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Recording

Les inAttendus: Poetical Humors

Vincent Lhermet accordion, Marianne Muller viola da gamba
62:26
harmonia mundi musique HMM 902610
Transcriptions of Bull, Dowland, East, Gibbons & Hume, etc.

A review of this CD of music by 17th-century masters Tobias Hume, John Dowland, Orlando Gibbons, Michael East and John Bull and contemporary composers Thierry Tidrow and Philippe Hersant played on modern button accordion and viola da gamba probably has no place on the EMR website. However, I found the arrangements and the playing so charming and idiomatic that I decided to include it. The plain vibrato-free sound of the accordion (yes, they can switch off that offensive warbling effect!) blends absolutely beautifully with the viol’s elegant tone, and at times you forget you are listening to what on paper looks like a bizarre combination, and hear instead the sound of a viol consort or a viol and organ combination. Of the two contemporary pieces receiving their world premiere recordings, I preferred the Hersant, but actually the early music is the main strength of this CD. Both accordionist Vincent Lhermet and viol player Marianne Müller have a fine sense of the idiom of this 17th-century chamber repertoire. This CD is a testimony to the fact that fine musicianship and a feel for idiom can transcend the mere mechanics of HIP performance. I play clarinet in a duo with a button accordionist, and we shall now be exploring some of this earlier repertoire!

D. James Ross

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Recording

Purcell: King Arthur

Vox Luminis, Lionel Meunier
97:59 (2 CDs in a wallet)
Alpha Classics Alpha 430

It is hard to believe that this performance of Purcell’s semi-opera is achieved by only thirty performers! One-to-a-part strings sound perfectly adequate (although the original performances would surely have used more) and balance well with the woodwind and brass soloists, while the vocal soloists double as chorus (as they probably would have done originally) and the director Lionel Meunier leads by example, singing bass in the choruses and also playing in the four-strong recorder section! The substantial harpsichord part is not credited in the orchestral list, but in the booklet photos seems to be played by organist Anthony Romaniuk. The general sound is spacious and rich, with a wonderful timbre when the full ensemble are playing and singing. The frost scenes are spectacularly evocative, while the familiar patriotic music, the stirring trumpet tunes and specifically Fairest Isle, are beautifully rendered, the latter sung with crystal-clear tones by Zsuzsi Tóth. The more raucous bucolic choruses never get too out of hand and the piece ends with the pomp of praise for St George, a stirring chorus with trumpets and an elegant Chaconne. This is a fine account of Purcell’s King Arthur with a first-class set of soloists, who also make a fine chorus, and idiomatic and technically sound orchestral forces. Lionel Meunier has a clear vision of the work, and evokes a powerful account of Purcell’s masterwork from his talented performers.

D. James Ross

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Recording

Stradella: La Doriclea

Emőke Baráth, Giuseppina Bridelli, Xavier Sabata, Gabriella Martellacci, Luca Cervoni, Riccardo Novaro SmScTATBar, Il Pomo d’Oro, directed by Andrea De Carlo
188:21 (3 CDs in a wallet)
Arcana A 454 (The Stradella Project vol. 5)

The excellent Baroque ensemble Pomo d’Oro under the direction of Andrea De Carlo are joined by a first-class line-up of soloists for this account of the first complete opera by Alessandro Stradella, dating probably from the 1670s while the composer was resident in Rome. At this stage in his short life, Stradella had the reputation of being able to set a libretto to music in a matter of weeks, and in the case of a lightly scored light comedy such as this, it is easy to see how such a feat was possible. Consisting of recitative alternating with simple, tuneful arias ‘con ritornello’ and duets this is the sort of music which could be composed by the yard. Having said that, Stradella’s gift for melody and texture means that he makes the most of the limited demands of this genre, and his instrumental accompaniments are charmingly tuneful, his sung melodies always lyrical and imaginative and the various roles are felicitously characterized in music. The present performance uses just solo strings and continuo, but one rarely feels that the texture is overly thin. The six excellent soloists bring passion and distinctive timbres to their various roles, with particular accolades due to Emőke Baráth’s energetic account of the eponymous heroine Doriclea, the ever-excellent Xavier Sabata as an intense Fidalbo and a smokey-voiced Gabriella Martellacci as Delfina. The programme notes speculate that this is the sort of entertainment which might have been performed outdoors in a castle garden, and with its light orchestration it is easy to see this working rather well, with characters popping in and out from behind hedging to make their contributions. I have emphasized the light-weight nature of the piece, and compared to the operas of Monteverdi it is inconsequential fare indeed, but the music is never less than pleasantly entertaining and this superb performance consistently engages the attention. I consider it unlikely that a performance of the work would have kicked off with a recitative, as suggested by the score and as the performers here choose to do – surely a piece of instrumental music by Stradella would have preceded the performance, and could easily have done so here too. I also feel that that the singers are slightly closely recorded for my taste, but otherwise the sound is excellent and the whole project is infused with musicality and dynamism.

D. James Ross

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Recording

Come to my Garden, my Sister, my Beloved

Lovesongs by Franck & Schein [+Haussmann & Palestrina]
Voces Suaves, Jörg-Andreas Bötticher
69:57
deutsche harmonia mundi 1 90758 49752 5

Best known perhaps for their church music, it is nice to have this selection of lovesongs by Melchior Franck and Johann Hermann Schein. Using compositional techniques similar to their polychoral church music, both composers seem equally adept at setting vernacular love lyrics. The voices of Voces Suaves are joined by a violin, cornetto, theorbo, violone and organ/harpsichord to produce a wonderfully full sound in performances which are adeptly ornamented and expressively presented. The songs by Schein are a particular revelation, as he seems to feel freed to explore a greater variety of textures in these secular works than in his church music. In the music from his late collection Musica Boscareccia of 1628, he seems to be exploring a more operatic idiom using the compositional skills acquired over a twenty-year career. Sadly within two years he would be dead, denying us undoubtedly of much fine music. To provide variety, if such were needed, the instruments perform a delightful Passameza by Valentin Hausmann, as well as two instrumental reworkings by Giovanni Bassano and Luigi Zenobi respectively of two motets by Palestrina. This is a beautifully varied CD, performed with passion and technical assurance acquainting us an unexpectedly rich repertoire.

D. James Ross

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Recording

The Seasons

Prisma
58:31
Ambronay AMY311
Castello, Marini, Merula, Uccellini, etc.

Rather disorientatingly, two of the four seasonal sections of this programme begin with decidedly 21st-century preludes on recorder and violin respectively, which to my mind add nothing musically to the programme of otherwise 16th- and 17th-century Italian instrumental works – hard to imagine who thought this was a good idea. The witty mosquito imitations of the violin prelude and the lute homage to Yves Montand, shoe-horned into the Autumn selection would probably be well received in a concert but don’t really belong on a serious CD. However, even once we are safely into the real subject of the CD where the choice of repertoire is impeccable and fascinating, and the playing is wonderfully idiomatic, we are still occasionally dropped into episodes ‘arranged’ by the group members, where the early music is forced through a prism of modern textures. I found this approach self-indulgent and annoying, as well as slightly patronizing to the original composers – why bother to learn to play period instruments in an idiomatically authentic manner, only to randomly present some of the music in a context in which it could never have been conceived by its composers? This is a huge pity as most of the repertoire is beautifully and imaginatively presented, and there is fine music here which has rarely been heard before. Isn’t that enough, without cheap gimmicks?

D. James Ross

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Recording

Caldara: Brutus

Cantatas for bass
Sergio Foresti, Stile Galante, directed by Stefano Aresi
66:22
Pan Classics PC10389

Solo chamber cantatas for bass voice are extremely unusual, the genre being one overwhelmingly dominated by either the soprano or alto voice. I suppose if any composer was going to have devoted himself to them, the prolific Antonio Caldara would be a good bet since his vast catalogue of compositions includes around 350 secular cantatas. Further, as the notes for the present CD suggest, there is another probable explanation for Caldara’s secular bass cantatas and it is one that helps date them. From 1716 to 1736 the composer was in the employment of Emperor Charles VI at the Habsburg court in Vienna, a musical ruler with a particular penchant for the bass voice.

It therefore seems almost certain that the six cantatas recorded here for the first time were composed during Caldara’s Viennese years, a claim supported by the fact that the only one that can be positively dated, Il Dario, belongs to 1727. Although not mentioned in Pan’s notes, it is my belief that such strong circumstantial evidence takes on even greater credibility when the identity of the singer for whom the cantatas were written can be established with near certainty. This was Christoph Praun (or Braun), who took the serious bass roles in the operas of composers such as Caldara and Conti staged at the Imperial court between 1718 and 1732. Evidence that these cantatas were written for Praun is further enhanced by comparing the style of them with the two arias written for him in the role of Saturna in Caldara’s serenata La Concordia de’ pianeti of 1723. Here we find the same virtuoso demands that predominate in the cantatas: a wide tessitura involving frequent leaps requiring great flexibility, coupled with demanding chains of passaggi, characteristics that suggest a singer with a not inconsiderable technique.

Bass roles in the operas of this period were usually given to villains, military men or those of commanding character, so it is little surprise to find that the protagonists of these cantatas include Brutus, Polyphemus, Samson, and Darius, the Persian king defeated by Alexander the Great. The remaining two cantatas conform to the more familiar pastoral tradition. All are scored with continuo accompaniment (here cello, theorbo and harpsichord) and take the customary form of alternating recitative and aria, though ‘A destar l’alba col canto’ (one of the pastoral cantatas) and Il Dario both open with an aria, The latter seems to me the finest of these works, Caldara capturing Darius’ grief at the supposed loss of his wife in an opening aria of real depth and tragic mien, the desolation articulated in powerfully expressive chromatic writing. An extended central recitative calls poignantly on the gods to relieve Darius of his suffering, while the final aria is a heartfelt plea to the shade of his beloved wife to return, its poignancy again stressed by chromaticism. Nothing else quite reaches this level, though the dignity of the blind Samson’s first aria ‘Di quest’occhi è spento il lume’ certainly deserves special mention.

Although Sergio Foresti brings considerable insight to interpreting these cantatas, with much expression and a keen awareness of text, I doubt that his performances will be much to the taste of readers of a specialist platform such as EMR. Though the voice projects authority, there is a persistent wide vibrato that for early music listeners is likely to consistently detract from the virtues of the performances. This along with woolly, approximate articulation of ornaments and a lack of flexibility in the many demanding passaggi mar the performances seriously, as do the rather too frequent problems Foresti has with pitch. Stile Galante provide unexceptionable support, with the familiar caveat that the theorbist is far too active. An interesting CD that basses might want to explore for the repertoire, but one unlikely to attract too many early music specialists.

Brian Robins

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Recording

Corelli: Concerti Grossi, Sinfonia Santa Beatrice d’Este

Freiburger Barockorchester, Gottfried von der Goltz
70:36
Aparté AP190

It’s Corelli, but not as we know it! Everyone who knows anything about Baroque music knows that the written note is only the starting point of a performance; singers and players must adorn it in their own style while respecting the composer’s original thoughts. It is equally well known that various writers described how concerti grossi could be embellished (and the harmony made richer) by the doubling of parts and, in certain circumstances, the addition of instruments not specified, such as oboes and bassoons, and “other instruments”.

So, you will know what is coming next. The 66423 strings (more basses than cellos?) are joined by oboes, bassoon, trumpets, trombones, lutes (yes, plural!), harp and one harpsichordist/organist (whose presence you will certainly notice). Anything in D with arpeggio themes is taken over by trumpets (except, obviously enough, in the passages where modulation makes their participation impossible). The two solo violinists “improvise” a very neat introduction to one concerto. It’s all great fun, and a novel way to hear Corelli’s music, but is it HIP? In fact, I would argue that actually the arrangements (because that is what they are) do not go far enough; rather than giving the brass players music and telling them to play whatever they can of a violin part, why not sit down and compose a brass part that is fully participatory – that is, after all, what musicians of the time would have done; the Dresden music collection is full of parts for instruments the composer did not intend which were composed by the copyists according to the style of the court musical establishment – and frequently these parts do not feature in surviving contemporary scores. While I initially warmed to the extra colours in Corelli’s music, ultimately I found the overall result a little disappointing from an intellectual perspective. The playing, as you would imagine, is wonderful!

Brian Clark

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Recording

Heironymus Praetorius: Missa in Festo Sanctissimae Trinitatis

Volker Jänig (organ), Weser-Renaissance, Manfred Cordes
70:27
cpo 777 954-2

As usual with these performers, this recording is so much more than just a recital. This time, in conjunction with Frederick K. Gable (an Emeritus Professor from California), they offer us some idea of what high mass on Trinity Sunday might have sounded like. But it comes with a caveat: “Since little archival information has survived about singing the mass in Hamburg, it is impossible precisely to determine how these works were performed during Praetorius’s time.” Now that’s what I call a “get out” clause! At its heart is Praetorius’s Missa Benedicam Dominum, whose Credo is replaced by Jacob Praetorius’s setting of its German reincarnation, Wir gläuben all an einen Gott. The programme also includes settings of the introit and offertory for Trinity Sunday, and substitutes for the other mass propers. The tri-partite scheme of the Kyries, the Christe and the Agnus Dei sections are created using chorale and organ versions, giving a range of styles and sounds that probably (in my opinion) was not a feature of period performances, but I think it both valuable and informative to hear the differing approaches. The singing and playing, as always with Cordes, is very finely crafted – with a total of six singers (SSATTB) and seven players (violin, cornetto, viola, two trombones, dulcian and continuo orgennot played by Volker Jänig!) he creates a rich and warm soundworld. The instrumental substitutions for voices in the larger pieces (as would surely have happened at the time) are judiciously selected, and no one voice is ever allowed to dominate the texture – in other words, this is in many ways an ideal exposition of Hieronymus Praetorius’s church music.

Brian Clark

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Recording

Vivaldi: Il Giustino

Delphine Galou Giustino, Emőke Baráth Arianna, Silke Gäng Anastasio, Verónica Cangemi Leocasta, Emiliano Gonzalez Toro Vitaliano, Arianna Vendittelli Amanzio, Alessandro Giangrande Andronico (alto) & Polidarte (tenor), Rahel Maas Fortuna, Accademia Bizantina, Ottavio Dantone
No total timing shown (3 CDs in a jewel box with booklet in card sleeve)
Naïve OP 30571

HOW AMAZING to think that naïve’s vivaldi edition has reached volume 58! This is the 17th complete opera to be recorded and – like its predecessors – it is packed with fantastic music. The plot is typically complicated (and its denouement typically contrived) and I must confess that the more baroque opera I listen to the better I understand a friend’s insistence that Handel is quite in a class of his own when it comes to getting under the skins of his characters; it is true that Vivaldi writes happy arias, and sad ones, angry and love-dazed ones, too, but they are two dimensional representations of those emotions – his characters somehow lack personality.

In this well-paced and beautifully recorded set, the singing of the arias and ensembles (Arianna and Anastasio sing two gorgeous duetti) is mostly first rate and the playing often outstanding – I especially enjoyed the contributions of the horns. Try as I might to put it out of my mind, though, I could not avoided being irked by the fact that the repeated A sections were not so much ornamented as re-written (occasionally, frankly, beyond the abilities of the singers). Similarly the secco recitative for the most part lack any dynamism and any attempts to liven it up (such as the scene protraying the slaying of the bear) descended into the aural equivalent of ham acting…

So a mixed bag, to be honest. I think I’d probably just programme the player to omit the recit and enjoy a recital of very fine arias.

Brian Clark

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Recording

Hotteterre: Complete Chamber Music Vol. 3

Camerata Köln
133:51 (2 CDs in a jewel case)
cpo 555 038-2
Suites opp. 4, 5, & 6

I gave warm welcomes to the first two releases of Camerata Köln’s series and I am delighted to say that this is more of the same. The music is delightful and the various scorings (flute + bc, two ‘trebles’ without bass, flute solo, recorder solo, recorder +bc, two gambas, and gamba + bc) keep the ear engaged even when the two discs are played straight through. Other aspects of the performance contribute to this as well, of course. The low pitch (390) produces rich sonorities, the playing is infallibly stylish and the general approach to performance practice is exploratory yet restrained. Thus the ‘recorder’ music is produced by transposing a flute original up a minor third and the ‘gamba’ sonata is a flute original down a perfect fourth. No Baroque musician would have taken exception to this: the transpositions simply involve reading the music in a different clef and imagining a new key signature. The booklet (German/English) is concise but still manages to tell us what we need to know about composer, music and performances. Overall, a most enjoyable package, though I would have welcomed full details of the instruments.

David Hansell