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Croft: Three odes with orchestra

MB108 Croft Three odes with orchestra.

Edited by Alan Howard
Musica Britannica MB108
ISBN: 9780852499696 ISMN: 9790220228100
xlviii + 127pp, £115.00
Stainer & Bell

This excellent volume contains the two pieces Croft wrote to celebrate the Peace of Utrecht in 1713 – an earn his Oxford doctorate – and an ode (the editor Alan Howarth argues) to mark the Peace of Ryswick in 1697. if, as likely, that is the case, the composer would still have been a teenager, so the infelicities identified in the informative introduction might be forgiven. The main problem with the source (a later copy by one of Croft’s students from the 1720s) is the labelling of the instrumental parts – in the opening movement, there is a trumpet line (or two trumpet lines?) with unplayable notes, and the editor interprets the next four lines as violins where it strikes me as more likely that the first pair are oboes and the next pair violins. In the following movements, an alto is accompanied by recorders, the soprano and bass by strings, the bass by violins, and the full ensemble renders the short concluding chorus. The Utrecht pieces, whose performances in Oxford were noticed in the press, are far more substantial and it is clear that in the intervening years, Croft has matured as a composer. His debt to the Purcellian court ode is self-evident. Where we nowadays tend to think of him as being obscured by Handel, there is no sense in which this music is overshadowed by the German’s music for the Utrecht celebrations – indeed, some of his best choral writing might suggest that the influence worked in the opposite direction! I hope the availability of these fine pieces will inspire musicians to take up his cause – there really is a wealth of beautiful music here!

Brian Clark 

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Sheet music

Early Tudor Organ Music

Early Tudor Organ Music
Version 1.0.0

Early English Church Music 65 (volume 1) & 66 (volume 2)
Edited by John Caldwell
Vol. 1: xxxvi + pp 1-206 £100
ISMN 979 0 2202 2852 0, ISBN 978 0 85249 971 9
Vol. 2: pp 207-403 £85
ISMN 979 0 2202 2853 7, ISBN 978 0 85249 972 6
Stainer & Bell Ltd

These two magnificent landscape volumes will be essential for anyone interested in this repertoire. The wealth of information presented in the introduction (xii-xxxvi in volume 1) is incredibly valuable. The main source of the music itself is British Library Additional MS 29996, with 12 secondary sources also discussed and their significance assessed. The volumes are organised by liturgical function, beginning with 14 settings of the Miserere and ending with 21 anonymous hymn settings (the last incomplete). Caldwell supplements this with music from secondary sources and three appendices (intabulations, plainchant melodies, and hymns and faburdens).

Each of the sections has a title page with critical notes on each of the pieces. The music itself is set out beautifully. Organists familiar with the style will have no trouble with the Mensurstrich-style subdivision into regular bars, and I suppose the brain adapts to final notes before the end of a piece (indicated by “pause” marks) are sustained until the end, even though they have the same note value as the “other” finals. The more I looked at the edition, the more it became apparent that it is a thoroughly annotated, modernised facsimile of the originals (except that “original barlines are not shown”). I do not fully understand the need to leave all the shorter notes unbeamed, not to add a bracketed flat for the B below middle C on the treble staff where there already is one in the bass clef (as in modern usage). I am also puzzled by some of the placements of the 3:2 indication of coloration – surely it should either be in the middle of the grouping, or at the beginning, but consistently so. I am sure, though, that anyone using these invaluable volumes will not worry about such things – they will just get on and play the music! And hurrah to that!

Brian Clark

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Sheet music

Requiems by Giovanni Croce and Giovanni Rovetta

Croce Rovetta Requiems RRMBE 238

The Requiem Mass at St Mark’s, Venice, in the Seventeenth Century
Edited by Jonathan R. J. Drennan
Recent Researches in the Music of the Baroque Era, 238
xvii, six plates + 50pp $140
ISBN 978-1-9872-0865-8

This is the first of three volumes surveying Requiem settings at the basilica of San Marco from the 17th to the 19th centuries. After a detailed introduction, Drennan presents the two settings in the traditional A-R format, meaning that my usual gripes about wasted space and dumbing down of time signatures apply. Both works are written for ATTB choir and were intended to be sung from the bigonzo, a large raised “tub” (the edition includes two excellent photographs of the space); only Croce’s setting splits into two groups – and even then only for the Dies irae. Several pages could have been saved if, instead of printing eight staves every time one choir answered the other (on p. 21 meaning Choir 1 has ONE BAR at the end of the page), they were simply both presented on four staves and clearly labelled. This almost certainly have meant that the Sanctus and Agnus Dei would have appeared on an opening, rather than over two pages. Rovetta adds continuo to his setting but – again – space could have been saved (by printing the chant as a single line, for example!) and those two last movements would fit a spread. The music itself is written in the stile antico; polyphony is limited but both composers know how to use rhythm to keep their music interesting while fulfilling the necessity to declaim the text clearly. Both settings are extremely brief; Drennan suggests that has more to do with restrictions set by church authorities than the composers.

Brian Clark

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Sheet music

Nathaniel Giles: English Sacred Music

Nathaniel Giles English Sacred Music Joseph Sargent

Early English Church Music [volume] 63
ISBN 978 0 85249 965 8 | ISMN 979 0 2202 2643 4 (Hardback)
xxx, 130pp. £70
Stainer & Bell

This second volume dedicated to the few surviving works of Nathaniel Giles (1558?–1634) contains service music. While presenting an edition of the First Service is straightforward, the Second Service can only be reconstructed from the surviving sources to within a certain degree of completeness and the editor Joseph Sargent has had to put his creative hat on for passages where the solo parts are not available, and the Short Service is very fragmentary indeed but both Sargent and the series editor, David Skinner, recommend their contrapuntal possibilities to would-be reconstructionists. After a detailed biography of the composer, Sargent surveys the sources and lays out his editorial approach. Then come detailed descriptions of the sources and a meticulous editorial commentary on the three services. Then to the music itself, laid out on pages larger than A4 size that can accommodate the up to ten voices (two five-part choirs – cantoris and decani, according to Anglican tradition) and the organ part(s). I had to do some brain juggling when systems were compressed and a voice from the lower group appeared in the middle of the combined groups, but generally the approach works. The added parts are printed in smaller notation. The paper is slightly shiny – I did not find that a problem but I have heard others complain about using such paper for music because it can sometimes catch light awkwardly and become difficult to read. I hope more than anything else that this marvellous tome (at another bargain price of only £70!) will encourage performances of the music – it very much deserves to be heard!

Brian Clark

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Sheet music

Kusser: Serenatas for Dublin

Kusser Serenatas for Dublin ed Samantha Owens

Recent Researches in the Music of the Baroque Era, 210
Edited by Samantha Owens
xxi, four plates, 262pp.
ISBN 978-1-9872-0450-6

This is Samantha Owens’ latest contribution to the (long overdue!) rediscovery of Kusser’s music. It contains the three surviving serenatas (of 21!) that the composer wrote during his time in Ireland: “The Universal Applause of Mount Parnassus” (1711 for Queen Anne’s birthday), “An Idylle on the Peace” (1713 on the Utrecht settlement), and the rather oddly named “No! He’s not dead” (ca. 1707-14, again for Queen Anne). After a French overture, each is a sequence of recitatives, arias and choruses, many with colourful scorings displaying the versatility of the musical establishment in Dublin. The state pomp of the serenata on the Peace inspires the use of three trumpets, while the 1711 work calls for no fewer than nine solo sopranos. Many of the arias are built on dance forms, and Kusser reveals himself to be quite the tunesmith. He was also a self-borrower, here recycling arias from operas he had written in Germany. Two of the serenatas have recorded in full on Hungaroton, and portions of the other by the Irish Baroque Orchestra under Peter Whelan, both groups drawing out the charm of these neglected pieces. Hopefully the publication of this magnificent volume will inspire others to take up the challenge.

Brian Clark

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Concert-Live performance Recording Sheet music

Paradise regained

If you are lucky enough to be in or near Lyon on 21 March, you shouldn’t miss the first performance in modern times of an oratorio by Luigi Mancia, who was maestro di cappella in Mantua at the end of the 17th century. If you like to find out more about its re-discovery in an anonymous manuscript in Lyon’s municipal library and hear extracts (including an amazing aria accompanied by three concertante cellos!) follow this link (in French!) The performance is expected to last one and three-quarter hours, not including the interval. Tickets are available here.

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Sheet music

Vivanco: Liber magnificarum (1607)

Vivanco Liber magnificarum R173_Cover

Recent Researches in the Music of the Renaissance, 173
Edited by Michael Noone and Graeme Skinner
xxiii + 277pp.
ISBN 978-1-9872-0531-2. $360

Click HERE to buy this from the publisher’s website.
[PLEASE NOTE: This link is NOT sponsored]

Anyone who has studied Renaissance polyphony knows that composers of the period devised the most cunning contrapuntal devices to allow a musical phrase to be used and re-used simultaneously backwards and forwards, upside down, and in different note values, mostly without the listener even realising. If Sebastián de Vivanco has been somewhat overshadowed by his Avilan contemporary, Victoria, it most certainly was not on account of his polyphonic prowess. The present volume contains no fewer than 18 settings of the Magnificat (two in each of the eight tones, one setting the odd verses, the other the evens, plus two extras for the most popular 1st and 8th tones). Most are for four voices, but there are two for five, three for six, and one for eight. There are also two settings of the versicle to the Magnificat, “Benedicamus Domino” (one each for four and five voices, the former printed in no fewer than four different possible realisations of the canons). An appendix printed the three perpetual canons without texts and a three-voice canon on “Christum regem pro nobis” which form the frame to the portrait of the composer that appeared on the title page of the original Salamancan print.

If you plan to perform this music, you should be aware that even pieces indicated as being for four or five voices are not always exactly that; particularly the “Gloria Patri” sections throw in canons whose resolutions produce extra voices (up to eight) – in the case of No. 8 (a setting of the odd verses), this also involves the inclusion of other texts: the Vespers hymn, “Ave maris stella”, the antiphon at Lauds, “Ave Maria, gratia plena”, and “O gloriosa Domina”, a hymn also from the service of Lauds. Such polytextuality did not bother composers of the period, and this integration of them all into an already complex polyphonic texture is a real tour de force. The extraordinary cost of this volume is going to dissuade most choirs from exploring the repertoire, which is more than a great shame; since A-R Editions offer off-prints of each of the three masses in a previous volume, perhaps eventually they can be persuaded to make some of these works more practically available too?

Brian Clark

Categories
Sheet music

Rosetti: Der sterbende Jesus

Rosetti Der sterbende Jesus C114_Cover

Recent Researches in the Music of the Classical Era, 114
Edited by Sterling E. Murray
xx, 4 plates, 227pp.
ISBN 978-1-9872-0335-6. $320

Click HERE to buy this at the publisher’s website.
[PLEASE NOTE: This link is NOT sponsored]

Though perhaps best known nowadays as a composer of symphonies, concertos and partitas, Antonio Rosetti (who was born in Bohemia, spent years of his early life in St Petersburg, then Wallerstein before dying, aged only 42, a mere two years after being appointed Kapellmeister in Schwerin) also wrote some impressive vocal music.

Der sterbende Jesus is a passion-oratorio in the tradition of Graun’s Der Tod Jesu. The four characters (a soprano as Mary, St John who was sung by a tenor, an alto as Joseph of Arimathea and Jesus himself, bass) are accompanied by a fairly large orchestra of flute, 2 oboes, bassoon, 2 horns, 2 trumpets with timps, and strings. The work is a sequence of recitatives and arias, interspersed with movements called “Chorale” in which a four-voice is accompanied by the woodwinds (including horns) and others labelled “Chorus” in which the whole ensemble performs. There are elements of narrative drama, but essentially it is a series of reflections initially on Jesus’s death but ultimately in his triumph over death, and that sense of a glorious overcoming of the “power of the grave” is skilfully captured in Rosetti’s final chorus. Music by the lesser masters of this period is often overlooked because of the perceived superiority of their illustrious contemporaries, Haydn and Mozart. On the evidence of this score, Rosetti’s vocal music certainly ought to be better known; the parts he wrote for Mary and St John is particularly demanding.

A-R Editions continue to champion repertoire that has been ignored for too long. Someone, let’s have a recording!

Brian Clark

 

Categories
Sheet music

Purcell: Sacred Music Part IV

Purcell Sacred music volume 28

Purcell Society Edition, volume 28
Edited by Robert Thompson
xli (including four pages of facsimiles) + 198pp. £75.
ISBN: 9780852499603 ISMN: 9790220225970

Click HERE to buy this from the publisher’s website.
[PLEASE NOTE: This link is NOT sponsored]

As well as updating to include the latest background information, the principal purpose in producing this volume is to re-order the music contained in it according to the dates of composition. Since The Purcell Society first issued editions of the composer’s anthems, a lot of source work has been done that has informed the newly established chronology. Robert Thompson presents the evidence in a way that is mostly very readable; sometimes there is just too much information for comfort, but how is one to avoid this when there is a wealth of disparate evidence?

The 14 continuo anthems included in the volume are presented in the now-familiar Purcell Society style. They are: Turn thou us, O good Lord (Z62), Who hath believed our report? (Z64), Lord, who can tell how oft? (Z26), Blessed be the Lord my strength (Z6), Let God arise (Z23), O Lord our governor (Z39), Give sentence with me (Z12), O praise the Lord, all ye heathen (Z43), I will love thee, O Lord (ZN67), The Lord is King (ZN69), Let mine eyes run down with tears (Z24), Hear my prayer, O God (Z14), O Lord, thou art my God (Z41) and Out of the deep (Z45). Appendices include a short re-arrangement of a repeat of Z64 by Philip Hayes, an organ part for Z6, an earlier working of a passage from Z24 and an organ part thought possibly to be by a young Purcell for Humfrey’s By the waters of Babylon.

Typically this kind of volume is destined to sit on library shelves. Anyone performing the music it contains, though, should certainly seek it out for the valuable information it contains.

Brian Clark

Categories
Sheet music

Henry Lawes: Sacred Music

Henry Lawes Sacred Music EC61

Early English Church Music Volume 61
Transcribed and edited by Jonathan Wainwright
xxxviii+176pp. £75
ISBN: 9780852499610 ISMN: 9790220225987

Click HERE to buy this from the publisher’s website.
[PLEASE NOTE: This link is NOT sponsored]

This heavy and handsomely bound book contains all of Lawes’ known sacred music: five anthems (three of which are fragmentary), five “symphony anthems” (don’t get excited – the symphonies are reduced to organ accompaniment), 29 devotional anthems for 2 sopranos, bass and continuo, seven “sacred songs” for soprano and continuo, 24 metrical psalms for soprano and bass (here with the text of the opening verse printed below the upper voice and the remaining verses as poetic stanzas below), three Latin motets (Laudate Dominum for 2 sopranos, bass and continuo, Predicate in gentibus for bass and continuo, and Quis sicut Dominus Deus noster for soprano, bass and continuo), three rounds for three voices and the texts of eleven pieces that are known to have been lost. An appendix has Matthew Camidge’s 1789 re-working of the psalm tunes.

As well as this hugely generous amount of music, you get a LOT of musicology; there’s a lengthy introduction to Henry Lawes and his music, then an exhaustive list not only of the sources but also articles that have already explored them in depth, and a comprehensive bibliography. Then, each subsection of the book (essential the seven categories I described above) has its own introduction along with detailed critical notes. The music is beautifully laid out. The original orthography of the texts is retained. I am not a great fan of “dashed bar marks” in vocal music as I find it quite difficult at a glance to see where they fall. Nor do ficta accidentals above repeated notes of the same pitch strike me as particularly useful. That said, these are very, very minor criticisms. Henry Lawes’ music deserves to be much more widely known and this beautiful book makes it readily accessible.

Brian Clark