Category: Recording

[Mailys de Villoutreys, Zoë Brown, Myriam Arbouz, George Pooley, Mauro Borgioni SSATB], Kölner Akademie, Michael Alexander Willens
67:53
cpo 777 978-2
Benedictus Dominus Deus Israel, Magnificat, Messa a due cori

[dropcap]A[/dropcap] most enjoyable issue, if a slightly misleading title – Girolamo Abos (1715-1760) was indeed Maltese born, but he was educated, and spent most of his life, in Naples, as Maestro to several of the great religious institutions there. The three pieces assembled here (a grand double-choir Missa Brevis, a four-voice Magnificat  and a five-voice Benedictus) are all in the mature Neapolitan mid 18th-century style, with graceful galant solos and richly sonorous choruses (performed one-voice-to-a-part), fully orchestrally accompanied.

The music is consistently splendid, with every textual image felicitously caught – I especially liked the cavernous and richly harmonic ‘humilitatem’ in the Magnificat  (track 10) and the rushing scales as the Superbos are Dispersed and the Potentes are Deposited (track 12). There is some particularly grand counterpoint in the Mass; try the last movement (track 22), with its two fugal subjects combining with the well-known ‘romanesca’ bass theme, used here as a melodic countersubject in both diminution and augmentation…

Soloists Maillys de Villoutreys and Zoe Brown (sop), Myriam Arbouz (alt), George Pooley (ten) and Mauro Borgioni (bass) are uniformly superb, but also blend effortlessly and beautifully in Abos’ complex concertato writing. They are seamlessly joined, in the Mass, by Charmian Bedford and Christiane Rittner (sop), Dominique Bilitza (alt), Vladimir Tarasov (ten) and Jonathan Brown (bass).

Kölner Akademie provide luscious orchestral support and Michael Alexander Willens is a secure and sensitive conductor. The excellent sleevenotes are by the Malta-based musicologist Frederick Aquilina.
Highly recommended!

Alastair Harper

Leila Schayegh violin, Jörg Halubek harpsichord
94:54 (2 CDs in a wallet)
Glossa GCD 923507
BWV1014–19

[dropcap]I[/dropcap]n search of a ‘different’ approach when offering yet another period instrument recording of such well-known repertoire, ensembles often go that extra mile to make their recording stand out from the rest. Certainly the psychedelic design of both the CD box and the strobe-effect coloured circles on the discs themselves immediately does this! Reading through the notes, the players’ aim was to go in search of a wide range of colours in the music. I did at first wonder whether the listening experience might match the colour splodges on the box and go ‘over the top’. However, these two performers give us an exciting yet sensitive and generally tasteful interpretation of the sonatas.

Yes, there is much added ornamentation but (except in the case of the opening Adagio&nbps; of the C minor sonata) only those who know the works intimately will be aware of it – which is as it should be. The addition of the 4’ harpsichord stop and the muted violin (in which Schayegh uses two different types of mute) gives another acceptable touch of colour to a couple of movements, but in no way gets in the way of what is an outstanding performance of these sonatas. Halubek plays a copy of a Taskin instrument, which gives a pleasurable warmth to the sound that perhaps would not have been so evident on a German instrument. My only gripe is the use of the 4’ register on its own in the Adagio  of the F minor sonata, which gives a weird and to my mind outlandish effect. I suspect the 18th-century theorists, if not the composer himself, would have a field day criticising the false second inversion chords created where the true bass note sounds an octave higher! The bonus on the disc is the addition of the two alternative earlier movements of Sonata VI. On balance, this is a recording that is well worth the investment.

Ian Graham-Jones

Pamela Thorby, Peter Whelan basooon, Alison McGillivray cello, Elizabeth Kenny archlute/guitar, Marcin Świątkiewicz harpsichord/organ
111:00 (2 CDs)
Linn Records CKD476
TWV 40:2-13, 41:C2, C5, d4, F1, F2, B3, TWV 42: B4

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]elemann published the recorder sonatas on disc 1 in two major publications, the Essercizii musici and Der getreue Music-Meister. The latter appeared in fortnightly instalments in 1728-29 and the former is now thought after study of the printing to have been published a year or so earlier. In the Essercizii musici each of the six instruments involved (recorder, flute, oboe, violin, gamba and harpsichord) is given two solos and two trio sonatas in combination with one of the other instruments. In addition to the two solo sonatas for recorder, this disc also has the trio sonata for recorder and obbligato harpsichord from the same publication, possibly the first place where sonatas with obbligato keyboard appeared in print.

The other four solo recorder sonatas are from Der getreue Music-Meister, where the sonata in F minor is for bassoon and continuo, with each movement published in a separate issue and the possibility of playing it on the recorder added as an afterthought only at the end of the final movement. The bassoon isn’t neglected on this recording, sharing the continuo in the fast movements of some of the sonatas where it can best bring out the composer’s lively contrapuntal style. Recorder and gamba without continuo is one of several suggestions by Telemann for performance of the canonic sonata in D minor; recorder and bassoon isn’t but it works well. Although the recorder is the soloist on this disc, all the performers play with a great sense of style and enjoyment. Pamela Thorby’s playing is by turns expressive and breathtaking, and anyone who has played the well-known Sonata in F major for a grade exam will be amazed by her ornamented repeats. She writes that the disc was recorded during two happy days together, and it shows.

The second disc, Telemann’s Fantasias for solo flute transposed for a variety of sizes of recorder, is just as good. Pamela Thorby defends her transpositions with reference to Heinichen and Mattheson who both wrote that keys could represent opposing affects. Her performances beautifully illuminate the extraordinary variety in these miniature works which contain fugues, dances, improvisatory movements, a chaconne and even a French overture, and her brilliant but effortless-sounding playing brings out the counterpoint hidden in the single melody line. Highly recommended.

Victoria Helby

L’Achéron, François Joubert-Caillet
68:09
Ricercar RIC360

[dropcap]S[/dropcap]cheidt published these dances in two volumes in 1621, and in the title to one of the volumes recommends that they be played with viols and continuo. They are in four and five parts, resembling the collection from about the same time of J. H. Schein, also in four or five parts, and also suitable for viols, published a few years earlier. Polyphonic textures, dance rhythms, the opening Canzon super Cantionem Gallicam Italianate in style, reminiscent of the expatriate Englishman William Brade, whose volume of dances was also published in Germany at this time.

The playing is sonorous and articulate, expressive, the texture enriched by the continuo team of harp, theorbo (who also doubles on lute and cittern) and two keyboard players who play organ, virginals and ottavino. The viols, copies of Jaye, are beautifully matched. Their consort bass imparts a richness and depth to the sound. I think it has a bottom GG string, which would imply quite a big instrument.

Scheidt’s music is brilliantly inventive, the four-part pavan which follows the opening canzon treats its themes sequentially, building to an impressive climactic dotted rhythm in the final section. They vary the instrumental texture from time to time, introducing the Courant just for treble viol and lute, repeated by the full four-part consort. Each dance type is characterised in the music, and supported by the playing, particularly in the a minor pavan, in the second ‘suite’, a gorgeous piece with lovely melodies, some sections in triple time, sequential with dialogue-like interchanges between tenor and treble. The Galliard of this suite is particularly attractive, brief but quite dense in its ideas. Contrasting sections call for very smooth, lineal playing followed by vigorous dotted figures, beautifully expressed by the consort. The suite concludes with a Canzon ad imitationem Bergamasca Anglica à 5, virtuoso exchanges between equal instruments, contrasting sections, an enchanting piece, brilliantly played. I’m mystified by the title – I found it more Italian than English.

I would have liked a bit more information about the instruments – particularly about the ‘consort bass’, its string length and tuning, maybe pictures would have been enough. The booklet notes however are excellent, and the illustrations from Praetorius give an appropriate context, being exactly contemporaneous with the music. This is a minor point, the recording is very enjoyable, the music continuously gripping, often moving, and the playing is terrific. Highly recommended.

Robert Oliver

Sit Fast viol consort
66:46
Eloquentia EL1549
Unfinished Fantazia, three Fantazias a3, nine Fantazias a4, Fantazie Upon one note, In Nomines I & II

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]here are many recordings of these pieces from which one can choose. All six of those that I have heard to date are excellent in their own way: techniques more than adequate to the demands on the players, well-thought out renditions, lovingly played. What sets this one apart is the intensity generated by restraint – every choice dictated by the music itself.

Sit Fast play with exquisite poise, no exaggerated mannerisms, few added ornaments and only a very occasional use of vibrato. They vary the tempo within sections, following Purcell’s directions (‘Quick’, ‘Drag’) despite his writing the tempo changes into the note values. This is particularly effective in Fantazia 6 with its very chromatic ‘Slow’ which they take very slowly but with beautifully controlled soft playing, as, within the space of 17 bars, it migrates from C major through B flat minor to a cadence in F major, rapidly building an intensity of melancholy for which the poignant sound of the consort of viols is so appropriate.

The balance favours the bass viol, perhaps because the player, Josh Cheetham, is a strong player anyway, but not to the extent of masking the tenors in the 4-part pieces. The treble viol (Atushi Sakaï) displays controlled restraint, which lets the intensity of the inner parts through the texture, always unexpected, making you sit up and pay attention. Purcell’s youthful imagination seems to respond to an inner ‘dare’ – to question what might be possible, then pushes boundaries of chromaticism and dissonance as far as he can and then further. No wonder Handel found his music so striking.

The disc opens with a completion of the unfinished 4-part fantazia no 13, and then plays the rest in the order in which they occur in the autograph manuscript – the sole surviving source for these amazing works. The last of the 4-part fantazias, composed on 31st August 1680, despite, presumably, the heat of the summer, is on the surface, the most restrained. Its stately opening, the parts enter in normal polyphonic succession, no abrupt changes of tempo, just cunningly disguised morphing from flat to sharp keys and back again, no macho youthful showing off, just a subtle and sublimely expressive taming of the harmonic questions he had be asking all along.

Then we come to the coup de grace – the Fantazie Upon one note – did he have someone in mind for this, an incompetent but eager Royal perhaps? Or is it another ‘dare?’ Whatever the impetus, a masterpiece resulted. That leaves the two In Nomine settings, in six and seven parts respectively, leaving this listener at a loss for words – an advantage in a reviewer, no doubt. Highly recommended, even if you already have Fretwork and Phantasm and all.

Robert Oliver

Musikalische Compagney, Holger Eichhorn
69:38
Querstand VKJK1527

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he 21 tracks of this documentary CD are divided into five sections: hymns for “morning and evening”, Christmas, Easter, Whitsun and “psalms and Gloria”, separated by organ music (three pieces by Crüger’s Berlin contemporary Wilhelm Karges, and a fourth anonymous work). For each hymn, Holger Eichhorn (whose comprehensive booklet notes are full of valuable information) has chosen which verses and which versions will be performed, so different combinations of voices and instruments are heard within single tracks as well as through the sequence. While the four other sections have three hymns each (not all to texts by Paul Gerhardt, although he was Crüger’s most famous collaborator), Christmas has six (“because everyone loves singing them”, as Eichhorn puts it!) The CD consists of chorale tracks laid down in 1984 and others from 2015, while the organ music was recorded on an original instrument elsewhere in 2014. With solo voices (including boy sopranos) throughout, and “world premiere of the original scoring” printed everywhere, it seems Eichhorn believes that chorale singing was the reserve of professional singers and not congregations. While it is interesting to hear the music with the obbligato instruments, I am not convinced that that necessarily procludes proper choral singing, or indeed adults singing the melody in octaves while the “choir” sang the multi-voice settings; nor am I actually persuaded that this is how Crüger intended it to be performed/heard. Surely his books were printed and reprinted because they were used; at least some of the tracks should have explored other performance approaches. Perhaps a second disc is already in the making?

Brian Clark