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Geminiani: La Forêt enchantée

CD cover Geminiani La Forêt enchantée

Elisa Baciocchi Ensemble
72:42
Tactus TC 680706

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Geminiani’s La Forêt enchantée is a theatrical pantomime inspired by Torquato Tasso’s epic poem Gerusalemme liberata, most famous perhaps as the source of Monteverdi’s Il Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda. It is an entirely instrumental piece designed to accompany dance and mime, but this presentation interpolates extracts from the Tasso to provide context for the music. This and the addition of a flute to the original string texture seem reasonable liberties in the circumstances, particularly as the recording has the feel of a record of a staged performance. My only reservation regarding this interesting and informative project is that a combination of the recording quality and the standard of the playing suggests a good amateur performance rather than a polished professional one. Nevertheless, this CD opens an interesting window on an unfamiliar Baroque genre, and adds another dimension to our understanding of the enigmatic and prolific Geminiani.

D. James Ross

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Rainaldi: Cantate e Duetti vol. III

CD cover Rainaldi Cantatas vol 3

Arianna Miceli soprano, Marika Spadafino soprano, Antonio Orsini tenor, RomaBarocca Ensemble, Lorenzi Tozzi
51:21
Tactus TC 611803

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Carlo Rainaldi, an established and admired architect in the Italian Baroque period, underlines the underappreciated links between architecture and music – the precepts of Vetruvius link the two closely. While Rainaldi’s role in the architecture of 17th-century Rome has long been understood, his influence on the Roman Cantata of the same period has only recently been understood. The present series of recordings – this is the third volume – explores his music for solo and duet voices with basso continuo, and reveals a composer of considerable technical skill and imagination. He is the master of the unexpected, with startling changes in harmony and texture, while always maintaining a pleasing level of musicality. The performances here alternate two soprano voices, with the introduction of a tenor for one duet and two duets for both sopranos, with sympathetic instrumental accompaniment from theorbo, gamba/bass and harpsichord. I have occasional reservations about the intonation of both sopranos, although they sing expressively enough and both have a sweet tone. The duets for two sopranos seem to inspire the best music from Rainaldi, although the intonation issues persist. Notwithstanding the superabundance of such repertoire, Rainaldi’s contribution seems well worth exploring, and the present performers are to be applauded for bringing his music to a wider audience.

D. James Ross

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Mouton: Missa Faulte d’argent & Motets

CD cover Mouton Missa Faulte d’argent & Motets

The Brabant Ensenble, conducted by Stephen Rice
72:53
Hyperion CDA68385

Proclaiming Jean Mouton as one of the finest Franco-Flemish composers in the musical era between Josquin and Palestrina – which he is – does not make him outstanding. It merely renders him equal with a substantial number of similarly fine composers from that era who have enriched the canon of sacred vocal music with their works. Thanks to advances in scholarship and in performance practices, we can now also appreciate the intense distinctiveness of each of these composers, and that same singularity in each of their compositions. This second recording of Mouton’s music by The Brabant Ensemble (following CDA67933; acclaim also for The Tallis Scholars with another Mass and motets on CDGIM 047) introduces yet more hitherto unmined riches from his oeuvre with only one brief item having been commercially recorded previously. These wonderful tracks simply roll out one after another, individually varied while combining to create a disc that is both enjoyable and at the same time rewarding, spiritually and aesthetically. Characteristics of Mouton’s personal style include judicious use of reduced scoring, often employing pairs of voices successively; passages showing the influence of faburden; and the dramatic use of dissonance, not just at cadences. All these are in the context of the finest melody and harmony imparting a sense of spaciousness and yet an uncanny knack to give the impression that more voices are singing than is actually the case: there was more than one point at which I needed to confirm that a particular work was indeed in four parts throughout and not what had begun to sound like five (at least!).

The seven motets that form the first half of this programme all exhibit the edifying and excellently wrought features mentioned above. Subsequently they all appear in the Mass, to such an extent that it emerges as one of the finest from this remarkable generation of supremely gifted – and presumably well-taught – composers. Settings of the Agnus from Josquin, culminating in those for five and (especially) four voices by Byrd composed during the early to mid 1590s, can rise to sublime levels, not only here in Mouton’s Mass, but also in so many of these Masses by so many of these composers. Meanwhile today we are blest with choirs who understand this music, not just reproducing the notes accurately, but doing so with comprehension and empathy, both for the meaning of the music and for the manner in which that music, and the knowledge of that music, can best be dispensed. The entire performance of the Missa Faulte d’argent, which forms the second half of this programme, epitomizes all that is currently best in the performing and recording of Renaissance choral music. Every note is clear. Every melodic line is audible and can be followed in each part without difficulty by the listener. Every harmonic interaction, be it in the weaving and occasional clashing of melodic lines or in homophonic passages, is perfectly weighted. Tempi and volumes are calibrated to respond sensitively to the text and to the sound made by the music itself, so that there is never bland perfection nor emotional exaggeration, and the music and its text can be expressed as rhetoric or narrative, to inform, edify and delight the listener. Mouton has done humanity an enormous favour by composing this Mass. The Brabant Ensemble has done Mouton an enormous favour by selecting this Mass, and by recording it so eloquently. And the great thing is: there is so much more of this quality of music, by composers of this quality, still waiting to be rediscovered, and so much that has already been rediscovered that is waiting to be performed and recorded. And this is besides all the works we know already by (randomly adding to names already dropped) the likes of Fevin, Phinot, Gombert, Manchicourt, Crecquillon, Clemens and a heavenly host of others. In conclusion, I should like to make a plea to The Brabant Ensemble to consider making a disc like this one, consisting of the music of Lheritier. His few commercially recorded sacred pieces are spread over several discs; these motets are superb; he was respected by Palestrina … Meanwhile we can be grateful for this second recording by The Brabant Ensemble of motets and a mass by Mouton – he has proved more than worthy of their (exceptional) further attention.

Richard Turbet

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Weihnachten bei Freylinghausen

CD cover Weihnachten bei Freylinghausen Erler Steuber

A Freylinghausen Christmas
David Erler alto, Martin Steuber lute
64:46
Rondeau Productions ROP6232

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This engaging CD is a recital for alto voice and lute of Advent and Christmas music from the Geistreichen Gesangbuch by Johann Anastasius Freylinghausen, published in Halle in 1704-8. This seminal collection served to put Halle firmly on the musical map, becoming a smash hit throughout the German-speaking world. This recording makes clear the attractions of this music – simple, emphatic, musically imaginative, dance-like, folk-influenced, and wonderfully craftsmanlike. The performances by Erler and Steuber perfectly suit the music – the former is a no-nonsense male alto, with a beautifully direct and unmannered alto voice, while the latter provides suitably clear and sympathetic accompaniment, as well as a couple of lovely lute solos by David Kellner. Appropriately the CD is recorded in the perfectly resonant acoustic of the Freylinghausen Hall in Halle. Freylinghausen’s publications were a major factor in the dissemination of the new Pietism, which would prove so influential for the next century, but ultimately this recording is a vivid evocation of the original context of this attractive and accessible repertoire.

D. James Ross

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Haydn: Deutsche Lieder

CD cover Haydn Deutsche Lieder

Alice Foccroule, Pierre Gallon
64:48
passacaille PAS1101

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These delightful accounts of 18 of Haydn’s 24 Deutsche Lieder Hob. XXVI will undoubtedly win many fans to this relatively neglected aspect of the composer’s oeuvre. The decision to alternate harpsichord and fortepiano allows Pierre Gallon to provide a degree of textural variety – the title page suggests ‘clavier’ which allows for either, although it has to be said that the accompaniments contain figures which to my ears sound distinctively pianistic. The songs were published in two batches in 1781 and 1784, for no better reason than that the composer had failed to find adequate texts to complete the project for the earlier date. All aspects of the presentation suggest that they belong essentially to one set, although the composer’s interest in finding quality texts is significant – a major feature of all the songs here is the strength of the lyrics and the composer’s immediate and sensitive response to them. Alice Foccroule has the ideal voice for this repertoire, beautifully focussed and expressive, and a vital element in the success of these recordings is her intelligent reading of the texts. The mature Haydn displays an advanced mastery of harmonic progression and lyrical and expressive melody, and these songs very much point the way to the subsequent flowering of German Lieder. As a small bonus, the performers give us a touching account of Abschiedslied, formerly attributed to Haydn, but now thought to be the work of Adalbert Gyrowetz. The fact that this song could have been considered to be by Haydn emphasises the composer’s influence on this genre, as well as usefully reminding us that Vienna boasted a large number of other fine composers like Gyrowetz, many of whom are nowadays unjustifiably neglected. 

D. James Ross

 

 

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The Library of a Prussian Princess

CD cover The library of a Prussian princess Ensemble Augelletti

Ensemble Augelletti
60:25
Barn Cottage Records BCR024

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Anna Amalia, Princess of Prussia (and titular Abbess of Quedlingburg) is one of the great collectors of music to whom musicians owe a great debt. In compiling this intriguing programme, Ensemble Augelletti have searched through her remarkable library of more than 600 pieces, using it as a source for even the well-known pieces recorded here. These are placed side-by-side with less familiar repertoire, including music by Princess Anna Amalia herself, in the manner of a soirée in her palace on Berlin’s magnificent avenue, Unter den Linden. Reflecting the Princess’s devotion to the organ – she had one built specially for her in 1755, described herself proudly as ‘organist’, and had it moved with her to Unter den Linden – the continuo here is played on organ and viol with theorbo. The melody instruments are recorder and violin, although there is a disappointing lack of information in the notes as to precisely who does what and on what. As I mentioned, this imaginative programme plan allows for the very familiar to rub shoulders with the thoroughly unfamiliar – in the former category we have two trio sonatas by J. S. Bach, and one each by C. P. E. Bach, Handel, Corelli and Geminiani and in the latter, four fugues for trio by Princess Amalia. While not perhaps being of a standard with the other works, Amalia’s fugues are thoroughly workmanlike and full of original turns of phrase.  The playing from the Augelletti Ensemble throughout this CD is delightful and sympathetic, and they bring the same infectious enthusiasm to their performances as Princess Amalia seems to have brought to her Unter den Linden soirées – important events in their own right, and doubly so for having influenced those hosted subsequently by Sarah Levy, the great-aunt of Felix and Fanny Mendelssohn.

D. James Ross

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Prussian Blue

CD cover Prussian Blue Passacaglia Barn Cottage Records

C. P. E. Bach: Sonatas for flute, viola da gamba and harpsichord
Passacaglia
67:25
Barn Cottage Records BCR025

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All of the sonatas in this attractive selection date from the first half of the composer’s life and as the excellent programme note by flautist Annabel Knight points out, they demonstrate ‘the composer’s youthful spirit and distinctively emerging musical voice’. When we think what a characterful contribution he would go on to make at a crucial transitional phase in musical style, his individuality is already clearly on display here. There are three flute sonatas with BC, a sonata for unaccompanied solo flute, a gamba sonata with BC, and one of the ‘Prussian’ sonatas for solo keyboard. The Sonata for solo flute Wq 132 printed in 1747 is the latest work on the disc and is a wonderfully exploratory and other-worldly piece, reminiscent of the more famous music by Telemann for solo flute. It is played with immense sensitivity and technical assurance by Annabel Knight, whose reading of the more conventional Sonatas Wq 131, 124 and 125 is also delightfully musical and utterly engaging. Reiko Ichise steps into the spotlight for the Wq 136 Sonata for Gamba and BC, a curious work written for the virtuoso Ludwig Hesse in 1745 at a time when the gamba’s popularity was on the wane, indeed already almost entirely eclipsed by the cello, but when Hesse’s skills and French style of playing were still admired at the Berlin Court. Bach cleverly plays to Hesse’s strengths with music, which allows for technical display as well as evoking a charming French galant flavour. Reiko Ichise presents this demanding music with flair and panache, enjoying the technical challenges of this striking gamba swansong. Finally, it is keyboard player Robin Bigwood’s turn for the solo spotlight with the fourth of Bach’s Wq 48 ‘Prussian’ sonatas. Composing for his own instrument, Bach allows his harmonic and melodic imagination to run free to a degree unusual in the early 1740s. While I occasionally found myself yearning for the dynamic gradations possible on an early piano, it would have been an odd decision to introduce a different keyboard for this one item, and the harpsichord has the advantage of making the daring clashing harmonies all the more uncompromising. This is a thoroughly enjoyable CD, with all three members of Passacaglia demonstrating their individual musicality and technical prowess, as well as coming together with an admirably impressive sense of ensemble.

D. James Ross

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Prussian Blue

CD cover Prussian Blue Sophia Aretz Alexander von Heißen

Flute music at the court of Frederick the Great
Sophia Aretz flute, Alexander von Heißen harpsichord
56:17
hänssler classics CD HC22024

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Frederick the Great’s association with the flute is well known. Although his love of music and the arts in general caused problems with his father, he persisted in establishing his own ensemble, acquiring all the latest music and studying with Quantz, one of the earliest virtuosi on the relatively new instrument. Once head of state, his Kapelle grew and included many of the biggest names of the day, including C P E Bach,* who is often portrayed as being unhappy in his role as a “mere” accompanist rather than the court composer. Perhaps there was some melancholy among the musicians – four out of the five pieces on this extremely impressive CD are in minor keys. The recital is bookended by a pair of three-movement sonatas by the king himself; while they are clearly the product of the age, these are no mechanical, half-hearted efforts – from the very first notes of the E minor sonata, we are drawn into a dreamy world of reflection; in the faster movement, his catchy melodies and clever passagework mean interest never wanes.  Also on the programme are a four-movement trio sonata attributed to Quantz (in which von Heißen takes the second “treble” with his right hand – hold on to your hat for one chord sequence in the second movement!), a charming sonata by Frederick’s sister, Anna Amalia, and – of course! – C P E Bach’s D minor sonata H569.

Aretz and von Heißen are perfect companions in this music. While she gracefully shapes the slower movements with a warmly caressing tone, she is utterly undaunted in the faster pieces – I had to re-listen to two passages several times to work out how she had managed to fit all of the notes into the time available! Like poor old Bach, von Heißen plays a mostly subservient role but, in crafting the harmonic background for the “star”, he is the master of slightly holding back or pressing on to keep the music alive – and the ability to play unequally between his hands is outstanding. For the perfect demonstration of these features, just listen to the opening of Track 8 (the opening Adagio of Anna Amalia’s sonata) – it is simply gorgeous!

Brian Clark

*Bach shared the position with Carl Friedrich Christian Fasch (son of the perhaps more famous Zerbst Kapellmeister, Johann Friedrich Fasch, who (coincidentally?) wrote at least one sonata for two flutes, whose source material is in Berlin…). The younger Fasch was recommended to the king by one of his leading violinists, Franz Benda, as “the most gifted of accompanists”.

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Schütz: Historia Nativitatis

CD cover Schütz Historia nativitatis

Ensemble Polyharmonique
84:25 (2 CDs in a single jewel case)
cpo 555 432-2

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Ensemble Polyharmonique, led by their primus inter pares and alto Alexander Schneider, have embarked on an interesting project: Schütz published the narrative of his Historia without the rich and characterful intermedii scored for the richly furnished Dresden court orchestra, with the comment that these additional parts could be hired for a small fee. He was clearly trying to make the Evangelista’s narrative widely available as the framework for a Christmas reflection and encouraged prospective performers to compose or gather their own material for intermedii to be inserted in his narrative. This is what Schneider’s Ensemble have done, and the result – performed by the six singers, two violins and a basso continuo of organ, theorbo and harp, with gamba/violone and dulzian/flauto – makes a good programme, bringing the outline of the work within reach of those who do not have the extensive resources of Schütz’s Kapelle in Dresden. A note says that the score and parts of the entire programme are available online at www.polyharmonique.eu , but I think you would have to ask them for it.

The narrative is divided into three parts: there is a Marian/Advent section (tracks 1-5) featuring Hammerschmidt, Michael, Schütz, Eccard and Frank’s fine Hosianna dem Sohne David before we reach the Birth of Jesus itself and the message alerting the Shepherds, where Schütz’s narrative based on Luke’s gospel forms the storyline. The intermedii include just one from Schütz’s Weihnachtsoratorium – Ehre sei Gott, with its scoring of six voices, two violins and fagotto with bc fitting the available resources exactly. Otherwise, the material includes interesting versions – usually more richly set than we hear in our carol services – of well-known German Christmas music like Ein Kind ist uns geboren, Joseph lieber Joseph mein, Es ist ein Ros entsprungen and Psallite unigenito.

On CD 2, we move to Herod, the visit of the Three Kings and the Flight into Egypt. Here there are more treasures: a version by Schein of Nikolaus Herman’s chorale associated with Christmas, Lobt Gott, ihr Christen allzugleich, that features at the end of BWV 151 and 195; a setting by Hammerschmidt based on the Kings’ enquiry to Herod, scored for voices and two violins; and music by Carl, Gesius and Briegel setting the Matthean texts that intersperse the narrative before Schütz’s setting of John 1.14 from his Geistliche Chor-musik (1648) and Scheidt’s triumphal setting of In dulci jubilo conclude this well-crafted Historia.

And the performances as usual with this group are excellent. OVPP singing, with a handful of instruments and a well-tuned basso continuo group in a flattering but clean acoustic make this a welcome addition to their discs of 17th-century German music. Let’s hope many will that up their – and Schütz’s – offer to plan an inventive and tuneful Historia next Christmastide.

David Stancliffe

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Master & Pupil

CD cover Master & Pupil Sestina Music Mark Chambers

Exploring the influences and legacy of Claudio Monteverdi
Sestina Music, Mark Chambers
71:18
resonus Inventa INV1007

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This is an interesting CD, exploring both the influences on and the legacy of Claudio Monteverdi. So, as well as music from Scherzi Musicali of 1607 and Selva morale of 1640/1, it contains music by Josquin, Mouton, de Rore, Ingegneri, Andrea Gabrieli and de Wert from among those who influenced him and by Rossi, Rigatti and Giovanni Gabrieli whom he may, in turn, have influenced himself.

There are 18 singers – frequently singing several to a part, while the instrumentalists are two violins/violas, violone, two cornetti, two sackbuts and a dulcian, with chitarrone/guitar, harp and organo di legno. In music like the Dixit secondo from 1641, the scoring is enriched by sackbuts, and the dulcian is given characterful obbligato lines to play. The scoring is modest, and elegant, and is played by our best practitioners: Oliver Webber and Theresa Caudle, violins, Peter McCarthy, violone; Gawain Glenton and Conor Hastings, cornetti, Emily White and Martyn Sanderson, sackbuts; William Lyons, dulcian, with Paula Chateauneuf, theorbo and guitar, Aileen Henry, harp and Jan Waterfield playing Walter Chinaglia’s organo di legno from the English Organ School at Milburne Port. Details of all the instruments are in the booklet, and for the Chinaglia organ, see the review of his project that I wrote for EMR in 2019.

The choice of this particular organ is significant, as the singing quality of the open wooden principal pipes is important in encouraging singers to create the right sounds for the music of the first half of the 17th century. And that is the key to this CD. When I heard the first track, I thought: ‘ Oh, no: here we go again,’ as, after an elegant string sinfonia, multiple voices burst in with a rumbustious balletto – De la bellezza from Scherzi Musicali – in the beer-cellar style. I should have had more faith in Mark Chambers, since this balletto was followed at once by some ravishing singing from the upper voices of Josquin’s Recordare Virgo Mater in quite a different style. Trained upper voices do not always find it easy to eschew their singerly tendency to use vibrato on unexpected notes, but there is a genuine and interesting attempt here to match vocal timbre to instrumental, even if I am rarely convinced by the vocal doubling Chambers uses.

The two Rossi instrumental pieces are exquisitely played, but the most instructive part of the disc for me was the juxtaposition of the sections of the extraordinarily rich and colourful Mass by Giovanni Rigatti (written at the age of 27 and antedating the publication of Monteverdi’s Selva morale by six months or so) with Giovanni Gabrieli’s 10-part Maria Virgo from 1597. Rigatti has an interesting comment on instrumental doubling, which I’d like to see in context – and in Italian (I suspect ‘gentle’ is a mistranslation):

… the gentle musician who finds himself with the proportionate
number of voices and instruments is advised to double the parts …
so that they will be more melodious and harmonious 

This is a well-prepared and meticulously researched CD. But it is much more: these are really good performances and should help practitioners to understand more about how to balance voices and instruments in this period. I recommend both the scholarship and the performance to as wide a range of listeners and performers as possible.

David Stancliffe