Categories
Recording

Greene: Jephtha

CD cover Greene Jephtha Early Opera Company Curnyn

Early Opera Company, conducted by Christian Curnyn
99:22 (2 CDs)
Chandos CHSA0408(2)

The story of Jephtha and his rash vow to sacrifice the first person from his household he encounters on his return from battle if God will support his military action is known in music chiefly through the brief, but renowned 17th century oratorio by Carissimi (c.1648) and Handel’s eponymous final oratorio composed in 1751. To them can be added the version composed by Maurice Greene, the leading English composer during much of the period Handel was domiciled in London. Greene’s Jephtha appeared in 1737, but exact details of its earliest performance(s) remain shrouded in mystery. In his notes, Peter Lynan, who produced the edition used in the present performance, dismisses the theory that Jephtha was first given at the King’s Theatre during Lent 1737, no evidence for a public performance existing until its modern revival in 1997.

As with Handel’s setting, Greene’s libretto was the work of a clergyman, John Hoadley. However, the inexperienced Hoadley’s book is poor stuff compared with Thomas Morell’s, couched in stilted verse – ‘It is decreed, And I must bleed’ – and clumsily constructed. It also lacks any hint of the kind of dramatic element achieved by Morell’s fleshing out of the basic story with additional characters, while supplying a redemptive conclusion in which Jephtha’s daughter is dedicated to rather than sacrificed to God. Greene’s Jephtha is written for just four characters: Jephtha himself, his unnamed daughter (Iphis in the Handel) and two Elders of Gilead, the first a bass, the second a tenor. Like most oratorios of the period, it is cast in two parts (or acts; Handel’s is in three) and of course there is a substantial role for the chorus, Curnyn’s here being one of the successes of the performance. Like much else in the score, they cannot totally escape the taunt so often levelled at Greene that he was merely a lesser Handel. As so often with such lazy labels, there is plenty of evidence that the Englishman was his own man and we might at times more advantageously look back to Purcell. I’d suggest as an example the chorus that ends Part 1, ‘God of Hosts’. Here the reiterated war-like cries of ‘strike, strike’ have a distinctly Purcellian flavour. The final chorus is interesting, too. Since there is no redemption, the daughter’s death will happen, but unlike the sublimely tragic and bitterly chromatic chorus that concludes Carissimi’s Jephte, Greene’s follows a broad, throbbing course that is not so much tragic as understated, while reaching a peroration of real beauty. It is somehow very English.

Thanks are certainly owed to Christian Curnyn and his Early Opera Company forces for this first recording. Sadly, such gratitude must be tempered with the conclusion that Curnyn’s performance is lacking the kind of persuasive qualities needed to revive such a work. His direction overall is prosaic and lacking dramatic purpose. Too often tempos are sluggish and although the orchestral playing is neat and tidy it lacks spirit, while the almost certainly spurious inclusion of a theorbo in the continuo is greatly exacerbated by the narcissistic inclination of the player to be heard as clearly as possible as often as possible. The best of the soloists is the First Elder of bass Michael Mofidian, splendidly vibrant and producing some impressive low notes. Andrew Staples’s Jephtha is neatly and reasonably stylishly sung, but his lyric tenor is too small to convey the authority of the character, who was a renowned war leader. Mary Bevan’s Daughter lacks control in the upper register, though she is affecting in her beautiful final air, ‘Let me awhile defer my Fate’, with, to this listener at least, its affinity with Handel’s ravishing duet ‘As steals the morn’ from L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato, which postdates Greene’s Jephtha by three years.

Even if it cannot match the Handel, one of his greatest creations, Greene’s Jephtha contains much fine music and if we ever start to place some value on our 18th-century English musical heritage, it will doubtless occupy a valued place.

Brian Robins

Categories
Recording

Maria: Josquin in Leipzig

CD cover amarcord Maria Josquin in Leipzig

amarcord
80:25
Raumklang RK AP 10124

Before I listened to this fabulous recording, I hadn’t realised how much I miss the music of Josquin. My first encounter (after a cursory introduction in my first year at St Andrews, when it all sounded terribly dry and dull) was the Hilliard Ensemble’s Reflexe tape (remember them?!) that opened – as does the present recital – with his gorgeous setting of Ave Maria, gratia plena. By the time I’d made it to fourth year, this was set as one of the test pieces in my “musical paleography” exam, which, trust me, was what we now call “a challenge”…

Amarcord’s performances are anything but a challenge; the voices blend beautifully and the recorded sound is rounded and crisp, capturing the natural decay of cadences before the composer’s next masterstroke is delivered.

Although I bought several, I was never taken by the mass recordings by The Tallis Scholars. I suspect that has more to do with having seen them perform and watching someone “conduct” two singers and not being able to get that out of my mind. Here, amarcord can interact freely with one another so that we hear Josquin, rather than someone’s interpretation of Josquin.

An interesting difference between the Hilliards and amarcord is their approach to ficta (the application of accidentals that are not in the original notation but may have been understood and applied by singers of the time). Especially at cadences, our modern ears “expect” a sharpened leading note if the bass note is what in our terms is the dominant of the “home key”. Applying that principle, the Hilliards sharpened many more notes than amarcord, but I cannot say for sure which version I prefer.

It is also a definite bonus to hear Ave Maria twice, the second time with its contrafactum text Verbum incarnatum , taken from a manuscript that is today held at the State Library in Berlin. Like the other manuscripts upon which the project is based, its origins lie in Leipzig; although there is no record of Josquin ever visiting the city, the rising popularity of printed music at the thrice-annual book fairs brought his music to Germany, where it was widely copied and performed. Other contrafacta on the recording include some of the composer’s secular chansons. Full marks to Raumklang, too, for the high-quality booklet; the informative essay, full translations of the texts, and a selection of magnificent illustrations from the sources.

If – like me – you have been lacking a bit of Josquin in your life, please do not miss this. Very rarely do I listen to a CD lasting over 80 minutes at one sitting – I enjoyed this twice this morning!

Brian Clark

Categories
Concert-Live performance

Bach: St Matthew Passion

Dunedin Consort, directed by John Butt
The Queens Hall, Edinburgh – 11 April 2025

The regular performance of the Matthew Passion by the Dunedin Consort is an annual event, with performances this year in Edinburgh, Glasgow and Perth. There is a regular clientele, in evidence from the animated exchanges in the bar before and after the performance, who know what they are coming to and appreciate it. And so they should.

John Butt directs his fine performances from the organ of coro 1, with two choirs of single voices, joined this year by a fine treble line from the RNSO Youth Chorus. His two orchestras, the first led by Huw Daniel and the second by Rebecca Livermore, include key players who have this music in their bones such as Katy Bircher, Alexandra Bellamy and Jonathan Manson, whose gamba playing in Komm, süßes Kreuz was out of this world; fluid, responsive to the voice and with that improvisatory abandon that goes with a rock-solid technique. But all the Dunedin players are expert, and with John Butt’s clear though minimal direction play together as one – there is no fussy interference from a conductor trying to show that he’s in charge, so listening and enjoying the responsibility of co-creating this remarkable music feels utterly natural – as was evident in the perfectly balanced Aus liebe, where Butt left the lingering pauses in the hands of the traverso and da caccias with the highly experienced Joanne Lunn.

Such trust among the musicians means that the players can give full attention and support to the singers, each of whom has to have both the vocal skills and the persona to manage their multiple roles and also the musicianship required to sing as a balanced consort. In this performance the singers in choir 1 were outstanding. Led by Hugo Hymas, whose voice is such pleasure to listen to and the clarity of whose diction makes the Evangelist’s part sound so effortless, I was amazed not only at his fluency – most of time (and not just in the Evangelist’s music) he was singing off-copy – but equally at his stamina: the tenor in the first choir has to sing everything in that part – solos, the Evangelist the big choruses and the turba parts as well. The others were of an equally high standard: the alto James Hall was new to me, but a perfect match in the choruses as well as a star soloist in a fluid and lilting Erbarme dich; Joanne Lunn, a seasoned singer of this music with a clean and clear voice is remarkable among international sopranos for her lack of wobble; and Ashley Riches, the bass-baritone is another singer with a dramatic and characterful voice – commanding in the part of Jesus but mellifluous in Mache dich where he was a tremendous match to the warm B flat major of the oboes da caccia, and capable of a fine and resonant low E as the final note in the opening chorus. Given their diverse voices, both the homophonic chorales and the polyphonic lines of the turba interjections were perfectly balanced, and sounded as one.

The same, alas, cannot be said for choir 2. A stunningly dramatic performance from the bass, Frederick Long, marks him out as a singer who can do both character and lyricism: whether as Petrus of Pilatus, he sung as a foil to Asley Riches; in the central section of Gerne will ich mich bequemen he presented as a Lieder singer but in the choruses he became a violone providing a secure bottom line to his choro. His Gebt mir was as good as I have heard. The tenor, Matthew McKinney, is promising with a nice easy manner and a voice that only occasionally sounded edgy as it did in the upper reaches of Geduld. The alto, Sarah Anne Champion, is a fine consort singer but has some of the more difficult lines in whole Matthew Passion in the long aria Können Tränen that follows the spikey recitative Erbarm es Gott. She set a splendid tempo, and the aria never dragged as it so easily can. I thought she was a real find for this demanding music.

The choir 2 soprano was Alys Mererid Roberts. This really isn’t music that suits her voice, and I felt for her. Even in the opening chorus, her voice – characterful and spikey, with a tight and incessant vibrato – was cutting through the ensemble, and this lack of blend was even more apparent in Blute nur. In such a small ensemble, every little discrepancy shows, and the tuning of choir 2 – based on such a good bass line – was frequently imperilled. Alys must be fun in the opera parts she is singing, but I don’t think the Matthew Passion shows her at her best.

This illustrates just how important choosing the right singers is. In small period instrument ensembles, where players frequently work together and yesterday’s students become tomorrow’s stars, people know each other well enough, and with instruments we have a pretty good idea of the sounds that work and blend convincingly. With singers, it is different. Unlike instruments, no 18th-century voices survive! Additionally, our conservatoires have few teachers who have the experience in 16th- and 18th-century singing techniques to help aspiring professional singers to learn the distinctive skills they need to sing stylishly with period instruments. So a young solo vocalist, emerging from today’s conservatoire formation as a singer, will not necessarily have the experience of how tuning, blend and even basic voice production that works with period instruments can be learned. What we do know is that in those days voices and instruments were equal partners in creating the polyphonic web of sound that Bach’s music demands.

No-one knows this better than John Butt, combining the inspiring direction of the Dunedin Consort and the playing of keyboard instruments with his role as a teacher and professor at Glasgow, continuing to research and explore how Bach’s music can be unlocked to nourish the soul and extent the horizons of our musical imagination.

David Stancliffe
Director of The Bishop’s Consort
Author of Unpeeling Bach, The Real Press, 2025

Categories
Recording

Gasparini: Atalia

CD cover Gasparini Atalia

Camille Paul soprano, Ensemble Hemiolia, directed by Emmanuel Resche-Caserta violin
75:54
Versailles Spectacles CVS147

Born near Lucca in 1661, Francesco Gasparini was an important opera composer during the transitional period that straddles the 17th and 18th centuries. In the early 1680s, he settled in Rome, where he was a pupil of Alessandro Scarlatti and Corelli. Records show that at this time he was considered an accomplished violinist, singer and keyboard player. In 1701, he moved to Venice, where he became choirmaster of the Pietà a couple of years before Vivaldi was employed there. During the period he spent in Venice, Gasparini composed some twenty operas, all except one for the San Cassiano theatre, in addition to being the teacher of such composers as Domenico Scarlatti, Marcello and Quantz. In 1716, he left Venice, returning to Rome where he entered the service of Handel’s patron Prince Francesco Maria Ruspoli. Gasparini’s final post in a long and distinguished career was as maestro di cappella at St John Lateran in Rome, a position he took up in 1725 and held at the time of his death in 1727.

The oratorio Atalia dates from Gasparini’s early years in Rome, having probably first been given during Lent in 1692 at the Collegio Clementino, an institution renowned for its promotion of music drama. Roman oratorio had a particular renown during this period, one in which opera was subject to intermittent Papal interference and disruption. Opera was of course at no time given during Lent. Atalia is the first of several oratorio librettos based on Racine’s play Athalie (1691) – another is, of course, Handel’s English oratorio Athalia (1733). Racine drew his plot from the Second Book of Kings. It relates the story of Athalia, daughter of Jezebel and tyrannical queen of Jerusalem, who – in order to usurp the throne – had all the members of the royal family executed. Only the baby Joash escaped to be hidden by the high priest Joad. After several years, Joad found the opportunity to present the boy to his people, who kill Athalia. Racine’s play is a powerful psychological study of a corrupt and evil woman; some of this comes across in Gasparini’s oratorio, which perhaps presents her with slightly greater sympathy.

Stylistically, the oratorio follows closely the scheme familiar from the earlier operas of Alessandro Scarlatti and other contemporaries. That’s to say a flexible combination of recitativo cantando, arioso and arias, the latter not infrequently following an ABA structure while not as yet a fully developed da capo form. All this can be clearly heard in the remarkable scena for Atalia that opens Part Two. The longest closed sequence in the oratorio, it is something of a tour de force in which the tormented queen, haunted by images of hell, passes through accompagnato to aria to a powerful virtuoso concluding section. It is sung with superb dramatic intensity by the soprano Camille Poul, whose performance throughout communicates vividly. Particularly impressive is her excellent diction and clean articulation. In the passage discussed above, she rises to the challenge of the exceptional music. Poul’s opening at the start of the sequence, ‘Ombre, cure, sospetti ‘ (shadows, cares, suspicions) almost produces a messa di voce – the diminuendo on the return is not quite there – while chest notes are secure and powerfully projected.

If the principal weight of the oratorio falls firmly on the shoulders of the Atalia, the sympathetic role of Ormano, the queen’s general and advisor, is also significant. It is well sung by tenor Bastien Rimondi, who like Poul also displays a keen awareness of the dramatic possibilities, particularly in the one duet, another of the highlights of the score, an argument in which Ormano upbraids the scornful Atalia. Mélodie Ruvio (the nurse of Joas) sings the role with sensitivity, but baritone Furio Zanasi’s High Priest lacks a commanding presence, the voice here sounding rather worn. The chorus plays only a relatively small role, restricted to the closing stages, but reveal Gasparini to be a fine contrapuntist. With the exception of some raucous trumpet playing, the often Corellian orchestral writing is well executed by Ensemble Hemiolia, the generously-proportioned continuo group in general supportive without being over intrusive.

There is no question that Atalia is an important revival that should point the way toward exploration of the operas, which remain largely unknown.

Brian Robins

Categories
Recording

Beethoven: Piano Trios

CD cover Rautio Piano Trio Beethoven trios vol. 2

Rautio Piano Trio
62:33
Resonus RES10337

The Rautio Piano Trio earned the highest praise from me for the first of what we can now safely assume will eventually be an extremely welcome complete set of the Beethoven Piano Trios. You can read the review of the last issue, which involved the first two trios of op 1 here. A particular joy of that disc was the success with which the Rautio Trio (Jane Gordon violin, Victoria Simonsen cello and Jan Rautio fortepiano) captured the sheer exuberance of the young Beethoven on their period instruments. Those include 17th-century string instruments whose splendid tonal qualities are enhanced by outstanding playing, for proof of which there is no need to go further than the exquisitely lovely opening of the Adagio of op. 11, perfectly shaped and played with gorgeous tone first by the cellist, then the violin counterpointed by the cello. The fortepiano is a copy of an 1805 Walter Viennese fortepiano built by Paul McNulty; as I noted in the earlier review, it boasts exceptional tonal quality across the range, with a silvery top and (when required) a surprisingly powerful bass. This raises another highly important aspect of these performances, which are throughout balanced to near perfection. To some degree, this is of course down to the performers – Rautio seems to have an instinctive feel for dropping out of the limelight when he needs to – but equally to the greater ease of finding the right balance when instruments appropriate to the period are employed.

Like its companions from op 1, the C-minor Trio is an ambitious four-movement work, the big-boned, muscly characteristics of its opening and closing movements apparent from the urgency of the first movement, with its bold opening, chunky sonorities and, particularly in the development, more than a hint of Sturm und Drang. But perhaps its most remarkable movement is the big Finale: Prestissimo, the energy and bravado of which are superbly conveyed by the Rautios. Throughout all three works, one notes the distinctive little hints of portamento and rubato that give the performances a distinctive character.

Op 11 dates from 1797 and is sometimes known as the ‘Gassenhauer’, a nickname referring to the popularity of the theme of the variations that form the last of its three movements. This was taken from a popular drama giocosa by Joseph Weigl, and was apparently so infectious that it was sung throughout the lanes (or “Gassen”) of Vienna. I can well believe it – the first time I heard the Rautio’s performance, it stuck in my head for days. It seems Beethoven had second thoughts about using such a low-brow ‘pop’ tune, but eventually decided he would use it. I’m glad he did, not least because it gave the Rautio Trio the opportunity to play the tune and its variations with such a sense of vitality and fun. Op 44 originates from 1792, but did not appear in its final published version until 1804. Based on a very simple tune presented in unison, Beethoven gradually works through a variation scheme to give each instrument prominence, the virtuosic demands of the writing increasing gradually. The Rautios, both individually and as a unit, grasp the many opportunities it offers but perhaps for me most memorably of all in the barcarolle-like variation 5 (I think!), where there is some wondrous sotto voce playing.

In sum, bravi tutti! – again. I await the ‘Archduke’ with impatience.

Brian Robins

Categories
Recording

Bach: Mass in B minor

CD cover Bach B minor mass Pichon Pygmalion

Julie Roset, Beth Taylor, Lucile Richardot, Emiliano Gonzalez Toro, Christian Immler SmSATB, Pygmalion, Raphaël Pichon
107:21 (2 CDs in a card triptych)
harmonia mundi HMM 902754.55

Everything in this new recording of the B-minor Mass is perfect – clarity, flawless instrumental technique and excellent voices – provided you want a performance that takes the complex compilation of Bach’s final years, treats it as a visionary, near mystical experience and expresses that in an idealised performance that owes much to the massive scale of the late romantic performance tradition. Pichon uses a choir of 12.6.6.6 with 5.5.3.2.1 strings who sing and play all the ‘chorus’ numbers, complete with a dynamic range from pp to ff. The acoustics of the Cathédral Notre-Dame-du-Liban in Paris’s 5th arrondissement are tremendous, giving the fortes – especially the timpani – a huge bloom: the sound engineers have done wonders in bringing both clarity and depth to this performance. This is a grand performance in the grand style: listen to the choir in the Cum Sancto Spiritu for the thrills, and the Credo for the high-octane drama.

This is fair enough in some ways. We have no idea if Bach himself ever heard, let alone directed, a live performance, but suspect he never did. So we can take the coup de théâtre in ‘a work that embraces the world’ (to quote Pichon’s programme notes) as justifying a performance that owes more to a romantic response to this great summary of Bach’s life’s work than to the scholarship and discoveries of the past half century.

There are a number of eccentricities. The change from the Domine Deus to Qui tollis treats these as separate numbers with no discernible relationship between the tempi, and a very mannered final ‘nostram’. And there is a very curious change between the Sanctus, taken in the old and slow = ‘majestic’ style till the singers are unleashed in Pleni to another thrilling display of vocal pyrotechnics with no link in tempo to what went before, reminiscent of early recordings by Gardiner’s Monteverdi Choir. For me, these disjunctions reveal fail to deliver that overall coherence which a work like this demands and Pichon claims as a central plank of his performance. Another danger of disregarding the common practice in Bach’s day, when instrumentalists almost always outnumbered singers, is that the model of a choir accompanied by an orchestra means that some orchestral details are obscured. In the Patrem omnipotentem it is really hard to hear the 1st tromba’s entry in bar 29. A similar imbalance pervades the Crucifixus, where the traversi are inaudible amid the thunking string chords, where the theorbo – as in the Incarnatus – has a big impact on the texture.

Among the high points for me are the solo numbers where the issues of balance are less in your face: the wonderful Lucile Richardot’s Qui sedes, where her sense of the rhythmic complexities and interplay with the oboe d’amore are second to none, and Agnus Dei is a model of well balanced musicmaking with her near-miraculous breath control. The Benedictus, with Emiliano Gonzales Toro, is poised and elegant, using the acoustics to smooth over the long lines of both voice and traverso. The harpsichord (and theorbo) in Quoniam keeps the sprightly tempo on track, and Christian Immler is in great voice, even if the style is a long way from what was being explored in those exciting days in the 1970s, when he sang as a boy alto in Teldec’s pioneering Cantata recordings under Harnoncourt and Leonhardt. He is less comfortable in Et in Spiritum sanctum, where it feels as if he is trying to hold back the tempo in pursuit of rather more lyrical delivery. At the end of the nimble Confiteor, the adagio is prepared for with a massive rallentando and Pichon wallows in the chromaticisms, and slows even more in bar 138; at the end of the Et expecto resurrectionem there’s absolutely no rallentando at all, in contrast to many other final cadences.

I hope these comments help give readers a feel for this recording. In many ways, it is so good, and it is certainly full-blooded. But I cannot commend to EMR readers Pichon’s almost total disregard for what we have learnt over the past fifty years about Bach’s careful balancing between voices and instruments in his scoring that illustrates his desire for clarity and audibility. Welding a period instrument band onto a large modern chorus of trained singers, however talented, demonstrates what a range of complexities face the director of any actual performance. Unless your prime motivation is to let the music speak for itself, mantras like ‘a work that embraces the world’ continue to provide directors with an excuse for promoting their personal vision rather than trying to reveal Johann Sebastian’s: Soli Deo Gloria was his mantra at all times.

David Stancliffe

Categories
Recording

Music for two

CD cover Music for two Duo Coloquintes

Duo Coloquintes
53:19
Seulétoile SEC 02

When I offered this recording to our regular Byrd reviewer, he (rightly) politely declined. The “problem” with it is that the musicians have taken keyboard music from around the beginning of the 17th century and “arranged it” for violin and viola da gamba.

This might be a radical approach but – as someone who once wrote a rave review of Bach on the accordion (and convinced his father, an accomplished folk player of the instrument, to listen and enjoy it!) – I could hardly pretend that I was offended by the idea.

The present review will also be a glowing one, as violinist Alice Julien-Laferrière and her gambist colleague, Mathilde Vialle, argue very strongly for their approach; neither is afraid to introduce harmonies where their instruments allow, and there is so much more to their arrangements (purists will doubtless be horrified by plucked notes, and layered dynamics!) than simply seeing how much of the original they can include. These are well-considered and – most importantly – convincing accounts of the repertoire, and, let’s be honest, the music they’ve selected (mostly from The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book) is not that familiar to anyone but keyboard specialists, and any recording that brings it more widespread attention is welcome.

Sometimes, it takes a radical approach to reveal new facets to something with which you thought you were familiar; having had to study TFVB as a set work at university, I can honestly say that nothing about it brought me any pleasure… Unfortunately, there were no such inspiring recordings as the present one around! And definitely, nothing as beautifully captured in spectacular sound!

Brian Clark

Categories
Recording

Beethoven: Middle String Quartets

CD cover Beethoven Middle Quartets Narratio Quartet

Narratio Quartet
146:33 (2 CDs)
Challenge Classics CC72981

A review of the first release of what will ultimately be a complete set of the Beethoven string quartets appeared on this site in 2024. To paraphrase what I wrote on that occasion, what makes their performances so special is the quartet’s unique approach to performance practice. This embodies not simply the use of period instruments and playing them with a lack of continuous vibrato, but such matters as the employment of rubato, allowing for a greater flexibility of phrasing and rhythm, and, perhaps most radical to the modern ear, the use of portamento or glissando – the sliding of one note to another, borrowed from vocal music. All these innovations stem from a long and careful study made by the Narratios of performance practice in Beethoven’s day, while it is important to recognise their usage has one purpose and one purpose only: to serve the expressive qualities inherent in the music. So you won’t hear portamenti used indiscriminately but carefully judged to enhance expression. Probably the most striking example here is the outset of the third movement of opus 59, no. 1 in F. Marked Adagio molto e mesto, it is an elegy of the greatest profundity, the use of portamento here enhancing the inner qualities of the music. The revelation that results is further enhanced by rhythmic flexibility.

For those in need of a reminder, the middle quartets of Beethoven comprise the three quartets of op 59, in F, E minor and C respectively, and op 74 in E flat, sometimes known as the ‘Harp’ from the pizzicato figure in the opening movement. The quartets of op 59, composed between the end of 1802 and 1804 and published with a dedication to Count Rasumovsky, one of Beethoven’s patrons, represent a huge advance on the op 18 quartets completed two years earlier. This applies especially to the F-major Quartet, the spacious breadth and contrapuntal density of whose opening Allegro take the medium into new territory only transcended by the following movement, a scherzo as far removed from the traditional minuet movement as is possible to conceive. Both these revolutionary movements are splendidly brought off by the Narratios with an energy that captures the dynamism and sometimes quasi-orchestral textures with impressive bold strokes. At the other end of the scale, the intense, deeply felt slow movement is beautifully sustained, with some notably beautiful playing from violist Dorothea Vogel. Only with the final movement, marked Thème russe, does the overpowering effect of this extraordinary quartet, as remarkable in some ways as the late quartets, give way to a rumbustious buoyance, noting in this performance however the magical moment just before the final bars when Beethoven slows and quietens the headlong thrust to the end of the quartet.

The remaining three quartets offer fewer challenges to performer and listener, the ‘Harp’ in particular eschewing that kind of density and intensity in exchange for a friendlier ambiance, again finely judged in the present performance. At the start of the slow movement there is another subtle yet highly effective example of the use of portamento. This movement, a love song taken by the leader – splendid playing here from Johannes Leertouwer – into the realms of tragedy and the viola into a shadowy, more dramatic world is especially effective at showing up the splendid balance achieved by the Narratios, while the final set of variations underlines the exceptional technical prowess of the quartet with some particularly nimble bowing.

Doubtless most readers have their own favourite interpreters of these quartets, but for their ability to make strong declamatory statements alongside more lyrical pronouncements these performances are a special case that should be investigated by all who think they know them.

Brian Robins

 

 

Categories
Recording

In chains of gold

CD cover In chains of gold

The English Pre-Restoration Verse Anthem Vol. 3
Magdalena Consort, Fretwork His mAjestys Sagbutts & Cornetts with Silas Wollston 83:39
signum classics SIGCD931

This is the last of three discs in a series dedicated to the consort anthem in England during the Tudor and Stuart periods. The first contained all of Gibbons’ surviving pieces in this genre, the second featured Byrd and included works up to Edmund Hooper, and the prevailing presence over the current disc is Thomas Tomkins with a judicious combination of known and unknown musicians besides. These are anthems which were not performed liturgically in these versions, in the Anglican Church, because of their being accompanied by viols: only the organ was used in church; very occasionally on major festive, royal or other ceremonial occasions it is known that winds – usually a maximum of four waits using cornetts and sackbutts – supplemented the organs. Many consort anthems survive with alternative accompaniments for the organ, rendering these arrangements suitable for use in church; this is true of many of Gibbons’ verse anthems. While I have long stated the argument, in the face of opposition (not necessarily from this project!), for there being no evidence for the use of viols in the Established Church at this time, it is the experience of Fretwork accompanying these works in different environments during the course of this project which has led to the seemingly final acceptance of my position.

All the vocal works here are revelations to a greater or lesser extent. It is excellent that William Pising and Simon Stubbs are represented, given the minute numbers of their works that survive. They are short-winded but lively pieces, worth reviving. Thomas Ravenscroft will be considered by many as a miniaturist, but he is represented by two consort anthems, one of which – In thee O Lord – has considerable substance even among some of the other big hitters.

Who are these big hitters? John Ward certainly demands attention with two assertive pieces, one of which, accompanied by winds, begins the proceedings, the rest of which are dominated by two huge anthems (and several fine instrumental works) by Tomkins, Know you not and O God, the heathen are come. The surviving sources for both pieces required major elaboration (cf. Elgar/Payne, below) in order to become roadworthy, and have been recorded before. Know you not concludes the album with an opulent accompaniment for winds, appropriately given that the text laments the death of the youthful heir to the throne. Even mightier is O Lord the heathen, correctly listed as “Tomkins (attr.)” though the work is as certainly by him as it is possible to be without an actual contemporary attribution. Here Tomkins laments the devastation wrought upon the Church of England by the victorious Puritan forces, and to support him musically he turns to the most utterly bleak and visceral of all Byrd’s motets, Deus venerunt gentes, a work of astounding profundity and beauty which sets the same text, Psalm 79, and which illustrates musically so vividly that the music seems itself like an eye witness to the appalling events which it describes, in this instance the biblical devastation of Jerusalem as a metaphor for the barbarous executions of Byrd’s fellow Catholics. Tomkins makes his debt to Byrd crystal clear during the very first solo verse: his phrase at “and made Jerusalem an heap of stones” clearly echoes Byrd’s heartbroken and indeed heartbreaking phrase for “et non erat qui sepeliet”, and there was none to bury them. Both of these anthems are magnificent, and both reconstructions can, in the context of their own genre, be mentioned in the same sentence as Anthony Payne’s historic completion of Elgar’s Third Symphony.

Even now, there is one more anthem which requires special attention. Richard Nicolson’s When Jesus sat at meat narrates the first meeting of Mary Magdalen and Jesus, with incomparable sensitivity and pathos, never straying into sentiment, and while it is a substantial work, it never once outstays its welcome, maintaining its elevated tone throughout, besides radiating beauty. Nicolson’s setting of his text is most distinguished, his music clarifying and projecting its meaning in approved Protestant manner. Particularly notable are the dissonance on “thy faith have saved thee”, perhaps indicating the struggle that Mary endured to achieve that faith; and the exquisite phrase for “go thy way in peace”, with its fleeting consecutives, through which her Saviour imparts a reassurance for eternity.

This entire repertory has proved revelatory. Given the variety and quality of the material, consistent excellence has been essential for the performances and for the interpretations, and the musicians have delivered everything that is required. Nicolson’s anthem stands as the epitome of all that is best in Bill Hunt’s triumphantly successful project.

Richard Turbet

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Benevoli: Missa Benevola

CD cover Benevoli Missa Benevola I Fagiolini Robert Hollingworth

I Fagiolini, dir. Robert Hollingworth

70:17

Coro COR16208

For many, the name Orazio Benevoli (1605-1672) will be more associated with a work he did not compose than with those he did. For long believed to be the composer of the famous 53-part Missa Salzburgiensis, the authorship of that work has in more recent times become firmly ascribed to Heinrich Biber. Nonetheless, Benevoli was the composer of a number of large-scale multi-choir works that fall into a well-established Roman tradition of polychoral music sometimes designated Colossal Baroque. The present recording is the second of three CDs I Fagiolini are devoting to Benevoli’s masses for four choirs.

The Missa Benevola, also known as Missa Maria Prodigio Celeste, may, the booklet note suggests, have been composed for the feast of the Assumption (15 August) during Benevoli’s tenure as maestro at S Maria Maggiore in Rome from 1646 until his death. Scored for 16 solo voices supported by instruments, the mass makes its considerable effect by means of contrasting almost chamber music-like textures with passages, usually climaxes, of overwhelming power that remind us that if it was anything Colossal Baroque is pure counter-Reformation theatre. Throughout these passages and the build-up to them are quite superbly handled by Robert Hollingworth. At the other extreme is the sheer lyrical beauty of, for example, Kyrie I, which opens with the soprano’s long melismatic lines intricately interwoven. Christe equally involves the upper voices interweaving in gentle, but at times sensuous textures, another example of the intrusion of the secular world into the sacred in the service of the counter-Reformation. More unusually, it is the high voices that are also given the heart of Credo, ‘Et incarnatus est’ and ‘Crucifixus’, the latter eschewing the expected darker texture for luminescence, while ‘Et resurrexit’ brings lively dance-like rhythms. Agnus Dei rounds the setting off with prayful, largely syllabic writing that introduces some harmonic surprises before being brought to a final glorious climax. The performance of this fine mass is beautifully balanced and exceptionally accomplished, the voices excellently tuned. The dispersal of the choirs is not spectacular; a glance at the promotional YouTube video – well worth a watch – shows they were not that distanced. It is worth noting that S Maria Maggiore does not have the kind of balconies employed for polychoral music by Venetian composers. I found listening through headphones separates the choirs more effectively.

Each of the three recordings is designed to complement the featured Benevoli mass with works by another composer, here Benevoli’s near-exact contemporary Giacomo Carissimi (1605-1674), represented by two motets preserved in sources in Uppsala (Sweden). Paratum, cor meum, which has an obbligato violin part, is for soprano or bass, here well, if slightly too reservedly sung by Frederick Long, while the more ambitious Super flumina Babylonis is scored for four voices and continuo, its contrasts of mood and, at times, virtuoso demands both well met.

Finally the work by which Carissimi is best known today, the Latin oratorio Jephte, composed for the German College, one of the most significant musical establishments in Baroque Rome, in 1648. Relating the tragic story of Jephtha’s vow to God to sacrifice the first person he meets – it transpires to be his only daughter – in return for victory against the Ammonites, the oratorio concludes with an extraordinary lament for the unnamed Daughter, a few minutes of music that must be among the most influential ever composed. But the whole oratorio is a remarkable piece of drama that includes a change of mood as stark as that of the Messenger’s arrival in Monteverdi’s Orfeo at the point Jephtha realises it is his own daughter he must sacrifice. The performance is excellent, with particular kudos going to baritone Greg Skidmore’s superbly sung and dramatically compelling Jephte. Julia Doyle’s Daughter is scarcely less impressive, an intensely moving, if arguably marginally understated portrayal. My one reservation would be to question the addition of tympani and percussion to underlay the Daughter’s first words, ‘Start the beating of tambourines and the striking of cymbals’, obviously illustrative (too obviously illustrative?), but which more seriously masks the singer. But overall this is an exceptional CD, and I look forward greatly to the last of the trilogy.

Brian Robins