Tag: Classical

Categories
Recording

The Dubhlinn Gardens

Cover of a CD devoted to the Dublin pleasure gardens

Anna Besson, Reinoud van Mechelen, A nocte temporis
69:17
Alpha Classics Alpha 447

Click HERE to buy this on amazon.co.uk

This CD is the pet project of the group’s flautist Anna Besson, whose idiomatic traditional approach to the Baroque flute gives these performances a wonderful authenticity. The music belongs to the vogue for music from the ‘celtic fringes’ of the British Isles, which followed the storming success of The Beggar’s Opera with its use of traditional Scotch and Irish melodies. While many of the instrumental tracks have a suitable twinkle in their eye, the songs are less effective. Belgian tenor Reinoud van Mechelen does his very best, but doesn’t seem to ‘get’ the idiom and struggles with the Irish accent the texts seem to cry out for. Perhaps we would have done better with a singing actor type (as featured in the original performances of The Beggar’s Opera) than van Mechelen’s rather cultivated tone and delivery. This is a pity as much of the selected repertoire is unfamiliar and delightfully lyrical, and the overall idea of the project is an exciting one – the vocal tracks however do tend to labour a little or just to sound a bit worthy. In the slower airs, van Mechelen seems more at home, and his account of “Ah! The poor shepherd’s mournful fate” is lovely, although again the ornaments in the unaccompanied “Eileanóir a rún” sound more like Monteverdi than the subtle inflections of the folk singer.

D. James Ross

Categories
Recording

innamorato | triloia italiana

Cover of Marco Beasley CD innamorato

accordone, macro beasley, guido morini
188:54 (3 CDs in a card folder)
cypres CYP9620

Click HERE to buy this on amazon.co.uk

For this collection of Italian music from the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries, Accordone have selected three recordings from their back-catalogue dating from 2005, 2006 and 2007. It has to be said that the rigour of the background scholarship and the spontaneity of the performances mean that these have not dated at all. The initial disc focuses on Frottole, and is a delightfully engaging journey through the 16th century, bringing familiar composers such as Lassus and Tromboncino together with a host of less familiar names, such as Marco Cara, Pietro Paolo Borrono and Guglielmo il Giuggiola. This unearthing of unknown music by unknown composers is one of the main strengths of all three CDs, as indeed is the distinctive voice of Marco Beasley. His pleasing tenor is a major factor in the appeal of all three CDs – it is an individual sound, with a similar texture to the voice of Nigel Rogers and equally adept at sparkling ornamentation. In the Frottole volume, the ensemble manages a wonderfully spontaneous sound, verging on the performance style more often associated with traditional music. This proves ideal for the no-nonsense directness and beguiling charm of these Frottole. In the second CD Recitar Cantando we encounter repertoire for solo voice and continuo with obbligato instruments again by familiar names such as Monteverdi, Frescobaldi and Caccini and unfamiliar contemporaries such as Cherubino Busatti along with instrumental music by Giovan Battista Fontana. The slightly elusive programme note for this CD doesn’t detract from the delight of the performances, although a more detailed account of how and why the performers felt free to adapt the messenger scene from Monteverdi’s Orfeo and his dramatic madrigal Il Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda for solo voice and small consort would have been helpful and interesting. Just occasionally, as in Il Combattimento (which is by far the most substantial piece on the CD), Beasley, who has to sing all three characters himself, doesn’t quite imbue the vocal lines with the drama they seem to demand – there is a reference in the programme note to letting the character sing rather than the performer. This seems to be a little lacking here. For the third CD Il Settecento Napoletano we visit the musical hot-spot of 18th-century Naples. In a city where we now know opera was a major focus of attention, it is no surprise that solo secular cantatas were also very popular. It seems to my ear that these performances of ‘cantatas in the Neapolitan language’ are sung in a distinctive Neapolitan dialect, and again while Alessandro Scarlatti and Nicola Matteis (who supplies a trio sonata) are relatively familiar, Giuseppe Porcile, Giulio Cesare Rubino, Alonso dei Liguori and Guido Morini are new to me. As in all three CDs, it is interesting how the music by the ‘unknowns’ is invariably every bit as effective as that by the big names. These attractive pieces are greatly enhanced by the imaginative scoring of the accompaniments, while vocalist Marco Beasley seems more in tune with this later idiom. This is an enjoyable collection of CDs currently otherwise unavailable and definitely to be recommended for their underlying intellectual rigour and the musicality of their performances.

D. James Ross

Categories
Recording

La morte della ragione

Cover of CD La morte del ragione

Il giardino armonico, Giovanni Antonini
73:07 (CD in a hard-backed book)
Alpha Classics ALPHA450

Click HERE to buy this CD on amazon.co.uk

Under the title the death of reason, Giovanni Antonini has brought together a rather random collection of pieces from the 15th to the 18th centuries. If you don’t worry too much about finding a linking theme, you can just sit back and enjoy the accompanying lavishly illustrated colour book while wondering at the stunning virtuosity of Antonini (recorders) and his ensemble. In fact, the contents of the book amount to a rather slight essay translated into various languages, followed by a series of chunks of related source material on the music and aspects of performance in an extended appendix. So spontaneity, even anarchy, is the flavour of the moment, but there is some lovely music imaginatively performed here. We have works by Christopher Tye, Hayne van Gizeghem, Josquin, Agricola, Dunstable, Gabrieli, Gombert, Viadana, Gesualdo, Scheidt, and van Eyck to name but a few, performed instrumentally, imaginatively and never less than very musically by the ensemble – perhaps best to read the appendix section on ‘tremoli and vibrati’ to help with understanding Antonini’s idiosyncratic recorder playing. One of the chief joys of this set remains the wealth of colour illustrations from a range of Renaissance paintings and books to enjoy as an accompaniment and enrichment to the music. To sample the virtues and some of the randomness of this CD, listen to the group’s highly individual interpretation of the familiar Susato Battle Pavan (track 13).

D. James Ross

Categories
Recording

MoZart: Zero to Hero

CD cover of David Behle Mozart Hero to zero

Daniel Behle tenor, L’Orfeo Barockorchester, Michi Gaigg
69:12
Sony Classical 1 90759 64582 6

Click HERE to buy this on amazon.co.uk

This recording of Mozart overtures and tenor arias features the voice of Daniel Behle, the sort of operatic Heldentenor voice I could listen to all day. A selection of much-loved and very familiar arias from Don Giovanni, Zauberflöte and Cosi rub shoulders with the less familiar from Die Entführung, La Clemenza and Idomeneo and the downright unfamiliar “D’ogni colpa la colpa maggiore” from La Betula Liberata. Behle’s mellifluous voice is the ideal guide through these operatic masterpieces, while the Orfeo Baroque Orchestra play with diffidence and stunning precision. I was startled by one or two of the tempo decisions, and remain unconvinced by the rather rushed accounts of “Hier soll ich dich denn sehen” and “Konstanze! Konstanze!” from Die Entführung. My other reservation was the slight lack of definition in the recording of the woodwind contributions – these are referenced in the programme notes, but are not always evident in the recording. Perhaps this is an attempt to recreate the relative balance in an opera-house performance, and certainly the voice is given a pleasingly ‘on-stage’ presence. Notwithstanding these small reservations, this is a very entertaining and rewarding CD. Recommended.

D. James Ross

Categories
Recording

Napoli

Cover of box of CDs called Napoli

At the Crossroads between Popular and Art Music
660:30 (10 CDs in a cardboard box)
Arcana A201

Click HERE to buy this CD on amazon.co.uk

This bumper box gleaned from the Arcana back-catalogue brings you Neapolitan music from a variety of contexts from the 15th to the late 18th century, although mainly from this later Baroque period. Kicking off with two splendidly dynamic and imaginative CDs of ‘street music’ from through the ages, the consequent programmes occasionally throw in a ‘trad-style’ piece, such as the superb anonymous three-part Stabat Mater on the disc otherwise devoted mainly to Pergolesi. Those who have been following the process of uncovering Naples as the cradle of the classical cello will enjoy the CDs of Neapolitan cello sonatas superbly played by Gaetano Nasillo as well as his CD of Neapolitan cello concertos. Nicola Fiorenza was a name new to me, but a CD of his concertos for violins and recorder have convinced me that he is worthy of more attention, while it is nice to be reacquainted with Alessandro Scarlatti’s striking church music in a magnificent CD featuring his Missa defunctorum, Salve Regina, Magnificat and Miserere. Even more intriguing is a CD of church music by Nicola Porpora, best known as the teacher of the celebrity castrato Farinelli – some surprisingly perky settings for solo voice and strings of the Notturni per i Defunti! This is matched by an equally perky setting of the Notturni for the Mattutino de’ Morti by Davide Perez, another name new to me, who employs the same sort of large-scale orchestrations featured in Neapolitan operas at the end of the 18th century. Finally, and possibly most intriguing of all, a CD of liturgical music by Gennaro and Gaetano Manna and Francesco Feo, all of whom deserve much more attention. I love these huge bumper boxes of treasures, and this one offers consistently high standards of performance and intriguing unexplored material in a wonderful range of styles – all the musical background you need to begin to understand the musical importance of Naples, and just the thing for a month of self-isolation!

D. James Ross

Categories
Recording

Arianna

Cover of Arcangelo's Arianna CD

Kate Lindsay, Arcangelo, Jonathan Cohen
72:13
Alpha Classics Alpha 576
Handel: Ah! crudel, nel pianto mio; Haydn: Arianna a Naxos; A. Scarlatti: L’Arianna

Click HERE to buy this on amazon.co.uk

Arianna, or Ariadne, is the archetypal classical femina abandonata –according to Hesiod, having sacrificed everything to accompany the hero Theseus, she is subsequently abandoned (can I get amen, sisters?) on Naxos, only to be ‘rescued’ by Bacchus. The secular Baroque cantata relied on the musical display of extremes of emotion, and Ariadne’s tragic story seemed ideal and was the subject of many such pieces – composers continued to be drawn to the legend, up to and including Richard Strauss. Kate Lindsey and Arcangelo have selected two such cantatas by Alessandro Scarlatti and Haydn – a third piece by Handel features a non-specific heroine in the Ariadne mold. Scarlatti’s L’Arianna from 1707 sets the standard, with a sequence of movements exploring Ariadne’s changing emotions, covering the whole gamut from melancholy to murderous rage. Mezzo-soprano Kate Lindsey is more than a match for the demands of this rapidly changing scenario, with a blistering account of “Ingoiatelo, lacerato” inciting the ocean to consume the treacherous Theseus and a deeply touching reading of “Struggite, o core”, where our heroine subsumes her audience into her own grief. The anonymous poet cleverly frames Ariadne’s story with narrative, so we conclude with a recitativo arioso imparting the happy ending. For Handel’s Ariadne-esque cantata Ah! Crudel, nel pianto mio, again of around 1707 when the composer was in his early twenties and resident in Rome, he chooses to feature an obbligato solo oboe (with a second in the orchestra) to cleverly and plangently enhance the suffering of his heroine. As in the Scarlatti, Lindsey’s expressive singing is beautifully supported by wonderfully sympathetic playing from Arcangelo. This Handel piece is relatively well known and probably the composer’s most prominent masterpiece until the appearance of Agrippina a couple of years later. It is fascinating to hear how times have changed in Haydn’s approach to the legend – oboes are replaced by clarinets and flutes and the whole mood is of classical restraint as opposed to Baroque excess. Lindsey is the mistress of this idiom too, while Arcangelo make the step into classical mode seem effortless. The piece dates from 1789, and while Haydn fully intended to orchestrate it, it fell to his pupil Neukomm to fulfil his master’s intentions in a delightfully colourful realisation.

D. James Ross

Categories
Recording

Haydn 2032 No. 8 – La Roxolana

Haydn 2032 vol. 8 La roxolana CD cover

Il Giardino Armonico, Giovanni Antonini
Symphonies 28, 43, 63 + Anonymous (Sonata jucunda), Bartók (Romanian folk dances)

Click HERE to buy this on amazon.co.uk

Not the least of the pleasures of this exhilarating series has been the works supplementing the Haydn symphonies, invariably to some (at times tenuous) thematic purpose. This time we are given perhaps the most surprising to date, the set of Bartók’s seven tiny Romanian folk dances originally for piano, but orchestrated by the composer in 1917. So if you’ve ever wondered what Bartók sounds like on period instruments, now’s your chance. The results are nothing less than electrifying, given the virtuosity and verve of Antonini’s superlative players, whether in the scrunchy chords of no. 1, the rubato brought to no. 2, the wistful no. 4, with its plangent violin solo, or the extraordinary sound of Giovanni Antonini’s Renaissance flute in no. 3. All is explained in his notes, devoted to what Antonini describes as ‘the birth of crossover’, or music from traditions other than so-called ‘classical music’.

Also falling into this category is the anonymous Sonata Jucunda (‘cheerful sonata’), a manuscript from the important collection housed in Kromĕříž Castle in Moravia, which also includes the manuscripts of a number of Haydn’s works. Composed in the style of Biber, it includes eleven brief connected movements that evolve from a solemn opening adagio to incorporate traditional music from the Haná region of Moravia, some sections given a delightfully quirky character.

The earliest of the three Haydn symphonies is No. 28 in A, a modestly scored work that dates from 1765. H. C. Robbins Landon conjectured that it originated as incidental music for a play presented at Eisenstadt in that year, an idea expanded by the notes for the present CD, which suggests the comedy Die Insel der gesunden Vernunft (The Isle of Common Sense) as the source. The opening Allegro certainly has a feel of barely suppressed excitement before eventually breaking out in the full orchestra, while the Poco Adagio suggests a nocturnal walk. Robbins Landon believes it could have served as an entr’acte. Symphony No. 43 in E-flat, nicknamed ‘The Mercury’ in the 19th century for no discernable reason, dates from 1770. It opens with a strongly announced chord, answered by sotto voce strings before proceeding to an animated Allegro bristling with tremolandi. The Adagio is wonderfully atmospheric, a lyrical musing that in its second half moves to a world of introspection. If No. 28 can conjecturally be linked to a stage work, no such doubts arise with Symphony No. 63 in C, the work that gives this volume its name. Composed around 1779/80, it is one of several composite symphonies from that period. The affable opening Allegro is taken from the overture to the comic opera Il mondo della luna, composed in 1777, while the nocturnal theme of the succeeding set of variations, ‘La Roxelana’ comes from incidental music for a play given at Ezsterháza in which the French lady of the title wins the favour of the Turkish emperor Suliman in the face of competition from two other ladies. The bustling Presto finale again has the feel of theatre.

All this music is played with dynamic panache, along with the sensitivity and delicacy all noted as characteristics of earlier issues. With well-judged tempos and acute balance enabling part-writing to be revealed in translucent textures, these are performance that convey a spirit of fresh spontaneity, while at the same time giving full value to every single bar.

Brian Robins

Categories
Sheet music

Piccinni: Il regno della luna

Cover of A-R Editions Piccinni Il regno della luna

Edited by Lawrence Mays, libretto translated with assitance from Grazia Miccichè
Part 1: Introductory Materials and Act 1
lxii, 6 plates + 243pp.
Recent Researches in the Music of the Classical Era, 112
A-R Editions, Inc. ISBN 978-1-9872-0215-1 $415
Part 2: Act 2, Act 3, and Critical Report
vi + pp. [245]-555.
Recent Researches in the Music of the Classical Era, 113
A-R EDitions, Inc. ISBN 978-1-9872-0300-4 $415

Buy it HERE

This three-act opera is unusual in that it is set on the moon! Unlike other moon-themed operas of the Baroque and Classical periods, the libretto tells of the visit of some Earth-living humans to a society where women are very much in control, peace reigns and the desire to be successful in business is viewed rather disapprovingly. Thus the men in the party get into difficulties trying to boast their way into the lunar princess’s good books, and the Earth-women decide the moon is such fun they’d rather stay than go home!

Piccinni’s original setting of 1770 for Milan is lost, so Mays’s edition is based on materials for the Dresden revivals later in the decade, where it is scored for pairs of oboes, horns and trumpets with drums, strings. The seven characters are two sopranos, a mezzo, two tenors, a baritone and a bass. Arias were cut from the Milan libretto for the Dresden performances and it is noticeable that while there are six arias in Act 1, there are only four in Act, and only one in Act 3; conversely, the number of ensemble pieces rises as the opera progresses and the secco recitative gradually gives way to accompagnati. The music is hardly sophisticated (like many contemporary operas, there is a little too much repetition built into the phrases for that) – nor indeed is much of the libretto! – but it is tuneful and full of the necessary energy to carry the action.

A welcome addition to the catalogue of available operas – will someone take on a production?

Brian Clark

 

Categories
Recording

Mozart & Beethoven [keyboard music]

CD cover of Mozart and Beethoven recording

Thomas Leininger fortepiano
78:14
Talbot Records TR1901
K331, 332, 397; Sonata in F, op 2/1

Depending on your point of view, this may be ‘a breath of fresh air’, ‘wilful distortion of the music’ or a bit of both. The programme begins with a reasonably orthodox performance of Mozart’s D minor fantasia K397. Thereafter each of the three well-known sonatas is prefaced by an improvisatory prelude based on ideas and suggestions taken from Clementi and Czerny, and this improvisatory style is carried into the sonatas themselves, with much and sometimes quite extreme variation of tempo; ornamentation; mini-cadenzas; dis-location between the hands; and far more use of the moderator lever than any other player I have heard.

As far as I am concerned this last feature is especially welcome – I’ve often wondered why players, both ‘modern’ and HIP, don’t do it more.* What I do query is the inclusion on a recording of the preludes. Of their very nature these are transitory and ephemeral but the ‘document’ nature of a CD seems to accord them a quasi-canonic status that they don’t really have. But this could also be said of ornaments, of course. Of the other distinctive features of the playing I found the tempo variation the most disturbing and the least convincing: sometimes the effect was comparable to a beginner’s speeding up in the easy passages and slowing down when the going gets tougher. But the additional ornaments are more than welcome.

The booklet (in English and German) says nothing about the music itself – perhaps it is regarded as too familiar to need it. And I do think you should hear this recital: it does question ‘standard practice’ and that’s to be applauded.

David Hansell

*Sir Andras Schiff is a notable exception. At a recital I attended he was positively dancing over all three of his Steinway’s pedals – though not when he was playing Bach!

Click HERE to buy this as a digital download from amazon.co.uk

Categories
Recording

Michael Haydn Collection

Cover of the boxed set of Michael Haydn

28 CDs in a cardboard box
Brilliant Classics 95885

Yes, you read the heading correctly – this set comprises 28 CDs of music by Michael Haydn! Best known for having a more famous brother, or (more flatteringly though “let’s not exaggerate”) the composer whom Mozart thought highly enough of to complete a set of duets for violin and viola, Michael Haydn really hasn’t had the best of press.

Now, at an amazing price of less than £2 per disc, you can totally immerse yourself in his soundworld. Unsurprisingly, this is NOT a Suzuki- or Koppmen-like methodical survey of the complete works; rather, it is a bringing together of various recordings from a number of companies (hänssler, oehms, and cpo, to name but a few) with period instrument performances alongside those by more “traditional” choirs and chamber orchestras; the opera is “modern” (with a HIP conductor to help), while the Singspiels are wholly HIP; two volumes of the complete string quintets (another overlapping interest with Mozart) feature extremely fine gut strung playing, while the quartets are played on steel. A modest booklet gives a biography of the composer and describes each of the discs; the card cover for each gives full information of the original recording.

As someone who has always enjoyed Haydn’s music (I remember the hairs on the back of my neck standing up the first time I heard a BIS recording of masses with oboe band!) I found the journey through these discs (some of which I had actually reviewed before) very enjoyable; his church music is especially attractive and it does not surprise me that it is found in archives across the German-speaking world. I did find myself tiring of amorphous non-HIP basslines and tiered dynamics, but that has nothing to do with the quality of the music, which in general is very high.

I recommend this to anyone into Classical music (in the strict sense) – I remember giving a concert in Dundee in 1991 in which we challenged the audience to identify which pieces we played and sung were by Mozart or not by Mozart; not a single person got the answer correct . If you played any of the present CDs as background music to a dinner party, I doubt anyone would be surprised to learn that it wasn’t Mozart too!

Brian Clark

Click HERE to buy this set of CDs on amazon.