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MoZart: Zero to Hero

CD cover of David Behle Mozart Hero to zero

Daniel Behle tenor, L’Orfeo Barockorchester, Michi Gaigg
69:12
Sony Classical 1 90759 64582 6

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This recording of Mozart overtures and tenor arias features the voice of Daniel Behle, the sort of operatic Heldentenor voice I could listen to all day. A selection of much-loved and very familiar arias from Don Giovanni, Zauberflöte and Cosi rub shoulders with the less familiar from Die Entführung, La Clemenza and Idomeneo and the downright unfamiliar “D’ogni colpa la colpa maggiore” from La Betula Liberata. Behle’s mellifluous voice is the ideal guide through these operatic masterpieces, while the Orfeo Baroque Orchestra play with diffidence and stunning precision. I was startled by one or two of the tempo decisions, and remain unconvinced by the rather rushed accounts of “Hier soll ich dich denn sehen” and “Konstanze! Konstanze!” from Die Entführung. My other reservation was the slight lack of definition in the recording of the woodwind contributions – these are referenced in the programme notes, but are not always evident in the recording. Perhaps this is an attempt to recreate the relative balance in an opera-house performance, and certainly the voice is given a pleasingly ‘on-stage’ presence. Notwithstanding these small reservations, this is a very entertaining and rewarding CD. Recommended.

D. James Ross

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Napoli

Cover of box of CDs called Napoli

At the Crossroads between Popular and Art Music
660:30 (10 CDs in a cardboard box)
Arcana A201

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This bumper box gleaned from the Arcana back-catalogue brings you Neapolitan music from a variety of contexts from the 15th to the late 18th century, although mainly from this later Baroque period. Kicking off with two splendidly dynamic and imaginative CDs of ‘street music’ from through the ages, the consequent programmes occasionally throw in a ‘trad-style’ piece, such as the superb anonymous three-part Stabat Mater on the disc otherwise devoted mainly to Pergolesi. Those who have been following the process of uncovering Naples as the cradle of the classical cello will enjoy the CDs of Neapolitan cello sonatas superbly played by Gaetano Nasillo as well as his CD of Neapolitan cello concertos. Nicola Fiorenza was a name new to me, but a CD of his concertos for violins and recorder have convinced me that he is worthy of more attention, while it is nice to be reacquainted with Alessandro Scarlatti’s striking church music in a magnificent CD featuring his Missa defunctorum, Salve Regina, Magnificat and Miserere. Even more intriguing is a CD of church music by Nicola Porpora, best known as the teacher of the celebrity castrato Farinelli – some surprisingly perky settings for solo voice and strings of the Notturni per i Defunti! This is matched by an equally perky setting of the Notturni for the Mattutino de’ Morti by Davide Perez, another name new to me, who employs the same sort of large-scale orchestrations featured in Neapolitan operas at the end of the 18th century. Finally, and possibly most intriguing of all, a CD of liturgical music by Gennaro and Gaetano Manna and Francesco Feo, all of whom deserve much more attention. I love these huge bumper boxes of treasures, and this one offers consistently high standards of performance and intriguing unexplored material in a wonderful range of styles – all the musical background you need to begin to understand the musical importance of Naples, and just the thing for a month of self-isolation!

D. James Ross

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Recording

Mendelssohn: String Symphonies Vol. 3

Cover of cpo CD Mendelssohn string symphonies vol. 3

Margot Oitzinger, L’Orfeo Barockorchester, Michi Gaigg
68:58
cpo 555 202-2

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For many years Mendelssohn’s ‘string symphonies’ were dismissed as juvenilia, but in the case of a prodigious genius like Mendelssohn one should be wary of dismissing anything on the grounds of youth. Once they were more frequently performed and recorded, it became apparent that these are as remarkable as much of the composer’s other youthful projects. In these sizzling period instrument recordings the Orfeo Baroque Orchestra take this process of rehabilitation a stage further, bringing out the subtleties of works which turn out to be much richer and more dynamic than hitherto suspected. Bearing in mind the domestic context of their original performance, they use reduced forces (particularly at the lower end) allowing the light to fall on the highly innovative textures the young composer conjures up – take for example the opening section of the slow movement of the 8th symphony where a solo ensemble of violas and cello gives the music the texture of a lugubrious Romantic concerto grosso. Relying on accounts of the initial performances as well as common sense, these versions include a fortepiano playing a sort of continuo. This is highly plausible and in practice utterly convincing. This third volume in what looks like a projected complete account of the string symphonies presents the 8th and 9th symphonies, and as a delightful bonus the substantial Scene for alto and string orchestra ‘Ce vuoi mio cor’ MNV H1, sung expressively and dramatically by Margot Oitzinger. As fascinating as the demanding vocal part are the textures of the string accompaniment. It is exciting to see this music, composed for family matinee concerts chez Mendelssohn around 1825, being taken a little more seriously, and being given thoughtful and technically polished period instrument performances. As they branch out so successfully into the music of the 19th century, is this a group trapped slightly in its over-specific name?

D. James Ross

 

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Recording

The Spohr Collection

Cover of Ashley Solomon Spohr Collection CD

Ashley Solomon historical flutes, Reiko Ichise gamba, David Miller theorbo, Julian Perkins harpsichord
69:45
Channel Classics CCS 43020

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The repertoire on this beautiful CD is perhaps of secondary interest to the instruments it is played on. Fresh from a recording using George III’s Meissen porcelain and gold flute, the ever-enterprising Ashley Solomon has been exploring the historical flutes in a remarkable private collection of historical flutes in Frankfurt, the Spohr Collection. In all, he plays nine instruments, finding appropriate repertoire for each by Jacques Morel, Bach, Leclair, Hotteterre, Jean-Baptiste Barrière, Telemann and Locatelli. Beautifully illustrated on the CD cover, these spectacular Baroque instruments include particularly lovely instruments by Jakob Denner (inventor of the clarinet) and a couple of ivory instruments by Oberlender and Scherer (who also made a famous D clarinet in ivory). Expertly accompanied by his colleagues of Florilegium, Solomon’s consummate flute technique and superb musicality allow him to bring out the strengths of the various instruments. Even as only a very basic player of the Baroque flute, I was intrigued by the subtly different timbres of these instruments, and began to feel the eighteenth-century fascination with the instrument which verged on flautomania. I remember finding an 18th-century version of the complete Beggar’s Opera in the archives of Brodie Castle for unaccompanied flute, and wondering whether even I would want to sit through that complete performance – certainly if the player were Ashley Solomons and he had access to the Spohr Collection, I think I probably would!

D. James Ross

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Recording

Diego Ortiz: Trattado de glosas

CD cover Ortiz Cocset Balestracci

Bruno Cocset, Guido Balestracci, Les basses réunies
59:31
alpha classics 102

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Viol virtuoso and composer Diego Ortiz spent his working life in Naples and his Trattado de Glosas (a treatise on ornamentation of 1553) from which the music recorded here is taken, ranks alongside Ganassi’s La Fontegara as one of the most influential theoretical works on performance of the entire Renaissance. The variations on La Spagna, O felici occhi miei by Arcadelt, Doulce memoire by Pierre Sandrin, El passamezzo antiguo, La Romanesca and La folia respectively are played alternatingly on solo viol by Bruno Cocset and Guido Balestracci, accompanied by members of the consort. Light relief from these viol variations is provided by music for vihuela by Luis Mílan, variations for organ by Cabezón and a lovely consort account of Victoria’s O magnum Mysterium. The playing on this CD is of a consistently superb standard, and if you don’t already love the insistent timbre of the viol, you will after you have listened to this. It is also remarkable how much of what we take as standard ornamentation of Renaissance music originates with Ortiz.

D. James Ross

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Recording

Beethoven: Complete Works for Cello and Piano

Cover of resonus Beethoven cello music CD

Robin Michael cello, Daniel Tong fortepiano
148:08 (2 CDs in a single jewel case)
resonus RES10254

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These effervescent accounts of Beethoven’s five cello sonatas and three sets of variations, two based on themes from Mozart’s Magic Flute and a third based on “See the Conquering Hero Comes” from Handel’s Judas Maccabaeus, make a marvellous two-CD set. Both Michael and Tong are natural beethovenians and bring out the wit, lyricism and intelligence of some of Beethoven’s finest chamber music. I have sat through a live performance on modern instruments of the five sonatas, split into two recitals (afternoon and evening) and was made increasingly aware of the shortcomings of modern instrument performances of Beethoven, as the dense lefthand work on the piano tended to blur into a wall of sound. This is instantly solved by the 1805 Walter copy fortepiano, played here by Daniel Tong, which delineates beautifully the busy bass passages, while adding a silvery lightness to the upper range. I think too that Robin Michael’s 1695 Goffriller copy overcomes the other problem for modern instrument players, the tendency for the cello to ‘over-resonate’ in certain ranges, which is fine for later romantic repertoire, but tends to ‘clog up’ classical music. The lovely clean sound of these period instrument accounts is partly a testimony to these lovely instruments, but also of course to the skills of the players, both of whom also play modern instruments, but who have adapted their techniques admirably to bring out the best from these instruments. Anyone who doesn’t know the Beethoven cello sonatas is in for a treat, but I was also surprised by how much I enjoyed the variations sets. I am not a natural lover of Beethoven’s variations – indeed the set for piano trio on Ich bin der Schneider Kakadu is one of my all-time concert pet hates – but these translucent accounts won me over.

D. James Ross

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Remember me, my dear (Officium Project)

Cover of Garbarek Hilliard CD

Jan Garbarek, The Hilliard Ensemble
77:42
ECM 2625 481 7971

This CD is a bit of a ‘blast from the past’, a live recording made in 2014 of the farewell tour of the Officium project. For those handful of people whom this project passed by, it was an experiment in which the voices of The Hilliard Ensemble collaborated with the jazz saxophonist/composer Jan Garbarek in semi-improvised reworkings of traditional and early music. A number of CDs were produced by ECM, and it would seem they then also recorded during the ensuing tours, and this is the result. The programme includes an eclectic mix of music by Garbarek himself, anonymous works from the Middle Ages and Renaissance, works by Guillaume le Rouge, Hildegard von Bingen, Antoine Brumel, Pérotin, by the more modern Russian church music composer Nikolai Kedrow and finally music by Arvo Pärt. Recorded in the cavernous acoustic of the Chiesa della Collegiata dei SS. Pietro e Stefano in Bellinzona in Switzerland, the ECM engineers have made a pretty good job of capturing a concert, which clearly involved a lot of ‘wandering around’, by simply taking up a stand-point and sticking to it. In comparison to the original concept, it strikes me that Garbarek’s contribution has become more dominant, while the voices have the slightly tired vibe of a choir on tour, with occasional wobbles uncharacteristic of the Ensemble in its halcyon days. Undoubtedly those who were completely bowled over by the original concept will want to invest in this CD, on which the several of the tracks are new conceptions, but I should add a couple of caveats: the Swiss audience are quite coughy, and in the acoustic this tends to ricochet around a bit; there is a degree of background noise as the performers move around; the singers are not on their usual superlative form; I feel that just as the third in the series of ECM CDs Officium novum didn’t quite capture the magic of the first two Officium and Mnemosyne, so this one is at best an envoie to the whole project. Appropriate perhaps that it ends with an account of the Scottish Renaissance part-song Remember me, my dear – sadly a more convincing version is on Mnemosyne, so perhaps better to remember that.

D. James Ross

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Veracini: Overtures & Concerti Vol. 2

Cover of cpo Veracini CD vol. 2

L’Arte dell’Arco, Federico Guglielmo
56:22
cpo 555 220-2

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A slightly younger contemporary of Bach and Handel and younger still than Telemann, Veracini has always seemed to me to invite comparison with the last. Always imaginative and influenced by a range of musical styles, he appears however to lack the final spark of genius which Telemann displays. In fact, Veracini belongs to a whole separate tradition of the travelling violinist virtuoso composer, and both the flamboyance of the composer and the instability of the career are underlined by an anecdote relating how Veracini broke his leg by throwing himself out of a window while on tour. The composer’s more extravagant nature is most in evidence in the two sonatas for violin and continuo recorded here. The D major violin concerto is also a sparkling affair in the post-Vivaldi mode, with lots of virtuosic demands placed upon the soloist. Federico Guglielmo is an able and expressive soloist as well as directing the ensemble extremely effectively. So the present CD offers an interesting cross-section of Veracini’s output, with one major reservation. It is recorded in the Gabinetto di Lettura in Este, and sadly it sounds as if it was recorded in an actual cabinet – the ambience is startlingly immediate, brittle and dead. This an enormous shame as the performances sound really persuasive and technically impressive, but with such a dead acoustic this is not a relaxing listen.

D. James Ross 

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Handel: Concerti grossi Op. 6 (7-12)

Akamus Handel op 6 CD cover

Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, Bernhard Forck
80:29
Pentatone PIC 5186 738

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When I was a child the first vinyl boxed set I bought was the famous Decca recording of Handel’s opp. 3 and 6 by the Academy of St Martin in the Fields – I recently ‘rebought’ it on CD and found to my delight that it stood up very well to the passage of time, with some extremely elegant and unfussy string playing and some deeply funky continuo playing from non other than Thurston Dart. As it happens, my absolute favourite concerto in the set is number 7 with its ‘fugue on one note’, and this new recording of the second half of the set opens of course with this concerto. Although it is the composer’s opus 6, he was already 54 when it went to print – he chose the low opus number with his publisher Walsh to encourage obvious comparisons with Corelli’s op 6 Concerti grosso. Dating as they do from his late middle age, they contain a wealth of material recycled from other pieces as well as music he would go on to ‘repurpose’, and as such they make a superb introduction to the musical world of the composer. So I love the music, but did I love this recording? I liked its crispness in the faster movements and its lyricism in the slower ones, and the playing is never less than polished and elegant. Compared to the ASMF accounts, the slow movements fairly race along, but this is in line with current thinking and the music never sounds perfunctory. If I appear to be almost damning with faint praise, that is probably unfair, but if you record Handel’s op 6 concerti these days you need to have something special to say about the music, and I’m not sure that the present performers have. At the moment, my favourite modern period instrument performance is the 2008 account on BIS by Martin Gester’s Arte dei Suonatori, a beautifully poised and thought-through account of the complete op 6. Would I replace this with the present recording? – I’m afraid not.

D. James Ross

 

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D’Amor mormora il vento

Cover of La voz galana's CD

Songs and Dances alla spagnola
La Boz Galana
69:42
Ramée RAM 1909

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Why you might ask is this delightful collection of 17th-century music alla spagnoletta largely Italian in language and origin? The solution is the lively printed music tradition in Italy at the time, which preserved the music inspired by Spain, sometimes composed and played by Spanish musicians and even the art of strumming accompaniments on the guitar, whereas in Spain itself these details went unrecorded. La Boz Galana (Sebastián León,  baritone, Louis Capeille, baroque harp, and Edwin Garcia, baroque guitar) provide beautifully engaging accounts of a selection of this repertoire by Landi and Kapsberger as well as less well-known composers such as Juan de Arañés, Giovanni Stefani, Carlo Milanuzzi and Antonio Cabonchi. Several of the pieces are anonymous, reflecting their almost pop-song status, and La Boz Galana capture perfectly this repertoire’s lightly innocent lyricism. Sebastián León has an effortlessly tuneful voice, which draws the listener in to this delightful material, while his instrumentalists accompany sympathetically while also injecting a distinctive alla spagnola flavour to their playing. The instrumental interpolations are not just padding but a genuine enhancement of this charming CD.

D. James Ross