Category: Recording

Stefano Montanari, Ensemble Barocco “Carlo Antonio Marino”, Natale Arnoldi
53:12
Tactus TC671302

[dropcap]M[/dropcap]arino’s most likely claim to fame is that he was probably Locatelli’s violin teacher; a proclaimed virtuoso, sometimes based at Santa Maria Maggiore in Bergamo, Marino published at least eight volumes of music, including a set of cantatas for solo voice, but primarily sonatas and concertos for strings, including three that survive in Manchester. As galant an effort this is to promote Marino’s output, I am afraid to say that neither the performances nor the recorded sound are quite up to the highest levels – some of the (undoubtedly challenging) solo music is fudged and there are some awkward moments of ensemble that really ought either to have been edited out or re-recorded. I am sorry to be so unkind to a world premiere recording, but I am compelled to give my honest opinion. Without doubt, Marino deserves to be heard and I hope that the fact that the performers have name their group after him means they will continue to explore it and bring it to a wider audience.

Brian Clark

Ensemble Dreiklang Berlin
57:59
hänssler CD HC15052

[dropcap]S[/dropcap]ince the default sound for organ in Sibelius is not very pleasant I often substitute a treble recorder for the right-hand staves when I am typesetting music that requires a baroque organ sound. The present recording is obviously far more musical than that, yet essentially these are transcriptions for recorder trio (they use a variety of instruments but there are no details in the booklet note) of music that works extremely well. Eight of the arrangements are published by Universal Editions, and another two by Edition Tre Fontane. The recorded sound is excellent, allowing each of the three voices to carry beautifully, even the ultra-slow speaking deep basses, without picking up too much interference between the various instruments (which can dog even the best recorder ensembles!), but also without robbing us of the chuffs that make them so characterful. Although all three players make use of vibrato, it is never allowed to upset the inner tuning. While there is not much “interpretation” (and I mean this in a very positive way!), Ensemble Dreiklang are not above having fun with Bach – there are all sorts of raucous noises in the Polonaise from Anna Magdalena’s book, and the title piece is given a lively rendition, showing that it can be done à3 and without going OTT…

Brian Clark

Tenet (Jolle Greenleaf, Molly Quinn & Virginia Warnken Kelsey sopranos, with gamba, harpsichord, theorbo, lute and baroque guitar)
65:08
Avie AV2326

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]here are 18 items here, nos 1, 4, 7, 9, 14 & 16 being instrumental. It is an excellent anthology, mostly from the first half of the 17th century, though the earliest is Diego Ortiz from 1553, the ground bass surviving well into the 17th century. The music is more-or-less equally divided between the voices, and they sound well. Barbara Strozzi is the outstanding composer, with support from Caccini, d’India, Luigi Rossi and Mazzocchi. Do buy it.

However, there are oddities. The normal extra pieces of information that one expects in such anthologies are missing: dates of composers and who sang what. It’s frustrating, particularly since it takes so little space, and it is usual for biographies of composers to be separated from those of performers. But the layout of Italian and English translations work well.

Clifford Bartlett

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[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he New York City-based ensemble perform a programme which professes to revolve around the Concerto delle donne, the trio of female virtuosi who graced the late Renaissance Court of Ferrara. In fact while female composers such as Barbara Strozzi are included, very little of the music here relates directly to the famous trio, and the group’s main composer Luzzascho Luzzaschi is absent completely. The recorded sound is also a bit of an enigma, sounding rather uncomfortably close with a rather synthetic-sounding after-echo, so while the playing and singing is generally pleasant, the overall sound is less than satisfying and a little uncomfortable to listen to for any length of time. This is a pity, as the three singers bring a pleasing spontaneity to tracks such as the anonymous Passacaglia della vita, and the recorded sound seems to cramp their style. The inclusion of a contemporary piece by Caroline Shaw is also a bit of an indulgence – not long enough to establish the more adventurous sound world, but nonetheless a disruption to the Renaissance programme. All in all, I found this CD a bit of a hotch potch, and its idiosyncratic ambience was distinctly off-putting. This is a shame as the performances seem quite good and yet the captured sound is disappointing and the programme a bit unfocused.

D. James Ross

Joanne Lunn, Carolyn Sampson, Robin Blaze, Gerd Türk, Dominik Wörner SSATB, Bach Collegium Japan chorus & orchestra, Masaaki Suzuki
78:55
BIS-2181 SACD
+ Tilge Höchster meine Sünden BWV1083 (after Pergolesi), Schlage doch gewünschte Stunde BWV53 (Hofmann?)

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he chief work in Vol. 6 of Bach’s Secular Cantatas by Suzuki’s forces is Cantata 198, the Trauerode, given a poised and colourful performance, where only the string band seems a little below par. The vocal contributions are bright and focused in the choruses as well as in the solo arias, and none of Suzuki’s regulars disappoints. Perhaps we are so used to hearing Peter Kooij that only Dominik Wörner doesn’t seem to me quite such a natural interpreter of this extraordinary music.

The Trauerode  was a private commission by a young, aristocratic and presumably wealthy student to commemorate the death of Christine Ebehardine, the wife of Augustus, the Elector of Saxony and King of Poland in a secular memorial event in Leipzig two months after her death, on 17th October 1727. She was revered all over Saxony for not having followed her husband in converting to Catholicism, which he did in order to gain the crown of Poland. The university tried to intervene, and hijack the commission for their man, Görner, but Bach’s rich and inventive score triumphed. It is unusual for having not only pairs of flutes and oboes d’amore, but also of violas da gamba and lutes. The concerto-like first movement displays these different groups within the score, the fourth (an alto recitativo) displays the flutes imitating the funeral bells supported by the wiry strumming of the lutes below and, after a wonderful aria for alto with an obbligato pair of violas da gamba, the choral fugue that is the seventh movement has an instrumental episode reminiscent of a trio section in the Presto of the Fourth Brandenburg in the middle. The aria for tenor that followed the oration is especially interesting as it gives us an idea (in the written-out ‘improvised’ part for gambas and lutes) of how Bach might have elaborated his continuo parts. In the recitative that follows the lutenists show how they improvise a free part to enrich the short organ and ’cello chords, and I find it both instructive and convincing in heightening the rather operatic nature of the recit. This a gracious and engaging performance.

The other pieces on this CD are rather loosely connected: first there is a fine performance by Robin Blaze of the single aria movement Schlage doch, once named as BWV53, but now believed to be by Georg Melchior Hoffmann, with its strings and campanelli; and second, the arrangement by Bach in 1746/7 of Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater  to words of the penitential Psalm 51, Tilge, Höchster, meine Sünden  (BWV 1083), which is not really a cantata at all.

This performance was recorded in 2005, so predates the other recordings by ten years. The soprano then was Carolyn Sampson, singing with a younger Robin Blaze. And the very Italianate music by the young Pergolesi, who died in 1736 at the age of 26, sounds an odd accompaniment to the Lutheran Miserere, especially the jaunty and operatic verse 4. The contrapuntal verse 9 fares better in Bach’s hands, and this and the concluding Amen are the only two sections that required no modifications to fit them to the new words. In the interests of completeness in Suzuki’s great project, it is good to have this piece available. But there is no history of a liturgical context for the arrangement or surviving commission.

The string parts are elegantly phrased, and, as far as I can judge, the performance is all that we might wish for vocally as well. But it is a very odd piece without any known context – unlike some of Bach’s adaptations of certain other Italianate mass movements – to make sense of an arrangement in a style so foreign to his.

David Stancliffe

Neumeyer Consort, Felix Koch
92:06 (2 CDs in a wallet)
Christophorus CHR77400

[dropcap]B[/dropcap]esides being a professional baroque orchestra (or part of being one in the 21st century?), The Neumeyer Consort is involved in a number of educational initiatives, one of which is offering students the chance to join such an ensemble while still studying. Their take on the Brandenburgs is directed by the cellist, Felix Koch (though he is only listed as playing in the sixth concerto). The playing is very good, and there are nice moments of spontaneous ornamentation. As always, I am puzzled by the fact that the gap in the third concerto is filled by the harpsichordist, and with a not entirely convincing segue into the “Phrygian half-cadence”, either. The booklet note re-visits the possibly links between these six concertos with mythology – not that it really matters, but I remain unconvinced.

Brian Clark