[dropcap]T[/dropcap]hese sonatas for violin and continuo were the composer’s first published set, dedicated to Prince Johann Ernst of Saxe-Weimar, known to music history as a composer (Bach arranged his music for keyboard) who died, aged only 18, in the same year (1715).
Valerio Losito believes that each of the six sonatas reflects a different aspect of the prince’s character, as listed in the dedication, and this informs his performances of the music. His renditions are certainly lively, and Del Sordo’s accompaniments are similarly committed, but I wonder if the microphones were simply too close to the violin, since some of the bow strokes are overly edgy; rarely are both notes at either ends of wide leaps equally audible (even allowing for one being stronger than the other as part of an interpretation); sometimes the accompaniment clouds the solo line (the end of track 7 is a case in point). It is very impressive how the harpsichord fills the accompaniment role (and how odd his absence seems in track 9, as if the violinist has gone off on a folk turn…) There are a few nice ideas here (from the performers, as well as the composer) but I found the whole experience hard work (and the over-emphasized low notes in track 10 tedious…) Dare I suggest the performers have over-interpreted at the music’s expense?
[dropcap[]I[/dropcap] had known the Belgium-based group Vox Luminis as a very carefully balanced small choral group who specialised primarily in the repertoire of the seventeenth century. And now, following CDs of Schütz and Scheidt, the older Bachs, Fux, Kerll and Scarlatti, they are tackling Bach Cantatas. This CD is of four early cantatas with a gradated increase in scoring from the two recorders and viola da gambas of BWV 106, with four single voices and organ, through to the more recognisably ‘Italian’ style of BWV 12, with its distinct choruses, recitatives and arias that uses a full complement of strings with two viola parts, and has not only an oboe and bassoon, but a trumpet as well. With a more substantial score goes an increase in the number of singers from four in 106 to eight in parts of 150, and divided into solo and tutti very sensitively and effectively in 131 and using that full complement again in the distinct opening chorus and concluding chorale of 12.
With the increase in vocal scoring goes a fuller registration on the quite substantial organ, built for the church in Bornem in Belgium (where the recording took place in 2013) by Dominique Thomas after the style of Gottfried Silbermann. The organ continuo is based on a Principal chorus rather than a stopped flute, and this gives a clarity and firmness to the bass line. In 106 no 8’ string bass is employed, let alone a 16’. If a 16’ was used by Bach in the pre-Leipzig cantatas, I suspect it was most likely supplied by the organ, as here – rather sparingly but effectively – in the closing bars of 131, for example. The sound of the final chorale in 12, Was Gott tut, das ist wohlgetan, where the descant line is entrusted to the slide trumpet and the first violin and a full chorus to mixture with a 16’ pedal are employed on the organ provides a thrilling climax to the recording. This organ is a fine instrument by an excellent builder (I have played a number of his instruments and rate him highly) and plays at 440 rather than the 460+ of the Chorton in Weimar, so there are some complexities in matching wind instruments to the pitch of the organ and strings. For example, the recorders of 106 must be playing in F on A=392hz instruments, and the oboe and bassoon in 131 must play in A at 392 as well. But how does the bassoon play so beautifully in 150? Bach wrote the fagotto part in D, but the strings play in B at 440; does the bassoonist play a 415 French-style instrument in C – it certainly sounds a fine bottom B! And what do they do in 12? There is no information on the instruments and pitches other than the (full) documentation of the organ, and liner-notes really should give us these basic and important – to practitioners – details. There are full texts and French and English translations, and the essay by Gilles Cantagrel, like for the A Nocte Temporis CD reviewed in December, is engaging for its insights on the interplay between theology, musicology and performance practice.
But it is the firm, robust and yet flexible sound of the singers, especially when singing together, that characterises these performances. For once, singers are approaching Bach cantatas with a sense of understanding where they have come from, what is the hinterland behind the cantatas and the performance style required. Often we hear Bach cantatas performed by singers who have reached back behind their 21st-century formation as singers and have more or less learned to discard some of their singing teachers’ conception of what solo singers ought to sound like. When this happens, the results are more or less successful as singers try to make a living and adapt to singing in a historically informed way as well as doing what most conductors still expect of a ‘soloist’. I valued the fine recordings of these early cantatas by the Purcell Quartet with Emma Kirkby, Michael Chance, Charles Daniels and Peter Harvey greatly when they came out in the early 2000s, but that was still a coro made up of four distinct ‘solo’ voices, that has remained the one-to-a-part standard in this country.
But Vox Luminis have approached these early Bach cantatas from the style of ensemble singing they have created for Bach’s 17th-century predecessors. This means that the ensemble sound, like that of the organ, is robust, but open voiced rather than ‘produced’. Not everyone will like it, but (to me) it offers an unrivalled blend and clarity. You can get a glimpse of how it is achieved on the useful Youtube video that Lionel Meunier has produced to accompany this venture.
This style of intimate attention to each others voice production as well as to the phrasing and diction is well illustrated, and makes for a style of music-making that has more in common with a viol consort playing to each other.
Some of the individual singers offer moments of great insight too: Vox Luminis have drawn in Reinoud van Mechelen, the singer/director of A Nocte Temporis (CD Alpha 252, reviewed in December) to sing with them in 131 and 12, and that sets a new standard for Vox Luminis’ solo contributions, which are always musical, clear as a bell and beautifully phrased. I particularly like the alto as well, Daniel Elgersma, who has the particularly strong lower notes of a true haute-contre, which you rarely get with an English cathedral-style male alto. For me, as so often the only vocal query I have is with the soprano line. Excellent though the singers of Vox Luminis are, they do not have quite the edge of boy trebles like Leopold Lampelsdorfer singing in Eichorn’s Weihnachtsoratorium I – III (VKJK 1238) or Jonty Ward in Higginbottom’s Mozart Requiem (NCR 1383), for example.
You can tell that in spite of the lack of some basic information in the liner notes, I rate the approach of Vox Luminis both vocally and instrumentally highly. This is great music-making, and the ease with which the sensible tempi changes are managed without any overt conducting as well as the cohesion and coherence of the style that make the texts the focus of the performances sets a new benchmark in the way we are learning to approach Bach Cantatas.
Nicholas Phan Evangelist, Jesse Blumberg Jesus, Jeffrey Strauss Pilate, Amanda Forsythe, Terry Wey, Christian Immler ScTBar, Apollo’s Singers, Apollo’s Fire, Jeannette Sorrell
107:42 (2 CDs)
AV2369
[dropcap]J[/dropcap]eanette Sorrell performed the John Passion repeatedly in Passiontide 2016 in the Cleveland area of the USA, and this recording captures her style. Described as a dramatic presentation in the notes, some videos are being released on the Apollo’s Fire website which help this reviewer at least understand where Sorrell is coming from.
She conducts the performance, plays the continuo (with the narrative at least) and directs the staged dialogue, which took place on a well-lit platform among the players in the live performances. All members of the ‘cast’ seem to be drawn from the excellently prepared coro; but this is emphatically not an SATB quartet plus ripienists, but chorus of some twenty-something voices, who apparently stepped – or some of them – into the audience to perform some of the turba interjections. All the ‘characters’ sing off-copy with gesture, and the dialogue is so fast and furious that it sometimes seems a bit of a scramble. It also has the curious effect of making the Evangelist – at his best I think in the more reflective arias, which he also sings – over-dramatize some pretty unimportant passages like, Pilate said unto him, which should surely be delivered pretty sotto voce. It also has the downside of not really valuing the subtle pacing and changes in tonality in Bach’s setting of the text of John 18 & 19 when you follow the text pretty deliberately.
The chorus here in the turba sections is wonderful: crisp and bright, while able to give a subtly different character to the changing emotions of the crowd. But I am less sure about the imposed dramatic performance in the outer choruses and the chorales. In the opening chorus, there are substantial rallentandi at the end of each section, and the heavy accentuation of the four beats in a bar make for a plodding start. In the chorales, each line tends to be shaped as a unit on its own, so there is a loss of the liturgical quality of the whole, and the dynamic shading too is often exaggerated. In the final chorus the momentum almost grinds to a halt at the end of each section, and in the last chorale, the ‘dramatic’ pianissimo start – are the instruments playing at all? – builds to a huge fortissimo.
Despite these reservations, the arias are beautifully done, and apparently were performed with singers out front to engage the audience in reflection. Amanda Forsythe has a clear, bell-like voice ideal for this music: her Zerfließe is sublime; and Terry Wey is an experienced singer who makes the most of his rich timbre in the middle section of Es ist vollbracht – every note is beautifully articulated, though I could have done without his Handelian-style cadenza in Von den Stricken . Christian Immler is a wonderful bass (as is Jesse Blumberg, the Jesus), and his Eilt, eilt is perfect – as is the (?semi) SAT chorus. They are joined by excellent obbligato instrumentalists, and the balance and tempi in these arias are as good as it gets.
But Bach’s theological drama is somewhat masked by Sorrell. Her ‘visionary concept of a dramatic production’ divides the work into five ‘scenes’, and this division cuts across Bach own palindromic central section, which places the chorale Durch dein Gefängnis at the centre. And the imposition of her own characterization of the voice parts, means that she misses the theological point that it is the same leading bass voice who sings the words of Jesus who immediately after his death also sings the lilting 12/8 Mein teurer Heiland in the key of D major – a key associated with the trumpets of resurrection!
I am sure that the live performances were thrilling, and certainly the musicians – both instrumental and vocal – are really well prepared, and were carefully chosen; but people hoping that this performance will give them greater insights into how Bach understood the Passion according to St John might do better to stick with John Butt’s Dunedin performance or Pierre Pierlot’s with Ricercar.
But the quality of the recording is superb, and for those who need a modern dramatic take to get into Bach, this performance would be a serious contender.
Nuria Rial soprano, Valer Sabadus countertenor, Kammerorchester Basel
60:24
Sony Classical 88985323612
Music by: A. Scarlatti, Pasquini, Colonna, D. Gabrielli, Bononcini, Torelli, Lotti, Caldara, Porpora
[dropcap]D[/dropcap]uring a recent discussion on the diction of singers with a friend, I raised in particular the question as to why that of great singers of popular music and jazz – people like Ella Fitzgerald, Peggy Lee and Frank Sinatra – was in general so much better than that of classically trained singers. Obviously there are some answers that come from the differences in the music itself, popular songs being usually more declamatory and syllabic and therefore easier to enunciate. But that doesn’t explain everything and here as if to underscore the point is a CD that could not provide a better illustration of just how bad the diction of classically trained singers can be.
‘Two of the most beautiful baroque voices …’ runs Sony’s blurb on the cover. And indeed they are, though countertenor Valer Sabadus is liable to become a bit blustery in bravura writing. More to the point is the fact that throughout the whole the programme both he and the enchanting Nuria Rial might as well be singing their shopping lists for all the meaning of the text they convey to the listener. Which is a great pity, because this is a fascinating programme of duets and solos (pace the CD’s name) taken from Italian oratorios of the 17th and earlier 18th centuries. The genre is of course very different from the English form, being heavily influenced by the spirit of the counter-Reformation and therefore much indebted to theatricality. So the innocent ear should not be surprised to find here duets that not only have texts that read (and you can read them in the booklet, even if you can’t hear them!) like operatic love duets, but sound like them. Take, for example, the exquisite duet ‘Lascia ch’io veda almeno’ for Justice and Peace from Porpora’s Il Verbo in carne, first given in Naples in 1747/8. This beautifully wrought number with its shapely vocal lines cajoled along by sequential orchestral figuration opens with the words (for Justice), ‘Grant that I may at last see in this kiss, O beloved, the victorious world set aside its bitter pain’. Here, a hundred years after the event, are words and music to transport us back to ecstatic, erotic counter-Reformation world of Bernini’s St Theresa. Much the same applies to another Porpora duet, from his Il martirio di San Giovanni Nepomuceno (Venice, c. 1730). Here an Angel sings to St John at the moment of his martyrdom, ‘O how sweet a victory in heaven I shall see you enjoy’. Again we find the same quasi-erotic tenderness and ecstasy in both music and text. It is worth pointing out in parenthesis that Sony have reversed the track listing for these two numbers, the Il martiro duet being track 15, not 13 and vice versa.
The unavoidably bland overall impression made by the CD is not mitigated by the neat but somewhat anonymous support of the modern-instrument Kammerorchester Basel, who on their own account play Torelli’s Concerto grosso, op. 8/8. The performance is tidy, but lightweight and a few moments of vulgarity in the central Adagio – some mannered rhythmic freedom and unconvincing portamenti – almost come as a relief. Ideal for anyone who likes lovely sounds as background music.
Julian Perkins & Emma Abbate
68:04
resonus RES10172
K358, 381, 521 + J. C. Bach: Sonata in A
[dropcap]T[/dropcap]here is a measure of poignancy attached to this issue since it is the last recording to have been made at Finchcocks before the retirement of Katrina and Richard Burnett and the dispersal of the marvellous keyboard collection built up there. On a personal note, I can recall with the greatest pleasure many visits to Finchcocks over the years, particular during the annual early autumn festival. Both pianos employed here, a Viennese grand by J. P. Fritz of c.1815 (used for the Mozart) and a square piano by Anton Walter and son of c.1805 (J. C. Bach), were part of the collection.
Mozart’s piano duets fall into two groups, the first works for two players at one keyboard, the second pieces for two keyboards. All the works on the present CD fall into the former category, from which K19d and K497 will presumably appear on a second disc along with the two-piano Fugue in C minor and D-major Sonata, K448, probably the finest of the duets.
I have listed the Mozart sonatas in the order in which they are given on both the cover and in the booklet, but listeners who are familiar with the music will be surprised to hear at the outset not K521, but the opening bars of K381. It would seem that the information for these sonatas was inadvertently transposed; I understand that the error has already been corrected on-line and the documentation of the CD will be amended at the first opportunity.
Such matters of course have no bearing on the performances, which are excellent in all respects. The Fritz piano has full and gracious tonal qualities generously exploited by Julian Perkins (who plays primo throughout) and Emma Abbate, who especially relish exploiting the colours produced by the many imitative exchanges Mozart gives the players. Cantabile Mozartian lines are also beautifully drawn; listen for example to Perkins’ playing of the principal theme of the exquisitely lovely Adagio of K358, the kind of writing that would soon be finding its way into the central movements of the piano concertos. Both players are also untroubled by greater technical demands of K521, the big episode of the central Andante opening out to glorious blossom under the hands of Perkins and Abbate. The square piano on which the little J. C. Bach sonata is played is obviously a more modest instrument, but it has an attractively wheezy bass and the two-movement sonata, consisting of an Allegretto in the fashionable sentimental style and a breezy minuet, is ideal for this repertoire.
It is worth adding that all repeats are taken, allowing the performers ample opportunity to add ornamentation, which is always tastefully and not infrequently wittily added. The sound is a little close, but very much in line with what I remember as ‘the Finchcocks sound’. I await volume 2 with considerable anticipation.
Friederike Chylek harpsichord
55:51
Oehms Classics OC 1864
Music by Byrd, Dowland, Farnaby, Johnson, Purcell & Tomkins
[dropcap]A[/dropcap] double celebration: Early Music Review survives into another year; and Father Christmas was kind to me, dropping three superb discs down our chimney into the wood-burner: an astounding record of Chicago blues covers by The Rolling Stones; Terry Riley’s fabulous Keyboard studies #2; and Quire Cleveland’s luminous live recording taken from two concerts devoted to Byrd that they gave last spring in Cleveland and Akron, OH. So I was well equipped for good listening throughout the festive period. However, the very day that postal deliveries resumed after Christmas, a package containing the record under review here dropped through our front door. Riches upon riches?
Yes, or perhaps Ja, because this is an assertively Anglophile recording, played by a German harpsichordist on a German copy of a 1624 Ruckers instrument, released on a German label, with booklet notes written by a German musicologist who derides his fellow countrymen’s notion of England as a “Land ohne Musik”. Naturally, much of his contempt is based on what he perceives as the excellence of the virginalists, led by Byrd, and of Purcell. There is plenty of music by both these composers on this disc, and the entire contents are played superbly. I have only two reservations about the presentation. First, the list of items on the back of the sleeve is not identical with the order in which they appear on the recording, for which one has to refer to the booklet. Nevertheless it is still an inviting menu. Secondly, although the booklet notes are good as far as they go, more information about the individual pieces would have been welcome: for instance, one of the best pieces on the disc in terms of both quality and performance is Giles Farnaby’s setting of a Pavan by Robert Johnson. Presumably Johnson’s original version was for the lute. It would have been interesting and useful to have been told that this has not survived. It has been conjecturally reconstructed by Nigel North and can be heard being played by him on his disc Robert Johnson: The Prince’s Alman, and other Dances for the Lute (Naxos 8.572178, 2010).
Ms Chylek begins with an item from the left field of Byrd’s oeuvre, the Prelude in F which survives anonymously but which Oliver Neighbour authoritatively ascribed to Byrd. Only an incipit is included in Alan Brown’s complete edition of Byrd’s keyboard music (BK 115) and a full text can be found in volume 55 of Musica Britannica, in which it is number 3 on page 2. Part of Neighbour’s proof that it is by Byrd is its similarity to parts of Byrd’s Pavan and Galliard also in F, dedicated to Ph[ilippa?]. Tr[egian?]. However, the opportunity to include this fine pairing is overlooked. After an anonymous Galliard from the Mulliner Book, there is more Byrd, with My Ladye Nevell’s Ground followed by his setting of Dowland’s Lachrymae Pavan, followed by two short pieces from the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book: an Alman by Robert Johnson, and Giles Farnaby’s Paul’s Wharf. The focus then shifts to Purcell, with his Suites in G minor and A minor, Z 661 and 663, bookending four short miscellaneous pieces, and being followed by two more. Byrd reappears with his La Volta BK 91, which is followed by the longest work on the disc, Tomkins’ Ground, and the recording closes with two arrangements with differing provenances: Johnson’s Pavan (see above) set by Farnaby; and Dowland’s song (and title track) Time stands still arranged for the harpsichord by the artiste, Friederike Chylek.
It is a pleasure to emphasize that throughout the recital Ms Chylek’s playing is immaculate and her interpretations judicious. She respects the composers’ creativity in the longer and potentially repetitive pieces such as the Grounds by Byrd and Tomkins by responding to the subtle structures and varied textures that mark these out as the products of musicians who are great and not merely good. Meanwhile she can make a brief work such as the Corant from Purcell’s Suite in A minor just as memorable by illuminating how Purcell incorporates a wonderful melody without destabilizing the piece as a whole. Similarly she relishes Byrd’s almost torrential varied repeats in his Pavana Lachrymae while treating Farnaby’s setting of Johnson’s delightful and pensive Pavan with the utmost delicacy. Her arrangement of Dowland’s song could seem incongruous but one imagines that she wished to illustrate that in the work of the English virginalists, time can indeed stand still, so this is her homage to these incomparable composers.
Jermaine Sprosse fortepiano & clavichord
76:01
deutsche harmonia mundi 88985369272
[dropcap]T[/dropcap]his is a highly significant addition to the catalogue. Friedrich Wilhelm Rust was born into a musical family in the small Saxony-Anhalt town of Wörlitz in 1739. He undertook studies in law at Halle-Wittenberg University, at the same time deputising for W. F. Bach as church organist in return for lessons. Later he attracted the attention of Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Dessau, who sent him to continue his studies firstly in Zerbst and then Berlin and Potsdam, where he was a violin pupil of Franz Benda and studied keyboard with C. P. E. Bach. In 1765-6 he travelled to Italy in the retinue of the prince, meeting Tartini, Nardini and G. B. Martini. He subsequently settled in Dessau, where he remained for the rest of his life, becoming Kapellmeister in 1775, the same year as a theatre was founded there under his auspices. He died in 1796.
Rust’s extant compositions include a substantial number of chamber works, including some 50 violin sonatas, a rather smaller body of keyboard works and both secular and sacred vocal works, including seven stage pieces. The present CD introduces three keyboard sonatas from different periods of Rust’s creative life, along with a charming set of variations on the song ‘Blühe liebes Veilchen’, a late work dating from 1794.
Judging from the three sonatas the major influences in forging Rust’s keyboard style were J. S. Bach’s two eldest sons and Franz Benda. Italy appears to have played little part, certainly in these works. The earliest of the three sonatas, in G minor, probably dates from the mid-1760s, the period during which Rust must have been heavily influenced by the north German style of Benda and C. P. E. Bach. In its at times wild spirit and lack of discipline in the opening movement it also surely betrays the eccentric hand of W. F. Bach. A thorough exploration of expressive sensitivity, the central Adagio sostenuto might have been created as a classic illustration of Empfindsamkeit. The performance, played on a copy of a Hubert clavichord of 1772 boasting a fine range of tonal colours, is outstanding. Jermaine Sprosse not only has a splendid technique that boasts nimble finger work and clean articulation, but he also responds with admirable empathy to the often-improvisatory character of Rust’s writing.
The mid-career Sonata in C (c. 1780) opens with bright confidence, but the feel of impetuosity remains. The development is full of restless modulation tempered by brief passages of poetic meditation, but some of the most remarkable music on the disc comes in the massive central movement, a quasi-rondo founded on an improvisatory, hymn-like theme. The long central episode, marked Adagio sostenuto, is extraordinary music that seems to drift off, dream-like into a world of its own, while the final movement breaks out into impulsive virtuosity. The spirit of the whole sonata is again completely captured by Sprosse’s involving performance.
The final two works, a late sonata in D dating from 1794 and the variations mentioned above, are played on a fortepiano built by J. A. Stein of Augsberg in 1792, so for once the excellent instrument is thoroughly contemporary with the music. However, this brings me to my single reservation regarding the disc, although it is an important one. Unfortunately, the engineering has cheated to allow the clavichord to be heard at the same volume as the fortepiano, which as anyone who has ever heard the small-voice of the former will know is a nonsense. The construction of the D-major Sonata is interesting. It consists of a brief Adagio con espressione founded on dark, portentous chords, before proceeding to a large-scale Haydnesque Allegro with another extraordinary development section that constantly seeks to discomfort the listener, but ends with an exquisitely tranquil coda, all passion now spent. The variations are based on a charming song of folk-like simplicity, while the succeeding twelve variations run a gamut from the bravura of variation 2 to the minor key darkness of its successor.
With the exception of the caveat noted, this is a CD I’ve found totally compelling. The highest praise is due to Jermaine Sprosse for bringing Rust out of the shadows in such sympathetic performances. I am in no doubt he is a major figure certainly in need of further investigation.
Hanna Herfurtner, Carola Günther, Georg Poplutz, Raimonds Spogis SATB, Kölner Akademie, Michael Alexander Willens
67:40
cpo 555 052-2
Förster: Ehre sei Gott in der Höhe
Homilius: Erhöhet die Tore der Welt
J. H. Rolle: Jauchze du Tochter Zion, Siehe Finsternis bedecket das Erdenreich
Stölzel: Kündlich groß ist das gottselige Geheimnis
[dropcap]T[/dropcap]his is just the kind of disc I anticipate from cpo come Christmas time; music by three obscure composers and one not-so-obscure (although the cantata by Stölzel is not, as the booklet notes claim, a premiere recording!), bursting with memorable arias and choruses with flutes, oboes, horns and trumpets. In addition to the four named singers, Willens has four ripienists for choruses (well, five but that is presumably as Georg Poplutz missed one of the recording sessions) and 32221 strings (as far as I can tell from the booklet), producing an excellently balanced tutti sound. The soloists take the challengingly virtuoso lines in their stride and sounds glorious. In common with the other recording of the Stölzel, a violin plays what is quite clearly a keyboard obbligato in one of the arias – a pity the performers didn’t take the opportunity to correct the earlier error. Each of the lesser-known composers come out of the project glowing; let’s hear more Homilius and Rolle in particular. I would also love to hear these forces in Georg Benda!
Anna Stegmann, Ensemble Odysee
75:02
Pan Classics PC 10348
[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he six concertos recorded here appeared in an error-ridden Walsh print three years after the composer died. His (seemingly badly extrapolated) ripieno parts have been discarded for the purpose of the performances, as have odd instances of the violins doubling the bass part where this leads to some infelicity. The results are a joy to hear, with Anna Stegmann’s small flutes (she plays no fewer than four different instruments) well matched by bright one-to-a-part strings in four of the works; in the fifth she is paired with fellow recorder player Yongcheon Shin in a concerto with two oboes and continuo (transposing the entire concerto up a minor third because it does not fit standard oboes strikes me as an extravagance; surely oboes d’more would have preserved the original pitch?), and in the sixth concerto they are matched by a pair of violins. The final work on the programme is a Sinfonia in A, whose last movement features a virtuosic harpsichord part (presumably for the composer himself, who will be known to most of our readers as the arranger of Handel arias and overtures for keyboard). As a recorder player myself, I very much enjoyed the way Stegmann crafts each note and phrase beautifully; virtuosity without the eccentricity that can often accompany it… This was among the discs I listened to most often through December and January.
[dropcap]A[/dropcap]s someone who has been involved with publishing Molter’s music, I was very excited when this CD was released, and delighted when the performers offered to send me a copy for review. The programme includes two Italian cantatas (each consisting of a pair of arias framing a central recitative), a sonata à quadro, a flute concerto (played impressively Quantz-like by the oboist in the quartet!) and one of several extant D major symphonies.
When you edit and typeset music and listen back to it on Sibelius, you have a real problem in assessing the merit of “new” repertoire; there is something about the lack of human involvement that masks its real quality. I had experienced that before with Graupner’s church cantatas; somehow they really only become “musical” in performance. Camerata Bachiensis have certainly had a similar impact on my appreciation of Molter; whether in the beautifully stylish rendition of the instrumental pieces (the unison playing from the two violins is aboslutely the best I have ever heard!), the glorious rich yet perfectly in tune singing of soprano, Julia Kirchner, or just in their audible enjoyment of Molter’s not quite baroque, not quite classical music – the cantatas (with their taxing writing for voice and instruments alike) could easily be by Hasse or even his Italian models, while the ouverture (right down to the part names!) could hardly be more French. The performers (complete including the first harpsichord I’ve heard in some time who is not desperate to compete with the singer) are uniformaly excellent, and I cannot recommend this recording highly enough – even if you have not heard of Molter before (or you’ve only heard hackneyed old recordings for trumpet and clarinet concertos!), fear not – this is over and hour of pure delight!
