Author: EMR2015

Sous l’empire d’Amour

Marie-Claude Chappuis mezzo-soprano, Luca Pianca lute
63:41
deutsche harmonia mundi 8 89854 52312 1
Music by Ballard, Bataille, Bittner, de Boësset, Lambert, Lully, Moulinié & Richard

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]his is one of those ‘late evening’ discs. Marie-Claude Chappuis is a versatile singer who here reins herself in to inhabit one of music’s more intimate worlds – that of the 17th-century air du luth – though she can’t resist the dramatic potential of Qui veut chasser une migraine. This is a drinking song, and I have to say that the interpretation, though it would be fine in concert and was enjoyable first time around, palls on repetition. In the kingdom of the air Michel Lambert reigns supreme and the six pieces by him are quite superb and receive performances to match. In truth, a half-decent Ombre de mon amant would be a highlight of any recital. It’s much more than ‘half-decent’ here. Throughout, the musical balance of voice and lute is excellent and contrast of sonority is provided by two short and elegantly played lute suites. Luca Pianca argues the case for his archlute in G so strongly that I am instinctively suspicious of his choice, but I’ll leave that to the lute fraternity to debate. It’s a real shame that the sung texts are not translated: the rest of the booklet is Ger/Eng/Fre for the notes, but Eng only for the artists’ biographies. dhm need to sort this out.

David Hansell

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Recording

Un jardin à l’italienne

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.

Brian Clark

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Tags Baroque, Classical, Renaissance, Vocal music

Recording

Jacquet de la Guerre: Pièces de clavecin Livres 1, 2

Post author By EMR2015
Post date August 3, 2018
No Comments on Jacquet de la Guerre: Pièces de clavecin Livres 1, 2

Elisabetta Guglielmin harpsichord
116:36 (2 CDs in card wallet)
OnClassical OC17091b

[dropcap]W[/dropcap]hen, some years ago now, I first reviewed a CD of Jacquet de la Guerre’s harpsichord music it was a case of ‘who?’ and ‘where has she been hiding?’. Now her music is well established in the CD catalogues though not yet core repertoire in concert. (But then, how many harpsichord recitals are there?) This release offers the four suites from her 1687 livre, followed by the two published in 1707 as being suitable also for the ‘viollon’, though that option is not explored here. The music is played in its published order which means that CD1 is entirely in minor keys, which some may find hard going. Each suite of Book 1 opens with an un-barred prelude, through which Elisabetta Guglielmin finds very convincing routes. It is also in these movements that the chosen temperament makes its most piquant contributions. The four traditional dances follow, and then each group ends with one or more ‘others’ – menuets, gavottes etc. This player is not to be rushed which does mean that the many ornaments can be gracefully brought into the lines. I did sometimes feel, however, that at these tempi her legitimately expressive flexibility teetered just a bit too close to waywardness.

The movements of the 1707 volume are more expansive, with an eight-movement D minor suite followed by six movements in G major. This may be the place to start for any new to the style – the chaconne at the end of the first suite is a summary of the 17th-century claveciniste’s art. The booklet (Eng/Fr/It) places Jacquet in her context and the instrument is a double manual, rich-toned ‘after Ruckers’ copy (1636 original). And on almost the smallest of points – I’d love the last note to be a fraction longer: the music stops, but lacks a sense of ‘end’.

David Hansell

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Tags Baroque, Keyboard music

Recording

Dandrieu: Pièces de Caractère

Post author By EMR2015
Post date August 3, 2018
No Comments on Dandrieu: Pièces de Caractère

Marouan Mankar-Bennis harpsichord
70:00
encelade ECL1702

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]here are some sumptuous harpsichord sonorities on offer here, occasionally so sumptuous that the dampers don’t quite cope at the ends of pieces. But that doesn’t mar in any way enjoyment of this lively recital in which the instruments (quasi-Couchet and quasi-18th-century French) are used to the full, lute stop and 4’ only included. I like the way in which the programme groups the pieces as an ‘opera for harpsichord’ rather than simply as selections from Livres I-III in published order and the spoken announcements of the section titles in de la Guerre work well – brief and very well timed. The chosen temperaments also play their part in keeping the ear engaged, some choice F minor moments in Le concert des Muses being highlights. The notes (Fr/Eng) by the player stop just short of self-indulgence and self-congratulation and for once the English translation is idiomatic – just one small misprint. In a year when Couperin is to the fore, this is an enjoyable reminder that he was far from being the only claveciniste kid on the block.

David Hansell

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Tags Baroque, Keyboard music

Recording

Monteverdi: Madrigali

Les arts florissants, Paul Agnew
208:27 (3 CDs in a card box)
harmonia mundi HMX 2903777.79
CD1: Selections from books 1-3; CD2: ditto Books 4-6; CD3: ditto Books 7 & 8

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]his is a robustly packaged bringing-together of LAF’s three CDs of madrigals sampling Books 1-8. Individual discs have strong cardboard sleeves, there is a chunky booklet including thoughtful and comprehensive essays (Eng/Fre) with sung Italian texts and translations (also Eng/Fre), and the outer box is more solid than many. Vocal and instrumental ensembles are directed by Paul Agnew.

In recent years Italian groups have given us passionate, word-driven performances of this repertoire. I think that these LAF performances find a way to balance those series of micro-dramas with a sense of the bigger picture. I’m not saying that this is how to do it. With such amazing music there can be no one way. But this is a fine tribute to a great composer that will not disappoint, even if it sometimes irritates. Why on earth are there recorders in Chiome d’oro (Book 7)?

Brian Clark

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Tags Baroque, Vocal music

Recording

Blow: An ode on the death of Mr Henry Purcell

Post author By EMR2015
Post date August 3, 2018
No Comments on Blow: An ode on the death of Mr Henry Purcell

Samuel Boden, Thomas Walker, Arcangelo, Jonathan Cohen
76:36
hyperion CDA68149
+Begin the Song!, Dread Sir the Prince of Light, The Nymphs of the wells, Chaconne a4 in G, Ground in g, Sonata in A

[dropcap]A[/dropcap]fter listening to these exquisitely turned performances I feel that we need more CDs and concerts dedicated to the music of John Blow (though Venus and Adonis does quite well). By and large, it is cathedral/collegiate choirs who have kept his flame burning with the motet Salvator mundi and some of the Anglican canticle settings. Now, Arcangelo, with assistance from musicologist Bruce Wood, round out that rather restricted view by means of a programme of secular music centred on the setting of Dryden’s Ode on the death of Mr Henry Purcell. Inhabitants of EMR-land will surely know that this is a quite superb work for two singers, two recorders and continuo. The low pitch adopted here facilitates performance by high tenors and Thomas Walker and Samuel Boden do not disappoint, relishing the many choice verbal and musical moments poet and composer offer them. Their fellow singers, in the other vocal vocal works, also bring admirable qualities to their performances, not least the ability to deliver lines such as ‘But here comes a Druid and we must retire’ without corpsing! The string ensemble delivers crisp performances of three chamber works: Purcell wasn’t the only one who could knock off a cracking good ground. The only slight disappointment – of scale, rather than substance – is the final New Year ode. The booklet (comprehensive, though in English only) tells us that such works were performed by the full Chapel Royal choir and the Twenty-Four Violins. However, here the chamber forces used elsewhere prevail. If you know anyone who thinks that English music between the Restoration and the arrival of Handel means Purcell and little else, treat them to this disc. And don’t forget everyone else you know. And yourself.

Brian Clark

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Tags Baroque, Chamber music, Vocal music

Recording

Bach: Ein feste Burg

Sarah Wegener, David Allsopp, Thomas Hobbs, Peter Harvey SATB, Kammerchor Stuttgart, Barockorchester Stuttgart, Frieder Bernius
Carus 83.282
49:03
+ Missa in G minor, BWV235

[dropcap]I[/dropcap] would like to hear Bach’s short masses recorded/performed alongside the cantata movements on which they are based (I’ve done this myself with the F major). There would certainly have been room for such an approach on this rather brief CD. In their own terms, these performances are splendid – the opening ritornello is just gorgeous (JSB is a factor in this, of course) and the star ratings reflect this.

The soloists (three of them English) are equally accomplished in some demanding music – Bach’s re-texting of the cantata arias is not always seamless. I must say that I miss the inauthentic trumpet parts from BWV 80! However, without them, the ear re-focuses from sheer sonic splendour to Bach’s astonishing contrapuntal skill which in these hands is still very much a rewarding musical experience. The booklet contains all that it should, though the English version of the main essay omits some of the interesting contextual information included in the German original.

But there will be those who would have been much happier to hear fewer performers than are on display here – a choir of 21 (7-5-5-4) and orchestra with strings 55321 – expert and impressively unanimous though these are. Conductor Frieder Bernius has been admired for several decades as ‘a pioneer of historical performance practice’. But is ‘historical performance practice’ really what he is offering? It sounds to me more like a modern performance practice using historical instruments.

David Hansell

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Tags Baroque, Choral music

Recording

L’Héritage de Rameau

Ensemble Les Surprises, dir. Louis-Noël Bestion de Camboulais, Yves Rechsteiner organ
54:54
Ambronay AMY050
Rameau (arr.), Rebel, Francoeur

[dropcap]N[/dropcap]ow then, concentrate! From 1755 to 1772 the resident organist of the Concert Spirituel was Claude-Bénigne Balbastre. In 1768 he would appear to have played a ‘Suite de Symphonies’ for organ and orchestra by Rameau. However, performing material for such a work no longer exists and this programme is an attempt to re-create what it might have sounded like. So we have three modern organ concertos in mid-18th-century style ‘on themes by Rameau’ (famous themes, too), which are separated by orchestral dance suites drawn from the dramatic works of Rebel and Francoeur. The whole premise is not unreasonable. Rameau’s music was core repertoire at the Concert Spirituel and the programmes at this time often featured arrangements of various kinds. And it is splendid to hear these enthusiastic and clean performances on a ‘real’ organ – a three manual Clicquot of 1782. The registrations used are those recommended by Corrette for concertos and these – reed and tierce heavy in the allegros – do not always blend well with the strings. I wonder if, against an organ with serious ‘oomph’, the ensemble (33221) simply needed to be bigger? The booklet (Fr/Eng) includes three concise but lively essays. This is quite a short CD by most current standards, but it made me smile.

David Hansell

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Tags Baroque, Keyboard music

Recording

Splendour

Organ Music & Vocal Works By Buxtehude, Hassler, Praetorius & Scheidemann
Kei Koito, Il canto di Orfeo, Gianluca Capuano
73:14
deutsche harmonia mundi 8 89854 37672 7

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he star here is the 1624 (restored 1994) Scherer organ in the Stephanskirche, Tangermünde. The repertoire is that of ‘precursors of Bach’ who are, of course, all very competent in their own right. The principal pillars of the programme are ‘free’ organ works by Tunder, Scheidemann and Buxtehude and between them are placed chorale-based music – sometimes extracts from longish sets of variations. We also hear vocal settings of these same melodies contemporary with the organ music, a valuable programming device which others would do well to copy. The playing is sometimes a little laboured but never impossibly so and we certainly get to hear this marvellous instrument in all its glory. The essay (Ger/Fre/Eng) focusses informatively on the music. Further information – including the organ registrations, sung texts and their translations, and artist biographies are available online.

David Hansell

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Tags Baroque, Organ music, Vocal music

Recording

Andrea Antico: Frottole Intabulate per sonare organi Libro Primo, Roma 1517

Post author By EMR2015
Post date August 3, 2018
No Comments on Andrea Antico: Frottole Intabulate per sonare organi Libro Primo, Roma 1517

Maria Luisa Baldassari spinet, clavichord, harpsichord, clavicymbalum, organ
57:44
Tactus TC 480101

[dropcap]I[/dropcap] have to say that the music on this disc did little for me, though I do think I’d have enjoyed it more had I known the vocal originals here elaborated by ‘scales, thrills [sic] and passing notes’. But historically this music is highly significant – the first keyboard music ever to be printed. Its presentation is also thoughtful with sensitive playing on five instruments: spinet (modern copy, 1571 original); fretted clavichord (ditto, 1475); clavicembalum (ditto, 1450); harpsichord (ditto, 1697); and organ (original, 1533). All use ¼ comma mean-tone tuning except the clavichord which is Pythagorean. So organologically it’s all fascinating. Though the English ‘translation’ is rather a trial, the essay is interesting on the composer/arranger, the techniques he uses and the arrangements’ general context and purpose.

David Hansell

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Tags Keyboard music, Renaissance