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Recording

Handel in Rome 1707

Maria Espada, Rachel Redmond, Marta Fumagalli SSA, Ghislieri Choir & Consort, Giulio Prandi
69:59
deutsche harmonia mundi 88985348422
Ah che troppo ineguali, Donna che in ciel, Dixit Dominus

A cracking compilation of three of Handel’s youthful masterpieces, culled from recent live performances in Göttingen, Pavia and Ambronay.

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he little-known cantata ‘Donna, che in ciel’ opens the disc; its unusual structure (formal French overture, three contrasting arias, with one of the intervening recitatives ‘accompagnato’ and a final aria with contrapuntal chorus) is convincingly suggested by Juliana Riepe as a ‘calling card’ marking Handel’s arrival in Rome in early 1707. Handelians will recognise several old friends- the first movement of the overture was recycled in Agrippina, whilst the striking semiquaver “vacillation” motif which opens the first aria reappears in the sinfonia to the final scene of Giulio Cesare. The final chorus has some echoes in the Birthday Ode for Queen Anne, and the block chords and bass runs of a certain well-known Coronation anthem also make an early appearance. It is a splendid piece, and must have created a considerable stir in Roman musical circles.

Maria Espada is fully in control in the demanding vocal writing, and can throw off semiquaver runs seemingly effortlessly; she also has the beauty of tone and phrasing to make the lovely second continuo-accompanied aria glow.

She is similarly splendid in the next work, a recitative and aria possible performed by the castrato Pascalino at a ‘spiritual concert’ organised by Cardinal Ottoboni for the feast of the Annunciation later the same year.

The disc concludes with the well-known and dazzlingly-virtuosic ‘Dixit Dominus’, where the excellent Ghisleri choir get a chance to really show off. Giulio Prandi sets uncompromisingly lively speeds, to spine-tingling effect. Try the superb final chorus- the Gloria Patri begins with two contrasting thematic tags, which thrillingly combine with the proper psalm tone in long notes (appropriately ‘as it was in the beginning’). The final ‘Amen’ is an exhilarating repeated-note fugue, which takes the sopranos to high B flats, and has everyone singing their shirts off; the repeated stretti and the seemingly-endless pedal point at the end bring the work (and disc) to a gloriously contrapuntally-satisfying conclusion. The lovely tone and precise passagework of the Glaswegian soprano Rachel Redmond, in her aria ‘Tecum principium’, is also worth watching out for.

The sleeve note is interesting factually, though perhaps a little wayward in translation from time to time.

Alastair Harper

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Recording

Muffat: Missa In labores requies

Bertali, Schmelzer, Biber: Church sonatas
Cappella Murensis, Les Cornets Noirs
71:36
audite 97.539

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]his is the third recording of Muffat’s only surviving liturigcal work that I know of; Cantus Cölln (the first) filled their disc with Biber’s setting of the Litany for St Joseph and sonatas by Biber and Bertali, then Gunar Letzbor used boys for the upper parts and saw no need to pad out the recording. The present version has women sopranos but is a disc of two halves – the added sonatas (by Biber, Bertali and Schmelzer) are performed in an arch-like sequence after the mass. Audite’s recordings are always of exceptional quality and the principle interest of this recording will be for audio geeks who will be thrilled by the positioning of the five “choirs” in different parts of the abbey in Muri where the sessions were held.

[Video in German, subtitled in English]

Surround sound is available as an HD download. For me, though, the whole thing is slightly phoney since Muffat’s contemporaries can never have heard it in such perfection; quite apart from the fact that the resonance must have been affected by the presence of a congregation and the assembled clergy and royalty (although I don’t think the author quite wants to believe what he is writing, the booklet notes give convincing reasons why the piece was more likely written for Passau than Salzburg; though someone should have checked the date Haydn’s death…), the mass was never intended to be an unbroken sequence, and there would have been other music in the service. That said, these are outstanding performances with the trumpets, cornetti and sackbutts, string band and two vocal choirs resounding splendidly in the space. The sonatas – which, incidentally, illustrate perfectly that Biber’s music did not just happen in a vacuum; he learned a thing or two from both the other composers! – show Les Cornets Noirs at their glorious best.

Brian Clark

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Sheet music

Handel: Te Deum for the Victory at the Battle of Dettingen, HWV283

Edited by Amanda Babington
Bärenreiter BA10706, 2015
xiii+140pp, £30.50
Vocal score BA 10706-90, 2015
ix+84pp, £12.50
Parts: Wind set £30.50, organ £15, strings £4.50 each

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he edition is essentially based on the composer’s first draft, which in this case needed no second draft; the end is missing but was later replaced by John Christopher Smith Jr. There is no critical commentary, but it is hardly needed.

George II was present at the Battle of Dettingen on 27 June 1743. The music was completed by the end of July (thus overlapping with Semele). Five rehearsal took place from 26 September to 18 November, the last being “rehearsed before a splendid Assembly in Whitehall Chapel” (i. e., The Banqueting House). There is a complex mixture of borrowings from a Te Deum  setting by Francesco Antonio Urio (c. 1630-c1720). Three copies of that work survive, one of them perhaps the one acquired by Handel in 1706; it would be useful if the Urio sections had been listed somewhere, or perhaps indicated in the new edition.

This is an excellent edition, with performance material very reasonably priced. So far the Utrecht Te Deum  (with its matching Jubilate) is the most popular of Handel’s settings, but this new edition will perhaps encourage choirs to think about programming it in their concert schedules.

An alternative is available from King’s Music / The Early Music Company, which was published in 2009: A4 score £25, B4 score £30; vocal score £9; set of parts £50 with extras at £4 each.

Clifford Bartlett

Categories
Sheet music

Palestrina: Le messe dei Gonzaga.

Musiche della cappella di Santa Barbara in Mantova
Ed. Ottavio Beretta (Vol. IV: Messe di Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina)
LIM, 2016, pp. clviii + 470.
ISBN 9788870968163 €100

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]hese 12 polyphonic alternatim  masses (alternating monodic with polyphonic choruses, the monodic plainchant by solo, organ, or unison chorus or soloists), commissioned by the court of Mantua between 1568 and 1579, are the only ones written for a liturgy different from Rome’s by Palestrina and his only masses composed between 1575 and 1581. They are of remarkable quality and well documented, yet ‘lost’ and unknown until 1950. For centuries the vocal parts were unidentified, hastily catalogued, ignored and forgotten, until 10 were authenticated by Knud Jeppesen and published in 1954. Analyzed by him and others, all 12 finally appear in Volume IV of what will be Ottavio Beretta’s modern 6-volume edition of all the masses from the archive of the Basilica Palatina di S. Barbara in Mantua ordered by Guglielmo Gonzaga (including several by the duke himself) and housed, since 1851, in the library of the Conservatory of Milan. Three volumes were published in 1997, 2000 and 2007 under the auspices of the American Institute of Musicology as part of the Corpus Mensurabilis Musicae  108/I, III and II. The LIM has agreed to complete the series. The present volume contains all of those by Palestrina, and it is hard to imagine a more thoroughly discussed, enlightening, helpful, beautiful, critical edition.

This is not my field, even though I do accompany a choir that sings alternatim  masses; unexpectedly I found the 158-page introduction fascinating, even if not easy. Non-Italian readers can access the tables with the masses’ modes, structural dimensions, vocal ranges, and a list of sections reduced to four voices (and to which four), on pages cxxii-iii, and consult the up to date Bibliography on cxxxix-clvii. The complete original Mantuan plainchants in mensural notation (Kyriale ad usum Ecclesie Sancte Barbare) for the 10 Ordinary masses are given with critical annotations xcvii-cxiv. Adding a translation to a volume already weighing 6 or 7 lbs. was not feasible, but a volume with ‘only’ 463 pages of music separate from another of clvii pages could have provided also in English translation the sections about Guglielmo, Palestrina and the compositional style of the masses!

Beretta opted to include the entire correspondence between Palestrina and Guglielmo in a 30-page appendix, after which he discusses what the instructions and intentions of Guglielmo were. Both respected the orders of the Council of Trent and thereby produced a type of mass that the Vatican also desired to have for occasions of the highest solemnity, where a second choir replaced the organ. Palestrina therefore asked Guglielmo for permission (willingly granted) to use the Mantuan plainchant repertory in Rome. In its variants and rewritings it respected the unity of mode in each piece, with the finalis and repercussion at the beginning and end of every verse, filled in wide skips with melismas and removed others, for a homogeneous result.

The story of these special Mantuan Masses is not recounted chronologically. The dates presented to the reader bounce from 1881 back to 1828, to 1851-1854, 1951, then 1933, 1954, and back to 1850, with citations or documents from 1963, 1900, 1947, 1950 in that order. It might have been better to start with Guglielmo Gonzaga’s correspondence with Palestrina! In the minds of musical philologists, however, the obstacle-ridden research history was necessarily uppermost, and to the extent that future researches will join this adventure, this, too, makes sense – and creates the suspense that kept me reading.

Guglielmo (1538-1587), a composer and musical theorist himself, as well as a collector of art and a patron of theatrical and literary arts, second son of Federico II, husband of Eleonora of Austria, was crowned Duke of Mantua and Montferrato in 1573 having governed from 1556. Italy was divided into kingdoms, papal states and dukedoms – the latter powerful enough to resist interference, even in rituals, from Rome. The Basilica Palatina di Santa Barbara was designed in part by Guglielmo, built by 1565 in the ducal palace, enlarged between 1568 and 1572, and planned for sumptuous religious ceremonies with elaborate sacred music. Its Antegnati organ was ordered by G. Cavazzoni; its plainchant and its liturgy were exclusive to Mantua.

Musicians in residence included Wert, Pallavicino, Gastoldi; works by Palestrina, Marenzio and others were commissioned; prints of music by them and others (among whom Gabrieli, di Lasso, da Victoria, Asola, Agazzari) as well as manuscripts were bought for the private use of the court. Guglielmo’s tastes were conservative, and older figures (G. Bruschi, G. Contino, A. Bonavicino) were active before the arrival of G. de Wert. The repertory of S. Barbara was approved by Gregory XIII, and it constituted a monument to the Reformation, perhaps the only complete one manifesting all the required characteristics (declamatory clarity, pure and unified modality, simple melodies not exceeding an octave, proper accentuation of words).

The masses by Palestrina were commissioned, composed for the Basilica, and delivered, and the part books were stored in its archive along with a mass by Guglielmo and many by other composers. Guglielmo died in 1587 after which no further works were ordered. Mantua planned to sell the contents of the archive to the Conservatory of Milan in 1850, but after the Mantuans received 500 lire  and sent them, Austrian authorities blocked the purchase and had them returned to Mantua, ordering to have this illegible music inventoried (‘…old note forms… impossibility of understanding the sense…’). In less than two weeks the parts, obviously not even opened, were deemed to be ‘of no interest, neither for age nor for merit’, not even for the history of sacred music, ‘imperfect works [incomplete?]’ and ‘unusable pages’ by ‘various authors’. The conservatory, however, realized the importance of the cache on the basis of this inventory! Instead of estimating its value, they disarmingly wrote that the Austrians ‘did well’ to block the sale, thereby keeping this ‘monument of music’ for themselves, recommending that it be conserved and made usable, and asking to be reimbursed for the previous purchase, which they were. So the Austrians ordered the entire archive to be deposited again in the Conservatory of Milan and to be sent at the expense of Mantua. It arrived in 1851, eventually becoming the Conservatory’s property, after a settlement for 600 lire  was paid; it was declared to be in excellent condition, legible even where smudged, and only needing to be rebound. It was then ignored for the next 100 years. The correspondence between Guglielmo and Palestrina was discovered in 1881, so this continued neglect is still a telling chapter in the history of musicology. The entire contents of the Conservatory library were evacuated during WWII and were still inaccessible in 1949; the archive of S. Barbara was finally accessed by Knud Jeppesen in 1950.

Nine of the masses were attributed to Palestrina, a 10th is now agreed to be by him, and a unique one à 4 for a male choir, previously thought to be lost, may be the very first mass sent to Guglielmo, in 1568, before the commission to set all of them. During the centuries in which they were lost there was no evidence of Palestrina’s use of alternatim, so the attributions in the inventories were in doubt. In 1947 Strunk surmised as much, but only one mass had found its way into Haberl’s edition of 94 Palestrina masses (Breitkopf & Härtel, 1907).

The correspondence is a valuable appendix. Palestrina did many other things for Guglielmo: he advised him on hiring musicians for his court, he corrected the duke’s compositions (rewriting them in score and diplomatically pointing out improvements), he wrote motets and other pieces. He almost got hired for a permanent position. Negotiations for a high salary were interrupted when Palestrina, who had taken religious orders, perhaps in the hope of returning to the Papal Chapel, suddenly married a wealthy widow in 1581. After Guglielmo’s death in 1587 Palestrina had no further contacts with his successor, Vincenzo Gonzaga.

The letters contain references to compositional style, which Beretta interprets. In 1568 Palestrina, already in demand and looking for prestigious opportunities, sent Guglielmo the first mass and offered to write another: ‘long or short or so that the words are heard’, i.e. a missa solemnis  for holidays or a missa brevis  for weekdays. He promised to send unwritten ‘falsobordoni antichi’ that were sung in the Papal Chapel, i.e. the improvisations sung on Gregorian chant. After putting a motet and a madrigal by Guglielmo into score, he wrote that listeners should enjoy the texts just as they do in ‘musica commune  [sic]’, i.e. canzonette  and laude. When beginning to compose after his illness, Palestrina started a Kyrie  and Gloria  ‘studying them on the lute’, i.e. working out the vertical harmonies, as if by realizing their basso continuo. Although another reference to ‘putting [compositions] on the lute’ strikes me as meaning, possibly, writing them down in some form of tablature. Guglielmo wanted the masses to be ‘fugate continovamente et sopra soggetto’ literally, continually fugued, i.e., different from those performed in Rome, in that even short motives were to be imitated autonomously and taken from the cantus firmus  of the Mantuan Kyriale.

It would be wonderful to hear these masses. What distinguishes these is said here to be their fantasy and severity, for which they can be considered Palestrina’s ‘arte della fuga’.

Barbara Sachs

Categories
Recording

Helper and Protector – Italian Maestri in Poland

The Sixteen, Eamonn Dougan
67:32
CORO COR16141
Music by Bertolusi, Marenzio & Pacelli

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he big name here is Luca Marenzio, whose recently reassembled Missa super Iniquos odio habui  provides a spine through this interesting programme. The Sixteen’s associate conductor Eamonn Dougan opens with music by less familiar composers, and specifically a powerful three-choir setting of Gaudent in Caelis  by Asprilio Pacelli, underlining the fact that here is an unfamiliar repertoire well worth exploring.

The same composer’s polychoral Beati estis  is also extremely fine. Marenzio’s two-choir Mass based on his own dramatic eight-part madrigal of the same name is also no slouch. Previously known only from the Kyrie and Gloria, the recent rediscovery of the rest of the Mass is genuine cause for celebration. Clearly the court of the Kings of Poland was a true magnet for the best of European musical talent, and although Marenzio’s visit to Poland was brief, he was clearly dropping in on a very lively and rich musical scene. It is always interesting to listen for changes in the sound produced by an established ensemble, and in the past I have had my doubts about some of the developments in the vocal production of the Sixteen. Under the direction of Dougan, and this is the fourth in a series of recordings he has directed, the vocal sound seems to have refocused and acquired a pleasing edge, which suits perfectly this busy polychoral repertoire.

D. James Ross

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Recording

Comes: O pretiosum

Music for the Blessed Sacrament
amystis, José Duce Chenoll
61:58
Brilliant Classics 95231

[dropcap]A[/dropcap] workmanlike issue of some fine and little-known music, including several recording “firsts”.

Juan Bautista Comes (1582-1643) spent most of his working life in Valencia, as the master of music at the Cathedral and assistant at El Patriarca, the Corpus Christi School and Chapel. His music provides a fascinating link between the Spanish late Renaissance style of Vivanco or Guerrero and the distinctive Baroque of Valls or Cabanilles.

The Blessed Sacrament was particularly venerated in Valencia at this time, and the music recorded here reflects this, with both Latin motets and vernacular villancicos celebrating the Eucharist, in double- and triple-choir music of great stateliness and splendour.

The opening (and eponymous) ‘O Pretiosum’, for eight voices gives a good idea of Comes’ style – I particularly enjoyed the luscious rising chromatic phrases on ‘Pretiosus’ and the extended and satisfyingly contrapuntal final ‘Verus Deus’. The next motet, ‘Quid hoc Sacramento Mirabilius’ also concludes in fine style with a splendidly complex final ‘integer perseverat’, the rigorously worked counterpoint pushing the music firmly into some daringly Baroque harmonies.

Several of the villancicos add lively rhythmic spice to the rich contrapuntal brew – with exciting calls of ‘Basta, Basta Senor’ in the refrain of track 10, ‘A la sombra estais’, for example. ‘Del cielo es esta pan’ (track 7) in contrast, is gentle and reflective, with its haunting concluding ‘dilin, dilin dilin repican’.

Amystis are worthy exponents of this glorious music, negotiating its considerable complexity with aplomb. The motets are accompanied by dulcian, harp and organ, with some discreet wind doubling. The instrumentalists are given more independence in the villancicos, with some vocal substitutions and improvised preludes and interludes.

The acoustic (of the Royal Monastery of San Michael of Lliria, Valencia) is a little dry, but allows the polyphony space to shine.

Alastair Harper

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Recording

Zelenka: Missa Paschalis, Litaniæ Omnium Sanctorum

Gabriela Eibenová, Terry Wey, Cyril Auvity, Marián Krejčík, Ensemble Inégal, Adam Viktora
68:21
Nibiru 01582231

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]here are few composers who rival Zelenka when he is in full festive mood; the Catholic chapel in Dresden must have been an exciting place to be when one of his great masses was performed and the impact of the first performance of his Missa Paschalis ZWV7 with four trumpets and pairs of oboes and flutes can only be wondered at. Adam Viktora’s full forces go at it with aplomb and I even felt the hairs raise on the back of my neck at various points. The mass dates from 1726 and was performed on “the second day of Easter” (i. e., Easter Monday), the piece for the principle feast having been penned by his boss, Heinichen. All that would change within a few years after the latter’s death, although Zelenka was not successul in his efforts to be elected to his official position. He wrote the All Souls Litany ZWV153 in 1735 as part of the court worship in the hope of Maria Josepha’s success in giving birth to an heir; Zelenka seems to have had a fondness for his employer and this work again is full of melodic delights, as well as demonstrations of his impressive counterpoint and word-setting skills. Typically, these performances are judged to perfection with an excellent solo quartet, well-disciplined and balanced choir, and stylish orchestral accompaniments. Every Zelenka fan must own this.

Brian Clark

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Recording

Zelenka: Psalmi Vespertini I

Ensemble Inégal, Prague Baroque Soloists, Adam Viktora
79:56
Nibiru 01612231

[dropcap]C[/dropcap]ontinuing their impressive exploration of Zelenka’s church music, Ensemble Inégal under Adam Viktora have embarked on a series devoted to his settings of Vespers psalms. Not in recreations of services as such, but grouping suitable pieces without the framework – so their is no chant, and neither an ingressus or a hymn. For the first CD, only Confitebor tibi Domine (ZWV72, and the longest work at over 16 minutes) is a world premiere recording, but there will be many more along the way. Janice Stockigt’s typically informative booklet note tells us that the music dates from late 1725 and the presence of a setting of In exitu Israel  suggests Vespers of a Confessor as the most likely original context. There are many magnificent moments, but I derived the greatest joy from the (unexpectedly French sounding) Laudate pueri Dominum, where a solo bass sings against a female angelic choir. I doubt the Dresden Kapelle had singers of such purity of voice, but I also do not think I would enjoy hearing it sung by more operatic voices! Anyone who has not heard the opening of the De Profundis  which is tagged on after the Magnificat  cannot fail to be impressed by the sonorities. This is another magnificent achievement by these Czech performers and I look forward to hearing much more of their discoveries in the years to come.

Brian Clark

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Categories
Sheet music

New from Wanhall

Jean Sigismond Cousser (Kusser): La cicala della cetra d’Eunomio Suite Nr. 3
Sechs Consortsuiten für 2 Oboen, Fagott, Streicher & B. c., Urtextausgabe – Herausgegeben von Michael Robertson
Walhall EW748 (Edition Schönborn)
14 + 34pp, €29.80 (score and parts)

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]his impressive volume comes with three wind parts, five string parts and an optional written-out continuo realization.It is prefaced by a letter from the current Count of Schönborn-Wiesentheid, whose library contains (amongst many other jewels) the remained of the original print of this set; Robertson, whose doctoral thesis was on such repertoire, wisely adds a Basse de violon  to the seven surviving part-books. After an overture come a Sommeil, a Trio de Flûtes (where recorders replace the oboes above the violas), Les Songes, Les mesmes, Marche (key changes from D minor to D major), Trio doucement, Les Gladiateurs, Air (back to D minor), Polichinelles, Arlequins and finally an Air Gayment. Most are through composed, but some are bi-partite. Cousser/Kusser deserves to be better known and Robertson’s plans to issue all six works are to be welcomed.

Caldara: Missa Sancti Francisci
Herausgegeben von Alexander Opatrny
Walhall EW 539
5 + 64pp

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]his is a substantial volume for a not terribly substantial piece; the Gloria is under 70 bars and the Credo a little over a hundred. That is not to say that the music is not very much worth exploring – Caldara writes well for chorus and, although there are solo sections throughout the work, they are not beyond most amateur singers and could easily be taken by members of a decent choir. It could have been half its size, had the doubling instruments (cornetto and two trombones at the top of the score and bassoon just above the continuo line) been assigned to that very role and their staves combined with the appropriate voice. I doubt I will be alone in finding the distribution of the staves awkward either in passages where the bassetto  is supplied by the violins, which are printed above the voices. The introduction and critical notes are only given in German. The score retails at €28.50, with a vocal score and parts also available.

Schultze: Konzert B-Dur für Altblockflöte, Streicher und Basso continuo
Herausgegeben von Klaus Hofmann
Walhall EW 986
5 + 40pp

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he editor of this three movement work has tried – thusfar in vain – to identify the composer; giving him the christian names Johann Christian is apparently an educated guess. Be that as it may, this high baroque concerto with a first movement full of arpeggios and scales, a central adagio in which the strings accompany pizzicato until the final sudden dramatic tutti and a bi-partite triple time finale that adds wide leaps to the technical demands made of the soloist is certainly one that players will welcome. €21.80 for the score, with parts and a keyboard reduction also available.

[dropcap]N[/dropcap]ext in the pile were three editions of arias for voice, soprano recorder, strings and continuo. The earliest is Pepusch’s “Chirping warblers” (EW 980, mezzo, recorder, violin, violin/viola and continuo, 3 + 10pp, €17.50) which was part of a 1715 masque, Venus and Adonis. The original performances involved multiple violinists but editor Peter Thalheimer suggests that one can play the upper string part and another Pepusch’s viola line (which he prints in treble clef). At 49 bars in length, it is not a huge piece, but singers and recorder players alike will enjoy this addition to their repertoire. The set includes a second score without a cover and the necessary parts.

“Quell’ esser misero” by Alessandro Scarlatti (EW 978, soprano, recorder, violin and continuo, 4 + 7pp, €16) is from his 1698 opera, “Il prigioniero fortunato”. A through-composed work of a little over 50 bars (if the vide  mark is ignored!), the voice part intertwines with recorder and violin (who overlap but never play together), and the final instrumental phrase ignores the wind instrument and adds a second violin and viola. Thalheimer includes parts for all of the instruments and a second score without cover.

The third is “Cares when they’re over” from Francesco Bartolomeo Conti’s opera “Clotilda” (EW 999, soprano, soprano recorder or violin, strings and continuo, 4 + 10pp, €16.50). This is a full-blooded Da Capo aria with recorder and full string section. Once again the set includes everything required for a performance. The recorder part is quite demanding, while the voice is more charming and graceful, which is always an enjoyable contrast in concert.

Vandini: Konzert D-Dur für Violoncello Solo, 2 Violinen, Viola & B. c.
Herausgegeben von Markus Möllenbeck
Walhall EW 967
8 + 15pp, €16.50

[dropcap]A[/dropcap]s a colleague and close friend of both Vivaldi and Tartini, it will come as no surprise to discover that this three movement concerto poses considerable challenges to anyone who wishes to play it – double stopping, very high and intricate passagework, extended string crossing motifs. The central andantino is slightly odd in featuring a rather bland solo violin part above the solo cello and continuo; the editor suggests this was undoubtedly for Tartini, but I fear even he would have had his work cut out to make it interesting; of course, the solo cellist has a much easier job, given that (s)he starts on the first beat and ends on the last with no breaks in between. It would be interesting to hear the work, if only to see if it works aurally in which it does not visually.

Brian Clark

Categories
Recording

Homilius: Der Messias

Maike Leluschka, Friederike Beykirch, Annekathrin Laabs, Patrick Grahl, Tobias Berndt, Sebastian Wartig SSmSTBB, Sächsisches Vokalensemble, Batzdorfer Hofkapelle, Matthias Jung
96:13 (2 CDs in a single jewel case)
cpo 777 947-2

This is a first rate performance of one of Homilius’ Passion Oratorios, as the genre of free text works designed for performance in Passiontide came to be called, and received what was probably its first performance in the Frauenkirche in Dresden on Good Friday 1776. So popular was Homilius as a composer in the latter part of the eighteenth and the early part of the nineteenth centuries that copies of his works have survived in a wide variety of places, but this one is found exclusively in Schwerin in Mecklenberg, north-east of Berlin, where the pietist Duke Friedrich maintained a musical ensemble; the same library also has materials for the earliest German performance of Handel’s Messiah there in 1780.

The two works could not be more different. While Jennens’ libretto for Handel was compiled as an exclusively Biblical catena of texts, the Homilius libretto is an imaginative reflection, introducing for example a meditation on Christ’s Transfiguration, inserted into the farewell discourses between the Last Supper and the garden of Gethsemene. Nor are the similarities between Homilius and a Bach Passion any greater, textually or musically.

Most obvious is the entirely different style of harmonizing the chorales. While, for all their chromaticisms and passing notes, Bach’s chorale settings relate harmonically to their sixteenth and seventeenth century origins, Homilius’ are entirely of their time, and offer a fascinating comparison. So too does the scoring: we are now into a ‘modern’ orchestra: a basic string band (here 4.4.3.2.1) and an organ, and then the ‘harmonie’, pairs of flutes, oboes, bassoons and horns, with timpani used to great effect for dramatic highlight. The whole sound of the classical period band and choir is inescapably modern. You have to listen no further than the first chorale, which is followed by an opening chorus to pick up the style.

I found the whole experience intriguing, but somewhat saccharine. The arias, even commenting on the death of Jesus, lack the austerity of the arias in the Bach Passions; and I miss the foundational thread of the stark Passion Narratives from the Gospels. The narrative momentum, such as it is, is largely given to the tenor whose text is delivered traditionally in a secco recitative with ‘cello and organ, but frequently breaks into a kind of accompagnato style with illustrative string figuration. The first bass, who takes the part of Jesus, introduces the struggle of Gethemene in the same mode, complete with foreboding timpani, while the reflective prayer in Gethsemene [7] is a duet for alto (the soul) and bass (Jesus) with an illustrative obligato flute and bassoon. The comment on Jesus’ arrest is a duet [9] meditating on the last judgement, with oboes prominent in the score, while the chorale that follows is set for solo soprano voice and organ, with a lute-like figuration of plucked strings trailing the warbling voice.

We hear the agile second soprano in [12] whose true voice I like better; the whole of the dramatic scene before Pilate is narrated by the tenor [13] while the choir ponders the fate of the people of Israel [14]. The first soprano takes up the narrative of the weight of the cross before the choir sing three verses of a chorale to conclude the first part.

Part II follows the same pattern: an opening chorale is followed by a slow-moving chorus setting Isaiah 53 – He was wounded for our transgressions – and Handelian like breaks into a chromatic fugue [1-2]. The tenor takes up the narrative of the crucifixion, which is followed by an enormously jolly duet for the sopranos on Es ist vollbracht, [4] and the first soprano and alto are entrusted with the drama of the earthquake and the prefiguring of the victory of the resurrection, with the alto having the following aria. Finally, after another recitative the tenor gets an aria in F major reflecting on the joy of suffering and eternal word in which the horns are prominent [9], and a soprano recitative introduces a concluding chorale and chorus [10 & 11] in which the soprano and chorus alternate. After which comfortable edification the listeners can presumably all go home to coffee and cake.

I have given readers a fairly exhaustive idea of the feel of this music so that they are in no doubt as to what they will find if they purchase it. Even allowing for my own prejudices in musical taste, the Pietist text would be worth scrutinising to assess what an immense gulf separates this work from a Bach Passion or a Handel Oratorio. Bach was indeed the last of the line. But I cannot imagine a better prepared and performed version of the Homilius Messias than this. The six soloists have gracious voices, and both choir and band are enormously convincing. I can see how German society, as the eighteenth century developed into the ‘Age of Enlightenment’, developed a set of bourgeois personal values that affected artistic and musical possibilities profoundly, and there are few religious works from this period that I find deeply challenging. But this is a splendid example of its genre – as far as my limited knowledge allows: I do not have a score of this music – and I commend the performance warmly.

David Stancliffe

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