Category: Recording

Lily Afshar guitar
72′
Archer Records ARR-31962
BWV998, 1006a, 1007, 1009, “Ave Maria”

[dropcap]A[/dropcap]ll the pieces on this CD are arranged by Lily Afshar for the classical guitar, and are published in her collection, Essential Bach Arranged for the Guitar (Pacific, Missouri: Mel Bay, 2013). She exploits the technique of playing across the strings, rather than along them, so as to sustain the harmony created by single-line passages, as did early 17th-century lutenists with their style brisé, and baroque guitarists with their campanellas. Most of Bach’s lute music survives only in staff notation, not tablature, so it is not clear which technique was intended, but I like what she does, having had similar aims with my own youthful arrangements of Bach for the guitar.

The CD begins with a spirited performance of Bach’s Lute Suite no. 4 (BWV 1006a), which is adapted from Bach’s Third Violin Partita (BWV 1006). In the exciting, virtuosic Prelude, Afshar maintains momentum by omitting some of the bass notes present in the lute version, but which were not in the Violin Partita. She does the same in the elegantly flowing Bourrée and Gigue. It is not a serious loss, since the Violin Sonata was fine without them, and one has to adapt the music to the instrument one has; a mere six strings and a tuning largely in fourths does have its limitations.

Other pieces are the well-known Cello Suite no. 1 (BWV 1007), Prelude, Fugue and Allegro (BWV 998) benefitting from a sonorous dropped D tuning, and Cello Suite no. 3 (BWV 1009) including two modestly restrained Bourrées. The CD ends with an interesting and effective arrangement of Ave Maria, taken from Bach’s Prelude no. 1 in C major (BWV 846) from Book 1 of Das Wohltemperierte Klavier, with a vocal melody added 100 years later by Charles Gounod (1818-93). It Is certainly strange (but not unpleasant) to hear a Bach Prelude turned into a sort of Victorian Cavatina.

I’m not sure that “Bach on Fire” is a fair reflection of Afshar’s playing. She has a certain gentleness and sensitivity in her interpretation (even in the liveliest movements like the superfast Allegro from BWV 998,) which I find appropriate and most attractive.

Stewart McCoy

[wp-review]

“The Saxon Alternative”
Syrinx
62:04
Resonus RES10154
TWV44:2, 7, & 14; TWV55:c3, B3

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]his fabulous recording is devoted to one of the less well-known repositories of baroque music. As well as maintaining “Kapelle” (ensembles made up of singers and instrumentalists who were as capable of performing sacred as secular music), many German courts – in imitation of Louis XIV – maintained an “hautboistenband”, a separate group of musicians who served a different purpose. Their precise function remains cloudy (there are records, for example, of court musicians being paid to teach the “hautboisten” to play the violin), but Belinda Paul’s informative booklet notes are right to suggest that the classical “Harmonie” did not simply appear out of thin air – the involvement of instruments other than double reeds (and the ability of “hautboisten” to play them) was a long tradition. The CD’s title derives from the fact that Saxon bands regularly featured a pair of horns; thus the recording features two overtures for five-part winds, two for the saxon variant (pairs of oboes, horns and bassoons) and a concerto for pairs of oboe d’amore, horns and bassoons (all with harpsichord continuo).

It will surprise no-one that Telemann manages to delight the ear with what might seem like limited resources. The blend of double reeds and horns (especially oboes d’amore and horns!) is gorgeous, especially when recorded in such a generous but not over-resonant acoustic. The individual movements of the suites take on a character of their own, with the composer’s mischievous sense of humour never far from the surface (just listen to La Grimace and I defy you not to smile…) It’s all such fun that I can even forgive Dan Tidhar for using the lute stop on track 16. I hope we will hear more of this repertoire from Syrinx (or even some of the cantatas mentioned in the booklet – I have edited several…)

Brian Clark

[wp-review]

Red Priest
71:59
Red Priest Records RP012

[dropcap]R[/dropcap]ed Priest albums are always stylish, entertaining and controversial, and this one is no exception. It took me a little while to become accustomed to the sound world of Red Priest – recorder, violin, cello and harpsichord – as applied to Handel’s Messiah but I found I soon entered into it and really enjoyed their imaginative interpretations of such well-known music. There is a lot of very fine, conventional playing, contrasting with sections of virtuosic mania. The arrangements, originally by Angela East but developed and re-worked during the rehearsal process, are extremely ingenious and half the fun lies in picking out the little snippets of other pieces which creep in. There are some wonderful variations for Piers Adams in The Recorder Shall Sound, followed by a lovely duet for bass recorder and violin in Despised and Rejected. Siciliano Pedicuro (“How Beautiful are the Feet”) is another gorgeous duet, this time for violin and cello, and the only funny thing about it is the title. The jazzed-up “Hallelujah”, on the other hand, had me laughing as, after snatches of “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life”, “Czardas” and other familiar tunes, it somehow turned into “Happy Birthday to You”.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UylgxuAxzk

“Lascia ch’io Pianga” from Rinaldo marks the start of the second half of the performance with some lovely violin playing by Julia Bishop. The Trio Sonata in F major op.2 no. 4 is the only piece in the programme originally composed for the Red Priest instrumental line-up, five hyper-active fast movements contrasted with beautifully ornamented slow ones. We are allowed to recover from the breath-taking “Harmonious Blacksmith Variations” with the beautiful Largo from Concerto Grosso op.3 no. 2. This leads into some very silly pizzicato which turns out to be the Passacaglia from the Keyboard Suite in G minor which has serious moments before becoming more and more manic. The finale is Zadok the Red Priest in which, as Piers Adams describes in his booklet notes, Zadok the Priest and the Queen of Sheba become unlikely but fervent lovers. Handel finally disappears into the wind with the bonus track, Aria Amorosa taken from the CD Priest on the Run.

Victoria Helby

[wp-review]

Ensemble La Romanesca, José Miguel Moreno
62:45
Glossa GCD C80201

[dropcap]I[/dropcap]t is hard to believe that this sparkling recital was originally issued in 1993; the repertoire it explores, that of 17th-century Spanish secular music, remains relatively little known. Much of the vocal half of the disc is devoted to the theatre music of Juan Hidalgo, who was closely associated with the great dramatist Calderón. Marta Almajano’s delicate and precise soprano negotiates his teasing and rhythmically complex lines with aplomb – try the delightful ‘Cuydado, Pastor’ for an appetite whetter. I particularly enjoyed Sebastián Durón’s lovely ‘Sosieguen, descansen’, with its haunting gamba-obbligato’d triple-time refrain. Unfortunately the booklet only gives the texts in Spanish; with such dramatically conceived music, translations would have been very helpful. Moreno and the instrumentalists of Ensemble La Romanesca come to the fore in the remaining half of the disc, with a dazzling display of variations on well-known grounds of the period, e. g., the lovely Sanz Canarios, along with a couple of more extended fantasias; that by Salaverde is especially memorable.

Alastair Harper

[wp-review]

[iframe style=”width:120px;height:240px;” marginwidth=”0″ marginheight=”0″ scrolling=”no” frameborder=”0″ src=”//ws-eu.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&OneJS=1&Operation=GetAdHtml&MarketPlace=GB&source=ss&ref=ss_til&ad_type=product_link&tracking_id=infocentral-21&marketplace=amazon&region=GB&placement=B00SZMNVYC&asins=B00SZMNVYC&linkId=2BFXOTXU5AQ3D5ZE&show_border=true&link_opens_in_new_window=true”]

Barbara Heindlmeier recorder, Ensemble La Ninfea
70:33
Raumklang RK 3402

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]his is the first recording of the six recorder sonatas by Schultzen which were published by Roger in Amsterdam and survive in a copy in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France. Although they appear in Roger’s 1737 catalogue they are known to have existed as early as 1704 and the identity of A. H. Schultzen, the composer named on the print, is somewhat mysterious. The writers of the booklet notes, which are a little confusing at this point, have concluded that he is Andreas Heinrich Schulze, an organist at Hildesheim who attended the same school as Telemann. He appears in Walther’s Musikalisches Lexicon (Leipzig 1732) where there is also a separate adjacent entry for A. Schultsen, a composer of six recorder sonatas who may or may not be the same person. The specified instrumentation is “flauto solo con cimbalo overo fagotto” but La Ninfea’s varying continuo line-up of combinations of gamba, baroque lute, theorbo, harpsichord and organ is very effective and I like the little preludes which introduce some of the movements. The lovely warm performances by Christian Heim and Marthe Perle, who share the solos in the three anonymous gamba sonatas, contrast well with Barbara Heindlmeier’s incisively played allegros and elaborately ornamented slow movements in the recorder sonatas. Readers who wish to play this attractive music themselves will be pleased to know that the very legible Roger edition of the Schultzen sonatas is available on the Petrucci web site. The gamba sonatas are from the library of Princess Louisa Frederica of Württemberg (1722-1791) and are now in the library of the University of Rostock. There doesn’t appear to be an available edition but they would be well worth publishing.

Victoria Helby

[wp-review]

Ensemble Barockin’
56:26
Raumklang RK 3304
Sonatas in d & G (op. 12, 1743), c & D (op. 17, 1756)

[dropcap]E[/dropcap]MR will readers will surely be able call to mind Quantz’s advocacy of the quartet and his admiration for Telemann’s works in the genre. Well, here’s music that seriously rivals GPT and that’s a clause I never thought I’d type. The instrumentation is the same as the ‘Paris’ set – flute, violin, gamba and continuo – and the musical style is much same with a judicious balance of conversation and counterpoint and even a touch of drama. The playing is very accomplished and the straightforward approach to the continuo (as requested by the composer) is more than welcome. There are a few lumps and bumps in the note though I enjoyed the Guillemain biography. Either the engineers or her colleagues could have done the flautist a few more favours in terms of the instrumental balance but overall this is a welcome discovery. Two of the works are claimed as first recordings.

David Hansell

[wp-review]

Musica Flexanima Ensemble, Fabrizio Bigotti
74:06
Tactus TC 550007
Allegri Missa “In lectulo meo” a8, Salutis humanæ sator a8, Cantata (attrib), 5 Canzone
Anerio 3 Canzone
Bonomi In lectulo meo

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he three sets of partbooks which were copied for Duke Giovanni Angelo Altaemps in the early 17th century constitute the most significant set of sources for early Baroque Roman music, both polychoral and small-scale concertato. They are also a rare source for non-Frescobaldi Roman instrumental canzonas, of which five by Gregorio Allegri and three by Giovanni F. Anerio are included here. All are for two instruments and continuo and show well-developed sophistication and variety, especially those by Anerio; it is good to have them recorded here for the first time. They are played by the popular Roman combination of violin and cornett, or in two cases by two violins (oddly, there is no mention of the cornett player among the list of instrumentalists). These are the unpublished works of the CD’s title and are the only works from the Altaemps partbooks here, apart from the motet by the Flemish Bonhomme/Bonomi which provided the model for Allegri’s Mass. The latter is found in a Cappella Sistina choirbook, as are the lamentations and hymn, while the cantata is attributed to the composer in a Naples manuscript. All are competently sung, though the instrumental performances definitely outshine the vocal ones. The singing is patchy, often pedestrian and with suspect tuning but occasionally rising above that to provide convincing moments. The acoustic is overly resonant and the recording tends to emphasise the choir’s insecurities. The cantata is poorly performed, making it difficult to judge its merits; it needs a more leisurely pace and more attention to the words. There are better recordings of most of this vocal music but this is certainly worth listening to for the instrumental canzonas. The booklet does not provide texts, which is a pity, but they can be accessed on the Tactus website.

Noel O’Regan

[wp-review]

[iframe style=”width:120px;height:240px;” marginwidth=”0″ marginheight=”0″ scrolling=”no” frameborder=”0″ src=”//ws-eu.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&OneJS=1&Operation=GetAdHtml&MarketPlace=GB&source=ss&ref=ss_til&ad_type=product_link&tracking_id=infocentral-21&marketplace=amazon&region=GB&placement=B00P351ZLU&asins=B00P351ZLU&linkId=OAXL3JXEZQB2YP3F&show_border=true&link_opens_in_new_window=true”]

Mónica Pustilnik lute
62:30
Accent ACC 24193

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]wo books of music by Alessandro Piccinini survive: his Intavolatura di Liuto e di Chitarrone Libro Primo (1623) and Intavolatura di Liuto (1639). The chitarrone (i.e. theorbo) pieces from the first book are one of the few major sources of music for that instrument, and have been recorded frequently in recent years. Piccinini’s lute pieces are less well known, so it is nice to hear some of them in this recording by Mónica Pustilnik. The second book was published a year after Piccinini’s death by his son, Leonardo Maria Piccinini, who collected his father’s music together to create a second volume. Of the sixteen tracks, half are from the first book, and half from the second.

The CD gets off to a slow, gentle start with a Sarabanda all francese (bk.2, p.20). The long third section seems to be a separate piece of music, with a change of rhythm to 3/2, of tonality from C major to C minor, and interspersed with scalic runs of quavers. Pustilnik adds little ornaments of her own here and there.

Her interpretaion of Corrente 9 (bk.2, p.38) is carefully phrased, but lacks the drive one might have expected to keep the dance flowing. Ricercar Primo (bk.2, p.12) – not Ricercare Primo from book 1 – develops a slow, rising, chromatic theme. Pustlinik opts for a somewhat free interpretation, but the result is a speed which keeps changing. The first two bars are at crotchet=76; by bar 6 it has accelerated to crotchet=100; the speed starts to slow down in bar 36 (the first bar with semiquavers), so that by the penultimate bar it is down to crotchet=56, almost half the speed it was, and Piccinini’s climax is emasculated.

Piccinini’s inventiveness may be heard in Aria di Saravanda in Varie Partite (bk.1, p.44), including um-chings with occasional strums reminiscent of a baroque guitar, broken chords, and a variation high up the neck at the 10th fret. Most extraordinary is his Toccata Cromatica 12 (bk1, p.45), with sequences of dotted rhythms, strange chromatic turns, a wide range with a trill up to the 12th fret and a scale down to the 12th course in the bass. Pustlinik sustains it well, bringing out its contrasting moods. She adds some nice touches of her own for the repeats of Corrente 6 (bk.1, p.51), and I enjoyed her sparkling interpretation of Corrente 7 (bk.2, p.30), a piece which to me sounds more French than Italian.

Two of the longest tracks are a Chiaccona… alla vera Spagnola (bk.2, Cappona p.55; Mariona p.49), which consist of a constantly changing set of variations over a simple 4-bar ground.

Pustlinik plays a single-strung archlute by Francisco Hervas. The treble notes are stronger than the rest, but that may be due to the recording engineer rather than the instrument.

Stewart McCoy

[wp-review]

[iframe style=”width:120px;height:240px;” marginwidth=”0″ marginheight=”0″ scrolling=”no” frameborder=”0″ src=”//ws-eu.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&OneJS=1&Operation=GetAdHtml&MarketPlace=GB&source=ss&ref=ss_til&ad_type=product_link&tracking_id=infocentral-21&marketplace=amazon&region=GB&placement=B00O5M4IH0&asins=B00O5M4IH0&linkId=2MHZRMJ2R4BXHWGM&show_border=true&link_opens_in_new_window=true”]

Dan Laurin voice flute, Paradiso Musicale
70:04
BIS-2105 SACD

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he Swedish composer Johan Helmich Roman’s twelve flute sonatas were published in Stockholm in 1727, the year in which he was appointed as court Kapellmeister. Telemann advertised that he was the agent for their sale in Hamburg and praised them “for their lively and very charming composition” and for the quality of the printing (which you can see on the IMSLP web site). Roman claimed that they were youthful works so they may have been composed during his prolonged stay in London from 1716 to 1721 where he studied, played the violin for Handel and would have encountered Italian music and musicians. They certainly pre-date his visit to Italy but he owned and translated into Swedish Gasparini’s L’armonico pratico al cimbalo which was first published in Venice in 1708. This fact has been used to justify harpsichordist Anna Paradiso’s colourful and often dissonant continuo playing, which in any case is invited by Roman’s dramatic style of composition. This is flute music of a high quality which works well on the voice flute (tenor recorder in D), avoiding the need for transposition. The SACD sound is so good that you can hear Dan Laurin’s breathing and a faint jingle from the harpsichord but this should not put you off this excellent recording. The disc forms part of a series of recordings of Roman’s music by the same musicians and I look forward to hearing their performances of the remaining seven sonatas in the set.

Victoria Helby

[wp-review]

[iframe style=”width:120px;height:240px;” marginwidth=”0″ marginheight=”0″ scrolling=”no” frameborder=”0″ src=”//ws-eu.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&OneJS=1&Operation=GetAdHtml&MarketPlace=GB&source=ss&ref=ss_til&ad_type=product_link&tracking_id=infocentral-21&marketplace=amazon&region=GB&placement=B00OMEJ934&asins=B00OMEJ934&linkId=IKUNPIKW26OYWYBG&show_border=true&link_opens_in_new_window=true”]