Category: Recording

Cristiano Gaudio harpsichord
71:00
encelade ECL2003

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This disc ostensibly recreates the reputed keyboard competition hosted by Cardinal Ottoboni in Rome in 1709 between Handel and Domenico Scarlatti, both 24 years of age at the time. Reportedly, Scarlatti won the harpsichord leg while Handel excelled on the organ. I say ostensibly, because we do not know what music either composer might have performed, and any reconstruction is at best very tentative: it is more than likely that both composers improvised their contributions to fit the occasion. Scarlatti’s sonatas are difficult to date and choosing ‘early’ ones is tricky. Gaudio gives us ten, including some not so often recorded, which between them certainly give a good indication of the sort of music which the composer might have improvised as a young man in Rome. They do show the composer’s Italian side, less influenced by Iberian music than much of his output.

When it comes to Handel, Gaudio relies firstly on the Suite in F HWV 427 which, as well as having been published by Walsh in 1720, survives in an earlier Neapolitan manscript and shows strong Italianate influence. He also includes four toccatas from a Bergamo manuscript, which seem very unlikely to have been by Handel at all. The track listings say ‘Georg Friedrich Händel, attr. William Babell’ but there is no discussion whatsoever, in the extensive liner notes, of the manscript or its complications. In a 2018 article in Early Music, Andrew Woolley convincingly showed that these toccatas are by Babell, while perhaps reflecting the close collaboration between him and Handel during the 1710s. The fact that they are most likely not by Handel does not entirely rule out their appropriateness to the purpose of this CD. The mixture of German and Italian characteristics actually make them plausible examples of the sort of music Handel might have improvised in Rome – not the Handel of the printed Suites, or his only authenticated Toccata (HWV 586), but earlier Handel. In any case they are good pieces and well worth recording. There is also the more solidly Handelian Chaconne HWV435 (though without the introductory two-line melody and bass from the early 1706 manuscript) and, as a bonus at the end, Gaudio’s own transcription of the opening Adagio from the Sonata for Violin HWV372 (though authorship of this piece, too, is disputed). The 24-year-old Gaudio’s playing is exciting and very clearly articulated, with a strong sense of forward propulsion. It is the approach of a young man, excited by the potential of the instrument and of the musical template and, as such, highly appropriate to this project. He plays on a Mietke copy by Bruce Kennedy and an Italian-style harpsichord by the same maker, mixing and matching between the composers on each instrument. Recording quality is excellent, with a generous acoustic and a bell-like quality to the sound. It is a worthwhile and highly satisfying recording which can be well recommended.

Noel O’Regan

Fernando De Luca harpsichord
14 CDs in a card box
Brilliant Classics 96131

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At the famous audition process to choose a new Cantor for Leipzig’s Thomaskirche in 1722-3 Christoph Graupner was second choice (after Telemann) but could not obtain leave from his employer at the court of Hesse-Darmstadt and so made way for J. S. Bach. In that context it is thought-provoking to listen through the nearly fifty partitas which make up almost all of Graupner’s surviving keyboard music, recorded here by Fernando De Luca. The only other pieces here are a single short Prelude and Fugue, and an Aria with one variation. Less than half of the Partitas were published during Graupner’s lifetime, the rest surviving in manuscript in Darmstadt. All are attractive works, rich with musical ideas, but ultimately going over the same ground again and again and tending to rely on repeating trusted formulae. They seem to illustrate Andrew McCredie’s comment in the New Grove article on the composer: ‘working on a modest scale, [Graupner] was regarded more for the originality of his ideas than for their working out’. It is as if Bach continued to churn out French Suites and almost nothing else. Might a move to Leipzig have meant a different outcome for Graupner? We will never know. He was certainly amazingly prolific in Darmstadt, with over fourteen hundred cantatas and lots of other works surviving. Like Telemann, musical ideas flowed freely from his fingers and pen. The most extended of his partitas are a set of twelve named after the months of the year, each with from six to ten movements, headed by Preludes which can take a variety of forms, and continuing with the usual standard dances and various galanterien. In other suites the Allemande fulfils something of the function of an opening prelude.

This 14-CD collection is a monumental enterprise for De Luca who seems to relish such challenges.  Together with Marco da Gregorio he runs a website ‘Sala del Cembalo del caro Sassone’ which contains a whole host of recordings of keyboard music by many different composers, all recorded by De Luca.  He is clearly used to big projects and able to learn music quickly. His playing is consistent and faithful to the score, though perhaps motivated more by a desire to leave a firmly mainstream account of the works than to let in any sense of playfulness or experimentation. Fast movements can be exciting, particularly some of the Gigues; slower movements can be a bit heavy-handed and would have benefitted from some more subtlety in execution at times, though there are some fine moments and a judicious use of ornamentation on repeats. He plays on two instruments: a copy of a Blanchet (1754) by C. Caponi and copy of a Christian Vater (1738) by F. Ciocca, both of which provide opportunities for variety of registration and are pleasingly recorded. There is only very slight information in the accompanying booklet – movement lists are only found on individual CD covers; a short essay deals only in generalities with nothing much on individual partitas. The numbering follows that of the Graupner Werkverzeichnis (GWV). (Incidentally, GWV online is a mine of information about the composer and his output, editions and performances of this works.) There is much to admire about this recording project, and it is certainly very useful to have all of Graupner’s authenticated keyboard music available in one place. Listeners will want to dip in and out, perhaps taking one partita at a time, admiring both Graupner’s and De Luca’s facility and being rewarded with some attractive music confidently delivered.

Noel O’Regan

Tilman Skowroneck
80:02
Tyxart TAX20153

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Oh joy! Outstanding music, thoughtfully programmed, a sumptuous and appropriate instrument (also used by Gustav Leonhardt), and disciplined playing that seeks the essence of each piece rather than tries to impose ideas upon it.

For all our delight in his other music, it is the keyboard ordres that are the basis of Couperin’s high reputation and even though we have only a fraction of that repertoire here, it’s enough to prove the point. I particularly welcome the decision, in the context of a stand-alone recital, to play only selections from two of the suites to make space for a third.

The harpsichord is a French-style, two-manual instrument by Martin Skowroneck. Its lush sonorities are an utter delight and its resources expertly deployed (try track 7, La Favorite and track 27, the famous B minor Passacaille). And, although there are those that quite reasonably question the order of the last two pieces in that ordre, this playing makes an eloquent case for the publication as it stands.

The booklet (in German, English and French, the last much abbreviated!) won’t win any prizes for graphic design but we are offered a solid, old-fashioned essay that really does tell us what we need to know, as well as artist and instrument information, even if the English is not always perfect. TS’s biography suggests that he ‘defended’ his dissertation on Beethoven. The German original has the anti-climactic though rather more likely ‘submitted’!

But all in all, a solid, old-fashioned and enthusiastic recommendation is amply justified.

David Hansell