Category: Recording

Philippe Pierlot lyra viol, Dhruba Ghosh sanagi, Nitiranjan Biswas tabla, Roselyne Simpelaere tanpura
63:03
Flora 1006

[dropcap]W[/dropcap]hat a fanciful idea to take Hume’s extraordinary imagination and contrast/combine it with the imagination of a far continent with enormously appealing musical traditions of its own! And who better to do it than Philippe Pierlot – a marvellous player, playing what he calls a ‘lyra viol’ – in this case a 6-string bass viol in standard tuning, apart from ‘I am melancholy’ which is indeed in the bandore set.

The first nine tracks are all from the 1605 ‘Captain Humes Musicall Humors’ the most substantial being ‘Captain Humes Pavan’ (no 46) with which he opens the recording. This is followed by 12 of the shorter pieces, all persuasively played with great insight, infectious enthusiasm and, of course, complete technical assurance. One finds oneself wondering: why not just let this music and this playing stand on its own, it’s so inventive, so attractive, with lovely melodies and the gorgeous sounds of the bass viol so beautifully played? Why take it to India? Before he leaves, as it were, there is such a lovely account of ‘I am melancholy’.

Then, unexpectedly, bells, the drone of the tanpura, the bowed sarangi, not such a foreign sound after what we have heard, playing a raga that recalls our minor scale, joined by the subtle plastic rhythms of the tabla. The piece has the title ‘Sunrise by the Riverside’ and, in contrast, nearly 10 minutes long. It imparts a sense of inner landscape rather than that which its pictorial title might suggest, not so distant from Hume’s whimsy, sometimes humorous, sometimes suggesting great depths.

The playing is compelling, surging to and from its principal notes, with gossamer figuration, ever increasing in its range and intensity, concluding peacefully as it began with the bells, the tanpura drone lingering on e, as Hume’s ‘Deth’ comes in with its a minor chord. The sarangi then joins it with an improvisation on what has just been played. The second section of ‘Deth’ then follows, joining seamlessly with the sarangi, and so to the end, with the tanpura maintaining its drone throughout. The result is magical and very moving.

It’s immediately followed, almost interrupted, by ‘A Tune to Hume’ played initially on the sarangi weaving its endless flow, until the tabla enters, then the voice, presumably the sarangi player, as accomplished a singer as he is a player.

Then the ‘Lamento di Tristano’ – the medieval tune, played first by the viol, with the tanpura drone, joined by the sarangi, in octaves, but with its characteristic flourishes, including bending the tuning.

The sarangi then takes off on its own for a time, and they all tear into the Rotto with the tabla even playing in octaves with the two melody instruments. Its very infectious, marvellous listening, a complete answer to my initial questions.

The booklet gives more suggestions than information, quoting Hume’s introduction to his publication, and F. J. Fétis ‘There is nothing in the West which has not come from the East.’ It doesn’t help that one page is repeated, and it seems another page is missing, but it matters so little, and perhaps even contributes to an open-ness that this recording imparts. Highly recommended – a tour de force of imaginative insight.

Robert Oliver

Trio Settecento
186:48 (3 CDs)
Cedille CDR 90000 155

[dropcap]F[/dropcap]ollowing hot on the heels of Rie Kimura’s recording of two of Veracini’s monumental op. 2 sonatas, along comes the formidable Rachel Barton Pine and her colleagues John Mark Rozendaal on cello and David Schrader on harpsichord (who also features on Cedille’s Greene: Six Overtures in Seven Parts) with a three disc set of the complete publication. The recording emphasizes the stringed instrument sound, with the harmonic support of the keyboard mostly in the aural background. In her personal note that accompanies the recording, Barton Pine explains how the initial discussions didn’t even involve the harpsichordist, but that the final sound is the fruits of their giving several houses concerts and gauging the reaction of audiences. I do not recommend listening to all three CDs one after another – there is so much to enjoy, with every track demonstrating different aspects of Veracini’s creativity and Barton Pine’s virtuosity; it would be a sin to take any of it for granted; these are extraoradinary performances by anyone’s standards, and I am sure this will be the benchmark against which future recordings will be judged. Bravo to all involved!

Brian Clark

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Baroque Band, Garry Clarke
David Schrader solo harpsichord
Overtures in Seven Parts, nos. 1-6, Overtures to Phoebe and Ode for St Cecilia
Pieces in C minor, G minor and A minor from Lessons for the Harpsichord

[dropcap]I[/dropcap] still do not understand why Handel’s English contemporaries so rarely feature on concert programmes and recordings. Hyperion’s enterprising English Orpheus series brought us Croft, Stanley, Arne and Boyce amongst others. One published set that had not appeared on disc before a ridiculous court case forced Hyperion to tighten its belt was Maurice Greene’s excellent Overtures in Seven Parts, which the present CD combines with overtures to the pastoral opera Phoebe and an Ode for St Cecilia from 1730 (premiered on the eve of the composer’s appointment as Professor of Music at Cambridge University). Greene was no lightweight – he was organist at St Paul’s cathedral, organist and composer to the Chapel Royal and Master of the King’s Musick…

Four of the six have three movements, while numbers 4 and 6 have four each, and there is an easy tunefulness about them all. The last of the set is for strings alone, as are the two unpublished works. The remainder of the disc features three sequences of music printed in “A Collection of Lessons for the Harpsichord“, though not in the order published by John Johnson in around 1750. After the richness of the orchestral sound (33221 strings with oboes or flutes), the keyboard instrument sounded a little insubstantial; having initially thought that it would have been more sensible to programme these pieces between the overtures, having a longer sequence actually allows the ear to acclimatize. Personally, I think I would have sought out more ensemble music, or even added pieces by Stanley and/or Boyce, who were among Greene’s many students.

If you do not know Greene’s music, do not miss this first class introduction!

Brian Clark

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Alice Foccroulle, Béatrice Mayo-Felip, Reinoud Van Mechelen SST, InAlto, directed by Lambert Colson, Marc Meisel organ
62:42
Ramée 1401

[dropcap]O[/dropcap]n the whole, I’m more familiar with Scheidt than Schein, though some Scheidt is a bit over-regular. My main criticism here is that Schein deserves a complete disc rather then jumping to the end of the 17th century, and J. S. Bach really is too late!

Most of the Schein works come from Opella nova, 1617, and very impressive they are, though in “Exaudiet” the tenor texts were more audible than the soprano, and cornett/sackbutts do tend to need more gaps, much as I like them. I reckon that this could be a brilliant CD had it been more thought out, though do buy it. The booklet is excellent, apart from not noting which soprano is which.

Clifford Bartlett

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Paulina Tkaczyk harpsichord
117:24 (2 CDs)
Dux 1153/1154

[dropcap]C[/dropcap]hristlieb Siegmund Binder (1723-1789) is described by some writers as Dresden’s answer to Carl Philipp Emmanuel Bach; if these sonatas, printed in 1759, are typical, then that is an exaggeration. Though tuneful and not without exciting outer movements, they are fairly workaday and rarely deviate from the mid-18th-century norm. Paulina Tkaczyk is a lyrical interpreter and uses the full potential of her instrument (there are no details of of the maker in the booklet notes), which means that listening to one CD or the other makes for pleasant background music for a summer’s afternoon, reading Jane Austen.

Brian Clark

Accademia Strumentale Italiana
70:36
Stradivarius STR 37002

Robert Oliver

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Wieland Kuijken violoncello, violoncello piccolo, basse de viole, Piet Kuijken harpsichord
210:00 (3 CDs)
Arcana A383

[dropcap]E[/dropcap]very cellist will have their own view on the interpretation of the six unaccompanied suites. I have my own distinctive ideas, developed over some 50 years since struggling with the first suite – on modern cello, of course – as a schoolboy barely out of short trousers. Kuijken, in this re-issue of the recording made in 2001-02, takes a very personal, relaxed and reflective interpretation of these works. Allemandes and sarabandes are especially unhurried, although courantes and other subsequent movements retain their dance spirit, Kuijken adopting a detached, at times almost spiccato-like bow stroke for many movements. The text of the early ms sources is strictly adhered to, with little if any added ornamentation. Not only that, the chordal passages, as at the end of the Prelude of Suite II, are played as written, without any of the customary elaboration into arpeggio figuration. Perhaps the most difficult suite to interpret convincingly is Suite IV in E flat, a key which gives hardly any opportunity to exploit the natural resonances of the cello’s open strings. Fortunately Kuijken’s Amati instrument, no doubt aided by a good recording acoustic, helps to negate this problem. The sombre quality of Suite V in C Minor, however, is well captured, with the instrument’s resonances enhanced by the required tuning of the top string down to G. In contrast, Kuijken gives Suite VI, for the five-string violoncello piccolo, its bright, airy texture that is needed for this work.

Perhaps because of the very generous tempi of many of the movements, there was not room for more than two suites on disc 2; so Suite V, together with the three gamba sonatas, appears on disc 3 of the set. These sonatas receive a more conventional reading, with Wieland on a 7-string Bertrand instrument with Piet Kuijken playing a particularly full-sounding copy of a late Baroque German harpsichord. Piet makes his harpsichord (which is well balanced in the recording) sing, and his phrasing carefully matches that of the gamba.

It is difficult to recommend one recording over another, for there are so many HIP versions from which to make a choice, from the sensible to the ridiculous. Both Wispelwey (at Cöthen pitch A=392) and Sigiswald Kuijken (on viola da spalla) are really interesting musical concepts, while this more conventional recording by the latter’s brother (at A=415) I feel ranks highly against many of the others, though not all will appreciate some of his more his leisurely tempi. If you prefer the whacky, there is even Pandolfo on viola da gamba (with suitable transpositions) – or even two recordings on marimba! Certainly Wieland Kuijken is one to consider, even if you have another, though everything he does is not always to my taste.

Ian Graham-Jones

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Vienna / Praha / Kroměříž, 1700
Aliquando (Stéphanie Paulet violin, Elisabeth Geiger organ)
72:32
muso mu-008
Music by Biber, Faber, Teubner, Viviani, Vojta & anon

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]his is one of the finest recordings I have heard of solo violin music from the 17th century. Paulet and Geiger (who plays one an André Silbermann organ) have selected nearly a dozen extracts from the extensive manuscript which exhibit all the virtuoso techniques of the period, such as scordatura and multiple stops. Four of the works (sonatas 4, 77 and 87 and toccata 94) also appeared on Gunar Letzbor’s Anonymous Habsburg Violin Music (on Pan Classics).

Apart from the outstanding playing from both musicians, the recorded sound really makes this a “must buy” disc – the fuller sound of the “church organ” really fills the space, but is never allowed to dominate. I would love to hear these two in a selection of Schmelzer’s solo sonatas, with the same recording engineer, please!

Brian Clark

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