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Recording

Giovanni Bononcini: Cantate e Sonate

Aurata Fonte (Miho Kamiya soprano, Perikli Pite cello, Valeria Montanari harpsichord)
78:24
Tactus TC 670202

This CD presents six cantatas for soprano and basso continuo which have survived in manuscript in Modena, the city of birth of the composer Giovanni Bononcini. Bononcini’s accomplishments as a composer, particularly of operas, took him to Vienna and then London before returning to Vienna to retire on a pension. The sense of drama, which made his operatic efforts so widely appreciated, is also in evidence in his cantatas, and in these world premiere recordings soprano Miho Kamiya invests Bononcini’s cantatas with an engaging level of animation. Striking is Bononcini’s sense of melodic direction, a dynamic feature shared with the instrumental music which Aurata Fonte contribute to the programme – two harpsichord Divertimenti and a cello Sonata persuasively played by harpsichordist Valeria Montanari and cellist Perikli Pite. Both also make a sympathetically responsive contribution to the cantatas. Bononcini is a composer whose influence on the musical scenes in London and Vienna is probably underestimated, and the admiration of his contemporaries in Italy, as well as England and Austria, probably suggests that the bulk of his music which remains neglected, particularly perhaps the operas, deserves performance and reassessment. At any rate, these accomplished premiere recordings suggest that much fine Bononcini still awaits rediscovery.  

D. James Ross

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Recording

Caccini: Amarilli

Le Nuove Musiche 1601
fantazyas (Roberto Balconi tenor, Giangiacomo Pinardi theorbo, Marco Montanelli harpsichord)
69:02
Brilliant Classics 96254

When it appeared in 1602 in Florence, the Nuove Musiche di Giulio Caccini detto Romano must indeed have sounded absolutely revolutionary. The rule book was well and truly thrown out the window in this wonderful new world of monody, in which the melodic lines mirrored speech rhythms, reflected feelings and were animated by wonderful decorative affetti, seemingly spontaneous passaggi either devised by the composer or added, by analogy, by the performer. In a lengthy introduction, Caccini emphasises that these ornaments must express the emotions evoked by the text rather than offering an opportunity for empty virtuosity, and it is very much in this spirit that tenor Roberto Balconi sings this programme. The vocal ornaments always sound perfectly natural and never intrude upon the flow of the melody, and in this wonderful service to the music and the composer’s intentions, he is very ably supported by the instruments of Fantazyas. In the programme note, Balconi drops the bombshell that he is more customarily a falsettist – to be able to demonstrate such consummate mastery of a subsidiary vocal range is simply breathtaking! Recorded in June in Sondrio in Lombardy, these recordings capture the languid essence of the Italian summer, even down to the constant though almost imperceptible song of a blackbird in the background. These are lovely apparently effortless performances of stunningly beautiful music – the ‘new music’ as its composer would have wanted it to be heard.

D. James Ross

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Recording

Das ist meine Freude

Love Songs & Psalms
Georg Poplutz tenor, Johann Rosenmüller Ensemble, Arno Paduch
69:23
cpo 555 362-2

Tenor Georg Poplutz takes us on a highly enjoyable and instructive tour of sacred and secular songs from the 17th century, usefully juxtaposing familiar music by Monteverdi and Grandi with unfamiliar music by Johann Rosenmüller and Christoph Bernhard, and introducing a host of neglected masters including Benedetto Reggio, Nicolò Corradini, Nicholas Strungk and Thomas Selle. All of the German masters travelled to Italy, learning from the Italian models represented here, the exception being Thomas Selle, who as a pupil of Schütz learned the secrets of Italian music at second hand and with a German accent. The key figure on this CD is undoubtedly Rosenmüller, represented by three major works, clearly a focus of the ensemble, and a figure deserving still of much more attention than he gets. I mentioned at the start that we are in the hands of the solo tenor, Georg Poplutz, and fortunately he has a beautifully engaging voice perfect for this repertoire. He sidesteps effortlessly from secular song to psalm, from Rosenmüller to beautifully ornamented Monteverdi, and is the ideal advocate of this attractive repertoire. He is ably and sympathetically supported by a superb consort directed by cornettist Arno Paduch. This CD is a thorough delight and a revelation from its astutely selected repertoire, its thought-provoking juxtapositions, and its wonderfully persuasive performances.

D. James Ross

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Recording

Byrd 1589: Songs of sundrie natures

Alamire, Fretwork, David Skinner
122:37 (2 CDs in a single case)
Inventa INV1011

Alamire and Fretwork continue their great work on behalf of Byrd, under the direction of David Skinner, by following up their complete recording of his Psalmes, sonets and songs of 1588 with this double album consisting of the Songs of sundrie natures 1589. In an important respect this new release is even more significant because it includes so many premiere recordings from this more neglected collection. For instance, of the Seven Penitential Psalms that begin the disc, only three have ever received commercial recordings. Just a few of the pieces have received repeated attention – such as the majestic consort anthem Christ rising again and the bucolic duet Who made thee Hob forsake the plough – but now we can revel in the likes of the first complete recording of the exquisite Wounded I am, the first commercial recording of what David in his note calls “this epic tale” From Citheron the warlike boy is fled and only the second recording of the sublime sacred song O Lord my God. The two carols for Christmas Day – From virgin’s womb and An earthly tree – have of late begun at last to receive appropriate attention on disc, performed with both their two sections intact and accompanied by viols. This is definitively the case here, and they also demonstrate the high quality of Alamire’s soloist Martha McLorinan; she is joined by the equally admirable Clare Wilkinson in Christ rising and Who made thee Hob mentioned above, and both mezzos also sing separate solo songs; Unlike the 1588 songs, many of which survive in pre-publication sources as consort songs which Byrd subsequently adapted as partsongs for publication, those in 1589 are almost all original partsongs; just three survive as consort songs in sources predating the print. Of these, I thought that love and When first by force are performed as in the print, but See those sweet eyes is sung enchantingly by Clare Wilkinson in its original solo format. The violists of Fretwork provide excellent accompaniments whenever required, as do star lutenists, Jacob Heringman and Lynda Sayce, for the five stunning secular songs that are in three parts.

As in 1588, there is a wide variety of mood, illustrated well by the almost curt and flirtatious I thought that love had been a boy sitting next to the impassioned and emotional O dear life to words by Sir Philip Sidney; indeed, the teeming creativity that gushes from the ten works in the section of songs in five parts could stand as an epitome of the entire collection. Alamire and David respond sensitively to all of Byrd’s different musical perspectives. Indeed, this is a collection simply crammed full of delights, both spiritual and emotional, all the better for the listener with such a high proportion of the songs being in the main unfamiliar. The initial sequence of seven psalms in three parts might seem forbidding, but do as Byrd himself suggests, listen a few times, and even here in these ostensibly austere works many beauties emerge; earlier this Byrd Quatercentenary year I had the pleasure of attending a concert in Norwich given by the outstanding Marian Consort, during which they sang the dourly-texted Lord in thy wrath correct me not and its concluding bars radiated beauty, which beauty is conveyed equally well on this recording. The more luxuriant Unto the hills mine eyes I lift in six parts, with its own plodding text, possesses a Flemish quality reminding us of Byrd’s familiarity with the glorious works of Jacob Clement, “Clemens non Papa”. One could go on throughout the entire set – there is not a work among them all which is less than excellent, and which does not repay repeated listening.

The Sixteen have beaten Alamire to recording Byrd’s third and final collection of songs, the Psalmes, songs, and sonnets of 1611, but Alamire have provisional plans for a possible celebration of another Byrd anniversary in 2024 which, if it comes to fruition, would be just as exciting as all the foregoing. Meanwhile, it remains yet again to recommend without reservation the album under review, to compliment Alamire on making some hitherto hidden masterpieces by Byrd accessible to the worldwide public, and to congratulate Alamire, Fretwork, David and the soloists on a job superbly done. And let’s have a minute’s applause for William, who made it all possible.

Richard Turbet

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Recording

ALLA MILANESE

The Gonzaga Band directed by Jamie Savan
74:19
Resonus RES 10314

The Gonzaga Band is small group of acclaimed experts who deliver music-making of extraordinary power, where the whole seems miraculously more than the sum of its parts.

Partly this is because their expertise is forged in bringing exactly this music – music written in the years when Renaissance polyphony was just bursting out of its ecclesiastical shell into a more florid, instrumental-driven freedom of divisions or passaggi as these techniques of ornamenting the four-square polyphonic writing were called – to life. It was this development – along with the development of instrument-making – especially in violin making – that would enable Corelli and Vivaldi and their associates to emerge into what we know as the high Baroque, and Milan was particularly important in the development of the violin and its music in this period.

But partly also it is because their leader, Jamie Savan, researches and prepares music for performance that is not only a pleasure to listen to, but which makes the links between Milan’s past and future as a distinctive player in the extraordinary flowering of the Nuova Musica along the Po valley from Lombardy to the Veneto. Savan’s liner notes are always a model of good practice: the sources are listed, along with the performing pitch (A=465Hz) and the temperament (1/4 comma mean tone); so are the instruments they all play, including the Hauptwerk organ sampled from S. Maria d’Alieto, Izola, Slovenia used by Steven Devine. I would love to hear them play with an organ by Walter Chinaglia based on open wooden principal pipes described in his Duoi organi per Monteverdi, https://www.organa.it/monteverdi/ for details.

Attention to balance and allowing space for sonorities to bloom is second nature to this group, and we should be grateful for a glimpse into such a wide variety of music. There is a good deal of the best-known Milanese composer of the time, Giovanni Paulo Cima, and his Capriccio 8, 1606 (track 12) will give you a good idea of the instrumental sonorities offered here. Particularly interesting to me as examples of how the earlier polyphonic masterworks were being transformed by passaggi are the tracks 6, 11 and 15 where music by Palestrina, Lassus and de Rore is re-presented with divisions: here Mark Caudle’s violone playing in Rognoni’s version of Lassus’ well known Susanne un jour is a star turn, as are Jamie Savan’s cornetto divisions in track 15. Towards the end, we hear two tracks by Caterina Assandra, a novice nun who was clearly a remarkable composer in her own right at a young age.

Faye Newton has a wonderfully clear yet expressive voice, negotiating the passaggi and trills with ease, she manages to convey the varying moods of the music without the aid of those modern singerly conventions like vibrato or unaccountable swelling on weak notes. This means she matches the instruments splendidly: Cima’s Surge propera (track 16) is a motet with echo effects on the cornetto, and Rognoni’s Ave Virgo Benedicta (track 17) lets us hear her unadorned. You would expect a degree of athleticism from the cornetto, but here you can hear it from the bass sackbut too in the skilled hands of Guy Morely (tracks 5 and 18). Oliver Webber whose relaxed technique is so well-suited to this period’s divisions is heard on his own in Canzon ‘la Porcia’ by Antonio Mortaro with divisions by Francesco Rognoni (track 7), where Steven Devine is playing a harpsichord by Colin Booth (1998) based on one by Domenico da Pesaro (Venice, 1533).

The whole CD is a treat, introducing us to a distinctive sound-world which helps us make sense of the rise in instrumental skills which preluded the shift from Canzone to Sonatas and Concerti, marking the distinctive Baroque period both instrumentally and vocally. I commend it wholeheartedly.

David Stancliffe

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Recording

Héroïnes – Cantates françaises

Ensemble Il Caravaggio directed by Camille Delaforge
58:02
Château de Versailles Spectacles CVS090

A clue comes with the name Caravaggio. If it appears odd for a French ensemble to take the name of an Italian painter it can be at least in part explained by the objectives of the Ensemble Il Caravaggio, one of the newer among the plethora of French early music ensembles. Their first CD was devoted to 17th-century Italian music, while ‘Héroïnes’, far from being solely devoted to French cantatas, also incorporates airs de cour, excerpts from an early dramatic work by Lully, brief extracts from Elisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre’s 1694 tragédie lyrique Céphale et Procris (which is due for issue in a complete version on the Versailles Spectacles label) and the finest work on the disc, a cantata entirely in Italian style (and language) by one of the finest French cantata composers, Montéclair.

So we end up with a diverse programme with a foot in both French and Italian camps performed by two mezzos, Victoire Bunel and Anna Reinhold, and the bass Guilhem Worms, accompanied by a small ensemble drawn from Il Caravaggio. The only French cantata in every sense is the opening Le tombeau de Clorinde by the little-known Parisian organist Louis Antoine Dornel (1680-1765). It is a kind of sequel to the familiar story of the battle between the Crusader Tancredi and the Saracen woman warrior Clorinda. Like Monteverdi’s famous account of the battle itself, it is told as a dramatic narrative interspersed with personal reaction from Argantes, the lover of Clorinda. In two highly contrasted arias (more correctly ariettas), Argante expresses first his grief then his rage as he swears to avenge Clorinda’s death by killing Tancredi. Worms, his dark, sepulchral bass well suited to the cantata, impresses dramatically but the voice is not always securely produced, particularly where sustained notes are concerned.

The other larger-scale work is the Montéclair cantata, La morte di Lucretia, the story of the suicide of the wife of the Roman senator Collatinus following her rape by Tarquin. The highly-charged words of the poem are those of Lucretia herself, with the exception of a brief epilogue that comes after her death. Otherwise, it follows the recitative – da capo aria sequence familiar from Italian cantatas. The cantata is superbly sung by Bunel, whose excellent command of Italian brings splendid dramatic weight to the piece, singing with rich, amber tone finely produced across her range. The build-up to the moment of suicide and the final fragmentary words – ‘I die, heavens, I die’ is memorably and movingly managed. Incidentally, it is amusing to find the well-illustrated booklet includes a rare slip by this splendid label, the Lucretia pictured being not the Roman one but a knowing Lucrezia Borgia, one breast exposed to the world. Anything further from the heroic Roman wife would be hard to imagine!

Bunel also sings two airs from the de la Guerre opera, one an expression of Procris’s longing for solitude, which again displays her vocal acting skills – the words ‘Ah! J’aimerais encore les maux’ (Ah, I would delight still in the troubles …’ delivered with inexpressible longing. The other is a light- hearted song sung by Dawn, but we need to wait for the full opera before arriving at a more informed impression of it. The Lully is also taken from an Italian insert, a ‘Plainte d’Armide’ included in the Ballet des amours déguisés of 1664 and thus a work that precedes all his major operas. It follows the familiar lamentations of the sorceress Armida following her abandonment by Rinaldo. It is not especially memorable either as music or in the performance of Anna Reinhold. There is also a trio taken from a 1709 publication of ‘Airs sérieux et à boire’ by Nicolas Racot de Grandval (1676-1753), a new name to me and apparently particularly famed for his satires. The programme concludes with a catchy anonymous dance duet in strophic form winningly sung by Bunel and Worms that harks back to the beginning of the 17th century and ballet de cour.

Overall the CD makes for an attractively varied collection of French Baroque vocal chamber music that strays off the usual paths. It is especially worth sampling for the contribution of Victoire Bunel, who looks to be yet another burgeoning star in the overcrowded firmament of French Baroque music.

Brian Robins

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Recording

The Crown: Coronation anthems by Handel & Purcell

Choeur & Orchestre de l’Opéra Royal, conducted by Gaétan Jarry
59:38
Versailles Spectacles CVS110

For anyone wanting a souvenir of the Coronation, here is the perfect answer, at least so far as the musical part is concerned. And it comes from an unexpected source. For this sumptuously produced CD – entirely performed by French forces (nearly 100 musicians) – was recorded in the Chapelle Royale in the palace of Versailles, taking full advantage of its resplendent acoustic. Not only does it include the anthems Purcell composed for the coronation of James II in 1685 and Handel wrote for that of George II (1727), but we also have the introductory procession and recession along with fanfares interposed between the anthems and gleamingly enhanced by the resonance of the chapel. There are even the ‘Vivats’ and perhaps most touchingly of all the final shouts of ‘God save King Charles’. One can almost sense the French, albeit probably temporarily, regretting republicanism!

It would have been relatively straightforward for a project of this kind to have been achieved simply by making the right sort of noise – of which there is of course plenty – but there was no likelihood of that with Gaétan Jarry at the helm. One of the most outstanding of France’s present golden generation of early music musicians, Jarry here leads performances not only of magnificence in the celebratory, fully scored anthems, but which show every sign of care in more reflective music. It is evident that much attention has been paid not just only to the choir’s diction and articulation of English, but nuances of expressive word painting. I love, for example, the little nudge on the word ‘strong’ in the chorus ‘Praise the Lord’ for the oratorio Solomon, a worthy and fitting encore to the anthems at the end of the programme. Admirable too is the obvious care taken over the contrapuntal verses of the Purcell ‘My heart is inditing’, which are not only beautifully interwoven by the soloists but also sung with a true sense of understanding of the text. The final ‘Allelujah’ of the same anthem brings one of the rare moments of choral untidiness, the ensemble and precision being for the most part admirable.

The more extrovert anthems need little detailed comment. All make their due effect, with ‘Zadok the Priest’ producing the ‘hairs-on-the-back-of the-neck’ effect it should. Another memorable moment comes with the verse ‘Exceeding Glad Shall He Be’ from Handel’s ‘The King Shall Rejoice’, where the dancing melody is treated to joyous imitative expression between parts, while the entries at the opening of his setting of ‘My Heart is inditing’ are superbly judged.

In keeping with Versailles Spectacles’ high standards, the presentation is outstanding, with a 127pp booklet with articles and illustrations, a number of them in colour. With the credits on the last page comes the legend ‘In honour of his Majesty King Charles III’. Given that the CD is a more than worthy tribute to the King, it is greatly to be hoped it will be brought to his attention.

Brian Robins

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Recording

Charpentier: Auprès du feu l’on fait l’amour

Airs serieux & à boire
Les Épopées, directed by Stéphane Fuget
76:29
Versailles Spectacles CVS 089

The history of the French air de cour goes back to the end of the 16th century, when it played an important role in the lavish ballets mounted by the court. Later it would be taken over as a major component in Lully’s creation of French opera and still later would form a separate, though related genre that played an important role in salon life and in its more bucolic form other perhaps less salubrious gatherings. While usually written for a solo voice and continuo, airs for two or three voices are also found.

Marc-Antoine Charpentier’s contribution to the repertoire includes nearly forty extant examples of which some three-quarters are gathered on this appealing CD. They are found in three major sources: the famous political and cultural publication Mercure de France, with whose editor Charpentier enjoyed an excellent relationship and which were issued under the title Airs serieux et à boire; pieces issued posthumously by the publisher Ballard; and various unpublished manuscripts found in other sources, in particular the Bibliothèque Nationale.

While the drinking songs basically speak for themselves, being straightforward drunken ditties (‘Veux-tu, compère Grégoire’) or satirical (‘Beaux petits yeux l’écarlate’ is a particularly vicious example), the serious airs cover a wide range of topics, with pastoral love and its vicissitudes a favourite topic, but here also including two panegyrics to Louis XIV. While many of the airs are simple strophic songs, occasionally with a refrain, some follow a more complex course. That applies to none more than ‘Non, non, je ne l’aime plus’, one of the most sophisticated and extended (most last an average of barely two or three minutes). It is virtually an operatic scène, opening with a strongly declamatory air before proceeding to an alternation of récits and airs of which ‘Je pense au temps heureux’, a bitter-sweet reflection on happier days has a special beauty, the air as a whole an affecting expression of conflicting emotions. It is outstandingly, even passionately sung by haute-contre Cyril Auvity, the busiest singer in the programme, unsurprisingly given the composer himself was an haute-contre and must have often taken part in performances of this repertoire. Equally as memorable is the following air, ‘Ah! Laissez-moi rêver’, unusually termed aire tendre, it is the lament of a shepherdess for her lost love. Consisting of only a sestet with the opening words acting as a refrain, the constant repetition demands artistry of the highest order if it is to make an impression, the variants of colour and heartrending expressivity found by soprano Claire Lefilliâtre in the simple opening word ‘Ah!’ alone a masterclass in interpretative subtlety.

Such standards are common to the performances of these exquisite little gems, with the drinking songs given a great sense of character by Auvity and his two male colleagues, Marc Mauillon, perhaps best described by the modern term ‘baritenor’, and baritone Geoffroy Buffière – try the aforementioned ‘Veux-tu, compère Grégoire’ to get a sense of the bucolic fun at one extreme of these airs. The second soprano Gwendoline Blondeel is well contrasted with Lefilliâtre, having a less bright and marginally heavier voice, but her diction is not always as good as those of the other singers. The continuo accompanying instruments are bass violin, bass viol, theorbo or guitar and harpsichord, the last named played by director Stéphane Fuget.

Versailles Spectacles’ presentation is as stylish as usual and includes an excellent essay on the songs by Charpentier expert, Catherine Cessac. Less laudable is the lack of identification of the singer(s) of each item, so easily done just by putting initials against the number concerned. (Please don’t write in to tell me there are two ‘GB’s; the second would be ‘GBu’!)

Brian Robins

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Recording

Nuit à Venise

Ensemble Les Surprises, directed by Louis-Noël Bestion de Camboulas
68:47
Alpha Classics 927

In an interview included in the booklet the conductor (henceforth Camboulas to avoid repetition of his unusually complex name) tells us in typically imaginative French style that he wanted on this disc to ‘reimagine a large-scale evening of festivities not only on the Piazza San Marco and in the Basilica, but also in the gardens and salons of the city’s palaces’. If this suggests the CD is aiming at an unspecialised audience, such suspicions are enhanced by the total omission of any source references or even context, where it exists, there being no notes other than the interview.  Such sloppy presentation is unforgivable in this day and age, ‘Cavalli – Agnus Dei’ being of little help to anyone (it comes from the Missa Concertata, published in Musiche sacra, 1656).

It is all the more regrettable given that the music is exceptionally well performed and largely avoids more obvious choices, Lotti’s famous 8-part Crucifixus being perhaps the only real exception to that. That searing piece can also be used as an illustration of one of the real strengths of the vocal performances, which to their great benefit are performed one voice to a part. The strength referred to is the unfailing sweetness of tone of the two sopranos of Les Surprises, Jehanne Amzal and Eugénie Lefebvre, which is complemented by the fine voices and excellent ensemble of the remaining six voices. The ensemble as a whole seems equally at home with the athletic vocal agility required for the bravura writing in items such as Monteverdi’s ‘Dixit Dominus secondo’, SV 264 (from the Selva morale e spirituali, 1641) or ‘Laudate Dominum primo’ from the same collection, though the latter is a rare instance where I don’t agree with Camboulas’ tempo, it sounding to me too rushed to allow the singers to articulate the text with the necessary clarity. 

Among the lesser-known works included two brief pieces, ‘Ingemisco’ and ‘Oro supplex’ from Giovanni Legrenzi’s 8-part Prosa pro Mortuis (Dies Irae) particularly stand out for their exquisite penitential dissonance, the former for full choir based on falling sequences, the latter an alto solo. The Cavalli ‘Agnus Dei’ is another jewel, alternating homophony and polyphony, and here sung with wonderful breadth and rapt inner spirituality.

Despite Camboulas’ intimation of a mixture of sacred and profane, there are no secular vocal items included, though the presence of a couple of settings of typically sensual texts from the Song of Song’s (Alessandro Grandi’s 3-part ‘O quam tu pulchra es’ and Monteverdi’s ‘Pulchrae sunt genae tuae’, a contrafactum (not by Monteverdi) of the madrigal ‘Ferir quel petto, Silvio?’ from the Fifth Book might be thought compensation, and we are also given an instrumental arrangement of another madrigal from Book 5, ‘Troppo ben puo’. Otherwise, instrumental items are liberally scattered throughout the selection, making for a nicely contrasted programme that would make for an excellent introduction to 17th-century Venetian repertoire. In case my above admonishments about presentation have aroused concerns about texts, full texts and translations are included and the recording in the Abbaye aux Dames at Saintes is atmospheric.  

Brian Robins

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Recording

Die Befreiung Israels

Telemann: Das befreite Israel (1759)
Rolle: Die Befreiung Israels (1774)

Miriam Feuersinger, Elvira Bill, Daniel Johannsen, André Morsch, Sebastian Myrus SmSTBB, Il Gardellino Baroque Orchestra, directed by Peter van Heygen
78:22
Passacaille 1132

This is an excellent and fascinating placement of two settings around the same subject on this CD, offering two very distinctive stylistic approaches presented by these composers side by side, and yet set some 15 years apart! There are some bold strokes of musical pictorialism, drama, and délicatesse on display from both. One should not underestimate Telemann’s ability to find a compact and cogent form here, we are in very similar compositional territory to the fervour and flexibility found in his remarkable “Donner-Ode” (TVWV6:3a/b). Interestingly, the two librettos do also partially overlap, J .F. W. Zachariae’s original poetry was expanded by the second preacher at Telemann’s baptismal Church, Heilig-Geist-Kirche in Magdeburg, one Christoph Christian Sturm, a prominent member of the Magdeburg Scholar’s club, who went on to write for C. P. E. Bach, Telemann’s godson.

The rich instrumentation is equally telling, Telemann in that vintage late-Baroque mould, Johann Heinrich Rolle of course in more Empfindsamer mode, as espoused by C. H. Graun. Telemann’s setting is concise and compact, dispensing with recitatives, which keeps the dramatic narrative flowing. The Rolle, having extra characters, including Moses, has eight recitatives, to as it were “tee-up” the following movement! Telemann’s highly imaginative orchestral movement (Track 9) is an unbounded flood of surging tones with trumpets and horns depicting the great swell of the waves, engulfing the Pharoh’s chasing army, here played with tremendous gusto! Turning to the singers now, there are some very solid performances all around. Miriam Feuersinger is sublime in the aria Pflanze sie, Herr auf den Huegeln (Track 12). Oddly, the inclusion of recitatives in the Rolle setting seemed to take it back to the Baroque, but the opening bars strike out, and the beautifully constructed arias, and arias with chorus move us to the expressive musical language of C. H. Graun, perhaps even beyond to C. P. E. Bach himself? Track 20 takes us through the stormy torrents at some pace, showing that Rolle also knew a thing or two about musical pictorialism.

It is towards the end of the Rolle work that the J. F. W. Zachariae poetry appears, and completes this juxtaposition of stylistic approaches making them truly salient in their differences! The soloists give expressive and cogent performances, which neither founder in excesses nor under-powering wilt. Il Gardellino lend an ever-bright and impressive sheen to these two fine works, especially the brass section of horns and trumpets (drums adding extra impact).

The final chorus gives the means and measure of both composers in a potent nutshell; do I detect a slightly veiled emulation by Rolle?

The recorded sound is amazing (Bruges 16-19th August 2022) and adds to the vibrancy of this warmly recommended recording moving past the more familiar Handelian work. The CD notes are most informative on the backgrounds to these two fine settings.

David Bellinger