Category: Recording

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Lodovico Viadana: Sacri Concentus

CD cover Viadana Sacri Concentus

The Viadana Collective
Maximilien Brisson
75:01
Passacaille PAS 1142

This admirable CD from The Viadana Collective offers us a glimpse of a key figure in the background of music-making in the churches of northern Italy in late 16th and early 17th century Italy. One of the chief instructors and a notable composer in his own right was Viadana, very little of whose music has been recorded. He was in charge of the music at the cathedral in Mantua in the 1590s and this recording made in the Basilica di Santa Barbara there uses its historic Antegnati organ of 1565, which includes a 16’ Fiffaro rank, tuned to beat with the Principale which can be heard in track 17, as well as split keys for the ‘black notes’, so using a remarkably clean pre-Baroque Meantone tuning. What Viadana is chiefly remembered for is the creation of what we know as the figured bass or basso continuo, and his motets for single voices performed here with the fine full-bodied organ that he certainly knew, shows the motet shifting from a solid polyphonic style towards one in which a single line – often ornamented – is accompanied by at least the organ basso continuo, but sometimes with instruments substituting for the vocal lines. The group’s organist, Iason Marmaras, contributes some Intonazione in the style of Andrea Gabrieli to introduce each group of motets, which allows us to hear the organ on its own.

The motets here are largely from the collection Viadana published in a revised form in Frankfurt in 1615 as Centum sacri concentus ab una voce sola ecclesiastici which are harmonically more adventurous and belong more distinctively of the seconda prattica than his earlier collection Centum concerti ecclesiastici of 1602. This argues Maximilien Brisson, the moving spirit behind this welcome production, was a seminal contribution to the emerging solo monody, where consideration for the voice type as well as close attention to the speech rhythms of the text placed this work at the forefront of the new monody in church music.

These are contrasted with ensemble singing which reveals that the singers in the single voice motets, where their vocal agility and stylish word painting is so much in evidence also make an impressive ensemble, so key in performances like this with absolute parity between voices and instruments. The singers are Suzie LeBlanc, Vicki St Pierre, Charles Daniels and Roland Faust and they show in Vinea mea how important it is to have such a clean, violone-like bass as the foundation for such an ensemble.

Bruce Dickey sets the instrumental style with amazing diminutions in O quam suavis. And I was unprepared for the equally remarkable passaggii played by Maximilien Brisson in Rognoni’s divisions on Lassus’s Susanne ung jour. There is also an example of Viadana’s instrumental Sinfonie musicale a otto voci (Venice 1610), virile instrumental canzone in two 4-part cori.

In style, the Viadana Collective has some things in common with groups like Jamie Savan’s Gonzaga Band and Gawain Glenton’s In Echo. Distinctive about this fine CD however is that it concentrates on a single composer and affirms the importance of a substantial organ of the right period as a foundation for a convincing balance where voices and instruments have absolute parity, substituting regularly for one another.

This is not only a welcome addition to our understanding of this hinge moment in western music, but also essential listening and a delight throughout. I thoroughly recommend it.

David Stancliffe

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Recording

Haydn 2032, no. 16 – The Surprise

CD cover Haydn Antonini Surprise vol 16

Il Giardino Armonico, Kammerorchester Basel, Giovanni Antonini
84:47
Alpha Classics ALPHA 698

Volume 16 of Giovanni Antonini’s integral Haydn symphony series introduces for the first time works from his finest group, the so-called ‘Salomon’ symphonies composed for his two visits to London (1791-2 and 1794-5). Along with Symphony No 94 in G (‘Surprise’) and Symphony No 98 in B flat the CD includes Symphony No 90 in C, the first of three works commissioned by Count d’Ogny for the Paris-based Concert da la Loge Olympique. And as if that were not enough for a disc of extraordinary length we’re given a closing encore in the shape of the overture to Rossini’s La scala di seta. I’m not sure what the context is here, but it doesn’t matter; it is given such an exuberantly scintillating performance that as is often the case with encores it threatens to steal the show.

It doesn’t of course for the simple reason that we’re here considering some of Haydn’s greatest symphonies and I’m including the neglected No 90 in that category. The Loge Olympique orchestra was known for being one of the largest concert orchestras in Europe, with a complement of 17 violins, four violas, six cellos and four (!) double-basses plus the usual pairs of winds and brass noted in 1786, just two years before Symphony 90 was composed. It is therefore highly appropriate that for the first time in this series Giovanni Antonini has combined the two chamber orchestras with whom he is alternating for this series. That gives him forces that accord very closely with those of the Loge Olympique. To the best of my knowledge, no precise figures exist for the orchestral forces that played in Haydn’s concerts at London’s Hanover Square Gardens, but Antonini’s are also close to those employed by opera orchestras in the city at the time. This raises the interesting point as to whether or not the entire string section played in more lightly-scored passages with such a large body, bigger than we characteristically hear playing these works. Unless I’m mistaken Antonini does not, reducing them to achieve the light rhythmic delicacy in appropriate passages of, for example, the enchanting Andante of Symphony 90. This is incidentally a work that makes a fine fellow for the ‘Surprise’ Symphony (No.94), given that it also includes a joke to keep an audience on its toes. This is the false ending of the final Allegro assai – a full four-bar silence that suggests we have reached the end before the music resumes briefly and wittily in a new key that takes us back to the tonic only for the final coda.

Antonini’s performances have reached a point where they need little individual comment, given that their considerable assets have by now been frequently observed by me and others. These are in general terms of course ‘bigger’ pieces than the earlier symphonies with which the series has been mainly engaged, characterised and enhanced by the same muscular masculinity, even at times peremptory approach that nonetheless never precludes warmth, wit and affection. Tempi are invariably well judged, those of the Minuets of Symphonies 94 and 98 reminding us that Haydn’s markings – Allegro molto and Allegro respectively – are taking us ever closer to the minuet’s eventual replacement by the scherzo. The freedom of the writing for wind, which Haydn himself – perhaps with a touch of false modesty – felt had taken him long to fully attain, is underlined by some outstanding vignettes. Also admirable is the balance and clarity achieved by the conductor, making passages such as the wonderful contrapuntal development of No 98’s opening Allegro an especially enlightening moment.

In all this is a marvellous bargain of a disc and I’m especially grateful to Antonini for reminding me of what I’ve been missing myself by reprehensibly neglecting the towering Symphony No 90.

Brian Robins

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Recording

Fasch: Die Vier Tageszeiten

CD cover Fasch Die vier Tageszeiten L'arpa festante Uhl

Ulrike Hofbauer, Monika Mauch, Georg Poplutz, Thomas Gropper SATB, L’arpa festante, conducted by Markus Uhl
64:54
Christophorus CHR 77480

Johann Friedrich Fasch is today arguably best known for something he didn’t do rather than what he did. In 1723, having recently accepted the position of Kapellmeister at the court of Anhalt-Zerbst, he withdrew his application to become cantor at the Thomaskirche in Leipzig, of which he was an alumnus, apparently because he did not wish to teach Latin. That post ultimately went to J S Bach. What Fasch did do was create a body of compositions, many now lost, that makes Bach’s prodigious output look positively miserly. In addition to a huge number of instrumental works, it includes no fewer than eight cycles of sacred cantatas, having been expected during his tenure in Zerbst (from 1722 until his death in 1758) to provide at least three cantatas for each weekend.

It is not known how much Fasch contributed to a genre that played an important role in the occasional life of an 18th-century court. That was the ceremonial odes or serenatas that were an integral part of the celebration of births, birthdays, marriages and deaths of rulers and their closest kin. In Fasch’s case only two such works survive today, the first celebrating the birthday of Johann August, the ruling prince of Anhalt-Zerbst on 9 August 1723, the second, interestingly, that of the Princess Sophie Augusta Frederica of Anhalt-Zerbst, the future Catherine the Great in 1757. It is the earlier with which we are concerned here.1

Freudenbezeugung der Vier Tageszeiten (Joyful Testimony of the Four Times of Day) is described as a serenata, implying it was given in a dramatic context, although this is not clear. Both words and music were written by Fasch, the text introducing four allegorical figures – Aurora, the morning, Phoebus, noon, Hesperus, the evening, and Cynthia the night – whose panegyrics celebrate Johann August’s birthday. The work is lavishly scored for three trumpets and timpani (who only appear in the final chorus, sung by the soloists), two recorders that have a concertante role in the charming triple-time sleep aria for Cynthia, and oboes, given a concertante part in arias for Aurora. Arias are all in da capo form, while stylistically the music is in the galant style that forms the bridge between the Baroque and Classical. As anyone that has heard any of Fasch’s innumerable suites or concertos knows, his music is never less than enjoyable, melodically highly inventive and frequently displaying felicitous touches of instrumental colour – all features on generous display here.

The performance is dutiful and efficient without ever catching fire. Of the four soloists only soprano Monika Mauch is likely to be familiar outside Germany and here in the alto role of Aurora she is the pick of the soloists singing her single aria with considerable charm. The soprano Ulrike Hofbauer (Cynthia) has a bright, agile voice, but her diction is poor even by the low standards that prevail today. The opening of the central section of the ‘sleep’ aria mentioned above screams for a messa di voce but doesn’t get one, but Hofbauer’s ornamentation is good and she even has a trill. Neither of the male soloists rises above average, while the orchestral playing is proficient but hardly inspired by Markus Uhl’s pedestrian direction. Like so many German Baroque ensembles, L’arpa festante favour fussy, over-indulgent continuo that includes a lute, an instrument that was not on the pay role of the Anhalt-Zerbst court in 1723. I was recently berated by a reader on my Facebook site for complaining about the lack of an essential translation of a text. Well, this also comes with only the German text, but it would be idle to pretend it matters as much here.

The serenata is preceded by a four-movement Fantasia featuring different concertante instruments, including in the Largo (iii) a chalumeau. Full marks here to Uhl for understanding that a Baroque largo does not proceed at a funereal pace.

Brian Robins

  1. Textbooks for many others survive in the library of the Francisceum in Zerbst, now a secondary school but once a renowned university. ↩︎
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Recording

Kagami : Mirror

Music by Hume, Marais, Bach, Dollé, Purcell, Couperin
Kaori Uemura gamba, Ricardo Rodríguez Miranda gamba, Aline Zylberajch harpsichord
63:06
Ramée RAM2204

The Japanese viol player Kaori Uemura has chosen the yamato or old Japanese word “kagami” for a mirror as the title of her CD to acknowledge the fact that musicians of the 17th and 18th centuries viewed music as a reflection of the divine. Of the composers represented, Charles Dollé is perhaps the only unfamiliar one. He was active as a gambist in and around Paris in the first half of the 18th century and was much in demand as a teacher and performer. He left a large body of published music for gamba of which Uemura gives us the attractive Premiere Suite from Pieces de Viole avec Basse Continue (1737). In this and the other more familiar music, Uemura’s rich tone, declamatory style and technical dexterity combine with the musicality of the whole ensemble to give us a very enjoyable account of his chosen repertoire. A couple of pieces are arrangements, of which that for solo viol of Dido’s Lament by Purcell is particularly effective and affecting. Although with its visionary title and its prologue, three acts and epilogue this recording seems unnecessarily to aspire to be more than the sum of its parts, what it is is a thoroughly effective programme of familiar and unfamiliar music compellingly played and a joy to listen to.

D. James Ross

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Lost in Venice

CD cover Infermi d'amore Lost in Venice Vadym Makarenko

Infermi d’Amore, Vadym Makarenko
65:12
eudora EUD-SACD-2206

This programme of music for strings incorporating concerti for solo violin, two violins, and cello respectively, and a sinfonia by Vivaldi, as well as an overture by Veracini and a violin concerto by Marcello, has been selected to represent a body of work which has been lost, left unfinished or found its way mysteriously to Venice. Some of the music has had to be reconstructed for the recording and – incredibly – two of the Vivaldi violin concertos and the sinfonia are recorded here for the first time. If the linking principle may seem a little tenuous, and the musicians should not feel the need to excuse performing such effective music, there is in fact a fugitive feel to many of these performances which seems to suit the music. The small ensemble of one solo and four ripieno violins, one viola, one cello and double bass, with bassoon, theorbo/guitar and organ/harpsichord gives the texture a volatility which is perfectly suited to this repertoire, and the players take full advantage of this with their spontaneous approach. The solo playing from violinist Vadym Makarenko and cellist Bruno Hurtado Gosalvez is stunningly effective, and this truly international ensemble whose members met up while studying at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis exudes energy and enthusiasm.

D. James Ross

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Recording

Un clavecin pour Marcel Proust

CD cover Olivier Baumont Un clavecin pour Marcel Proust

Olivier Baumont
46:00
Encelade ECL2204

The idea of a harpsichord for Marcel Proust may at first glance seem like a bit of a historical mismatch between an essentially Baroque instrument and a writer of the late 19th and early 20th century. But of course this is an author in search of times gone by, and harpsichords and harpsichordists make regular appearances in his writings. Olivier Baumont has cleverly sought out these allusions and constructed a programme of the music mentioned as well as pieces ‘in the old style’ by Proust’s friends and fellow enthusiasts for earlier centuries, Reynaldo Hahn and Louis Diémer. Playing appropriately three impressive 20th-century copies of 18th-century original harpsichords, Baumont explores the 19th-century revival of this Baroque repertoire witnessed by Proust and included in his novels. Grouping the music by Rameau, Bach, Scarlatti and Couperin interspersed by pastiches by Anthiome, Hahn and Ravel under the heading of the Proust characters the music is associated with, Baumont constructs a concert programme for an event which never in fact took place on an instrument (Proust’s clavecin) which never actually existed – a very proustian questioning of memory! He is joined by soprano Ingrid Perruche, violinist Pierre-Eric Nimylowycz, and fellow clavecinist Nicolas Mackowiak for what turns out to be a very engaging sequence of music. This CD is very much a flight of fancy of harpsichordist Olivier Baumont and for all it hangs on what in Scotland we would call ‘a bit of a shoogly peg’, his beautiful playing and the thought-provoking juxtaposition of pieces makes for a satisfying and involving experience.

D. James Ross

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Recording

Vestiva: Embellishing 16th & 17th Century Music

CD cover Vestiva Embellishing 16th and 17th Century Music

Lux Musicæ London
58:00
First Hand Records FHR137

I was blissfully unaware of the fundamental effect a recording by David Munrow and his Morley Consort of Morley’s Consort Lessons of 1599 featuring extended divisions had had on a teenage me until I invested in the CD version some forty years later and realised that it had truly entered my bloodstream and become the basis of most of my embellishment instincts throughout a subsequent lifetime of playing Renaissance music. I would like to think this delightful CD might have the same effect on young performers, and indeed this ambition is expressed towards the end of the programme note. Lux Musicae (harpist Aileen Henry, recorder player Mirjam-Luise Münzel and lutanist Toby Carr) deftly take us through a selection of ‘written out’ embellishments of Renaissance and Baroque pieces as well as applying the wisdom of various embellishment instruction books of the period to other pieces. The results could so easily have sounded ‘worthy’, but in the hands of these gifted musicians the music comes wonderfully to life, and we are given a little flavour of how embellishment became such an indispensable skill for musicians of this period. The witty reference to the madrigal Vestiva i colli providing the title of the CD and alluding to the idea of flowers clothing the mountains much as embellishment clothes the original scores is indeed pertinent. Mirjam-Luise Münzel employs recorders based on illustrations by Ganassi. It was the purchase in the 1970s of a facsimile of Ganassi’s Fontegara (1535), a recorder tutor and one of the main sources of manners of embellishment, that first opened my eyes to the complexities of Renaissance ornamentation. I have yet to hear the more outrageous suggestions in this publication such as trills on thirds and fourths and dense diminutions of original phrases put into practice – perhaps they were never intended to be taken literally, or maybe they were and have yet to transform our understanding of the art of Renaissance embellishment.

D. James Ross

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Handel: Israel in Egypt

CD cover Handel Israel in Egypt Jeannette Sorrell

A Dramatic Oratorio, adaptation by Jeannette Sorrell
Margaret Carpenter Haigh, Molly Netter, Daniel Moody, Jacob Perry, Edward Vogel, Apollo’s Singers, Apollo’s Fire, directed by Jeannette Sorrell
74:13
Avie AV2629

I should start by addressing the edition of Handel’s Israel in Egypt created by the director Jeannette Sorrell for this recording. She ‘restores’ the opening Lament of the Israelites for the Death of Joseph included by Handel in his 1739 version, but sometimes omitted from later editions and performances. This is indeed a worthwhile exercise, although not nearly as radical a move as Sorrell’s note suggests – in fact most of the recordings I consulted open with the Lament. However, her further concomitant decision to cut down the remaining two sections is much more controversial. Her stated aim ‘to keep the length of the oratorio manageable for modern audiences’ seems ridiculous – are we to trim other extended musical masterpieces in response to the shortening attention span of the modern public? This decision would seem to me to have much more to do with fitting the work on a single CD, and to run directly contrary to the group’s vision of an authentic performance on period instruments. The CD package does prominently announce that this performance uses an adaptation of the original score, but I doubt that any prospective buyers would suspect the extent that the music has been compromised. This is so disappointing as the singing and playing of the Apollo forces is compelling and utterly convincing and Sorrell’s direction crisp and insightful. What a pity they didn’t decide just to trust the composer’s dramatic instincts – he was hardly a man inexperienced in the arc of drama – and use their excellent forces to record the piece as he wrote it. I have recently encountered several  ‘adaptations’ of Baroque pieces, designed to ‘improve’ upon the original and which have proved disastrous. This recording is by no means a disaster, but it is ultimately a disappointing misrepresentation of Handel’s work – a missed opportunity. As a footnote, I should mention the extraordinary 1888 recording of the annual Handel Festival performance by 4000 singers of Moses and the Children of Israel from this oratorio (available online), one of the earliest recordings of Handel’s music and a remarkable insight into the performance practices of this period! I’m sure the Victorian audience was thrilled with this version…

D. James Ross

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Handel: Serse

CD cover Handel Serse English Concert Bicket

Emily D’Angelo Serse, Paula Murrihy Arsamene, Daniela Mack Amastre, Lucy Crowe Romilda, Mary Bevan Atalanta, Neal Davies Ariodate, William Dazeley Elviro, English Concert, Harry Bicket
172:38 (3 CDs in a card triptych)
Linn CKD709

One of Handel’s last operas written against the backdrop of the collapse of the London operatic scene, which precipitated the composer’s inspired switch to the composition of oratorios, Serse fell victim to its circumstances receiving only five performances in Handel’s lifetime. If this reflected the tumultuous finances of the company presenting it and perhaps a perceptible decline in performance standards as well as the changing taste of the London public, it certainly had little to do with the quality of the music Handel had composed. Remembered now primarily for Serse’s opening aria, the exquisite Ombra mai fu, this is a work like so many others composed by the mature Handel, rich in originality and masterly music. Having mentioned this opening aria, I should probably address my main reservation about this account – the role of Serse, taken by the irascible and temperamental castrato Caffarelli in the original run, is here sung by the mezzo-soprano Emily D’Angelo. While she sings very expressively and musically, the decision not to use one of the excellent male alto singers currently available is baffling and changes the character of the eponymous hero. No reference is made to this odd decision in the performance notes, but I’m afraid it had a major effect on my enjoyment of this recording. Having said that, the singing from the first-rate line-up of soloists and the chorus is wonderfully expressive, while the orchestral playing is superlatively supportive, responsive and beautifully crafted – particular mention should be made of the orchestral trumpet playing, which is not just punchy punctuation but beautifully phrased and tastefully lyrical. Harry Bicket has a wonderful way with Baroque music, and his reading of this rich score is exemplary. The revival of the fortunes of Handel’s operas is something which has happened largely in my own lifetime, but this recording of Serse emphasises that this process has still some way to run. I was ashamed and appalled that the bulk of this excellent music was completely unknown to me – there is simply so much excellent Handel lurking in the less familiar operas and oratorios that complete recordings such as this are extremely valuable. David Vickers’ fascinating programme note makes the unexpected and valuable observation that a connecting line can be drawn between these late operas of Handel and the late-18th-century opera buffa of Mozart and his contemporaries. In the middle of the physical and mental breakdown which accompanied the collapse of Handel’s operatic aspirations, it would have been some consolation to him to know that the opera condemned to such a short run under his direction would go on to enjoy such a fruitful and well-deserved afterlife.

D. James Ross

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Lucrezia: Portraits of a Woman

CD cover Lucrezia Les Paladins

Sandrine Piau, Amel Brahim-Djelloul, Karine Deshayes, Lucile Richardot SSSmS, Les Paladins, Jérôme Correas
64:00
Aparté AP359

The story of the rape and subsequent suicide of the Roman noblewoman Lucretia in 509 BC has resonated down the centuries. As a political event that spelt the end of the Roman monarchy and as a personal tragedy, the sexual violence of Sextus Tarquinius, son of the king of Rome, has captured the attention of writers such as Livy, Ovid and later Shakespeare, painters like Artemisia Gentileschi, herself a victim of rape and portrayer of the scene in four separate paintings, and composers. The best-known versions in music are the early cantata by Handel, included here, and Britten’s opera The Rape of Lucretia. Surprisingly we are told by Jérôme Correas in his note that the Baroque era yielded only three further versions of the tale set to music, all of which are included on the present disc, providing a unique opportunity to compare and contrast the settings.

The earliest of the four is that by Alessandro Scarlatti, the ‘father’ of the Italian cantata, whose setting of a text by the Roman nobleman Cardinal Benedetto Pamphilj dates from 1680. An abridged version of the same libretto was employed by the Venetian Benedetto Marcello, who omitted the final aria. Handel’s version is something of a mystery, since it is not known where or when it was composed, nor has the author of the libretto been identified. It is frequently attributed to Pamphilj, though if it is his work it is a quite different text to the one set by Scarlatti and Marcello. Examination of the paper type has also led scholars to believe it was composed before Handel arrived in Rome, either in Florence or Venice. It is interestingly also the only one of the four cantatas to have a text entirely in the words of the stricken Lucrezia, the others all including narrative passages written in the third person. The final cantata by the French composer Michel Pignolet de Montéclair has an Italian text but the musical style tends to that of the ‘goûts réunis’ that sought to unite French and Italian taste. All four cantatas fundamentally employ the alternating recitative and aria structure, though within this pattern is an array of contrast. Scarlatti, for example, binds his final stretch of recitative with a touching vocal ritornello, ‘Ma che farai mia cor’, its repetitions more affecting as Lucrezia comes ever closer to death. It is here one of the highlights of the performance by the Algerian soprano Amel Brahim-Djelloul. But no one can match the sheer exuberance of the young Handel, whose structure abides by no rules in an extended setting that includes only two arias, but concludes with passages of an infinitely moving arioso, as death starts to steal in on Lucrezia and then a final, furious recitative outburst of unrestrained anger directed at the man who has defiled her.

In nearly every respect, this ought to have been an outstanding release, but sadly it is seriously flawed, not for musical reasons but because Aparté have taken the foolish step of issuing the CD without bothering to translate the texts into English. Such is the importance of the communication of words in this repertoire, both directly by the singer and to the listener that the lack of translation seriously diminishes the impact of these works to those without Italian or French.

It is a luxury to have four different singers, including three of France’s leading early music artists, although Karine Deshayes is generally associated more with bel canto. Her singing of the Handel has considerable merit, but in a work so frequently performed doesn’t quite match the finest versions. The lesser-known name, particularly outside France, is Brahim-Djelloul , whose singing of the Scaralatti veers between the sensitivity described above and some rather overwrought singing more suited to the opera house than the chamber. No reservations apply to Sandrine Piau’s exquisitely nuanced Montéclair or the Marcello of mezzo Lucile Richardot, whose powerful projection reminds us she is today one of France’s paramount actor-singers. Finally, it must be mentioned that the support by Les Paladins is exemplary; on their own account they contribute a fine performance of Marcello’s Concerto in F minor, op 1/7 and a brief but affecting sinfonia from Bernardo Pasquini’s oratorio Il martirio dei santi Vito.

No one that has a fair understanding of Italian and/or French should miss out on this fascinating collection. Those that don’t, well, you’ve been warned. Three boos to Aparté, whose slovenly presentation does poor service to the outstanding performers on the CD.

Brian Robins