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Bach: Sonatas & Partitas for solo violoncello piccolo

Cover of Brunello CD of Bach violin music on cello

Mario Brunello
161:00 (2 CDs in a card folder)
Arcana A469

First we had Rachel Podger playing the ‘cello suites on the violin, and now we have the cellist Mario Brunello playing the Sei Soli – the sonatas and partitas for solo violin (BWV 1001-6) – not on a violin, but on a four-string violoncello piccolo made Filippo Fasser in Brescia in 2017. The model is an instrument by Antonio and Girolamo Amati of Cremona dated between 1600 and 1610; the pitch is A=415 and the bows and strings are all detailed in the booklet which contains a mood piece entitled ‘An unexpected gust of wind’, an essay dated 2019 by Peter Wollny ‘Johann Sebastian Bach and the violoncello piccolo’, and finally Brunello’s article on playing the Sei Soli on the violoncello piccolo ‘A looking-glass reading’ during which he observes that while a violinist naturally strokes the highest string first, with a cellist it is the other way round: the texture builds up from the bass line.

In the fugal writing in particular, this gives a different perspective to the polyphony that Bach creates from the single instrument, and listening to these performances of the Sei Solo is a richly rewarding experience, offering a new take on Bach’s artistry, and in particular on the way in which a single instrument can, and in this case does, create a complete fugal texture. I was expecting some of the lighter dance movements in the Partitas to feel heavier and lumpier, but this is not the case. The bottom-up bowing seems to lighten the texture, and let the strong/weak pairing of notes find a natural sense of being placed just right. In addition, the baritone register of these pieces, likened by Brunello to a counter tenor’s take on music we are used to hearing in a different register, seems less anguished and tormented than many versions we are used to hearing.

The instrument sounds responsive: its light, singing tone fills the space in which the recordings were made – the Villa Parco Bolasco in Castelfranco in the Veneto – and is far removed from the grainy, hard-worked sound of Peter Wispelwey’s ‘cello in his later recording of the Six Suites, for example.  A 4-string violoncello piccolo (without the bottom string of a 5-string one) is pitched exactly an octave below a violin, so although the register sounds strange at first, by the time we are into the D minor partita, the great ciacconna sounds as if it was always meant to be pitched there, and because, I suspect, of the slacker bow, the chords of the D minor chaconne (in BWV 1004) and the great fugue in the C major (BWV 1005) to take two obviously ‘polyphonic’ numbers sound as convincing as I have ever heard on a violin.

So like Rachel Podger’s ‘cello suites, I love these versions. The novel tessitura offers both challenges and insights, and I ended up after several listenings thinking that this was a more comfortable pitch for the music. And Bach did re-pitch his favourite material. He made several different versions of, for example, the resoundingly bass/baritone tessitura of cantata BWV 82 Ich habe genug, transposing it up both for soprano and for alto and altering the instrumentation with each reworking, notwithstanding the obvious identification of the bass singer with old Simeon in the Temple. In the same way I hope that this version of the Sei Soli will find a ready following among those who can get hold of such an instrument, and appeal to listeners as a proper reworking of well-known music that offers new but valid insights.

Singers as well as string players would do well to listen to this recording and to ponder what this might mean for the way they sing their Bach. And I urge violinists as well as ‘cello players to listen and learn from this enormously rewarding performance; I have learnt a lot.

David Stancliffe

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J. S. Bach: Soprano Arias & Swedish folk chorales

Cover of Bach and Dala chorales CD

Maria Keohane, Camerata Kilkenny
58:10
Maya Recordings MCD1901

In the booklet, Kate Hearne writes that ‘the idea of pairing Bach’s music with Dala Chorales is an idea that has been with me for a long time’. 

Dala chorales come from a region in central Sweden where the first official psalm book in the Lutheran tradition was published in 1695, influenced as much by folk song as by the memories of what had been sung in the pre-Reformation masses. A number of these free chorale-like tunes are sung here by Maria Keohane, paired with seven Bach arias for soprano with obligato violin played by Maya Homburger, appearing here with Sarah McMahon and Malcolm Proud as Camerata Kilkenny.

The recording was made in the Propsteikirche Sankt Gerold in Austria, a small former Benedictine monastery. Details of the project, and how the performance was prepared are sketchy, but the booklet manages to convey the slightly folksy, Nordic, tree-spirit world that the Dalakorals conjure up.

The playing and singing is of a high standard as you would expect from the starry Swedish Maria Keohane and the Swiss violinist Maya Homburger. All the arias are just for soprano voice, violin and bc, and have all the elegance of chamber music, with perfectly matched and balanced partners listening to one another. This is how arias should be sung – not as if they were solos with an accompaniment in the background. Whether the pairing of the arias with the Dalakorals works for you I cannot predict, but you would not be sorry to have heard the Bach.

David Stancliffe

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Toccata from Claudio Merulo to Johann Sebastian Bach

CD cover of Buccarella recording

Andrea Buccarella harpsichord
59:24
Ricercar RIC 407

This young harpsichordist was the winner of the Musica Antiqua Bruges competition in 2018, resulting in this, his first recording. He has chosen a stimulating programme which traces the development of the toccata from Claudio Merulo to J. S. Bach, via Sweelinck, Frescobaldi, Froberger, Buxtehude and others. In the process he shows how enduring the genre was while pointing up each composer’s individual style. This is helped by his use of four different harpsichords: small and large Italian-style instruments for the earlier repertory, a Hans Ruckers double-manual copy for Weckmann, Buxthude and Reincken, and a John Heinrich Gräbner copy for Bach. He uses flexible tempi and emphasises the improvisatory quality of much of the music, while never losing the pulse. Among his fine performances I was struck by Giovanni Picchi’s toccata from the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book and that by Michelangelo Rossi with its adventurous chromatic scales – but all have aspects of interest. Bach’s D major toccata (BWV 912) is given a masterly execution which brings out the composer’s youthful exuberance, particularly in an almost aggressive approach to the opening flourishes. Recording quality is excellent, with the instruments given a close-up presence, while Buccarella’s informative sleeve notes help enlighten the listening experience. This is a highly-assured debut and I look forward to hearing more.

Noel O’Regan

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Gesualdo: Madrigali

Exaudi Gesualdo madrigals CD cover

Madrigali a cinque voci, Selections from Libro V and VI
EXAUDI Vocal Ensemble
W&W 910 259-2

This ensemble of six singers, directed by Durham University-based composer James Weeks, normally concentrates on contemporary music but here they bring their wealth of experience to bear on a selection of eighteen Gesualdo madrigals, chosen from across his fifth and sixth books. Probably composed in Ferrara in the mid-1590s, Gesualdo paid meticulous attention to setting the text, with quick changes of texture and harmony which at times last for just seconds before being replaced. This is brought out particularly strongly in this excellent recording which shows striking levels of vocal virtuosity and a wider range of vocal colours than other recordings of this repertory. These singers are not afraid of dissonance, nor of making listeners squirm before releasing them with a harmonic resolution, however temporary. Occasionally the soprano is a bit prominent but overall tuning is just on the right side of extreme and resolutions, when they come, are beautifully executed. The singers show great confidence in maneouvring around Gesualdo’s harmonic shifts and have a highly-informed understanding of the text, nowhere more than in O dolorosa gioia, o soave dolore (O painful joy, O sweet suffering) whose text could sum up the whole programme. Recording quality is excellent with particularly clear separation between the speakers. It is worth listening with music in hand (it is freely available on the CPDL website): like the madrigals themselves these are performances for Gesualdo connoisseurs and are highly recommended.

Noel O’Regan

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di Lasso: Psalmus

Lassus Psalmus CD cover

die Singphoniker
137:49 (2 CDs in a single jewel case)
cpo 555 264-2
Bußpslamen I-VII, Laudes Domini

Founded by a group of students in Munich in 1980, Die Singphoniker might be thought of as the German equivalent of the Kings Singers, with a particular mission to explore German music. For this recording the six permanent male singers are joined by two guests, one of whom is a female soprano. Lasso’s Penitential Psalms are the archetypal musica reservata, commissioned by Duke Albrecht V in the late 1550s and copied into two choirbooks which were sumptuously decorated by Hans Mielich. They were accompanied by two volumes of commentary by court intellectual Samuel Quiccheberg, the whole forming what he called a ‘foundation of the theatre of knowledge’. They were eventually published in Munich in 1584, after Albrecht’s death, allowing them to reach a wider audience. All this and much more is clearly laid out in the excellent booklet notes by Lassus scholar, Bernhold Schmid. The seven penitential psalms were associated particularly with Lent and Holy Week and include the Miserere and De profundis. Lassus added an extended Laudes Domini, drawing on verses from the final four laudatory psalms (Pss. 147-150). The whole set is carefully designed, using each of the eight church modes in turn. Psalm verses are individually treated, with a variety of textures, and present a model of countrapuntal clarity, combined with a flexible rhythmic treatment of the text. Inevitably there is a sameness to the settings – some of which extend to twenty-five minutes in length – and listeners will not necessarily wish to listen to them all at once. The singing is exemplary, with excellent tuning maintained throughout, and the group lets the settings speak for themselves rather than adding any exaggerated interpretations. Recording quality is top class and the whole project is well worth listening to.

Noel O’Regan

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O give thanks unto the Lord

Cover of Tomkins CD

Choral works by Thomas Tomkins
The Choir of HM Chapel Royal, Hampton Court Palace, Rufus Frowde organ, Carl Jackson conductor
74:25
resonus RES10253

This is another outstanding recording of music from the Tudor and Stuart period composed by a Gentleman of the Chapel Royal, and sung by the Choir of the Chapel Royal, Hampton Court, under Carl Jackson. The greatest composer to have been born in Wales, Thomas Tomkins (1572-1656) is effectively two generations beyond Thomas Tallis, whose music was featured on this choir’s previous release (Resonus Classics RES10229). On that recording it was only the Gentlemen who performed, whereas on this recording the choir’s eighteen trebles are put through their paces on the majority of the tracks. The programme consists of two verse services and several verse anthems with the trebles, plus a handful of anthems all but one for men’s voices, besides three appropriate keyboard works. This time the six regular Gentlemen sing without the eight supernumeries who joined them on the preceding release. Nearly half of the nineteen tracks, and indeed over half of the choral items, are premiere recordings. Previous discs devoted to Tomkins’s Anglican music have tended to stick to a limited diet of items already recorded, with perhaps just one or two novelties, all the more disappointing given Tomkins’s substantial surviving oeuvre all of a consistently high quality and easily accessible in printed editions from either Stainer and Bell or Cathedral Press. It is to be hoped that the contents of Hampton Court’s disc will set the template for future recordings of Tomkins’s sacred music.

This judicious selection is expertly discussed by one of the Gentlemen, Christian Goursaud (a Research Fellow at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire), in the excellent accompanying booklet. Even the items which have already been recorded are well chosen: most have rarely been recorded previously, and all are of top quality even by Tomkins’s lofty standards. The major source of material for this album is Musica Deo sacra [MDS], the posthumous compilation of his Anglican music published by son Nathaniel in 1668. Some pieces on this recording have been selected from those that survive only in manuscript, and in most cases have had to be editorially reconstructed. One such is the Seventh Service, a verse Service that, notwithstanding its numbering, undoubtedly dates from early in the composer’s career: five of Tomkins’s Services were published and numbered accordingly in MDS so this and its predecessor, both significantly influenced by Tomkins’s “much-reverenced Master” Byrd, have had to be tacked onto the end of the printed sequence as Sixth and Seventh. (The Sixth Service, probably another early work, has been recorded by the Choir of St John’s College, Cambridge on Chandos CHAN 0804.) Goursaud rightly draws attention to those occasions when Byrd’s influence can be discerned in the works on display here, but this should not imply (and indeed Goursaud does not do so) that Tomkins’s music is in any way derivative or unoriginal. On the contrary, even when he uses explicit word-painting in passages such as “and why go I so heavily” in Give sentence with me, such is his ability that the passages in question sound fresh and delightful. He can also produce some joltingly fine phrases, such as the music to which he sets the abstract but alliterative text “and the strength of sin is the law” in Death is swallowed up, a distinguished verse anthem which is one of those omitted from MDS; it also contains one of Tomkins’s fine sequences at “through our Lord Jesus Christ”, as also does the sublime sacred song for the full choir Turn unto the Lord, probably the most familiar piece on the disc, at the words “His mercy is everlasting”. Similarly worthy of mention is “from the great offence” in Who can tell how oft he offendeth, not least for the powerful delivery first by the countertenor soloist Karl Gietzmann, then by the whole choir when they repeat these words after the soloist’s verse. Tomkins’s scoring is always excellent, as for instance his deployment of high voices in the Magnificat of the Seventh Service. The anthem The heavens declare sung by the Gentlemen is the other work that is familiar on disc, and this recording has a good claim to be the finest yet. Finally, for structure it would be hard to beat Tomkins’s narrative of Doubting Thomas in Jesus came when the doors were shut, another of the verse anthems excluded from MDS, which tells the story briskly yet expressively, and knows when to stop.

Turning to the pieces for keyboard, although Rufus Froude is credited as the organist on this disc, it is Carl Jackson who places all Byrdbrains in his debt by being the first to observe, according to Christian Goursaud’s notes, “that the head motif in A Fantasy (Musica Britannica vol. 5, no 22) appears to be a quotation from Byrd’s motet Ne irascaris Domine”: in fact the opening in the uppermost part of the “secunda pars” Civitas sancti tui. Also present are Gloria tibi Trinitas (MB 5/7) which is in fact an In nomine (explained in the booklet), and the disc concludes with a Voluntary (MB 5/30) which is built around a theme thought by many to be a typically English cadential phrase, but in fact to be heard inter alia in Brumel’s Lamentations from around 1500, which I shall be reviewing in EMR imminently.

I have already complimented the selection of material on this disc, and the performances are all that one could desire. The trebles are responsive and confident, the soloists from among them have pleasant voices with good diction, and the Gentlemen all have voices well suited to this repertory; I hope his capable colleagues will excuse me if I pick out the countertenor Hamish McLaren for his contribution to the verse anthem Jesus came when the doors were shut. Rufus Frowde plays his accompaniments and solos idiomatically, and Carl Jackson interprets the texts with decorous sensitivity, unerringly choosing the ideal tempo for each piece. With its excellent repertory, several premieres and consistently fine performances, this recording is a most important and distinguished addition to the Tomkins discography.

Richard Turbet

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From Darkness Into Light

Brumel Lamentations CD cover

Brumel: The complete Lamentations of Jeremiah for Good Friday
Musica Secreta, directed by Deborah Roberts & Laurie Stras
73:05
Obsidian CD719
+Compère, Josquin, Moro & anon

Performance and musicology come together on this disc with results that are exciting, rewarding, stimulating and reassuring. Previously only two sections of Brumel’s Lamentations, Heth and Caph plus the refrain “Jerusalem, convertere”, were known – or at least thought – to exist. Laurie Stras’s booklet notes describe how the rest of this substantial work had all the time been visible in plain sight but unrecognised, until it dawned on her recently that it had been staring us in the face “for centuries”. She also explains how she came to deduce that this newly rediscovered source for the complete work had been compiled for a nunnery, hence the performance on this disc by the female vocal ensemble Musica Secreta, supported authentically by a continuo of organ and viol “to sustain lower parts.”

This is an extraordinary work. Brumel varies his treatment of the initial Hebrew letters, sometimes setting them in short and concise phrases, sometimes stretching out to quasi-instrumental preludes or even short fantasias, often exploiting different scorings. This in microcosm is true of the entire work. Given Brumel’s dates, c. 1460-1515, there seem to be so many pre-echoes of later music. For instance, just to focus briefly on English music of subsequent generations, in Nun, the fourth section, there is a strikingly Tudor-sounding dissonance at “fulsa et stulta”, while on the final word “sempiternos” before the refrain “Jerusalem convertere”, there is a cadence which crops up again at the word “perditionem” in Tallis’s In jejunio et fletu. Add to this the glaring “English” cadence in Gimel, section 5, at the word “confregit”. And he exhibits an almost Byrdian variety and intensity in his responses to the recurrences of the refrain “Jerusalem convertere ad Dominum Deum tuum”, most profoundly at the end of the second section, Joth. Other aspects of this remarkable work similarly can be heard to echo down through the music of his Franco-Flemish successors.

Musica Secreta perform this music radiantly. Brumel’s vision is projected sensitively, whether ruminative or ecstatic. Every part is clearly audible, and the balance between them is ideal. The continuo is discreet but effective. The rest of the programme consists of eight works, five of them anonymous, from a manuscript that was compiled by the same scribe as the Brumel source, and which was intended for use in a particular nunnery, giving Laurie Stras the clue that this source for the complete Lamentations by Brumel might also be for the use of nuns. One of the pieces Sancta Maria succurre miseris is by the scribe Antonio Moro himself. Another is Josquin’s Recordare virgo Mater while the other named composer is Compere, represented by his slight Paranymphus salutat virginem. Perhaps the best of these works is a luminous anonymous altermatim setting of the Salve regina with which the disc appropriately concludes. The quality of the performance and of the music bring this revelatory disc to a satisfying close.

Richard Turbet

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Handel: Samson

Box cover of Dunedin Consort's recording of Handel's Samson

[Joshua Ellicott Samson, Jess Dandy Micah, Matthew Brook Manoa, Vitali Rozynko Harapha, Sophie Bevan Delila, Hugo Hymas An Israelite, A Philistine, Messenger, Mary Bevan A virgin, An Israelite woman, A Philistine woman, Fflur Wyn A virgin, A Philistine woman, Tiffin Boys’ Choir, directed by James Day], Dunedin Consort, John Butt
204:14 (3 CDs in a cardboard box)
Linn CKD 599

In some ways the most remarkable thing about this recording is that it exists at all. Not many projects requiring a week’s recording time make it to disc these days so congratulations and thanks to those who have provided the funding and/or taken the financial risk, for it really is a major undertaking that requires eight soloists; additional singers for the chorus including trebles for the top line; and an orchestra in which horns, trumpets, oboes and bassoon join a relatively large body of strings and the keyboard continuo. And the choruses were all recorded twice! The discs include Handel’s standard scoring of adults with the boys adding richness to the top line, but also available for download is a performing option which Handel seems to have used from time to time – ‘just’ the soloists singing together with an extra ripieno alto to balance the sections.

The booklet, too, is pretty lavish though in English only. We are offered two excellent essays – on the work itself and on performing issues, the full text (and there’s a lot of it) and the usual performers’ credits. I do wish that these (for the singers, at least) weren’t quite so formulaic: only two get beyond the standard lists of prizes, roles and conductors.

Few of us will know Samson as well as we should – a shame, for it gives us Handel on fine form not only in the content of individual movements but in the way in which he subverts our musical expectations to engage and re-engage our attention. The ‘plot’ is a sequence of tableaux and philosophising rather than pure narrative drama and the music makes considerable demands on the performers, not least of stamina. Joshua Ellicott as Samson draws us in to his world, rather than shouting about it, and really does sing most beautifully. He and all his colleagues exhibit some fine diction, especially in recitative – and it’s not often I find that I want to say that. I do think that all the singers have moments when their vibrato gets away from them but this is less of an issue than on many CDs I have recently reviewed for EMR. The orchestra is also a classy act and John Butt has a sure hand in matters of musical pacing.

So if you don’t know Samson, you should make this your way in. This release is unlikely to be surpassed – or even competed with – for some time.

David Hansell

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Dandrieu: Magnificats Vol. 1

Cover of Dandrieu organ CD

Jean-Baptiste Robin Grandes Orgues 1710 (Chapelle Royale – Versailles)
70:51
Versailles Spectacles CVS023

With all due respect to both composer and performer, this CD is all about this organ though the combination of the music and the instrument for which it was arguably written is also a point of some significance and interest.

The Versailles organ was developed by three generations of the Clicquot family during the 18th century (1711, 1736, 1762) and was spared damage and removal during the revolution. However, work in 1872 and 1935 changed its character to the point at which a new spirit of ‘authenticity’ required complete dismantling in 1989 and a comprehensive rebuild to restore the 1711 voices. These are distributed over four manuals and pedal and can deliver all the characteristic registrations of the Classical French school. As one of the resident organ team, Jean-Baptiste Robin understands the instrument perfectly though doesn’t quite give us the full tour. Like most modern players he is not quite brave enough to include the tremblant fort in the Grand jeu, though if that wouldn’t work on this instrument where could it?

The music – 33 movements averaging about 2 minutes each – is a mixture of liturgical styles (it would have been good to include the chant for at least one of the Magnificats) and more ‘popular’ sets of variations on carol tunes, together with a few odds and ends. It’s all attractive, and at times positively imposing, and is given sympathetic and stylish performances by J-BR. I don’t always warm to his approach to inégalité, though what he does is a perfectly reasonable choice from the range of options.

The booklet (in French, English and German), notwithstanding a few lumpy translation moments, is luxurious with notes on the music, player and instrument and several striking pictures. A further release will include Dandrieu’s transcriptions for organ of his own chamber compositions. Let’s hope we don’t have to wait too long for this sequel, and fingers crossed for the tremblant fort!

David Hansell

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Mozart & Beethoven [keyboard music]

CD cover of Mozart and Beethoven recording

Thomas Leininger fortepiano
78:14
Talbot Records TR1901
K331, 332, 397; Sonata in F, op 2/1

Depending on your point of view, this may be ‘a breath of fresh air’, ‘wilful distortion of the music’ or a bit of both. The programme begins with a reasonably orthodox performance of Mozart’s D minor fantasia K397. Thereafter each of the three well-known sonatas is prefaced by an improvisatory prelude based on ideas and suggestions taken from Clementi and Czerny, and this improvisatory style is carried into the sonatas themselves, with much and sometimes quite extreme variation of tempo; ornamentation; mini-cadenzas; dis-location between the hands; and far more use of the moderator lever than any other player I have heard.

As far as I am concerned this last feature is especially welcome – I’ve often wondered why players, both ‘modern’ and HIP, don’t do it more.* What I do query is the inclusion on a recording of the preludes. Of their very nature these are transitory and ephemeral but the ‘document’ nature of a CD seems to accord them a quasi-canonic status that they don’t really have. But this could also be said of ornaments, of course. Of the other distinctive features of the playing I found the tempo variation the most disturbing and the least convincing: sometimes the effect was comparable to a beginner’s speeding up in the easy passages and slowing down when the going gets tougher. But the additional ornaments are more than welcome.

The booklet (in English and German) says nothing about the music itself – perhaps it is regarded as too familiar to need it. And I do think you should hear this recital: it does question ‘standard practice’ and that’s to be applauded.

David Hansell

*Sir Andras Schiff is a notable exception. At a recital I attended he was positively dancing over all three of his Steinway’s pedals – though not when he was playing Bach!

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