Categories
DVD Recording

Vivaldi | Guido: Le quattro stagioni

Andrés Gabetta, Orchestre de l’Opéra Royal
93:28 (2 CDs in a card box with DVD 70′)
Château de Versailles Spectacles CVS042

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So, to the list of ‘seasonal’ composers we can now add Giovanni Guido (1675-1729), who, like Lully, was an Italian who ‘made good’ in France. He was the star violinist in the service of Philippe d’Orléans. His Scherzi amonici sopra le Quattro stagioni dell’anno have no known connection with Vivaldi’s famous concertos though, like them, are based on anonymous poems to which the music responds in some detail: l’Este’s 24 lines elicit a 13-movement divertissement, seven of them less than a minute in duration. Guido’s scoring is for trois dessus and continuo, probably a string ensemble, though he does suggest the addition of woodwind to reinforce the strings in places.

This licence has stimulated this ensemble to prepare an elaborate arrangement involving a broad palette of instrumental colours ranging from hurdy-gurdy to high-pitched recorders plus a few sound effects. In 2021, this is very well done and good fun. Whether or not anything like it would have happened in 1721 is a different matter.

Those same sound effects also appear from time to time in Vivaldi’s famous sequence. This is played with great technical brilliance though I question the very flexible approach to tempo within movements. These performances also offer an opportunity to hear the music ‘as it was heard in Dresden’ with additional parts for woodwind and horns in some of the tutti sections.

As well as the CDs devoted to Vivaldi and Guido respectively the package also includes a DVD filmed in the Hall of Mirrors. This is simply a recording of the music (no audience) with no index points of any kind or ‘extras’. For me, it added little to the CDs.

The booklet (in French, English and German) is informative but falls down in its grouping of the essays by subject rather than language. Having read the French introduction on p7, one then has to turn past its English and German translations to pp12/13 and then to p18 for further enlightenment. But full marks for including parallel translation of the poems which inspired the music.

Sadly, I have yet again to beseech Versailles to get the English texts checked by someone with a better grasp of the language’s idioms.

David Hansell

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DVD

They that in ships unto the sea go down

Music for the Mayflower
Passamezzo
61:23
resonus RES10263

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This programme has been drawn together to mark the 400th anniversary of the sailing of the Mayflower, and is based enterprisingly on music taken in part from music books thought to have been taken to America by the pilgrims and to have been used by them in the early days of the colonies. Perhaps predictably for a group of puritans, books of psalms feature heavily, and Henry Ainsworth’s 1612 Book of Psalmes Englished both in Prose and Metre and Richard Allison’s The Psalmes of David in Meter, the former recording just the psalm tunes by way of music, the latter featuring settings ‘for fowre voyces’, both provide material for the programme. Fortunately for the colonists (and for us), a third book, The golden garland of princely pleasures compiled by Richard Johnson provides slightly more racy secular material, in the form of lyrics and sonnets about England’s historical Queens and Kings. The balance of the programme is made up by carefully chosen songs from the period referencing sea travel and the colonial experience. The choice of material is intriguing and revelatory, and it is easy to imagine the pilgrim fathers gathered on deck in quieter moments during their epic voyage joining in song, or later taking a break from the arduous task of building their colonial towns with some communal singing. The singers and instrumentalists of Passamezzo steer a cautious line between ‘refined’ and ‘naïve’ performance style – I could only wish that they might have taken account of the considerable body of scholarship devoted to the pronunciation of 17th-century English, both in ‘old’ and New England. This is particularly noticeable in the contribution from actor Richard de Winter, which would surely have benefited from a nice 17th-century New England twang! Having said that, the singing is always pleasing, the scoring imaginative and plausible and the playing consistently sympathetic. This is a very enjoyable CD and a suitably evocative celebration of a seminal historical moment.

D. James Ross

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DVD

Beethoven: Missa Solemnis (DVD)

Johanna Winkel, Sophie Harmsen, Sebastian Kohlhepp, Arttu Kataja, Kammerchor Stuttgart, Hofkapelle Stuttgart, Frieder Bernius
Documentary and Performance
71:00 (music), 60:00 (documentary)
Naxos 2.110669

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How do we approach the Missa Solemnis in this Beethoven year, 2020? It is not an easy question to ask of a work that is so multi-faceted, a huge structure that both storms the heavens, as if shaking a fist at fallen mankind, and yet also provides that same mankind with the solace and comfort of the Elysian fields. Anton Schindler, Beethoven’s first biographer, noted that from the start of the Mass’s long gestation period (1818-1823) Beethoven was in a condition of ‘oblivion of everything earthly’. The concept of a large-scale celebratory Mass for the elevation of his royal pupil Archduke Rudolf to cardinal and archbishop in Cologne Cathedral – an event long since over by the time the Mass was completed – had been transcended by 1823. I confess to finding it difficult to provide firm answers to the question posed in my opening sentence.

Some help is certainly provided by this new Naxos release featuring a film of a recording made in October 2018 at Alpirsbach Abbey, Baden-Würtemberg. Not only do we see film of the recording itself, but also a fascinating hour-long documentary that includes valuable insights into the work and Frieder Bernius’s approach to it. For that reason, I would recommend watching the documentary before viewing the performance. Bernius is, of course, a long-established conductor and was the founder of the Kammerchor Stuttgart, whose 50th anniversary is also celebrated by this issue. One of the most interesting features of the film is the way in which Bernius works with his choir, often taking just a couple of choristers to give them individual tuition on the work in hand. Even more compelling is to observe that Bernius’s approach, inspired by his many years of working on earlier choral music, is text-based, the results of his insistence on detailed working on such matters as pronunciation and articulation clearly evident in the final performance. In addition to the interviews and rehearsal clips, there are some fascinating archival clips of Bernius at work with earlier incarnations of the Kammerchor, along with interviews with some of the present performers.

Moving to the performance itself it is clear from the outset of the Kyrie that Bernius knows precisely what he wants. Taken at a measured tempo, the music moves with calm assurance, while the solo entries announce a fine young quartet that throughout impresses particularly in the many ensemble passages, obviously encouraged by Bernius to make the most of the madrigalian textures with which the work abounds. Christe is beautifully managed, though the timpani and brass don’t quite achieve unanimity in the quiet transition back to Kyrie. The Gloria, too, sets out at a well-judged tempo, avoiding the feeling of being pushed. Indeed, the whole, vast movement is unfolded by Bernius like an epic poem. ‘Et in terra’ brings a moment of wondrous stasis in the midst of powerful drive, while the prayerful ‘Gratias’ is another memorably placid interlude succeeded by some splendidly incisive orchestral playing in the lead back to the opening tempo and ‘Domine Deus’. And it is worth mentioning at this point that although the period-instrument Hofkapelle Stuttgart is hardly the most illustrious orchestra to undertake the Missa Solemnis, its playing throughout is excellent, with many distinguished moments coming from its wind section. The overall grandeur of the movement is brought to a triumphant peroration in the final doxology.

Credo opens as powerful affirmation, the contrapuntal passages once again luminescent in their clarity of detail.  The start of ‘Et incarnatus’ finds the choral tenors handling this key moment with a real sensitivity complimented by glinting high wind, another treasurable moment. The stabbing pain of ‘Crucifixus’ is tellingly conveyed, as is the mesmerizingly lovely outcome at ‘et sepultus est’.  

Beethoven’s ‘Sanctus’ is not the exultant triple cry of so many settings but a reverential moment on bended knee in contemplation of God’s glory. The choral sopranos have a rare ragged moment of ensemble at the exposed entry on ‘Osanna’, but in general cope with Beethoven’s wickedly high tessitura very capably. The high violin solo a little later is very well played. The opening of Agnus Dei provides a fine moment for bass Arttu Kataja, to distinguish himself and lead his three colleagues into a gloriously sung exposition, while the militaristic flourishes (first introduced into an Agnus Dei by Haydn in his Missa in tempore belli) provide thrilling moments of dramatic extroversion.

As I hope is clear from the foregoing Bernius’s Missa Solemnis impresses by dint of its total integrity. It may not be the most imposing or the most dramatically enthralling version on record, but few will not be moved and touched by it. ‘From the heart, may it go to the heart’, wrote Beethoven of his monumental work. Here that mission is unquestionably accomplished.

Brian Robins   

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DVD

Galerie Dorée

Le concert du Tricentenaire
Le Concert de la Loge, Julien Chauvin
+ Quatuor Cambini-Paris, Jodie Devos, Justin Taylor, Thomas Dunforn, Atsuschi Sakaï, Tami Krausz
77:00
BelAir classiques BAC171 (DVD) BAC571 (BluRay)

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The Banque de France’s Galerie Dorée was constructed in the late 1630s and then refurbished and refashioned 1714-1719. This DVD marks the 300th anniversary of that undertaking. There are many splendid pictures both on the bank’s own website and online generally.

The contents of the disc are partly a film of a commemorative concert, partly an exhibition of the building’s decorative artwork and partly a tour of the building itself with musicians playing in spectacular surroundings. But, for me, the whole enterprise doesn’t quite come up to the mark on any of those counts. Filming the concert was clearly problematic as the long thin venue with the orchestra halfway down the long side offered no opportunities for decent camera positions, and as far as the building and the art are concerned the shots are not really long enough to appreciate the detail of what we are being shown. Yes, the accompanying book is very informative and lavishly illustrated but you can’t look at that and the screen, and if you pause the picture for study you also pause the music. In addition, the book doesn’t deal with the music in the order in which it is played but the order in which we encounter the art in the building. I also found the camera work too fiddly (and not always well aimed) and the editing not particularly skilful, and there were times when imperfect coordination of sound and vision made me think I might not be hearing the performance I was seeing.

As noted above, the main gallery where the concert took place is long and thin and the orchestral items are filmed here mostly with the audience present though sometimes without. This latter option was a mistake as the rows of empty red chairs in the background look pretty awful. Surely they could have been removed? There are no such visual issues with the other venues which, with more space and fewer performers, look very much better.

The music itself is inspired by the art, which is a reasonable enough idea, though it does mean we get ‘movements from’ rather than complete works. The repertoire is enterprising though: when did you last hear a movement from an early Haydn symphony or a string quartet movement by Félicien David (terrific viola playing in this)? All the playing has much gusto and the live audience clearly loved what they got. But class will out, and, for me, in currently sunny Surrey (UK) the solo harpsichord Couperin and Rameau steal the show.

David Hansell

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DVD

Lully: Te Deum, Biber: Missa Salisburgensis

Les Pages du Centre de musique baroque de Versailles, Collegium 1704, Collegium Vocale 1704, dir. Václav Luks
DVD CVS012
89:00

Although this is a Versailles production, the performances were filmed in Rome’s rather gorgeous Basilica San Giovanni in Laterano. I have two reservations about the performance practice on view. Are theorbo and harp really appropriate continuo instruments for either piece, and should both works really sound at the same pitch? Is this pitch (415) actually correct for either of them? Apart from that, the performances themselves are very good.

I have rather more issues with the format and the use made of it. Particularly if a concert is to be filmed, someone has to think about what it looks like. Someone should have told the conductor to re-tie his tie before he went on stage and also that his light brown suit looked pretty awful in the context of everyone else’s black, and the singers should have been warned to continue to look engaged and not to stare blankly into the middle distance when not directly involved in the performance.

And the potential of the medium has scarcely had its surface scratched. There are no extras, no subtitles and the encores (repeats of sections of the mass and which need not have been included) are not identified. In addition, the camera-work is quite pedestrian and there is no real attempt to convey the spatial aspects of the Biber.

So not a visual success I’m afraid, though the booklet does offer the information that should have been on the screen.

David Hansell

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DVD Recording

Vinci: Didone abbandonata

Roberta Mameli Dido, Carlo Allemano Enea, Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, dir. Carlo Ipata
166:00; 160:43
Dynamic 37788 (2 DVDs); CD37788.03 (3 CDs)

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he story of the tragic love between Dido and Aeneas, the substance of Book IV of Virgil’s Aeneid, has long formed an inspiration for painters, poets, dramatists and musicians. Following the invention of opera at the start of the 17th century, it would be a popular topic. Before the close of that century the story had inspired a number of operas, signifcantly those of Cavalli (1641) and of course Purcell. It is therefore of little surprise to find it the subject chosen by the greatest of 18th-century librettists for his first original drama.

Metastasio’s Didone abbandonato  was written in 1724, probably with some assistance from his close friend, the singer actress Maria Anna Benti (known as ‘La Romanina’), being originally set by the Neapolitan composer Domenico Sarro. Thereafter it would become one of the poet’s most favoured dramatic works, employed on more than 60 (!) occasions. Among the earliest versions was that of Leonardo Vinci, whose setting was premiered in Rome’s Teatro delle Dame during the Carnival season of 1726. Vinci’s Didone abbandonato  retained Metastasio’s most innovative feature, the highly dramatic tragic ending, where he writes a series of accompanied recitatives leading to the abandoned Didone’s immolation among the flames of burning Carthage. Metastasio’s version also fleshes out the story by providing additional characters or expanding the part played by those already in Virgil’s account, among them Dido’s African suitor Iarbas (Iarba in the opera) and her sister Anna, here renamed Selene. She provides additional love interest by also being in love with Aeneas, Selene in turn being loved by Araspe, the confidant of Iarba. The cast list is completed by Didone’s treacherous confidant Osmida.

Vinci’s music for them provides opportunities for both Didone and Enea to create strong personalities. Didone’s opening aria ‘Io son regina’ (I am queen) immediately establishes a strong, proud and stubborn persona. She will be at her most imperious and magnificent in her defiance of Iarbas in their act 2 confrontation, but the chromatic pain of the superb ‘Se vuoi ch’io mora’ (If you want me dead) (act 2) finds her at her most vulnerable as her scorn for the departing Enea suddenly evaporates to total capitulation. In that final sequence of accompagnati  she rises to true tragic stature as she first rails then grieves before accepting the fate she (correctly) predicts will bring her lasting fame. Enea, too, emerges as a truly heroic figure to a far greater degree than Nahum Tate and Purcell ever allow him to be. Most of his arias are cast in the heroic mode and in his dialogue he makes a far better case for fulfilling his destiny. Other characters are less well rounded. Selene has several coloratura arias, but Iarba and the minor characters have perhaps rather too many ‘simile’ arias for contemporary taste, though of course they served a function in showing the vocal strength of the original singers.

The present set is taken from a production given at the Opera di Firenze in January 2017. Sadly both production and performance fall well short of ideal. Much the visual best feature is the sumptuous costumes, in particular the red and gold dresses of respectively Didone and Selene, both overlaid with brass cages. Their blond tresses are somewhat less convincing. Enea, too, looks every inch the Trojan hero, particularly given the stature and presence of tenor Carlo Allemano, the only drawback being that he looks rather too mature. It would be good to report that acting and movement matched. They don’t; on the contrary they are mostly very poor and often inelegant. Just occasionally there is a brief hint, usually from Roberta Mameli’s Didone, that someone has looked at a book about 18th-century gesture. They then obviously closed it again pretty quickly. The single set opens well enough, with a static projection suggesting the partially built Carthage and ships in the harbour. Thereafter it is downhill all the way, with much irritating shadowy movement back projected, often distracting attention from arias. Bearing in mind that we are on the Mediterranean, the set is also far too continuously dark and drab.

Conductor Carlo Ipata has a number of respectable period instrument recordings to his credit (with his Auser Musici), but his direction of the modern orchestra strings of the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino orchestra is here disappointingly wooden and rhythmically square. The playing is exceptionally poor, with ensemble at times barely reaching decent professional standard. Much the best singing comes from Mameli’s Didone and Allemano’s Enea, though the latter is poor with articulating passaggi and ornamentation and some of Mameli’s top notes tend to be wayward, especially when attempting ill-advised octave leaps in da capo

’s. Countertenor Raffaele Pé’s Iarba is well sung, too, but his acting – as produced – is the stuff of pantomime villains. None of the remaining members of the cast (Gabriella Costa as Selene, Marta Pluda’s Araspe and Giada Frasconi’s Osmida) are any way noteworthy apart from the fact that all have pitch problems, Costa being especially wayward at times.

The recording, which is identical in the DVD or CD versions, can be given a very guarded welcome as an acceptable version of an important seminal opera. But, in truth, this is only a stopgap and one can only hope for a recording that does the opera greater justice. An Italian/English libretto can be downloaded

Brian Robins

Categories
DVD Recording

Llibre vermell de Montserrat

La Capella Reial de Catalunya, Hespérion XXI, Jordi Savall
71:46, DVD 73:45
AliaVox AVSA9919

[dropcap]J[/dropcap]ordi Savall’s musical forces and the music of the Llibre Vermell seem like a marriage made in heaven, and indeed his 1979 recording of this music with Hesperion XX was a ground-breaking and highly influential contribution to our understanding of the performance possibilities for this repertoire. There was an improvisatory dimension in the EMI Reflexe recording (CDM 763071 2) which was something quite new in the early music revival, and a genuine understanding of the original context of the music which made these recordings unforgettable. Touchingly Savall is revisiting the material as a homage to his late wife, Montserrat Figueras, who featured prominently in the 1979 recording and whose name of course invokes the monastery of Montserrat where the Libre Vermell survived. This recording of the material is of a live performance which takes the form of a continuous sequence of the songs, linked by short instrumental meditations built upon the musical material we have just heard. This is a winning formula, which allows the largely cyclical material to unfold to maximum effect, and with musicians of the standard of Savall and his players, truly exquisite improvisations can be relied upon. Hesperion XXI are playing a galaxy of wind, stringed and percussion instruments, and if some people might feel this simple, almost folk music has been rather heavily ‘orchestrated’ by Savall, the effects are generally fascinating, although I did feel that the inclusion of the ravishing sounds of duduk and kanun may have played into Savall’s philosophy of a pan-Mediterranean sound rather than having any genuine authenticity. There are problems relating to the live recording, too, some of which are unavoidable, but others of which could have been dealt with. In listening to the CD, I was very aware of intrusive shufflings and clunkings during the instrumental improvisations, and it emerged on watching the DVD that these episodes provided cover for the singers to rearrange themselves on their creaky wooden staging. However, on some occasions the distractions are provided by carelessly noisy page-turning and unnecessary movements, a surprising lapse from musicians who must be used to studio recording etiquette. These were less distracting in the DVD, where at least we could see the source of the noises, although the DVD had its own visual distractions – singers who folded their black covered music over, ruining the visual effect, while the splendidly bearded Pedro Esteban distractingly flapped a single sheet of music in one hand while playing percussion with the other. Stage management is important in concerts, particularly if you are filming them! The sound was being recorded on two centrally placed microphones, capturing the lavish acoustic of Santa Maria del Pi in Barcelona, but making some musicians sound rather distant and sometimes slightly out of touch. So what has Savall learned about this music in the intervening 38 years? Maybe that isn’t the point – he is revisiting much-loved material, and the fact that his once so radical approach now seems rather mainstream is due almost entirely to his remarkable career. And if the ravishing Mariam matrem virginem misses the idiosyncratic and exquisite voice of Montserrat Figueras at her very best, maybe that makes its own point. It hardly needs said that the overall standard of this lavish Alia vox package is superb in every respect, packed with scholarly information with bibliography and pictures, and printed to the very highest standards. A bonus track featuring a Catalan song, which the musicians performed as a concert encore, rounds the programme off to perfection.

D. James Ross

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DVD

Hasse: Artaserse (1730, Venice)

Franco Fagioli Arbace, Sonia Prina Artabano, Maria Grazia Schiavo Mandane, Anicio Zorzi Giustiniani Artaserse, Antonio Giovannini Megabise, Rosa Bove Semira, Orchestra Internazionale d’Italia, Corrado Rovaris
189:00 (2 DVDs)
Dynamic 37715

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]his live video recording from a 2012 production interjects images from the set (basically an over-sized staircase for much of the time) and from the pit (where we learn that the baroque ensemble of the OII play on modern instruments). Hasse’s music is lively and dramatic, full of energy and extremely demanding on all of the six principals. The trouble with that kind of music is that it is too easily pushed too hard; even singers of this high calibre frequently struggle to find room for all of the notes, such is the frenetic pace, and what sound to me like composed Da Capo decorations only serve to hightlight their difficulties. Ultimately, although it is great to have a visual record of this production (and of any Hasse opera!), there are too many caveats to recommending it to our readers; that said, I never have been a great fan of opera and perhaps regular visitors to the opera house will get a completely different impression.

Brian Clark

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DVD

Madrigal History Tour

The King’s Singers : The Consort of Musick
105:00 (2 DVDs)
Arthaus Musik 109123

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]his double DVD set is something of a blast from the past. Deriving from a BBC arts documentary series made in 1984, it does what it says on the tin, taking us on a comprehensive and engaging tour of the history of the madrigal as it spread throughout Europe. The King’s Singers in their mid-eighties manifestation are musically at the top of their game, and the members also reveal their latent talents as presenters, at which they are singularly adept. The account of the madrigal’s development is liberally interspersed with musical examples sung by the Singers, and played, sung (and acted) by The Consort of Musicke, whose director, a youthful Anthony Rooley, also contributes to the discussion. The scholarship is thorough though not overwhelming, and its generalised nature means that little of it has been superseded, while the performances are generally good if not quite up to 21st-century standards. On my copy the sound quality tended to shrink away in quiet passages, to return when the volume revived, but the recorded sound is generally good.

The visuals by contrast have dated badly. A generally sepia tone pervades all the location filming, which is otherwise informative and atmospheric, while the Singers themselves are captured in embarrassing sixties rock-star leather jackets – ironically the Consort of Musicke’s more traditional suits have better stood the test of time! Overlooking such gratingly dated aspects, this is an engaging and informative programme of the sort which the BBC excelled at, and there is a wealth of vocal music to enjoy here, most of it expertly contextualised and explained: around twenty minutes into the first DVD there is a note-by-note explanation of the Petrarchan madrigal Valle, che de’lamenti miei by Giaches de Wert – first the poem is read and then as the Singers perform it, we see on a moving score what is happening while a voice-over explains how the music is complementing the text. On my copy, and I fear on every other, there is a passage towards the end of the madrigal where a tape malfunction leads to an alarming pitch wobble under one of the spoken explanations – I can’t imagine this was allowed to pass in the original programme so must be a mistake in the transfer process. However, this is a minor blip in a worthwhile project.

D. James Ross

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DVD

Handel: L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato

Mark Morris Dance Group, [Sarah Jane Brandon, Elizabeth Watts, James Gilchrist, Andrew Foster-Williams SSTB], Teatro Real Orchestra and Chorus, Jane Glover
97+13:00
BelAir Classiques BAC123

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]his is one of the very few ballets I have actually seen in the theatre. I was dragged along somewhat reluctantly by a friend who loves Handel’s music and wanted to see what a choreographer could possibly make of vocal music. Watching the DVD brought back fond memories of the production (although the musicians are completely different!) – the staging is very simple with large panels of colour creating the only real visual stimulation, which (of course!) forces attention on to the dancers, who mostly cavort and frolic in looped routines which are so short as to appear almost mechanic in nature, and yet others that are strikingly visually representative of the text (try the hunt scene, for example). Of course, the advantage of viewing a film rather than squinting at the entire scene from a distance is that one can see quite a lot of detail.

I was extremely impressed by the energy and stamina of the dancers, who must shed pounds during every performance. The musical performance is pretty much of secondary importance, although there are close-ups of singers during some of the numbers. I would not recommend this if it were a CD purely of the music, but as a Gesamtkunstwerk it works very well.

Brian Clark

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