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KeyNotes

CD cover KeyNotes Early European Keyboard Music

Early European Keyboard Music
Corina Marti
65:54
Ramée RAM1916

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For her performances of early European keyboard music on clavisimbalum, claviciterium (clavicytherium), organetti and medieval organ, Corina Marti raids the usual 14th- and 15th–century sources : the codices of Faenza, Buxheim, Las Huelgas, Florence and Peruggia, as well as a new one for me, the Robertsbridge Manuscript, two pages of 14th-century keyboard music bound together with another manuscript associated with Robertsbridge in Kent. From this last manuscript Marti plays a setting of Tribum quem non obhoruit, which unfortunately turns out to be a reworking of familiar music by Phillippe de Vitry – how much more exciting to have heard a wholly original English keyboard work from this period. I find 14th- and 15th-century keyboard music, with its mixture of rawness and fluidity, utterly compelling, and I enjoyed these accounts by Corina Marti, although I did wonder just occasionally about some of the mannered hesitations in the performances, which I suspect may not have been entirely for musical reasons. So while this CD perhaps lacks the jaw-dropping virtuosity and sheer bravado of the accounts of similar repertoire by Tasto Solo, Marti plays her selection of instruments idiomatically and persuasively. The medieval organ on which many of the tracks are performed is the wonderful Altenbruch Organ, an instrument embodying pipe-work from its original construction by Johannes Koch before 1497, which has survived a number of later reworkings, including one by Johann Hinrich Klapmeyer in 1727. It has the real and rare sound of a voice from the past, and truly brings this fine music to life.

D. James Ross

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Con arte e maestria

CD cover Con arte e maestria Oliver Webber

Virtuoso violin ornamentation from the dawn of the Italian Baroque
Monteverdi String Band In Focus, Oliver Webber, Steven Devine
78:45
resonus RES10282

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It has become apparent that Italian music composed towards the end of the 16th century and in the early part of the 17th century was almost invariably intended to be lavishly ornamented in performance. Tantalisingly, but also mercifully for players aiming for historically informed performances of this repertoire, some composers and players occasionally wrote out the divisions they were clearly using all the time, while a number of theoreticians wrote treatises with examples of ornamentation. One such, the Selva di varii passagii by Francesco Rognoni, gives us the heading for this CD as the title ends con arte e maestria. The violinist Oliver Webber and keyboard player Steven Devine, individually and together, apply these treatises to a variety of appropriate pieces, as well as performing versions of works which have survived in ornamented forms. In addition, Webber supplies a couple of improvised showpieces ‘in the style of Bassano and Monteverdi’ – there can be little doubt that once the early violin virtuosi had mastered the art of ornamentation, in a sense recreating the original works, they would have been emboldened also to improvise more freely in the style of the time, as we know for a fact all the great keyboard masters did. I still remember my astonishment at leafing as a student through Ganassi’s Fontegara, a guide to ornamentation from the earlier 16th century, with its blizzards of scales and other written-out ornaments, including trills in thirds and fourths – who does those? While we can never be absolutely sure how performances sounded in the historical past, Webber and Devine have done an excellent job of thinking themselves back into the role of early Baroque virtuosi, and their performances of this repertoire, encrusted with ornamentation, is musically convincing and thrilling. The nearest parallel to this ‘living art’ of ornamentation must be the aleatoric nature of some jazz idioms, but of course the difference is that we can hear how the latter worked in performance. Webber and Devine apply their consummate technical skills and flawless musical instincts to bring this vital performance technique vividly back to life – and with considerable ‘art and mastery’. 

D. James Ross

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Ich schlief, da träumte mir

Anne Marie Dragosits Ich schlief, da träumte ich

Anne Marie Dragosits harpsichrod
65:00
encelade ECL 2002

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This imaginative programme of movements associated with sleep and night-time in general from the late Baroque period features a wonderful harpsichord by Christian Zell and the equally impressive playing of Anne Marie Dragosits. Some purists may object to her extraction of individual movements from larger works by these German composers, but in reality many of these are pieces which are rarely played in their entirety anyway, and I found myself more intrigued by their shared and contrasting moods and idioms than by their lack of musical context. If sometimes the mood is slightly ‘souped up’ by Dragosits’ occasionally mannered presentation and changes of stops in mid-piece, I found myself less critical of this than you might expect, and by contrast I was engaged by the range of timbres she found in her remarkable instrument. Also, we shouldn’t underestimate the avant garde nature of some of this music from the late Baroque, a period when keyboard composers particularly were experimenting with unexpected harmonic progressions and melodic lines – perhaps they too were keen to emphasise these features in their performances. It was curious to find the constituent materials of the harpsichord – ‘diverse wood and metal, ivory, tortoise-shell’ (both mercifully long dead) – listed in the notes, but as the several illustrations in the booklet reveal this is a stunningly handsome instrument to look at as well as to listen to.

D. James Ross

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Recording

Lully’s followers in Germany

Lully's followers in Germany

El Gran Teatro del Mundo
68:24
Ambronay AMY314

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At first glance it may seem odd to have a Telemann ouverture-suite alongside works by the first-wave of lullists in germanic lands, but this is a perfect lesson in musicology, where the date that a work was copied does not imply its actual date of inception. This particular suite (TWV55: Es4) belongs to a small handful to have been transmitted through keyboard settings, some just a few movements (TWV55: E1 and E2) that long pre-date the copied versions; here we know that Bach’s eldest brother, Johann Christoph made a complete keyboard copy in the “Andreas Bach book” c.1708-12. Thus, the original may be from Telemann’s student days in Leipzig (1701-5) or when he was in the employ of count Erdmann von Promnitz at Sorau (1705-8). Compilations of Lully’s works first began to appear in 1682, when Jean Philippe Heus published two collections called: Ouvertures avec tous les airs, extracts from Cadmus et Hermione and Persée.

These works were the creative catalyst for the succession of germanic Lullistes to begin to capture the livel y“theatrical style” and place it into their own compositions; Kusser, Erlebach, Fischer, Fux, Muffat, Aufschnaiter and Steffani did just that. The early Telemann suite fits into this timeline just behind the first-wave of composers. Muffat studied under Lully for six years, and absorbed a great deal from source. This was at the very beginning of the vibrant cosmopolitan blend in music known as vermischter Geschmach or Gouts Réunis (“Mixed Taste”).

The disc opens with a fairly well known G-minor sonata (concerto grosso) from Muffat’s “Armonico tributo”, given a rather playful interpretation with fewer strings than we may have been accustomed to hearing, yet with attractive additions of oboe and recorder and an actively strumming theorbo to bolster the basso continuo section. The overall effect is much slighter, and the graves aren’t in any way onerous or overbearing.

Next the splendid Suite no1 in C from Fischer’s Journal du printemps (1695), again a lovely flowing, dulcet interpretation which makes for very clear melodic lines, especially in the unfolding final chaconne. Following on, another later Muffat work Nobilis Juventus from his 1698 Florilegium Secundum which does have a certain theatrical flair, well captured by the ensemble’s delicate tones.

Closing with the (nine-movement!) Telemann suite, originally for strings, we can hear the neat interplay of French, Italian and Polish elements from an early date. The Entree is a direct adoption from French opera, often employed for scenic changes. The menuets are wonderfully done here, before a far-too-ponderous, introspective reading of the loure (twice as long as the version on Carus 83.337!) followed by a vibrant italianate gigue, and a fine set of the bourrees. Next, a playful, neatly done polonaise and cheekily inserted “prelude” (Not original, not needed!) before the Aria, which I again felt was in too slow to be fully emotive. Lastly – in vivid contrast – the blithesome passepieds.

All are played with a polished delicatesse and relish, just waning in the latter slower movements of the final suite, yet overall capturing the essence of the emergent “mixed taste” with cosmopolitan flair.

David Bellinger

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Recording

Mattheson : The Melodious Talking Fingers

Floral design

Colin Booth harpsichord
60:47
Soundboard SBCD 220

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Johann Mattheson is an almost exact contemporary of Handel and Bach, the former whom he lionised and the latter whom he also admired, and had possibly also met. He is also famous for providing us in his Ehrenpforte a vivid autobiography by Telemann, whom he is also likely to have known well. He is a man more quoted than performed, although in his day he was a hugely admired composer, as well as a singer, impresario, polyglot, harpsichordist, musicologist, dancer, man about town and a renowned fencer – a burst of rage in which he attacked the young Handel with a sword might well have deprived us of the output of one of the finest of Baroque composers, but for a button which turned Mattheson’s blade aside! Much of his vast output was tragically lost in the wartime bombing of Hamburg, but among surviving collections is this set of fugues and dance music, Die Wohlklingende Finger-Sprache, extravagantly dedicated to Handel. Like Mattheson, Colin Booth is also something of a polymath, combining the careers of musicologist, performer and harpsichord builder, and plays this programme on a two-manual instrument, based on a 17th-century brass-strung original. This permits a wider than usual range of timbres, and reasonably in the light of Matheson’s flamboyant personality, Booth makes full use of this fine instrument’s possibilities. This and Mattheson’s inventive imagination ensure a thoroughly entertaining CD, particularly as the fugues become more and more complex. Booth comments that Mattheson’s music is attracting growing attention, and it is to be hoped that his contributions to chamber music, church music and the opera will find wider circulation in recordings.

D. James Ross

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Hieros

CD cover of Hieros

Ensemble Céladon, Paulin Bündgen
52:41
fuga libera FUG 767

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The vocal trio of the Ensemble Céladon, under the direction of the counter-tenor Paulin Bündgen, provides a selection of 13th-century French music in the Notre Dame style juxtaposed with music for the same forces by the French composer Jean-Philippe Goude composed in 2017. In addition to concert music, Goude writes music for films, commercials and television, but in these pieces he has thoroughly imbibed the world of the earlier repertoire, writing music which complements it perfectly. The vocal trio sing with wonderful energy, rapt intensity and perfect intonation throughout, genuinely allowing the music of these two repertoires, separated by some 800 years, to interact and comment on one another. Conceived in the awful shadow of the burning of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, this programme seems to exude much-needed comfort. The title Hieros, Greek for sacred, pinpoints some of the more philosophical elements underlying the project, such as the consideration of the very concept of ‘sacred’ down the ages. It is a mark of the extent to which the burning of this national icon has led to the questioning of many aspects of religion in France, and this would seem like the perfect soundtrack to underpin this sort of profound philosophising.

D. James Ross

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Mozart: Sonatas for violin & piano

CD cover Mozart sonatas for violin and piano Hanson Arthur

K. 301, 304-306, 454
Peter Hanson violin, Andrew Arthur fortepiano
79:07
resonus RES10281

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It must be something of a disappointment to violin players that so much of the music that Mozart wrote for their instrument is from his youth, and that these early sonatas and concertos sound a little trivial. This is thrown into further relief by the wonderfully idiomatic writing for violin in his larger-scale chamber music and in the superb Sinfonia concertante. The renowned period violinist Peter Hanson teams up here with the equally celebrated fortepianist Andrew Arthur in effervescent performances of three of the six sonatas ‘for harpsichord or fortepiano with accompaniment for a violin’ K 301, K304 and K305. The balance in interest between the two instruments is not quite as clear-cut as the title suggests, but it does mean that the fortepiano takes a relatively active part in proceedings. Composed for and played by Maria Elisabeth Auguste, Kurfürstin of the Palatinate, with Mozart at the keyboard, the violin part places moderate technical demands on the aristocratic protégé, and yet there is a feeling that this relatively superficial music is designed to present Maria in a flattering light and to promote Mozart’s application for a job. With the fourth Sonata performed here, the later Bb major Sonata K454, we are in a different world entirely. Composed for the professional violin virtuoso, Regina Strinasacchi, a product of the rigorous training at the Ospedale della Pietà in Venice associated previously with Vivaldi, this music is much more technically and intellectually demanding. It has a particularly exquisite and inventive Andante, but is generally in a different league from the earlier pieces. As I have suggested, the performances by Hanson and Arthur are impeccably musical and charmingly involving, even in the lighter early material, but they truly come into their own in the K454 Sonata, where Mozart provides them with something to get their teeth into.

D. James Ross

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Prisma: Il Transilvano

CD cover Ambronay Prisma Il transilvano

Musical bridges between Italy and Hungary around 1600
Works from the Codex Caioni and Hungarian folk music
57:55
Ambronay AMY312

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This beautifully performed CD alternates Italian music of the late Renaissance with traditional Hungarian music. What it doesn’t do, unsurprisingly, is provide ‘musical bridges between Italy and Hungary around 1600’. The Transilvano of the title illustrates the problem. It is borrowed from a famous organ treatise by Girolamo Diruta (Venice 1593) dedicated to Sigismond Báthory, Prince of Transylvania, but of course the music the group plays from this collection, notwithstanding some ‘Hungarianised’ divisions, sounds entirely Italian. So too the music from Codex Caioni which makes up most of the rest of the Italian component. Amongst others, Renée Clemencic has demonstrated that there is Hungarian music from this period, but the Hungarian traditional music here, beautifully evocative as it is, seems not to be from 16th- or 17th –century sources. As long as you are not looking for some magical musical ‘bridge’ between 17th-century Italy and Hungary, there is much to enjoy here, from the plaintive Hungarian violin airs and the lovely singing of Franciska Hajdu in the Hungarian ballad Magos kösziklának, to the imaginative and fresh accounts of the Italian Renaissance repertoire. There is nothing wrong with playing the divisions in this early repertoire with a Transylvanian flair, but to my ear it still sounds entirely Italian.  

D. James Ross

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Time Zones: Satie, Scheidt

CD cover Satie Scheidt Time Zones Lautten Compagney

Lautten Compagney, Wolfgang Katschner
70:34
deutsche harmonia mundi 1 94398 07952 3

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The wonderfully energetic accounts of the instrumental music of Samuel Scheidt as well as some of his sacred music in instrumental performances are well worth buying this CD for. The very conscious scoring of this music provides a huge number of different timbres and textures from a large consort of wind string and percussion instruments, and while some might doubt whether this degree of processing ever happened in Scheidt’s lifetime, the results are compelling and delightful. The pairing of these performances with the quirky, haunting and slightly weird music of Erik Satie may seem eccentric, and indeed it is. A saxophone is added to the pantheon of early instruments to create equally heavily processed accounts of what in most cases were piano pieces. Due to these clever arrangements by Bo Wiget, these too are constantly intriguing, while the excellent musicianship of the members of Lautten Compagney ensures that they are all utterly convincing. Once the programme gets underway, the juxtaposition of Scheidt and Satie, particularly the former’s motets and the latter’s Pièces Froides, is genuinely uncanny. However, I am not sure that it is a juxtaposition that throws any additional light on either repertoire, and tempting as it is to do something just because it is possible, the eccentricity of mastering 17th-century instruments so completely that you can play 20th-century repertoire seems something of a non sequitur. I don’t want to sound a HIP bore, and this CD is a lot of fun, and all of the arrangements and performances are stunningly effective.

D. James Ross

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Englishman in Tyrol

CD cover of Englishman in Tyrol

Viol music by William Young
Enemble Art d’Echo, Juliane Laake
64:02
Querstand VKJK 2003

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One of the most celebrated gambists in his own lifetime and for some time after, the reputation of William Young has since declined into complete obscurity. Spending his life at the court of Ferdinand Karl, Archduke of Innsbruck, Young had probably travelled with his employer from the Netherlands, where he was previously governor, having perhaps sought asylum there earlier in the 17th century from Cromwellian England, where his Catholicism would have made life dangerous. His quirky music for strings, mainly viols, while not as eccentric as that of Tobias Hume, recalls the nonconformity of that itinerant Scotsman – is it possible that the absence of any trace of Young in England may suggest that he too might have been a Scotsman? At any rate, Young proved indispensable at the Tyrolean court, taking centre stage at several large-scale celebrations. The present CD with its excellent programme note and varied and beautifully played programme, presenting a cross-section of Young’s work and peppered with world premier recordings, does much to restore this remarkable musician’s reputation. But what is it about musicians left to their own devices in recording studios? This CD has a bonus track of free improvisation at the end, which turns out to be a riff on Sting’s ‘Englishman in New York’, but which sadly adds nothing to the project. Worse still, was the oddly ungrammatical title substituted for the more natural ‘An Englishman in the Tyrol’ simply to facilitate this bit of self-indulgence? I forgive them, because the rest of the CD and its presentation are so good.

D. James Ross