Category: Recording

The King’s Consort
76:59
Vivat 110

[dropcap]I[/dropcap] first got to know these pieces intimately at unversity, where they were a “set work” in my first year at St Andrews University. Latterly I had been re-acquainted with them, often playing them with my much-missed friend, Selene Mills, at her home in Cambridge. I fear we never sounded anything like this! Is there anyone active today more immersed in Purcell’s musical world that Robert King and his King’s Consort colleagues?

Two young violinists and an experienced continuo team combine perfectly to produce a CD of rare beauty and endless reward; where some seek to draw attention to the architecture of Purcell’s complex contrapuntal writing or irregular phrases with sharp accents and dramatic changes in dynamic, these performances are more subtle and more relaxed than any I have ever heard. The music unfolds in an organic way, the counterpoint, the rather awkward sounding melodies and harmonic piquancy readily audible but not hightlighted artificially. Robert King’s ever thoughtful booklet note not only gives all the background you could ever need to the set’s genesis, he also provides a work-by-work guide in which (thank goodness, for once!) readable English – and presumably French and German, too – rules. Like the diamonds on the packaging, this release is every bit the precious gem. Do not miss it!

Brian Clark

German Advent Songs
Miriam Feuersinger soprano, Daniel Schreiber tenor, Les Escapades
72:41
Christophorus CHR 77387

[dropcap]F[/dropcap]or this delightfully refreshing selection, the viol consort Les Escapades and their guests have raided the rich treasury of German music for Advent from the late 15th to the early 18th centuries. The recording features plainchant as well as Advent songs, in which each successive verse appears in settings by different composers, interspersed with instrumental episodes. The singing from soprano Miriam Feuersinger and tenor Daniel Schreiber is beautifully lyrical, and both singers always sound as if they have something urgent to convey to the listener. The viol consort, occasionally supported by guest organist Evelyn Laib, plays impeccably both on its own and as a beautifully effective and sympathetic accompaniment to the singing. The composers range from household names such as Isaac, Praetorius and Lassus to the more obscure figures of the German Renaissance such as Andreas Raselius and Balthasar Resinarius, and herein lies the chief virtue of this programme, which has managed to resurrect music long lost to the mainstream and restore it side by side with the more familiar repertoire – and as so often with this type of exercise it is hard to find any reason other than luck why some repertoire should be remembered and some forgotten. This CD is a lovely listen, and I would challenge anybody to differentiate on the basis of quality between the least and the most familiar music here.

D. James Ross

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Hasnaa Bennani, ensemble Stravaganza
60:26
muso MU009
Music by Courbois, Jacuet de la Guerre, Lambert, Marais & Rameau

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he most positive impressions on this CD are made by the instrumental music and its performances. The Sonata in D minor from Jacquet’s 1707 collection confirms the impression given by my other anniversary experiences of her music that she is so much more than the French Baroque’s ‘token woman’ and the lively Marais Chaconne that ends the programme is very fine indeed. The instrumentation need not be so elaborate, but at least is not silly. I found the cantatas harder to enjoy, wonderful though the music is. Hasnaa Bennani’s vibrato just doesn’t ‘go’ with the instrumental sounds around her, especially when her line is in close proximity to that of the violin. The essay tries a bit too hard to link the instrumental and vocal music though is essentially sound and informative and the booklet also includes the sung French texts and an English translation thereof. Page 12, however, is just weird and could have been used to tell us something about the performers.

David Hansell

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Light and shade in 17th-century Italian music
Adriana Fernandez soprano, Sacqeboutiers
67:00
Flora DDD2009

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]his is a strong and well recorded programme of early 17th-century Italian music which is let down by the presentation and some questionable performance practice. Lute and sackbut as a continuo team? Should a sackbut play the solo line in a sonata by Castello (described as a canzon in the contents list)? And in Monteverdi’s Zefiro torna – presented with one singer and cornetto rather than a vocal duet – the soloists change parts at one point, but there’s still one section of text that doesn’t get sung. You just can’t do this sort of thing, at least on disc. But I must say that Adriana Fernandez is a fine singer of this music and the playing is technically brilliant. The Frescobaldi canzona was the highlight for me. Not only is the performance stylistically strong though unfussy, I suspect I’m not the only inhabitant of EMR-land to have cut at least some of my early music teeth on Bernard Thomas’s black books of this repertoire. The booklet is mainly in French with Latin/Italian texts translated into that language. There are a few words explaining the concept of the programme but no detailed list of who is playing/singing what or information about the music and performers. Come on Flora, get a grip.

David Hansell