Category: Recording

Johannes Pramsohler, Ensemble Diderot
60:02
Op 1/1, 5-8, Dresden Concerto in C

[dropcap]E[/dropcap]veryone knows that the great German violinist Pisendel studied in Italy with Vivaldi and took sonatas and concertos by him (and the deep influence of his compositional style!) back to Dresden, where the court orchestra became one of the most celebrated of the age. What is not so well known is that Pisendel also knew Antonio Molinari and copies out his works, too. Having already dedicated a CD to Pisendel (and included some of his music on another), Pramsohler and his expanded Ensemble Diderot now tackle five of the eight concertos printed as Molinari’s Op. 1 and another piece that only survives in the Dresden collection (only Op. 1 No. 8 has been recorded before). He lays out his (and Montanari’s stall) in programming the Dresden concerto first, clearly Roman in design but with Venetian virtuosity thrown in and sweetly played by this outstanding young violinist. Single strings with theorbo/guitar and harpsichord make for crystal clear textures and a sense of no-one playing down to let the soloist sing out – the balance is naturally right. Montanari was one of the violinists in the Roman premiere of Handel’s La Resurrezione, and the Saxon’s influence is all over the opening of Op. 1 No. 6. Following an impressive fugal movement, the other slow movement of the same work is far more original, with an inner drama that will keep you guessing. Michael Talbot’s typically informative (in an enviably readable way!) booklet ends with the hope that these very fine performances will encourage the publication of the music and a revival in Montanari’s fortunes; unfortunately – nay, frustratingly – the library that holds the original prints does not seem as keen on the idea. At least for now we can relish this delightful and this finely recorded disc.

Brian Clark

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Arsenale Sonoro (Boris Begelman violin, Ludovico Minasi cello, Alexandra Koreneva harpsichord)
63:55
deutsche harmonia mundi 88875061582
TWV41: C1, d5*, d6*, e8*, G10*, g1, A1 & Fantasia in b TWV 40:22

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]his magnificent CD arrived just too late to be included in last month’s summary of new recordings. Boris Begelman’s introductory essay focusses on the contribution of the performer to the success of Baroque music, considering the way different styles of improvised ornamentation can transform the same piece in the hands of different musicians. While he is rarely as adventurous as the extract from the Sonate methodiche printed in the booklet (has anyone actually recorded such heavily laden performances?), he is not afraid to get into Telemann gypsy mode, or to add wonderfully stylish cadential flourishes in the solo fantasia, and his Arsenale Sonoro colleagues are similarly resourceful in interpreting this fine, yet still little-known (in the case of the pieces marked with asterisks in the list above totally unknown) repertoire. Telemann may have a reputation for writing nice music for his wealthy amateur admirers, but there are several pieces here that neither the Grauns nor the Bendas would have been ashamed of; we should remember, too, that Telemann also wrote for some of the best violinists of his day, so the technical difficulties are not inconsiderable! Begelman of course rises above all the challenges and really gets under the skin of this music. With partners of the calibre of Minasi and Koreneva, his beautifully considered interpretations reveal yet another facet of Telemann’s oeuvre and should be obligatory listening to anyone studying baroque violin.

Brian Clark

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Stuttgarter Kammerorchester, Michael Hofstetter
63:18
Orfeo C 831 151 A
op. 6/1, 6, 10, 12; Concerto Grosso in C (from Alexander’s Feast)

[dropcap]A[/dropcap] quirky recording. The Stuttgart Kammerorchester are a fine ensemble, and this disc contains some extremely lively, alert and incisive playing. Unfortunately it also contains an almost embarrassing excess of ornamentation, with nearly every note of some movements embellished in some way. Try the magnificent Op. 6 No. 1, for example, which opens the disc. The tempi are exciting, the band is large enough for the solo/tutti contrasts to be well-pointed, and the actual playing is superb. Yet it almost seems as though Cuzzoni’s ‘nest of nightingales’ has been released, so insistent is the chirruping. When the music is left alone, it comes across with full intensity; the peerless musette of Op. 6 No. 6 is absolutely magical, as it should be, as is the beautifully-poised final gavotte-with-variations of the closing Alexander’s Feast concerto.

Alastair Harper

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Sophie Bevan, Mary Bevan, Benjamin Bevan SSB, London Early Opera, Bridget Cunningham
43:00
Signum Records SIGCD423

We had two reviews of this disc:

[dropcap]A[/dropcap] pleasant compilation, showcasing the considerable vocal talents of three of the Bevan family in works from the youthful Handel’s Italian years. The recently discovered Gloria opens the programme in fine style; Sophie Bevan has the agility to cope with the taxing semiquaver work in the fast movements, along with the tonal beauty to make the slower sections glow. (Incidentally, the Laudate Pueri quote in the ‘Quoniam tu solus’ might help convince those doubtful of the work’s Handelian authenticity.) The other substantial piece is the cantata Cuopre tal volta il cielo which Bridget Cunningham, in her excellent sleeve note, suggests may have been written for the Neapolitan Antonio Manna, the first Polifemo in Handel’s 1707 serenata. Benjamin Bevan throws off the work’s vocal gymnastics with much aplomb; try the splendid first aria, ‘Tuona, balena,’ and marvel! Arias from Agrippina and Il Trionfo del Tempo give Mary Bevan centre stage. ’Un pensiero nemico di pace,’ with its contrasting B section, is thrillingly done, while ‘Bel Piacere’ positively dances. The disc is (somewhat meagrely, at 43 minutes!) completed by the grand orchestral Passacaille from Rodrigo and the fine ‘Sonata for a Harpsichord with Double Keys,’ persuasively played by Bridget Cunningham.

With such fine interpreters, it would have been fascinating to explore, e. g., some of the many little-known continuo cantatas – perhaps for later in this series?

Alastair Harper

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he main items are the first and the last, starting with the Gloria for soprano, two violins and continuo, possibly inspired by a Telemann Kyrie and Gloria. The incompetence of the awareness of the pre-2001 scholars is shown in the first column of my edition, produced in time for the first performance in Huntingdon before the work’s official modern appearance. The music itself has not been formally accepted by Handel scholars (hence HWV deest) and seems to have fallen into anonymity; I can’t think when I last sold my edition! Sophie is well worth hearing, but not quite up to Emma Kirkby, the first to have recorded it. The cantata Cuopre tal volta il cielo (HWV 98) is for Bass, two violins and continuo. The first pair has a powerful accompanied recitative and aria in 6/8, the basic words being concerned with storm and thunder. The mood changes with a secco recitative followed by an aria which has an amazing variety with the four staves often having different simultaneous themes. Surprisingly, seeing that I’ve three different copies (Chrysander 52a p. 121, HHA V/3 p. 251 and Green Man’s HAN 1), I had no recollection of it.

The two instrumental items are the orchestral passacaglia from Rodrigo and a Sonata with double Keys in G (HWV 579), played by Bridget Cunningham. Agrippina used to be scorned, but “Bel piacere” (No. 45) has alternations of 3/8 and 2/4. “Un pensiero” (Il Trionfo…) is a lively aria with non-stop semiquavers on the violins, with only a rest in the B section. It’s a bit odd when the booklet comments on the two operas at length when there were just two isolated pieces and minimal remarks on the music. The Bevans were excellent – but I’m not clear whether the Benjamin Bevan is the youngest of a family of 14 or if that is the number of Bevans who have been professional singers since Maurice. Do check the price before you buy it: £12.00 is a very expensive 43 minutes!

Clifford Bartlett

The stars are from Alastair.

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His Majestys Sagbutts & Cornetts, Nicholas Mulroy tenor, Eamonn Dougan baritone, directed by Jamie Savan
60:00
SFZM0115

We’ve had two reviews of this CD:

[dropcap]I[/dropcap]f Gioseffo Guami is not a household name among EMR readers, then His Majestys Sagbutts & Cornetts certainly is and any new CD from them will be seized upon eagerly. This recording is no exception and if Guami is a name with which you are not familiar then you soon will be – this is a wonderfully performed CD of some splendid music, dating from the periods that spanned the composer’s apprenticeship under Willaert at San Marco in Venezia, and his colleagueship with Lassus in Bavaria where both the Gabrielis were serving, before a brief spell in his native Lucca. From here he was headhunted to be organist at San Marco in 1588. When neither he nor Giovanni Gabrieli was elected to the top job there on Zarlino’s death he returned to the cathedral at Lucca where he remained till his death in 1611. The cover design of the labyrinth on a pier at the entrance to the cathedral at Lucca is a nice act of homage to this Luchesina.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7UxUHwFEAI

Much of the music, edited principally by Jamie Savan and a number of his Newcastle students, comes from Guami’s Sacrae Cantiones published in 1585 and his Canzonette alla francese of 1601, reprinted in 1612. Two highly ornamented Canzonas from Raverii’s 1608 collection suggest that the florid ornamentation in other canzonas may well be Guami’s work too: he was a keyboard player, and his improvisatory skills – hardly any published organ music by him survives – would have been an obvious source for such ornamentation. Particularly interesting is one canzona (L’Accorta – track 8) where the second ‘choir’ is given to the organ, whose shadowing and echo effects are delightful, but not entirely successful: this is due not to any lack of skill or musicianship on the part of Jan Waterfield, the group’s keyboard player, but because the organ used is a standard Klop continuo organ and lacks the sweet open principal tone that was the characteristic sound of the Italian organs of the late 16th century. The stopped pipes of the Klop don’t really match the splendid sound of the cornetts and sackbuts, though the ¼ comma meantone tuning is a treat. This is the only slight blemish in an otherwise perfect recording.

The essential group of HMSC is six players – three cornettists and three trombonists; to which an additional cornet and sackbut are added sometimes, together with a ducian and the organ. Many of the canzoni in the 1601 collection with their semi-descriptive titles are in two contrasting choirs with answering echo effects, the antecedents of Viadana’s canzoni which I remember transcribing from a set of partbooks in the Bodleian as an undergraduate. Nicholas Mulroy and Eamonn Dougan join the group for five of the motets (a sixth is performed instrumentally) and a duet, showing off the singers’ ability to sing in a true meantone temperament. In the concerted motets, the contrast between the cori spezzati is more one of pitch – a higher choir answered by a lower choir or vice versa. The pitch is A=466 Hz, and occasionally in the high end of his range the more soloistic Nicholas Mulroy sounds a little to singerly for my tastes in this essentially concerted music, though he is splendid as the only singer in In die tribulationis, where the sensitive phrasing of the instrumental playing reminds me of just why the cornett was prized as the instrument most akin to the human voice.

In this and in other more grave numbers – one canzona is actually called La Grave – the clean, perfectly tuned notes from the instruments – especially Stephen Saunders’ bass sackbut at the end of La Chiarina – are wonderful.

But in all the pieces, we are left marveling at the skill and musicianship of these fine singers and players in presenting us with this beautifully produced taster CD of a composer whose work is of the highest quality and who seems equally at home in vocal and instrumental music. This CD has rapidly become a companion on my journeys, as well as a landmark in how to listen and play together as a wind group in a way that entirely matches the best viol consorts. And just as the viols and voices combination seems the quintessential sound for Jacobean music in England, so this CD of Guami gives us a standard for performing not only music in Venice at the turn of the 16th to 17th centuries, but also for how we might perform the motets and masses of Lassus as well. I should like to hear these forces singing Gabrieli too.

You should all hear this wonderful music. Many pieces are quite short, and the whole CD with 19 tracks is only 61 minutes in length, but they repay frequent listening. Every detail from the tuning to the changes in tempo to preparing for the cadences is well prepared and beautifully executed. I hope there will be much more Guami to come: meanwhile buy this and give it to your friends.

David Stancliffe

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]his is an impressive collection of cornett and sackbutt music, with two singers and an organist (Jan Waterfield). I’m a little surprised that every piece has organ continuo, but I won’t complain. The main ensembleconsists of the six people on the inside cover, but there are three others (Gawain Glenton, Miguel Tantos Sevilliano and Keith McGowan). I happen to have been playing organ (not a proper one) recently and tried to vary between legato and detached styles, and added significat breaks. I hadn’t played a church organ for some 50 years until last July, but I treat organ continuo thus, avoiding pure legatos, and shaping the music through subtle breaks between notes. Jan Waterfield was so right that I didn’t really need to pay attention! This style strikes me as ideal for cornett/sackbut repertoires.

As for the music, it is very impressive. I think that an hour is a bit too much: I played it in two halves (an advantage when LPs made that easy!), and these 19 pieces definitely need a break. The players play the texted pieces as if they were singers. But the addition of two real singers didn’t give the effect I expected. They don’t contrast or merge with the players, and I reckon that they need a more forward style. I won’t make a point I sometimes make concerning elaborate cornett divisions, but GG appears in only two items, and these are brilliant. This is certainly a fine collection of music. Sections from two collections of his music are played here (from 1585 and 1601), also calling on three anthologies of the period. The layout of the texts in the booklet is odd: they are not numbered and are placed in the wrong order – 6 & 14, then 9, 1, 3, 19. In nearly every respect, though, this is a fine recording, worthy of Guami’s music.

Clifford Bartlett

theatrum affectuum
73:18
Aeolus AE-10226

[dropcap]A[/dropcap] most engaging and enjoyable issue. Nicola Matteis (c1644-49 – before 1695) is thought to have been Neapolitan in origin, but the music on this disc was published between 1682 and 1687 in London, and provides a fascinating snapshot of what was then fashionable there. There are echoes, as one would expect, of Italy – light-footed ‘fugas’ and suspension-laden ‘adagios’, but also French ‘correntes’ and even a ‘Pretty hard ground after the Scotch Humour.’ Purcell clearly knew his Matteis – there are echoes of the Scotch ground in the chorus “Come, Shepherds, lead up a lively measure” from King Arthur, for example.

Theatrum Affectuum have selected pieces from the various publications and grouped them into convincing ‘suites,’ as would no doubt have been usual at the time. In general they have scored them for recorder, violin and continuo, with the upper parts alternating – sometimes varying between alto and soprano recorder within individual ‘suites’, which is a little distracting. The playing is, however, uniformly superb, with breathtaking recorder runs from Andreas Bohlen and virtuoso violin double-stopping from Ayako Matsunaga, and extremely infectious rhythmic vitality; try the foot-tapping ‘Gavotte con divisioni’ from the fourth suite. Giangiacomo Pinardi’s guitar gets its chance to shine in the ‘Ayre’ of the first suite, and Pierre-Augustin Lay and Takashi Watanabe provide rock-steady continuo and lively ‘grounds’.

The disc also contains a couple of finely played Barsanti arrangements of Scots songs, though their mid-18th-century style sits a little uneasily with the rest of the programme. Andreas Bohlen’s sleevenotes are models of their kind – scholarly, well-written and most informative. Well worth exploring!

Alastair Harper

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L’Aura Rilucente
55:19
Ambronay AMY304
Handel: op. 2/5 & 7, arrangements of operatic pieces
Haym: op. 1/1, 3 & 4

[dropcap]A[/dropcap]s far as I am aware, this is the first recording of music by Nicola Francesco Haym (1678-1729), better known today as the librettist for several of Handel’s greatest operas, including Giulio Cesare, Rodelinda and Tamerlano. He emerges as a charming, though small-scale, composer in his own right in these three trio sonatas; Heriberto Delgado Gutierrez and Sara Bagnati beautifully realise his plangent suspensions and deft counterpoint, splendidly supported by Silvia Serrano Monesterolo on cello, Jorge Lopez Escribano on keyboard, and particularly Maximilian Ehrhardt on harp.

The rest of the disc is devoted to Handel – unusual string arrangements of three operatic arias for voice and obbligato, which neatly demonstrate his differing techniques for vocal and instrumental composition, and two splendidly substantial trio sonatas from Op 2; No 7 in F has some extraordinary harmonic twists and a most dramatic conclusion to its fugal second movement and echoes of the overture to Athalia in its last. No 5 in G minor has a hectic, driving allegro and a contrastingly tranquil adagio. The disc concludes with the Ballo di Pastori e Pastorelli from Amadigi, which gives Ehrhardt’s harp a chance to shine.

A most enjoyable issue; one would however have liked a little more information about the music itself in the notes.

Alastair Harper