Tag: Baroque

Cantus Cölln, Concerto Palatino, Konrad Junghänel
153:00 (2 CDs)
harmonia mundi HMG 501783.84

[dropcap]A[/dropcap] collection assembled – and in a number of cases, performed – by Johann Sebastian of works composed by the older members of the remarkable Bach family was recognised after his death as an important testament to J. S. B.’s reverence for his ancestors’ musical genius and came to be known as the Altbachisches Archiv before the end of the 18th century. Ending up in the Berlin Sing-Akademie library, the collection was first published in 1935, but went missing in the course of the 1939-45 war, re-emerging in Kiev. After being restored to Berlin at the end of the last century the pieces were worked on by Peter Wollny, a frequent author of Bach CD liner notes, whose essay here gives a detailed account of their contents as well as provenance.

Konrad Junghänel recorded them in 2002 with Cantus Cölln and Concerto Palatino, and these two CDs contain all the material in the Archiv together with a couple of additional motets by J. C. Bach (1642-1703), the most represented member of the ancestral clan, and the composer of the spacious 22 voice Michaelmas cantata where a choir of four trumpets and drums vies with two five voice vocal choirs and a string group of two violins and 4 violas, fagotto and continuo to represent the war in heaven which C. P. E. says his father performed in Leipzig to astonishing effect.

It is excellent to have the whole Archiv performed together, and with such fine singing and playing.The eleven singers are variously accompanied but the useful page detailing the exact instrumental and vocal registration of each piece is hidden in the middle of the substantial booklet; nor does this page follow the performing order given in the two title pages. And while we are given the scoring, we have no details of the actual instruments, pitch or temperament. But the substantial nine-page essay by Peter Wollny is given in French, English and German.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nq_1NNe-bRY

One gem among many is the last track of CD 1, a substantial wedding cantata by J. C. Bach, Mein Freundin, du bist schön, for which the parts are in the hand of Johann Ambrosius – the father of J. S. B. – which suggests that it may well have been performed at the marriage of J. C. B. in 1679. Much of the cantata is a dialogue between the lovers, and there is a long soprano aria over a ground bass where the accompanying instruments – a single violin, three violas with violone and continuo – perform remarkable ‘divisions’; this is followed by a chirpy fagotto obligato before a final gigue-like finale involving all the instruments, the voices of the choro and the four-part ripieno group.In other numbers, the inner parts in the string ensemble are often performed by a number of violas and sometimes violas da gamba, and frequently there is an independent fagotto part, as in J. S. B.’s cantata 150 or 131.But although these pieces illuminate the young J. S. B.’s technique and instrumentation as what we have come to know as ‘the orchestra’ was evolving out of the chori of different families of instruments and voices, they are nearly all fine compositions in their own right, and even the simpler motets for four voices or two four-part chori with organ (and sometimes cornetto and sackbuts) show us the range of styles that surrounded the growing J. S. B., and illuminates the background of his struggles with the church authorities in Leipzig to try and achieve groups of singers and players who could do justice to simpler homophonic and contrapuntal motets alongside the more adventurous demands of his cantatas and the Passions. Who, hearing these earlier pieces so convincingly performed with one voice or instrument to a part, could imagine the similarly scored Weimar cantatas sung or played in any other way?

So what happened in the Köthen and early Leipzig years to incline him to increase the number of (especially violin) players per part? And – the number of surviving singing parts notwithstanding – under what circumstances did he double or treble or even quadruple the number of voices per part with ripienisten, as the distinction in some later cantatas between solo and tutti as well as his desideratum in the famous Memorandum (Entwurf) of 1730 for a choir ‘pool’ of 12 or even 16 voices, suggests? For some of these motets, J. S. B. added doubling string and wind parts. There are questions that still need addressing, and this recording of the Altbachisches Archiv raises them sharply.

This is a finely performed and important collection: singers and players alike cultivate a clean and matching style, where each listens to the shaping of the other. No-one who is serious about learning how J. S. B.’s style of choral writing evolved from the time of Schütz through his distinguished ancestors can afford to miss this; and no-one can fail to enjoy these affective settings of texts that often have a personal – a wedding or a funeral – association; or even a family reunion, as in Georg Christoph’s cantata setting of Psalm 133, (CD 2.7) which Wollny convincingly argues was written for 16 September 1689, when G. C.’s twin brothers visited him in Schweinfurt to celebrate his birthday, joining their two tenor voices to his bass.

David Stancliffe

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Kei Koito (Volckland organ 1732/37, Cruciskirche, Erfurt)
70:53
Claves 50-1503

[dropcap]K[/dropcap]ei Koito plays this volume on the remarkable organ by Franciscus Volckland in Erfurt’s Cruciskirche. Built between 1732 and 1737, this instrument by one of Thuringia’s most noted builders is remarkable in several respects: first there are an unusual number of manual 8’ ranks – five on the Hauptwerk: Principal, Viola di Gamba, Gemshorn, Bordun and Traversiere, and three on the Brustwerke. There are only two reeds – a Vox Humana of considerable character and power, and a medium-powered but clear pedal Posaune. The lack of a manual chorus reed is amply compensated for by a rich Sesquialtera, and the Hauptwerk Mixtur is in the 16’ register and contains a third. The pedal has four 16’ ranks, with an 8’ and 4’ octave as its only upperwork, so she plays this mixture of preludes, fugues, trios, works classed as Anhang and transcriptions from cantatas and violin sonatas making frequent use of the pedal coupler and the large variety of string and flute tones – the Fughetta BWV 902 is particularly delightful on the 4’ Nachthorn on the Brustwerk.

It is impossible to elaborate the details of this interesting organ, so well suited to these pieces – some entirely unknown to me; but as well as a full specification of the organ, detailed registrations are given in the accompanying liner notes. The organ plays at a’=466 Hz and is tuned to Kirnberger II; it was restored by Alexander Schuke of Potsdam between 1999 and 2003, and some photographs and a description of the work he did would have been welcome. Jakob Adlung says in his 1768 treatise that Der Klang dieser Orgel ist unvergleichlich – ‘the sound of this organ is incomparable’, and it still is.

Kei Koito plays with clarity and finesse, using period fingerings and even lets us hear the Glockenspiel – as the Cymbelstern is called – sparingly in In dulci jubilo. An old friend of our family – a retired Major with all that the suggested stereotype implies – said of the blind organist Helmut Walcha (whose recordings on historic north-German instruments issued by DGG in the 1950s were a landmark in changing tastes) after hearing a recital of his on the then new organ in the Royal Festival Hall: ‘Absolutely spiffing; no smudge at all’; and I can do no better than echo his remark. This is a fascinating CD of some unfamiliar music played excellently on a remarkably suitable organ, and deserves to be known and enjoyed widely. This may be close to the aural picture that Bach had in mind than much of the Buxtehude north-German sound of the Schnitger organs that we often hear used for recording his organ music.

David Stancliffe

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Carolyn Sampson, Anke Vondung, Daniel Johannsen, Robias Berndt SATB, Gächinger Kantorei Stuttgart, Freiburger Barockorchester, Hans-Christoph Rademann
115:58 (2 CDs); Deluxe edition also has DVD (38:32)
Carus 83.314 (2 CDs)
Carus 83.315 (Deluxe)

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]his is an important recording, as it uses the new Carus edition by Ulrich Leisinger. This edition has been in the making over a considerable time, and the text of the Missa is based on Bach’s autograph Dresden parts. Disentangling the various hands at work on the many revisions of the score of the complete work that passed into the care of C. P. E. Bach on his father’s death, where erasures, poor quality paper and fierce ink have wrought havoc and caused almost total loss of certain passages, has been a monumental task, only made possible by recent X-ray florescence analysis. From this recent analysis, it is evident that C. P. E. Bach made a number of alterations as well as corrections, and Uwe Wolf’s discussion with the conductor on the DVD as they look at the original leaves in Berlin raises the question of how to determine the best source – is that the original score, or is the more mature version in the parts, where J. S. B. clearly had further ideas as he wrote them out; or is it in the version edited up by C. P. E., which we have come to know as the authoritative text?

As well as them discussing the text, the DVD also gives interesting clips of Rademann rehearsing sections with the choir; swapping the position of the voices, trying out different tempi and figurations for the Sanctus and trying to get the singers understanding the flow of the vocal figures and the interchange between the voices. We also see him communing with nature in a Wordsworthian way, and the resulting performance which is fresh and fluid, as well as textually novel in places, is almost romantic in its approach: the complete performance of the opening Kyrie on the DVD reveals Rademann chasing interchanges, highlighting swirling counterpoint and caressing small details. As far as the text is concerned, the Domine Deus and Quoniam are the most obviously different, and are given in their well known versions at the end of the first CD, just as the 1724 SSSATB version of the Sanctus forms an appendix to the second. Most irritating to the listener are the very poorly managed hiccoughs between the movements that have links: the Quoniam to the Cum Sancto Spirito, the Confiteor to the Et expecto and the Sanctus to the Pleni sunt cæli.

But among all the discussion about the text, and the care taken over the details of the performance, this is still a performance in the choral society tradition. The full choir – 6 first Sops, 6 second Sops, 7 Alt, 6 Ten, 7 Bass making a total of 32 – sings everything: there is no dividing the choral scoring into different levels depending on the instrumental forces – or even any discussion of the possibility of doing so. You can tell from the traditional placing of the singers – ‘soloists’ out front, accompanied by the orchestra and chorus behind the players, singing with them – that this ‘choral society’ tradition is how the conductor conceives the work in spite of the up-to-date text. And the ‘soloists’ are just that: a ‘traditional’ SATB quartet, so that the alto doubles as the second soprano and the bass has to manage the low-range Quoniam as well as the baritone Et in Spiritum Sanctum. I no longer find this inequality between the choral sound and the single voice numbers convincing. Of the soloists, the bass is not quite right for either range, and is not really flexible enough for the detail of this music; the tenor, Daniel Johannsen, is light, fluent and a good match for the flute in the Benedictus and the Soprano in Domine Deus. The alto has to do dual duty, and is a soloist with accompaniment in the Agnus Dei rather than an equal partner with the violins. But if you want a choral society performance, this is a very good one: though a rather over-polished sound, with none of the raw excitement of Václav Luks with Collegium Vocale 1704 on ACC 24283 (reviewed in EMR December 2013) nor the clarity of the early OVPP version by Andrew Parrott.

The Freiburger Barockorchester (5.4.3.2.2 strings and single wind and brass with a sparkily played small organ) sound splendid: they are fluent and elastic when playing with the voices, but never lose their independent rhythmic impetus. My only query with them is the temperament: nothing is said in the glossy booklet, where a good bit of space is given to advertising Carus’ other productions, about which temperament is used or who made the instruments, but the trumpets clearly use finger holes even if the splendid horn player manages with handstopping.

Tempi are good, and the Sanctus – always a hall-mark for me – brisk, if not in the swinging 2 in a bar that was being tried out in some of the rehearsal clips. The balance and discipline of the choir are excellent, but the un-thought through nature of the choral scoring is shown up by the switch between the choir and the single bass in the Et iterum venturus est section of the Et resurrexit where his different tone and forward sound (the ‘soloists’ stand in front of the band with the choir behind) make an unbalanced contrast with the chorus. While the German material in the glossy booklet is translated into English, important questions about performance practice are left with no discussion: the booklet concentrates on the almost detective story-like establishment of the text and the usual biographical hagiography.

No-one who wrestles with the conundrum of Bach’s ‘great Catholic Mass’ as C. P. E. Bach called it should be without this version of the text and fail to study the Dresden parts, or the Carus score, when they consider the difficulties and obfuscations of the several facsimile scores that are now available. You will be enchanted by the singing of this choir and the playing of this band. But whether you will be convinced by all the stylistic solutions offered by Rademann’s performance, I rather doubt.

David Stancliffe

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English Renaissance Consort Music
Consortium5 recorder quintet
67:15
Resonus RES10155
Music by Jerome Bassano, Blankes, Brade, Byrd, Coperario, Dowland, Eglestone, Alfonso Ferrabosco I & II, Edward Gibbons, Holborne, Parsley, Parsons, Tye & Ward

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he title of this CD of English renaissance consort music is taken from a memorial wall-plaque in Norwich Cathedral to Osbert Parsley, composer of two of the 34 pieces on the disc, who died in 1585. Much of the music is associated with the court of Queen Elizabeth I and is usually for unspecified instruments, though Peter Holman speculates in his excellent notes on consort music in Elizabethan England that the three pieces by Bassano may well have been specifically written for recorders since the composer was a member of the court recorder consort for over fifty years. This Jerome (Geronimo) Bassano belonged to the second generation of the Bassano family which had moved in the 1530s from Venice to England where they became court musicians and recorder makers. It is a set of ten Bassano recorders made by Adriano Breukink which Consortium5 use to good effect in this recording. A whole CD of recorder music can leave one longing for a change of instrument but here the use of 4- and 8-foot pitch and the consort’s perfectly matched but varied articulation mean that the sound never becomes dull. The warm, mellow quality of the bigger instruments is particularly pleasing. The fact that 13 tracks are fantasias based on In Nomine might also lead to expectations of dullness but it’s surprising how great a variety of music can be based on this cantus firmus. There are more modern fantasias too, in a style derived from madrigals (rather than church music) which became fashionable around 1600. Most of the remaining pieces use dance forms and include a sprightly performance of Holborne’s Fairie-round and a set of well-known dances by Dowland.

Victoria Helby

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Philippe Pierlot lyra viol, Dhruba Ghosh sanagi, Nitiranjan Biswas tabla, Roselyne Simpelaere tanpura
63:03
Flora 1006

[dropcap]W[/dropcap]hat a fanciful idea to take Hume’s extraordinary imagination and contrast/combine it with the imagination of a far continent with enormously appealing musical traditions of its own! And who better to do it than Philippe Pierlot – a marvellous player, playing what he calls a ‘lyra viol’ – in this case a 6-string bass viol in standard tuning, apart from ‘I am melancholy’ which is indeed in the bandore set.

The first nine tracks are all from the 1605 ‘Captain Humes Musicall Humors’ the most substantial being ‘Captain Humes Pavan’ (no 46) with which he opens the recording. This is followed by 12 of the shorter pieces, all persuasively played with great insight, infectious enthusiasm and, of course, complete technical assurance. One finds oneself wondering: why not just let this music and this playing stand on its own, it’s so inventive, so attractive, with lovely melodies and the gorgeous sounds of the bass viol so beautifully played? Why take it to India? Before he leaves, as it were, there is such a lovely account of ‘I am melancholy’.

Then, unexpectedly, bells, the drone of the tanpura, the bowed sarangi, not such a foreign sound after what we have heard, playing a raga that recalls our minor scale, joined by the subtle plastic rhythms of the tabla. The piece has the title ‘Sunrise by the Riverside’ and, in contrast, nearly 10 minutes long. It imparts a sense of inner landscape rather than that which its pictorial title might suggest, not so distant from Hume’s whimsy, sometimes humorous, sometimes suggesting great depths.

The playing is compelling, surging to and from its principal notes, with gossamer figuration, ever increasing in its range and intensity, concluding peacefully as it began with the bells, the tanpura drone lingering on e, as Hume’s ‘Deth’ comes in with its a minor chord. The sarangi then joins it with an improvisation on what has just been played. The second section of ‘Deth’ then follows, joining seamlessly with the sarangi, and so to the end, with the tanpura maintaining its drone throughout. The result is magical and very moving.

It’s immediately followed, almost interrupted, by ‘A Tune to Hume’ played initially on the sarangi weaving its endless flow, until the tabla enters, then the voice, presumably the sarangi player, as accomplished a singer as he is a player.

Then the ‘Lamento di Tristano’ – the medieval tune, played first by the viol, with the tanpura drone, joined by the sarangi, in octaves, but with its characteristic flourishes, including bending the tuning.

The sarangi then takes off on its own for a time, and they all tear into the Rotto with the tabla even playing in octaves with the two melody instruments. Its very infectious, marvellous listening, a complete answer to my initial questions.

The booklet gives more suggestions than information, quoting Hume’s introduction to his publication, and F. J. Fétis ‘There is nothing in the West which has not come from the East.’ It doesn’t help that one page is repeated, and it seems another page is missing, but it matters so little, and perhaps even contributes to an open-ness that this recording imparts. Highly recommended – a tour de force of imaginative insight.

Robert Oliver

Trio Settecento
186:48 (3 CDs)
Cedille CDR 90000 155

[dropcap]F[/dropcap]ollowing hot on the heels of Rie Kimura’s recording of two of Veracini’s monumental op. 2 sonatas, along comes the formidable Rachel Barton Pine and her colleagues John Mark Rozendaal on cello and David Schrader on harpsichord (who also features on Cedille’s Greene: Six Overtures in Seven Parts) with a three disc set of the complete publication. The recording emphasizes the stringed instrument sound, with the harmonic support of the keyboard mostly in the aural background. In her personal note that accompanies the recording, Barton Pine explains how the initial discussions didn’t even involve the harpsichordist, but that the final sound is the fruits of their giving several houses concerts and gauging the reaction of audiences. I do not recommend listening to all three CDs one after another – there is so much to enjoy, with every track demonstrating different aspects of Veracini’s creativity and Barton Pine’s virtuosity; it would be a sin to take any of it for granted; these are extraoradinary performances by anyone’s standards, and I am sure this will be the benchmark against which future recordings will be judged. Bravo to all involved!

Brian Clark

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Baroque Band, Garry Clarke
David Schrader solo harpsichord
Overtures in Seven Parts, nos. 1-6, Overtures to Phoebe and Ode for St Cecilia
Pieces in C minor, G minor and A minor from Lessons for the Harpsichord

[dropcap]I[/dropcap] still do not understand why Handel’s English contemporaries so rarely feature on concert programmes and recordings. Hyperion’s enterprising English Orpheus series brought us Croft, Stanley, Arne and Boyce amongst others. One published set that had not appeared on disc before a ridiculous court case forced Hyperion to tighten its belt was Maurice Greene’s excellent Overtures in Seven Parts, which the present CD combines with overtures to the pastoral opera Phoebe and an Ode for St Cecilia from 1730 (premiered on the eve of the composer’s appointment as Professor of Music at Cambridge University). Greene was no lightweight – he was organist at St Paul’s cathedral, organist and composer to the Chapel Royal and Master of the King’s Musick…

Four of the six have three movements, while numbers 4 and 6 have four each, and there is an easy tunefulness about them all. The last of the set is for strings alone, as are the two unpublished works. The remainder of the disc features three sequences of music printed in “A Collection of Lessons for the Harpsichord“, though not in the order published by John Johnson in around 1750. After the richness of the orchestral sound (33221 strings with oboes or flutes), the keyboard instrument sounded a little insubstantial; having initially thought that it would have been more sensible to programme these pieces between the overtures, having a longer sequence actually allows the ear to acclimatize. Personally, I think I would have sought out more ensemble music, or even added pieces by Stanley and/or Boyce, who were among Greene’s many students.

If you do not know Greene’s music, do not miss this first class introduction!

Brian Clark

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