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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

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J. H. Roman: Assaggi

CD cover Roman Assaggi for solo violin Alison Luthmers

Alison Luthmers baroque violin
60:58
Rubicon Classics RCD1140

It is not very often that I listen to a CD from beginning to end when I am planning to review it. This beautiful recording held my attention longer than that – after a while, I sensed that I had heard some of the music before and realised that (because I was listening on the distributor’s JukeBox facility) it had seamlessly started over.

I have never knowingly heard Alison Luthmers play before; I say that because the Canadian-American violinist plays with most of Scandinavia’s leading ensembles, including the Bellevue String Quartet (whose recordings I shall now seek out!) She is at pains to thank her recording engineer (Ragnheiður Jónsdóttir) “for the gorgeous sound”; whilst I 100% agree that this is by far one of the cleanest capturing of a baroque violin I have ever heard, the fact is that she had to conjure up that captivating sound in the first place. This is no mean feat; in all of my previous encounters with Roman, I had never conceived of him as such a creative master of the instrument. These “assaggi” have variously been described as essays, experiments, or even studies; whatever meaning the composer had in his mind, they are substantial works – Luthmers plays one in three movements that last over 11 minutes, two in four movements (almost 12 and 17 minutes respectively), and opens her recital with one in five movements that takes over 21 minutes! I was blissfully unaware of time passing, what with the beautiful sound, Roman’s surprisingly (and I still don’t know why I hadn’t realised this before) accomplished writing, and just sheer enjoyment of a beautiful new thing.

There were days not so long ago that that very feeling was the whole point of the HIP “early music” world, so it is refreshing to know that there are still undiscovered masterpieces (every baroque violin student should be made to play these as a counterfoil to Bach and Biber!) out there with fantastic musicians (and record companies!) prepared to champion them!

I’d better stop before I get a repetitive strain injury of the exclamation mark… Buy this – you won’t regret it. If we still had a stars system, this would be 6 out of 5 🙂

Brian Clark

 

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From Byrd

CD cover From Byrd Trio Musica Humana

Trio Musica Humana, Elisabeth Geiger muselaar
42:59
Seulétoile SE12

This is an intriguing and quirky recording, built around Byrd’s Mass for Three Voices. The French Trio Musica Humana (CT T Bar) sing Byrd’s smallest mass superbly, with immaculate blend and intense engagement. They omit the Credo, and intersperse the remaining movements with other works for three voices by Byrd himself, Weelkes and Morley, and with works for keyboard by Byrd, Tomkins, Farnaby and Johnson. Some movements of Byrd’s Mass are performed with muselaar. It is easy to disagree with this approach, but contemporary accounts mention the participation of unspecified instruments in illegal performances of Catholic masses in Protestant Elizabethan England by recusants, so it is not out of order to experiment with instruments of that time. By current standards, this is a brief album, but is worth possessing by Byrd’s enthusiasts for the performances of the two sacred works by the composer which are included in addition to the Mass. Both are the only alternatives to previous recordings in omnibus projects. The longer of the two is Memento salutis auctor, from the Gradualia of 1605, following The Cardinall’s Musick (TCM) on disc 12 of their Byrd Edition. The other is the penitential psalm From depth of sin previously recorded only by Alamire on their complete version of the Songs of sundrie natures, which collection was originally published in 1589. The former interpretation is slower than TCM but every bit as fine. However, the USP of the current disc is the latter: Alamire sing From depth of sin divinely, and again Trio Musica Humana’s performance is slower than its predecessor, but at least for this reviewer their combination of tempo, blend, balance and perception achieves a perfection seldom conveyed on such recordings, elevating its two and a half minutes to the ranks of the very finest renditions of Byrd’s music on disc.

Richard Turbet

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Telemann: Paris Quartets Vol. 1: 6 Quadri

CD cover Telemann Paris Quartets volume 1 London Handel Players

London Handel Players
74:03
SOMM recordings SOMCD 0698

It would not be an idle boast or some wild hyperbole to say that Telemann wrote unfailingly well for the flute in the chamber setting, and the Quadri (1730) and the Nouveaux Quatuors (1738) give clear proof of this facility. These works collectively known as “Paris Quartets” show a master of the “mixed taste” in full control of the musical assemblage at his fingertips; these works even foreshadow L-G Guillemain’s Conversations Galantes et Amusantes (1743) by several years.

Indeed, there are several stylistic and rhetorical devices that performers can get to grips with. From the CD booklet alone, we can tell the London Handel Players have understood the make-up of these Quadri (first published in Hamburg, reprinted in Paris 1736 without composer’s consent by Le Clerc) to wish to tackle these elegant and eloquent gems of the chamber repertoire. There is already a good shelf-load of recordings; some are absolute benchmarks (Sony-Vivarté 1997, Kuijken brothers with Gustav Leonhardt) and Jed Wentz with Musica ad Rhenum on Brilliant Classics to name just two. The latter versions push the tempi with exhilarating effect! Here Rachel Brown and players carve a middle ground with a pleasing focus on the details of these cleverly conceived pieces. The two Balletti (i.e. French dance suites with an italianate designation to match the Quadri in the publication’s title) exude a playful amalgam of French style mixed with new idioms. The Réplique movement gives responses in turn as if saying: “Bonjour”! The two Airs almost certainly come from Telemann’s cantatas, the E minor one closely mimicking the first aria of TVWV 1:448, Ergeuss dich zur Salbung, (printed in 1725-6), which Handel also liked enough to re-deploy.

Typical of the composer, there are plenty of devices, twists and turns for the players to get to grips with, and the joyful interplay of “passing the baton” in these uniquely blended forms is every present. What is astounding, is just how the composer pulled these cleverly crafted works together during a period of such frenetic activity, as 1730 was for him. Does this ensemble pull it all together? Gladly, it is a pleasant and passable joint effort to present these aforementioned elements in their correct guise, without surpassing those two formidable benchmark recordings previously cited.

David Bellinger

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Rosenmüller: Dixit Dominus

CD cover Rosenmüller Dixit Dominus Georg Meyer

Ensemble 1684, conducted by Gregor Meyer
73:24
cpo 555 657-2

The unusual career of Saxon-born Johann Rosenmüller (1619-1684) was shaped by a dramatic non-musical incident that occurred in 1655. In May that year, he was arrested in Leipzig, where he was building a career as an outstandingly gifted musician, and accused of pederasty with one of the boys of the Thomasschule, where he was tutoring. Following escape from prison, Rosenmüller fled to Hamburg, from where he made his way to Venice, remaining there until he finally returned to Germany shortly before his death in 1684. It was his near 30-year sojourn coupled with an earlier stay in Venice in the 1640s that laid the foundations that would forge Rosenmüller’s unique place in German Baroque music history. His adoption of Italian style, already in part apparent in the music of Schütz, would henceforth change German sacred music in the wake of the devastation of the Thirty Years War (1618-1648).

The present CD is a varied collection featuring both large-scale and more intimate sacred works. Among the more extended works are two Vespers psalms belonging to the composer’s Venetian years, a relatively modestly scored Dixit Dominus in four parts with strings and continuo and a larger 8-part setting of Laetatus sum with cornetti and trombones in addition to strings. Both feature the colourful contrasts of texture and interplay familiar from the sacred music of Monteverdi and his contemporary compatriots, with vocal scoring that features strong contrasts between favoriten (soloists) and the capell (full choir). Also designed on an elaborate scale is the German-language setting based on Psalm 147, Preise, Jerusalem in six parts and also including brass and strings. In addition, two brief sacred chamber-music concertos of the kind familiar from Schütz’s output and one of the Sonatas for strings from the collection published in 1682 make for intelligent contrast.

I’ve so far omitted one other large-scale work because it leads helpfully to consideration of the performances. In some ways it is the most remarkable work on the CD, not least because of its extraordinary non-biblical German text by Rosenmuller’s friend Caspar Ziegler on which it is based. Entsetze dich, Natur is known from a surviving print of the text to have been performed on Christmas Day in 1649. The elaborate scoring for six voices, cornetti and strings is used throughout this long concerto setting to arresting affect in a cyclical structure with two alternating ritornellos. The whole effect is as strikingly colourful as the metaphors employed in Ziegler’s text. The setting of such a lengthy text is largely syllabic – reminiscent of Schütz – and without any great degree of repetition, relying substantially on the kind of powerful rhetoric that opens the poem – ‘Tremble, Nature: all must change for you, God Himself becomes a man’.

It is certainly an extreme example but the tame delivery of this opening heard here is sadly typical of the basic problem I have with the present performances. They are neat, tidy and well-executed, the voices featured – with particularly ‘white’ sopranos – are capable and have good technique. But it is all so tame. Take the delivery of that stunning opening line of Entsetze dich, Natur with its pregnant pauses. It positively demands to be communicated with a strong sense of declamation. Much the same applies throughout the disc, though some of the full choral passages make a fine effect. But in general the singing here reminds me strongly of much earlier days of the early music revival, when what was sought was clarity and purity, a cleansing escape from the excesses of romanticism, but I believe we’ve increasingly come to recognise that escape was at the expense of expressive interpretation. Cantus Cölln (harmonia mundi) have recorded Entsetze dich, Natur in an expressive performance that does it more justice (as part of a conjectural Rosenmüller Weihnachtshistorie), although even there I feel there is the opportunity to convey a greater sense of the text’s inherent rhetoric.

I’ve perhaps been a little unkind to these thoroughly honest performances so obviously born of integrity. But conductors like Stéphane Fuget are showing us dramatically that we have surely now moved on from performing early music solely from the perspective of decent respect?

Brian Robins

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Vivaldi incognito

CD cover of Vivaldi-Incognito

Hexaton, Guillaume Rebinguet Sudre
60:00
Encelade ECL 2302

Whatever the artistic merits of this recording (and I do not deny that Hexaton and its violinist, Guillaume Rebinguet Sudre, are outstanding artists), there are elements of the project itself that I find baffling. The recital does not consist of some freshly discovered works, but rather three sonatas from the “Manchester” manuscript (two of which also survive in the Saxon State Library in Dresden), and another from that German repository which was copied out by Johann Georg Pisendel – Konzertmeister of the renowned Hofkapelle in Dresden under Augustus the Strong, and a pupil of the Red Priest. It is odd (I think) that the booklet notes do not mention that RV6 (the Dresden manuscript of which is online HERE) is headed “Suonata a Solo fatta per Mr Pisendel”, or that Pisendel himself wrote the second source of RV12 (online HERE). The third Pisendel-related sonata RV10 (see his manuscript HERE) is similarly in the German’s handwriting… In the booklet note, the first movement of RV10 is listed as “(Preludio a Capriccio)”, as if there is no heading in the original – it is clearly marked “Suonata All[egr]o:”.

So much for the musicology. Now to the music. To be fair, in a live performance, these might be terrifically exciting. The violinist certainly has flair, and his exuberance is echoed by the continuo team of cello, theorbo and harpsichord. While I am mostly open-minded about whether or not a particular instrument might have been involved in an 18th-century performance (how can we ever be sure that certain combinations really were frowned upon?), I struggled here – especially in slow movements – with the competition for my ears’ attention! The violinist went full William Babell on his rapid octave scale ornaments, while the harpsichordist and lutenist spread chords, flew all over their respective ranges (even when the manuscript is clearly marked “Tasto solo”!), and even picked out some (unfigured) dissonant notes at cadences (I’m talking about the horrendous B flat in the antepenultimate bar of RV10’s opening movement!)

And then there are what, for wont of a better word, I shall call “the fillers”… Presumably unable to find any pieces by other incognito composers for solo harpsichord and theorbo, the violinist composed his own.* Even though they are relatively short, and might be adjudged to be reasonable pastiches, why on earth not champion some real neglected works by some of Vivaldi’s contemporaries? Surely this would have been an ideal opportunity (given that the CD is only 60 minutes long) to promote some obscure Venetian(s)? And what did the poor cellist do that meant he didn’t get a new piece and instead had to make do with the slow movement of one of Vivaldi’s concerti?

As I say, there are many things here to enjoy. I found that repeated listening – instead of broadening my mind – convinced me even more that the soundscape is too busy for too much of the time. They are violin sonatas after all, not sonatas for violin with a competing backing group…

Brian Clark

*As if to prove that he IS the Baroque man, Rebinguet Sudre also built the harpsichord!

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Gregor Werner Vol. 4

CD cover Werner Caldara vol. 4 Rovatkay

Voktett Hannover, la festa musicale, Lajos Rovatkay
59:41
audite 97.833

For the fourth volume of this excellent series, director-cum-musicologist Lajos Rovatkay has chosen to focus on Gregor Joseph Werner’s relationship with his teacher, Vice-Kapellmeister to the Viennese court, Antonio Caldara. As well as tracing the birth of the two-movement church sonata from sinfonie to the elder composer’s oratorios to an excellent sonata a4  by the pupil, it compares and contrasts their church music, culminating in a performance of a Requiem in G minor by “Werner”, which Rovatkay identified as featuring music by both composers (whether with or without the permission/knowledge of the teacher is not made explicit in one of the densest booklet notes I have ever read… faced with such an impenetrable text, I’m not surprised that even a highly skilled translator like Viola Scheffel struggled to save us from some of its obscurity!)

All eleven (!) singers of the Voktett Hannover (only one tenor and one bass sing on all the vocal tracks) are excellent; they blend beautifully and take the solos stylishly though I did long occasionally for some ornamentation when the dense counterpoint (for which both composers are rightly famed) allowed. Similarly, the string playing (33211 strings with chamber organ and lute) is stylish – nicely pointed bow strokes give the contrapuntal lines shape.

At a little under an hour, some might feel hard done by. However, with music of this quality (speaking as a self-confessed lover of fugal writing), I feel this is just about right. I also found myself hearing pieces of a musical jigsaw falling into place, hearing echoes of Legrenzi (reputedly Caldara’s Venetian teacher) and foretastes of Haydn (who followed Werner as Kapellmeister at Esterházy). It is remarkable that audite has thusfar produced four outstanding CDs of music by a relatively unknown composer and I for one hope there are more in the pipeline!

Brian Clark

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Francesco Scarlatti: Il Daniele nel lago de’ leoni

CD cover Francesco Scarlatti Il Daniele Armonico Consort Christopher Monks

Armonico Consort, directed by Christopher Monks
61:46
Signum SIGCD 881

While the Scarlattis were not quite able to match the Bachs as a family music business, they were nonetheless pretty industrious. Francesco Scarlatti was one of seven younger siblings of the greatest of them, Alessandro (adherents of Domenico need not write in!). He was born in Palermo, Sicily in 1666 and studied in Naples, where he subsequently joined the Royal Court orchestra, doubtless owing the post to his elder brother, who became maestro di capella in 1684. In 1691 he moved back to Palermo and then – after a brief period in Vienna – to London (in 1719), where his name appears in concert programmes, as it does in Dublin, where Francesco Scarlatti died around 1741. Although little is known of his activities in either city, it appears likely that he worked mainly in theatre orchestras.

Francesco is known to have composed a comic opera, Lo Petrachio, and four sacred dramas. Two of these were Latin works performed in Rome in 1699 and 1710 respectively and two Italian, of which one, La profetessa guerriera, was performed in a convent in Naples in 1703. The other, Daniele nel lago de’ leoni is the only one of the four to survive but paradoxically it is not known for whom it was written nor its place of performance, although it was almost certainly Palermo or Naples. Daniele conforms closely to the style of the Italian late 17th-century sacred drama or oratorio often for didactic purposes featuring a colourful Old Testament story related by both biblical and allegorical characters but without recourse to a narrator. In Sicily this kind of oratorio was well established in the works of Michelangelo Falvetti, a couple of which have been revived and recorded under Leonardo García Alarcón.

Daniele progresses through an alternation of plain recitative and mostly brief da capo arias, with a single duet and one trio. Choruses are few, restricted primarily to the opening – a splendidly dramatic outburst for the Babylonian priests as they threaten Daniel – and closing pieces. The oratorio’s somewhat uninspired libretto concerns not only the familiar story of Daniel surviving his visit to the lion’s den, but also the more lurid tale of his overcoming of the dragon Baal, who explodes having consumed Daniel’s cakes, a concoction of boiled pitch, fat and hair! Written in five parts, Daniele is here, surely correctly, assigned to solo voices with a small string ensemble plus trumpet, the latter not mentioned or credited among the performers in the booklet. The results are more appropriate than Alarcó’s over-blown performances of the Falvetti oratorios. Indeed the solo ensemble in the choruses is, along with the orchestral playing, one of the most satisfying aspects of the present performances. All the solo parts are demanding, particularly the arias for the two sopranos, Daniel (Hannah Fraser-Mackenzie) and the Angel (Billie Robson) and while the cast makes a brave attempt it needs virtuoso rather than good honest singers to do real justice to such a work. Ornaments are generally rather tentatively added, the trill being a foreign country. Finally, it has to be said that although Daniele is agreeable enough, there is little in the oratorio to suggest that Francesco Scarlatti is a forgotten master. Top marks for endeavour, rather fewer for attainment.

Brian Robins

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Fasch: Orchestral Works, Volume 4

CD cover Fasch Orchestral music Tempesta di Mare volume 4

Tempesta di Mare
Philadelphia Baroque Orchestra
67:25
Chandos Chaconne CHAN0829

Hats off to Tempesta di Mare and their directors for pursuing this remarkable project to record another four orchestral works by Johann Friedrich Fasch for the first time. The sound files were captured at a live concert in one of the few historical buildings in the town of Zerbst, where the composer was Kapellmeister for 36 years, to have been restored to its former glory in modern times. The event marked their receipt of the Fasch-Preis der Stadt Zerbst which is awarded at every Fasch Festival to someone (a musicologist, a musician, or a group) who has made significant contributions to the cause of promoting his music.

With three discs of premieres already under their belt, this time they present two orchestral suites, a violin concerto and one of his sinfonie. The suites – the instrumental form in which Fasch was most prodigious – both start with the tri-partite slow–fast and imitative–slow French overture. These are followed in both cases by a sequence of Bouree(s)–Gavotte(s)–Minuets, interspersed with a rich variety of Airs. Having obbligato parts for pairs of oboes and flutes, the composer has plenty of instrumental colour to play with.

It is impossible to say for whom the Violin Concerto FaWV L: G6 was written. Fasch himself was a violinist; several virtuosic concertos by his Konzertmeister and successor as Kapellmeister (though was he never given the official title!) Carl Hoeckh survive; Hoeckh was recommended to Zerbst by his former colleague, Franz Benda, who politely declined an offer of the position when he entertained the court with his playing; Johann Wilhelm Hertel was Hoeckh’s student in Zerbst in the 1740s; Fasch was a personal friend of the Dresden Konzertmeister, Johann Georg Pisendel… the list goes on. Regardless, especially in the second and third movements, it places serious demands on the technical and lyrical ability of the soloist. Typically, the concertmaster of Tempesta di Mare, Emlyn Ngai, takes all of these in his stride with flair to spare!

The opening of the first movement of the Sinfonia FaWV M: B1 is an interesting example of 18th-century notational quirks. Handily enough, the first page of the composer’s score is printed in facsimile in the booklet. The melody starts with a dotted crotchet and three semiquavers (a dotted quarter and three 16ths) which Tempesta di Mare interpret as a triplet. There are other sources for the work though, one of them a set of parts in the hand of Fasch’s friend from his Leipzig student days and mentor when the younger man undertook a journeyman tour after university and studied with him in Darmstadt where he was Kapellmeister: Christoph Graupner. In these parts, the crotchet (quarter) is tied to the first of four semiquavers (16ths), so the result is quite different; instead of being heard quickly over the fourth and eighth quavers (1/8s), the 16ths match the bass part… That academic point notwithstanding, this is as exciting a performance of the work as you are likely to hear. If my ears do not deceive me, TdM decided to add flutes to the upper part – an approach with which I have no problem, especially in the plaintive second movement where the added colour emphasizes the mood. The pseudo-fugal third movement is (as co-director Richard Stone’s typically no-nonsense booklet note explains) one of Fasch’s “signatures”; this particular movement also appears in one of the composer’s orchestral suites with oboe parts, so the involvement of woodwinds without their being indicated in the score is justified once again. I find Fasch’s “fugues” are never strict in the Bach-ian sense, but they do always have a logical shape (a trait he shares with another of his friends, Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel) and the pedal points towards the end always build the drama. The concluding minuet is reduced to a three-part texture (trebles, viola, bass): Another Fasch trademark.

I have put off reviewing this disc for several months because I didn’t want to be all gushy, just because I’m a fully-signed-up Faschist, and a great fan of TdM. The disc never fails to uplift my heart – yes, even on a gloomy winter’s day like this, so I have no hesitation whatever in recommending it to any fan of 18th-century orchestral music.

Brian Clark