Sounds from the Court of James I
The English Cornett & Sackbut Ensemble
59:50
Music by
For this CD by
D. James Ross
Sounds from the Court of James I
The English Cornett & Sackbut Ensemble
59:50
Music by
For this CD by
D. James Ross
Cappella Musicale di San Giacomo Maggiore in Bologna, Roberto Cascio
129:44 (2 CDs in a single jewel case)
Tactus TC650790
Each of these two CDs is devoted to a specific publication by Ippolito Ghezzi, an Augustinian Friar active in and around Siena at the end of the 17th and the beginning of the 18th century. His Salmi a 2 Voci are unexceptional Baroque fare, given rather routine performances by these Italian singers – a succession of solo voices seem to a greater or lesser extent a bit ‘slap-dash’ about intonation, and have a range of vibrato which at its broadest can be off-putting. You may be prepared to put up with these shortcomings in pursuit of music by a nowadays practically unknown composer, but (on extended listening) they do get annoying and the virtues of Ghezzi’s music seem to fade. The second CD features Ghezzi’s Dialogi Sagri dating from 1708 almost a decade after the
D. James Ross
The Rose Ensemble
76:17
Rose00012
Let me begin by paraphrasing the final two sentences of the programme note for this charming CD of anonymous sacred music from 17th-century Malta ‘How could the composers of these pieces not be known? How is it possible that these pieces haven’t been performed in hundreds of years?’ It is perhaps unsurprising that the music in Malta’s great religious establishments in Mdina run by the wealthy Knights of St John should be of a superlative standard, clearly influenced by musical developments in Venice, Rome and other Mediterranean centres of excellence, but the question of who composed it and why we should have no hint as to their identity is more puzzling. Surely there must at least be lists somewhere of performers and people who help prominent church posts – or perhaps not. The excellent American Rose Ensemble under the direction of Jordan Sramek provide simply radiant performances of this long-neglected repertoire, with superb vocalists singing equally effectively as soloists and in consort, while ably supported by a small but beautifully effective instrumental ensemble. The rich acoustic of St Mary’s Catholic Church, New Trier, Minnesota is used to perfect effect, giving this multitextured music a lovely glow vividly captured by sound engineer Peter Nothnagel. I cannot praise too much this excellent project, researched and brought to
D. James Ross
Wayward Sisters
59:16
J. S. Bach, Brade, Corbetta, Corelli, Fontana, Geminiani, B. Marini, Matteis, Schmelzer, Schop & de Selma y Salaverde
This CD is something of a whistle-stop tour of 17th- and 18th-century European chamber music. The composers represented are not all the most obvious – Bach, Corelli, Marini Schmelzer, Matteis, Brade, Geminiani all feature but so do Giovanni Batista Fontana, Bartolomé de Selma v Salaverde and Francesco Corbetta. The ensemble, Wayward Sisters, comprises a violinist, recorder player, cellist and a theorbist/lutanist, and they play the music with an intimate awareness of Baroque performance practice and with considerable musicality and virtuosity. This is fortunate as a rather ‘off the wall’ programme note suggests very little understanding of the music’s context – in it, theorbist John Lenti opines ‘Pre-enlightenment western culture was weird’. Is he punning wittily on the group’s name? Elsewhere the statement that the name derives from ‘Henry Purcell’s vivid conjuring of Shakespeare’s witches’ (?) suggests not… The group acknowledges support through
D. James Ross
Music of Hildegard von Bingen
Vajra Voices, dir. Karen R. Clark, Shira Kammen vielle & medieval harp
50:22
Music & Arts CD-1291
It is hard to remember a time without Hildegard, but (of course) the rediscovery of her remarkable music after centuries of silence was a relatively recent affair. Many of us remember the effect of first hearing recordings by Gothic Voices and Sequentia of this extraordinary repertoire, and it remains just as distinctive today. Of course, it goes without saying that you need singers capable of doing it justice, but in the American ensemble Vajra
D. James Ross
Notturna, Christopher Palameta
59:32
deutsche
Music by J. G. Graun, Janitsch
In the retrospective painting by Adolph von Menzel, Frederick the Great of Prussia is shown as flute soloist with an orchestra led by CPE Bach and being listened to by a number of Bach’s musical colleagues. In the audience may well have been Johann Gottlieb Janitsch, Johann Gottfried Krause and Johann
D. James Ross
Mariko Terashi piano
76:11
athene ath 23207
Of the three composers represented here, Carlos de Seixas is by far the least well known. Working in Portugal in the first half of the 18th century, he had the double misfortune firstly to die young at the age of just 38 and secondly to have most of his music and his instruments destroyed in the Lisbon earthquake of 1755. On the basis of the imaginative and polished sonatas performed here, he is a composer whose reputation is overdue a re-evaluation. Younger than either Couperin or Rameau by some twenty and thirty years respectively, de Seixas was clearly much more open to new keyboard styles, and it is intriguing to think what he might have achieved had his life not been cut short by a fatal attack of rheumatic fever. In addition to four of de Seixas’s
D. James Ross
Kate Macoboy soprano, Robert Meunier lute
Et’cetera KTC 1623
Music by Cara, dall’Aquila, Dalza, da Milano, Pesenti, Scannazaro, Scotto & Tromboncino
This interesting collection of secular Italian songs of the first half of the 16th century is built around the work of Bartolomeo Tromboncino, and more specifically the madrigal Come harò
D. James Ross
Guy Fishman cello, Members of the Handel and Haydn Society
64:24
Olde Focus Recordings
Probably the most prodigiously talented of the Bach sons, Carl Philipp Emanuel wrote concertos for a large variety of instruments, but his cello concerti are probably the finest of these. It is mainly in the slow movements of the three concerti recorded here by Guy Fishman and his colleagues in the Boston-based Handel and Haydn Society that we find CPE at his most eloquent and profound. Frequent quixotic changes of mood and moments of inspired originality animate the opening movements and also the often sparklingly virtuosic finales. Playing one to a part, the ‘orchestral’ musicians can react quickly and unanimously to the soloist, and these performances are
D. James Ross
Labirinti Armonici
58:01
Brilliant Classics 95718
The first nine of the ten trio sonatas that make up Francesco Antonio Bonporti’s op. 2 consist of four dance-based movements, while the final sonata is a Ciaccona in G. Superficially they resemble Corelli’s sonate da camera, but there is a greater degree of contrapuntal complexity (the imitations come thicker and faster, for example) and Bonporti has a wider harmonic palette. Labirinti Armonici opt to perform the sonatas out of order; that of the printed set forms no pattern, so this seems sensible. The playing is generally of a high order – there is an occasional lack of ensemble in some of the quick triplet passages, but the overall effect is of a highly professional group at home with the repertoire. So little of Bonporti’s works have been recorded to the highest standards; let us hope this is a start of a revival!
Brian Clark