Author: EMR2015

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Recording

Royal Handel

Eva Zaïcik and Le Consort perform arias by Handel, Ariosti and Bononcini

Eva Zaïcik mezzo-soprano, Le Consort
64:59
Alpha Classics Alpha 662
+arias by Ariosti and Giovanni Bononcini

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Eva Zaïcik is a young French mezzo whose cv suggests she might have originally had ideas of becoming an early music specialist, but whose more recent work includes a debut as Carmen in Toulouse and appearances in Pique Dame and Eugene Onegin.  Having heard this CD my guess is that the latter type of repertoire is more likely to become mainstream for her. In full flow the voice is a richly opulent instrument, with a hint of edge to it in the middle register, which itself does not always sit in comfortable relationship with the soprano register. In Baroque repertoire Zaïcek’s voice is on this evidence at its most beguiling singing mezza voce, where the ear experiences a purity of tone and line not always apparent elsewhere. But in general terms neither her technique nor her approach to the mostly Handel arias on the present CD convince that she is truly at home with it. While there is an admirable flexibility and passaggi are in general well articulated, her approach to ornamentation is haphazard, cadences go unembellished and of course there is no hint of a trill. Not that Zaïcek is alone in that respect. As bad is her approach to text or more accurately non-approach. Contrary to the needs of these arias, the performances seem driven by the desire to make a beautiful, lustrous sound. Aria after aria passes with little attempt to explore its emotional core or meaningfully articulate its text.

In this respect, the singer is hardly aided by her choice of accompanists. Le Consort is one of those small French ensembles bearing no relationship to the size of an average 18th-century opera orchestra. It is also characteristic of so many ensembles today in that Le Concert appears to feel it necessary to play quick music very fast and slower numbers excessively slowly. Thus an aria such as ‘Rompo i lacci’ from Flavio is taken so fast as to render it virtually meaningless, despite some agile passagework from Zaïcek, while the funereal tempo and emasculated rhythm adopted for ‘Ombra cara’ (Radamisto) leaves the aria as little more than a glutinous, sentimental wallow.  There are two compensating factors. One is that mezza voce, where the lighter tonal palette can produce exquisite results, nowhere more so than the central section and da capo of ‘Deggio morire’ (Siroe), where criticism is silenced, the listener seduced into luxurious immersion in the sheer beauty of the moment. The other is the inclusion of first recordings of arias by two composers that along with Handel also contributed operas to the first Royal Academy in London (1719-28), the source of the CD’s title. Both Attilio Ariosti and Giovanni Bononcini scored significant successes in its early years and ‘Sagri numi’ from Ariosto’s Caio Marzio Coriolano (1723) is a ravishingly lovely discovery, though as with all the cantabile numbers it is sentimentalized and taken too deliberately.

If the response to this CD is perhaps a little harsh at times, it stems from the depressing regularity with which so many of today’s younger singers seemingly come to Baroque repertoire as a kind of warm-up for bigger, later parts. Such singers need to be taught to recognise that Baroque opera has its own demands that need to be met if they are going to do it more justice than simply winning cheap applause from mainstream critics and audiences.

Brian Robins

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Book

Chant, Liturgy, and the Inheritance of Rome. Essays in honour of Joseph Dyer

Essays in honour of Joseph Dyer

Henry Bradshaw Society Subsidia
Edited by Daniel J. DiCenso and Rebecca Maloy
The Boydell Press, 2017.
596pp, ISBN 9781907497346  – £60

Joseph Dyer is a scholar of early medieval plainchant and liturgy, based in the University of Massachusetts. He has made a seminal contribution to our understanding of early Medieval Roman liturgy, how it developed and was performed, what are its sources, and how it fitted into the topography of the city. This hefty collection of nineteen essays by some of the biggest names in early medieval scholarship is offered as a tribute to his decades of quiet work. Most are based in the US, but they are joined by two from Cambridge, UK (Susan Rankin and Christopher Page) and one from Regensburg (David Hiley). Although the period covered is earlier than my own, I found much to stimulate me, and I am confident that the same would apply to a wide variety of readers. There are specialist contributions on chant and liturgy, certainly, but there are also essays on the layout of medieval Rome, the construction and continued expansion of Old St. Peter’s Basilica, the design and functions of Paris’s Notre Dame Cathedral and Sainte-Chappelle, the powerful role of the medieval archdeacon, and the codification of monastic psalm-chanting. There isn’t room here to cover all the essays in detail, so I will highlight some that particularly caught my attention, while giving a generalised overview of the collection.

One abiding area of controversy among scholars has been the exact nature of early ‘Roman’ chant, and how it might – or might not – have been reflected in the codified ‘Gregorian’ chant which began to appear in manuscripts dating from the time of Charlemagne (c. 800 AD). One of the book’s editors, Daniel J. DiCenso, tackles this in his ‘Revisiting the Admonitio generalis’, taking a revisionist approach to the accepted narrative that the Carolingians forced the adoption of a standardized ‘Roman’ Rite and its chants, to the detriment of local traditions. Taking just one chapter of the Carolingian Admonitio of 789, he shows convincingly that this was not intended to be prescriptive and that the situation was generally more nuanced than the accepted narrative would have it, with each locality making its own choices, and uniformity only gradually being established, if at all. Adding the word ‘Roman’ could give a spurious authority to practices not necessarily connected to that city. The problem for scholars has been a dearth of genuine Roman sources from the period before 800, making it difficult to judge such claims of papal authority. Other essays in this area deal with the earliest office antiphons which are found in Roman sources (Edward Nowacki), the development of the Roman Paschal Vigil (Thomas F. Kelly, another crucial figure in researching early Roman chant sources), and with Western sources for the Greek Doxa in ipsistis Theo (Gloria in excelsis Deo) which Charles Atkinson thinks were not derived from Orthodox sources, as scholars have generally assumed.

Liturgy cannot be separated from buildings and places, and a number of these contributions focus on particular locations. I was struck in reading Charles McClendon’s article, ‘The Changing Role of Old St. Peter’s in Late Antique and Early Medieval Rome’, by how little we know about when the basilica was actually built – whether by Constantine or by his successors – or how it developed during its first six centuries. McClendon summarises recent research on the change in function from high-class burial ground to world pilgrimage centre, taking the story up to the visit of Charlemagne in 800. Equally enlightening to me was Catherine Carver’s ‘As the Bell Tolls: Parish Proximity in Medieval Rome’, conjuring up the city’s narrow streets and its very high number of parish churches c. 1200, with conflict between local and centralised power being tolled out by innumerable bells. In a later section of the book, dealing with more peripheral developments, Rebecca Baltzer discusses medieval Paris’s two great sacred buildings – Notre Dame and the Sainte-Chappelle – analysing the symbolism inherent in their sculpture and stained glass. The former, devoted to the Virgin Mary, exploited polyphony; the latter, dedicated to Christ and symbols of his Passion, preferred to utilise rhymed offices and sequences, in plainchant. In that same section of the book Mary Wolinkski usefully compares the surviving sources for liturgy in two Parisian churches, both hosting confraternities dedicated to St. James, with those describing liturgy at the heart of that cult, Santiago di Compostela. Susan Boynton’s ‘Music and the Cluniac Vision of History in Paris, BN Ms lat 17716’ takes a detailed look at a complex manuscript from the monastery of Cluny, seeing its liturgy and music as a catalyst in the construction of memory and a Cluniac vision of history.

There were many facets to the practice of plainchant, some of which are explored here. Susan Rankin’s ‘Singing the Psalter in the early Middle Ages’ investigates the layout of psalters and what they can tell us about the process of memorising the psalms, as well as how psalm texts were organised and divided up for the monastic hours. This is a particularly layered contribution which shares the author’s deep knowledge of both sources and practice; it might have benefitted from more than the one illustration which accompanies it. David Ganz shows how basic prayers like the Creed and Pater Noster were taught to catechumens in Merovingian and Carolingian France: this teaching was reinforced by their inclusion as chanted items in the liturgy. Luisa Nardini examines ways in which the Italian secular literary tradition began to seep into liturgical chant, through the process of adding texts – called prosulas – to complex melismas. John F. Romano looks at the role of the archdeacon in both Rome and elsewhere: as well as being a powerful administrator, the archdeacon played a crucial role in organising the liturgy.

Finally, a number of essays look in detail at specific chant repertories, mainly from outside Rome. Emma Hornby shows how four extended tracts were added late to the Beneventan Easter Vigil in the ninth century, in an attempt by this waning local dialect to compete with new Franco-Roman models. James Borders looks at a twelfth-century Pontifical from Lyon, trying to pin down the sources for the antiphons etc. which it contains, mostly for the service of Dedication of a church. It is painstaking work which typifies the labours of chant scholars. Also complex but rewarding is Barbara Haagh-Huglo’s ‘The Tonality of the Numerical Offices in Cambrai Ms. 38’, dealing with modal ordering of antiphons and how this might have been understood by singers. William Mahrt’s ‘Melodic Trope as Modal Rhetoric’ analyses a series of chants which either change mode briefly in the middle, or use a mixture of modes, as a rhetorical device. Christopher Page’s ‘To Chant in a Vale of Tears’ seeks to explore, through music psychology, how those singing the chant might have been moved by melodies which, on the face of it, seem to do little to reflect their text; he uses Rex autem David as an example. Finally, David Hiley examines some proper office chants for the feast of St. George in a South German noted breviary from c. 1140. As well as providing a thorough analysis, he explores the possibility that they might be part of a lost office for St. George by the medieval chronicler and writer Hermannus Contractus, though is unable to give a definitive answer.

Of their nature, Festschrifts can be a bit hit or miss: scholars are invited to contribute, with only very general guidelines, and the temptation to visit the bottom drawer can be strong. Divisions into sections are made after the submissions have come in and can seem rather arbitrary: that is the case here where something like my own divisions above might have worked better than those used by the editors. That said, this particular Festschrift has a very weighty set of contributions which readers will find useful on many levels. For chant scholars, there is a compendium of useful models and methodologies which are applied to sources, analysis, and performance contexts. Other readers will be able to pick and choose between articles which cover architecture, manuscript layout, memory and transmission, centres versus peripheries. Commissioning this book has been a worthwhile undertaking for the editors, as well as being a clear labour of love. Production values by the publishers, Boydell Press, and the Henry Bradshaw Society which has sponsored the book, are very high.

Noel O’Regan

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Recording

Tormenti d’amore

Soprano cantatas from 1740s Vienna

Philipp Mathmann, Capella Jenensis, Gerd Amelung
82:13 (2 CDs in a card triptych)
Querstand VKJK 2002
Music by Hasse, Porsile, Reutter the Younger & Scalabrini

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This set is centred around a collection of vocal music made by Prince Anton Ulrich of Saxe-Meinigen during the period he spent in Vienna, where he apparently arrived in 1724. Apparently, since the notes rather ambiguously tell us that the collection, consisting of nearly 300 vocal works, including over 170 chamber cantatas, were works from ‘Vienna’s musical scene composed between 1710 and 1740’. So the assumption would be that Anton Ulrich spent around 20 years of his life in Vienna. More importantly, many of the works in the Meinigen Archive are the sole surviving copy, including the best music in the programme, the two characteristically melodious and elegantly turned cantatas by Hasse. The cantata by Georg Reutter, the Court Composer of Vienna and Kapellmeister of St Stephen’s Cathedral who brought Haydn to Vienna, and the Neapolitan opera composer Giuseppe Porsile are less interesting, the former in particular also suffering from an excruciating anonymous text on the prevailing topic of the cantatas – tormenti d’amore, the torments of love.

In addition to the cantatas, the set includes two trio sonatas by Hasse and two sinfonias once surprisingly attributed to Hasse, but more recently established as the work of the Italian-born Paolo Scalabrini (1713-1803 or 6), the director of the travelling Mingotti opera company, who ended up as maestro di cappella in Copenhagen, where he composed at least eight operas, including several Danish-language works that helped establish native opera. They are pleasant enough routine Galant works in three brief movements but little more and assuredly not worthy of Hasse’s name being attached to them.

The programme itself is therefore not without interest, but sadly the performances rarely rise beyond the level of the efficient and in the case of the cantatas fail to reach that level.  Philipp Mathmann, confusingly described as a countertenor/soprano, is in fact a sopranist pure and simple. While the voice has an admirable purity and wide range, it is unfailingly hooty in its upper range, while also displaying deficient technique in several respects. Little ability to articulate a simple turn is shown, while more complex embellishment or ornamentation is rarely attempted. What truly compromises Mathmann’s performances, however, is his seeming lack of interest in the texts he is singing. None is a literary revelation but the whole object of the chamber cantata was to move the listener, evoking sentiment and emotion through expressive vocal gesture and realization of the words. Ignore that and you may as well be singing a vocalise, which is precisely the impression given here for much of the time.  

The instrumental contribution of Capella Jenensis is rather more enjoyable, though rhythms tend to plod in slower movements. The Hasse trio sonatas, in particular, are well played, with pleasing shaping of melodic lines from the two violinists and – in that in D, op. 2/2 – flautist. The programme, almost exactly the length possible today on a single CD, is extravagantly spread over two discs so it is to be hoped that some price concession is built in.

Brian Robins

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Recording

Desprez: Le Septiesme Livre de Chansons

CD cover of Josquin 7th book of chansons on Ricercar Dominique Visse

Ensemble Clément Janequin, Dominique Visse
61:14
Ricercar RIC423

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Most of the works on this recording are selected from Le septiesme livre, which consists of 24 chansons, mainly by Josquin, in five and six parts, which was published in Antwerp by Tielman Susato in 1545. Fifteen of Josquin’s compositions appear on the disc, all but one from this livre, plus two laments for him by Gombert and Vinders, both of which are included in the livre, also two solo instrumental settings by Narvaez and Newsidler of the chanson Mille regretz which is usually attributed to Josquin, though the earliest, and unique, attribution to him is in a late source, Susato’s L’unziesme livre of 1549. In most other early sources it is anonymous, although in one it is attributed to Lemaire, who is thought by some musicologists perhaps to be the author of the text; Josquin is known to have set another poem by him. Of more significance in the context of the present recording is that the rest of the chansons have so far survived the recent scholarly attempts to give his oeuvre a short back and sides. Any selection of pieces by Josquin is going to consist of distinguished music, so the success of a programme such as this lies in the process of that selection, and its presentation. Although any sequence of such works can of course nowadays be shuffled, the order in which the items appear provides a variety of content, both in subject matter and in scoring. For this listener the most striking work both as music and interpretation is Baises moy ma doulce’ amye. Originally in four already canonic parts, it appears posthumously in this livre in six parts, with an extra canon. Its text of seeming triviality is set incongruously to music with a dense texture rendered the more intense by dramatic dissonances; one could almost be listening to a work by Gombert, with Tallis distantly audible, and Byrd’s unpublished O salutaris hostia on the musical horizon.

It is a pleasure to listen to this repertory, but not in these performances. The faux-rustic tonal quality becomes wearing, and the bucolic conclusion to Allegez moy douce plaisant brunette is irritating on repeated hearings. Given the nature of many of the texts, it certainly would not be appropriate to sing these chansons in the manner of canticles at choral evensong, but the uningratiating timbre that the singers adopt tends to grate. (Cut Circle carry off this manner of singing on their recent disc of Ockeghem’s songs, Musique en Wallonie MEW1995, my review posted October 15.) Most performances are accompanied by one or two instruments: lute and/or positive organ or muselaar. These add nothing to the performances, and it is ironic that the author of the excellent booklet justifies the inclusion of instruments on the basis of wording on the title-pages of the Sixiesme and Huitiesme livres in Susato’s series from 1545, while there is no mention of instrumental participation in the Septiesme livre from which most of these pieces are taken. An exception is La Bernardina played here on the lute and organ, which is not from this livre and survives as a textless composition. Cucur langoureulx, another wonderful work with pre-echoes of Gombert, is sung without accompaniment but this exposes some unattractive vowel sounds, while the rendering of Ma bouche rit, coming as it does after the effective Baises moy ma doulce’ amye, contains some sour tuning during the initial forced heartiness, though the more sedate ending is well handled. It is good that the two laments for Josquin by Gombert and Vinders are included on this disc, even if these performances would not be first recommendations for either work, especially the latter with more sour tuning on the top line, a fault also audible in Plus nuls regretz. The presence of Gombert’s classic illustrates just how much he learned from Josquin. For this reason and for those given above, the material on this disc has been well chosen. Other listeners may well be less troubled by the performances.

Richard Turbet

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Recording

J S Bach: Little Books

CD cover Francesco Corti Bach Little Books

Francesco Corti harpsichord
79:14
arcana A480
+Böhm, Couperin, Hasse, Kuhnau, Telemann

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This is a recital that introduces us to the idea of formation by learning under a teacher’s instruction – and also by copying out the music – pieces of that teacher’s choosing.  The “Little Books” of the title – Klavierbüchlein in German – are the books prepared by Johann Sebastian for his eldest son, Wilhelm Friedemann in 1720 and his second wife, Anna Magdalena in 1722 and 1725.

In these latter, we find the first sketches for what would later become the French Suites, while others come from the ‘Andreas Bach Book’ that originated with Johann Sebastian’s eldest brother and first teacher, Johann Christoph. Here we have some of Bach’s earliest keyboard compositions set alongside those he admired and copied for teaching purposes by other composers.

Francesco Corti, an experienced teacher as well as harpsichordist, plays a selection of these in his illuminating recital on a 1998 copy by Andrea Restelli of a Christian Vater harpsichord (Hannover 1738) now in the Germanisches Museum, Nürnberg. The introductory essay on music from the Bach family circle by Peter Wollny and Corti’s own piece, Copying the master’s gestures, are both in English, German and French, and each exudes thoughtful, undogmatic scholarship and sound musicianship.

Corti’s playing matches these aspirations. He is fluent without being showy and varies his style with the chosen music – indeed the whole production is an essay in how to teach by immersion in sources, sounds and sensual serendipity. Recorded in 2019 before the pandemic of this past year, this is the kind of production that is useful to have in lockdown as a teaching aid or refresher course, helping students re-examine the sources of their own technique and choices.

I recommend it for these reasons as well as for the innate musicality of Conti’s playing, which can be glimpsed live in his performance of the A major harpsichord concerto BWV 1055.

Here you can see Corti engaging with the other players in the only one of Bach’s early concertos that he transcribed for harpsichord – probably originally for oboe d’amore – to have a separate continuo part in addition to the solo instrument. This is teaching by immersion, and I commend Conti as a first-class teacher, as he is on this clip, teaching his master’s Suite in G major.

David Stancliffe

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Recording

Telemann: 3 Overture Suites

CD cover of Telemann L'Orfeo Barockorchester

L’Orfeo Barockorchester, Carin van Heerden
66:11
cpo 555 389-2
TWV 55: G1, G5 & B13

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Every once and a while, along comes a recording that fires on all cylinders with a special synergy and bubbling musical alchemy, matching the finest ideals of music-making, and presents the dazzling facets of a composer’s subtle, creative nuances and whims.

Here the players of L’Orfeo Barockorchester under Carin van Heerden deploy their boundless energy and polished musicality to great effect, creating some truly wonderful moments of euphonic transport. The well-honed Orchester navigate through Telemann’s many subtleties and scenic changes with seemingly effortless fluency.

The three fairly lengthy suites date from just before or during his time in Frankfurt, offering tremendous scope for the composer’s imaginative musical, operatic esprit. The Frankfurt connection may well be present in TWV55:G5’s “Les Augures” (oracles, portents? – note those shuddering winces! – possibly (bad?) financial omens at the Stockmarket, which stood next to Telemann’s home).  The delightful Rondeau(x) is an addictive Ohrwurm! Normally, a Gigue might close a suite, not here, carrying on until a delightful sweep of no fewer than *three* Menuets. The ravishing kaleidoscopic tour moves on with some arresting slower movements too: Plaintes (B13, G5).

The recorded sound here is just about perfect, every timbral shade is found and heard. Despite the claims, the TWV55:B13 (c1725?) is the only real premiere – G5 came on a slightly earlier Atma CD, and there is a recording of G1 possibly from late 80s?

A highlight of the premiered work, the tender and sprightly interplay of solo violin (Julia Huber-Warzecha), two oboes and tutti, is rather special and gives a very different opening. Placing the gigue in second place is unusuale! Special mention must go to the penultimate movement, given as “affectuoso e molto adagio” or as the oboe part has it: “Cantabile et Affectuoso” a truly captivating duet!

The opening suite (G1 of 1716-25?) opens with an attention-grabbing, curtains-up Overture, after which comes the exquisite quasi-Handelian Air: Document, which made me think, did he hear this and use it elsewhere? (Where’ere ye walk seems a likely candidate…) The other airs all feel like hidden arias or scenic mood music for the Leipzig stage.

All in all, this is a real tour de force, with added Italianate passages for a perfect musical assemblage. L’Orfeo Barockorchester is in excellent form. This is a must for all baroquophiles! Moments of wonder, wistfulness and elegiac tenderness wrapped in entrancing music. Probably my CD of 2020, heart on the sleeve, hand on the heart.

David Bellinger

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Recording

Schütz: Geistliche Chor-Music 1648

Schütz Geistliche Chor-Music 1648

Ensemble Polyharmonique
57:20
Raumklang RK 3903

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Schütz’s Geistliche Chor-Music was produced in 1648, just as some semblance of order was restored to Germany at the end of the Thirty Years War. The 29 motets it contains are the summary of a work in progress, with more than a passing nod to the Italian examples in Schütz’s stated exploration of polyphonic writing, and with provision – not always necessary – for a basso continuo.

Listeners seeing Geistliche Chor-Music headlined and expecting the complete op. 11 will be disappointed. There are only 12 of the 29 numbers here, plus two works for duet combinations of voices (SWV 294 & 289) from Kleine geistliche Konzerte I and a trio (SWV 325) from Kleine geistliche Konzerte II, chosen to make the most of the ensemble’s line-up of SSATTB. Missing entirely is the final group of motets with larger combinations of parts, including instrumental lines, like the wonderful lament Auf dem Gebirge (SWV 396) for five trombones and two altos and the adaptation of Andrea Gabrieli’s Angelus ad pastores.

While this is understandable, it is a pity that the euphonious group Ensemble Polyharmonique should choose a selection from such a well-known and often-recorded work of Schütz to present their skills. The sopranos are a well-matched duo, even if not quite as clear of the inevitable tendency to colour their notes with modern vibrato as the steelier lower parts. The bass is a real basso, with a characteristically cavernous timbre and the middle parts well-suited for consort singing.

I quite like the sound, as well as admiring the skill and professionalism of the one-to-a-part ensemble. But after hearing the CD through a number of times, the performances were just a bit samey – I would have liked more tonal and expressive variety to justify a recording like this of part of a single opus, when there are many complete ones – like Rademann’s 2007 version in the complete Schütz project for Carus or Suzuki’s 1997 take using viols and with the Die Sieben Worte as a filler – continuing to claim attention.

David Stancliffe

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Recording

Machaut: The lion of nobility

Machaut sung by the Orlando Consort Hyperion

The Orlando Consort
60:57
hyperion
CDA68318

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Back in the twentieth century, another periodical sent me two discs to review. One was of Restoration church music performed by one of the most reputable – and, as it has proved, most durable – early music ensembles. I gave what I felt was a complacent, limp-wristed (albeit uncharacteristic) recording a scathing review, which was duly published. Unbeknown to me, the appalled record reviews editor responded by sending the disc to a more pliant reviewer, who duly obliged by providing a – not doubt sincerely – gushing review which was published in the following issue. Needless to say I never heard from that periodical again. This was disappointing because the other disc was a mesmerising performance by the Schola Gregoriana of Cambridge, of the Messe de Nostre Dame by Guillaume de Machaut, which I praised – sincerely – to the skies (Herald HAVPCD 312). Nor has another recording of Machaut have come my way until now. So which of those two recordings does this new one most resemble?

Thankfully the latter. The music is – of course – superb, emanating as it does from a mediaeval composer who can be named alongside Dunstable, Power, Dufay and Ockeghem, and who preceded all of them. However, for a recording which consists of pieces the majority of which last less than five minutes, the selection of material is crucial. This is accomplished well, with a mixture of motets, lais, ballades, rondeaux and virelais. Just as crucial is the programming. Machaut’s mass is for four voices, but all of these mainly secular works are in the thinner gruel of one, two or three parts, so monotony has to be avoided. And it is, with works for differing vocal resources (number of parts, or scoring) adjacent to one another for the most part; when two works for similar vocal resources are placed side by side – such as the intense virelai Moult sui de bonne heure nee beside the agitated ballade Ne pensez pas – the nature of the works themselves provide the variety. The disc includes the famous Ma fin est mon commencement but the fulcrum of the record is the juxtaposing of the substantial and striking lai En demantant et lamentant which runs for nearly eighteen minutes, with the driven, fretful ballade Mes esperis se combat which itself takes nearly seven minutes.

The performances are outstanding. Individual members of the Consort have voices sufficiently good to carry off the solo items, yet they blend well, while rendering each line and Machaut’s delightful rhythms clearly. For example, the way the two voices round off Moult sui de bonne heure nee is exquisite. And there are no obtrusive instruments! Anyone seeking a reliable introduction to Machaut’s music, or seeking to expand their knowledge of it, can be confident of ample rewards in this fine recording.

Richard Turbet

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Recording

Serenissima

CD cover of The 1750 Project Serenissima Music in Venice in 1726

A Musical Portrait of Venice around 1726
Perrine Devillers (soprano), The 1750 Project
76:13
Ramée RAM 1902
Music by Porpora, Giuseppe Sammartini, D. Scarlatti & Vivaldi

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Explanation for the unusual name of the ensemble comes in the opening lines of the notes, where its leader, oboist Benoît Laurent, tells us that the declared objective of The 1750 Project is an exploration of a chosen city’s musical life in the period 1720 to 1750. So here they have commenced by landing in Venice around 1726. This is a time chosen to mark a change of style moving toward the Rococo, a development that in Venice doubtless gained particular impetus from the arrival in the Adriatic city in 1726 of the Neapolitan Nicola Porpora. His Ariana e Teseo, given at the San Giovanni Grisostomo theatre in 1727, was the third of a sequence of operas composed for Venice. ‘Pietosa Ciel difendimi’ is typical of the composer’s gracious, mellifluous style, an expansive cantabile aria with an elaborate oboe obbligato part in which the character (Carilda) asks for relief from the doubts about love that afflict her. It is sung with affecting freshness and elegance of line by the young French soprano Perrine Devillers, who needs only to articulate both musical embellishments and the Italian language with more depth and acuteness to become a truly outstanding singer. Devillers also sings a Porpora chamber cantata with continuo accompaniment cast in the form of a pair of arias with a central recitative, in the latter of which some of the key phrases (‘Ahi! Lasso!’) do indeed hint that Devillers has more to bring out as to the dramatic side of her singing.

The principal representative of the home team is unsurprisingly Vivaldi, who gets the lion’s share of a programme that includes two of his chamber cantatas, an oboe concerto and one of the so-called ‘Manchester’  violin sonatas. Both cantatas, ‘All’omba di sospetta’, RV 687, which has an obbligato part for flute, and ‘Che giova il sospirar’, RV 679 are also extremely well sung, the latter in particular being a fine work with, unusually, accompaniment for strings. It opens with an extended recitative bemoaning the pain inflicted by ‘cruel Irene’ that again provides Devillers with the opportunity to suggest a dramatic side to her singing yet to be fully developed. The splendid aria that follows is inflected with chromatic pain, while the fiery final aria takes a more rhetorical approach.

Arguably the most complete performance on the CD is that of the Violin Sonata in A, RV 758, which is played with outstanding technique and beautifully nuanced tone by Jacek Kurzydlo. Cast in four movements, it opens with a siciliana Prelude, taken perhaps marginally too slowly for a largo, but shaped so beautifully and with such exquisite nuance as to silence criticism. The following Corrente, nimble and spry, benefits from outstanding intonation, while the Andante’s double stopping introduces that elusive, folky element we sometimes find in Vivaldi, perhaps a dance heard in a distant calle.

The remaining works are also excellently done, the Vivaldi ‘Oboe’ Concerto in D minor, being a transcription of the ninth of the op. 8 violin concertos (Il Cimento dell’armonia e dell’invenzione), while Domenico Scarlatti’s Sonata in E, K. 162 plays with the contrasts between a thoughtful Andante that leads into a bright Allegro, in so doing creating a near mirror image between the two halves of its binary structure. Finally, Giuseppe Sammartini’s Oboe Sonata in C not only gives Laurent a further opportunity to demonstrate his prowess but also offers another example of more forward-looking trends, the tentative hesitancy of its central Andante lento providing the sonata’s most characterful moments.

The disc as whole makes for an extremely agreeable and well-contrasted program. With its highly accomplished playing and singing, it is the kind of concert that would send you away more than well satisfied were you fortunate enough to encounter it live.

Brian Robins

Categories
Recording

Vivaldi: Argippo

CD cover Fabio Biondi directs Vivaldi's Argippo

Emőke Baráth Argippo, Marie Lys Osira, Delphine Galou Zanaida, Marianna Pizzolato Silvero, Luigi De Donato Tisifaro, Europa Galante, Fabio Biondi
123:00 (2 CDs in a jewel case with separate booklet, all in a card case)
naive OP 7079

Naïve’s attention to the operatic repertoire in its complete Vivaldi Edition is certainly not skimping. Here, following closely on the heels of an outstanding Tamerlano (Verona, 1735), a review of which appeared recently on EMR, is another pasticcio. Until recently, Argippo was considered to be lost, one of several operas from the early 1730s known only from a libretto housed in the University Library in Prague, where it was first given at the Teatro Sporck in 1730. A libretto for a slightly varied version of the opera given in Vienna, possibly earlier the same year, is also extant. Then, in 2011, an anonymous manuscript that can be linked to the opera was discovered in Darmstadt and it is this, alongside a collection of arias associated with the Vienna version, which formed the basis for the publication of the critical edition of the opera recorded here. Cast in the usual three acts, Argippo is a dramma per musica containing nine arias that can be attributed to Vivaldi. In addition, there are arias by his Venetian contemporaries G B Pescetti (4), A Galeazzi (a composer unknown to Grove Opera or any other authority I’ve consulted), the Milanese composer Andrea Fiorè, whose own setting of Argippo (Milan, 1722) is the source of Osira’s act 3 ‘Vado a morire’, one of the finest moments in the opera, and the better-known names of Hasse, Porpora and Vinci, each represented by a single aria.

The libretto was the work of Domenico Lalli, the poet who enjoyed the company of the composer D’Astorga during their adventurous travels through Europe during the second decade of the century (see the recent EMR review of D’Astorga sonatas and cantatas). It had first been set as Il gran mogol by Francesco Mancini for Naples in 1713, its exotic, colourful location in India conforming with the taste for opera seria to be given settings far removed from everyday life. The book is not exactly a masterpiece. It concerns Zanaida, the much-loved daughter of the Great Mogul, Tisifaro. She is convinced that she was seduced by Argippo, a tributary king, who married her, but then went off to commit bigamy with another princess, Osira. The opera revolves around a visit to Tisifaro by Argippo and Osira, during which it is revealed that Zanaida’s seducer was not Argippo but Tisifaro’s cousin and counsellor Silvero, this however not before poor Osira has been sentenced to death for her husband’s former ‘crime’. In a conclusion that defies all credibility, Zanaida agrees to marry Silvero, the man whose lust for her caused everyone else great distress.

It goes without saying there is no local colour and indeed for much of the first two acts there is little colour of any kind. An exception can be made for two arias for Zanaida, the first in act 1, ‘Se lento ancora in fulmine’ an aria di furia by Vivaldi, sung with glittering precision and fervent intensity by Delphine Galou, while ‘Che gran pena’ (act 2), a graciously melodic aria by Hasse, articulates the princess’s extreme conflicts of emotion. There is little doubt the impression made by these arias owes much to the dramatic commitment of the singer, whose work with her husband Ottavio Dantone has enabled Galou to attain new levels of excellence. Moreover, her delivery of plain recitative also stands out significantly from that of her colleagues. Among them, the Osira of soprano Marie Lys is a mixed success, infinitely touching and expressive in successive arias at the climax of the drama in act 3, but prone to brittle, razor-sharp brilliance in her upper range elsewhere. But she can be forgiven much for the lovely trill at the final cadence of ‘Vado a morir’. In any event, the sometimes wildly extravagant da capo excursions into the stratosphere are not unique to her. I wonder when singers will learn that such lapses of taste invariably end in tears, for the listener at least. Notwithstanding most of the singing is well above average, with some expectedly lovely cantabile from Emőke Baráth’s wronged Argippo and noble bass tone from Luigi De Donato’s suitably regal Tisifaro.

Fabio Biondi’s direction is efficient, but to my ears not particularly inspiring. As so often with him, mannerisms can be irritating, particularly his encouragement of a continuo lutenist whose hyperactivity consistently distracts attention from the voice. The sound also lacks the immediacy of other recent issues in this series. Those collecting the series can be assured of another set well worthy of investigating, but the uncommitted may find it a less appealing proposition

Brian Robins