Author: EMR2015

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Goldberg: Complete Trio Sonatas

CD cover Goldberg Trio sonatas Ricercar Ludus Instrumentalis

Ludus Instrumentalis, Evgeny Sviridov
69:57
RIC 426

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This well-played CD collects the surviving trio sonatas of Johann Gottlieb Goldberg, and begins with one formerly attributed to his teacher, J. S. Bach, when it was known as BWV 1037: we soon see why. Wilhelm Friedemann Bach was introduced to Goldberg as a child keyboard prodigy at Dresden in 1737, when he had been brought there aged 10 by Count von Keyserlingk from his natal Danzig. It was probably W. F. who supervised his initial studies in Dresden, though Johann Sebastian certainly taught him after he moved to Leipzig in 1746 and the set of variations for the insomniac Keyserlingk bears his name.

Goldberg died of consumption in 1756, having lived in Leipzig and then after moving back to Dresden on Keyserlingk’s return in 1749, before entering the service of Count Heinrich von Brühl in 1751, where he composed virtuoso harpsichord concertos in the gallant style and a number of chamber works. His surviving cantatas, written when he was 15 (and also recorded by Ricercar), ‘display an astonishing skill in the use of imitation and fugato’ when writing for chorus. J. F. Reichardt, writing at the end of the 18th century, placed him on the same level as Bach and Handel.

Many of these techniques are displayed in these chamber works, which include four trio sonatas, a prelude and fugue in G minor and a sonata for two violins, viola and basso continuo in C minor.

Ludus Instrumentalis is a group of young players led by Evgeny Sviridov who have made some Youtube videos to illustrate their work. Their instruments are fully listed in the liner notes, and their mellow harpsichord is by Zander (2017) after Dulcken. I find the balance excellent and the playing attentive, bringing out the counterpoint well and allowing us to hear the detail as the melodic interest shifts among the instruments.

I found this CD an eye-opener. Goldberg’s writing is astonishingly more like Johann Sebastian’s than anyone else among their contemporaries. Included is a Prelude and Fugue which illustrates what the 48 might look like if they had been written for this standard chamber combination rather than a keyboard. And even if the other trio sonatas show more chromaticism and display a more tortured and involved counterpoint as Goldberg explores a more gallant approach to thematic material – this sometimes seems to herald the approach of a more romantic period – the facility in part-writing is assured and those who do not know this music will learn a lot about where music might have gone had this extraordinary talent not been snuffed out at the age of 29.

You will enjoy this CD, as well as being surprised by Goldberg: please listen to it.

David Stancliffe

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Recording

Anima aeterna

CD cover Anima aeterna Jakub Jozef OrlinskiIl pomo d'oro

Jakub Józef Orliński countertenor Fatma Said soprano, Chorus and Orchestra of Il Pomo D’Oro, directed by Francesco Corti
80:21
Erato 0190296743900

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Polish countertenor Jakub Józef Orliński first came to notice in a YouTube video singing an aria from Vivaldi’s Il Giustino. Endowed with a ravishing voice of a pure golden sweetness, the looks of a young Hollywood star and an exceptional if not perfect vocal technique, Orliński’s video rapidly achieved cult status and a recent check showed it has received over 8 million viewings. A follow-up video of him break dancing did no harm either. Since then, however, he has shown himself to be more than an ephemeral boy wonder, producing fine CDs of both sacred and secular arias in addition to singing Ottone in what has to be referred to as Joyce DiDonato’s Agrippina.

Here Orliński returns to sacred repertoire in a programme that includes several rarities, though I suppose it is a sign of the times that the singer is quick to point out in his introductory note that it is not the religious side that is the principal focus. In a sense, there is some justification for that in that all this is music of the counter-Reformation, music that owes much to opera and is designed to appeal more to the senses than it does to the soul. Nothing better illustrates this than the opening motet by Zelenka, Barbara, dira, effera, Z 164, a furious outburst against the crucifiers of Jesus – the text reads uncomfortably today – driven by fierce, taut rhythms and melodic angularity typical of the composer. Consisting of a long, unusually structured opening aria, a short recitative and the final ‘Alleluja’ customary in motets, it’s a bravura piece well suited to displaying Orliński’s vituoso gifts, in particular the dazzlingly articulated passaggi. Less admirable is a reluctance to introduce trills, which as I’ve previously noted he can sing but appear still to be work in progress rather than a confident part of his technique.

The other side of the Orliński coin is strikingly in evidence on the following track, an aria for the Repentant Sinner from Fux’s sepolcro – oratorios staged at the imperial court in Vienna in Holy Week – Il Fonte della salute (1716). A beautiful continuo aria with an obbligato part for baryton, it provides the ideal vehicle for the singer to display the sheer beauty of his voice and unwavering sense of line and shaping. Another motet by Zelenka, a setting of the Vespers psalm Laetatus sum, ZWV 90 is a duet for which Orliński is joined by the bright, flexible soprano of Fatma Said. The opening duet has an entrancing, dancing lightness exceedingly well captured here, while succeeding movements including solo arias for both voices as well as further brief duets, in which the voices combine exquisitely, especially in the setting of ‘Gloria’, which underlining the point made above could in a different context well be a love duet. With the exception of the brief Handel antiphon with which the programme ends, the remaining items are by less familiar composers. ‘Giusto Dio’ by the Portuguese composer De Almeida (1702-1755) and is prayerful plea of great beauty from his oratorio La Giuditta, again allowing Orliński to demonstrate his legato and including a central section that calls for his impressively strong chest register. The da capo opens with a lovely messa da voce and although the aria is taken at an indulgently slow tempo, the overall effect is so beguilingly luxuriant I for one am not complaining. Even less well known is Bartholomeo Nucci (fl. 1717-c.1749), from whose oratorio Il David trionfante comes a rather conventional trumpet aria, the martial tones and virtuoso character of which tempt Orliński into a rather vulgar cadenza. Of greater substance is the setting of Laudate pueri by Gennaro Manno (1715-1779), a member of a family of musicians and for a period joint maestro di cappella at Naples Cathedral with the aging Porpora. Following a florid opening nicely contrasted sections also include choral interjections, the only work on the CD to do so.

Overall, the programme vividly enhances Orliński’s now-established credentials as a serious singer rather than a celebrity. Given the unfamiliarity of much of the programme, it is a pity that the notes are so unhelpful; Manna is omitted completely. I’m not sure what to make of a cover picture that seemingly finds Orliński in mid-Ovidian metamorphosis into some kind of greenery.

Brian Robins

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Recording

Bach / Biber: Pièces pour Violon & Basse

CD cover Immanuelle Dauvin Bach and Biber recital

OVNI Baroque
Emmanuelle Dauvin violin & organ
60:45
Hitsura HSP 007

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This unusual CD explores the real and implied harmonic resonances in selected works by Biber and Bach. The performer is the French violinist Emmanuelle Dauvin, who while exploring the Bach works for solo violin found herself fascinated by the polyphonic implications and was led back to Biber’s sonatas and their sparse bass lines. How could she bring out the implied harmonic structure line in Biber’s Rosary sonatas with their extravagant and varied tuning? OVNI Baroque is short for “Orgue & Violon Nouvelle Interprétation”, and this takes its inspiration from her hero, Nicholas Bruhns, who was said to have played the organ and violin simultaneously.

How is that possible? Her answer is to use her feet, as Bruhns is said to have done. And so, beginning with the pedal points held in Biber’s Annunciation Sonata, she began playing some simple pedal passages as she played the violin. In addition to the Partita BWV 1002, she includes one piece of Bach, BWV 1023, the ‘Sonata a Violino solo col Basso’, where she plays the slow moving bass line on the organ, leaving its implied harmonies to be suggested by the rich harmonic overtones of the Montre 8’ – or is it the Pédale 8’ Basse? – and the church’s acoustics combined, and I had half been expecting her to add some of the implied bass line in the Partita prima a violin solo senza Basso (BWV 1002) which she divides into two, but she plays it straight, and is clearly committed to HIP.

She plays an instrument by Fabien Peyruk after Amati (2015), but switches for the Nativité sonata to a violin by André Mehler after Stainer (2010). The organ in the church at Guignicourt (Aisne) was built by Jean Daldosso in 2003, and is in the north transept whose details you can see on this website:

https://www.villeneuve-sur-aisne.fr/decouvrir-guignicourt/lorgue-jean-daldosso

And the playing? I found the recorded sound in the church harmonically rich and curiously satisfying. The clear and firm basso feels quite sufficient in the Biber sonatas, and I applaud her attention to the basic resonance of the church. It is an interesting take, and easy to listen to. The accompanying glossy booklet has a quality feel to it, but manages to say very little about the music and a great deal about Dauvin’s feelings. It is a very French experience, and violinists in particular will be intrigued.

David Stancliffe

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Recording

Bach: 6 suites

Myriam Rignol Bach cello suites on gamba

Myriam Rignol viole de gambe
73:98 [sic] + 81:36 (in a card triptych)
Château de Versailles Spectacles CVS040

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Myriam Rignol plays with Les Arts Florissants, Raphaël Pichon’s Ensemble Pygmalion and The Ricercar Consort (Phillipe Pierlot) as well as a number of other classy groups and has recorded the Bach ‘cello suites – pour le viola de Basso as the earliest copy by Kellner from 1726 indicates – on the viola da gamba. In spite of the title given to this recording project and the many photographs of Versailles and of Rignol there with her instrument, the recording was made last November in la Cité de la Voix de Vézelay.

She points out in a conversation in the booklet that for the very French-style suites, Bach might well have had the sound world of the gamba and its noted French exponents in mind. And in his foreword, Giles Cantagrel rehearses how uncertain we are about just what the violoncello was becoming in the early years of the 18th century. We know that Bach disliked the stiff way in which the ‘cello was played in Leipzig, and preferred a more viola-type of instrument to play passagework more lightly. Was this a bassetgen (which Gerber said Bach had invented around 1724 for just this purpose – the so-called viola pomposa – one of which was in Bach’s possession when he died) or the violoncello da spalla or the violoncello piccolo? Certainly, the final suite needs an instrument other than the present-day ‘cello, so why not use the favoured French instrument for these very ‘French-style’ pieces?

And the results seem to justify this choice. Not only is her French viole de gambe a fine instrument in its own right (and although photographed several times, there are no details of its maker or provenance), but it gives life to the implied polyphony of so much of the music in a new and convincing way in her capable hands. She plays unfettered by a tradition of interpretation, and the freedom and lightness she brings suits the dance-like quality of the music well: it is about as far from Pablo Casals as you could get! I like it a lot, and hope that other gamba players will want to embrace the ‘cello suites in their repertoire.

David Stancliffe

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Bach: Ich hatte viel Bekümmernis, Herz und Mund…

CD cover of Bach Ich hatte viel Bekümmernis Rademann

Núria Rial, Wiebke Lehnkuhl, Benedikt Kristjánsson, Matthias Winckhler, Gaechinger Cantorey, Hans-Christoph Rademann
65:54
Carus 83.522

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These two substantial cantatas are as good an introduction to Bach cantatas as you are likely to get, and they are presented in this CD published by Carus Verlag as an up-to-the-moment take on how to do the cantatas.

The pair is well-chosen: both are the results of the routine into which Bach’s new appointment at Leipzig threw him, and show the composer adapting compositions from the Weimar period to novel contexts. Both are substantial works in two parts. Ich hatte viel Bekümmernis (BWV 21) was probably originally composed as a test piece for a post in Halle in 1713, from which Bach later withdrew. He used it for the 3rd Sunday after Trinity in 1714, again for a trial in Hamburg in 1720 in D minor, presumably in Cammerton, and it was included in the first cantata cycle of 1723 on June 13th, reworked for C in – presumably – Cammerton. The original key in Weimar seems to have been C at Chorton, and by 1723 in Leipzig it was back in C, but at Cammerton, with four colla parte trombones in movement ix. It has everything: the division of the singers into soli and tutti, an opening sinfonia with a solo oboe, a soprano/bass duet between the soul and the vox Christi, illustrative writing, a recitative accompanied by two oboes da caccia, and a blazing finale with a choir of trumpets – a veritable showcase of styles and techniques.

Only a few weeks later Leipzig heard BWV 147, Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben, which was written originally for the fourth Sunday of Advent 1716 in Weimar, of which nothing survives except the opening chorus. For its re-use for the feast of the Visitation, 2nd July 1723, Bach retained Salomo Franck’s arias but composed three recitatives incorporating Marian allusions and the celebrated extended setting of the chorale we know as Jesu, joy of man’s desiring, repeated at the end of both parts. This extended chorale setting, where the lilting 9/8 melodic material of the ritornelli is derived from the chorale itself, is the first of such extended settings of final chorales which provide occasional, more elaborate alternatives to the plain four-part setting. Was it Dame Myra Hess, frequently playing a transcription for piano in her war-time concerts, who so popularised it among English speakers?

In general, the performances are fine: the tempi are good, the text is clear and the playing of a high quality, with 4.4.3.2.1 strings plus oboes, trumpets and a quartet of trombones. But there are two caveats: first, I found the tone of this harpsichord brittle and at times over-obtrusive; no details are given of any of the instruments played, and either the harpsichord was recorded too closely or the instrument was too jangly. Secondly and more importantly, Rademann persists in using a quartet of ‘soloists’ who take no further part in those chorus numbers in which they led off with the parts marked ‘solo’ once the parts are marked ‘tutti’ and doubled by instruments. Even if Rademann – like most German conductors – refuses to accept that these cantatas were sung with one voice to a part, plus ripieno singers on occasions, surely he must recognise that to start a chorus with single soloistic voices and then to silence them when tutti is marked in the score is nonsense. Some of solo voices – Nuria Rial and Benedikt Kristjánsson – would blend with other singers perfectly well, others – and particularly the contralto, Wiebke Lehmkuhl – would not. Her voice – rich and dark though it is – is peculiarly unsuited to Bach. This exposes the dilemma for conductors: if you can’t follow the logic of the scholarship as well as the musical plusses that says “Bach’s primary group of singers – the Concertisten – sing everything: add to them some ripienists if you like in choruses unless it specifically says ‘solo’’, then either choose soloists who will not stand out in the tutti like a sore thumb and make them sing everything, or get single voices from your ‘choir’ to do the incipits if you want different ‘soloists’ to sing the recits and arias.” But both on the grounds of scholarship and plain musicality, Rademann’s solution simply does not work.

This fairly major cavil apart, this would be a good CD to give someone who has no idea what a Bach Cantata is, and needs an introduction; but it will help perpetuate a now rather dated style of performance in which vocal timbres and ensemble skills have not kept pace with the strides taken in the past fifty years by wonderful period instrumental players.

David Stancliffe

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Monteverdi: Daylight

CD cover Monteverdi Daylight Concerto Italiano Alessandrini

Stories of songs, dances and loves
Concerto Italiano, Rinaldo Alessandrini
61:47
Naïve OP7366

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This collection forms an ancillary to ‘Night. Stories of Lovers and Warriors’, which was performed live and recorded to celebrate the 450th anniversary of Monteverdi’s birth in 1567. In an introductory note Rinaldo Alessandrini suggests that this disparate programme is perhaps not intended for purists. Well, I’ve been called a purist – a term incidentally that I do not take to be derogatory – on more than one occasion and found the CD totally irresistible.

There are two principal reasons for that. Firstly one can point to the consummate skill with which the programme has been assembled, bringing relevant music, much of it familiar, from across the whole of Monteverdi’s output and creative life to create a narrative. More on that anon. Then there is the sheer quality of the performances. Over the years the constitution of Alessandrini’s Concerto Italiano has inevitably changed, here indeed even since the recording of ‘Night’, but all five singers employed in the madrigals and other ensemble pieces are outstanding, blending superbly without ever losing individuality. The instrumental playing is equally impressive.

The programme begins with the Sinfonia that opens act 3 of Orfeo, thus providing a link to the earlier disc, which started in the same way, before the marvellous two-part madrigal ‘Non si levava … E dicea l’una sospirando’ (from Book 2, 1590), which depicts a Romeo and Juliet scenario as two lovers awaken to the dawn after a night of passion. This is music of the utmost sensuality, using exquisite dissonance to convey the blissful eroticism of the sentiments expressed in Tasso’s marvellous text. The mood lightens to a trio of three-part pieces, interspersed by instrumental works including the first of several dances by Biagio Marini – all urging shepherds and birds to rise and get the day underway. The singing here achieves a delicious lightness of touch that serves to mask the consummate execution of performance. Among other favourites too numerous to mention in detail are ‘Zefiro torna’ (Scherzi musicali, 1632) and the canzonetta ‘Chiome d’oro’ (Madrigals Book 7, 1619). Most of the items are brief but a sense of symmetrical structure is given by the inclusion of two scenes from the late operas, both concerned with the amorous exploits of servants. From Il ritorno d’Ulisse in Patria we get the flirtatiously playful scene in act 1 between Penelope’s maid Melantho and Eurymachus, beautifully sung and vocally acted by soprano Sonia Tedla and tenor Valerio Contaldo, which is counterbalanced by that for the innocent (or maybe not so innocent ) page Valletto and Damigella (damsel) from act 2 of L’incoronazione di Poppea, equally enticingly played out by soprano Monica Piccinini and tenor Raffaele Giordani.  There is a sense of exuberant, scintillating joie de vivre about the whole programme that would sweep away the bluest of moods. Recommended without reservation.

Brian Robins

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Regnart: Missa Christ Ist Erstanden

CD cover Regnart Missa Christ ist erstanden hyperion

Cinquecento Renaissance Vokal
64:45
hyperion CDA68369

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Having been poleaxed by the way Cinquecento’s excellent singing complemented the excellence of Isaac’s music on their previous release but having been less impressed by their previous disc of Regnart (2007), I approached this recording with circumspection. None required. Like the former, it is another superb recording of revelatory music. Regnart’s praises were being sung over four hundred years ago by none other than Lassus. Like the rest of us, the greatest creative artists can reveal lousy taste, or speak up for an untalented friend, or favour someone inferior to make themselves seem even better, but Lassus, about ten years Regnart’s senior, was bang on the money when he came to recommending him for advancement.

The two masses that take up most of this programme are best heard after the little hymn tunes on which they are based. In both cases, Regnart’s varied treatment of the tunes within his masses makes for two outstanding compositions; listening to them is spiritually rewarding and an aesthetic pleasure. This is well exemplified in the Gloria of Missa Christ ist erstanden. There is some fine sequential writing approaching the movement’s first close at “Patris”, followed by a well-judged slowing of tempo to a sumptuous cadence on “miserere nostri”, and an extended Amen brings the movement to a close with another gorgeous cadence. There are fine moments in other movements, with an excellent passage for three of the five voices in the Credo at “et iterum …”, and another striking cadence in the Sanctus at “tua”. Missa Freu dich is no less distinguished. The Credo is notable for some animated syncopation in the “Crucifixus” section, with further rhythmic vitality approaching the end of the movement. The Sanctus ends with a climactically high note on the last word “tua” for the countertenor. Perhaps most to be relished is the Agnus, with exciting dissonance at “peccata mundi” and a lovely cadence on “nostri”, repeated, to round off the entire disc, on “pacem”.

The three fillers are well chosen. Maria fein, du klarer Schein is a beautiful sacred song in five parts, while the other two works are later contrafacta of what were originally “light Italian love songs” according to the excellent notes by Erika Supria Honisch. She informs us that Ruhmbt alle Werck was originally “Vorrei saper da voi”. For those who are interested, the original of Wann ich nur dich hab was “Tutto lo giorno”, 1574.

This is a disc of glorious polyphony, especially memorable for its undulating phrases, sung superbly by Cinquecento, with not only a feeling of bracing air between the individual parts, but also, where appropriate, concentrated warmth during deeper sonorities.

Richard Turbet

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Madonna della Grazia

CD cover Madonna della Grazia Ensemble Il Caravaggio

Anna Reinhold mezzo-soprano, Guilhem Worms bass-baritone, Ensemble Il Caravaggio, Camille Delaforge
68:13
Klarthe K120

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This CD cleverly alternates extended Baroque compositions dedicated to the Virgin Mary with the mainly anonymous tradition of popular sacred songs on the same subject. The former consist of the Stabat Mater by Giovanni Felice Sances, Alma Mater Redemptoris by Giovanni Antonio Rigatti, In Sanguine Gloria by Isabella Leonarda, O Quam Suavis by Francesco Cavalli and Tarquinio Merula’s Canzonetta spirituale alla Nina Nana, to which more tenuously the group have added Brunelli’s Lamento della Ninfa. This latter piece is played and sung with great energy and imagination, while the anonymous sacred songs and chants exude a suitable folkloric piety. The singers, Anna Reinhold and Guilhem Worms, pass with ease between these two worlds, the latter bringing a knowledge of traditional ornamentation to bear on this evocative music. The instrumental ensemble Il Caravaggio makes a suitably vivid contribution throughout, and the director Camille Delaforge is to be congratulated on an enterprising project brought to a very successful conclusion.

D. James Ross

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Graf: Sonaten für Violine and Basso continuo

CD cover Graf Violin sonatas Genuin Anne Schumann

Anne Schumann violin, Klaus Voigt viola da spalla, Sebastian Knebel harpsichord
67:40
GENUIN GEN 21738

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Recorded in the pleasingly resonant acoustic of the Weinbergkirche Dresden, these six violin sonatas by the Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt court composer, Johannes Graf powerfully demonstrate the very high standards of music-making at regional courts of early 18th-century Germany. A near contemporary and friend of Telemann, Graf exhibits the former’s endlessly inventive imagination, at the same time defying categorisation as belonging to the school of Schmelzer or Biber. Consistently Italianate in flavour and regularly evoking the spirit of Vivaldi, these engaging pieces are played with great mastery by this gifted ensemble. Playing an 18th-century violin by Leopold Widhalm of Nürnberg, Anne Schumann produces a gleaming tone which adds extra power to her eloquent performances, while she is very ably supported by Klaus Voigt and Sebastian Knebel. Voigt plays a viola da spalla, a modern copy by André Mehler of Leipzig of an original instrument of 1730 by J C Hoffmann. Although it is hard to imagine from its rich bass tone, the viola da spalla is a relatively small instrument, played across the chest and held in position by a strap around the back. Perhaps an offshoot of the bowed continuo instruments of the previous century provided with a slot in their backs to house a toggle, permitting them to be carried and played in procession, the viola da spalla seems like the solution to any number of cello issues! These performances are exciting and wonderfully musical, and make a strong case for the importance in the history of music for solo violin of this nowadays practically unknown composer.

D. James Ross

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In Umbra Mortis

CD cover In Umbra Mortis A chromatic journey Cappella Amsterdam

Cappella Amsterdam, Daniel Reuss
Rihm – De Wert
57:32
Pentatone PTC 5186 948

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This programme alternates music by the contemporary German composer Wolfgang Rihm (b.1952) with that of the Renaissance master Giaches de Wert (1535-96). As the programme note observes, the music is ‘intertwined’, as we pass rapidly from early to contemporary music, inviting direct comparison. The choice of composers is inspired – Rihm’s idiom is firmly rooted in the Renaissance, while Wert’s seems to exhibit a prescience of modern harmonies. Rihm’s music is his Sieben Passions-Texte (2001-6), a considerable masterpiece, powerfully sung here by an ensemble of 24 voices. With a choir of this size, one of the main issues is blend, and this is achieved with an astonishing consistency here. The added power of the relatively large number of voices is palpable, and it is interesting that while the overlap in personnel with the smaller ensemble who sing the de Wert is considerable, the latter is not simply an offshoot of the former. The five- and six-part motets by de Wert, also penitential in mood, demonstrate his daring use of chromaticism and consummate mastery of structure. Such juxtapositions of repertoire are not always successful, but this one has been so carefully considered and superbly executed that both repertoires benefit from the encounter. I have one tiny reservation – there is a degree of background ‘clomping’, which may annoy some listeners. I found it distracting to start with, but soon forgot it in my enjoyment of this remarkable music.

D. James Ross