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Recording

Schubert: Piano Trio No. 2, Arpeggione Sonata

CD cover Schubert Piano Trio no 2 Arpeggione sonata Hobarth Rudin Häkkinen

Erich Höbarth violin, Alexander Rudin arpeggione/cello and Aapo Häkkinen Graf fortepiano
79:55
Naxos 8.573884

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Arguably the main talking point here is Schubert’s Arpeggione Sonata in A minor, D 821 played on the instrument for which it was written in 1824. The arpeggione, a kind of bowed guitar with frets and six strings, had been invented only around a year earlier by one of the principal Viennese luthiers, Johann Georg Stauffer. It would enjoy a brief existence, its only noted performer being Vincenz Schuster, a guitarist who was a regular performer at the domestic concerts given by Schubert and his friends. Today the work is usually played on the cello, or, less frequently the viola, but given the greater compass of the arpeggione, it requires transposition and has been adapted for all manner of instruments, not to mention turned into a concerto. Schubert scholars tend to be rather snooty about it, but it is an affable, engaging and substantial piece in three movements, a playful Allegro moderato with a development section that builds a fair degree of tension, a song-like Adagio with some typically felicitous modulations and a good-humoured final Allegretto that sets out as an animated dialogue between the two instruments.

The performance is excellent. The arpeggione sounds (at least here) a little like a cross between a cello and a viol, but the upper register has a distinctive wiry sonority. It blends well with the fortepiano, a Viennese instrument built by Conrad Graf in 1827, the year of the E flat Piano Trio, and just a year before Schubert’s death. It would have been good to have been given more detail on it, for it is an instrument of exceptional tonal beauty, with a silvery top register capable of the most delicate scalic passagework and arpeggiations, but also a strong, firmly rounded bass, as the Finnish harpsichordist and fortepianist Aapo Häkkinen demonstrates throughout both works.

The Piano Trio No 2 in E flat, D 929, is of course one of the great products of Schubert’s last year, a massive four-movement work rich in all that is valued in the composer. The strong opening announcement of the Allegro sets out the stall with striking effect. This, Schubert seems to be saying, is going to be something impressive and of expansive breadth. Yet he is quickly into more lyrical territory with the cello’s statement and the movement will ebb and flow between moments of dramatic tension and flowing lyricism, all splendidly captured here by Erich Höbarth, Alexander Rudin and Häkkinen. Listen, for example, to the beguiling lyrical warmth of the secondary idea. A similarly treasurable moment comes at the same point in the succeeding Andante con moto, and again shortly afterwards with the keyboard’s arpeggiations, a passage marked con Pedale, appassionato, where Häkkinen conjures pure magic from the Graf. But throughout these are performances of the highest calibre, performances that given the bargain Naxos price tag should be snapped up without delay.

Brian Robins

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Sheet music

Vivanco: Liber magnificarum (1607)

Vivanco Liber magnificarum R173_Cover

Recent Researches in the Music of the Renaissance, 173
Edited by Michael Noone and Graeme Skinner
xxiii + 277pp.
ISBN 978-1-9872-0531-2. $360

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Anyone who has studied Renaissance polyphony knows that composers of the period devised the most cunning contrapuntal devices to allow a musical phrase to be used and re-used simultaneously backwards and forwards, upside down, and in different note values, mostly without the listener even realising. If Sebastián de Vivanco has been somewhat overshadowed by his Avilan contemporary, Victoria, it most certainly was not on account of his polyphonic prowess. The present volume contains no fewer than 18 settings of the Magnificat (two in each of the eight tones, one setting the odd verses, the other the evens, plus two extras for the most popular 1st and 8th tones). Most are for four voices, but there are two for five, three for six, and one for eight. There are also two settings of the versicle to the Magnificat, “Benedicamus Domino” (one each for four and five voices, the former printed in no fewer than four different possible realisations of the canons). An appendix printed the three perpetual canons without texts and a three-voice canon on “Christum regem pro nobis” which form the frame to the portrait of the composer that appeared on the title page of the original Salamancan print.

If you plan to perform this music, you should be aware that even pieces indicated as being for four or five voices are not always exactly that; particularly the “Gloria Patri” sections throw in canons whose resolutions produce extra voices (up to eight) – in the case of No. 8 (a setting of the odd verses), this also involves the inclusion of other texts: the Vespers hymn, “Ave maris stella”, the antiphon at Lauds, “Ave Maria, gratia plena”, and “O gloriosa Domina”, a hymn also from the service of Lauds. Such polytextuality did not bother composers of the period, and this integration of them all into an already complex polyphonic texture is a real tour de force. The extraordinary cost of this volume is going to dissuade most choirs from exploring the repertoire, which is more than a great shame; since A-R Editions offer off-prints of each of the three masses in a previous volume, perhaps eventually they can be persuaded to make some of these works more practically available too?

Brian Clark

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Sheet music

Rosetti: Der sterbende Jesus

Rosetti Der sterbende Jesus C114_Cover

Recent Researches in the Music of the Classical Era, 114
Edited by Sterling E. Murray
xx, 4 plates, 227pp.
ISBN 978-1-9872-0335-6. $320

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Though perhaps best known nowadays as a composer of symphonies, concertos and partitas, Antonio Rosetti (who was born in Bohemia, spent years of his early life in St Petersburg, then Wallerstein before dying, aged only 42, a mere two years after being appointed Kapellmeister in Schwerin) also wrote some impressive vocal music.

Der sterbende Jesus is a passion-oratorio in the tradition of Graun’s Der Tod Jesu. The four characters (a soprano as Mary, St John who was sung by a tenor, an alto as Joseph of Arimathea and Jesus himself, bass) are accompanied by a fairly large orchestra of flute, 2 oboes, bassoon, 2 horns, 2 trumpets with timps, and strings. The work is a sequence of recitatives and arias, interspersed with movements called “Chorale” in which a four-voice is accompanied by the woodwinds (including horns) and others labelled “Chorus” in which the whole ensemble performs. There are elements of narrative drama, but essentially it is a series of reflections initially on Jesus’s death but ultimately in his triumph over death, and that sense of a glorious overcoming of the “power of the grave” is skilfully captured in Rosetti’s final chorus. Music by the lesser masters of this period is often overlooked because of the perceived superiority of their illustrious contemporaries, Haydn and Mozart. On the evidence of this score, Rosetti’s vocal music certainly ought to be better known; the parts he wrote for Mary and St John is particularly demanding.

A-R Editions continue to champion repertoire that has been ignored for too long. Someone, let’s have a recording!

Brian Clark

 

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Sheet music

Purcell: Sacred Music Part IV

Purcell Sacred music volume 28

Purcell Society Edition, volume 28
Edited by Robert Thompson
xli (including four pages of facsimiles) + 198pp. £75.
ISBN: 9780852499603 ISMN: 9790220225970

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As well as updating to include the latest background information, the principal purpose in producing this volume is to re-order the music contained in it according to the dates of composition. Since The Purcell Society first issued editions of the composer’s anthems, a lot of source work has been done that has informed the newly established chronology. Robert Thompson presents the evidence in a way that is mostly very readable; sometimes there is just too much information for comfort, but how is one to avoid this when there is a wealth of disparate evidence?

The 14 continuo anthems included in the volume are presented in the now-familiar Purcell Society style. They are: Turn thou us, O good Lord (Z62), Who hath believed our report? (Z64), Lord, who can tell how oft? (Z26), Blessed be the Lord my strength (Z6), Let God arise (Z23), O Lord our governor (Z39), Give sentence with me (Z12), O praise the Lord, all ye heathen (Z43), I will love thee, O Lord (ZN67), The Lord is King (ZN69), Let mine eyes run down with tears (Z24), Hear my prayer, O God (Z14), O Lord, thou art my God (Z41) and Out of the deep (Z45). Appendices include a short re-arrangement of a repeat of Z64 by Philip Hayes, an organ part for Z6, an earlier working of a passage from Z24 and an organ part thought possibly to be by a young Purcell for Humfrey’s By the waters of Babylon.

Typically this kind of volume is destined to sit on library shelves. Anyone performing the music it contains, though, should certainly seek it out for the valuable information it contains.

Brian Clark

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Sheet music

Henry Lawes: Sacred Music

Henry Lawes Sacred Music EC61

Early English Church Music Volume 61
Transcribed and edited by Jonathan Wainwright
xxxviii+176pp. £75
ISBN: 9780852499610 ISMN: 9790220225987

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This heavy and handsomely bound book contains all of Lawes’ known sacred music: five anthems (three of which are fragmentary), five “symphony anthems” (don’t get excited – the symphonies are reduced to organ accompaniment), 29 devotional anthems for 2 sopranos, bass and continuo, seven “sacred songs” for soprano and continuo, 24 metrical psalms for soprano and bass (here with the text of the opening verse printed below the upper voice and the remaining verses as poetic stanzas below), three Latin motets (Laudate Dominum for 2 sopranos, bass and continuo, Predicate in gentibus for bass and continuo, and Quis sicut Dominus Deus noster for soprano, bass and continuo), three rounds for three voices and the texts of eleven pieces that are known to have been lost. An appendix has Matthew Camidge’s 1789 re-working of the psalm tunes.

As well as this hugely generous amount of music, you get a LOT of musicology; there’s a lengthy introduction to Henry Lawes and his music, then an exhaustive list not only of the sources but also articles that have already explored them in depth, and a comprehensive bibliography. Then, each subsection of the book (essential the seven categories I described above) has its own introduction along with detailed critical notes. The music is beautifully laid out. The original orthography of the texts is retained. I am not a great fan of “dashed bar marks” in vocal music as I find it quite difficult at a glance to see where they fall. Nor do ficta accidentals above repeated notes of the same pitch strike me as particularly useful. That said, these are very, very minor criticisms. Henry Lawes’ music deserves to be much more widely known and this beautiful book makes it readily accessible.

Brian Clark

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Recording

Georg Philipp Telemann: Easter Cantatas

CD cover Telemann Easter Cantatas Willens Kölner Akademie

Johanna Winkel, Margot Oitzinger, Georg Poplutz, Peter Kooij, Die Kölner Akademie, Michael Alexander Willens
71:40
cpo 555 425-2

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This label appears to be on a mission to explore the many varied facets of this prolific baroque master’s oeuvre, and here we have a fine selection of cantatas for Eastertide from some rather lesser-known cycles, notably the Lingen II and the “Cycle without Recitative”. There is also a work from the Brussels holdings which might just be in borrowed plumage of another’s colours or a “Cuckoo’s egg” in the nest as Prof. W. Hirschmann’s booklet note puts it. Hermann Ulrich von Lingen was court secretary in Eisenach; the first cycle was conceived in Hamburg 1722/23, the second in 1728/29. The show piece here is TVWV 1:1424, Triumph! ihr Frommen freuet euch, opening with a very fine Sinfonia for trumpets and drums, moving through some really resplendent and effective movements, concluding with two splendid choruses and a chorale. The triumphant sheen of Eastertide victory is delivered with extremely accomplished playing and singing. The CD opens with much more modest forces (two violins, viola and continuo*) which provide ample contrast from sepulchral textures to befittingly lively passages as per the text: Ich war tot und siehe, ich bin lebendig! [I was dead, and behold, I am alive!] The chorales here feel a tad rushed to my ear. Now to the possible cuckoo, Er ist auferstanden TVWV1:460. While it has some quite nice features, it is not as finely woven; it feels rather terse in expression and ends abruptly with the chorale, Nun danket alle Gott. The two remaining works fall comfortably back into home territory with some highly expressive writing for the strings. Brannte nicht unser Herz in uns TVWV1:131 (from the “Cycle without Recitative”) cuts along with some exceptional movements: the soprano aria “Ach wie selig” is a dazzling display of Johanna Winkel’s talent. The other soloists deliver cogent and most deft performances, notably Georg Poplutz, whose diction is amazing (just listen to track 30). Verlass doch einst, o Mensch TVWV1:1470 (from the Lingen II cycle) offers much to admire, even with modest forces.* The descriptive scope inspired by the text reveals a composer both musically and spiritually aware and able. These are tremendous explorations of lesser-known cycles outside the “Telegentzia”, and there’s plenty more where these came from. How some of these facets do truly sparkle!

David Bellinger

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Recording

Handel: Messiah

CD cover Pentatone Handel Messiah Justin Doyle RIAS

Julia Doyle, Tim Mead, Thomas Hobbs, Roderick Williams, RIAS Kammerchor Berlin, Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, Justin Doyle
134:30 (2 CDs)
Pentatone PTC 5186 853

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This is a beautifully crisp and clear account of the iconic Dublin 1742 Messiah with a fine period-instrument ensemble in the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, a fine choir in the RIAS Kammerchor and a stellar line-up of soloists and a sensitive and conductor. The pacing of the music is to my mind perfect, the English soloists decorate their da capos with imagination and authenticity, the smallish orchestral forces are seriously impressive (I love the inclusion of a lute in the continuo section and a contrabassoon in the orchestra, but would like to have read some sort of justification) and the choir sing with exemplary definition and clarity. So what is not to like? Well, let me tell you – inexplicably the entire programme note consists of a spurious and frankly silly dialogue between Handel (‘Freddie’) and his librettist, Jennings. I have to admit to hating the trend towards programme notes as dialogues between conductor and expert, or among performers, but surely a makey-uppy chat between composer and librettist featuring the phrase ‘Gladly. But after that we’ll keep arguing. Deal, Freddie?’ strikes an all-time low. Whose appalling idea was this? This shocker is compounded by the disrespect of including no biographical details about the soloists or the conductor – the ubiquitous and superb Roddy Williams requires no introduction, but the others do, and it is a great shame that they are denied the profile they deserve. I would suggest that you buy this recording, whose virtues are many, and particularly that you google the soloists and conductor, but please tear out the fortunately easily detachable programme note and throw it away before it annoys you as much as it did me!

D. James Ross

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Recording

Sacred Treasures of Spain

CD cover London Oratory Sacred Treasures of Spain

Sacred Motets from the Golden Age of Spanish Polyphony
The London Oratory Schola Cantorum, Charles Cole
69:49
hyperion CDA68359

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This CD provides a lovely cross-section of choral music from Renaissance Spain, combining some very familiar works by Victoria and Guerrero with some perhaps less widely known repertoire by Vivanco, Ribera, Robledo and Esquivel. The male voices of the Schola Cantorum, ably directed by Charles Cole, sing with a high degree of focus and expression, giving powerful readings of this superb repertoire. A major factor in the recording is the very large and resonant acoustic of the recording venue, St Albans Church, Holborn, which more or less dictates sedate tempi and encourages a degree of unhurried ‘lingering’. I have to say that I was in no way averse to this, feeling that it brings out the full magnificence of these motets, but the absence of any ‘rapid’ passages does give the CD something of a two-dimensional quality, and even a slightly dated feel. I seem to remember that the London Oratory has an equally rich acoustic, and it is clear that the singers feel very at home with this degree of resonance. Certainly, Charles Cole never allows the music to wallow, and the performances are never less than dynamic and expressive. The choir has a wonderfully stable sound, with admirable intonation throughout as well as impeccable balance and blend.

D. James Ross

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Recording

Boccherini: Complete Flute Quintets

CD cover of Boccherini Flute Quintets

Rafael Ruibérriz de Torres, Francisco de Goya String Quartet
158:29 (3 CDs)
Brilliant Classics 96074

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Luigi Boccherini composed three sets of six flute quintets – namely his opera 17, 19 and 55 – the two earliest sets in 1773 and 1774, just after his appointment as chamber musician to Prince Luis Antonio de Bourbón in Spain. The two early sets, the product of a thirty-year-old composer, have a delightful freshness and individuality to them, with the flute playing the ensemble role of a primus inter pares rather than dominating the texture with virtuosity. The nevertheless demanding flute writing suggests the presence in the royal circle of a player of considerable technical and musical ability, but sadly he or she has not as yet been identified. Boccherini’s reputation (in my opinion undeserved) as a composer of slight and often superficial music is belied but this constantly imaginative and beautifully crafted music, which is played with enormous flair on period instruments by flautist Rafael Ruibérriz de Torres with the  Francisco de Goya String Quartet. There is a wonderful sense of ensemble, as well as a witty and fruitful interaction among the players, bringing out the full charm and elegance of Boccherini’s music. Twenty-five years later, inspired by the flautist Gaspar Barli Boccherini returned to the flute quartet, composing his opus 55 set in 1797. What a lot has changed since the earlier sets! Boccherini has made the subtle but significant stylistic move from galant to classical, while he has fully embraced his adopted Spanish heritage, including no fewer than three fandangos in the set, as well as adopting a notably folk-related idiom elsewhere. He is also less coy about letting individual instruments, most notably the flute and his own cello, step out of the more homogenous textures into the spotlight. The result is music that sounds much more profound and rhetorically powerful, and the performers rise magnificently to the challenge with highly eloquent performances. Recorded in two dramatically contrasting venues (namely a church and a recording studio), the Brilliant engineers do a very fine job in creating the same lively and sympathetic acoustic for all three CDs, and the tone of the period strings and Signor de Torres’ Wenner copy of an 18th-century Grenser flute is captured extremely vividly. This is a delightful set of recordings, adding valuably to our impressions of Boccherini as a composer of imagination and substance.

D. James Ross

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Recording

Forqueray Unchained

CD cover of Forqueray Unchained Lislevand

André Lislevand, Jadran Duncumb, Paola Erdas, feat. Rolf Lislevand
61:49
Arcana A486

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I’ve been hoping for some Forqueray (who was born in 1671) in this anniversary year and here we have three artist-compiled suites in which his music is predominant, but complemented by selections from the work of Marin Marais, Robert de Visée, and Louis Couperin. The gamba is mostly accompanied by theorbo, though occasionally (and unnecessarily) also by harpsichord. I did, however, enjoy the keyboard’s rich solo – Couperin’s Passacaille.

Forqueray’s demands on his interpreters are considerable, but André Lislevand is absolutely on top of his game and not afraid to explore the extremes of his instrument’s aesthetic world though without ever losing touch with le bon goût. From time to time he is perhaps a little too gentle compared with the more incisive theorbo, though it might be, of course, that the latter needed to curb his enthusiasm in places. But theirs is an audibly happy collaboration and the actual programme is excellently conceived.

The booklet (in English, French, and Italian) contains the usual biographies and three short essays which, as seems to be the current fashion, give us the music’s context but say little specific about its content, though this would surely be welcomed by anyone new to the repertoire.

David Hansell