Alex McCartney lute
Veterum Musica – details below the review
Suites in B flat, f and C
[dropcap]R[/dropcap]ené Mésangeau (fl 1567-1638) was one of the pioneers of what was to become the Baroque lute, not least through his experiments in lute tuning that led to the ‘standard’ Baroque lute tuning based around a D minor chord. After a time in Germany he returned to his native Paris and the Court of Louis XIII. Three Suites are included on this CD, in B flat, F minor and C, the latter Suite including two movements by an anonymous composer. Each suite opens with an unmeasured prelude following by groups of Allemandes and Courantes, finishing with Sarabandes or a Chaconne. The playing is sensitive and musical (albeit with a fair bit of finger noise), the acoustic adding a nice resonance to the sound, particularly in the many pieces at low pitch. The sleeve notes are minimal, and there is no indication of track or total timings – something to watch out for if you want anybody to broadcast tracks.
Andrew Benson-Wilson
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David Miller baroque lutes
68:21
Timespan TS1401
Sonatas 5 in d & 30 in g, Prelude & Fantasie in c, Prelude in D, Campanella in D, Passagaille in D, Giga in D
[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he thoughtful and reflective mood of the opening D minor Prelude sets the scene for this enthralling CD of lute music by Silvius Leopold Weiss. I was introduced to the music of Weiss by David Miller in a Dartington concert in the mid 90s. An almost exact contemporary of J. S. Bach and Handel, Weiss spent time in Rome (alongside Handel and Scarlatti) before settling as lutenist to the Dresden Court. His visit to Berlin produced the ‘Famous Weiss’ comment from the sister of the future Frederick the Great. The two Sonatas (in practice, multi-movement suites) from the Dresden manuscripts are nicely contrasted, the simpler D minor suite forming a foil to the more substantial, elaborate and musically advanced G minor set. Of the six other pieces from a British Library manuscript, the Prelude in C minor, with its distinctive octave opening, shows Weiss’s imaginative use of harmonic modulation, a factor specifically mentioned in relation to a competition with Bach in Dresden. As the opening Prelude demonstrates, David Miller plays with a particular sensitivity to musical ebb and flow, as well as producing a beautifully rich and refined tone.
Fabio Bonizzoni, La Risonanza
63:17
Glossa GCD C81505
[dropcap]T[/dropcap]his is a re-release of a 2000 recording. Giuseppe was the elder brother of the better known Giovanni Battista. Born in 1695, he left Milan for London in 1728, where he stayed until his death in 1750, making quite a name for himself. These concertos, published after his death for “Harpsichord or Organ”, are domestic in scale, with just two violins, cello and bass alongside the organ. It is not clear when they were composed, but they have more of a Rococo than Baroque feel to them, rather enhanced by the playing style on this CD. The spiky solo registrations are not in keeping with the English organ of the period, and nor is the over-articulated performance style. Bonizzoni keeps to the two-part structure of most of the organ solos (without infilling the harmonies, a debatable point for this repertoire), but it is a shame that he doesn’t make more of the organ when in its continuo role – it is more-or-less inaudible. The notes give no information on the organ, but I have a feeling it is later than this repertoire. It is certainly not in any English or Italian early to mid 18th-century style. Two lively little Sonatas by Giovanni Battista Sammartini complete the disc.
Olivier Baumont organ & piano organisé
63:31
Radio France TEM316053
Music by Balbastre, Beauvarlet-Charpentier, Benaut, Corrette, A-L Couperin & Lasceux
[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he CD was so tightly jammed into the central jaws that it snapped in half as I tried to get it out of the box. However I found snippets of all the pieces on the internet. The period leading up to the French Revolution formed the technical peak of the French Classical organ although the music written for it didn’t reach similar heights. In France, the musical highlight came around 1700 with De Grigny, after which pieces became increasingly secular and fanciful in character – and more fun. Pushing the earlier Baroque forms and colours to extremes, the likes of Balbastre ended up providing entertainment for the revolutionary populace in the newly desig-nated Temples of Reason, saving many important organs from destruction in the process. This CD covers most of the composers of the mid to late 18th century, along with the varied musical styles, most loosely based on the earlier Baroque concepts of registration and form. The 1748 Dom Bedos organ in Sainte-Croix, Bordeaux, is one of the finest surviving organs of this period, with a rich palette of tonal colours. The 1791 Erard-frères piano organisé used for several central tracks produces a fascinating and unusual sound and brings the sound world into the domestic scene. Olivier Baumont takes this repertoire seriously, as he should, and is a compelling advocate for an often-criticised period of French music.
Ulrike Hofbauer, Ensemble &cetera
71:53
Raumklang RK 3306
Music by Berti, Carissimi, Castaldi, Ferrari, Frescobaldi, Huygens, D’India, de Macque, Mayone, Mazzocchi, Merula, Nauwach, Orlandi, Rasi, Luigi Rossi, Barbara Strozzi & Trabaci
[dropcap]T[/dropcap]his CD takes us on a tour of the rich 17th-century Italian repertoire for solo voice and continuo. The success or failure of such an enterprise relies heavily on the prowess of the soloist, and Ulrike Hofbauer has a lovely voice and a ready sense of the drama inherent in the music she is singing. She is helped considerably here by a small but inspired consort of instruments consisting of arpa doppia, chitarrone and lirone alternating with a treble viol. They come into their own in the lovely instrumental works which punctuate the programme and which they play with a wonderful freedom and spon-taneity. These are qualities which they also bring to their accompanying, allowing them to respond appropriately to Hofbauer’s creative interpretation of the vocal lines. The programme note addresses the rather oxymoronic title of the CD by explaining that the voice is in dialogue with the listener, and certainly this is a recording which demands your undivided attention and, with its constantly changing colours and moods, fully earns it. All the big names of the period are here – Trabaci, Carissimi, Gastoldi, Frescobaldi, Strozzi, D’India, Merula and Luigi Rossi – but the performers have looked beyond the obvious to the less familiar and have included works by the likes of Camillo Orlandi, Giovanni Pietro Berti and Giovanni de Macque. Accounts of the singing of the 17th-century Roman soprano Leonora Baroni suggest that she augmented her singing with gestures and appropriate movements like an opera singer, and listening to this music it is easy to imagine such dramatization working extremely effectively.
Georg Poplutz, Felix Rumpf, Dresdner Kammerchor, Hans-Christoph Rademann
70:27
Carus 83.259
+Litania SWV458, O du allersüßester SWV340, In dich hab ich gehofft SWV446
[dropcap]T[/dropcap]his eleventh volume in the Dresdener Kammerchor’s projected complete recording of the works of Heinrich Schütz brings them to a work of his extreme old age, his Matthew Passion. According to Dresden Schlosskapelle edicts up to the end of the 17th century, instruments were forbidden from playing during passion tide, as a result of which three quarters of Schütz’s Matthew Passion consists of unaccompanied recitative while the balance is made up of a cappella choral singing. The former can be a little wearing for modern audiences, although the undoubted power of the choral contribution is undoubtedly heightened by the minimalism of the bulk of the work. The huge dramatic and musical responsibility which lands on the shoulders of the Evangelist and Jesus is easily born by Georg Poplutz and Felix Rumpf respectively, who sing with engaging expression and drama. And if you like your 17th-century part-music sung by a small choir, as opposed to a group of soloists singing one to a part, you couldn’t ask for more effective advocates than the Dresdener Kammerchor who sing with admirable focus and unanimity. The fillers are also small treasures, particularly the late setting of Luther’s Litania, which in this performance takes on an almost narcotic quality, with its statement and response pattern. Particularly touching are the translation of the Agnus Dei and Kyrie which occur at the end, almost like a folk memory of the Catholic Mass. I noticed an occasional small degree of distortion on the Evangelist’s microphone as if he was sometimes overstepping the max setting, or perhaps standing too close to the microphone, but otherwise the recording is of Carus’s usual high quality.
[dropcap]T[/dropcap]his CD by the superb Compagnia del Madrigale is something of a masterclass in madrigal singing. I decided to take the opportunity to try to analyse the secrets of the Compagnia’s impressive soundworld. The voices are all of course superb in their own right, rounded, supremely expressive and completely stable at whatever dynamic they are singing. However, I went on to detect two further features which I think help with this specific repertoire. The first may seem obvious but is by no means uniform or even universally regarded as a virtue among small vocal ensembles : this is the rigorous avoidance of vibrato. The soprano section is particularly striking in this respect, but on this CD there are also impressively ‘true’ entries from tenors and altos. Debate all you like about how singers of the period may have sung with or without vibrato, there is no denying that performances of madrigals which are largely vibrato-free allow the listener to appreciate the full power of the polyphonic writing. The searing power of vibratoless musical exclamations is also undeniable. The second feature is the perfect blend of clearly defined voices, achieved interestingly without a conductor. I wouldn’t like the superlative quality of the singing to overshadow the music in my review, so I should say that this CD confirms Luca Marenzio as one of the most underrated madrigal composers in spite of recent efforts to bring his music to wider attention. These six-part works are masterpieces of counterpoint using cutting-edge harmonic manipulation to match the twists and turns of the texts.
La Dolce Maniera, Luigi Gaggero
54:23
Stradivarius STR 37010
[dropcap]L[/dropcap]a dolce maniera have adopted a highly original approach to the love madrigal here by taking at least one madrigal from each of Gesualdo’s published volumes, twenty madrigals in all, and arranging them into a ‘romantic song cycle’ charting the establishment, growth and eventual implosion of a romance. The sequence is indeed cumulatively effective, although perhaps mercifully it doesn’t culminate in the sort of bloodbath which accompanied Gesualdo’s own disappointment in love in real life! The group’s highly ‘affected’ style of singing works very well with this mercurial repertoire. Less convincing is the decision to sing the music untransposed, leaving some of the soprano lines painfully and awkwardly high. I can understand the principle of this, but we now live in world where the prevailing judgement of musicologists seems to be to ‘sing it where it feels comfortable’, and just occasionally here the sopranos sound seriously uncomfortable. The group’s director Luigi Gaggero would argue that this discomfort is just the effect Gesualdo was looking for, but the fact is that nobody wants to listen to distressed singers, and I began to wonder uncharitably whether he had developed this theory before or after listening to the recordings. The fact is these are not impossibly high notes in themselves and perhaps the sopranos just needed to develop a slightly different technical approach. Anyway I don’t want this relatively minor issue to overshadow an otherwise enjoyable and innovative recording.
Nicholas Achten baritone, Deborah York soprano, Lambert Colson cornetto, Scherzi Musicali
75:49
Deutsche Harmonia Mundi 88843078722
[dropcap]T[/dropcap]his intriguing CD takes the Orpheus legend as a springboard to explore the world of early opera. To a surprising extent the legend dominated the early years of opera, providing in its story a powerful message about the power of music, but also a hero who conveniently performs monophonically to his own instrumental accompaniment. What Nicholas Achten has done here is stitched together a fantasy opera in which numbers from a range of these early settings are placed in sequence to retell the story. At first I determined to listen to the sequence ‘blind’ to see whether the music by Monteverdi stood out from his contemporaries as many commentators suggest that it ought to. Of course this proved impossible to judge as I already knew the Monteverdi well, but to my mind much of the ‘supporting’ music by Rossi, Merula, Caccini, Cavalieri, Piccinini, Falconieri, Landi, Sartorio and of course Peri seemed highly effective and, in the hands of Scherzi Musicali, powerfully expressive.
The role of Orfeo is taken by the Nicholas Achten, whose light baritone voice seems constantly on the verge of ornamentation and is perfectly suited to the music – his account of the Monteverdi’s superlative aria Possente spirto is one of the finest I have heard. His Euridice, who in keeping with the earliest settings plays a much smaller role in the drama, is Deborah York whose soprano voice is also convincingly expressive. The accompanying consort of strings plus two cornetts and a range of continuo keyboards including harpsichord, organ and virginals occasionally joined by theorbo, guitar, harp and bass cittern provides highly charged textures to support the singers as well as performing purely instrumental items with considerable delicacy and passion. This CD is a true pleasure to listen to, and provides the very useful service of bringing several early operatic composers out of the textbooks and into the limelight, if perhaps in the context of a co-operative effort which few of them would have countenanced in life.
[Sunhae Inn, Petra Noskaiová, Stephan Scherpe, Jan Van der Crabben SATB], La Petite Bande, Sigiswald Kuijken
139:22 (2 CDs)
Challenge Classics CC72394
[dropcap]K[/dropcap]uijken’s Weihnachtsoratorium is a treat: it’s clear as a bell, with every note of every line audible, and the tuning very precise. As you would expect from La Petite Bande, it’s all one-to-a-part, except for doubling the upper strings, so the balance of voices, strings, wind and brass is as it is, and the liner notes say that this hasn’t been messed around with by the recording engineers! No finger-holes in the trumpets, so ringing D major chords and some lovely 6ths, and Sara Kuijken, the second violin, doubles elegantly as the echo soprano in Flößt, mein Heiland in IV.4.
The voices are a pretty good blend: Kuijken often uses Van der Crabben, and while the clarity of his real bass voice provides an excellent foundation for the singers, he can also offer a lyrical quality in arias like Erleucht auch meine finstre Sinnen with the oboe d’amore in V.5 or the duet with the soprano in III.6. Petra Noskaiová, the alto, is another of Kuijken’s frequent singers, and is very good too – she has all the clarity you need for the chorus work, and a robust and distinctive sound for the solo material: listen to her line in the Terzetto in V.9, where she offers a very distinctive counter-balance to the S/T duet. The tenor, Stephan Scherpe, is a real find, singing the choruses with control and restraint, the evangelista with effortless clarity and his arias – especially Frohe Hirten – with precision and panache. About the soprano I feel less sure. The voice quality is always more problematic as you go higher in the vocal range, and although she is fine when not under pressure (as in Flößt, mein Heiland in IV.4), Sunhae Im does not match the superlative boy, Leopold Lampelsdorfer, who recorded I-III with Holger Eichhorn and the Musicalische Compagney in 2012 (which I reviewed in EMR 153) in the ensemble work. (Eichhorn never did IV to VI with Lampelsdorfer.) There is something about sopranos singing OVPP which needs exploring: it is more audible, and so more distracting, if you press on a note tied over a barline, which can add an unhelpful and occasionally panicky-sounding edge, rather than floating these held notes as a viol player would; and then there is the question of whether the almost unconscious soloist’s vibrato – especially in concerted passages – confuses the choral texture. How can singers learn to judge the different style that is needed for an aria and then in the chorus of four voices? Having said this, the ensemble is excellent in the largely homophonic passage like Wo ist der neugeborne König (V.3)
Tempi are judicious – perhaps a bonus from not having a driven conductor in charge? – and I imagine the layout is similar to the Petite Bande performances you can see on YouTube, where the singers stand together in front of the organ in the middle, and the players ring them on a raised box – strings on the left-hand side and the substantial bass violin next to the organ (there isn’t any 16’ of course – and I don’t miss it) with the brass and wind to the right. With Kuijken leading and directing the ensemble from the wing of the instruments, there are only occasional moments when I feel the lack of an independent conductor, but the players are attentive to each other, and know where to make the minute adjustments for the singers that give this performance its caressing chamber music quality without sacrificing its dancelike energy.
I like this performance, and am very happy to live with it long-term.
