Tag: Choral music

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Sheet music

Nathaniel Giles: English Sacred Music

Nathaniel Giles English Sacred Music Joseph Sargent

Early English Church Music [volume] 63
ISBN 978 0 85249 965 8 | ISMN 979 0 2202 2643 4 (Hardback)
xxx, 130pp. £70
Stainer & Bell

This second volume dedicated to the few surviving works of Nathaniel Giles (1558?–1634) contains service music. While presenting an edition of the First Service is straightforward, the Second Service can only be reconstructed from the surviving sources to within a certain degree of completeness and the editor Joseph Sargent has had to put his creative hat on for passages where the solo parts are not available, and the Short Service is very fragmentary indeed but both Sargent and the series editor, David Skinner, recommend their contrapuntal possibilities to would-be reconstructionists. After a detailed biography of the composer, Sargent surveys the sources and lays out his editorial approach. Then come detailed descriptions of the sources and a meticulous editorial commentary on the three services. Then to the music itself, laid out on pages larger than A4 size that can accommodate the up to ten voices (two five-part choirs – cantoris and decani, according to Anglican tradition) and the organ part(s). I had to do some brain juggling when systems were compressed and a voice from the lower group appeared in the middle of the combined groups, but generally the approach works. The added parts are printed in smaller notation. The paper is slightly shiny – I did not find that a problem but I have heard others complain about using such paper for music because it can sometimes catch light awkwardly and become difficult to read. I hope more than anything else that this marvellous tome (at another bargain price of only £70!) will encourage performances of the music – it very much deserves to be heard!

Brian Clark

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Sheet music

Kusser: Serenatas for Dublin

Kusser Serenatas for Dublin ed Samantha Owens

Recent Researches in the Music of the Baroque Era, 210
Edited by Samantha Owens
xxi, four plates, 262pp.
ISBN 978-1-9872-0450-6

This is Samantha Owens’ latest contribution to the (long overdue!) rediscovery of Kusser’s music. It contains the three surviving serenatas (of 21!) that the composer wrote during his time in Ireland: “The Universal Applause of Mount Parnassus” (1711 for Queen Anne’s birthday), “An Idylle on the Peace” (1713 on the Utrecht settlement), and the rather oddly named “No! He’s not dead” (ca. 1707-14, again for Queen Anne). After a French overture, each is a sequence of recitatives, arias and choruses, many with colourful scorings displaying the versatility of the musical establishment in Dublin. The state pomp of the serenata on the Peace inspires the use of three trumpets, while the 1711 work calls for no fewer than nine solo sopranos. Many of the arias are built on dance forms, and Kusser reveals himself to be quite the tunesmith. He was also a self-borrower, here recycling arias from operas he had written in Germany. Two of the serenatas have recorded in full on Hungaroton, and portions of the other by the Irish Baroque Orchestra under Peter Whelan, both groups drawing out the charm of these neglected pieces. Hopefully the publication of this magnificent volume will inspire others to take up the challenge.

Brian Clark

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Recording

Schütz: Historia Nativitatis

CD cover Schütz Historia nativitatis

Ensemble Polyharmonique
84:25 (2 CDs in a single jewel case)
cpo 555 432-2

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Ensemble Polyharmonique, led by their primus inter pares and alto Alexander Schneider, have embarked on an interesting project: Schütz published the narrative of his Historia without the rich and characterful intermedii scored for the richly furnished Dresden court orchestra, with the comment that these additional parts could be hired for a small fee. He was clearly trying to make the Evangelista’s narrative widely available as the framework for a Christmas reflection and encouraged prospective performers to compose or gather their own material for intermedii to be inserted in his narrative. This is what Schneider’s Ensemble have done, and the result – performed by the six singers, two violins and a basso continuo of organ, theorbo and harp, with gamba/violone and dulzian/flauto – makes a good programme, bringing the outline of the work within reach of those who do not have the extensive resources of Schütz’s Kapelle in Dresden. A note says that the score and parts of the entire programme are available online at www.polyharmonique.eu , but I think you would have to ask them for it.

The narrative is divided into three parts: there is a Marian/Advent section (tracks 1-5) featuring Hammerschmidt, Michael, Schütz, Eccard and Frank’s fine Hosianna dem Sohne David before we reach the Birth of Jesus itself and the message alerting the Shepherds, where Schütz’s narrative based on Luke’s gospel forms the storyline. The intermedii include just one from Schütz’s Weihnachtsoratorium – Ehre sei Gott, with its scoring of six voices, two violins and fagotto with bc fitting the available resources exactly. Otherwise, the material includes interesting versions – usually more richly set than we hear in our carol services – of well-known German Christmas music like Ein Kind ist uns geboren, Joseph lieber Joseph mein, Es ist ein Ros entsprungen and Psallite unigenito.

On CD 2, we move to Herod, the visit of the Three Kings and the Flight into Egypt. Here there are more treasures: a version by Schein of Nikolaus Herman’s chorale associated with Christmas, Lobt Gott, ihr Christen allzugleich, that features at the end of BWV 151 and 195; a setting by Hammerschmidt based on the Kings’ enquiry to Herod, scored for voices and two violins; and music by Carl, Gesius and Briegel setting the Matthean texts that intersperse the narrative before Schütz’s setting of John 1.14 from his Geistliche Chor-musik (1648) and Scheidt’s triumphal setting of In dulci jubilo conclude this well-crafted Historia.

And the performances as usual with this group are excellent. OVPP singing, with a handful of instruments and a well-tuned basso continuo group in a flattering but clean acoustic make this a welcome addition to their discs of 17th-century German music. Let’s hope many will that up their – and Schütz’s – offer to plan an inventive and tuneful Historia next Christmastide.

David Stancliffe

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Recording

Marc’Antonio Ingegneri: Volume Two: Missa Voce mea a5

CD cover Marc'Antonio Ingegneri Volume 2

Choir of Girton College, Cambridge; Historic Brass of the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama led by Jeremy West, directed by Gareth Wilson
62:44
Toccata Classica TOCC 0630

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My review of volume 1 (TOCC 0556) was posted on 12 April 2020. Those who enjoyed the recording will be pleased to know that Gareth Wilson adheres to much the same format in this second helping of Ingegneri. This time the Historic Brass does not embrace the Guildhall School of Music and Drama beside the Royal Welsh, and he includes the motet on which Ingegneri’s mass is based. The composer seems to have assumed that he was paying tribute to his teacher Cipriano de Rore, to whom this motet had become attributed even as early as the sixteenth century, but seemingly it is the work of the less distinguished but worthy Paolo Animuccia, whose brother Giovanni has a higher profile. Paolo’s motet Voce mea is nowhere near as fine a work as Palestrina’s Laudate pueri and it is surprising that the latter is not included on volume one as a prelude to Ingegneri’s mass which is based upon it. Although the ways in which Ingegneri uses Animuccia’s motet are audible and interesting, the inferior material renders this mass (which is in only five parts) less gripping than his Missa Laudate pueri (which is in eight parts) from volume 1. That said, there is a sumptuously beautiful passage built on suspensions which emphasize the profundity of the emotional appeal “miserere nobis” in the Gloria. The majority of the intervening motets are set to texts familiar from the works of significant contemporary composers, and it is interesting to compare Ingegneri’s creative responses to theirs.

Like its predecessor, this recording comes with a detailed booklet containing two impressive and readable essays. Carlos Rodriguez Otero, who sings tenor on this disc, tells us about “Ingegneri in focus: sacred music and religious life in Cremona”, while Gareth Wilson’s article “Ingegneri against the odds” is an enthralling account of how the challenges and obstacles thrown up by the pandemic were overcome in the making of this recording. For this reason alone it is worth supporting the disc.

Perhaps because of the circumstances under which the music was recorded, the Girton Choir sounds different –but not worse – on this album, with more of an edge to the tone, especially in the upper parts. This is by no means detrimental to Ingegneri’s music. As before Historic Brass have an equal role, playing some motets by themselves, or taking over sections of certain pieces, such as the second Agnus in the mass, or simply playing some parts while members of the Choir sing the others. There are also some gung-ho full passages such as the amens concluding the Gloria and Credo. Listeners will either like or dislike this approach, and will relish the variety of sounds or be annoyed by the switches of timbre. Or they will simply take it as it comes.

Richard Turbet

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Recording

Bach: Matthäus-Passion

CD cover Matthäus-Passion Pygmalion

Julian Prégardien, Stéphane Degout, Sabine Deveilhe, Lucile Richardot, Reinoud van Mechelen, Hana Blaz>iková, Tim Mead, Emiliano Gonzalez Toro, Christian Immler, [Maîtrise de Radio France], Pygmalion, Raphaël Pichon
162:00 (3 CDs in a card box)
harmonia mundi HMM 902691.93

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This splendid recording of the St Matthew Passion by Raphaël Pichon’s Pygmalion has been a long time in gestation. It is worth the wait. First, it is technically excellent: clean, well-balanced and every line can be heard without distortion. Second, the dramatic structure of the work – so different from the St John – is carefully thought through and well-presented in a series of scenes between two book-ends: the Preparation of the Passover, the Garden, at the High Priests’, before Pilate, the Cross and the Burial. But most importantly, this is the first recording of the St Matthew that I have encountered where real care has been taken to match the quality of the singing voices to the resonance and sound quality of the period-instrument bands, and the result is arresting.

The forces are quite large. Each line in the two choirs is led by the concertisten singer who sings the arias allocated by Bach to each choir, and each choir has five soprano, two alto, two tenor and four bass ripienisti singers in addition, so the choral sound – though fairly substantial – matches the ‘solo’ singing. The only singer excluded from the choro is the Evangelista, Julian Prégardien, whose place leading the tenors of choir 1 is taken by the admirable Reinoud van Mechelen, whose high voice has that distinctively clean yet mellifluous ring. It is he and the alto of choir 1, Lucile Richardot, who exemplify the vocal style that Pichon is after. When I first heard Buß und Reu, I was convinced that the pure, slightly nasal, ringing tone was a male voice. Richardot matches the flutes so well, but is equally flexible and commanding with the strings in Erbame dich: these two are exactly the type of voices that work for me.

Sadly, the standard set by Richardot and van Mechelen is not met by the soprano or the bass of choir one. For all her admirable phrasing in Ich will die mein Herze schenken, Sabine Devieilhe is unable – or unwilling? – to control the wobble in her voice. Singing in duet with Richardot in So ist mein Jesus nun gefangen – taken at a spanking pace with elegant ornaments and cracking interjections from the 2nd choir – she manages better, so it is a real pity that she falls back on modern, singerly sounds as her default option. The other weak link is the B1, Stéphane Degout, singing Jesus and those choir 1 arias. His voice, though rich and characterful, sounds plummy and bottled – a throwback to the singing style of an earlier period and out of kilter with the razor-sharp strings (3.3.2.1.1 in each band) who provide the halo round Jesus’ music.

The concertisten in choir 2 are well known soloists in Bach’s music. Hana Blažíková in Blute nur, Tim Mead in Können, Tränen and Christian Immler in Gerne will and Gebt mir produce quality performances that match the instrumental colour splendidly. The tenor Emiliano Gonzales-Toro was known to me chiefly as the singer/director of his own version of the Monteverdi Orfeo, but is equally admirable here in Geduld. All these singers make this recording outstanding for their ability to subsume their soloistic persona into the overall sound pattern Pichon is creating. The choruses have edge and bite, and many of them are refreshingly brisk. Chorales are treated to their own persona, and are an integral part of the whole drama rather than the boring but necessary hymns between the real music that they can so often become.

Julian Prégardien is a wonderful story-teller, at once tender and dramatic, and with a feeling for the shape and import of each phrase within the whole narrative: his diction – a significant feature of every singer in this recording – is outstanding. It is this sense of drama that pervades this recording and provides its distinctive and very French take on the Great Passion. Apart from the full libretto, translated into both French and English, which occupies pages 38 to 105 of the substantial 111-page booklet in rather grey, arty typeface – so not easily readable –, there is room only for a basic list of players and singers together with one of those composite and very French interviews with Pichon and Prégardien about how they planned their take on the Matthew over a number of years. There is nothing about the music itself, its sources, versions, transmission and readings; nor about the singers, players, instruments or chosen temperament; nor about the key musical decisions such as when and where to use dual accompaniment, adding the harpsichord of choir 2. The basso continuo instruments are listed as a group together as in Bach’s very first version as well as with their respective orchestras – theorbo and organ with choir 1 and organ and harpsichord with choir 2. Why and where are the bassoons (present in both orchestras) added or do the violas da gamba play in more than the specific arias where they are scored? All of this suggests to me that Pichon is more interested in dramatic affekt than in serious HIP scholarship and I am left with a lot of unanswered questions. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but the buyer should beware.

Nonetheless, and despite my personal reservations about the suitability of two of the singers (which listeners may not share), this is an outstanding performance by any standards, and I warmly encourage everyone to buy it. It is on three CDs and is a real bargain, and the thought that has gone into its preparation and direction makes a welcome change from many of the more lumbering and dully correct performances to which we are often treated. I find the style, tempi and continuity convincing, while stripping away the varnish of respectability brings a glow of excitement to the treasure that lies beneath.

David Stancliffe

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Recording

Purcell: Royal Odes

CD cover Purcell Royal Odes Le Banquet Céleste Damien Guillon

Le Banquet Céleste, Damien Guillon
63:23
Alpha Classics ALPHA 780

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I have recently rather late in the day encountered ‘Perpetual Night’, the superlative CD (harmonia mundi) of 17th-century English repertoire by mezzo Lucile Richardot and Sebastien Daucé’s Ensemble Correspondances. Now here’s another disc from a distinguished French vocal ensemble to demonstrate compellingly how flawed our thinking is when we take on a proprietorial attitude to our own early music. That applies especially to Purcell, who many mistakenly tend to regard as quintessentially English and in so doing overlook the influence in his work of both French and Italian music.  

If Continental influences are undeniably at work in Purcell’s music, the concept of the celebratory royal ode was an entirely English one, though one might perhaps find some analogy in the sycophantic opera preludes addressed to Louis XIV by Lully and his contemporaries. Today their principal interest, leaving aside the astonishing quality – out of all proportion to their occasional purpose – of the music Purcell provided for them, is their commentary on and reflection of historical events. Thus of the three odes included here ‘From those serene and rapturous joys’ (Z 326) is the welcome ode for Charles II composed in 1684, in the September of which the king returned to Whitehall following a summer spent partly in Winchester, thus the poet John Flatman’s references to the ‘rapturous joys a country life alone can give’. Rather less easily explained are the references to the raising of Lazarus. But it’s a splendidly variegated work, with a French overture, florid Italianate solo airs, and a very English ground bass in the superb bass air ‘Welcome as soft refreshing showers’. The welcome ode for 1683, ‘Fly, bold rebellion’ (Z 324) is also linked to a specific historical event, in this case the so-called Rye House plot, a thwarted attempt to kill both Charles and his brother James earlier in the year. There is not unexpectedly considerable menacing tub-thumping, but the jewel of the work is the exquisite trio for two sopranos and countertenor, ‘But heaven has now dispelled’, in this performance the delicately interwoven filigree of the voices and ethereal lightness of touch forming a striking contrast with much of what has gone before.  

With the third and longest of these odes, ‘Why are all the Muses mute?’ (Z 343) we come to the first welcome ode Purcell composed for a new king, James II after his accession to the throne in 1685. The anonymous text is ostensibly largely a panegyric, though not without barbs and ambiguities, in which the new and unpopular Catholic monarch is throughout addressed as Caesar. Its opening is unique. Instead of the expected overture, we are drawn into the work by an introverted solo for high tenor set to the words of the ode’s title, here beautifully done with rapt concentration by Nicholas Scott. Only after this verse does Purcell introduce an instrumental prelude. Other highlights in a remarkable piece include ‘Britain, that now art great’, a ground bass air for countertenor – in this case, another of the CD’s stars, Paul-Antoine Bénos-Djian – succeeded by a ravishingly lovely orchestral ritornello.

The scale of the performances is similar to that employed by Robert King in some of his more recent re-recordings of the royal odes. That is to say two voices per part in choruses and single strings per part. King himself has recorded ‘Why are all the Muses?’ in this way, which reflects the kind of forces Purcell would have employed. Comparisons are fascinating, with Guillon generally taking a more lively approach than the latter-day King, whose stellar group of soloists are inevitably more individualistic than Le Banquet Céleste’s beautifully tuned and integrated ensemble. Both approaches have their own value, with the mostly French performers relishing the marvellous expressive qualities inherent in Purcell’s writing and, unsurprisingly, the strong feel of dance it includes. An outstanding disc that underlines convincingly the fundamental fact Purcell is fully exportable to and performable by our near-neighbours. Coincidentally, while working on this review a newsletter from Le Banquet Céleste arrived in my in-box. Upcoming are two concert programmes devoted to 17th-century English music. And that can only be good news for all of us.

Brian Robins

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Recording

C. P. E. Bach: Die Auferstehung unf Himmelfahrt Jesu

CD cover C P E Bach Die Auferstehung und Himmelfahrt Christi

Lore Binon soprano, Kieran Carrel tenor, Andreas Wolf bass, Vlaams Radiokoor, Il Gardellino Baroque Orchestra, conducted by Bart van Reyn
69:15
Passacaille 1115

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In the press release the flautist and co-founder of Il Gardellino Jan de Winne speaks of CPE Bach’s oratorio Die Aufferstehung und Himmelfahrt Jesu as a ‘forgotten masterpiece’. Masterpiece? Yes, indeed this iconic work can deservedly be accorded such an epithet. But forgotten? That’s hardly an apt description for a work that has received distinguished recordings from such notable directors as Philippe Herreweghe (Virgin Classics) and different performances by Sigiswald Kuijken on CD (Hyperion) and DVD (Euroarts).

Composed in Hamburg in 1774, it has in keeping with the spirit of the times in north Germany a poetic rather than liturgical text, in this case, one by Karl Wilhelm Ramler that had been previously set by other composers including Telemann and Graun. It takes an overtly emotional response to the events of the resurrection and ascension of Christ, in addition to a long recitative for bass at the start of the second of the oratorio’s two parts recapitulating the events of and leading up to the Crucifixion. The recitative, which is part narrative and part direct speech is divided into alternating passages of plain recitative and accompagnato, thus contradicting the impression given in the libretto that it consists near wholly of the latter. It is a text well suited to both the ‘Sturm und Drang’ of the 1770s and Bach’s employment of the related Empfindsamkeit, the highly expressive sentimental style particularly fashionable in Berlin and north Germany. Thus the work encapsulates both these elements in the bass’s first aria ‘Mein Geist, voll Furcht und Freude’ (My soul, full of fear and joy), the conflicting yet at the same time parallel emotions expressed in music of quasi-Romantic turbulence and intensity. Exhilarating, mystical and tender by turn, Die Aufferstehung looks both back to the world of Bach’s godfather Telemann in its use of such a device as its ritornello chorus and forward to that of Haydn’s Creation and Beethoven. The latter indeed looms large over the concluding numbers, the bass aria ‘Ihr Tore Gottes’, all brass fanfares and dynamic thrusting against restraint, and the final chorus with its unison passages for male chorus and vigorous fugue.

The performance holds up well against its distinguished predecessors. Bart Van Reyn’s direction and the fine playing of Il Gardellino capture well the varied moods of the work and while his chorus may not quite match the very best groups it is well balanced and responds with both fervour and, where needed, a sensitivity clearly apparent as early as the lovely opening chorus, ‘Gott, Du wirst seine Seele’. Tempos are on the whole well judged, though the fugue that concludes Part 1 sounds rushed and consequently untidy. Unusually most of the important solo work is given to the male soloists, the soprano not appearing at all in Part 2. The singing of bass Andreas Wolf is outstanding – rounded and richly toned, while articulating both text and music with clarity. Kieran Carrel is a light lyric tenor who sings extremely capably without quite effacing memories of Christoph Prégardien, Herreweghe’s soloist. Lore Binnon sings the little allotted to the soprano with an appealing purity and freshness, although her ornaments are not always confidently turned. As is so often the case, there was sadly no evidence of a vocal trill throughout the entire performance.

This finely executed and dramatically convincing Die Auferstehung can certainly stand alongside the earlier versions of one of Bach’s most influential and significant choral works.

Brian Robins

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Concert-Live performance

ST JOHN’S SMITH SQUARE EASTER FESTIVAL – VOX LUMINUS

St John's Smith Square logo

For obvious reasons, St John’s Smith  Square is an ideal venue for a festival of sacred music for Holy Week. This Easter Festival, which took place between 10 and 17 April, featured a broad mix of repertoire from across the centuries, the concert on 14 April with the vocal ensemble Sansara and Fretwork illustrating the eclectic nature of the festival by including works by the Tudor composer Robert White and Arvo Pärt. Unsurprisingly early music was well represented, with concerts including Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater (Anna Devin and Hugh Cutting), Handel and Vivaldi (his Stabat mater, RV621 with Hilary Cronin and Cutting again, the former a Handel Festival prize winner, the latter a Ferrier award winner). Perhaps the most ambitious event was the candlelit late-night concerts by Sansara of Gesualdo’s tormented Tenebrae Responsories, given in a candlelit liturgical context over three nights. More traditional Easter fare featured in a Bach St John Passion (Polyphony and OAE under Stephen Layton), before the festival was brought to a conclusion by the Belgian-based ensemble Vox Luminus, under the unobtrusive direction of bass Lionel Meunier.

It was this concert that we were able to attend along with an audience that was disappointingly sparse given Vox Luminus’s present eminence among vocal ensembles. I suppose Westminster is perhaps not a place of choice for many potential concert-goers to be on an Easter Sunday afternoon. Sadly, too, the level of Schütz’s box-office appeal in this country is far from commensurate with his greatness as a composer, so that his profoundly affecting Musicalische Exequien was the centrepiece of the concert may also have proved a deterrent. A German requiem, the work was commissioned from Schütz for his own funeral obsequies by a German nobleman. In this performance, it was given within the context of a funeral, including the opening chorale ‘Mit Fried und Freud’ that accompanied the funeral procession into the church, and to conclude the exquisite German setting of the ‘Nunc dimittis’, which employs evocative in lontano effects, here most atmospherically brought off. It was an award-winning recording of the work in 2012 that first brought Vox Luminus to wide notice. With its alternation of tutti ensemble movements and Favoriten passages for one or more soloists, the Musicalische Exequien is ideally suited to the strengths of Vox Luminus, which over the years have cultivated the individuality of the singers, all of whom are required to undertake solo parts, within integrated ensemble singing in which the personality of each singer remains paramount. At St John’s, ensemble was further tested by a visitation to Vox Luminus of the Covid curse, necessitating several late replacements. It barely showed, the rare odd slip being of the kind that can occur at any time. Far more importantly, with the slight caveat that the ensemble’s principal soprano slightly tended to dominate the texture in ripieno passages, this was overall a deeply sensitive and moving performance that so obviously came from the heart.

Much the same can be said of the two Bach cantatas that made up the programme. Both ‘Christ lag in Todes Banden’, BWV4 and the so-called ‘Actus Tragicus’ (‘Gottes Zeit ist die allerbeste Zeit’), BWV106 are among the earliest cantatas Bach wrote and works that owe more to 17th-century predecessors such as Schütz and Buxtehude than the more modern type of Italianate cantata adopted by Bach in his later Leipzig cantatas. BWV106 is a funeral cantata probably composed during Bach’s brief Mühlhausen period (1707-08) for obsequies the details of which are unknown. Scored for minimal forces – SATB ‘choir’ – here of course rightly single voices per part – with solo interjections and just pairs of recorders (instruments associated with death during this period) and viola da gambas, and continuo. More consolatory than dramatic, the performance achieved a wonderfully intimate and inward-looking perspective on death, particularly touching in the exchange between the bass and the alto soloist’s chorale that immediately precedes the final chorale.

BWV4 could not have been a more appropriate choice to round off the programme, it being a cantata for Easter Sunday, the exact year of composition also not established, though it probably dates from his Weimar period (1708-13). It is cast in the form of a set of chorale variations, the melody retained throughout the seven verses which are varied both melodically and in their scoring and vocal disposition. Meunier here went with a larger-scale reading, employing three voices per part, doubtless so as to include all his performers, which caught the vibrant celebratory nature of the cantata effectively. This richly rewarding concert was rounded off by an encore in the shape of Buxtehude’s cantata, termed ‘aria’ in manuscript sources, ‘Jesu meines Lebens Leben’, BuxWV62, which is set over an ostinato bass. The timeline between Schütz and Bach was thus neatly bridged.

Brian Robins

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Festival-conference

Les Traversées 2022

If you happen to be anywhere near the Abbaye Noirlac in central France on any Saturday between 18 June and 16 July 2022, be sure to check out this festival schedule: Les Traversées 2022 – with three events on each date and the option to include a picnic in your ticket price, this sounds like a marvellous way to spend a summer’s evening. Highlights for early music fans will be Aliotti’s “Il Trionfo Della Morte” on 25 June, and a St John Passion by Les Surprises on 16 July.

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Recording

Ou beau chastel

CD cover of Leuven Chansonniervol. 2 Ou beau chastel

Leuven Chansonnier vol. 2
Sollazzo Ensemble
53:50
passacaille AMY059 | PAS 1109

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The Sollazzo Ensemble return to the Leuven Chansonnier for a second selection from the 62 works it records. Alongside the established composers (Ockeghem, Caron, Frye, Morton, and Busnoys), there is anonymous music which has not been found in any other source, and which supplies the title for their CD. The Ensemble provides convincing and musically engaging accounts of this important music, although just occasionally I felt that some of the songs were a little over-interpreted, with some unidiomatic vocal swooping and portamenti. This is living music, and performers who are undeniably very familiar with the repertoire must be permitted to interpret it meaningfully, but I felt that some of the mannerisms in the vocal contribution sounded disconcertingly out of period. That aside, these are bold and effective interpretations, and it is good to report that the ‘new’ anonymous material is every bit as fine as the established, ‘named’ music – but for the whim of the copyist, we might be adding to the output of one of the familiar masters here, or perhaps more intriguingly even adding to the panoply of the masters of the period. I found it particularly exciting to hear a very persuasive account of Walter Frye’s ubiquitous three-part setting of Ave Regina performed by voices and wind instruments – the performances in the 1980s (by, amongst others, René Clemencic) of the music of this period combining wind instruments and voices were often dismissed as eccentric at the time, but with the welcome challenging of the ‘a cappella orthodoxy’ may prove to have been a perfectly viable and plausible performance option. 

D. James Ross