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Haydn 2032 vol. 7 – Gli Impresari

Kammerorchester Basel, Giovanni Antonini
73:01
Alpha Classics Alpha 680
Symphonies 9, 65 & 67; Mozart: Thamos, König in Egypten

A search in the EMR archives will reveal several of my previous reviews of this thrilling vibrant cycle of Haydn’s symphonies, due for completion in time for the 300th anniversary of the composer’s birth in 2032. Among its many merits is the evidence of the care and thought that has gone into the planning of the series, with each CD not only given its own theme but also including either a non-symphonic work by Haydn or relevant music by a contemporary.

Vol 7 carries the appendage ‘The theatre managers’ and includes symphonies written for or adapted from music believed to have been intended for dramatic works staged at Eszterháza. If that sounds convoluted then blame the notes of musicologist Christian Moritz-Bauer (M-B), which are by no means always clear as to the reasoning behind his claims of theatrical connections between the three symphonies featured here. The most convincing argument is for No. 65 in A, the quirky nature of which, with its military and hunting calls, led Robbins Landon to suspect connections with the stage more than 40 years ago. M-B has now pretty convincingly tied it to Der Postzug, a comedy by Cornelius von Ayrenhoff (1769) that became highly fashionable and is known to have been given at Eszterháza. The evidence for No. 9 in C (c. 1762) – ‘probably a prelude to a secular cantata’ (M-B) – and No. 67 in F (1779) is less compelling, though again Robbins Landon had his suspicions about the latter, a work that became one of the most popular of the middle-period symphonies and which he described as ‘boldly original’. The first movement, which juxtaposes extreme delicacy with thrillingly propulsive Sturm und Drang writing is succeeding by an Adagio that fuses chamber music luminosity with contrapuntal complexity. There is, of course, no argument about the final pieces on the CD, the orchestral pieces from the incidental music Mozart wrote for Tobias von Gabler’s play Thamos, König in Egypten. First given in Vienna 1773, Mozart’s music for it postdates that and in its present form probably dates from a Salzburg performance of the play in 1779.

The performances unsurprisingly bear the same hallmarks as those that distinguished previous issues in the series, though I sensed the extremes of dynamics were less marked formerly. This may possibly be explained by the orchestra, one of the two Antonini has to date employed for the series, since the Kammerorchester Basel tends to less febrile playing than his own Il Giardino Armonico. That’s not to say there’s anything tame about the superlative Swiss orchestra, whose playing fully equals that of their Italian colleagues. Indeed one of the major hallmarks of the series has been the intensity and dramatic impetus contrasted with delicacy and light, chamber-music transparency. One need listen no further than the opening few minutes of No. 67, with its ethereally weighted and pointed introduction answered by a full orchestral outburst, with low horns a-snarling to thrilling effect. One other point that I’ve possibly not previously stressed sufficiently is Antonini’s wonderful ear for acutely judged orchestral balance, an asset he shares with his compatriot and friend Ottavio Dantone. Listen, for example, to the Maestoso-Allegro (No.1) of the Thamos music, where despite the full orchestration including trombones and cracking timpani the majesty of Mozart’s intense dark-hued writing stands fully revealed.

This is another valuable addition an already highly distinguished intégrale, essential listening for all Haydn enthusiasts.

Brian Robins

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Mendelssohn: Works for piano & cello on period instruments

Guadalupe López Íñiguez cello, Olga Andryushchenko Erard piano
62:16
ALBA ABCD434
op. 17, 45/1, 58/2, 109 & Albumblatt in B minor (1835)

Fresh from playing in a performance of Mendelssohn’s Overture Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage, I found myself just in the mood for this CD of all his music for cello and piano. Two sonatas, a set of variations, an Albumblatt and a Romance sans Paroles later and I had enjoyed the full range of this composer’s remarkable musical imagination. From her programme note, it is clear that Spanish cellist Guadalupe López Íñiguez loves Mendelssohn’s music, and perhaps even the man himself, and in that she is in complete agreement with my own tastes. Her 1725 Claude Pieray cello has been set up in the manner of early 19th-century instruments and fairly sings Mendelssohn’s lovely lyrical lines, while Olga Andryushchenko’s virtuosic and passionate playing on her 1862 Erard piano is also wonderfully expressive. I wonder if a slight fluffiness about the piano tone is more to do with microphone placement than the tone of the instrument, as the Erard pianos of this period which I have heard live all have a lovely bright edge. The music here ranges from throughout its composer’s short life, the Variations dating from his 20th year and the Romance from two years before he died. The energy and technical assurance of all of this music is a testimony to the genius of its remarkable composer.  

D. James Ross

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Marini: Concerti A quatro 5. 6. Voci & Istromenti op. 7

Ensemble Constanza Porta, Cremona Antiqua, Antonio Greco
81:25 (2 CDs in a single jewel case)
Tactus TC 591390

Famous primarily as a virtuoso violinist and as a composer for that instrument, Marini also composed very effectively for voices and instruments in ensemble. Writing around the middle of the 17th century when the madrigal was acquiring increasingly lavish instrumental accompaniment and flirting with the newly created world of staged opera, it is a testimony to Marini’s skill that his concerti sound not unlike the comparable work of the great Claudio Monteverdi. The concerti recorded here are pleasingly rich in texture with a powerful element of drama. In these world premiere recordings, the vocal Ensemble Costanza Porta is ably supported by the instruments of Cremona Antiqua, and the combined sound is wonderfully rich and expressive. The concerto Non lagrimar complements the two tenor voices and continuo with two obbligato parts for solo violins, and it is nice to think that the composer might have played one of these himself.

D. James Ross

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Music from the Golden Age of Rembrandt

Musica Amphion, Pieter-Jan Belder
132:01 (2 CDs in a single jewel case)
Brilliant Classics 95917

I am not a huge fan of musical programmes which use visual artists as a peg – music and painting were often at dramatically different expressive places, a fact illustrated by these CDs of music – delightfully mannered, elegant songs and dance music – which the programme attempts to attach to Rembrandt, who was engaged in an entirely unrelated project of striking gritty realism. Still, I suppose as the music he would have heard around him, it must have some bearing on his work, and anyway two lovely CDs of 17th-century Dutch music beautifully performed are a welcome addition to the canon. The performers have delved deep into the archives and have researched beyond the familiar van Eijck, Hacquart, van Noordt and Sweelinck to find some genuinely unknown music from the period to widen our knowledge. The playing from a wonderfully sonorous consort of viols, with violins and viola, complemented by a fine quartet of vocal soloists and harpsichord and recorder soloists, is beautifully expressive throughout. The music ranges from the sacred to the secular, and from the very beginning of the 17th century with music by Cornelis Schuyt to its very end and a trio sonata by the splendidly named Benedictus Buns. By this time, the artist had been dead for thirty years, but this music usefully rounds off the century and the Golden Age of Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn. If this was the soundtrack behind the paintings of Rembrandt, probably the best way to approach it is to have it playing gently in the background much as the original music would have done, and who knows, perhaps you too will be inspired to put brush to canvas.

D. James Ross

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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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