Airs, cantates & madrigaux
Les solistes du jardin des voix 2015, Les Arts Florissants, William Christie
74:41
harmonia mundi HAF 8905283
Music by Banchieri, Cimarosa, Handel, Haydn, Sarro, Stradella, Vecchi, Vivaldi & de Wert
[dropcap]R[/dropcap]ecorded in 2015 and released in 2017, this is the showcase concert from Les Arts Florissants’s 7th ‘Le Jardin des Voix’ project, an intensive period of training/rehearsal for singers on the threshold of their careers. It was a staged ‘divertimento’ and recorded live, which explains a few places where the musical elements are not perfectly balanced within the soundscape. There are also ‘noises off’, some of which are the audience clearly enjoying a great evening’s entertainment. I absolutely take my hat off to the deviser of the programme which moves more or less chronologically from Wert to Haydn (via Stradella, Vivaldi, Handel and others), gives all six singers ‘stand out’ as well as ensemble moments and has a sense of narrative flow. Not all the music from the concert is on the CD (one of the essays – Fr/Ger/Eng – refers to music which we do not hear), but it’s still coherent and action-packed. Get this, complement and compliment it with a glass of your favourite and enjoy! I’d have loved a DVD.
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Etienne Baillot, Anne-Marie Blondel, Jean-Luc Ho
68:23
Son an ero 10
Music by Aguilera de Heredia, Baptista, Bruna, Cabanilles, de Cabezón, Carrera, Chirol, Correa de Arauxo, Mudarra, de Seixas & anon
[dropcap]T[/dropcap]his is the stuff of organists’ and organ builders’ dreams. A historic organ (1768, Castillian in style) is discovered more or less complete, if dismantled and imperfectly stored. Its owners cannot afford restoration and subsequent maintenance but the instrument finds both salvation and a new life in a neighbouring country. This disc displays its colours to good effect in a very well chosen selection of 16th-18th-century Iberian music (and four very short contemporary pieces which are beyond EMR’s remit). All three players are sympathetic to the instrument’s qualities, use appropriate articulation and ornamentation and enjoy their opportunities, not least those slightly eye-watering moments afforded by the mean-tone temperament. I found this rather ‘niche’ issue very enjoyable and will seek out several of the pieces for my own repertoire. The booklet (Fr/Eng – essay only also in Spanish and Basque) tells us what we need to know and details of the registrations used can be found online.
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[dropcap]O[/dropcap]f many surprising features of the summer of 2018, few have excelled the strange experience of travelling from a parched, sun-scorched Britain basking in (or suffering from) an extreme heat-wave to the lush green of the equally sun-blessed woods and rolling hills of the Périgord vert, the most northern region of the Dordogne. It is there that the Itinéraire Baroque festival founded 17 summers ago by Ton Koopman takes place in the villages and hamlets of the area, invariably utilising the many Romanesque churches that adorn the Périgord vert.
The programme for my third visit to Itinéraire Baroque (my account of the 2016 festival can also be found on this site) had Spanish culture as an overarching theme, although no Spanish music featured in the opening concert on 26 July at the Romanesque (although much altered) abbey church of St Cybard in Cercles. Given by members of the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra under Koopman, it did, however, adhere to what was virtually a subtext of the festival – music for exotic instruments or unusual instrumental combinations. Thus this concert included concertos by Telemann for oboe d’amore and two chalumeaux, by Gregor Werner (Haydn’s predecessor at Esterhazy) for two organs and two chalumeaux and a concerto for trombone by Albrechtsberger, the Classical style of which stood in stark contrast to the surrounding Baroque repertoire. In addition, the pleasingly light-voiced tenor Tilman Lichdi sang a folk-like strophic song of Werner and an undistinguished extract from one of his oratorios. Neither tested him to anything like the same extent as Bach’s Cantata No.55 ‘Ich armer Mensch’, where technical fallibilities were at times cruelly exposed. Nonetheless, the concert made for an enjoyable start to the festival, especially in the well-played Telemann concertos and Alessandro Marcello’s well-known Oboe Concerto in D minor.
St Cybard is very much ‘home base’ of the Festival, its delightful linden- shaded square filled during its course by ‘Café baroque’, where food, drink and stalls selling local bio produce are located. Such facilities proved much in demand at the lunchtime concert the following day, played by the chamber ensemble L’Astrée, who with soprano Julia Wischiewski gave a programme of Vivaldi trio sonatas and chamber cantatas. The instrumental part of the concert provided for me the most satisfying music making of the festival, with vital, well-articulated playing by violinist Paola Nervi and cellist Rebecca Ferri in quicker movements and truly eloquent playing in slower movements such as the exquisite Sarabanda of the Sonata in D minor, RV27, where the interplay between the two was totally engaging. I much liked, too, the tasteful ornamentation added to repeats. Despite some expressive singing and confident execution of passaggi, the cantatas were less satisfying. Wischiewski’s soprano was too often unevenly produced, her diction less than clear, while her ornamentation was often waywardly unstylish.
Following an afternoon devoted to a lecture on Spanish Baroque music and a concert devoted to music and dances in period costume from Spain and southern France – neither of which I attended – the evening concert found Koopman and his wife (and former pupil) Tini Mathot giving a recital for two organs and two harpsichords entitled ‘The Master and his Pupil’. Thus we heard music by, among others, J. S. Bach (the Prelude and Fugue in C, BWV 547, curiously played on harpsichords rather than organ) and W. F. Bach (a solo Concerto in F), Armand-Lous Couperin, who was taught by his father Nicholas, one of the great Couperin dynasty, and Antonio Soler, the most famous pupil of Alessandro Scarlatti. It was Soler who provided the meat of the programme, in quantity, if not substance, too much of his music being inconsequential, at times to a degree of banality. Both here and in organ works by Cabanilles and Perez de Albeniz the portative organs used by Mathot and Koopman were a monochrome substitute for the colourfully exotic sound of Spanish organs of the period.
The Saturday of the festival gives it its name and (to the best of my knowledge) unique feature, the day consisting of staggered visits to six venues, in most cases a small rural church of Romanesque origin. At each of these a short concert – preceded by a brief introduction to the building – is given by performers who remain in the same location for the day. It however started in the town church of Mareuil, where before being divided for the tour a large audience assembled to hear a selection of solo recorder music from Jacob van Eyck’s ‘Der fluyten lustof’ (well played by Reine-Marie Verhagen), music with which I confidently expect to be punished for all eternity should I end up in one of the circles of Dante’s Hell. Our first stop was the little church at Graulges, Romanesque at heart, but much restored. Judging from reaction I heard, the concert of 17th-century Italian and Dutch sonatas played by the gifted Ensemble Clematis was probably the most popular of the day. To me, however, it was a further depressing example of how young players still ignore the difference between all-purpose period instrument string playing and the special demands of 17th-century music. This applies especially to an ensemble like Clematis that specializes in this repertoire, when it can only be viewed as the lazy option that is to be deplored.
If this was a disappointment, the following event in the beautiful little chapel of St John the Baptist in the village of Puyrénier came as a pleasant surprise. Here Fred Jacobs, one of the doyens of the lute world, played a beguiling recital of works by Sor (mostly) and Giuliani on a Romantic guitar built in 1820. This is not repertoire I have explored in any depth, but here was struck by the sheer inventiveness of Sor in particular and the beauty of tone Jacobs produced throughout, especially in more contemplative pieces like the Cantabile, op 42/1.
Following a lunch break, the first of the afternoon concerts took as back to the outskirts of Mareuil and the church Saint Sulpice, where the Swiss ensemble Albori Musical played works by Vivaldi and Telemann and a sonata by Pierre Prowo formerly attributed to Telemann. Moderately accomplished playing failed to disguise the fact that the rhythmically four-square and often somewhat inexpressive performances rarely caught fire.
There was nothing inexpressive about the penultimate visit to the charming simplicity of the little church of Connezac, once the chapel of the eponymous chateau. Within its intimate surroundings the Austrian dulcimer player Franziska Fleischanderl illustrated with captivating charm its capabilities both in her playing and introductions. Particularly interesting was the great difference in sonority dependent on whether the instrument is plucked or struck with hammers, while the range of subtly modulated sound that can be cajoled from it in the hands of an obvious expert was strongly projected.
The final concert took place en plein air alongside the walls of the largely 15th-century Chateau D’Aucors. Given by Dutch group Camerata Trajectina, it introduced a programme based around the 16th-century struggle of the Netherlands to free itself from Spanish domination. Much more interesting historically than musically – it included a number of what we would today term protest songs – it was entertainingly projected by the experienced Heike Meppelink (soprano) and Nico van der Meel (tenor).
An early flight the following morning determined that I missed the final concert, a typical Koopman mix of Bach Orchestral Suites and Brandenburgs. But once again Itinéraire Baroque, with its loyal and enthusiastic audience playing a full part, had proved a captivating experience that can be enthusiastically recommended to anyone seeking an unusual musical holiday in one of the most beguiling parts of the Dordogne. https://www.itinerairebaroque.com/
Bach-Repertorium: Werkverzeichnisse zur Musikerfamile Bach, Band VI
168pp.
Carus-Verlag 24.206/00
ISBN 978-3-89948-284-3 €78.00
[dropcap]P[/dropcap]ublished in collaboration with the Research Project of the Saxon Academy of Sciences in Leipzig, located at the Bach Archive Leipzig”, this latest instalment of the 11-volume series of “thematic-systematic” catalogues of the known works of the members of the Bach family other than Johann Sebastian (1695-1750) breaks the output of Johann Ernst (his nephew, 1722-77) into nine categories: keyboard works, chamber music, symphonies, oratorios and passions, liturgical church music, church cantatas, secular cantatas, songs and motets (which are labelled A–H, with the suffix “-inc” if there is reason to doubt the attribution), and spurious works (Y). There is not a huge amount of music (although he was Kapellmeister and organist at Eisenach, he seems to have been more active as the court lawyer), so – for example – Section C: Symphonies has an introductory page (quoting Gerber’s assertion that Bach wrote “many symphonies”) and a second page with a single entry, detailing its unique source (currently in North America!) The Passionsoratorium entry is based on the modern edition, since the whereabouts of the original has been unknown since 2007. Liturgical church music covers a Missa brevis on the melody “Es woll uns Gott genädig sein” (mistakenly catalogued elsewhere as TVWV 9:8), and three settings of the German version of the Magnificat text. As one would expect from such a prestigious line-up of musicologists and publishers, the book is both packed with immense amounts of information that will undoubtedly contribute to a wider understanding of JEB’s output (and facilitate the identification of further works by him!) and a beautiful object in its own right. At around 1cm thick, its modest appearance belie the enormous value of its contents.
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[dropcap]A[/dropcap]lthough a veteran of French music festivals, particularly during the decade-plus one we lived in France, Saintes is one I had never previously visited until this year. Situated in the south-west in the departement of Charente-Maritime, Saintes dates back to the days when it was the first Roman capital of Aquitane, a past still in evidence today in the shape of the imposing Arch of Germanicus (AD18-19) and an amphitheatre dating back to AD40-50. Other architectural treasures include the late-Gothic cathedral of Saint-Pierre, which lies to one side of the attractive old town and the Abbaye aux Dames, originally the site of a Benedictine order of nuns founded in 1047.
It is this last that is of the most interest to this report, for today it is the home of what is known as ‘la cité musicale’, a complex centred around the abbey church, a building that has survived many a vicissitude during the course of its long history, and the 17th century residential block. Today, as at Ambronay, that is put to service for the accommodation of visiting performers and other visitors, while its ground floor also incorporates an auditorium used for smaller-scale concerts.
A constant feature of the annual festival, held this year over nine days in the middle of July, is a focus on the music of Bach, while 2018 also paid special attention to British composers and artists, among the latter Carolyn Sampson, to whose concert we’ll return below. On most days large audiences, most of whose members appear to come for at least several days (we constantly saw the same people during the three days we were there), have a choice of four concerts. While the emphasis is on Baroque music or that of later periods played on period instruments, the festival is not exclusively devoted to early music, as names such as Debussy, Kurtag, Ligeti and Xenakis readily testify.
This applied, too, to the first concert we attended after arriving on 19 July. Carolyn Sampson has long been one of the treasures of the British early music scene, but here, capably accompanied by the pianist Joseph Middleton, she was on rather less familiar territory in a programme of 20th century English song. I have to confess it is a long time since such repertoire formed part of my regular listening and I fear that even Sampson failed to win me over to Walton’s Songs for the Lord Mayor’s Table or three of the Façade settings; indeed in the case of the latter I’m still wondering what the audience made of the French translations of Edith Sitwell’s bizarre verse. Groups by Bridge and Quilter fell pleasingly on the ear given Sampson’s consummate artistry, but it took Vaughan Williams’ ‘Orpheus with his lute’ and a dreamy ‘Silent Noon’ (some exquisite mezza voce here – and indeed elsewhere) to strike at the heart.
The later evening concert, a free performance of Handel’s Water Music and the Harp Concerto, op 4/6 arranged for flute by conductor Hugo Reyne, had been scheduled to take place in the abbey gardens, but doubtful weather necessitated it being moved to the abbey. Given by Reyne’s orchestra La Simphonie du Marais and accompanied by the conductor’s introduction (he appeared wearing a yachtsman’s cap) and commentary – we were shown what horns and natural trumpets look like – the concert would doubtless have worked much better outside. As it was the juxtaposition of Reyne’s childish jokes, some hair-raisingly fast tempos and some less than persuasive playing (some of the wind playing was rough enough to sink the barge) made for an irritating end to a long day. To be fair, it has to be recorded that the capacity audience loved it all.
One of the most admirable features of the Saintes Festival is the encouragement it gives to the development of young musicians. Since 1996 the festival has had its own period instrument orchestra, Le Jeune Orchestre de l’Abbaye aux Dames. Formed to perform Classical and Romantic music, its membership is international and it has had the advantage of working under conductors such as Christopher Hogwood, Marc Minkowski and, especially, Philippe Herreweghe, who from 1981 to 2002 was artistic director of the Festival. This year it gave three concerts, the one we heard at the early afternoon concert on 20 July being devoted to composers who existed ‘in the shadow of Beethoven’ and the great man himself, represented by his Piano Concerto no. 4, magisterially played on an unidentified large grand fortepiano by Ronald Brautigam. The quasi-recitative central movement came off especially well, while the Rondo finale was launched with great verve. The young orchestra, some 60-strong played with a youthful panache and splendid finish under the baton of Michael Willens. Earlier the orchestra responded with engaging fervour to the early romantic freshness of E T A Hoffman’s Ondine overture with splendidly alert playing, the wistful reprise of the principal subject lingering particularly in the mind. An immensely satisfying concert concluded with another rarity, the Symphony No. 4, op 60 by Jan Kalliwoda. Dating from 1835, the work explores all the typical gestures of the full-blown romantic symphony: the mysterious slow introduction rising from the bass, the long sustained horn calls in the Romanze second movement, while also paying due homage to the composer’s native Bohemia in the Harmoniemusik writing of the finale. If the work carries a suggestion of déjà vu, it nonetheless makes for agreeable listening, particularly when played with as much vitality as it was here. The evening brought an even greater rarity, a performance of Issé, the first opera – and in the view of many of his contemporaries the best – of André-Cardinal Destouches. Originally composed in 1697, it was heard here in a revised version dating from 1708. Since I’ve reviewed the fine performance by Les Surprises under their director Louis-Noël Bestion de Camboulas elsewhere, I’ll here merely record that regrettably it was done with significant cuts and that there will be an opportunity to hear it again with a more starry cast at Versailles in October.
The final morning of the Festival brought further uplifting evidence of the encouragement offered to youthful music making, in this case at an even earlier age. During the week-long course of the Festival, some 60 children aged between 7 or 8 and adolescence rehearse a programme presented twice to audiences in the Auditorium on the last day. It is not a repertoire for faint hearts either, several of the items requiring part singing and one very much in a contemporary idiom. But what is especially heartening was the introduction of the great classical repertoire, so, for example, the older children sang Purcell’s ‘Sound the Trumpet’ (with very good English diction), and two extracts from the Pergolesi Stabat Mater. Given the timescale, the results the tutors achieved were little short of astounding.
Early afternoon found us back in the abbey for performances of two of Bach’s Missa breve’s, BWV 234 and BWV 236. They were given by the ensemble Vox Luminus, here comprising three singers per part and directed from among the basses by Lionel Meunier. The orchestra, Andrew Parrott would be pleased to learn, numbered slightly more than the singers, though not on the scale of his ratio. One of the advantages of being directed unobtrusively from the choir is the special need for the singers to be fully aware of what is happening in the other parts. Here that paid off in performances that were at their best in the choral sections, where balance was also excellent. The opening entries of the Kyrie of BWV 234, for example, were beautifully judged, the succeeding chromatic writing splendidly exposed. With the exception of the ‘Domine Deus’ duet in the same Mass, beautifully done by soprano Caroline Weynants and alto Jan Kullmann, solo sections were less satisfying, several soloists displaying weak tone and poor articulation of ornaments. The orchestra played admirably throughout.
If revisiting repertoire long neglected was something of a theme of my visit to Saintes that was never truer than at the last concert, given by Herreweghe and his outstanding Orchestre des Champs-Élysées. Never anything like a perfect Wagnerian, I have reached that stage of my life when I’m not that concerned about listening to his music. So I faced the prospect of a performance of the Wesendonck Lieder with, shall we say, muted expectation. How wrong I was! Given by the Dutch soprano Kelly God, this was a glorious performance of these Tristan und Isolde-related songs, with their glutinously decadent poetry. The overwhelming beauty of God’s singing was that it avoided totally any such viscous implications, the tone soaring with a purity and lack of intrusive vibrato that made for endlessly engaging and enthralled listening. The final act of the 2018 Festival was a performance of Bruckner’s Symphony No. 4. Bruckner’s symphonies, with massive organ-inspired sonorities, huge unisons and constant ebb and flow of extremes of sound are of course made for just such a building as the Abbaye aux Dames. Herreweghe’s breadth of conception, allied to the sharper focus possible with period instruments made this a performance as memorable for the delicacy of the string playing in the Andante (ii), for the thrilling horns in the Scherzo (iii) or the overwhelming climaxes of the opening and last movements. It made for a fitting climax to what I hope was the first of many visits to the hospitable Saintes Festival.
Recent Researches in the Music of the Classical Era, 108
Edited by Jane Schatkin Hettrick
xxv, 4 + 248pp. $360
ISBN 978-0-89579-859-6
[dropcap]T[/dropcap]his is Jane Schatkin Hettrick’s fourth Salieri contribution to the RRMCE series, following a mass in D (vol. 39), one in D minor (vol. 65), and a Plenary Mass in C with Te Deum (vol. 103). Scored for SATB (solo and chorus), two oboes, English horn, two bassoons, trumpets, trombones, timpani, strings and organ, Salieri intended it to be performed at his own funeral (he started writing it in 1804…), along with one of the two motets of the title (Audite vocem magnum dicentem, which in the event was not part of the service; the other work in the volume, probably Salieri’s last, is a smaller-scale motet with string accompaniment only, Spiritus meus attenuabitur). The inclusion of music for English horn seems to follow a Vienna Hofkapelle tradition, since both Bonno and Eybler used it in their Requiem settings. As one would expect with the distillation of years of study of her subject, the editor presents a clear picture of the works’ histories and a very clean edition. Completists will probably disagree with me, but I don’t fully understand why the clarinet part (a contemporary alternative for the English horn) for the Requiem is printed separately, and even less so why it merits a whole page of critical notes to itself – could those seriously not have been integrated into the main commentary? That is such a minor quibble in the context of such a magnificent volume which will hopefully encourage more performances of Salieri’s neglected music. Perhaps the two smaller works could be made available as off-prints so choirs could have a taster?
The Viola da Gamba in the Spotlight
Thomas Fritzsch gamba, Michael Schönheit pianoforte, Merseburger Hofmusik
66:42
Coviello Classics COV91710
Concertos and sonatas by Abel, J. C. Bach, Johann Carl Graf zu Hardeck, Milling & Raetzel
[dropcap]T[/dropcap]his is one of those booklets (Ger/Eng) that has to be read so that the full story of these works’ survival and restoration – a matter of luck, determination and musicological skill sensitively deployed – can be enjoyed and appreciated. I can be driven to distraction by mid-18th-century repeated note bass lines but here I rather enjoyed the gentle clucking of the 1805 Broadwood piano used on the continuo line, to say nothing of the melodic charms of the gamba above. It adds a particular frisson to know that the solo instrument belonged to the aristocrat in whose library some of these pieces are preserved. It also helps that it is extremely well played. The recording does a good job too, keeping the soloist in the foreground while still allowing us to hear the supporting (single) strings when they have something to say. I approached this with a mixture of curiosity and trepidation. I finished it smiling broadly.
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Andrea Lauren-Brown soprano, Markus Schäfer tenor, Virgil Mischok bass, I Virtuosi Italiani, Franz Hauk
61:35
Naxos 8.573811
[dropcap]W[/dropcap]hen Clifford and I started Early Music Review, we always said we would review HIP CDs and others that featured world premiere recordings; all eight tracks – of repertoire dating from 1791 to c. 1802 – on this CD are just that, and (in some respects, despite myself) I enjoyed the experience of hearing them. Mayr is better known these days as an opera composer and these four Marian antiphon settings (no fewer than three Salve Reginas!), three multi-movement motets and a 12-minute dramatic Italian piece confirm his gift for both capturing the mood of words and writing for the voice. The six of the eight works are for soprano (one Salve Regina is a duet with bass), while the Salve Regina in B flat and the Italian piece (Qual colpa eterno Dio) are for tenor. The booklet notes contain a wealth of information about the sources and lament the lack of a comprehensive study of this aspect of Mayr’s output; on the basis of this recording, that would seem a fair assessment. Indeed, perhaps some HIPsters would like to explore the four oratorios he wrote for the Mendicanti in Venice?
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Cantatas and Funeral Music
John Heuzenroeder tenor, Die Kölner Akademie choir & orchestra, Michael Alexander Willens
73:52
K148, 345, 468, 468a, 471, 477, 483, 484, 619 & 623
[dropcap]I[/dropcap] fear the temptation to emulate today’s headline writers and describe a CD of Mozart’s Masonic music as ‘chippings off the master’s block’ is too great to overcome, so I can only apologise. In fact, while all nine works that fall into category were composed with a functional purpose, not all of them are as insignificant as that might imply.
Masonry, at one time frowned upon in Austria, became hugely popular in the 1780s during the reign of the more tolerant Joseph II. Mozart became an initiate at the end of 1784, being followed by Haydn the following February. Anyone interested in Mozart’s Masonic activities is directed to H. C. Robbins Landon’s detailed survey in 1791: Mozart’s Last Year (1988); suffice it to say here that he evidently took his membership seriously, composing music for a variety of occasions. The most famous of these is the brief, but powerful, intense work known as the Mauerische Trauermusik, K 477 (Masonic Funeral Music), usually heard in an orchestral version with the plangent tones of three basset horns dominating the texture. Here, for the first time so far as I’m aware, it is heard in a conjectural original version (by the musicologist Philippe Autexier) with the Gregorian chant (from the Lamentations of Jeremiah) introduced in the central section given to a male chorus. Although not listed in this way in Mozart’s own thematic catalogue – nor is the version with three basset horns – his listing contains enough anomalies to at least make the proposition feasible. More importantly for the listener to the present CD, it is highly effective, the desolate text adding to the work’s sombre potency.
Two other pieces stand out. One is the celebratory cantata, Laut verkünde unsre Freude, K 623, written for the inauguration of a new temple and Mozart’s last completed work, music that not surprisingly has a strong relationship with Die Zauberflöte, completed two months earlier. Like the earlier cantata, Dir Seele des Weltalls, K429, which includes a charming aria welcoming the arrival of spring, K 623 is scored for tenor, chorus and orchestra, although the latter also includes a duet with a bass soloist (the excellent Mario Borgioni). The remaining pieces are slighter strophic songs for tenor with alternating choral verses or refrains, accompanied by piano or organ. Perhaps the most interesting is Lied zur Gesellenreise, K 468, which concerns the journey toward knowledge and may have been composed for the elevation of Mozart’s father Leopold to a new level in the Masonic hierarchy in March 1785.
In addition to the Masonic music, the CD also includes the interludes to Gebler’s play Thamos, König in Ägyptien, the incidental music from which (including choruses) Mozart worked on over a period of time. While not directly connected with Masonry, the plot concerning overcoming the challenges of life is certainly Masonic in spirit. The interludes were among the last pieces Mozart composed (in the late 1770s) for the play, alternating music of lyrical sensitivity with passages of highly dramatic, powerful orchestration that point towards Idomeneo.
The performances of all this music are outstanding, the Australian tenor John Heuzenroeder being the possessor of an exceptionally agreeable lyric tenor capable not only of an easy fluidity in cantabile passages, but also of making dramatic points in declamatory recitative. Michael Alexander Willens draws excellent, idiomatic playing from the period instrument Die Kölner Akademie, of which he is music director. All in all, this is an excellent CD that explores some of the lesser known contents of the Mozartian treasure chest.
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“Für Kenner und Leibhaber” Collection 5
Miklós Spányi tangent piano
78:32
BIS-2260 CD
Wq59, Wq69, Wq79 (solo version)
[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he musical genius of the great Bach seems in fact to be inexhaustible. However often one studies his sonatas, rondos, or fantasias […] and however one compares them with one another, or with the works of other masters, one always finds that each piece is entirely new and original in its invention, while the spirit of Bach is unmistakably present in them all; this composer is literally incomparable’. No, not J. S. Bach, but an encomium directed at his eldest son by the Magazin der Musik on the occasion in 1786 of the publication of the 5th in the series of his keyboard works issued under the title ‘Für Kenner und Liebhaber’ (a catch-all marketing ploy meaning for both experienced and less experienced players).
The opening quotation is wordy, but worth quoting since it underlines not only the esteem with which C. P. E. Bach was held by the end of his life (he died in 1788), but equally because it remains as valid and succinct a description of the half dozen works included in vol. 5 as one might hope for. It includes pairs of works in the three forms mentioned in the quotation. The two sonatas in the set are very different, the E-minor’s opening Presto exploits the contrasts between upper and lower sonorities, the articulation of the flowing passage work allowed full value by the ever-admirable Miklós Spányi’s refusal to hurry. By comparison the opening Allegro of the Sonata in B flat is a big, virtuoso movement, surging as relentlessly and purposefully as a fast-flowing mountain stream. It is followed by a simpler Largo – again taken at a judiciously moderate tempo – taken from an earlier work composed in 1766 and a final Andantino grazioso that finds Bach making a rare visit into Rococo territory.
The rondos and fantasias are all highly distinctive. The G-major Rondo has a wistful, expressive song-like principal theme, its inherently placid mood interrupted in the central episode by emphatic chords, while that in C minor is more fragmentary, with many pauses and changes of direction and mood reminiscent of the Empfindamskeit of Bach’s Berlin years. The fantasia is the form in which Bach was perhaps happiest as a keyboard composer, the freedom it offers for the kind of ‘unmeasured’, improvisatory writing ideally suited to the composer’s poetic, proto-Romantic temperament. Both the F-major and C-major are marvellous examples of this, the latter an extended work taking the player (and listener) on a wondrous journey of rich, improvisatory character, all started by the little arpeggiated flourish answered by a ‘cuckoo call’ with which it opens.
In addition to the ‘Für Kenner und Liebhaber’ pieces the CD includes two sets of variations, one based on the German folk song ‘Ich schlief, da träumte mir’, which adds further variations to an earlier work. Neither compares with the other works included, although the Arioso sostenuto in A with five variations, Wq 79 has considerable poetic appeal. As already intimated, Spányi’s performances on a copy of a tangent piano of 1799 are of the highest order, being both technically outstanding and displaying the kind of musicality that disarms criticism. My sporadic critical visits to this unostentatious but immensely valuable series have been uniformly rewarding, but rarely more so than on this occasion.
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