Tag: Baroque

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 The last of the set is for strings alone, as are the two unpublished works.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

Accademia Strumentale Italiana
70:36
Stradivarius STR 37002

Robert Oliver

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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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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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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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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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