Category: Recording

Iestyn Davies countertenor, Arcangelo, Jonathan Cohen
64:52
Hyperion CDA68111
BWV52, 54, 82, 170 & 174 (sinfonia)

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]his CD contains three of the solo Bach cantatas that can be sung by the alto voice, interspersed with a couple of Sinfonias that the composer reworked from the Brandenburg concertos as substitutes for choral opening movements to cantatas 52 and 174. These are beautifully played, and with their horns provide a cheerful counterpart to the main meat of the CD where all three of the cantatas provide a fine showcase for the talents of the countertenor Iestyn Davies. As in previous partnerships between Iestyn Davies and Jonathan Cohen’s Archangelo, this is a very polished CD.

Davies’ voice is a far cry from the hooty altos of cathedral choirs in the mid twentieth century, but neither is it the voice for which Bach wrote: as the liner notes say, ‘‘alto for Bach meant a teenaged boy on the cusp of adolescence’’ and just occasionally you can hear that virile, sinewy sound in some of the iconic Harnoncourt/Leonhardt recordings from the 1970s, though when Leonhardt recorded 170 and 54 he used Paul Esswood, their regular countertenor soloist.

That apart, these are very compelling performances. The opening aria of 170, with its warm strings and oboe d’amore in 12/8, is a beautifully caressing lullaby. Much more difficult to bring off effectively is the central aria, where over a sighing bass of the unison upper strings, the organist’s two hands play a jagged canon on the two manuals of the organ – here a stopped flute in the right hand and a principal in the left. This is a really awkward aria to perform as its basic pulse moves so slowly, and there is a momentary unsteadiness in the first half of measure 20. But the tuning is excellent with a forest of chromatics with double sharps abounding, and must originally have sounded – and been meant to sound – pretty jangly. The last aria too has a virtuoso organ obbligato, and the opening interval (D to G sharp), the renowned diabolus in musica, in the ritornello signals the believer greeting ‘death-in-Christ almost jauntily while registering his disgust with this earthly life’, says the liner notes.

BWV 54 presents different challenges. Probably originally performed in Weimar on the Third Sunday in Lent in 1715, it was recycled for the Seventh Sunday after Trinity perhaps after 1731 when Bach returned to the material to quarry a parody aria for his St Mark Passion. This brief three-movement work is an exercise in resolving the opening agitated dominant 7th chords over the insistent bass in the first movement by the spirited four-voice fugato in the final aria. Though notatated in E flat, when played in Chorton it sounds in F, which makes it not so very low in the alto’s tessitura, but it was good to be able to admire Davies’ bottom notes, after hearing his upper range in 170. It was also a happy idea to acknowledge the early-feeling five-part string ensemble by using single violins to match to single viola parts, but I do wonder about the use of a theorbo as well as a harpsichord and organ.

BWV 82, probably as well-known as any Bach cantata, has at least three performing versions. Originally for bass in the 1727 version, Bach made a soprano version in 1730/31, transposing it up into E and substituting a transverse flute for the oboe; and then revised it again in 1735 for an alto/mezzo voice and reverting to the original oboe, but with a more articulated organ part, before a final version in 1746/7 which was again for a bass. Like Bach’s other Candlemas cantatas, the theme of old Simeon’s letting go of this life dominates the libretto, and the surrender of the central lullaby aria has few rivals in the Bach oeuvre. Even Iestyn Davies shows a few moments of strain in some of the higher passages here, when a mezzo might be more comfortable: was this version made for Anna Magdalena? Extracts of it were copied into her second Clavierbüchlein. After bidding the world goodnight, the last movement with its concerto-like aria (where the harpsichord continuo seems entirely right) makes a fine conclusion to this CD and reminds the listeners to attend not only to the fine singing, but to enjoy the excellent playing – Jonathan Cohen has assembled a very spirited as well as harmonious band of players for his Archangelo.

This is a thoroughly accomplished CD, and would grace any collection; and it’s a must for aspiring countertenors, who will learn masses from the way Davies articulates and phrases individual notes as well as lines.

David Stancliffe

Stefano Maiorana chitarrone
62:45
Fra Bernado FB 1603777

[dropcap]I[/dropcap]n this interesting CD, Stefano Maiorana shows the wealth and diversity of Kapsberger’s music for solo chitarrone. Four collections of Kapsberger’s music were published between 1604 and 1640; Book 2 is lost, and the only surviving copy of Book 3 has pages missing, but there is plenty for us to enjoy.

The CD begins with Preludio Primo and Preludio Secondo from Book 4, in character reminiscent of the old early 16th-century recercari, which explore musical ideas in an unstructured way. Maiorana has a very free interpretation of the quavers to try to give some sort of shape to what on paper can seem an aimless succession of random notes. Most impressive is his clarity and precision when playing fast notes slurred together, which is a feature of so much music for the chitarrone, particularly Kapsperger’s.

In another pair of Preludes – nos 10 and 9 from Book 4 – Maiorana sometimes races on with quavers in an effort to make the music expressive. This can be useful to make the music increase in intensity, but occasionally I would prefer to savour these comparatively slow notes a little more, and leave the fireworks for the semiquavers. Towards the end of Preludio 9 there is a short sequence of quavers each preceded by exciting semiquaver triplets. They are played as campanellas across the strings, so the notes can ring on to produce a curiously discordant effect. Many of Kapsberger’s chords consist of six or even seven notes, and are marked with two dots separated by a line – diagonal in Books 1 and 3, and more horizontal in Book 4 – similar to % or ÷, requiring them to be arpeggiated. At the end of Preludio 9 he adds some extra notes of his own based on didactic material from Book 3.

Track 2 is an extraordinary piece from Book 3, a florid intabulation – “Passeggiato” – of Gesualdo’s “Com’ esser può” from his Primo Libro  (1616). The original score a5 can be seen on the IMSLP website. Kapsberger first creates a figured bass line derived from the lowest notes of the lowest two voices of the madrigal, often transposed down an octave or two. Beneath this is the tablature for the chitarrone. There are rolled chords with the % sign, campanellas, very fast slurred notes, slurred parallel sixths, deep diapasons, and ending with a florid perfect cadence decorated with campanellas at the eighth fret. Maiorana gets his hands round it all with suitable panache.

Maiorana’s interpretation of the well-known Toccata seconda Arpeggiata in Book 1 is thoughtfully phrased. Occasionally he changes the arpeggio pattern so that the lowest note is played only once per bar, and in bar 15 I think he waits a little too long on the highest note, losing the flow.

The dances offer a welcome contrast to all the free-wheeling preludes and toccatas. The Gagliarda from Book 3 is preceded by Maiorana’s own stylish prelude made up from material elsewhere in the book. The dance goes with a swing, but I wonder if he should have chosen a slower tempo, because he fails to keep up the momentum in the second Partita (variation) where the music races along in quavers. Also from Book 3 are two lively Correntes, each followed by an exciting variation consisting of continuous quavers in style brisé.

Kapsberger’s inventiveness can be seen in the Passacaglia from Book 4, where contrasting variations follow each other over an oft-repeated hypnotic bass. Most entertaining is the Battaglia (nearly nine minutes long) from Book 4. True, there are occasional successions of tonic chords with different inversions as one would find in other battle pieces of the time, but Kapsberger goes much further, creating a medley of tunes with different time signatures. There are effects typical of Kapsberger, like the sudden appearance of a strangely chromatic harmonic sequence, and Maiorana adds nice touches of his own: a curious tambour effect, and a great crash of diapasons at the end. It would bring the house down.

Stewart McCoy