early music review

Chantal Santon-Jeffrey & Daniela Skorka dessus, Mathias Vidal & Jeffrey Thompson haute-contre, Alain Buet basse-taille, Purcell Choir, Orfeo Orchestra, Győrgy Vashegyi
96:07 (2 CDs in a wallet)
Glossa GCD 923508
Cantate Domino, De Profundis, Magnus Dominus, Nisi Dominus

[dropcap]M[/dropcap]ondonville’s grands motet s are just wonderful – core repertoire at the Concert Spirituel  in his day and steadily gaining ground in ours. Cantate Domino  is here recorded for the first time. It begins with a well-crafted chorus of which Handel would have been proud and continues with a duet and a series of solo récits before a fine sequence of ensembles and choruses conclude matters. These performers have a strong record in French Baroque repertoire and maintain their standard here. The chorus is a little larger and therefore less focussed than would have been ideal but almost everything else is as good as one might hope for. I just long for the day when lady soloists don’t feel they have to try so hard.

David Hansell

Apollo’s Fire Baroque Orchestra, Jeannette Sorrell
63:42
Avie AV2361

[dropcap]S[/dropcap]alamone Rossi’s worked as a musician in Mantua, though without regular positions. He produced nine books of madrigals between 1589 to 1628 and one sacred publication of Hebrew psalms, Hashirim asher lish’lomo. I first reviewed the Hebrew Psalms around 1995.

I presume that Rossi followed the normal Mantuan approach of singing one-to-a-part. It is now known that Monteverdi had only ten singers, which is fine for double-choir music. The booklet even has a paragraph from Leon Modena in 1605, recommending ten singers. The director has used her own choir, using chosen good singers (6442) and four soloists (SSTB), as well as well as 12 players, mostly playing more than one instrument. I get the feeling that Jeannette is doing her own thing. This didn’t strike me as a well-explored performance, but if she wants to do exotic music, she should get people with experience. This is even more “pseudo” than her last CD – get back to doing the Baroque that you do so well!

Clifford Bartlett

The Bach Players
55:17
Hyphen Press Music 009
Music by Böddecker, Froberger, Marini, Schmelzer, Valentini & Weckmann

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he Bach Players take us on a fascinating tour of the back streets and byways of Baroque music in this engaging CD, although as the note points out the prevailing view of the Baroque as a period of secondary composers from whom steps now and again a giant like Handel, Vivaldi or J. S. Bach is long overdue reconsideration. In their signature uncompromising performance style combining considerable musicality and virtuosity, the six instrumentalists give us the best of Giovanni Valentini, Froberger, Schmelzer, Weckmann and Marini, composers some of whose music I had already heard as well as Philipp Friedrich Böddecker of whom I haven’t knowingly heard at all. The performers take advantage of a crystal clear recording to pour energy and life into these works, which may be regarded as ‘mainstream Baroque’ but which in the hands of The Baroque Players truly spring to life. I was particularly delighted by the radiant tone of the dulcian and the cornettino, but all of the instruments are played and captured in their full radiance. It seems that like programme planners drawing on later repertoire, devisers of Baroque programmes are all too often dazzled by the big names into neglecting the Frobergers and Marinis of this world, and this CD serves as a useful antidote to this. We have all we need here – excellent performances, vividly recorded, full and detailed programme notes and a bright cover to catch the eye!

D. James Ross

Roberta Invernizzi, Laboratorio ‘600
106:20 (2 CDs in wallet)
Glossa GCD 922903

[dropcap]A[/dropcap]lessandro Della Ciaia (c1605-c1670) seems to have composed these nine Lamentations for a community of nuns in Siena, though they were published in Venice in 1650. The music is for solo soprano and continuo only – a huge challenge for the singer. I can only think of one person who might do a better job than Roberta Invernizzi though even she might ultimately be defeated by the fact that the music just isn’t that great – I’m afraid I don’t share the essay writer’s enthusiasm. However, his writing is informative, though I find it odd that a booklet with notes in four languages only translates the sung (Latin) text into one of them.

Brian Clark

Anne Schumann violin, Sebastian Knebel harpsichord, Ensemble “Fürsten-Musik”
77:41
cpo 777 998-2
op. 1 & two concertos in G from manuscript + BWV 592a, 982, 987

[dropcap]M[/dropcap]usic formed part of most German princes’ education in the 18th century, but little of their music drew wider attention than that of their respective courts. The very fact that no less than J. S. Bach saw fit to transcribe at least four of Johann Ernst’s concertos for keyboards has given the latter’s music some sort of kudos, and these lively performances by Anne Schumann and the Ensemble “Fürsten-Musik” were the perfect way to mark the 300th anniversary of the prince’s death (2015). Manfred Fechner’s detailed booklet essay tells us that the arrangements were actually made at the young prince’s own request – Bach was then employed as organist in Weimar; Walther, who also made arrangements of concertos for organ, was the prince’s harpsichord teacher! If the opening piece on the programme could have been written by any one of a dozen German imitators of Vivaldi, the second (the fourth of six concertos from the prince’s op. 1 set – engraved by Telemann! how well connected was this ill-fated prince, who would die aged 18, only a few months later…) is in a different league, with a bold, ear-catching opening and plenty of virtuosic display to follow (all of it comfortably despatched by Schumann, of course!), so it is no surprise that it is one of the concertos Bach transcribed (as BWV987). Two other Bach transcriptions (BWV592a and 982) are included on the disc, and a fourth (BWV984, based on another concerto by the prince, whose original version has not survived) is available on the internet. Having heard the music played so stylishly on strings, though, I found the keyboard versions less satisfying. Following the example of one of the manuscript sources, the solo violin is accompanied by two “violini principali” and two “violini ripieni”, who only play in tutti sections. For those who like to know such things, the bottom string parts are played on basse de violon (concertos 1, 4 and 6) or violoncello (the rest) and violone in D (1, 2, 4 and 6) or violone in G (the remainder). The balance is beautifully managed throughout. Yet again, cpo and these enterprising and wondefully talented musicians fill in another vital gap in our knowledge!

Brian Clark

Le Concert Brisé
68:19
Accent ACC24302

[dropcap]W[/dropcap]orking in the first half of the 17th century, Scheidemann was primarily an improviser on the keyboard, so as the programme note points out what we have of his music are only fragments which he decided to write down. The present recording is a further remove as it presents mainly arrangements of Scheidemann’s keyboard musings on the work of his contemporaries Hassler, Bassano, Michael Praetorius, Lassus and Dowland. After an ear-grabbing organ Praeambulum, organist Jean-Christophe Leclere is joined by a succession of instrumentalists from the Concert singly, in pairs and trios, for performances he originally wrote for organ or harpsichord. After overcoming the initial question of why the performers have chosen this mode of performance when Scheidemann clearly had a solo keyboard in mind, the arrangements with their scampering violin, cornet and recorder are generally pleasantly effective. The Italian Baroque organ plays very much a supporting role, remaining on pretty colourless and sometimes overly wheezy stops, while the solo instruments take the limelight. Scheidemann seems a bit of a chameleon, taking on the character of the wide range of composers he uses as models. Particularly unusual are the concluding three dance variations, but then we should bear in mind that they were devised by Scheidemann for harpsichord so part of the peculiarity undoubtedly lies in the arrangements. Nevertheless Scheidemann shines through as a musician of imagination and originality, and the CD serves as a useful reminder that organist/composers up to and including the great J. S. Bach were admired in their lifetimes chiefly for their ability to improvise, of which only scant evidence has survived.

D. James Ross

The Brook Street Band
76:10
Avie AV2357
HWV339, 386a, 392–394, 403 + “Esther”

[dropcap]A[/dropcap]n absolute cracker of a disc! The Brook Street Band have here assembled a selection of ‘additional’ trio sonatas, unpublished in Handel’s lifetime, ranging in date from his early years in Hamburg to the late 1730’s in London. They give a fascinating picture of the development of his musical style, from his tremendously energetic and harmonically adventurous youth, to the suave and seemingly effortless structures of his maturity. I particularly enjoyed the opening ‘Sinfonia’ (only published in 1979), with its echoes of Almira  in the extended hectic first movement, followed by a noble Adagio, with the violins dissonantly duetting over an ostinato bass, and finishing with a lively gigue-like Allegro. Turning then to the closing Saul  sonata, one hears how the early harmonic and rhythmic angularities are smoothed into pithy, closely argued and yet crystal-clear formal perfection. On the way, there are (as often with Handel) glimpses of many other works – the cadential figure of the opening movement of HWV 392 has an uncanny resemblance to that of ‘Where’er you walk’, for example.

The Brook Street Band have the full measure of this splendid music. Their tuning is spot-on, allowing searing dissonance to resolve into honeyed thirds, they enjoy to the full Handel’s rhythmic exuberance (e. g., the playful fugal second movement of HWV 392), and they provide an immense range of appropriate tonal colour. Additionally, and crucially, they understand perfectly Handel’s unique sense of dramatic rhetoric, which suffuses the entire disc.

The recording is completed and complemented by cellist Tatty Theo’s excellent and scholarly notes.

One to be treasured!

Alastair Harper