Author: EMR2015

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Book

Andrew Parrott: The Pursuit of Musick: Musical Life in Original Writings and Art c1200-1770

Andrew Parrott The Pursuit of Musick: Musical Life in Original Writings and Art c1200-1770

Published by Taverner
504 pp
ISBN 978-1-915229-53-3 Hardback – £65
ISBN 978-1-915229-54-0 Paperback – £35
ISBN 978-1-915229-86-1 ebook – No detail of availability

I can find no better way of introducing this review than by quoting the opening sentence of the online blurb: ‘The Pursuit of Musick is an encyclopedic and generously illustrated anthology of original written sources, exploring some 600 years of musical activity in Europe, from the first troubadours to the emergence of the pianoforte’. For once lacking hyperbole, this is a succinct and factual description of what is a remarkable and beautifully produced book. Printed on heavy gloss paper -the paperback I have to hand weighs in at 2.3kg – that enables the lavish and profuse artwork to be reproduced to the highest quality, it will be concluded that this is no bedside table book!

Those that have kept in touch with Andrew Parrott’s activities, which sadly have involved little in the concert hall or opera house more recently, will know that he has been thinking about this book for some years.  Parrott’s eventual objective, which he only arrived at after several transitional ideas, was to allow the musicians (and the artists that involved themselves in their works) to speak for themselves with only brief introductions heading sections. The Book is divided into three parts: ‘Music & Society’, Music & Ideas’ and ‘Music & Performance’, which themselves are sub-divided into numerous sub-headings.  Part 1, for example, includes sections devoted to music in everyday life, the church, music at court and so forth. Not the least of the book’s attractions is its meticulous indexing of the source material, in the book itself for paintings, online at taverner.org for literary material.

There are two groups of people to whom this book is surely going to be an obligatory part of any music library: musicians involved with early music and writers and critics who also have any depth of involvement with the subject. Doubtless there are also many others that will take not only didactic interest but also an aesthetic one; it would be possible to pass many a rewarding and pleasurable hour just browsing the hundreds of illustrations. It will be obvious from the foregoing that this is indeed not a book for reading but one to use for research or simply the sheer enjoyment of dipping into it at random. I would imagine that on first acquaintance most readers will make for topics in which they have a particular interest. That was certainly my course in the limited amount of time I’ve had to so far examine the book. Thus my first ports of call included the sections on performance practice, vocal music and opera. In the case of the first named I was delighted to find solid support for one of the most frequent moans in my reviews – the over-fervent activities of theorbo players, particularly when they interfere with the vocal line. Here’s St Lambert in 1707: ‘the [continuo] accompaniment is made to support the voice, not to stifle or disfigure it with an unpleasant jangle…’  Or Bacilly in 1688: ‘If the theorbo is not played with restraint and there is too much complexity […] then it is theorbo accompanied by voice, not voice by theorbo’. It is fascinating too to find most of the ire directed at Italian players, for in my experience they are the worst culprits. But all theorbists should read, mark and learn.

When we turn to singing there are as many extracts concerning technique as might have been expected. One constant motif is the need for singers to maintain an ease of production, the sentiments behind these words of the German composer Hermann Finck (1527-1588) serving to illustrate universally acknowledged views that held good until the end of the period covered by the book: ‘Singing is not made more beautiful by bellowing and shouting: rather you should embrace all notes with spirit and understanding. The more a voice moves upwards, the quieter and sweeter the sound should be; the lower it goes the fuller it should be […]. Amen indeed to that. In an ideal world they are words that would be emblazoned on the portals of every singing conservatoire.  

The section on Music Drama leads from the earliest sacred representations through court intermedi to opera itself. The extracts devoted to opera are notable for illustrating how much more writing there is on the topic by French writers than Italian, probably an accurate reflection, though it would have been possible to have struck more of a balance. These extracts are dominated by the unending war between proponents of Italian opera and those favouring the French rival, summed up in an anonymous publication in Florence in 1756 (possibly by Gluck’s reformist librettist Calzabigi) forecasting the desirability of the combination of the best elements of both: ‘The opera in Paris offers [the audience] only painted scenery, ballets, machines, a sparkling assembly & a deep hush. In Naples it presents them only with ravishing music, beauties that are unseen & an appalling hubbub. Everyone understands that out of these two kinds one good one could be made, but no one has as yet thought to suggest it’. Prescient words.

It would be easy to continue citing such jewels, but it is time to leave the interested reader to obtain the book. But before doing so it is perhaps worth noting that the illustrations themselves provide a fount of information; staying with opera one might cite the marvellous illustration on p. 223 by P D Oliviero showing the re-opening of the Teatro Regio in Turin in 1740. Here one notes the wonderful set with its colonnaded perspective (not dissimilar to what can be seen in Turin today), stage filled with far more figures (12) than we normally experience in Baroque opera production today and the disposition and number of the orchestral musicians. No fewer than 29 musicians are involved, seated in two rows with harpsichords and continuo at either end of the pit. Two people are serving refreshments, while several in the front row are turning round to look at the audience rather than pay attention to what is happening on stage, a clear reminder that 18th-century audiences rarely paid undivided attention to the performance.

This magnificent publication can be obtained only online from: https://www.taverner.org/store. At the time of writing (mid-December 2022) it was available in both formats at a reduced price.

Brian Robins

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News

Podcasts from Paris

Fans of the French Baroque are in for a real treat if they visit https://expodcast.cmbv.fr/en – six podcasts have been produced by the Centre de Musique Baroque Versailles. To a rich musical backdrop, all sorts of information is shared (either in English or French) from the golden era of Louis XIV to the dawn of the Revolution. These are highly recommended!

Brian Clark

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Recording

Monteverdi: Concerto. Settimo libro de’ madrigali

CD cover Monteverdi Concerto Alessandrini

Concerto Italiano, Rinaldo Alessandrini
132:39 (2 CDs)
Naïve OP 7365

Concerto Italiano’s extremely steady progress through the Monteverdi madrigals – some of the earlier releases go back to the 1990s! – reaches its penultimate issue with Book 7, first published in Venice in 1619. Dedicated to Caterina de’ Medici, Duchess of Mantua and Montferrat its 29 items represent a complete break with the traditional integrated madrigal book, the composer giving us prior notice to expect something different by heading the collection ‘Concerto’ . Here we find an extraordinary range and variety ranging from long recitative solos in the stile rapresentativo (‘Se i languidi’, the famous love letter, here extremely well communicated by Monica Piccinini, a long-standing Italianist, , and ‘Se pur destina’, the lover’s parting), to madrigals in the old polyphonic style through to extended theatrical works like the ballo ‘Tirsi e Clori’and, perhaps most importantly of all, duets, including the unforgettably toe-tapping ‘Chiome d’oro’, here sung by two sopranos rather than the expected disposition of two tenors.

Anyone familiar with Alessandrini’s progress through the madrigal books will know that despite inevitable changes of personnel over the years, it has remained remarkably consistent both as to ambition and achievement, attaining high levels of performance throughout. This is no different. The bar is immediately set high by tenor Valerio Contaldo, an outstanding Ulisse in the recent ground-breaking Versailles Il ritorno d’Ulisse, with the introductory ‘Tempro la cetra’, an ever-increasingly virtuoso number with ritornelli, the ornamentation superbly articulated by the singer, whose diction is also exemplary. Here, too, though we find one of the few grounds for complaint in these performances. It’s the familiar one of over-elaborate plucked continuo, the constant arpeggiations adding an unwanted gloss. And while in moaning mood, let’s add violin playing in those numbers that call for bowed strings that continues to adhere to an all-purpose Baroque style rather than 17th-century bowing and set up. But in context these are relatively minor points and for the rest it really is nothing but praise. The works for two tenors seem to perhaps dominate the book. Contaldo and his colleague Raffaele Giordani, who is entrusted with the lamentations of the departing lover mentioned above, combine beautifully, especially in duets like ‘Interrotte speranze’ and ‘Ah, che non si conviene’, fascinating for their fundamentally harmonized rather than contrapuntal writing. Among more ostensibly traditional pieces the tortuous rising chromatic figure that dominates the four-part (SATB) ‘Tu dormi, ah crudo core’ brings with it a foretaste of the pleading of Seneca’s followers in L’incoronazione di Poppea.

To detail all the wonders of Book 7 would be too exhaustive and exhausting in a review of this nature. Suffice it to say Monteverdi here carries his revolution, his daring evolution of the madrigal to new levels. The key is the expression of extreme emotions by the employment of expressive mannerism that remarkably manages to remain just about under control. Overall it would be difficult to envisage performances that capture and convey this essence to a more telling, a more convincing level than these of Alessandrini.

Brian Robins

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Recording

Handel: Organ concertos op. 4 & op. 7

Handel organ concertos opp 4 and 7

Martin Haselböck (op. 4), Jeremy Joseph (op. 7), Orchester Wiener Akademie
164:00
Alpha Classics Alpha 742

In 2014 Martin Haselböck and his Orchester Wiener Akademie put themselves on the musical map with their Resound Beethoven project, which involved performing and recording the complete Beethoven symphonies on period instruments in Viennese venues where they had been premiered or performed in the composer’s lifetime. As the programme note to this 2-CD boxed set candidly admits, this project is very different in that the magnificent acoustic of the Goldener Saal of the Musikverein provides these organ concertos by Handel with a very different context from the composer’s own performances. While the Musikverein’s 2011 Rieger organ provides many of the stops available on a Baroque organ, again the context is very different, while the forces fielded by the Akademie are much smaller than those available to Handel for his performances, often in the wider context of an oratorio or an opera. And yet, these are utterly mesmerising performances, musically intelligent, technically superb, and wonderfully effervescent. While the Resound Beethoven project reminded us that the acoustic of the original venues is a factor in any attempt to reconstruct how music originally sounded, it is possible to produce an utterly convincing and engaging performance just by calling upon superlative musicians and placing them one of the finest acoustics in the world. If just occasionally I felt that an organ stop belonged in a later period, these are thoroughly enjoyable accounts with Haselböck himself at the keyboard for the op 4 concerti and Jeremy Joseph taking over for the op 7. For a generally more convincing period sound, the excellent 1996 set by Paul Nicholson on Hyperion with Roy Goodman and the Brandenburg Consort which uses an organ Handel himself is known to have played, and which gives us the op 4 no 6 on harp as originally intended as well as supplying the Alleluia chorus conclusion to op 4 no 4 (mentioned in the booklet notes for present recording but not performed) is probably for you, but I did very much enjoy these Viennese accounts.

D. James Ross

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Recording

Echoes of an Old Hall

Echoes of an Old Hall

Music from the Old Hall Manuscript
Gothic Voices
76:03
Linn CKD 644

There is always room on my shelves for a new selection of music from the Old Hall Manuscript, particularly when the music is as well sung as it is here. Gothic Voices, always leaders in the field of mediaeval and early Renaissance polyphony, bring a wealth of joint experience to this CD, and relatively obscure names such as Cooke, Mayshuet, Damett, Forest and Lymburgia are once again allowed to rub shoulders with their more celebrated contemporaries, Power, Byttering, Dunstaple, Pycard, and even the ubiquitous Binchois and Dufay. How exciting to find a five-part Gloria by John Cooke which is similar in style to and the qualitative equal of the remarkable and more familiar five-part Gloria by Power, which concludes the first part of the programme. The true masterpiece of the programme must be another five-part Gloria by Pycard which concludes the programme, and which is extremely impressive in its ruggedly conservative style. This is not just a random and generous selection of music from Old Hall though – it is extremely carefully structured, using the extraordinary ‘singers’ manifesto’ represented by the opening piece, Arae post libamini by Mayshuet de Joan, as a template. The second half of the programme, headed ‘reverberances’ is recorded partly at a distance, a radical departure for a group that in earlier times usually insisted on a very close recording ambience. This is an enthralling CD, imaginatively programmed with an excellent note by Julian Podger and compellingly performed. It will undoubtedly win many new admirers to the remarkable Old Hall Manuscript and its hugely important contents.

D. James Ross

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Recording

The Galant David Rizzio

Makaris
73:55
Old Focus Recordings FCR921

The subtitle of this CD (“eighteenth-century arrangements of traditional Scottish songs”) is more helpful than the main title, as the back of the CD readily admits that any attribution of the contents to Mary, Queen of Scots’ ill-fated secretary David Rizzio is entirely bogus. Rizzio was a musician, a singer and a fiddler, but none of the music which survives from Mary’s reign can be associated with him, while later attempts to invoke his musical ghost are clearly spurious. So what we have here is a programme of 18th-century traditional Scottish tunes, attractively and idiomatically sung and played by Makaris, a period instrument ensemble based in and around New York. They take the same free approach to their sources as the Baltimore Consort, and like them, occasionally the results sound a bit overdone to me. However, like the BC there is a beguiling energy and integrity to the playing and singing which is very attractive, while Fiona Gillespie’s vocals have a particular charm and authenticity. For some of the vocal duets, she is joined by the equally persuasive Corey Shotwell. Mischievously, the inside of the CD wallet sports ‘press cuttings’ from the 18th century, making and undermining the case for Rizzio’s authorship of the wealth of traditional repertoire which found its way into print at this time. The self-evident attractiveness and inventiveness of this music, so idiomatically presented here, makes the desire to provide it with a Renaissance courtly pedigree puzzling to us. Though perhaps for all we know ‘Davy the Fiddler’ may indeed have passed some of his time at court playing the forerunners of some of these tunes!

D. James Ross

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Recording

Pierre Colin: Trésor oublié de la Renaissance

CD cover Pierre Colin La Note Brève

Messes & Motets
La Note Brève
57:37
Paraty 7221120

Simon Gallot and his ensemble have done us a favour in introducing the neglected work of this mid-16th-century Burgundian composer. Although he seems to have spent his life in the relative musical backwater of Autun, Colin was scrupulous in seeing that much of his music made it to print. Still, while copies found their way into many of the great establishments of Europe, the music was often anonymous, and despite his best efforts Colin’s name lapsed into obscurity. His settings of the Mass and his motets, as well as his chansons, represented here by a performance on organ of L’oeil dict assez, are firmly in the mid-century style of the likes of Claudin. In tutti sections, the voices are accompanied by organ, an approach which suits the generally simple counterpoint rather well – the programme note suggests that Colin’s style is slightly more adventurous than the standard Parisian style of the period, with a greater tolerance of dissonance, but I can’t say that I was aware of this. However, Colin has a distinctive idiom and a thorough grasp of harmonic progressions and imitation, which means that this music is rarely dull. La Note Brève is a happy blend of male and female voices, producing a mellow sound and singing expressively. In their pursuit of authenticity, including convincing period pronunciation, this group belongs in the worthy tradition of French exploration of early choral music.

D. James Ross

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Recording

Méditation

CD cover of Simone Vallerotonda Les quatre saisons du luth

Les quarte saisons du luth
Simone Vallerotonda
56:42
Arcana A496

Seventeenth-century French lute music has a distinct sound quality unlike any other. It is musique recherchée, appealing then as now to a relatively small number of enthusiasts. It involves snippets of sound which create a variety of moods and effects. There are elements of polyphony, but not always a clear number of voices. There are glimpses of melodies, but not suitable for singing in the bath. The overall texture varies, but is generally quite thin, with musical ideas suggested rather than hammered out. It is enhanced with a plethora of ornaments. It is clearly expressive, but quite what it expresses is elusive.

In this charming, well-played anthology of French lute music Simone Vallerotonda groups pieces according to the four seasons, the four elements, and the four humours. First is Winter – Earth – Black Bile – Spleen – and the key of C minor. The mood of this group is set by an unmeasured Prélude by Charles Mouton (1626-1699), no. 22 in the CNRS edition. One might expect some rhythmic freedom in this sort of piece, but I think Vallerotonda overdoes it. For example, he makes no clear distinction between crotchets and quavers, as if he makes the rhythm up as he goes along. Better to listen without looking at the score. Mouton’s final cadence is extraordinary and unsettling: the dominant – a broken chord of G major with a seventh – takes us predictably to C minor defined by an e’ flat. Two quavers later there is an e’ natural switching the tonality to a cheerful C major, but any optimism suggested by the new key is soon erased, the bar ending back with e’ flat and a mournful chord of C minor.

There follows Mouton’s La belle Espagnole (CNRS no. 27), a chaconne with distinctly unequal quavers. Perfect cadences in C minor occur every four bars in the first half of the piece, and then, with harmonic progressions becoming more complex, they occur every eight bars. There is much variety, including a scale in the bass rising from the lowest note of Mouton’s 11-course lute, and a rising chromatic scale in the bass from e flat to c’. In fact chromaticism is an ever-present feature of the piece.

More sober is Mouton’s La belle Florentine, a sarabande which ambles along at a slower speed, again with unequal quavers, and a few strums. The inherent melancholy of the piece is partly derived from its low tessitura: in the long first section the first course is not used at all, and but for one open string note in bar 6 and four more at the end of the section, the second course is not used either. Thereafter a few higher notes begin to appear culminating with an anguished c” (7th fret on the 1st course) towards the end. Vallerotonda returns to the first section for a petite reprise of gloom.

Amongst the pieces in the Winter set are Tombeau Mazarin by Robert de Visée (1650-1725), played with some slides up to high notes, and down to lower ones, and a repetitive chaconne, La Comete, by Jacques Gallot (1625-95). This last piece has unexpected harmonic turns and is very soothing on the ears, but I do not understand why it should be included in the Winter set. Gallot’s Chaconne is in C major, and does not evoke Black Bile and Spleen as the C minor pieces allegedly do. However, from the programming point of view it does round off the set nicely.

One might have expected Spring to follow Winter, but here it is Summer which comes next – Choleric – Fire – Yellow Bile – Liver – and music in G minor by different composers. Particularly noteworthy is Air pour les esclaves africains by Jean Philippe Rameau (1683-1764). It is a fine piece, reminiscent of Lully, and Vallerotonda’s transcription sounds well on the lute. The fourth piece of the set is a courante in G major by Robert de Visée, so no Yellow Bile and Liver here. By the way, it would have been helpful to include more information in the liner notes about the music. Which courante is it, and from which source?

The third season of the CD is Autumn – Phlegmatic – Water – Phlegm – Head – and music in D minor. One of the items is another transcription of music by Rameau, this time from a harpsichord solo, Les Tendres Plaintes, which comes from Rameau’s Pieces de Clavessin (Paris, n.d. [1724]) p. 15. The piece consists of two voices for the most part, mainly with continuous quavers in the bass, and slower note values in the treble. To fit on the lute, the music has to be transposed down an octave, but otherwise little needs changing for a playable transcription. Most of the music on the CD was written for the 11-course lute, but in his transcription, Vallerotonda takes advantage of the low A available on his 13-course instrument. The last Autumn track is Canaries ou Gigue by Valentin Strobel (1610-69), a surprising choice since Strobel was German, not French.

The last season is Spring – Sanguine – Air – Blood – Heart – and A major/ minor. The set begins with an upbeat La Muzette by Robert de Visée, the first half of which is in A major, and the second half in A minor. In contrast, it is followed by De Visée’s beautiful Tombeau du Vieux Gallot in A minor, where the bass is forever heading downward, and the final chord is shockingly dissonant. There follow two pieces by Jacques Gallot – La Cicogne and Les Castagnettes – the latter with many off-beats strums. The set ends with Charles Mouton’s My mistress is pretty [Bransle de Mantoue], no. 114 in the CNRS edition, played with many ornaments added to the repeats of sections and a flurry of notes enlivening the repeat of bars 7. The CD ends with an intabulation of Les Barricades Mystérieuses by François Couperin (1668-1733). The piece is in B flat major, which does not fit any of the four seasons, but its justification for being included is given as “Eucrasia or balance of the four temperaments”.

Simone Vallerotonda’s CD includes some delightful music which he plays well, but trying to link these pieces to the seasons, elements, and humours, is illogical, fanciful nonsense.

Stewart McCoy

Categories
Recording

Music for French Kings

CD cover Music for French Kings

Amanda Babington musette, Claire Babington cello, David Smith 
Duration unknown (34 tracks lasting from 19 seconds to 3 minutes 40)
Deux-Elles DXL 1188

Well, you’d never guess it from the title, but this is a disc of music for musette and continuo. I have to be honest, for a ‘generally-interested-in-early-music’ person it will be a hard continuous listen all the way through, not so much because of the drones and their inevitable conflicts with the underlying harmony but more because of melodic intonation issues on higher notes, which would not be acceptable from either of the soloist’s other instruments.

However, perhaps that’s not really the point. In its time and place, as the very readable essay (in English only) makes clear, the musette – like the hurdy-gurdy – was an important element in French courtly entertainment with a substantial published repertoire by perfectly respectable composers such as Hotteterre and Boismortier. The style inclines to the lightweight in these various suites and the music must have been the perfect foil to the pastoral entertainments of which it may well have been part.

But explore the recital in instalments. Other than the intonation ‘moments’ (inherent in the instrument) the playing is excellent.

David Hansell

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Recording

Gervais: Grands Motets

CD cover Gervais motets Vashegyi

Purcell Choir, Orfeo Orchestra, György Vahegyi
72:04
Glossa GCD 924013

Charles-Hubert Gervais (1671-1744) became one of the sous-maitres of the Chapelle du Roy in 1722, one of those to benefit from the re-establishment and re-vamping of the court’s musical institutions after the relatively austere Regency years. He composed more than 40 grands motets, some of which remained in the repertoire right up to the Revolution. These are very much ‘after Lalande’ – indeed, the elder man’s music is alluded to or even quoted from time to time – but in many respects Gervais is very much his own man. Unusually, he often reduces the orchestral texture from its traditional five parts to three (violin, viola and bass) and is inclined to eschew vocal virtuosity in favour of more restrained expressive effects, such as harmony, despite his background in the theatre.

Among the soloists, haute-contre Cyrille Dubois is the stand-out, with the range, taste, and skill to deliver his music beautifully. The other soloists are never less than good, though all are guilty from time to time of trying to do a bit too much with their music. Choir and Orchestra are also on good form, and I note that, whereas in their earlier days, there was a significant number of western European players, almost all are now home-grown.

The booklet (in English, French and German) offers its thorough and interesting essay in all three languages though the Latin texts are translated only into English and there is no information about the artists.

David Hansell