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Jean-Louis Duport: Concertos pour violoncelle

Raphaël Pidou, Stradivaria, Daniel Cuillier
64:00
Mirare MIR 394

I slightly feared death-by-passagework from this CD, but need not have worried! Yes, there are passages of galant predictability, but also many striking moments. A sudden high (or low) passage; an intervention from the woodwind; a striking chord. And then there’s the constant and spectacular virtuosity of the solo line – wow! Having said that, however, I enjoyed most the graceful melodic writing in the middle movements and the curiously melancholic finale to Concerto no. 4 (Duport wrote six, of which 1, 4 and 5 are presented here.)

The booklet (French, English & German) includes biographies of the composer and the artists but offers little more than a paragraph of generalities about the music. And the English, though without actual errors, is curiously stilted: translators need to remember that their job includes producing a decent piece of prose.

Until now, this composer has perhaps been most famous for being a previous owner of a Stradivarius cello more recently played by Rostropovich. We should now start to value his music as well.

David Hansell

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Recording

A. Scarlatti: Quella pace gradita

Alicia Amo S, Giuseppina Bridelli mS, Filippo Mineccia cT, La Ritirata, Josetxu Obregón
66:02
Glossa GCD 923107

As the notes for this CD pertinently remind us, the chamber cantatas of Alessandro Scarlatti represent a quite staggering achievement. It is not only the sheer number – some 800 in all – that overwhelm the imagination, but also, and more importantly, the extraordinarily high musical quality found in such a high proportion of them.

Notwithstanding the success of the modern early music revival in unearthing so much forgotten treasure, only a relatively small number of Scarlatti’s cantatas have so far been recorded. Of the five on the present disc, only one, Quella pace gradita, has been previously recorded (by Nancy Argenta). The works have in common their instrumentation, a rare combination of violins and recorders in addition to the usual continuo. All conform to the subject matter of the overwhelming majority of chamber cantatas, that of the lives and loves of the shepherds and shepherdesses that inhabit an idealised Arcadian world. Thus the first on the CD, E perché non seguite, o pastorelle, for mezzo, two violins, two recorders and continuo, speaks in the course of its three brief da capo arias and alternating recitative of woodland streams and flowery banks unable to provide solace to the absent Chloris. Not surprisingly the presence of recorders is employed to evoke mimetic images of birdsong, in the case of the enchanting single-movement Sconsolato rusignolo for soprano and strings the ‘disconsolate nightingale’, whose role is played by a flautino, while in the final aria of Quella pace gradita a turtledove provides consolation ‘where the forest is most beautiful’. The imagery of the wildness of nature is perhaps most potently evoked in the wonderful Filen, mio caro for alto, recorder, two violins and continuo, where the shepherdess Phyllis reassures her lover that mountains, rocks, streams and trees will all echo the sound of her love. Perhaps only in Tu sei quella, che al nome, a lover’s complaint (for alto) does the text concerning the cruelty of the loved one depart from the pastoral, at times being more than a little reminiscent of the poetry of medieval courtly love.

The recitative in all these cantatas testifies to the high regard in which Scarlatti was held in this aspect of composition, while arias invariably achieve that juxtaposition of the learned and the appealing for which the composer was equally renowned. Inevitably some stand out, none more so than the exquisitely lovely ‘Chiedi pur ai monti’ (from Filen), sung with a real command of line and sustained shaping by countertenor Filippo Mineccia, though his vibrato can be a little obtrusive at times. But the overall standard of singing is very high indeed. Particularly praiseworthy is the recognition by all three singers (or perhaps credit should go to the director?) that these are chamber works, not miniature operas that need projecting into a theatre. So we hear pleasingly nuanced singing that maintains intimacy and in which there is no forcing of tone. Ornamentation might have been articulated more precisely at times and, as usual, we hear little in the way of the trill at cadences or the employment of messa di voce, though several obvious invitations are passed up. While both mezzo Giuseppina Bridelli, whose mezzo moves with admirable ease between head and chest notes, and Mineccia are a known quantity, soprano Alicia Amo was not, at least to me. I count her as a real find, the voice being one of pure vernal freshness, but of a sweet quality that is not at all ‘white’ and does not neglect nuance and colour. Throughout her attention to text and the shaping of line is exemplary, while the beautifully executed repeated note ornament at the end of the final recitative of Quella pace leaves one regretful that it was a decoration that had been virtually abandoned by the time of Scarlatti.

Given the rare moments of insecure intonation in the violins, the instrumental support is excellent. The whole production is indeed a near-exemplary demonstration of how chamber cantatas should be performed.

Brian Robins

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Recording

The Raimondo Manuscript: Libro de Sonate Diverse

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Domenico Cerasani lute
50:26
Brilliant Classics 95580
 
The Raimondo lute manuscript (Como, Biblioteca comunale, MS 1.1.20) was unknown to Wolfgang Boetticher when he compiled his RISM volume of manuscripts in tablature (published in 1978). It first became known to the lute world in 1980, in a facsimile published by the Antiquae Musicae Italicae Studiosi, which now has long been out of print. The manuscript was owned by Pietro Paolo Raymondo, who came from a distinguished family in Como, and who was responsible for copying some of the pieces, signing his name, and adding the date July 1st 1601. The manuscript contains a wide range of pieces, the earliest by Francesco da Milano (1497-1543), and later ones appearing in Besard’sThesaurus Harmonicus (1603) and Mertel’s Musicalis Novis (1615). I know of only two previous recordings of music from this source – an LP by Sandro Volta, and a CD by Ugo Nastrucci – both mentioned by Federico Marincola in his LuteBot Quarterly, Autumn 1998.
 
Of the 69 pieces in the manuscript, Domenico Cerasani chooses 24, beginning with a short anonymous Toccata (41v). He adds a few notes of his own to the opening chord, and includes (correctly) a surprising g (2 on 4) written before the final chord of F major. It is a rather nice miniature, which I don’t think benefits from Cerasani’s slightly jerky interpretation of the rhythm. Why not play it in time, and let the music speak for itself? His playing is otherwise quite expressive, with pleasing contrasts. Where there is polyphony he sustains the different melodic lines clearly, giving the impression that more than one instrument is being played. There is also a slight unevenness of rhythm in his interpretation of the Gagliarda del Cavagliero (85v) which causes it to lose the rhythmic crispness one expects with a galliard. He is not helped by the way the music is written – thick 4-, 5- or even 6-note chords interspersed with fast-moving quavers – but the note value of his interpretation of the chords is not always clear. The Fantasia (46v), attributed on the CD to Lorenzo Tracetti, is the same as Laurencini’s Fantasie 4 in Robert Dowland’s Varietie (1610), albeit with extra passages added here and there, including an elaborate final cadence. The so-called Corrente francese (22v), is in duple time and appears in Lord Herbert of Cherbury’s lute manuscript as a Prelude by Perrichon. There is much variety, from short, lively dances – Brandle, Gagliarda, Corrente, Volta – to longer, more cerebral toccatas and fugues. The Fuga of track 15 is the well-known La Compagna by Francesco da Milano (Ness 34). Cerasani credits the extra divisions in “Vestiva i colli” to his erstwhile teacher, Massimo Lonardi. There is much to enjoy on this CD, including a well-poised performance of an intabulation of Susanne un jour, which covers the whole range of Cerasani’s instrument, from the lowest note up to the tenth fret of the first course. He plays an 8-course lute by Matteo Baldinelli, strong in the treble and quieter in the bass. Judging by occasional squeaks as Cerasani’s fingers slide along the strings, I guess it has synthetic wound strings for the lowest courses.
 
Stewart McCoy
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Recording

Marais meets Corelli

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Jakob Rattinger viola da gamba, Lina Tur Bonet violin, musica narrans
64:56
Pan Classics PC 10395
Music by Biber, Corelli, Forqueray, Hume, Marais & Morel

A weak booklet essay (German & English) does this release no favours, but don’t be over-deterred either by this prospect or the rather strange picture on the front. The playing is lively and not afraid of the occasional un-beautiful sound, and the programme presents a (necessarily highly selective) survey of 17th-century chamber music. This ranges from Tobias Hume for lyra viol to a ‘re-mix’ of Marais’s and Corelli’s Folia variations for viol, violin and harpsichord via violin sonatas by Corelli and Biber and the near-inevitable La Sonnerie. I need to express my usual doubts as to whether a continuo section of theorbo, harpsichord and guitar ever took part in any 17th-century performance of chamber music and I also need to note that the playing, while always committed, is not free of occasional technical accidents that become increasingly intrusive on repeated listenings.

David Hansell

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Recording

La guerre des Te Deum

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Blanchard – Colin de Blamont
[Michiko Takahashi, Carline Arnaud, Sebastien Monti, Romain Champion, Cyril Costanzo], Chœur Marguerite Louise, Ensemble Stradivaria, Daniel Cuiller
66:38
Château de Versailles Spectacles CVS007

To the much-documented ‘opera wars’ of early 18th-century Paris we can now add not-so-much a war, more a squabble between composers over whose Te Deum should be played to mark which royal event! I must say I would have loved to have seen Blamont attempting to replace Blanchard’s music, already on the music stands, with his own, even as the Queen was taking her seat! The booklet (French & English) tells this story well (if in rather lumpy English) though says nothing about the music itself. These composers were both slightly younger contemporaries of Rameau, but very much in the Versailles tradition of ceremonial sacred music. So we have trumpet-led grandeur, some deft choral counterpoint and graceful writing for smaller forces. I couldn’t find any information about the recording circumstances, though a few minor untidinesses suggest ‘live’. But the lack of intrusive vibrato is welcome.

David Hansell

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Recording

Biber & Biber

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Concerto Stella Matutina, Johannes Hämmerle, organ and director
71:00
Fra Bernardo FB 1710593
C H Biber: Missa Resurrectionis Domini, Requiem
H I F Biber: Quasi cedrus exaltata, etc

Oddly enough this is the second CD to sport the title ‘Biber & Biber’, which might sound like a firm of German solicitors, but refers rather to the father and son team of Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber and Carl Heinrich Biber. It is of course the former who is much the better known; indeed even readers of a specialist site such as EMR could be forgiven for being unaware that the elder Biber had a composer son. A quick check reveals that to date only a few instrumental works of C H Biber have reached the catalogue, so this excellent new recording concentrating on two major choral works provides a welcome opportunity to be introduced to him.

The younger Biber, Heinrich’s eighth (!) child, was born in Salzburg in 1681. Not surprisingly he studied the violin and composition with his father and also appeared in Latin school dramas with music by him. In 1704, the year of the elder Biber’s death, Carl was appointed to the court of Salzburg and also travelled to Italy, visiting Rome and Venice, where he would likely have come into contact with the young Vivaldi, recently appointed violin master at the Pietà. Subsequently he visited Vienna, but in 1714 he was appointed deputy Kapellmeister and then in 1743 promoted to Kapellmeister, making him senior to Leopold Mozart, who was appointed as a violinist in the court orchestra in the same year. C H Biber died in Salzburg in 1749.

Biber’s extant catalogue consists largely of music for the church. It survives in the archives of Salzburg Cathedral, where in excess of 120 of his works are housed. They include the Missa Resurrectionis Domini and the Requiem setting recorded here. The most surprising thing about both works is that despite Biber’s youthful contact with modern developments in Italy, they remain resolutely conservative in their adherence to solid contrapuntal techniques. Indeed, the difference in style to the three motets by his father also included on the CD is minimal. Both works conform to similar opulent orchestration as the more familiar large-scale works of Heinrich, which is to say they include parts for trumpets, trombones and timpani in addition to strings. The vocal writing, here wisely restricted to eight singers, alternates between brief episodes for the solo quartet and chorus, with very few extended solos. In both works the text is set with extreme economy, with relatively few opportunities for virtuoso solos. Occasionally, as at the telescoped ‘In incarnatus’ and ‘Crucifixus’ in the Credo of the Mass, Biber introduces a florid violin solo to remind us that he, like his father, was a violinist.

It is the Mass that is the more interesting of the two works. The Kyrie, for example, is introduced by infectiously dancing strings, while throughout exhilarating and exuberant writing for (splendidly played) punchy trumpets is never far away. But there are effective quieter moments too, as in the exquisite Benedictus duet for soprano and tenor. But the whole Mass has an engaging, upbeat ambiance. On first acquaintance the Requiem strikes me as a more perfunctory work, although it has impressive moments such as the urgent thrust of ‘Dies irae’, the soprano solo at ‘Lachrimosa’ and a certain noble dignity at the end of the Sequenz. But too much of the textural setting seems lightweight, with the supplication of the Offertorium (‘O lord deliver …) seemingly already decided by the less than humble music.

The performances are of high quality, with a good solo quartet, the soprano soloist Marie Sophie Pollak in particular being outstanding, and excellent orchestral playing from Concerto Stella Matutina. The splendid recording, made in the Seminary Church in Brixen, South Tirol, captures the often complex sounds with clarity, while at the same time creating an impressively spacious overall sound picture. The CD is well worth investigating by anyone attracted to the resplendent sound world of 17th- and 18th-century Salzburg Cathedral.

Brian Robins

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Recording

Zelenka: Missa Omnium Sanctorum

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[Carlotta Colombo, Filippo Mineccia, Cyril Auvity, Lukas Deman SATB], laBarocca, Ruben Jais
50:16
Glossa GCD 924103

Most of the recordings of Zelenka’s choral music that I know have either been Czech or German. Here we have a predominantly Italian performance of the composer’s final mass setting, for the Feast of All Saints. It is absolutely packed full of everything that typifies Zelenka – cleverly constructed fugal choruses, arias that both tax the soloists by give them hugely expansive lines to relish the beauty of their own voices, dramatic harmonies that accentuate key moments in the texts and an unfailing feel for overall architecture; at the end of it all, one is exhausted and yet uplifted.

laBarroca is a new group to me. Under Jais, the 44321 strings with oboes, bassoon and one “continuo” player, they are electrifying. The energy (which anyone playing Zelenka has to bring with them!) is astonishing and the precision of the violini unisoni playing is breathtaking.

Chorus and soloists alike revel in their music, and once again it is a question of energy – this is not music for the faint-hearted! In such a bright acoustic, the radiance of the voices is especially delightful – and what voices! The soloists are all outstanding.

For decades, northern Europeans have been performing Italian music their way; it seems that Italy is ready to strike back!

Brian Clark

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Recording

Joseph Haydn and his London Disciples

Pink chrysanthemum

Rebecca Maurer fortepiano
79:04
Genuin classics GEN19650
Music by Haydn, Thomas Haigh and Charles Ignatius Latrobe

Haydn’s visits to London were notable from a number of aspects, above all their great success with the capital’s concert-going public, but also for his interaction with native composers. It was an interaction that worked both ways, leading not only to a significant body of works by English composers either influenced by or dedicated to Haydn, but also to the visitor embracing in his own compositions such quintessentially native forms as the catch and the glee.

The present CD focuses on the former, framing works by Thomas Haigh (1769-1808?) and Christian Ignatius Latrobe (1758-1836) between sonatas composed by Haydn for his second London visit. Both the Sonatas in C (Hob XVI:50) and in E-flat (Hob XVI:52) date from 1794 or 5 and comprise two of three dedicated to Therese Jansen, an exceptionally talented pupil of Clementi; they are also the last group of piano sonatas composed by Haydn. That Jansen was a virtuoso is clear from the size and scope of these works, big pieces that require considerable technique and fingering strength in such as the outer movements of the E-flat Sonata. They are also admirably suited to the instrument played by the German keyboard player Rebecca Maurer, a Broadwood of 1816 with a bell-like upper register and bold, resonant bass. As Maurer points out in her excellent notes, with these sonatas the piano leaves the confines of the salon and enters the concert hall. Her actions match her words; these are performances at once boldly virtuosic and sensitively poetic, performances in which her ability to lay out counterpoint clearly is matched by a strong sense of innovatory fantasy and appreciation of Haydn’s wit. Listen, for example, to the fun of the light staccato touch Maurer brings to the opening of the C-major Sonata, or the boldness of that of No. 52, a boldness complemented by the wonderful moment of suspense created by the silence that precedes the codetta of the exposition. In short this is Haydn playing of a high order.

Little is known of London-born Thomas Haigh, other than that he studied with Haydn during the course of his first visit to London in 1791-92. His Sonata in B flat is one of three published in 1796 and ‘humbly dedicated (by Permission) to Dr. Haydn’. Like its fellows it is in two movements, the first of which opens with an adagio before proceeding to a bright-eyed sonata-form Allegro with many scalic flourishes. The second movement Allegretto is based on ‘a celebrated air by Asioli’, a rather naïve rondo with Alberti bass. Published in the same year are three rondos with the principal theme based on one of the popular canzonettas Haydn composed in 1794, the episodes being of Haigh’s composition. His Fantasie was published posthumously (in 1817) and again pays tribute to his master by juxtaposing somewhat incongruously the famous ‘Emperor’s Hymn’ with the whirling folk dance that forms the finale of the ‘Drumroll’. While Haigh’s music is not without interest it is less engaging than that of the Moravian minister and dilettante composer Christian Latrobe, represented here by only the central Lente (sic) movement of his Sonata in B flat, opus 3/2. According to Latrobe Haydn visited him and having heard the sonatas suggested he publish them, which the former agreed to do if Haydn would allow him to dedicate them to him. The appealing movement played by Maurer has a simple song-like theme in the sentimental style. It would be interesting to hear the rest of the sonata if it is all as good as this.

Maurer plays the lesser works of Haigh and Latrobe with as much insight and respect that she brings to the Haydn. To cap off what is both an interesting and extremely well-played and recorded CD, the presentation is exemplary, including not only notes on music and performer but also colour photographs and a description of the piano.

Brian Robins

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Recording

Schmelzer: Le memorie dolorose

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Tenet Vocal Soloists, Acronym
74:20
Olde Focus Recordings FCR914

Following relatively hot on the heels of a fabulous recording of settings of the Jubilus Bernardi by Capricornus, this stunning performance of a little-known Passiontide oratorio by Schmelzer (perhaps the first of a major piece of vocal music?) can only enhance the reputation of the ensemble Acronym, and also those of the Tenet Vocal Soloists (in this case 11 first-class singers).

Viennese tradition saw musical settings of reflections on Christ’s passion by the leading poets and composers of the day performed in elaborate theatre-like sets for the private devotion of the emperor and his inner circle. Here Nicolò Minato contrasts happy memories from Christ’s life with the events from the story of his crucifixion. The musical style is very much of the age – the narrative is declaimed in tuneful recitative and each section is followed by arias whose melodies are simple but memorable. There are also a duet, three trios, a quartet and two choruses. As tradition also seemed to demand, various passages were set by the emperor himself, here Leopold I, one of which is the longest track on the CD (perhaps Schmelzer was obliged to ensure that this was the case?). Acronym interpolate two sonatas for strings.

The singing is glorious and the instrumental playing (including violini piccoli and lirone!) outstanding. The whole has a very relaxed sense of pace – nothing seems rushed or over-dramatised. If anything, in fact, at points I wanted a little more anguish and pain in the voices; but I stick by my overall impression of the performance – the fact that I listened to it back-to-back three times should give an idea.

I’m afraid I didn’t react in the same way to the booklet note. Firstly – and this is probably just me, so perhaps it’s not even a point worth making – I found the references to “our oratorio” and “our sepolcro” and the conclusion that the work “well deserves its first recording” a little twee. More importantly, I found a paragraph about alterations of the libretto very difficult to read. I understand the reasoning behind the change (even though ultimately I think it is a suprious argument), but I wonder why a quarter of a page of the notes had to be devoted to taking “a clear stand”; given that the piece is as obscure as it is, why not just make the changes tacitly? No-one need be any the wiser. It is the banner-waving I find difficult, not the objectionable passages in the original. Ultimately, though, where does such modern-day censorhip stop?

Brian Clark

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Recording

Bach: Cantatas Nos 106 & 182

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Amici Voices
61:37
hyperion CDA68275

This is a fine showcase for Amici Voices, a group of like-minded young singers, based I suspect around the admirable Helen Charleston, who have enlisted some of their able friends as instrumentalists, including their professors and talent around their home-base in Harpenden to make this recording. They work without a director, like Vox Luminis, and I only felt the lack of direction once – in the change of tempo at the start of the durch Jesum Christum fugue at the end of BWV 106. The overall result is the right kind of music-making: bright and enthusiastic.

Sometimes a shade over-enthusiastic, as in the bass’s Bestelle dein Haus in 106, where in a recording as opposed to a live performance over-dramatising phrases can lead to a coarsening. But Helen Charleston’s In deine Hände is utterly ravishing. And how does Michael Craddock manage to give such a convincing top G when reaching for Paradise and still give a grainy F# on alte Bund at the very bottom? The vocal range is testing in BWV 106 even when done at 415, though I think the arguments (not rehearsed in the liner notes) for doing it at 392 (as with other Mulhausen cantatas where string and wind parts are notated in different keys) are strong on practical as well as musicological grounds.

Two other comments on 106: first, when you are using only an organ bass much of the time, the organ really needs to have more of an an 8’ principal tone. Without it, an 8’ violone is welcome especially when you sing the ‘choruses’ two to a part. With such light scoring as in 106, and the boundaries between chorus and arioso so fluid, I personally prefer single voices: it is easier to match single voices to the very straight sounds of recorders and viols. That is demonstrated clearly by Bethany Partridge’s beautiful soprano line in Ja komm, Herr Jesu.

The eight singers come into their own in the motet Komm, Jesu komm (BWV 229). Here we can hear each individual line clearly, with the sopranos exemplary. Singers of inner parts have to learn to trust that they will be audible without resorting to singing though notes or pushing over bar lines, still less to turning on the vibrato. Just occasionally – often at the ends of phrases when breath is short – that is what happens in all the voice parts and we get a note pushed through the texture, or a weak note accented inappropriately. But when they are all listening to and singing to each other, you can hear the potential for the understated ensemble singing that those who have been trained as ‘soloists’ in the conservatoires find it hard to adjust to, but helps us understand that we need to approach Bach’s vocal lines from behind – singing Bach with a style developed from the motets of Schütz and Schein, and from the Altbachisches Archiv.

BWV 182, Himmelskönig, sei willkommen is another early cantata dating from Palm Sunday in 1714, Bach’s first composition as Konzertmeister in Weimar. Although scored for recorder, a single violin and two violas with a ‘cello sometimes independent of the basso continuo with SATB, the work has a later feel to it. Again there are problems with the pitch at which it works, and the decision to play the recorder part on a transverse flute may have something to do with the difficulty of getting a recorder to play convincingly in E minor in the alto aria. A traverso certainly makes that aria more luscious in feel, though here I found a more ‘modern’ singing style from Helen Charleston less convincing. When Cantata 182 was re-scored for Leipzig, and new parts written for a different context, the scoring was thickened (there are indications of more strings) and an oboe was added to the second violin line, while the top violin doubled the recorder in tutti sections. As it stands, Amici Voices balance the slightly more robust instrumental of the Weimar scoring better, and the sprightly singing and well-controlled lines of a slightly more conventional score with its division into arias, recitatives and choruses (including a motet-style chorale in No 7) give it a more established performance practice style, where singers sound as if they are more at ease.

All in all, this is a good calling card for the group and they should feel encouraged by the way the quality of their performance has been captured, even if there are musicological issues that might have been resolved in the planning with the consequent effect on the performance practice. I was glad to have some details of pitch, instruments and an indication of temperament. The brief liner notes explain the choices behind the programme, but do not attempt to enter the minefield of issues around pitch and instrumentation. We need groups like this to get going – do encourage them and get this CD.

David Stancliffe