Author: EMR2015

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Recording

Joseph Schuster: String Quartets

Pink chrysanthemum

Quartetto “Joseph Joachim”
59:30
Pan Classics PC 0379

THESE SIX QUARTETS include four which were, until relatively recently, thought to be Mozart – the correct identification of a set of parts in Padua, which featured on both composers’ travelling itineraries in the 1770s helped clear up the confusion and allow the music to be correctly attributed. Schuster was eight years Mozart’s senior and a celebrated violinist himself. On this re-release of a 2001 recording, the Joseph Joachim quartet – on period instruments – give first-class performances of these six fine works, all but one in three movements; the exception, no. 4 in A, consists of an Allegro assai and an Andantino con cinque variazioni. The recorded sounds is very crisp with lots of detail without any of the breathing noises one typically hears in recordings of string quartets.
Brian Clark

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Recording

Beethoven: Piano Trios, Op. 1

Pink chrysanthemum

Trio Goya
96:07 (2 CDs)
Chandos Chaconne 0822 (2)

Composed during the early 1790s, the three pianos trios that would come to be published in 1795 as his opus 1 bore a dedication to Beethoven’s patron Prince Carl Lichnowsky, who probably helped fund the enterprise. In at least one sense they make a clear statement of intent, since all three are large-scale works in four movements that set out a far more grandiose stall than the modest three-movement trios of Haydn and Mozart. Yet despite their obvious ambitious scale, in other ways they largely conform to the image of Beethoven as the darling of the Viennese salons. With the possible exception of the gruffly uncompromising opening theme of the final movement of the final C minor trio – and it is surely significant that Beethoven makes little of it in the development – there is little here of the barnstorming young Beethoven of some of the early piano sonatas. Rather the general impression given is of an often exuberant good humour juxtaposed with romantic leanings of the kind found in the innocent yearnings of the Adagio cantabile of the E flat Trio (No. 1).

It is just these qualities that are to the fore in these performances by the experienced members of the Trio Goya, Kati Debretzeni (violin), Sebastian Comberti (cello) and Maggie Cole (piano). At first I found the performances a little understated and indeed the opening of the E flat Trio is rather subdued, especially given the rather dry acoustic and lower than normal level of sound. Only a slight volume boost revealed that these are in fact exceptionally satisfying and highly musical interpretations. The balance, so much easier to obtain with an instrument of the period (a copy by Paul McNulty of an Anton Walter (c. 1795), is exemplary throughout, revealing contrapuntal passages such as the development of the opening movement of the G major Trio (No. 2) in crystalline yet never purely academic detail. For an example of sheer exuberance and wit it is necessary to point no further than the Presto finale of the same Trio, which sets off like a steeplechase with wonderfully fleet playing and barely contained excitement. Later the splendid modulatory transition back to the recapitulation is given an air of breathless expectancy, while the final coda brings just one example of exquisite pianissimo playing. There is, too, a poise about the slow movements, perhaps best exemplified by the hymn-like subject of the G major’s Largo con espressione, first heard on the piano then taken up by the cello and continued with a magically beguiling concentration that captivates the listener.

Incidentally, William Drabkin’s somewhat academic notes make the surprising point that the writing for the cello in opus 1 is ‘modest’, surprising since in fact there are a number of particularly felicitous passages for the instrument, such as the beautifully played cantabile melody at the outset of the E flat Trio’s Adagio Cantabile. I was amused to find that Maynard Solomon’s fine monograph on the composer draws precisely the opposite conclusion, drawing attention to the ‘independent and occasionally florid writing for the cello’ that abounds in the trios.

This now joins the Castle Trio (Virgin Classics) as a firm recommendation for a period instrument recording of these engaging trios.
Brian Robins

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Recording

C. P. E. Bach „für mich”

Pink chrysanthemum

Ensemble Klangschmelze
64:49
ambitus amb 96 957

THIS BEAUTIFUL RECORDING arrived only a few days ago and it has hardly been out of my player since then. Bach’s Clavierfantasie in F sharp minor Wq. 67 and Duett for flute and violin Wq. 140 are sandwiched between three of my favourite pieces by “the Berlin Bach”, his quartets [sic] for keyboard, flute and viola Wq. 93-95. I remember long ago (yes, I know I’m still a relatively young thing!) hearing them on an LP (yes, OK!) with Christopher Hogwood at the keyboard on the amazing Decca L’oiseau lyre label and being astonished by mercurial music of which I had never heard the likes, and feeling drawn into what can only be described as Bach’s fantasy world; as the insightful booklet notes note, his “trademark” is rather a lack of form. I’ve often read that it is difficult to get over one’s first impression of a piece of music; I sincerely doubt, for sure, that anyone will ever surpass Emma Kirkby’s portrayal of Dido in the Taverner Consort recording… Yet the present performers have taken music I thought I really knew and led me even further into realms of electrifying excitement; by subtly pausing on this note or that, or having the audacity to decorate an already ornate line, they keep us guessing where the composer (and they) will take us next. The engineers have done Ensemble Klangschmelze proud with a bright, lively sound world and, all in all, this is a CD that I am sure I shall continue to savour for months and years to come. Bravo!
Brian Clark

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Recording

Mayr: Psalms from Sacri Concentus 1681

Floral design

Ars Antiqua Austria, Gunar Letzbor
59:13
Challenge Classics CC72759

OFTEN THESE DAYS groups attempt some sort of liturgical reconstruction when they perform and record selections of Vespers music. Not so here. Even though there is plenty of room for another psalm and a Magnificat, Letzbor (whose booklet note spend six pages talking about the training of choir boys before devoting two to the little that is known with much certainty about Rupert Ignaz Mayr) is forced by restricting himself to a single publication to give us four psalms performed by four different singers with four-part string accompaniment and a similarly scored hymn setting. Boy treble Fabian Winkelmaier sings Laudate pueri, tenor Markus Miesenberger Confitebor tibi Domine, alto Markus Foster Beati omnes, bass Gerd Kenda Nisi Dominus and male soprano Alois Mühlbacher Venite gentes. These are what Letzbor calls “honest” recordings with no extra engineering to “nicefy” the sound, so the sound is quite dry which pays dividends at the ends of phrases where the decay is fairly rapid. I am disappointed that at least one more piece from the 1681 publication was not included – there are some really nice moments on this recording!
Brian Clark

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Recording

Jenkins: Complete four-part consort music

Floral design

Fretwork
83:02 (2 CDs in a single jewel case)

THERE ARE 17 four-part fantasies by the English composer John Jenkins (1592-1678) and they really ought to be far better known! On the international stage, England is really all about Purcell, Elgar and Benjamin Britten… this is so unfair to a large number of composers whose music deserves recognition; Jenkins, “a very gentle and well bred gentleman” according to the writer Nigel North (with whose family he lived for eight years), is one such. There is a charm and an ease about these fantasies, a fluidity of texture and effortless of counterpoint which means one can listen for long periods of time without even being aware that one piece has ended and another begun; the four voices interact in a way that is at once inevitable and deeply satisfying. In the hands of performers of the quality of Fretwork, it is a relaxing and purifying experience; no one voice dominates the others, especially in the two four-part pavans which complete the programme. The recordings, which were made in 2016, are accompanied by an informative booklet and will surely prove popular with fans of Fretwork and John Jenkins – I sincerely hope, though, that they will also draw new admirers to this sublime music.
Brian Clark

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Recording

The Battle, the Bethel & the Ball

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(Music by Heinrich Biber)
Acronym
68:15
Olde Focus Recordings

ONE MIGHT WORRY that five of the seven works on a CD are only attributed to the composer whose name it bears, but when the attribution is sanctioned by an expert like Charles Brewer, one need have little real anxiety. While Biber was far from being the only “crazy” composer of his day (Schmelzer wrote music in 5/4 time, Valentini’s harmonic shifts are sometimes reminiscent of Prokoviev, to name but two!), the works in question do bear too many of his signature traits for there to be any serious doubt. The programme is bookended by a remarkable Sonata Jucunda a5 which pushes 17th-century harmony to the limits and the composer’s Battalia with its renowned combination of folk songs in different keys. Sandwiched in between are solo motets for soprano and baritone with distuned violin, solos for gamba and violin with continuo (the latter is the longer version of the increasingly popular Ciacona) and another attribution, this time a set of dances for two instrumental groups, which plays very cleverly with the imitative possibilities of the music. As with their previous recordings, ACRONYM (aka Anachronistic Cooperative Realizing Obscure Nuanced Yesteryear’s Masterpieces!) absolutely throw themselves into this wild world and relish every note – soprano Molly Quinn and baritone Jesse Blumberg need no introduction to regular readers of these pages, and their contribution matches the instrumentalists perfectly. The recording is beautifully clear – try the opening of track 2 (O Dulcis Jesu), where the string bass, organ and theorbo are all distinctly audible, while Molly Quinn’s voice floats effortlessly across the top. The booklet notes are brief but pertinent and translations are given of both of the sung texts. I hope I don’t have to wait too long for ACRONYM’s next release!
Brian Clark

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Recording

Quer Bach 2

Floral design

SLIXS
47:44
Hey! Classics LC 29640

CROSSOVER IS NOT really our thing, but these Bach arrangements for a cappella voices reminiscent of The Swingle Singers are actually quite revelatory in the way in which the original lines are vocalised to different sounds, meaning not only the timbres of the individual voices but also the vowels and consonants they choose, and how they are sometimes shared between voices to cover the wide ranges. For me, it was frustrating to have so many bleeding chunks – two of three movements of the A minor violin concerto, for example, are separated by the theme and seven of the Goldberg Variations and the slow movement of the D minor concerto for two violins. While I found the theme a little languorous, the first half of Variation 1 (especially with two voices sometimes singing the “top” line to give added colour) babbled along, though parts of the verbal exchanges of the second half were a little too “hard” for my ears. This was not always a problem, as the “Fuga Canonica in Epidiapente” from The Musical Offering really gained from the same treatment – the complex counterpoint became so clear! Not one for purists, I fear, but possibly something to put on during a dinner party to see if anyone can guess what it is.
Brian Clark

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Book

Fasch und die Konfessionen

Floral design

Bericht über die Internationale Wissenschaftliche Konferenz am 21. Und 22. April 2017 im Rahmen der 14. Internationalen Fasch-Festtage in Zerbst/Anhalt
Fasch-Studien 14
Ortus Verlag om243. 432pp. €40.50
ISBN 978-3-937788-58-6

2017 MARKED THE 500TH ANNIVERSARY of the beginning of the Reformation. Martin Luther, whose Wittenberg Theses set the whole thing in motion and who, to a very large part single-handedly, established the liturgy (including its music) of the church which still bears his name, had very close connections with Zerbst, so it was thought appropriate to theme the conference that took place there during the Fasch Festival that year against a religious background. At various points in his life, the composer was employed by Catholic and Protestant nobles, and struggled with his own Pietist beliefs which were considered heresy by the Anhalt court censors. The present volume includes the texts of the 13 papers given, a comprehensive index and biographies of the authors.

Michael Maul opened proceedings with an introduction to the development of musical establishments within the Lutheran church; likening the push to educate boys in the art of singing to Germany’s determined efforts to rebuild their football team after a disastrous World Cup competition, he portrayed Luther’s drive as political expedience and a formative influence on the way music held a central place in the new church. Jan Brademann then explained developments in Zerbst where the court remained Lutheran while the town adhered to the Reformed church and the reaction of both to the rise of Pietism (of which Fasch was a proponent) and the consequences for musicians.

An important figure in the early 18th century was Johann Baptist Kuch; Rashid-S. Pegah took over 50 pages to fill out his biography and details of music in Zerbst immediately before and during his tenure as Capell Director. After several readings, I still feel I have not absorbed all the information he gives! Gerhardt Poppe’s paper focuses on Fasch’s settings of the mass for Zerbst. His studies of the Dresden chapel repertoire are well known, but there are clear gaps in his knowledge of the Fasch literature; firstly, [now Dr] Maik Richter was certainly not the first person to recognise the regular use of mass movements in the Zerbst liturgy; secondly, the Latin movements were not replaced by German hymns on the third days of Christmas, Easter, and Whitsun, but by settings of the German mass text (of which there were two settings in the “Zerbster Musikstube”); and thirdly, as I explained to him at the conference, the chronology of the F and G major versions of the mass known as FR 1260 is reversed, so movements he calls “new” in his analysis are actually “old”…

Gottfried Gille surveyed the contents of the surviving editions of the Zerbster Gesangbuch, the bespoke hymn book used in worship throughout the principality, including discussions of local poets whose works are included. My own paper focused on a set of part-books that contained music for an annual cycle of chorales; the fact that the text of the first was by one of the local poets Gille had identified (Johannes Betichius) led me to realise that the chorales were those Fasch used in 1738 to craft two cantata cycles from a single cycle. The only cantata from the cycle that had survived (without the central chorale!) was performed in its 1738 version in the church service that took place in the Bartholmäikirche on the Sunday after the conference.

The next four papers investigated figural music in the court chapel. Nigel Springthorpe’s “Roellig in charge” set out to establish which cycles were performed in which years, and Marc-Roderich Pfau introduced details of a cycle by Christopher Förster. Beate Sorg and Evan Cortens are recognised Graupner specialists: Sorg explored his contributions to the so-called “Dresden Jahrgang”, which Marc-Roderich Pfau had postulated Fasch compiled in advance of his sabbatical in the Saxon capital, and challenges some of Pfau’s conclusions. Cortens sought to demonstrate how the musical origins of Neumeister’s “new” cantata form lay in the opera house, and argued that the crippling financial impact of even attempting to maintain such an institution was alleviated by moving the musical style into the liturgical sphere.

The final three papers concerned music for funerals. Barbara Reul established the format of funerals in Zerbst and produced new evidence about the locations where such things were held. Irmgard Schaller’s focus was on the texts written (and printed) for such events. From a Fasch perspective, perhaps the most important revelation came in Maik Richter’s paper which introduced a series of letters he had found in the Cöthen court records concerning music that he was commissioned to write for a funeral there that (in conjunction with his previous archival research that had established that Fasch was paid for birthday and New Year cantatas) suggest that he was pretty much considered the Kapellmeister for all of the Anhalt lands. Personally, I see no point in speculating which musicians from Zerbst might have taken part in the services in Cöthen. On the other hand, it is invaluable to have the full texts of the three cantatas, and – obviously – to have letters in which the composer explains how he will set about dealing with the texts he had been sent.

Such a fine volume – handsomely printed by ortus verlag – could not have been produced without an enormous amount of editorial work; two former presidents of the Internationale Fasch-Gesellschaft e. V. (Konstanze Musketa and Barbara M. Reul) are to be commended for seeing another fine volume of Fasch-Studien through the press.
Brian Clark

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Recording

Mysterien-Kantaten

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Buxtehude, Bruhns, Pachelbel…
Ensemble Les Surprise, Louis-Noël Bestion de Camboulas
58:22
Ambronay AMY051

THERE ARE FOUR vocal works in this programme and the same number of instrumental. The soprano Mailys de Villoutreys sings Buxtehude’s Klag Lied (“Muss der Tod denn auch entbinden?”) and the beautiful “Herr, wenn ich nur dich habe” on a ground bass with wonderful control – she has a rich, warm vibrato which she deploys as an ornament, just as it should be. Her partner in Christoph Bernhard’s “Wohl dem, der den Herren fürchtet”, baritone Etienne Bazola, is the perfect match; his rendition of Bruhns’ “De profundis” is as dramatic as one could hope for – his ability to master the wide leaps (especially in the amazing final Alleluia section!) is remarkable. The success of the whole recording, however, is in no large part down to the instrumentalists – perfectly matched violins, sympathetically supported by a continuo line-up of theorbo and claviorganum. The director’s arrangement of the Ciaccona by Pachelbel which opens the disc is very convincing, as is the similarly doctored Passacaglia in D minor by Buxtehude (BuxWV 161). He plays a Praeambulum in D minor by Scheidemann (WV34), using both sounds offered by his instrument, which was built for him in 2000.
Brian Clark

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Uncategorized

Zelenka: Missa Sancti Josephi

Julia Lezhneva, Daniel Taylor, Tilman Lichdi, Jonathan Sells SATB, Kammerchor Stuttgart, Barockorchester Stuttgart, Frieder Bernius
57:51
Carus 83.279

THESE GROUPS have had a strong relationship with Zelenka’s music for many years – in fact, the first choral music I ever heard by him was their version of his Missa Dei Patris. This CD is evidence of the affinity they clearly have. As well as the mass (which, being for a saint, lacks a setting of the Credo, according to Dresden usage), the disc includes settings of De profundis and In exitu Israel, psalms that form part of Vespers for Sundays. There are many fine moments to enjoy in the music, such as the opening of the Gloria of the mass, and the bass trio that opens the De profundis setting, but throughout the singing and playing is simply superlative, and all beautifully captured by the recording engineers. It may seem an odd thing to highlight but I was particularly impressed that the packaging did not concentrate on the soloists – in a world in which that is increasingly becoming the norm, it is great to see Carus stick to their house style and let the music (and these first-class performances of it) speak for themselves.

Brian Clark