Legrenzi | Bononcini | Scarlatti
Paper Kite
61:18
Coviello Classics COV91719
This disc is a first for Paper Kite, an ensemble whose main focus is on ‘the various European traditions of the
David Hansell
Saint Salvator’s Chapel Choir (University of St Andrews), The Wallace Collection), Tim Wilkinson & Anthony George
71:22
What? You didn’t know that churches were built to mark the end of the Napoleonic Wars? Or that St James, Bermondsey (one of them) still has its original organ restored pretty much to its original state? Or that Sigismund Neukomm (1778-1858) wrote a Requiem to honour the dead of those wars as well as the memory of Louis XVI? Well, in that case, this CD is for you and you’ll enjoy it! The Requiem is for soloists, choir, organ
David Hansell
Kreeta-Maria Kentala, Lauri Pulakka, Mitzi Meyerson
124:12 (2 CDs in a wallet)
Glossa GCD921809
As both listener and performer I’ve encountered and enjoyed isolated sonatas by Francoeur before, so I wasn’t at all surprised by the entertainment provided by the whole of his Livre 1. After a period of study the composer (1698-1787!) joined the ‘24
David Hansell
The Gentlemen of HM Chapel Royal, Hampton Court Palace, Carl Jackson
68:22
The Enigma Theme in Elgar’s “Enigma” Variations remains an enigma because Elgar never divulged what the theme was (if indeed there ever really was one) although he used to taunt his friends about how obvious it is. Innumerable solutions have been put forward, and in the April 2013 number of the Elgar Society Journal Martin Gough proposed that the theme is Tallis’s Canon, aka the Eighth Tune which Tallis provided for Archbishop Parker’s Psalter of 1567. It is interesting that these two composers are associated in this (albeit improbable) way as, above all other composers, they are hailed as possessing a peculiar but indefinable Englishness. Yet both were heavily influenced by their European predecessors: Gombert amongst others upon Tallis, Wagner, Dvorak and others upon Elgar. In this spirit of Englishness, it can be comforting to listen to one of Tallis’s most Continental works, his majestic Missa Puer natus est nobis a7 sung by the Gentlemen of Her Majesty’s Chapel Royal, Hampton Court Palace, an ensemble equivalent to one, with Tallis among them, that would have sung this very piece during the reign of Queen Mary I. But even in such circumstantial decorum there is no certainty that such an appropriate choir would nowadays perform Tallis’s music to a standard that would transcend such comfortable Englishness. In this instance such concerns can be discarded. The Gentlemen of Hampton Court give excellent performances of every piece on this disc. Another concern might be about how clearly adult male voices in seven parts would project Tallis’s intense music in the Chapel at Hampton Court Palace, the acoustic of which might not be the most resonant. Again there is, in the words of a famous blues song, “no need to worry”. Each line, with two voices to a part, is audible, clear, and well blended with its fellows. Besides the singers themselves – the six regular Gentlemen and the full complement of eight supernumaries – credit must go to Carl Jackson for his judicious tempi, occasioned by his extensive familiarity with every aspect of the recording location.
What of the music itself? Even without the Credo, most of which has been lost, the Missa Puer natus est nobis for seven voices is Tallis’s grandest work, apart from the small matter of Spem in alium in forty. The booklet’s notes by Christian Goursaud, one of the six Gentlemen, competently sets out the competing ideas concerning the circumstances of the work’s composition. It is not only, as he so rightly says, majestic, but it is also seminal, providing in the second Agnus a prominent theme for Byrd’s second consort In nomine a4 besides, at “[Patris] miserere nobis“ in the Gloria, pre-echoes of passages such as “everlasting“ in Tomkins’ Turn unto the Lord and “auxiliare nos“ as late as Blow’s Salvator mundi; both composers knew Tallis’s music and, while this is not necessarily to say that they deliberately or consciously borrowed this passage or aspects of it, nevertheless it is interesting that Tallis’s plangency was being replicated over a century later. No less musically rewarding is the differently plangent Mass for Four Voices, and it is of further interest because, as Stefan Scot discovered, and has noted in his erudite booklet notes for Priory PRCD 1081 (volume 1 of The Collected Vernacular Works of John Sheppard, sung by The Academia Musica Choir), the Credo is identical, with a few adjustments and details, to the Creed of Sheppard’s First Service. Stefan will discuss this further in his forthcoming edition of Sheppard’s Anglican music for Early English Church Music.
Exploiting the presence of the supernumaries, the disc begins and ends with motets also in seven parts. Suscipe quaeso starts proceedings in the best possible way, the choir setting out its stall for the rest of the disc with excellent blend and a wonderful fullness of sound, while Loquebantur variis linguis brings it to a jubilant close as Tallis lets his hair down for once. Exquisite performances of the smaller In pace and Miserere nostri separate the two masses.
This disc captures Tallis’s elusive Englishness, being sung by a choir to which he once belonged, in the same way as the recording of his earliest Latin music by The Choir of Canterbury Cathedral (Metronome MET CD 1014), another in which he is known to have sung. All other recordings of Missa Puer natus est nobis have been by adult chamber choirs, such as the self-recommending Stile Antico (Harmonia Mundi HMU807517), but the best of those and the most intriguing version might be the very first, by The Clerkes of Oxenford (Calliope CAL 6623) which, besides seeming to penetrate to the soul of Tallis’s inspiration, also includes what can be retrieved and reconstructed of Tallis’s Credo, which is omitted from all other recordings. The current version of the Missa Puer natus est nobis by the Gentlemen of Hampton Court is unique in being sung by a liturgical choir which has the Mass in its repertory, and it is also superb in every detail: one of the great recordings of music by Tallis.
Richard Turbet
The London String Quartet
145:21 (2 CDs in a single jewel case)
hyperion CDA68221
This is the seventh in a series that on completion will be a complete cycle of the Haydn string quartets played by the London Haydn Quartet (Catherine Manson and Michael Gurevich [violins], John Crockatt [viola] and Jonathan Manson [cello]). The second of two sets originally issued with a dedication to the Esterháza violinist Johann Tost, the six quartets of opus 64 were composed in 1790, being the last Haydn produced before the first of his London visits. To the great Haydn scholar H C Robbins Landon they represent the composers’ ‘greatest single achievement’ of the period, being ‘six flawless masterpieces’ and I for one am not inclined to disagree. Like the previous set composed for Tost (op 54 and 55) they are characterised by the prominence of the first violin part, and in particular the frequent examples of high lying writing, for the playing of which Tost was apparently especially noted. The famous example here is of course the imitation of the song of the lark in the opening movement of the eponymous D-major quartet (no. 5). It is therefore odd to find Richard Wigmore’s note asserting that there is no evidence to suggest that the first violin part was designed with Tost in mind.
There are, however, many more equally remarkable features in these wonderful quartets. The invention throughout maintains a remarkably high level, suggesting that even as he approached high maturity as a composer Haydn was still probing and experimenting with new ideas. One notes for example the extensive use of chromaticism, not infrequently combined with contrapuntal writing, or the greater freedom of continuing to develop themes in the recapitulation of sonata form movements – a characteristic more usually associated with Mozart than Haydn – as in the opening Allego con brio of the G-major quartet (no. 4), where the further variation of the opening motif is actually more interesting than the development itself. Equally noteworthy are the sublime cantabile movements of the same quartet and the ‘Lark’, the first a hymn-like tune later lovingly embellished, the latter another ineffably lovely movement that moves from its opening serenity to explore darker regions.
That movement, played and phrased with quite exquisite sensitivity, is one of the highpoints of a set of performance notable above all for their consistent musicality, a musicality that throughout eschews extremes of dynamics and tempo. They are indeed performances that stand at the opposite pole to such as those of the Chiaroscuro Quartet, to whose attention-grabbing and excitingly insightful Haydn I have devoted several reviews on this site. That is certainly not intended as criticism of the London Haydn Quartet, though there are occasions when they might have made rather more of the composer’s dynamic contrasts. But there is certainly no lack of character, as the witty, fleet playing the Presto finale of the E-flat quartet (no. 6) or the Mendelssohnian lightness of touch and precise articulation of the final Vivace of the ‘Lark’ convincingly demonstrate.
The use of a set of parts from an 18th century edition by the London publisher Forster is curious, not least because the notes tell us nothing about it, not even its date. It is not among editions mentioned by Robbins Landon, who lists as an ‘authentic British edition’ only a publication of the quartets published by Bland in 1791. Obviously I have no means of comparing it with my version of the quartets (Dover). I did however note several instances where second half repeat indications of sonata form movements vary, for example in the Quartet in C (no. 1), where no repeat is called for at the end of the opening movement, but given here, while the final movement does call for one in the Dover score, but it is not given here.
Ultimately, of course, such things are of little concern, particularly in the face of such quietly rewarding performances, recorded with the same refreshing lack of ostentation that is a principal feature of the playing.
Brian Robins
Dorothee Mields, Isabel Schicketanz, David Erler, Georg Poplutz, Tobias Mäthger, Feliz Schwandtke SSATTB, Dresdner Kammerchor, Hans-Christoph Rademann
78:42
Carus 83.277
Volume 19 of Carus’s complete recording of Schütz’s music is an absolute cracker! From the cover, I had expected to hear the set of Italian madrigals that resulted after his first visit to Venice; instead, I got 15 German-language pieces ranging from two duets for alto and tenor with continuo, to more lavishly scored pieces like the glorious Ich beschwöre
Brian Clark
London Baroque
568:25 (8 CDs in a box)
BIS-9050
This boxed set of 8 CDs is so much more than the sum of its parts. Over forty years, London Baroque has accrued experience at playing Baroque trio sonatas which is probably without parallel. This set could so easily have been a celebration of this substantial back
D. James Ross
Anja Lechner violoncello, Pablo Márquez guitar
56:51
ECM New Series ECM 2555
This CD presents a selection of music by Schubert arranged for cello and guitar framed by three Nocturnes actually composed for cello and guitar by Schubert’s contemporary Friedrich Burgmüller. As Schubert himself played the guitar and there was a degree of flexibility about instrumentation at this time, it is perfectly conceivable that Schubert’s songs might have been presented in this way. The arrangement of the ‘Arpeggione Sonata’ is also very effective, and Anna Lechner’s cello fairly sings the lyrical Adagio as it does the Romanze from Schubert’s Rosamunde. The ECM New Series recordings are famous for their clarity and for making listeners rethink standard classics, but in my experience they are also notorious for their rather nebulous programme notes – a note which begins ‘Franz Schubert never felt inwardly secure’ is always going to tell you more about the writer than about the composer or the music. Here we could have done with more background about the prominence of the guitar in Viennese chamber music of this period rather than a lot of psychobabble. Notwithstanding, this is a very pleasant CD providing genuine insights into the music of Schubert, and providing a rare platform for the charming music of Friedrich Burgmüller.
D. James Ross
La Grande Chapelle, Albert Recasens
76:26
Lauda LAU018
This CD came as a real surprise to me. I had been familiar with the fine harpsichord music of the Catalan Padre Soler, which includes some flamboyant Fandangos and other distinctly Iberian dances. I should have guessed that he would also have written church music, but could hardly have anticipated the sort of music recorded here. Squarely-phrased and pre-classical in style, with full orchestral accompaniments including string orchestra, oboes, horns and flutes, and sections for solo voices alternating with episodes for full choir. Once I had got over my surprise, it gradually became apparent that this music was actually rather dull and predictable – somewhere between Vivaldi and early Haydn in style and lacking all the flair and élan of his keyboard music. La Grande Chapelle
D. James Ross
Mélodies, Vocalises & Chants by Gounod, Meifred & Gallay
Anneke Scott horn, Steven Devine piano
75:57
(Also Bordogni and Panseron)
With this CD and its very readable notes by Anneke Scott, we are dropped into the midst of the mid-19th-century Parisian debate about the relative merits of the natural and valved horn. Active as horn teachers in Paris were Joseph-Emile Meifred and Jaques-Francois Gallay, the former represented here by a set of
D. James Ross