Category: Recording

Ensemble Marsyas, dir. Peter Whelan
68:00
Linn CKD 576

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]his excellent CD takes advantage of two sets of circumstances nearly three centuries apart: firstly, that in 1742 Edinburgh was a burgeoning centre of the arts and of Baroque music in particular, and, secondly, that nowadays the ‘The Athens of the North’ is enjoying a second golden age of Baroque performance. In a programme designed to celebrate concerts given by the Edinburgh Musical Society in the mid-18th century, Peter Whelan and his ensemble give us five of Francesco Barsanti’s ten op.3 Concerti Grossi  along with a set of his charming Scots song settings, together with a march, an aria and a horn concerto by Handel, an arrangement by the composer of two movements from his Water Music. The horn was still a relative orchestral novelty, having been first introduced by Handel in his Water Music some twenty years earlier, and would have been a considerable attraction in Edinburgh. Whelan’s two excellent horn players, Alex Frank-Gemmill and Joseph Walters, also feature prominently in the Barsanti Concerti, which turn out to be works of superlative quality, in which the standard high Baroque pomp is regularly shot through with a poignant melancholy or enlivened by quirky folk rhythms in a style which is both masterly and distinctively individual. The crystal-voiced Emilie Renard, whom I heard recently singing Handel to wonderful effect at the Lammermuir Festival, gives a splendidly dramatic account of “Sta nel’Iscana” from Handel’s Alcina, while violinist Colin Scobie provides infectiously lilting accounts of four of Barsanti’s Old Scots Tunes. This terrific CD, bustling with energy and creativity, gives a vivid impression of Edinburgh in 1742 and at the same time conveys a marvellously upbeat picture of the current state of early music performance in Scotland.

D. James Ross

Barocco Boreale, Kreeta-Maria Kentala (+Siiri Virkkala) violin
79:31
Alba ABCD 402
+ RV 114, 511, 522

[dropcap]W[/dropcap]ell… – where do I begin? I suppose with a positive comment – somewhere under all of this there is probably a rather attractive account of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. However, in the modern compulsion to ‘bring something new’ to Vivaldi, we have many of the natural sounds subtly alluded to in the original, ‘realized’ by bird whistles, regal, psaltery and a host of other inappropriate instruments, while Vivaldi’s original score is practically deconstructed in a series of ridiculous exaggerations and distortions. All good fun, you might say, and clearly eminent early harpist and professor Andrew Lawrence King, who plays several of the added instruments, would seem to agree. Well I don’t. Having heard Vivaldi’s Four Seasons  horribly mangled by a number of ensembles over the years, I haven’t become in any way hardened to it, let alone more sympathetic to such treatments. By all means, write new pieces commenting on Vivaldi, as several composers have done, but don’t impose your own eccentric performance ideas which he would never have countenanced himself and which make a nonsense of his music. Surely the whole point of Vivaldi’s allusions to natural/folk sounds is that they are just that – allusions – and the minute you spell them out with literal renditions, shoe-horned into the original score, you have ruined his intentions. I have a secret inkling that all these attempts to ‘improve upon’ Vivaldi ultimately result from the chronic over-exposure of his music, particularly the Four Seasons. The answer is simple – give this played-out repertoire a rest and either turn instead to the other 95 percent of Vivaldi’s output that nobody looks near, or devote your time to one of the plethora of excellent and entirely neglected Baroque composers. It would be good to hear this clearly excellent Baroque ensemble turn their attentions to a more worthwhile project – meanwhile, slapped legs all round for this self-indulgent nonsense…

D. James Ross