Categories
Recording

Maurice Greene: Overtures

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 The last of the set is for strings alone, as are the two unpublished works.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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DVD

Handel: L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato

Mark Morris Dance Group, [Sarah Jane Brandon, Elizabeth Watts, James Gilchrist, Andrew Foster-Williams SSTB], Teatro Real Orchestra and Chorus, Jane Glover
97+13:00
BelAir Classiques BAC123

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]his is one of the very few ballets I have actually seen in the theatre. I was dragged along somewhat reluctantly by a friend who loves Handel’s music and wanted to see what a choreographer could possibly make of vocal music. Watching the DVD brought back fond memories of the production (although the musicians are completely different!) – the staging is very simple with large panels of colour creating the only real visual stimulation, which (of course!) forces attention on to the dancers, who mostly cavort and frolic in looped routines which are so short as to appear almost mechanic in nature, and yet others that are strikingly visually representative of the text (try the hunt scene, for example). Of course, the advantage of viewing a film rather than squinting at the entire scene from a distance is that one can see quite a lot of detail.

I was extremely impressed by the energy and stamina of the dancers, who must shed pounds during every performance. The musical performance is pretty much of secondary importance, although there are close-ups of singers during some of the numbers. I would not recommend this if it were a CD purely of the music, but as a Gesamtkunstwerk it works very well.

Brian Clark

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Categories
Sheet music

Francesco Antonio Pistocchi: Scherzi musicali [op. II] and Duetti e terzetti, op. III

Critical edition by Alejandra Béjar Bartolo.
Lucca, LIM: 2015. 256pp.
ISBN: 9788870967777 €30

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]his well-researched and well-printed modern critical edition of the 24 surviving printed vocal works of Francesco Antonio Pistocchi (1659-1726) is welcome: he was a more than competent composer, and his music is charming and lyrical. Precocious as a composer, his instrumental Capricci puerili…, were published in 1667 as Op. I, when he was eight. His actual first opus of cantatas, published in Bologna by Silvani in 1698, and lost, was unknown to Estienne Roger when the latter printed the Scherzi musicali as ‘Op. I’ in the same year, in Amsterdam. So despite the composer’s authorisation to call it ‘op. I’, it is now dubbed ‘[Op. II]’. In fact his Duetti e terzetti was published by Silvani in 1707 as Op. III.

Pistocchi, born in Palermo, and whose father was a violinist and a tenor, was in Bologna by the age of two, sang from the age of 11 in S.Petronio (the Bologna cathedral) and had an active operatic career from 1675 to 1695, teaching singing thereafter. This volume gives a detailed biography, only in Italian. He composed operas and oratorios, sacred and instrumental music, and was highly regarded by Torelli, Perti and Tosi.

Op. II contains 12 pieces, all with continuo: three cantatas for soprano, two for contralto, one for bass, two Italian duets (SS and SC), two French solo arias (S and C, emulating Lully), and two German solo arias (C and S, in ‘Italian’ style). They are above all pleasing, relatively undemanding, and short, with good and sometimes bold harmony. Not only are the da capos written out, but Pistocchi tends to repeat phrases and sections as well, which is perhaps more typical on the stage than in cantatas, or perhaps a reason for calling them collectively ‘scherzi musicali‘.

The prints can also be consulted instantly online here (Op. II) and here (Op. III).

This permits me to comment on Béjar Bartolo’s transcription and critical notes. The source itself is very good, but as inevitable in all prints in movable type, manuscript copies will yield some additional details, different lyrics or underlay, innumerable ties, and may confirm or not other questionable readings. So to that extent, this is not really a complete critical edition. The print requires relatively few things to be noted. I found a manuscript viewable online for the first cantata, which Béjar Bartolo does not list, and this makes me assume that many other manuscripts of these diffusely circulated pieces may not be listed!

I was especially eager to find the first cantata (In su la piaggia aprica) because I suspected a mistaken interpretation of the text, a simile that makes no sense as Béjar Bartolo explained it, abetted by an incorrect comma which she inserted. She misinterprets ‘veloci piante‘, the soles of the feet of the fleeing Mirtillo, as ‘pianti‘, or sobs (of spurned Lucinda), thinking that the spelling was compromised to rhyme with amante! No, these piante are Mirtillo’s fleet feet. The point is that Mirtillo wants nothing to do with poor Lucinda, who isn’t quite crying yet, though she will be at the end. In the opening narrated recit, Mirtillo, as the mythical Daphne had to, is running away, in this case from the girl who loves him (‘che a fuggir la sua amante,/ al par di Dafne, ebbe veloci piante.’).

To her credit, Béjar Bartolo has carefully aligned the continuo figures from the Amsterdam print with the music, providing where necessary the editorial accidentals without which a continuo player would be apt to err. Since movable type has no beaming and this print does not tie any continuo notes, it might have been nice to follow the beaming and to include or comment on the omnipresent continuo ties from manuscript versions, and, where differing, any alternative lyrics or underlay. The print sometimes uses black notation for hemiolas, which the editor then indicates silently by adding coloration brackets. I found one wrong vocal note in this first cantata (in Aria 1 bar 38, b’ instead of a’), and several questionable notes in the others. Players and singers should be suspicious enough to double check with the online original. Pistocchi’s audacious chromatic surprises are, however, theoretically acceptable, if at times challenging. His precise tempo indications are also uncommon: abbastanza adagio, adagio assai, andante ma non presto, più andante; and almost all of his interesting recits turn into substantial ariosos, longer than the recits themselves.

Op. III includes ten duets (SC), and two trios (STB and SCT). These are also cantatas in form, with solo or dialoguing recits between the arias. It is not mandatory, but the entire sequence could be performed as a unified work, since the soprano and the contralto are figures complementing one another in their contrasting points of view, and the final madrigalistic trios address those who have ‘sailed the undulating sea of love’ (Ecco il lido, a terra, a terra) and remind them with downward arpeggios (Tramonta il sol e lascia il mondo tutto) of the sunset of ‘beauty which is born and dies in a flash’.

It is slightly inconvenient that the critical apparatus of Op. III was put in the middle of the volume, between the two works, and much more so that a fairly heavy book of 256 pages needs so much manhandling to make it stay open for playing from. The LIM has very moderate prices, and I wonder how much more it would have cost to print Op. II and Op. III in separate bindings, with the critical material, which is not needed when playing and should have been translated into other languages, in a third. Are we ‘supposed’ to resort to photocopying in order to be able to use the music we buy?

Barbara Sachs

Categories
Recording

Schein: Ich will schweigen

Alice Foccroulle, Béatrice Mayo-Felip, Reinoud Van Mechelen SST, InAlto, directed by Lambert Colson, Marc Meisel organ
62:42
Ramée 1401

[dropcap]O[/dropcap]n the whole, I’m more familiar with Scheidt than Schein, though some Scheidt is a bit over-regular. My main criticism here is that Schein deserves a complete disc rather then jumping to the end of the 17th century, and J. S. Bach really is too late!

Most of the Schein works come from Opella nova, 1617, and very impressive they are, though in “Exaudiet” the tenor texts were more audible than the soprano, and cornett/sackbutts do tend to need more gaps, much as I like them. I reckon that this could be a brilliant CD had it been more thought out, though do buy it. The booklet is excellent, apart from not noting which soprano is which.

Clifford Bartlett

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Recording

Binder: Sei Suonate per il Cembalo op. 1

Paulina Tkaczyk harpsichord
117:24 (2 CDs)
Dux 1153/1154

[dropcap]C[/dropcap]hristlieb Siegmund Binder (1723-1789) is described by some writers as Dresden’s answer to Carl Philipp Emmanuel Bach; if these sonatas, printed in 1759, are typical, then that is an exaggeration. Though tuneful and not without exciting outer movements, they are fairly workaday and rarely deviate from the mid-18th-century norm. Paulina Tkaczyk is a lyrical interpreter and uses the full potential of her instrument (there are no details of of the maker in the booklet notes), which means that listening to one CD or the other makes for pleasant background music for a summer’s afternoon, reading Jane Austen.

Brian Clark

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Categories
Recording

Jenkins Fantasies a4: ‘Tis a singing age

Accademia Strumentale Italiana
70:36
Stradivarius STR 37002

Robert Oliver

[]

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[]

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Categories
Recording

Bach: 6 suites a violoncello solo, Sonate à cembalo è viola da gamba

Wieland Kuijken violoncello, violoncello piccolo, basse de viole, Piet Kuijken harpsichord
210:00 (3 CDs)
Arcana A383

[dropcap]E[/dropcap]very cellist will have their own view on the interpretation of the six unaccompanied suites. I have my own distinctive ideas, developed over some 50 years since struggling with the first suite – on modern cello, of course – as a schoolboy barely out of short trousers. Kuijken, in this re-issue of the recording made in 2001-02, takes a very personal, relaxed and reflective interpretation of these works. Allemandes and sarabandes are especially unhurried, although courantes and other subsequent movements retain their dance spirit, Kuijken adopting a detached, at times almost spiccato-like bow stroke for many movements. The text of the early ms sources is strictly adhered to, with little if any added ornamentation. Not only that, the chordal passages, as at the end of the Prelude of Suite II, are played as written, without any of the customary elaboration into arpeggio figuration. Perhaps the most difficult suite to interpret convincingly is Suite IV in E flat, a key which gives hardly any opportunity to exploit the natural resonances of the cello’s open strings. Fortunately Kuijken’s Amati instrument, no doubt aided by a good recording acoustic, helps to negate this problem. The sombre quality of Suite V in C Minor, however, is well captured, with the instrument’s resonances enhanced by the required tuning of the top string down to G. In contrast, Kuijken gives Suite VI, for the five-string violoncello piccolo, its bright, airy texture that is needed for this work.

Perhaps because of the very generous tempi of many of the movements, there was not room for more than two suites on disc 2; so Suite V, together with the three gamba sonatas, appears on disc 3 of the set. These sonatas receive a more conventional reading, with Wieland on a 7-string Bertrand instrument with Piet Kuijken playing a particularly full-sounding copy of a late Baroque German harpsichord. Piet makes his harpsichord (which is well balanced in the recording) sing, and his phrasing carefully matches that of the gamba.

It is difficult to recommend one recording over another, for there are so many HIP versions from which to make a choice, from the sensible to the ridiculous. Both Wispelwey (at Cöthen pitch A=392) and Sigiswald Kuijken (on viola da spalla) are really interesting musical concepts, while this more conventional recording by the latter’s brother (at A=415) I feel ranks highly against many of the others, though not all will appreciate some of his more his leisurely tempi. If you prefer the whacky, there is even Pandolfo on viola da gamba (with suitable transpositions) – or even two recordings on marimba! Certainly Wieland Kuijken is one to consider, even if you have another, though everything he does is not always to my taste.

Ian Graham-Jones

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Recording

Minoritenkonvent – Manuscript XIV 726

Vienna / Praha / Kroměříž, 1700
Aliquando (Stéphanie Paulet violin, Elisabeth Geiger organ)
72:32
muso mu-008
Music by Biber, Faber, Teubner, Viviani, Vojta & anon

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]his is one of the finest recordings I have heard of solo violin music from the 17th century. Paulet and Geiger (who plays one an André Silbermann organ) have selected nearly a dozen extracts from the extensive manuscript which exhibit all the virtuoso techniques of the period, such as scordatura and multiple stops. Four of the works (sonatas 4, 77 and 87 and toccata 94) also appeared on Gunar Letzbor’s Anonymous Habsburg Violin Music (on Pan Classics).

Apart from the outstanding playing from both musicians, the recorded sound really makes this a “must buy” disc – the fuller sound of the “church organ” really fills the space, but is never allowed to dominate. I would love to hear these two in a selection of Schmelzer’s solo sonatas, with the same recording engineer, please!

Brian Clark

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Recording

Frescobaldi: Meta(m)orpheus

cantoLX, dir. Frank Agsteribbe, Maurice Clement organ
73:01
Et’cetera KTC1510

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he ensemble cantoLX follow up the success of their recording of the complete volume I of Girolamo Frescobaldi’s Arie Musicali (1630) with this recording of volume II. The group’s six singers, who appear as soloists and equally effectively as an ensemble, are supported by a reduced continuo team of theorbo and harpsichord – dispensing with the harp, organ, guitar and violone which they called on for volume I. It has to be said that this very much throws the spotlight on to the singers, who however exploit this added exposure with some highly dramatic evocations of their texts, employing beautifully expressive singing and neatly applied ornaments. In among the lovely music by Frescobaldi we have some very brief and rather avant garde improvisations on the organ by Maurice Clement, which seem to have filled out the programme in concert performances and have also made it on to the CD. These seem to involve a forensic exploration of the potential of the 1976 Loncke organ in Sint-Gillis Church in Bruges. To my ear these add nothing to the Frescobaldi, and indeed sound as if they belong on a whole other CD – incidentally not one that I would be buying. The generous 73 minutes of recorded sound suggest that it would have been a better idea just to present the Frescobaldi on its own on a shorter disc. This and the rather arch title and programme notes have lost them a few points in my rating.

D. James Ross

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Recording

Un concert pour Madame de Sévigné

Marc Hantaï & Georges Barthel flute, Eduardo Egüez theorbo, Philippe Pierlot bass viol
70:10
Flora 2110
Music by Hotteterre, Lully, Marais, de Visée, etc.

[dropcap]W[/dropcap]e sometimes complain about rambling or pompous programme notes, but no such issue here. In an extraordinarily minimalist production we have no programme note booklet, indeed hardly any information about the music at all. The voluptuous lady of the title, a mistress of the Sun King, is pictured inside the cover, but again there is no information about her career as a dancer, court beauty and royal mistress. Even the printed sequence of music is confused in that while sections are devoted to Hotteterre and Marais the opening sequence is not credited to any composer at all, although it is presumably by Lully. This is a huge pity as we are denied a full context for the lovely music on the CD, duets and trio sonatas for two flutes and continuo exquisitely played by four of the leading figures in French Baroque performance today. I thoroughly enjoyed their accounts of this engaging repertoire, but did feel a little bit at sea without any background information. When I went on to the listed website to see if they had a set of programme notes there, it proved to be in Japanese! Curiouser and curiouser.

D. James Ross

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