Categories
Recording

Bach: Matthäus-Passion

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Hannah Morrison, Sophie Harmsen, Tilman Lichdi (Evangelist & arias), Peter Harvey, Christian Immler (Jesus), Kammerchor Stuttgart, Barockorchester Stuttgart, Frieder Bernius
164:28 (3 CDs in a box)
Carus 82.285 (also 82.286 SACDs in Digibook)

[dropcap]I[/dropcap] do not find this a particularly vivid or colourful performance, though it is very polished. The two cori (16 voices and 14 respectively) and the two orchestras (4.3.2.1.1 strings in each) sound indistinguishable, so that our identification with coro II in O Schmerz, for example is weakened. The soloists are just that – they sing the arias of both cori, but sing in neither coro the rest of the time. The rather indistinct photograph on p.17 of the accompanying booklet shows the cori in a single semi-circle with no visible break, and the two orchestras equally welded together, with the Evangelist and Jesus standing out in front in what is clearly a live performance.

The booklet has been edited sloppily: at the foot of p. 22 there is no reference to a fagotto or organo, nor a liuto in orchestra I as it does in Orchestra II, all of which are clearly audible in orchestra I, where a lute plays continuo with the organ accompanying the Evangelist. Are there two violas da gamba, lutes and fagotti, or is one of each shared between the orchestras, like the solo singers? More importantly, where is the evidence that a lute was used in this (1736) version of the Matthew? This together with the heavy bass line – a 16’ is present in the Evangelist’s accompaniment as well as in arias like 6: Buß und Reu  – produces a rather slow-paced narrative.

In Kuhnau’s time as Cantor, the lute was a regular part of the continuo group (Laurence Dreyfus: Bach’s Continuo Group  (Harvard, 1987), pp171/2), but the Trauerode is the only place where Bach specifies the lute as a continuo instrument. There is the brief obbligato part in Betrachte  in the Johannes-Passion, and in Raphäel Pichon’s recording of the reconstructed Funeral Music for Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Cöthen  (BWV 244a) (reviewed in EMR November 2014), the lute was entrusted with the obligato gamba part from the parodied Komm süßes Kreuz  from the Matthew Passion, but I am not convinced. Is there evidence for wider use?

Worse, on p.2 where the soloists are listed, the bass arias are given to Peter Harvey while Jesus is sung by Christian Immler; yet on p. 22 when all the musical resources are given, Harvey is listed as Jesus, and p.23 has Immler singing the arias. This is not the case: it is Harvey singing the arias. This kind of mistake should not have slipped through.

Tempi are pretty moderate – this performance runs to three CDs – and there is a good deal of carefully managed rubato within phrases in the arias, so there is plenty of breathing space; sometimes this leads to an actual change of tempo, as in the middle section of 8: Blute nur  for example. Hannah Morrison, the soprano, is quite excellent – a lovely clear voice, with beautiful phrasing especially in 13: Ich will dir mein Herze schenken  – and as always it is a joy to have Peter Harvey, the most musical of all Bach singers, though adding a 16’ and a lute to the continuo line in 57: Komm süßes Kreuz  as well as the gamba and organ makes the ensemble less flexible as well as thickening the translucent sound. The alto, Sophie Harmsen, is less of a HIP specialist with a more marked vibrato than the others, and often sings more dramatically, as in 51: Erbarm es Gott  and 59: Ach Golgotha. The Evangelist is sung by Tilman Lichdi, who sings the tenor arias of both cori as well. He has a beguiling voice, and it all sounds very smooth and well articulated. I missed the jangle of the great F# major chord of a decent-sized organ tuned pretty mean in the middle of the Blitze und Donner  that introduces the fiery furnace of hell as well as the distinctive sesquialtera with the cantus firmus, whose articulation is managed better in the slowly-paced opening chorus than in O Mensch, bewein.

Small ‘character parts’ are excellently sung by members of the cori (but sometimes singing in the wrong choir!), though sounding a little distant. The choral sound is smooth and singerly, but it doesn’t have the slightly rawer edge that you might expect of a choir that is influenced by the sound of the period instruments, as Bernius claims to be after in the booklet. This may partly be due to the rather boomy acoustics of the church where this was recorded last March (clearly a different venue than the more concert-hall set-up where the photo of the live performance was taken.) But then this choir sings music from the 17th to the 21st centuries and is not in that sense a specialist HIP coro. What does come out clearly is the attention given to projecting the words with clarity and intelligence, and this is a hall-mark of this performance.

As far as the new (2012) Carus edition is concerned, there is insufficient detail in the (shortened) version of Andreas Glöckner’s note on Bach’s ‘great passion’ to be clear about the differences from the NBA. My own experience of using the Carus parts for the cantatas is that some of the phrasing seems to be taken directly from the old Bach-Gesellschaft and has not been informed by recent scholarship. When a music publisher sponsors a recording using a new edition, it would be good practice to know what major editorial decisions have been taken and why, as was the case with Hans-Christoph Rademann’s B minor Mass  with the Freiburger Barockorchester, using the new Carus edition, reviewed in August 2015. With reference to the layout, there is a tantalising reference in Glöckner’s note to the putting in order of the ‘swallow’s nest’ organ in 1727, the instrument in the gallery high at the east end of the nave, and he suggests that Bach may have put his ripieno soprano line there, while the two main choirs and orchestras performed side by side in the west gallery.

This is a luxuriant performance, with the text clearly understood and well-presented. The sound is beautifully produced and it is difficult to fault the overall conception. There are some matters that will not pass muster judged on the strictest HIP criteria, including the lute, and I find the whole sound a bit too smooth. But it is a powerful presentation and would woo anyone unsure as to whether they might like period instruments, but likes their Bach caressed reverentially yet with fervour.

David Stancliffe

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Categories
Recording

Fischer: Uranie

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Elisabeth Joyé harpsichord & organ
66:00
Encelade ECL1402

[dropcap]J.[/dropcap] S. Bach’s liking for the works of Fischer was attested to by his son C. P. E. Bach. The long-lived Fischer died aged 90 just four years before J. S. Bach. Born in Bohemia he spent most of his life in the service of the Margrave of Baden in Rastatt. This collection of suites and pieces for harpsichord, as well as preludes, fugues and ricercars for organ, shows his mastery of the various styles prevalent between the publication of his Pièces de Clavessin  in 1696 and his Musikalischer Parnassus  in 1636. The harpschord suites are very French in style, with the usual collection of dance movements; there is also an impressive passacaglia, a couple of chaconnes and a set of variations. The organ preludes and fugues are short and undeveloped but there is a more extended and satisfying chaconne played on the organ, as well as a festive Ricercar for Easter. Joyé plays on a copy of a Fleisher 1720 harpsichord by Philippe Humeau and a baroque German-style organ made by Quentin Blumenroeder, both full-bodied instruments which fit the music very well and are sympathetically recorded. She manages the contrast between the stricter and more improvised forms very well and proves an excellent advocate for Fischer’s music.

Noel O’Regan

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Categories
Sheet music

Domenico Campisi: Lilia Campi a 2, 3, 4, 5 e 6 voci (1627)

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Critical Edition by Daniela Calcamo, Daniele Cannavò, Maria Rosa De Luca. Introduction by Maria Rosa De Luca
Musiche Rinascimentali siciliane, vol. 26
Leo S. Olschki: 2015 xxxiv + 88 pp. €44.00
ISBN 978 88 222 6420 6

[dropcap]D[/dropcap]omenico Campisi, a long forgotten early 17th-century Sicilian composer and a Dominican monk of Palermo, was rediscovered in the 19th century thanks to abbott Fortunato Santini, who found and copied parts of the 1627 Roman print (Masotti) of his fifth book of motets, Lilia Campi. Complete prints are found in separate part-books in the Santini-Bibliothek in Munich and in the Civico Museo Bibliografico in Bologna. The title plays on the composer’s surname. We do not know for certain who he was: he may have been a Giuseppe Campisi, baptized in Regalbuto in 1588. Of his other collections of sacred motets (1615, 1618, 1622 and 1623), three of which were published in Palermo, only one, a Roman print (Robletti) of 1622, has come to light. Dominican documents show that he already had his bachelor’s degree in theology by 1622, and his promotion to a master’s degree was approved in 1629 in recognition of his musical accomplishments. He is listed, with others of the Barberini circle, in the bibliographical catalogue Apes Urbanae  (in honour of Pope Urban VIII) of 1632 by Leone Allacci, which may suggest that he was also active in Rome.

The introduction and critical apparatus are in Italian only, and while the first is valuable reading for the musical, historical and geographical context, it is not particularly relevant to the composer or this work, nor is there specific information about influences on Campisi. So the English reader is really not losing essential information, as the music speaks for itself.
The 22 motets are short (25 to 50 bars of breves), easy, verging on homophonic, and with a figured continuo. They can be performed by single voices or small choirs. Those with more voices present more contrapuntal play between voices that enter and those that accompany. Five are for two voices, seven for three, five a4, four a5  and one a6. Correct modern spelling and punctuation of the Latin texts precede the musical annotations. Their sources are given (the 1592 Vulgate, the Dominican 1603 Breviarum…, and the 1604 Missale), but no translations.

Three musicologists shared the editing, doing seven or eight motets each, as well as working together. As far as I can tell without seeing more than the one page provided in facsimile of the Canto part of the first motet, they are fairly faithful transcriptions, but not sufficiently well-edited. Caveat emptor/musicus!  Original errors in the print have escaped attention; most of the editorial accidentals are convincing though a few are surely incorrect, and the need for others (for consistency or to weigh in on ambiguities) was not appreciated; some accidentals “preserved” in this, the first ever modern edition, appeared originally, as often happens in prints, in front of notes they weren’t intended for (e.g. bar 20 of the Canto 1° of Beati qui habitant  in the facsimile, the sharp on the f’ was probably meant for the e’ two notes later, confirming that it is no longer lowered); the original continuo figures from the organ part are supplemented in brackets, but are not always corrected, realigned, or noted where wrong, which may be misleading. It is hard to fathom why the occasional wrong notes or figures in the original did not trigger more editorial intervention, because users of a modern edition expect such a beautifully printed score to be thoroughly proofread!

I have a question for the editors. Did Masotti not use demisemiquaver (32nd note) figures? From the facsimile page one can see that his movable characters include two styles sometimes used indiscriminately for semiquavers (16th notes): the little open 2 or the tiny closed 3 hugging the note-stem, the latter of which was, in fact, a 32nd. The mixture is just curious enough to make me wonder if the dot you removed from a quaver in bar 24 of Beati  served to make the following pair of quick notes into demisemiquavers, and if pairs of ‘semiquavers’ where the two note forms happen to alternate were perhaps meant to be sung unequally?

I take this occasion to encourage Olschki and other music publishers to print more music per page, with narrower bars and staves. We do not need an inch between minims where these are syllables of a word, and it is actually harder to read the words and phrase the music if we can only see two bars of the score per line… sometimes only one! I read somewhere that the human eye can only focus in the center of the retina, and therefore we spend most of the time reading music looking up and down, right and left, in order to gather and consign to short-term memory what we have to look around to see. Of course, there’s the sorry option of photocopying to reduce the size to a format more practical to perform from. At least the present edition is not too heavy for a music stand, and in Ego flos campi  (another reference to the composer?) Olschki easily got three systems (21 staves) per page. That print size would have been better from page one.

Barbara Sachs

Categories
Book

Roberto Pagano: Alessandro e Domenico Scarlatti – Due vite in una

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Vol. I xxx+532pp, Vol. II (Abbreviations and Indices) vii+119pp.
LIM, 2015. ISBN: 9788870968101. €50

[dropcap]W[/dropcap]hat follows is a preliminary response rather than a thorough review, let alone a comparative one of the new publication respect to the previous one. The earlier editions of Roberto Pagano’s greatest work, the culmination of 40 years of research, are already known to interested Italian and English readers. Sadly, Pagano passed away last July 13, only a few weeks before LIM issued his re-revised dual biography of Alessandro and Domenico Scarlatti. Reviews, some polemical, of the 1985 and 2006 editions, can be found online, which induces me, instead of covering any of the same ground, to describe the new format and to translate some of Pagano’s prefatory remarks.

The Bibliography and the Index, both formatted in detailed tables, now occupy a separate, smaller volume, ideal for carrying to a library, or for browsing topics, works, names, events, and subjects discussed in the text or footnotes (which are on the appropriate pages of the text). Under the author’s name 17 of his publications on the Scarlattis between 1969 and 2015 are cited. Under ‘A. Scarlatti’ and ‘D. Scarlatti’ one finds five and seven pages respectively of references to works, events, historical hypotheses, motives, opinions, and important discussions in the book.

The original dual biography, Scarlatti: Alessandro e Domenico. Due vite in una  was published 1985. Twenty years later the first revision was made for the English translation by Frederick Hammond: Alessandro and Domenico Scarlatti – Two Lives in One  (Pendragon Press, 2006). Thanks to Hammond, a Scarlatti scholar in his own right, English readers have access to a version updated only ten years ago. To readers of either previous edition Pagano now explicitly points out new findings or new deductions that affect his original conclusions. He also answers his critics again. New readers may be somewhat distracted by these work-in-progress ‘flashbacks’, but they are valuable, if only because so much general Scarlatti research, still in print and circulating, has turned out to be incorrect.

In 2006 Pagano still surmised, as Kirkpatrick had done, that Antonio Soler (1729-1783), who had been apprenticed with Domenico, was possibly the main scribe of the large Venice and Parma codices of Domenico’s sonatas. This hypothesis has now been modified, reluctantly, by the research (2012) of Águeda Pedrero Encabo (in favour of the copyist Joseph [José] Alaguero), though the new discussion includes convincing evidence for Soler’s involvement in supervising the copying of the two collections, and also in making copies of other sonatas, possibly realized from various types of shorthand, such as keyboard tablature or continuo notation, or indeed by dictation, while hearing them improvised or played by Domenico. This information comes from Soler’s testimony to that effect in his Llave del la Modulación, along with his reason for not writing double sharps (e.g. writing G instead of #[#]F), which he said Scarlatti did not use.

Pagano wrote the entries on both Scarlattis in the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians  of 2001. After the second version of his book he wrote an article for Early Music  xxxvi/3 (2008), ‘The Two Scarlatti’, which began:

First of all I am surprised to find unnoticed an important element of my biographical hypothesis, openly announced in the title of my book: the complementarity of the human and artistic lives of the two Scarlattis. It is impossible to re-examine in detail here their parallel biographical trajectory, but the most recent discoveries make even clearer Domenico’s metamorphosis after the death of his father; the year of black-out and sickness following Alessandro’s death is highly significant and his subsequent development arose from impulses that combined emulation with a desire for identification…

Other important contributions between the middle and final versions of the biography are found in the Rivista Italiana di Musicologia, XLI, 2006/2, in Domenico Scarlatti: Musica e Stori a (Turchini Edizioni, 2010), in Studi musicali  XXXVIII/I 2009, and in Devozione e Passione: Alessandro Scarlatti nella Napoli e Roma Barocca  (Turchini Edizioni, 2014).

All the above and more is in the present posthumous edition. The twists and turns of Pagano’s Italian are extremely challenging, even to Italian readers, and a distinct pleasure at the same time. A quote from his preface (p. xiv) will give not only a taste of his style and standpoint, but of the task of a biographer as he saw it:

Forty years ago, while writing Alessandro Scarlatti’s biography, I happened to bring to light certain aspects of his personality that tarnish his halo as the saint at the head of the controversial Neapolitan School, a gallery of myths. It is always risky to swim against the current in the streams of tradition: the few remarks made about my efforts by generous and illustrious reviewers mainly concerned my suggested resizing of the image of a boss whom evidently all would have liked to continue to see as a long-bearded God-father, eternally intent at radiating benevolent influence on relatives and disciples.

When… Malcolm Boyd declared… that my judgment on the disparity between [A. Scarlatti’s] artistic merit and human weaknesses… was in contradiction with everything I had narrated about the musician, I, in turn, was thunderstruck, because I continue to believe – and this book ought to finally make it clear – that all the elements of that biography contribute to reveal the fragility of the man: a fragility rooted in that very Sicily that I am certain to know better than others, as Boyd himself was loyally to admit [in 1986] when he saw in my new book a happy combination of “scientific accuracy” and “profound knowledge of Sicilian history and culture”, judging me absolutely “without rivals” in my knowledge of the Sicilian “psyche”.

(My translation)

It goes without saying that the new edition ought to be translated into English, an enterprise which would take quite a while to realize. For now I’d recommend a compromise for English readers: have both the 2006 Frederick Hammond version and the 2015 final version, and use the fabulous new index to update the information in the former as needed. Enjoy what you can of Pagano’s interpretive dialogue with his readers, whom he invites to engage with his methods, both rigorous and imaginative.

Barbara Sachs

Categories
Recording

Bach au marimba

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Trio SR9
51:44
naïve V5426

I have written many reviews of music on instruments which Bach might not have expected to hear, but – much as I, of course, recognise the wealth of talent brought to this project by the three members of Trio SR9 – here, for once, I am obliged to recognize that some of the music (for me at least) just does not work on marmimba(s). I suppose it has something to do with reverberation and the “hanging around” of sound which causes overtones to intermingle, especially in what one might call the “tenor register”, and the delay in the bass notes actually speaking adds to an overall sensation of aural confusion.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vex4Y2eC4Es

If nothing else, Bach’s music is designed in such a way that the voices are an immediate and direct reaction to one another, and, if the dialogue is disturbed or even diffused, then the fabric will begin to disintegrate. Now, I am not suggesting for a moment that this programme of fine music lacks either form or indeed quality; quite the reverse. However, for me, much as I truly respect the talents of these musicians, much as I love Bach, and much as I love the tone of the marimba in other music, I’m afraid the number of tracks I actually enjoyed was smaller than the numbers where my ears sought in vain for harmonic points of reference, so I am afraid I can only advise readers of this review that they should try to find it on a listening post somewhere and try before they buy.

Brian Clark

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Categories
Recording

Bach: Violin Concertos

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Cecilia Bernardini violin, Huw Daniel violin, Alfredo Bernardini oboe, Dunedin Consort, John Butt
59:00
Linn Records CKD 519
BWV1041-43, 1060R, 21 (sinfonia)

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]his is a fabulous recording of some of my favourite music; Cecilia and Alfredo Bernardini (daughter and father) duet beautifully in the oboe and violin concerto (though I would have welcomed even more freedom of ornamentation, and not only in the slow movement where they do begin to come out of their shells, albeit in slightly different ways), while Huw Daniel matches Bernardini in every way in the “double concerto” (here again I long for the day when the beautiful theme undergoes more imaginative transformations as the slow movement progresses), and she is absolutely flawless in the two solo concertos, bringing a new clarity to the double-stopping string crossing in the final movement of the E major, and imbuing the long notes in the A minor’s middle movement with varying colours. Every note has clearly been thought out in advance but the trick is keeping everything fresh sounding so that the listener is unaware of all that hard work. I have yet to hear a recording by John Butt that is not utterly convincing; with his 22111 Dunedins, he has struck gold once again – this goes straight to the top of my pile for rainy days when I need cheering up! (As an aside, I hadn’t noticed with Linn releases before, but the booklet is only in English; is it unfair of us as reviewers to complain that foreign CDs only come in their native language if domestic companies don’t go that extra mile for their fans overseas?)

Brian Clark

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Categories
Recording

Daniel Speer: Kriegsgeschichten

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Markus Miesenberger, Ars Antiqua Austria, Gunar Letzbor
51:26
Pan Classics PC 10317

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]his is the first of two planned discs to explore Speer’s 1688 “Musicalisch-Türkischcher Eulen-Spiegel”, a musical settings of stories from a semi-autobiographical novel. In creating two concert programmes, Gunar Letzbor has chosen to combine war stories with sonatas for brass, and love stories with sonatas for strings (to appear in 2017). So there are various elements to the programme: Lompyn (the hero of the tale) sings songs, sandwiched between two “ballets” (as in dance movements, not the art form) of different national styles (cossacks, Poles, Muscovites, Greeks, Hungarians, Wallachians); between each set we have the brass sonatas (essentially rather simple, given the limited tonal capabilities of the instruments – 2 trumpets and 3 trombones, here with continuo), the sequence rounded off with three movements for strings. The cartoon illustrations in the booklet suggest that the project was aimed at a younger audience, and the singer’s approach to the texts would tend to support this impression, since at times he is virtually talking the words; if you are not a German speaker, it will be irrelevant anyway, since – as well as omitting the brass players’ names (at least, as far as I can see!), the booklet has no translation of the texts). If the CD was produced purely to be sold at performances (and why should it not? musicians need to make a living from their hard work), I wonder that the record company felt it should do on international release, especially with only minimal attention to what foreign audiences might make of such a peculiarity.

Brian Clark

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Recording

Graziani: Cantatas, op. 25

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Consortium Carissimi, Garrick Comeaux
71:05
Naxos 8.573257

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]his recording dates from 2014 and was intended to mark the 350th anniversary of the composer’s death. The full title of op. 25 is Musiche sagre e morali composte ad una, due, tre e quattro voci (published in 1678, 14 years after his death!), and for this project Consortium Carissimi have mustered four sopranos, and one each of mezzo, tenor and bass, as well as an archlute and theorbo (two players), viola da gamba, sackbut, harpsichord and organ (two players). Having been enthusiastic about their latest CD (also of Graziani), I’m afraid I must resort to type here; I simply do not but the idea of an ever-changing continuo soundscape, and I’m afraid the voices (especially – sorry, ladies – the sopranos) do not blend particularly well, especially when a leap from or to a high note is involved, and there are times when tuning becomes a serious concern, which is a pity as some of the music has the potential to be truly beautiful. Hopefully as their exploration of Graziani’s music progresses these issues will be addressed.

Brian Clark

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Categories
Recording

Vivaldi: Concerti e Sinfonie per archi e continuo

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L’Archicembalo
65:26
Tactus TC 672259

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he thirteen works on this recording are organised by key; after four pieces in C (two each in major and minor modes), there are two in D (one each), one in F, five in G (one and four respectively!) and one in B minor. The strings of this small period instrument group (22111) play stylishly, with bouncing basses (perhaps a little too much violone?), and I have to confess that I was only not entirely happy with the slow movements, where the harpsichord has too much time on her hands and starts adding distractive countermelodies (try Track 2, for example); this may, in fact, be how they were performed, but I’ve always imagined that Vivaldi the supremo violinist would be filling in any gaps, not the continuo player… That reservation aside, this is a fine survey of this part of the composer’s output, and the contrapuntal movements are especially worthy of exploration (try Track 7 for a taster).

Brian Clark

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Categories
Recording

Bach: Suite BWV997, Trio Sonatas BWV525, 526, 529

Floral design

Lorenzo Cavasanti recorder/transverse flute  Sergio Ciomei harpsichord/organ
51:20
Dynamic CDS 7739

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]hree of the works on this recording are better known as organ trio sonatas; there have been several attempts to “recover lost originals”, using all sorts of instrumental combinations, and this is no different, since each of the three uses a different line-up (in BWV525 they use flute and harpsichord, 526 flute and organ, and 529 recorder and harpsichord); the latter instrumentation is also used for the duo’s transcription of the lute suite BWV997. Although the pair play most stylishly throughout, I found the timbre of the flute and treble organ stop too close for comfort; the combination of recorder and harpsichord was far more successful. I love the repertoire and was impressed by these interpretations of it.

Brian Clark

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