Category: Recording

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Recording

Le coucher du roi

CD cover Le coucher du Roi


thibault Roussel theorbo and director
Château de Versailles Spectacles CVS029
74:00 (CD) 59:00 (DVD)

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The conceit here is that, in the evening of both the day and his life, the aged Louis XIV has summoned his favourite musicians to play him his favourite music as part of the formalities surrounding his retiring for the night. So we have a lovely programme of (mainly) short pieces by the usual suspects: Lully and Lalande, of course, but also Lambert, de Visée, Marais and even that relatively youthful upstart, François Couperin. The instrumentation includes voices, flutes, strings and assorted pluckers in a wide variety of ensembles and solos, offering a rich panoply of sumptuous sounds – three bass viols, two viols with singer and theorbo etc., etc..Quite frankly, this ensemble can come and play to me at any old time of any day! The performances are unfailingly lovely and show great commitment to a repertoire that is still a mystery to many. Yes, I’ll probably have a growl about some questionably over-staffed continuo departments, but the growls will be quiet ones.

The DVD contains some of the repertoire from the CD but also additional pieces (fine chamber music by Hotteterre and Dornel, for instance), all filmed in various atmospheric locations within the Château de Versailles. And, in contrast to some concert DVDs I have seen, someone has actually thought about what it looks like! The singers have memorised their music and, even if they don’t fully act their scenes, they do at least inter-act with each other in a convincing quasi-dramatic way. However, when the final credits roll brace yourself! The accompanying music is not allowed to finish but is chopped off mid-phrase as soon as the text ends.

The 72-page booklet (in French, English and German) offers the usual performer biographies and essays on the music that place it informatively in its context though say little about its content. There is no list of the music on the DVD though there are captions as it plays.

Overall this is a very good package, though that DVD end should never have achieved publication. A shame.

David Hansell

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Recording

Josquin: Motets & Mass movements

CD cover of hyperion Brabant Ensemble Josquin

The Brabant Ensemble, Stephen Rice
78:38
hyperion CDA68321

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The Brabant Ensemble specialises in bringing us music by neglected composers from the incredibly talented Franco-Flemish school which flourished between Josquin and Palestrina. We have it to thank for discs of revelatory music by the likes of Dominique Phinot, Thomas Crecquillon, Pierre de Manchicourt, Jean Maillard, Jacquet of Mantua and Jacob Clement. Its version of the latter’s sublime setting of Tristitia et anxietas alone justifies the choir’s existence, besides the numerous treasures on every other disc. They have also released a CD of neglected music by Palestrina, yet I found this strangely underwhelming, both as music and performance. Here they offer us music by the earlier bookend of this vibrant phenomenon.

The music on offer here consists of eight motets and two free-standing “mass movements”. The latter are easier to discuss and can be mentioned first: the Gloria de beata virgine and Sanctus de Passione. The Gloria is the more substantial of the two, a seemingly early, mediaeval-sounding work. The Sanctus is almost disconcertingly brief: even including an Elevation motet “Honor et benedictus” between the Sanctus itself and the Benedictus (scholarly opinion is that either the Elevation motet or the Benedictus would have been performed liturgically but not both, but the Ensemble rightly includes both for completeness and for the edification of listeners) the entire movement takes only 3’46. One can only agree with the eminent musicologist who described it as “unpretentious”.

The reasons behind the selection of material for this disc are not clear. Presumably, the record is released to celebrate Josquin’s quincentenary, though this is only stated explicitly in some of the advertising material. While all the items have the imprimatur of inclusion in the New Josquin Edition, Stephen Rice’s enthralling notes observe that doubts linger over the authenticity of most of them. Also, three of the items – Huc me sydereo, Stabat mater and O bone et dulcissime Jesu – possess or are suspected of possessing one or two extra parts which may or may not originally have been composed by Josquin. There are certainly other mass sections securely attributed to Josquin, and even I know of one other motet which has an extra voice supplied by another composer, so I wonder whether there exists a substantial repertory of Josquin’s sacred pieces which have subsequently had one or two extra parts added by other hands. My concern is that the selection here seems to lack some focus. Perhaps that focus is the function of these three sumptuous works for six voices, but if so, what is the rationale behind partnering them with these other more spartan works? There is certainly no individual number – like for instance Media vita in a programme of motets by Sheppard – which functions as that focus or that is simply a showstopper. For all their inclusion in NJE it appears that the three motets that follow – Domine ne in furore, Usquequo Domine and Homo quidam fecit – have all had doubts expressed about their authenticity. This leaves the two remaining motets which start the disc – Mittit ad virginem and Alma redemptoris/Ave regina – and even the former, the very first in the programme, survives with a plausible alternative attribution, leaving only the latter with a clean bill of musicological health. Although individual items have many features to relish – dissonances in Stabat mater, gorgeous textures in Huc me sydereo plus rich harmonies, sensuous sequences and more dissonances to relish in O bone et dulcissime Jesu to pick a few at random – there remains the fact that, to the layman at least, some of these effects might have been generated by the inclusion of notes not originally put in place by Josquin himself. These works rub shoulders with the three works for smaller vocal resources, mentioned above, about which doubts have been cast against Josquin’s authorship. The programme is topped by the two works, only one of which is incontrovertibly authentic, in his favoured four parts and tailed by two undistinguished but authentic mass sections, also in four. Perhaps this is the point: to provide successive contrasting tasters of the basic Josquin, the luxuriously expanded but only partly authentic Josquin, the questionable Josquin, and back to the authentic basic Josquin. These stops along the line are individually rewarding but the journey itself lacks coherence – all a bit halting, or, if one is shuffling the sequence, a bit arbitrary.

Performances that seemed meandering and undifferentiated at a first hearing blossomed in most (not entirely all) cases during subsequent hearings to come over as sensitive to individual texts and sonorities, though passages in the works of four parts sound almost exaggeratedly sparse beside those in six – reflecting Josquin’s technique in composing for the smaller number of voices – and I defy any choir to make the Sanctus sound more than “unpretentious”. Meanwhile, there is uncertainty as to how much real Josquin we are hearing. Does it matter? This disc does not provide an answer, but it does provide much pleasure.

Richard Turbet

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Recording

Josquin: Inviolata

Jacob Heringman plays Josquin Inviolata

Jacob Heringman lute & vihuela
65:07
Inventa INV1004

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There have been many excellent recordings of lute music in recent years, and Jacob Heringman’s new CD of music by Josquin Des Prez (c.1450/1455-1521) is surely up with the best of them. Josquin’s music is sublime, and is enhanced by Heringman’s unhurried interpretation. There are no foot-tapping dance rhythms, no complex fantasies to amaze with virtuosity. This is sacred music – Marian motets –  by arguably the finest composer of his generation, and with it Heringman succeeds in creating a sound world of inner peace and serenity.
 
Lute intabulations are more than merely re-writing music in tablature. Skill is required in  deciding which notes to include, which to leave out, and which to decorate. In some cases, lutenists would use material from a vocal original as a starting point for creating an entirely new composition – a prelude or a fantasia.
 
In his excellent liner notes Heringman writes: “We know very little of the circumstances in which lute intabulations were played but they require a calm, small space, a refuge from the outside world where one might contemplate an inner one.” Such a place is St Cuthbert’s Chapel at Ushaw, where the recording was made. Its warm, clear acoustic is ideal for the lute. Heringman maintains that today’s lutenists should be as creative as their forebears were 500 years ago, and add something of their own to the music they play, rather than always slavishly recreate note for note the intabulations of others.
 
The CD begins with Heringman’s own intabulation of Josquin’s Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum, Virgo serena. It is a long piece – just short of nine minutes. All four voices are included in the intabulation. Heringman sustains it well, with tastefully restrained divisions, as it works its way through contrasting sections. The motet ends with some very slow chords for the words “O Mater Dei, memento mei. Amen”, not actually sung, of course, but imagined through the lute. Heringman uses a lute in E built by Michael Lowe, the lower pitch adding a certain gravitas.
 
Using the same lute, there follows an intabulation by Hans Gerle (published in 1533) of Josquin’s 5-voice Inviolata, integra et casta es. There are three sections. Gerle extends the range of the lute by tuning the 6th course down a tone for the sake of including all the low F’s. Alternative solutions could have been to omit them, include them an octave higher, or transpose all voices up a tone, which would set the piece uncomfortably high on the fingerboard of the lute. Re-tuning the sixth course of the lute seems the best option to me, although it results in some pretty weird chord shapes. Gerle omits some long notes, particularly where two voices are close in pitch. Almost all the divisions decorate the top part. They are for the most part formulaic and predictable, but nevertheless effective in sustaining the overall sound.
 
Heringman plays tracks 5-10 on a vihuela in G by Martin Haycock. The lute and vihuela share the same tuning, and often it is possible for the same music to be played on either instrument. However, apart from the obvious difference in body shape, there is another important difference: the strings of the lute are spaced closer at the nut than they are at the bridge, whereas the strings of the vihuela are close to parallel. Parallel stringing helps with awkward stretches high up the neck, and enables a vihuelist intabulator to make fewer compromises in tracking the original voice parts. The shorter string length of Heringman’s vihuela also helps with difficult chords.
 
Tracks 5-11 are derived from Josquin’s Missa de Beate Virgine. First is an intabulation by Alonso Mudarra (c.1510-1580) of Kyrie I, which has sections marked “Josquin” (for example, the last nine bars) to show where the intabulation closely follows Josquin’s original, and “Glosa” for extra material added by Mudarra. For Kyrie II Heringman turns to another vihuelist, Enriquez de Valderrábano (fl. 1547), but rather than use the note-for-note intabulation on folio 85r of Silva de Sirenas, he plays Valderrábano’s Fantasia on 73v which parodies Josquin’s Kyrie II (Fantasia remedada al chirie). In a similar vein, Heringman includes a short prelude of his own based on Mariam coronans from the same mass.
 
For the last track of music associated with Josquin’s Missa de Beate Virgine Heringman plays an intabulation of Cum sancto spiritu by Hans Neusidler (c. 1508/9-1563) printed in Der ander theil des Lautenbuchs (1536). It tracks Josquin’s vocal original quite closely, with divisions added mainly to the top part, but not exclusively so. Neusidler’s divisions in this volume are faster and more complex than those in his earlier volume – Ein Newgeordent Künstlich Lautenbuch – and there are some semiquavers here and there. As with other intabulators working long after Josquin’s death, Neusidler sharpens some notes and modernises cadences, so Josquin’s archaic endings of submediant-tonic are altered to leading note-tonic, usually with fast divisions. The piece ends – as do many German intabulations – with an extra flourish to a reiterated final chord.
 
In his liner notes Heringman argues a strong case for modern-day lutenists not always to follow slavishly intabulations of the past, but be creative and make up their own. This he does to good effect in his own intabulation of Josquin’s Salve Regina. The CD ends with an intabulation of Josquin’s Stabat Mater by Simon Gintzler (c.1500 – after 1547). Heringman gives a sensitive performance of Josquin’s touching portrayal of the inexplicable grief experienced by Mary watching her son die in agony on the cross.
 
Stewart McCoy



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Recording

Royal Handel

Eva Zaïcik and Le Consort perform arias by Handel, Ariosti and Bononcini

Eva Zaïcik mezzo-soprano, Le Consort
64:59
Alpha Classics Alpha 662
+arias by Ariosti and Giovanni Bononcini

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Eva Zaïcik is a young French mezzo whose cv suggests she might have originally had ideas of becoming an early music specialist, but whose more recent work includes a debut as Carmen in Toulouse and appearances in Pique Dame and Eugene Onegin.  Having heard this CD my guess is that the latter type of repertoire is more likely to become mainstream for her. In full flow the voice is a richly opulent instrument, with a hint of edge to it in the middle register, which itself does not always sit in comfortable relationship with the soprano register. In Baroque repertoire Zaïcek’s voice is on this evidence at its most beguiling singing mezza voce, where the ear experiences a purity of tone and line not always apparent elsewhere. But in general terms neither her technique nor her approach to the mostly Handel arias on the present CD convince that she is truly at home with it. While there is an admirable flexibility and passaggi are in general well articulated, her approach to ornamentation is haphazard, cadences go unembellished and of course there is no hint of a trill. Not that Zaïcek is alone in that respect. As bad is her approach to text or more accurately non-approach. Contrary to the needs of these arias, the performances seem driven by the desire to make a beautiful, lustrous sound. Aria after aria passes with little attempt to explore its emotional core or meaningfully articulate its text.

In this respect, the singer is hardly aided by her choice of accompanists. Le Consort is one of those small French ensembles bearing no relationship to the size of an average 18th-century opera orchestra. It is also characteristic of so many ensembles today in that Le Concert appears to feel it necessary to play quick music very fast and slower numbers excessively slowly. Thus an aria such as ‘Rompo i lacci’ from Flavio is taken so fast as to render it virtually meaningless, despite some agile passagework from Zaïcek, while the funereal tempo and emasculated rhythm adopted for ‘Ombra cara’ (Radamisto) leaves the aria as little more than a glutinous, sentimental wallow.  There are two compensating factors. One is that mezza voce, where the lighter tonal palette can produce exquisite results, nowhere more so than the central section and da capo of ‘Deggio morire’ (Siroe), where criticism is silenced, the listener seduced into luxurious immersion in the sheer beauty of the moment. The other is the inclusion of first recordings of arias by two composers that along with Handel also contributed operas to the first Royal Academy in London (1719-28), the source of the CD’s title. Both Attilio Ariosti and Giovanni Bononcini scored significant successes in its early years and ‘Sagri numi’ from Ariosto’s Caio Marzio Coriolano (1723) is a ravishingly lovely discovery, though as with all the cantabile numbers it is sentimentalized and taken too deliberately.

If the response to this CD is perhaps a little harsh at times, it stems from the depressing regularity with which so many of today’s younger singers seemingly come to Baroque repertoire as a kind of warm-up for bigger, later parts. Such singers need to be taught to recognise that Baroque opera has its own demands that need to be met if they are going to do it more justice than simply winning cheap applause from mainstream critics and audiences.

Brian Robins

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Recording

Tormenti d’amore

Soprano cantatas from 1740s Vienna

Philipp Mathmann, Capella Jenensis, Gerd Amelung
82:13 (2 CDs in a card triptych)
Querstand VKJK 2002
Music by Hasse, Porsile, Reutter the Younger & Scalabrini

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This set is centred around a collection of vocal music made by Prince Anton Ulrich of Saxe-Meinigen during the period he spent in Vienna, where he apparently arrived in 1724. Apparently, since the notes rather ambiguously tell us that the collection, consisting of nearly 300 vocal works, including over 170 chamber cantatas, were works from ‘Vienna’s musical scene composed between 1710 and 1740’. So the assumption would be that Anton Ulrich spent around 20 years of his life in Vienna. More importantly, many of the works in the Meinigen Archive are the sole surviving copy, including the best music in the programme, the two characteristically melodious and elegantly turned cantatas by Hasse. The cantata by Georg Reutter, the Court Composer of Vienna and Kapellmeister of St Stephen’s Cathedral who brought Haydn to Vienna, and the Neapolitan opera composer Giuseppe Porsile are less interesting, the former in particular also suffering from an excruciating anonymous text on the prevailing topic of the cantatas – tormenti d’amore, the torments of love.

In addition to the cantatas, the set includes two trio sonatas by Hasse and two sinfonias once surprisingly attributed to Hasse, but more recently established as the work of the Italian-born Paolo Scalabrini (1713-1803 or 6), the director of the travelling Mingotti opera company, who ended up as maestro di cappella in Copenhagen, where he composed at least eight operas, including several Danish-language works that helped establish native opera. They are pleasant enough routine Galant works in three brief movements but little more and assuredly not worthy of Hasse’s name being attached to them.

The programme itself is therefore not without interest, but sadly the performances rarely rise beyond the level of the efficient and in the case of the cantatas fail to reach that level.  Philipp Mathmann, confusingly described as a countertenor/soprano, is in fact a sopranist pure and simple. While the voice has an admirable purity and wide range, it is unfailingly hooty in its upper range, while also displaying deficient technique in several respects. Little ability to articulate a simple turn is shown, while more complex embellishment or ornamentation is rarely attempted. What truly compromises Mathmann’s performances, however, is his seeming lack of interest in the texts he is singing. None is a literary revelation but the whole object of the chamber cantata was to move the listener, evoking sentiment and emotion through expressive vocal gesture and realization of the words. Ignore that and you may as well be singing a vocalise, which is precisely the impression given here for much of the time.  

The instrumental contribution of Capella Jenensis is rather more enjoyable, though rhythms tend to plod in slower movements. The Hasse trio sonatas, in particular, are well played, with pleasing shaping of melodic lines from the two violinists and – in that in D, op. 2/2 – flautist. The programme, almost exactly the length possible today on a single CD, is extravagantly spread over two discs so it is to be hoped that some price concession is built in.

Brian Robins

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Recording

Desprez: Le Septiesme Livre de Chansons

CD cover of Josquin 7th book of chansons on Ricercar Dominique Visse

Ensemble Clément Janequin, Dominique Visse
61:14
Ricercar RIC423

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Most of the works on this recording are selected from Le septiesme livre, which consists of 24 chansons, mainly by Josquin, in five and six parts, which was published in Antwerp by Tielman Susato in 1545. Fifteen of Josquin’s compositions appear on the disc, all but one from this livre, plus two laments for him by Gombert and Vinders, both of which are included in the livre, also two solo instrumental settings by Narvaez and Newsidler of the chanson Mille regretz which is usually attributed to Josquin, though the earliest, and unique, attribution to him is in a late source, Susato’s L’unziesme livre of 1549. In most other early sources it is anonymous, although in one it is attributed to Lemaire, who is thought by some musicologists perhaps to be the author of the text; Josquin is known to have set another poem by him. Of more significance in the context of the present recording is that the rest of the chansons have so far survived the recent scholarly attempts to give his oeuvre a short back and sides. Any selection of pieces by Josquin is going to consist of distinguished music, so the success of a programme such as this lies in the process of that selection, and its presentation. Although any sequence of such works can of course nowadays be shuffled, the order in which the items appear provides a variety of content, both in subject matter and in scoring. For this listener the most striking work both as music and interpretation is Baises moy ma doulce’ amye. Originally in four already canonic parts, it appears posthumously in this livre in six parts, with an extra canon. Its text of seeming triviality is set incongruously to music with a dense texture rendered the more intense by dramatic dissonances; one could almost be listening to a work by Gombert, with Tallis distantly audible, and Byrd’s unpublished O salutaris hostia on the musical horizon.

It is a pleasure to listen to this repertory, but not in these performances. The faux-rustic tonal quality becomes wearing, and the bucolic conclusion to Allegez moy douce plaisant brunette is irritating on repeated hearings. Given the nature of many of the texts, it certainly would not be appropriate to sing these chansons in the manner of canticles at choral evensong, but the uningratiating timbre that the singers adopt tends to grate. (Cut Circle carry off this manner of singing on their recent disc of Ockeghem’s songs, Musique en Wallonie MEW1995, my review posted October 15.) Most performances are accompanied by one or two instruments: lute and/or positive organ or muselaar. These add nothing to the performances, and it is ironic that the author of the excellent booklet justifies the inclusion of instruments on the basis of wording on the title-pages of the Sixiesme and Huitiesme livres in Susato’s series from 1545, while there is no mention of instrumental participation in the Septiesme livre from which most of these pieces are taken. An exception is La Bernardina played here on the lute and organ, which is not from this livre and survives as a textless composition. Cucur langoureulx, another wonderful work with pre-echoes of Gombert, is sung without accompaniment but this exposes some unattractive vowel sounds, while the rendering of Ma bouche rit, coming as it does after the effective Baises moy ma doulce’ amye, contains some sour tuning during the initial forced heartiness, though the more sedate ending is well handled. It is good that the two laments for Josquin by Gombert and Vinders are included on this disc, even if these performances would not be first recommendations for either work, especially the latter with more sour tuning on the top line, a fault also audible in Plus nuls regretz. The presence of Gombert’s classic illustrates just how much he learned from Josquin. For this reason and for those given above, the material on this disc has been well chosen. Other listeners may well be less troubled by the performances.

Richard Turbet

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J S Bach: Little Books

CD cover Francesco Corti Bach Little Books

Francesco Corti harpsichord
79:14
arcana A480
+Böhm, Couperin, Hasse, Kuhnau, Telemann

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This is a recital that introduces us to the idea of formation by learning under a teacher’s instruction – and also by copying out the music – pieces of that teacher’s choosing.  The “Little Books” of the title – Klavierbüchlein in German – are the books prepared by Johann Sebastian for his eldest son, Wilhelm Friedemann in 1720 and his second wife, Anna Magdalena in 1722 and 1725.

In these latter, we find the first sketches for what would later become the French Suites, while others come from the ‘Andreas Bach Book’ that originated with Johann Sebastian’s eldest brother and first teacher, Johann Christoph. Here we have some of Bach’s earliest keyboard compositions set alongside those he admired and copied for teaching purposes by other composers.

Francesco Corti, an experienced teacher as well as harpsichordist, plays a selection of these in his illuminating recital on a 1998 copy by Andrea Restelli of a Christian Vater harpsichord (Hannover 1738) now in the Germanisches Museum, Nürnberg. The introductory essay on music from the Bach family circle by Peter Wollny and Corti’s own piece, Copying the master’s gestures, are both in English, German and French, and each exudes thoughtful, undogmatic scholarship and sound musicianship.

Corti’s playing matches these aspirations. He is fluent without being showy and varies his style with the chosen music – indeed the whole production is an essay in how to teach by immersion in sources, sounds and sensual serendipity. Recorded in 2019 before the pandemic of this past year, this is the kind of production that is useful to have in lockdown as a teaching aid or refresher course, helping students re-examine the sources of their own technique and choices.

I recommend it for these reasons as well as for the innate musicality of Conti’s playing, which can be glimpsed live in his performance of the A major harpsichord concerto BWV 1055.

Here you can see Corti engaging with the other players in the only one of Bach’s early concertos that he transcribed for harpsichord – probably originally for oboe d’amore – to have a separate continuo part in addition to the solo instrument. This is teaching by immersion, and I commend Conti as a first-class teacher, as he is on this clip, teaching his master’s Suite in G major.

David Stancliffe

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Recording

Telemann: 3 Overture Suites

CD cover of Telemann L'Orfeo Barockorchester

L’Orfeo Barockorchester, Carin van Heerden
66:11
cpo 555 389-2
TWV 55: G1, G5 & B13

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Every once and a while, along comes a recording that fires on all cylinders with a special synergy and bubbling musical alchemy, matching the finest ideals of music-making, and presents the dazzling facets of a composer’s subtle, creative nuances and whims.

Here the players of L’Orfeo Barockorchester under Carin van Heerden deploy their boundless energy and polished musicality to great effect, creating some truly wonderful moments of euphonic transport. The well-honed Orchester navigate through Telemann’s many subtleties and scenic changes with seemingly effortless fluency.

The three fairly lengthy suites date from just before or during his time in Frankfurt, offering tremendous scope for the composer’s imaginative musical, operatic esprit. The Frankfurt connection may well be present in TWV55:G5’s “Les Augures” (oracles, portents? – note those shuddering winces! – possibly (bad?) financial omens at the Stockmarket, which stood next to Telemann’s home).  The delightful Rondeau(x) is an addictive Ohrwurm! Normally, a Gigue might close a suite, not here, carrying on until a delightful sweep of no fewer than *three* Menuets. The ravishing kaleidoscopic tour moves on with some arresting slower movements too: Plaintes (B13, G5).

The recorded sound here is just about perfect, every timbral shade is found and heard. Despite the claims, the TWV55:B13 (c1725?) is the only real premiere – G5 came on a slightly earlier Atma CD, and there is a recording of G1 possibly from late 80s?

A highlight of the premiered work, the tender and sprightly interplay of solo violin (Julia Huber-Warzecha), two oboes and tutti, is rather special and gives a very different opening. Placing the gigue in second place is unusuale! Special mention must go to the penultimate movement, given as “affectuoso e molto adagio” or as the oboe part has it: “Cantabile et Affectuoso” a truly captivating duet!

The opening suite (G1 of 1716-25?) opens with an attention-grabbing, curtains-up Overture, after which comes the exquisite quasi-Handelian Air: Document, which made me think, did he hear this and use it elsewhere? (Where’ere ye walk seems a likely candidate…) The other airs all feel like hidden arias or scenic mood music for the Leipzig stage.

All in all, this is a real tour de force, with added Italianate passages for a perfect musical assemblage. L’Orfeo Barockorchester is in excellent form. This is a must for all baroquophiles! Moments of wonder, wistfulness and elegiac tenderness wrapped in entrancing music. Probably my CD of 2020, heart on the sleeve, hand on the heart.

David Bellinger

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Recording

Schütz: Geistliche Chor-Music 1648

Schütz Geistliche Chor-Music 1648

Ensemble Polyharmonique
57:20
Raumklang RK 3903

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Schütz’s Geistliche Chor-Music was produced in 1648, just as some semblance of order was restored to Germany at the end of the Thirty Years War. The 29 motets it contains are the summary of a work in progress, with more than a passing nod to the Italian examples in Schütz’s stated exploration of polyphonic writing, and with provision – not always necessary – for a basso continuo.

Listeners seeing Geistliche Chor-Music headlined and expecting the complete op. 11 will be disappointed. There are only 12 of the 29 numbers here, plus two works for duet combinations of voices (SWV 294 & 289) from Kleine geistliche Konzerte I and a trio (SWV 325) from Kleine geistliche Konzerte II, chosen to make the most of the ensemble’s line-up of SSATTB. Missing entirely is the final group of motets with larger combinations of parts, including instrumental lines, like the wonderful lament Auf dem Gebirge (SWV 396) for five trombones and two altos and the adaptation of Andrea Gabrieli’s Angelus ad pastores.

While this is understandable, it is a pity that the euphonious group Ensemble Polyharmonique should choose a selection from such a well-known and often-recorded work of Schütz to present their skills. The sopranos are a well-matched duo, even if not quite as clear of the inevitable tendency to colour their notes with modern vibrato as the steelier lower parts. The bass is a real basso, with a characteristically cavernous timbre and the middle parts well-suited for consort singing.

I quite like the sound, as well as admiring the skill and professionalism of the one-to-a-part ensemble. But after hearing the CD through a number of times, the performances were just a bit samey – I would have liked more tonal and expressive variety to justify a recording like this of part of a single opus, when there are many complete ones – like Rademann’s 2007 version in the complete Schütz project for Carus or Suzuki’s 1997 take using viols and with the Die Sieben Worte as a filler – continuing to claim attention.

David Stancliffe

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Recording

Machaut: The lion of nobility

Machaut sung by the Orlando Consort Hyperion

The Orlando Consort
60:57
hyperion
CDA68318

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Back in the twentieth century, another periodical sent me two discs to review. One was of Restoration church music performed by one of the most reputable – and, as it has proved, most durable – early music ensembles. I gave what I felt was a complacent, limp-wristed (albeit uncharacteristic) recording a scathing review, which was duly published. Unbeknown to me, the appalled record reviews editor responded by sending the disc to a more pliant reviewer, who duly obliged by providing a – not doubt sincerely – gushing review which was published in the following issue. Needless to say I never heard from that periodical again. This was disappointing because the other disc was a mesmerising performance by the Schola Gregoriana of Cambridge, of the Messe de Nostre Dame by Guillaume de Machaut, which I praised – sincerely – to the skies (Herald HAVPCD 312). Nor has another recording of Machaut have come my way until now. So which of those two recordings does this new one most resemble?

Thankfully the latter. The music is – of course – superb, emanating as it does from a mediaeval composer who can be named alongside Dunstable, Power, Dufay and Ockeghem, and who preceded all of them. However, for a recording which consists of pieces the majority of which last less than five minutes, the selection of material is crucial. This is accomplished well, with a mixture of motets, lais, ballades, rondeaux and virelais. Just as crucial is the programming. Machaut’s mass is for four voices, but all of these mainly secular works are in the thinner gruel of one, two or three parts, so monotony has to be avoided. And it is, with works for differing vocal resources (number of parts, or scoring) adjacent to one another for the most part; when two works for similar vocal resources are placed side by side – such as the intense virelai Moult sui de bonne heure nee beside the agitated ballade Ne pensez pas – the nature of the works themselves provide the variety. The disc includes the famous Ma fin est mon commencement but the fulcrum of the record is the juxtaposing of the substantial and striking lai En demantant et lamentant which runs for nearly eighteen minutes, with the driven, fretful ballade Mes esperis se combat which itself takes nearly seven minutes.

The performances are outstanding. Individual members of the Consort have voices sufficiently good to carry off the solo items, yet they blend well, while rendering each line and Machaut’s delightful rhythms clearly. For example, the way the two voices round off Moult sui de bonne heure nee is exquisite. And there are no obtrusive instruments! Anyone seeking a reliable introduction to Machaut’s music, or seeking to expand their knowledge of it, can be confident of ample rewards in this fine recording.

Richard Turbet