-fetched, to hear the excellent Huelgas Ensemble singing and playing the music of this period. Among the sacred music which could have charmed the ear of van Loon are works by the two Palestrina students, Francesco Soriano and Felice Anerio, both of whom deserve more attention than they currently get. From the former we get the Agnus Dei from a ‘souped-up’ eight voice version of his master’s Missa Papae Marcelli, while from each we have an equally showy and sonorous motet, all of which obviously shows the influence of Palestrina, but also how music in Rome had moved in the direction of ever-increasing opulence as the 17thh-century progressed. From Gery de Ghersem we have the superb Agnus Dei from his seven-part Mass Ave virgo sanctissima, this productive composer’s only complete surviving work, all the rest having heartbreakingly perished in the Lisbon earthquake and fire of 1755. The CD concludes with sacred music by Giuseppe Zamponi and Peter Philips. As ever, the Huelgas Ensemble provide wonderfully balanced and exquisitely musical accounts of this opulent repertoire, gradually introducing instruments into the choral textures until we reach the beautifully rich and full concluding account of Philips’ Hodie nobis de caelo, where the voices are joined to luminous effect by violins and recorders. In among the largescale sacred music we have more intimate secular vernacular works by Philips, but also by Paolo Quagliati, Luca Marenzio, Domenico Mazzochi, Pedro Rimonte and instrumental music by Nicolaus a Kempis, where various mixtures of solo voices and instruments devised by the ever-imaginative Paul van Nevel provide beautifully animated performances. I think I could listen to the Huelgas Ensemble perform their way through the phone book, but with this CD their unique performance talents are applied to very worthwhile material, much of which, like their painterly inspiration van Loon, is nowadays virtually unknown.

D. James Ross

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Recording

Handel’s finest arias for base voice II

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Christopher Purves, Arcangelo, Jonathan Cohen
77:11
hyperion CDA68152

Less celebrated than Handel’s succession of castrato singers were a string of equally talented basses who animated a series of Handel’s most memorable characters from his early operas to his late oratorios, and there is even an early Italian Cantata for Bass voice performed here with considerable flair by Purves. This latter work is one of those showpieces for a singer with an extended range from pedal bass notes to high baritone, and Purves copes admirably with the extreme demands. I was unfamiliar with this piece, but also with many of the other arias here. If asked to anticipate what music would have been included, off the top of my head I would have suggested ‘O Ruddier than the Cherry’, ‘The Trumpet shall sound’ and ‘Revenge, Timotheus cries’ and then I would have been floundering. In fact, the present performers had already included two of my suggestions in the widely acclaimed volume I, of which this is the excellent follow-up, and this time they range far and wide among the less familiar operas and the oratorios, coming up with some superb music. Christopher Purves has a wonderfully expressive voice bringing a wide range of lamenting, revenging and wooing characters vividly to life against the wonderfully responsive backdrop of the orchestral forces of Arcangelo directed by Jonathan Cohen. This impressive and entertaining collection has sent me back to oratorios such as Joshua and Esther, and brings home (yet again) how much fine Handel vocal music there is. Christopher Purves’s powerful artistry emphasizes how much of it is for bass voice – and they haven’t even touched upon Samson yet. I sense a volume III coming on!

D. James Ross

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Recording

Matthew Locke: For Lovers of Consort Music

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Phantasm73:10
Linn Records CKD 594

Of all the composers of Jacobean viol consort music, it seems to me that Matthew Locke is the one who makes most characteristic use of the viol while at the same time maintaining his roots firmly in the English idiom. The various four-part Suites and the two six-part Canons which Phantasm have chosen for this rich and varied programme show every aspect of Locke’s talent, ranging from music of profound intensity and seriousness to dancing episodes of felicitous energy. The sonorous texture of the viols is beautifully augmented by the theorbo of Elizabeth Kenny, which adds a percussive quality to the superbly smooth viol texture, points up the part writing and enriches the harmonies. These musicians are steeped in the music of this turbulent period, which saw the execution of a king, the temporary triumph of republicanism and then the restoration of monarchy, and they apply the full depth of their understanding to this unique music all composed in the potentially hostile England of Cromwell. As the group’s director Laurence Dreyfus suggests in his hugely readable programme note, this ‘hostile environment’ goes some way to explain Locke’s constant quest for novelty and originality. However, this is by no means music for those with a short attention span, as for every quirky body-swerve and unexpected change of tack there is an extended and eloquent passage in which a musical idea is more than fully developed. This is a lovely CD oozing musicality from every pore, and Phantasm and Elizabeth Kenny provide expert guidance through every twist and turn of Locke’s rich imagination.

D. James Ross

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Recording

Rameau: Keyboard Works

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Virginia Black piano
62:42
crd 3536

For her performance on modern piano of music by Rameau, Virginia Black carefully chooses some of the most characterful pieces from the composer’s 1724 and 1728 collections. She plays with energy and a crispness of articulation which makes her performances attractive to those who don’t mind their harpsichord music played on the piano – if I were to be persuaded of the virtues of the piano as a medium for this repertoire, this would be the sort of performance that would do it. However, even with Virginia Black’s expert execution, I found myself yearning for the extra clarity of the harpsichord. Yes, the piano is capable of dynamic variation, but it is clear that performers of the period found other ways to make the music expressive, and (by definition) each note in an ornamental figure rang out clearly making the decoration much more eloquent. I was surprised to read that as Professor of Harpsichord at the RCM Virginia Black prefers the piano as a medium for her Baroque music. I am clearly missing something. Anyway, as I say, her choice of repertoire is impeccable and her playing style sympathetic to her chosen pieces. And maybe some day I will learn to love Baroque keyboard music on the piano – ‘but not yet’, as St Augustine has it.

D. James Ross

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Recording

Music for Windy Instruments

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Sounds from the Court of James I
The English Cornett & Sackbut Ensemble
59:50
resonus RES10225
Music by Adson, Augustine, Jerome & Jeronimo Bassano, Croce, Alfonso Ferrabosco I & II, Ferretti, Harden, Lassus, Marenzio, Philips, Vecchi & anon

For this CD by The English Cornett and Sackbut Ensemble, their first for the Resonus label and part of their 25th anniversary celebrations, the musicians have chosen a particularly rich seam of early wind repertoire. Both Elizabeth I and her chosen successor James I cultivated truly cosmopolitan courts which attracted musicians from throughout the continent. So at a time when lavish music for wind ensembles flourished in the likes of Venice, such music was quick to reach the British court through the likes of the Venetian Bassano family who worked in London but who also maintained contacts with home. Thus it was that music by a range of the most fashionable European composers found its way into the repertoire of the various consorts maintained by Elizabeth and James, and into the manuscripts that they played from. The loss of one of the six part-books from one of the main sources has involved a degree of reconstruction by Ian Payne. Although slightly less bombastic than some of the repertoire which graced St Mark’s in Venice, this is wonderfully sonorous music, given an added edge of excitement in this recording by the superbly daring ornamentation of the upper lines. As intriguing as the virtuosic playing of the upper cornetts is, the contribution of the tenor and mute cornetts, the former providing a wonderfully rich inner voice to the texture, while the latter sound wonderfully husky in combination with the brass instruments, is exceptional. It is easy to understand the enthusiasm of Elizabeth and James for this profound and impressive music – both sprang from musical families and each was of a famously philosophical bent. Of all the courtly music to survive, it is this flamboyant repertoire which to me seems best to match the colourful costumes and extravagant manners of the 16th and 17th centuries. Silas Wollston provides pleasing contrasting works for solo harpsichord in addition to joining the wind consort on some tracks, although I must say that I could listen all day to the wonderfully evocative sounds of the wind instruments played with such musicality and sparkling virtuosity. Incidentally, the quirky title seems to derive indirectly from a quote from a 1534 volume dealing with health which recommends the playing of wind instruments to exercise the entrails…

D. James Ross

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Recording

Ghezzi: Salmi a 2 voci, Dialoghi sacri

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Cappella Musicale di San Giacomo Maggiore in Bologna, Roberto Cascio
129:44 (2 CDs in a single jewel case)
Tactus TC650790

Each of these two CDs is devoted to a specific publication by Ippolito Ghezzi, an Augustinian Friar active in and around Siena at the end of the 17th and the beginning of the 18th century. His Salmi a 2 Voci are unexceptional Baroque fare, given rather routine performances by these Italian singers – a succession of solo voices seem to a greater or lesser extent a bit ‘slap-dash’ about intonation, and have a range of vibrato which at its broadest can be off-putting. You may be prepared to put up with these shortcomings in pursuit of music by a nowadays practically unknown composer, but (on extended listening) they do get annoying and the virtues of Ghezzi’s music seem to fade. The second CD features Ghezzi’s Dialogi Sagri dating from 1708 almost a decade after the Psalms, and clearly showing how the composer’s skills had developed in the interim. These are more imaginative settings in which the instruments play a more active obbligato role, while the singing is much more polished and secure. It feels to me as if having got this CD ‘in the can’ it was decided to use the forces to also commit the Psalms to CD to make a double album. This discrepancy in standards between to two is marked, due (I fear) to relative lack of preparation but also the inferior standard of the compositions. Perhaps, if we regard the second, longer and better CD as the main item and the first CD as a free bonus it makes the package more palatable. At his best, Ghezzi is an imaginative and technically adept composer, and for his dramatically animated music perhaps texts and translations (not provided) are desirable.

D. James Ross

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Recording

Treasures from Baroque Malta

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The Rose Ensemble
76:17
Rose00012

Let me begin by paraphrasing the final two sentences of the programme note for this charming CD of anonymous sacred music from 17th-century Malta ‘How could the composers of these pieces not be known? How is it possible that these pieces haven’t been performed in hundreds of years?’ It is perhaps unsurprising that the music in Malta’s great religious establishments in Mdina run by the wealthy Knights of St John should be of a superlative standard, clearly influenced by musical developments in Venice, Rome and other Mediterranean centres of excellence, but the question of who composed it and why we should have no hint as to their identity is more puzzling. Surely there must at least be lists somewhere of performers and people who help prominent church posts – or perhaps not. The excellent American Rose Ensemble under the direction of Jordan Sramek provide simply radiant performances of this long-neglected repertoire, with superb vocalists singing equally effectively as soloists and in consort, while ably supported by a small but beautifully effective instrumental ensemble. The rich acoustic of St Mary’s Catholic Church, New Trier, Minnesota is used to perfect effect, giving this multitextured music a lovely glow vividly captured by sound engineer Peter Nothnagel. I cannot praise too much this excellent project, researched and brought to performance by the group’s director, executed to such a high standard by the musicians of the Rose Ensemble and released on their own label. So often with this sort of well-intentioned championing of neglected music, either the standard of the repertoire itself or the quality of the performances can be disappointing – this production is very much the opposite, with superlative performances of richly rewarding music. Let us hope that some time composers’ names can be matched to this extraordinary collection. Somewhat out of place in almost every respect except that it is setting a text in Maltese is a concluding piece by contemporary American composer Timothy C. Takach – it does show the choir’s versatility and is a thoroughly competent piece of writing, and might work well as a concert encore alongside this repertoire, but to my mind doesn’t really add anything to this CD. At just under five minutes of a 76-minute programme, though, we can easily overlook this.

D. James Ross