Tag: Baroque

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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Austral Harmony (Jane Downer oboes, Simon Desbruslais trumpets, Peter Hagen organ)
64:28
Chandos Chaconne CHAN0809
Music by J. S. Bach, Homilius, Kauffmann, Krebs and Tag

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]his is an interesting compendium of some German music by Krebs, Homilius, Tag, and Kauffmann, with a couple of J. S. Bach pieces thrown in for good measure. Although none of the less well-known works can be consigned to the category of ‘best left to rot in the organ loft’, some did seem rather insignificant. The disc is based round the organ chorale prelude, most of which are performed with oboe and/or trumpet playing the chorale melody, as was occasionally the custom at the time, according to the useful booklet notes. One can’t help feeling, however, that they may have been done in that way when the organist couldn’t manage to play everything himself! The players use a variety of instruments – oboe and oboe d’amore, and trumpets of different types – natural, slide and even a modern instrument for one piece – which are detailed in the excellent booklet notes. An oboe sonata by Homilius, known mainly for his sacred cantatas and motets, and the Bach organ trio sonata no. 3 (played on oboe and organ) complete the disc.

Ian Graham-Jones

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Weser-Renaissance, Manfred Cordes
67:04
cpo 777 944-2
Der Gerechten Seelen sind in Gottes Hand, Dixit Dominus, Herr Jesu Christ wahr’ Mensch und Gott, Sie ist fest gegrünget, Und Jesus ging aus von dannen

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]his is the third installment of a cpo series devoted to music for the court of Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorf, a small but relatively influential establishment especially in the 17th and 18th centuries. After Augustin Pfleger and Johann Philipp Förtsch (both favourably reviewed in EMR) comes a disc devoted to Georg Österreich, whose “claim to fame” has hitherto been the fact that his vast music collection (or perhaps only half of it, since there is a theory that one part of his legacy followed one of his sons into the Baltic lands…) constitutes a major portion of the famous Bokemeyer Collection in the German State Library in Berlin, through which an extraordinary amount of 17th-century music has survived at all. Weser-Renaissance Bremen, who specialise in this repertoire, present five varying and substantial works, ranging from a funeral cantata at seven and a half minutes to a setting of Dixit Dominus that lasts nearer 20! Solo voices (up to five of them) combine with strings and a continuo group of bassoon, chitarrone and organ to produce rather a dark palette, throwing the often angular vocal lines into the limelight. The booklet notes try to disguise Österreich’s pseudo-counterpoint (which falls far short of the sophistication of his contemporaries) as an attempt to give the words more prominence; the fact that this is all very much 17th-century music (he died in 1735, aged over 70) weakens such an argument – perhaps he just was not interested in writing polyphony. This is – as with all of Cordes’s projects – an interesting and well worthwhile recording, with much fine singing and playing to admire. I fear it may not rescue the composer from the footnotes of musicology, though.

Brian Clark

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Musica Fiorita, Daniela Dolci
73:42
Pan Classics PC 10333 (&copy: 2000)

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he French composer Elisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre was recognized early as a child prodigy and was educated and supported throughout her life by a pension from the Sun King. Freed from the need to make a living, she experimented with the musical conventions of her time, producing music which is engaging and daringly original. She composed in a wide variety of musical genres, but her chamber music, represented here by a selection of trio sonatas from collections from 1687, 1695 and 1707, is of a particularly high standard. The ensemble Musica Florita employ baroque violins, flute, oboe, gamba, baroque cello, theorbo, archlute, harpsichord and organ to provide the varied textures necessary to bring her work to life, and their playing is fresh and idiomatic. It is pleasing to hear a substantial collection of music by a composer who is frequently cited but rarely performed, and to find that it is of a consistently high standard of technical excellence and musical inspiration.

D. James Ross

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Philip Higham
140:37 (2 CDs)
Delphian DCD34150

[dropcap]W[/dropcap]hen confronted with the opportunity to record what everyone considers to be the epitome of the repertoire for your instrument, performers must inevitably make all sorts of decisions about how their version will be different. By also acting as the producer for the present engrossing recording, Philip Higham has taken even more care that one might expect over the finished sound. That sound is initially created by a combination of gut strings at A=435 (just enough slacking off of the tension to allow the instruments to speak a little differently) and a modern bow. I reckon Higham could just have been handed a twig from a tree and he would have made beautiful music! His performances are clearly indebted to developments in HIP playing without ever “being a slave” to a list of things “not to do” – the fact that he has Anna Magdalena’s score at hand (and sometimes follows her odd seeming phrasing indications) even though he normally plays from memory speaks volumes; as does his correction of what he believes to be an institutionalised error in the final suite (his version is utterly convincing!) He is quick to point out that this is how he feels the suites at the present time; like Pieter Wispelwey before him, he doesn’t rule out revisiting them at some later stage. I will be impressed if he can better these renditions.

Brian Clark

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Huguette Dreyfus harpsichord
141:01 (2 CDs)
Heritage HTGCD 292/3 ©1983

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]his is a re-release of a fine recording from the early 80s, when Dreyfus was already in her mid 50s. According to the first portion of the booklet notes (only in English), she spent a month in Japan, giving concerts and lessons and visiting Japanese temples. There is not the slightest hint of such a busy schedule taking its toll on her playing, which is serenely poised, not a note out of place, not a phrase left unturned to his elegant best. If the harpsichord perhaps sounds a little “two dimensional”, that is more to do perhaps with the recording aesthetics of the day and the limited availability of instruments with greater timbral possibilities. As model performances of this astonishingly varied set of keyboard pieces, this recording takes some beating.

Brian Clark

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Silvia Frigato Primavera, Elena Biscuola Estate, Raffaele Giordani Autumno, Mauro Borgioni Inverno, SATB, Venice Monteverdi Academy, Ensemble Lorenzo da Ponte, Roberto Zarpellon
122:30 (2 CDs)
fra bernardo FB 1503177

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]his allegorical oratorio for four soloists (representing the seasons), chorus and orchestra was written for the Jesuits in 1731, and was subsequently performed in Venice. In a tail of everyday allegorical nonsense, Winter returns from the mountains to discover that the Virgin Mary is dead; having expressed all the necessary grief, the four seasons then strive to claim to be the most important season of her life, until they finally resolve that none of them deserves such an accolade and they should instead rejoice in her ascent into Heaven. This is a modest (modern) performance in a large acoustic – the choir (4333) and orchestra (33111 with organ and harpsichord) fill the undisclosed venue. The music is actually very fine, especially some of the arias (the tenor Autumno has two that last over seven minutes and demand real virtuosity), and there is a rich variety of instrumental writing. I cannot help but think, though, that a HIP performance of it is long overdue – for one thing I found the regulation slow down before final cadences rather tiresome. The booklet only has an Italian libretto, so you will have to rely on the synopsis to keep up to date with what is going on.

Brian Clark

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