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Bach in Bologna

Mauro Valli
195:18 (3 CDs in a card folder)
Arcana A459
Bach: Cello suites; D. Gabrielli: 7 Ricercari

This epic project presents the complete music for solo cello by perhaps the greatest of the Baroque composers, J. S. Bach, interspersed by the complete solo cello oeuvre of one of the lesser composers of the period, Domenico Gabrielli. Did the two ever meet? As Bach was only five when Gabrieli died prematurely at the age of just thirty, the answer is almost definitely no. Did Bach know Gabrielli’s music? Just possibly, although there is absolutely no circumstantial or musical evidence. So why juxtapose the two sets? I must admit I was sceptical at first, seeing this as just another excuse to add to the already groaning piles of recordings of the Bach. Valli gives thoughtful and musically consummate accounts of the Bach, although I still prefer the absolutely luminous accounts by David Watkin on resonus (RES10147). Valli’s sound is darker, his playing more unrelentingly intense and the recording generally closer. But what eventually got me about these performances was precisely the juxtaposition with the Gabrielli. As the programme note is quick to concede, this is not an attempt to place the Bach and Gabrielli on the same pedestal, but what I found really interesting is that the Gabrielli did have something to say about the Bach and vice versa. For all the differences in style, texture and melodic sense, as Baroque works for solo cello these pieces have more in common than they first seem. Gabrielli’s belong in a simpler, more innocent world than Bach’s, but the juxtaposition brings out the profundity of these Ricercars, suggesting that they deserve much wider attention from cellists than they have hitherto received. So these CDs with their powerful accounts of Bach and Gabrielli are after all more than just the sum of their parts.

D. James Ross

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Purcell: The Cares of Lovers

Rowan Pierce, Richard Egarr, William Carter
59:47
Linn Records CKD 592

Approaching some of these well-worn Purcell songs must be a similar experience for singers as the prospect of a great Shakespeare soliloquy is for an actor. What to do with this familiar material? Rowan Pierce with her musical team decide to approach this music as if they were the first ever to perform it, and the resulting freshness and spontaneity are hugely engaging. Of course, to be able to present Purcell’s music as effectively as this demands consummate technique, but it is technique that must be worn lightly and the present performers do this very effectively. The accompanying texture of harpsichord with lute/theorbo works very well indeed, and variety is achieved by thinning this out occasionally. The success of this sort of recital relies of course ultimately on the solo voice, and Rowan Pierce has a beautifully flexible, sweet, and technically secure instrument at her disposal which she employs with musicality and intelligence to produce highly engaging accounts of her chosen songs. As ever, the Linn engineers capture every nuance perfectly, and the result is a charming and highly enjoyable CD which rewards repeated listening.

D. James Ross

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Royer: Premiere Livre de Pièces de Clavecin

Mie Hayashi harpsichord
65:11
resonus RES10236

At an aristocratic funeral recently I was impressed by the fact that one of the participants had a double-barrelled middle name, but the French Baroque harpsichord composer Royer knocks that into a cocked hat with his triple-barrelled name! From the generation after the great François Couperin, Royer powerfully illustrates that the French harpsichord tradition continued to go from strength to strength. One of the most influential French composers of his time, Royer oversaw much of the more lavish orchestral and chamber music which graced the French court in the mid-eighteenth century. It is striking that his First book of harpsichord music from which this programme is drawn appeared in 1746, the year of the battle of Culloden, and the world of contrived elegance it evokes stands as testimony to the refinement of the Court of Louis XVth. Playing a lovely 2010 reproduction by Andrew Garlick of a Jean-Claude Goujon harpsichord of 1749, harpsichordist Mie Hayashi has selected a wonderfully varied set of pieces, ranging from demure dances to a thunderous pair of Tambourins, an unsettlingly unbalanced Vertigo and Royer’s only well-known piece nowadays his wonderfully virtuosic Marche des Scythes. My favourite piece was the enigmatic Les tendres Sentiments, as with all the repertoire, played with sensitivity and élan by Miss Hayashi.

D. James Ross

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Alonso Lobo: Sacred Vocal Music

Coro Victoria, Ana Fernández-Vega
58:27
Brilliant Classics 95789

Any recording devoted to the music of the Spanish master, Alonso Lobo is very welcome. A pupil of Guerrero and a colleague of Victoria, Alonso Lobo de Borja managed to plough a distinctly individual furrow through the occasionally slightly featureless world of Spanish Renaissance polyphony. I was reminded of this during a recent recital by the Dunedin Consort, where the music of Lobo stood out as amongst the most impressive polyphony of the evening. The Coro Victoria perform a number of Lobo’s motets as well as movements from three different settings of the Mass: O Rex Gloriae, Petre, ego pro te rogavi and Simile est regnum caelorum. Some of the material – the eight-part Ave Maria, the lovely Ego flos campi and the concluding O quam suavis are already familiar, but much of the material, including the Mass settings, were new to me all thoroughly endorsing the high opinion I already have of the composer. The performances by the Coro Victoria directed by Ana Fernández-Vega are almost very good – much could have been improved by simply exploiting more effectively the acoustic of the Basilica Pontificia of San Miguel in Madrid. The recording is a little too close and a little unforgiving – judging by the after-bloom, this is a building with a pleasant ambience which could have been used to make the recording sound a little more comfortable. Having said that, this budget CD has a very engaging cross-section of Lobo’s music and the singing is perfectly adequate and never less than passionate and expressive.

D. James Ross

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Leonardo Da Vinci: La musique secrète

Doulce Mémoire, Denis Raisin Dadre
78:05 (CD in a larger hard-backed book)
Alpha Classics ALPHA456

This lavish production, released to mark the 500th anniversary of the death of Leonardo da Vinci, highlights Leonardo’s skills as an improvisatory musician using voice and lira da braccio. It is perhaps frustrating if not entirely surprising that in all his many notes, sketches and marginalia the master did not record any of his own music. Instead, the present recording matches music by the artist’s contemporaries to a selection of his paintings allowing them to comment on one another. There is one instance, in Leonardo’s “Portrait of a Musician”, where the painter depicts a page of written music, although again perhaps frustratingly no-one has been able to identify the music, or even the young subject of the painting. Elsewhere Leonardo depicts musical instruments, including his own beloved lira da braccio, and the instrument features prominently in the programme. Side-by-side with music by Josquin, L’Heritier, Isaac, Obrecht, van Ghizeghem, Tromboncino, Caron and de la Fage, we are given music by their much less celebrated contemporaries all in lovely and imaginative performances by Doulce Mémoire. Touchingly, and appropriately we get nearest to an improvisation by the master for voice and lira da braccio in the music chosen to accompany his most famous painting, the Mona Lisa. Using a formulaic accompaniment from a book of frottole published by Petrucci to perform a sonnet by Petrarch, the group’s excellent soprano Clara Coutouly and Baptiste Romain on the lira da braccio create genuine musical magic, spanning the centuries and evoking the sort of experience Leonardo’s audiences might have enjoyed. This is a lovely CD, and its lavishly illustrated accompanying volume makes this a fascinating and satisfying package – a worthy celebration of the great and versatile Leonardo.

D. James Ross

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Music for Saint Katherine of Alexandria

The Binchois Consort, Andrew Kirkman
66:17
hyperion CDA68274

This recording consists of music dedicated to St Katherine, of wheel fame. Seemingly she is the only female saint apart from the Virgin Mary to have generated sufficient music in England during the fifteenth century to fill a compact disc. The centrepiece of this record is Walter Frye’s three-part, but euphonious, Missa Nobilis et pulchra, a complete surviving mass cycle. Of the remaining music, it is fair to say that the two impressive isolated mass movements by “Driffelde” – probably the Robert Dryffelde who put in a hefty shift as a vicar-choral at Salisbury 1424-68 (though his surname suggests a provenance in Driffield, in the East Riding of Yorkshire) – are simply for the feast of a virgin, for which Katherine nonetheless qualifies. Particularly striking is an anonymous work, an isolated Gloria “Virgo flagellator” also in three parts. Only the tenor and over half of the contratenor parts survive but it has been reconstructed by the late Philp Weller to provide a satisfying and idiomatic whole, a most worthwhile labour. Anything composed by John Dunstable is likely to make its mark in the company of music of this, or indeed any other, period and it is true to say that his two motets included here – the substantial Salve seema sanctitatis which brings the disc to a sonorous close, and the more serene and modestly proportioned Gaude virgo Katherina – confirm his pre-eminence among mediaeval composers, notwithstanding the suavity of Frye’s mass. Performances are as fine as we have come to expect from the Binchois Consort, not least in Byttering’s energetic En Katherine solennia. In the accompanying booklet, there is the bonus of scholarly and readable notes, illustrated by photographs of relevant works created by the Consort’s sculptor in residence, Sarah Danays.

Richard Turbet

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François Couperin: Quatrième Livres de Pièces de Clavecin

Guillermo Brachetta harpsichord
resonus RES10240
156:56 (2 CDs inj a card triptych)

Couperin’s final collection of ordres is the first release in this series which will eventually include all his harpsichord music. Brachetta’s playing can be quite flamboyant but here he adopts a suitably sober approach to match that of the composer who always comes across as rather wistful in this last publication. Tempos are calm and nicely judged, inégalité gentle and fluide, and ornaments almost unobtrusively absorbed into the musical lines. And the instrument is lovely too – a copy (2010) by Keith Hill of a notable Taskin (1769). Some might feel that this is a little late for music published in 1730, but the clear treble and rich lower registers do serve the music well. It can be frustrating when the titles of French character pieces are neither translated nor explained but here careful reading of the booklet’s tiny print will add significantly to the listener’s understanding and enjoyment of the music. The booklet (in English only) includes a general introduction by the player, notes on the music (which could have been longer – there’s space) and biographical information. Couperin’s music comes across as finely-spun gold.

David Hansell

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Cabanilles: Keyboard works, volume three: 21 works for organ and for harpsichord

Timothy Roberts
70:49
Toccata Classics TOCC 0451

This is the third release in a series of as yet unspecified length that may eventually include the composer’s complete keyboard music. This is quite an ambition as there is a lot of it; much is not yet published; and the sources are poor, requiring a creative and corrective approach from editors and performers. Three instruments are used: two splendidly restored historic Spanish organs (one big, one small) and a Ruckers-style harpsichord by Michael Johnson and I’d like to pay a small tribute at this point to those who prepared the instruments for the recording. Though one seldom hears on disc an instrument that is unacceptably out-of-tune, it is also rare to hear instruments, especially organs, that are quite as well in tune as these two. Given the pungent nature of some of the sounds, this is an important and a significant factor in the recital’s success. The booklet (English only) contains concise essays on the composer’s life, his musical style, the instruments used and the player: frustratingly, footnotes suggest referring to the notes from previous releases in the series. I hoped to find these online but was unsuccessful.

Many EMR readers will know Tim Roberts as a player of skill and taste, and there is plenty of both on display. Typically, the pieces consist of a florid and colourful solo line supported by a gently contrapuntal accompaniment. Cabanilles’s sequential passages can sometimes threaten over-predictability, but here they always have a sense of direction and purpose. Some Spanish theorists recommended an approach to rhythm that combines elements of French-style inequality with almost modern concepts of rubato. Perhaps there could be a bit more of this in the performances: on the other hand, there’s a lot to be said for a relatively conservative approach when recording, especially when music is committed to disc for the first (and only?) time. I enjoyed this, and recommend that anyone not yet familiar with the idiosyncrasies of the Spanish organ school give it a try. But be prepared for a few shocks!

David Hansell

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Palestrina: Missa sine nomine a6

Choir of Girton College, Cambridge; Historic Brass of the Guildhall School of Music and Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, Gareth Wilson, director
77:20
Toccata Classics TOCC 0516

Palestrina: Missa sine nomine a6, Deus qui dedisti, Judica me, Accepit Jesum calicem, Unus ex duobus, Tu es Petrus, Ricercars quarti and octavi toni. Ingegneri: Super flumina Babylonis, Duo seraphim, Lauda Sion.

Besides the mass, this disc contains motets and ricercars by Palestrina, plus three motets by his contemporary Marc’Antonio Ingegneri. Vocal works are performed a cappella, accompanied wholly or in part by brass, or by brass alone. There is evidence that in Rome at this period, for major festivals, extra singers and instrumentalists were hired for liturgical performances at some sacred venues, so this disc provides examples of the variety of possible performance practices for this music. Palestrina’s Mass is accompanied throughout except in certain passages of reduced scoring such as the Christe eleison. According to Gareth Wilson (email to reviewer), it was felt that the quality of the works by Ingegneri that are recorded here is such that he deserves a project of his own, so he will be the focus of Girton College Choir’s next tour; perhaps he will reappear on a future recording as well. Seemingly his Super flumina Babylonis made its point during their recent tour of Israel and Palestine.

Listening to the Kyrie and Gloria of Palestrina’s Mass, albeit with brass accompaniments arranged by Gareth Wilson, it comes as no surprise to learn that J.S. Bach arranged brass parts for accompanying these movements during Lutheran services. It might have been interesting on this disc to have heard the work with his brass accompaniments, with the remaining movements arranged in imitation of his style. This is not to say that Gareth’s arrangement is inadequate in any way.

In those vocal works which are performed by brass alone, or for one voice-part with brass playing the rest, the feeling occurs that one might have referred to hear words in all parts, the better to appreciate Palestrina’s word-setting. That said, the use of historic brass defines each part very clearly so that one can appreciate his polyphony and any occasional harmonic felicities or dissonances.

Girton College Choir sings well and responsively, Historic Brass play idiomatically and stylishly, and Gareth Wilson’s chosen tempi are judicious and serve the music well. Palestrina’s ricercars are undistinguished, but his Mass is entirely the opposite, with Kyrie and Agnus outstanding even by his standards. Similarly, the motets are so fine that it is astonishing that all but one are receiving their first commercial recordings.

Richard Turbet

Palestrina: Missa sine nomine a6

 

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Messe du Roi Soleil

The Sun King’s Mass
Marguerite Louise, directed by Gaétan Jarry
53:13
Château de Versailles Spectacles CVS008
Music by Couperin, Delalande, Guilain, Lully & Philidor

One expects better of Versailles. Although the performances are quite decent, the programme is rather a rag-bag and very short and the booklet (Eng/Fre) poorly designed. Why not all the French essays together, then all the English, rather than interleaving them? And the notes, once found, aren’t that great either – whether in French or English. A case of trying too hard, rather than incompetence, but either way the reader loses out.

The Sun King heard various types of mass in his chapel, most famously the ‘solemn low mass’ which consisted of a grand motet, a petit motet and a Domine salvum fac regem, all sung while the priest quietly spoke the liturgy. On other occasions, he heard organ music and chant and here we get a bit of everything, sometimes a very short bit. So the overall effect is rather unsatisfying even though the major works – psalm settings by Delalande and Lully – are splendid pieces, worthily sung. Indeed, the soprano solos and duets are some of the best I’ve heard for a long time. Nonetheless, the overall verdict has to be ‘could do better’.

David Hansell