Tag: Baroque

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Froberger: Suites for Harpsichord, vol. 2

CD cover Gilbert Rowland Froberger suites vol 2.jpg

Gilbert Rowland
116:56 (2 CDs in a single jewel box)
athene ath 23209

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Gilbert Rowland follows up his first volume of Froberger Suites with a further twelve, again taken from a mixture of sources, and played in no particular order. Sources include the autograph manuscripts of 1649 and 1656 as well as a variety of other manuscripts; they include suites which, though anonymous in the sources, have been ascribed to the composer on stylistic grounds. These are pointed out in the substantial liner notes and their presence allows the listener to explore for themselves the validity of the ascription. They certainly contain some of the more recognisable features of Froberger’s style. The composer’s patron, the dowager Duchess Sibylla of Württemberg, wrote that the true interpretation of Froberger’s notes could only be discovered from the composer himself. Rowland has clearly thought deeply about his interpretations, particularly in the allemandes, which tend to have Froberger’s most profound thoughts and where Rowland is particularly sensitive. He uses inventive ornamentation on repeats in these and other movements, giving them an improvisatory feel – almost amounting to a recomposition at times – but always convincingly so. The courantes are fluent, with lots of French swing, though perhaps a bit stately. Sarabandes, on the other hand, are played quietly and meditatively, while Gigues are generally loud and brash. Rowland uses the same double-manual harpsichord, after a Goermans 1750 instrument, by Andrew Wooderson as he did for Volume 1. While not the most obvious choice of instrument for the music, it does allow a variety of timbres and is cleanly recorded. If I have a criticism, it is that the registration becomes a bit formulaic over the twelve sonatas: it might have been good to have played around with our expectations now and then, being more playful in a Courante or Gigue, perhaps, or making a Sarabande more loud and solemn. Rowland probably feels that he is laying down a definitive version, and there is nothing wrong with that. He is certainly a persuasive advocate for Froberger’s particular blend of styles and influences and well worth listening to.

Noel O’Regan

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Recording

Worgan: Complete Harpsichord Music

CD cover Worgan Complete harpsichord music

Julian perkins, Timothy Roberts
76:34
Toccata Classics TOCC 0375

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The name of John Worgan (1724-1790) was new to me, not having heard Timothy Roberts’ earlier recording of his complete organ music (Toccata Classics TOCC 0332). A member of an extended family of musicians, he was organist at a number of minor London churches, as well as at Vauxhall Gardens; in both capacities he was particularly famed for his improvisations. Both Domenico Scarlatti and Thomas Roseingrave were early influences on his compositional style. Little of his music survives and what did appear in print was mostly geared to educational purposes and doesn’t necessarily give us a sense of what, or how, he actually played, presenting a challenge to the modern performer. Timothy Roberts elects to play it pretty straight in Worgan’s thirteen short exercises in paired keys for young players, delivering them largely as published in 1780, on a Dulcken copy by Klaus Ahrend. Julian Perkins takes a more adventurous approach in the six sonatas from 1769. These post-Scarlatti works show a considerable variety of forms and styles, in either two or three movements (the sixth is a virtuosic Sarabande with Variations) and allow Perkins to showcase his own virtuosity and sense of whimsy. 

They also allow him to exploit the dozen or so different timbres available on the newly restored double-manual harpsichord of 1772 by Jacobus Kirckman (or his workshop), now in Dumfries House. This instrument is particularly well suited to Worgan’s music; it is beautifully recorded, and it is a pleasure to have the chance to hear it. The same instrument is used for the final item here, Worgan’s New Concerto for the Harpsichord of 1785. No string parts survive, and the work is a bit of a curiosity, in an eclectic mix of styles, but Perkins manages to bring it off with some panache. Roberts’ highly informative sleeve notes conclude by saying that Worgan’s music ‘needs no deep musicological understanding to be enjoyed’. It represents a public, rather than a profound, expression but it is good for the spirits and certainly well worth a hearing. Both players have done the composer proud in this welcome recording.

Noel O’Regan

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Recording

Onder de Hemel van Vlaanderen

Gabriel Wolfer plays Flemish music on a Swiss organ

Gabriel Wolfer organ, Cassandre Stornetta voice
72:00
Label G 016

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This 2021 recital by Gabriel Wolfer is played on an organ built in 2019 by Bertrand Cattiaux for the église Sainte-Jacques, Beurnevésin, in the Swiss Jura. The organ is built in the style of Flemish organs of the 17th century, but with the addition of a pedal organ. The twelve manual registers are available as jeux baladeurs on either of the two manuals, enabling a wide range of registrations, and are scaled and voiced after organs by the Bremser family, dating from the mid-seventeenth century Flanders. The speech is direct and singing, and is well-recorded in this small church. The temperament has 8 pure thirds, and the pitch is A=415Hz. The music, beginning with composers from the Low Countries, Du Caurroy and Sweelink, continues with Dowland and Bull, both known to have had connections there, before returning to more strictly Netherland composers. This is music for manuals only and is well-suited to this instrument, as are the English composers who would not have known the North German style of organ.

For me, the only discordant note is the singer, who has too developed a voice to match the directness and simplicity of the organ. She only sings three numbers – Une jeune filette at the start, the chanson on which the Du Caurroy variations are based and Cornelis de Leeuw’s carol Een kindeken is ons geboren that precedes the Bull version at the end, together with the Purcell Evening Hymn. So it is the organ and its able player who take centre stage.

The programme centres on sets of variations and fantasias, so a variety of sounds embroiders these threads giving us ample opportunity to appreciate the organ’s vocal qualities. In part this is due to its winding, and in part to the action which is clearly all of a piece. The sound is fluid, and I should have liked to hear it with a group of singers, like Vox Luminis, who would match its living, breathing tones so well. I find that I am intrigued, and do not tire of it; the organ builders – who have worked on conserving some distinguished 17th-century organs in France – deserve their reputation. I commend this CD not only for the interesting Flemish programme but also for the chance to hear this interesting and beautifully finished organ.

David Stancliffe

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De la Mer du Nord à la Thuringe

Cover of De la mer du Nord Gabriel Wolfer

Gabriel Wolfer
75:00
Label G 011

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This 2019 recital celebrates the fine instrument in the Jesuit church, Porrentruy in the Swiss Jura built by Jürgen Ahrend in 1985, when a young Gabriel Wolfer watched him finishing the voicing, and fell in love with the organ. Made after the style of Silbermann, so within a single case, the blend and finishing of the ranks is an excellent example of Ahrend’s work and the acoustic, though resonant, gives blend without sacrificing clarity. Ludivine Daucourt sings the plainchant verses in the Scheidt Magnificat admirably, and the organ plays at A=440Hz and is tuned in a version of Werkmeister III.

The programme is topped and tailed by Bach – the Fantasia and Fugue in G minor (BWV 542) at the start and the Prelude and Fugue in C (BWV 566a) at the end. Interspersing two chorale preludes An Wasserflüssen Babylon (BWV 653) and Jesus Christus unser Heiland (BWV 665) are the Froberger Lamento sopra la dolorosa perdita della Real Mstà di Ferdinando IV, Buxtehude Toccata in D minor (BuxWV 155) and Sweelink’s four versets on Da pacem, Domine. In the centre is the trio Sonata in E minor (BWV 528). Then follows the Buxtehude Ciaconna in E minor (BuxWV 160) and the six versets of Scheidt’s Magnificat on the 9th tone. The programme is varied, and the organ copes well with the more northerly composers as well as the essentially Thuringian Bach.

Wolfer escapes the temptation to overdo the contrasts in the registration and plays with clarity and a nice flexibility. He clearly knows and loves his instrument, and displays its virtues. It would have been nice if room had been found – or a website link provided – to give us the details of his registration, but the blend achieved in this single-case instrument is a testimony to its builder’s skill. This is a fine introduction to the organ and its curator.

David Stancliffe

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Destouches Sémiramis

CD cover Destouches Sémiramis

Les Ombres directed Sylvain Sartre and Margaux Blanchard
CVS038
127:38 (2CDs in a card box)

André Cardinal Destouches (1672-1749) was educated by the Jesuits and had a career as a Musketeer before resigning to study music with André Campra. His first ‘hit’ was the pastoral Issé in 1697, which was written for the court but immediately taken up by the Opéra in Paris. He rose to prominent positions in both contexts and Sémiramis was first performed in 1718. Influenced by the Italophile Campra, Destouches abandoned the traditional five-part string scoring of Lully and his followers and created a work that was perhaps too serious for its time: only now are we in a position to recognise his work as an important step along the road from the aesthetic of Lully to that of Rameau.

Not that it is without distinctive characteristics and merits of its own. There is an attractive melodic fluency; the integration of the principal protagonists, the orchestra and the chorus is impressive; and Act V especially has a tremendous dramatic sweep. But I have to say that I found the performance difficult to enjoy. The continuo and percussion sections seem over-staffed to my ears and I strongly suspect that some adjustments/additions have been made to the original scoring. However, it is the singing that I really struggled with and yes, it’s the v-word. The singers are absolutely un-reconstructed modern opera in their approach and simply come from a different sound-world to that of the orchestra. Some of the ornament singing is also very laboured.

The superficially impressive booklet (French, English and German though libretto only French and English) also fails to impress in its detail. Versailles have to get to grips with the quality of their translations. I have commented before on unidiomatic turns of phrase, but here there are mistakes as well.

In brief, this is excellent music disappointingly presented.

David Hansell

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Rameau Triomphant

CD cover of Rameau Triomphant

Mathias Vidal haute-contre, Ensemble Marguerite Louise, Gaétan Jarry
77:20
Château de Versailles Spectacles CVS039

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I love the principle and the content of this recital, especially the inclusion of overtures, dances and ensembles so that we don’t choke on a surfeit of airs. It is a brave singer who undertakes a programme of haute-contre singing in any case, and Matthias Vidal was entitled to any breaks in the recording schedule which the programming allowed him. He certainly has the ranges – vocal and emotional – for these roles but I have to say that I enjoy the singing most when he is not at absolutely full throttle. At this point I find the vibrato just too intrusive alongside the period orchestral sounds, though this doesn’t happen very often. Similarly, the lesser soloists and the choir sound, to me at least, at their best when singing within themselves.

The main booklet (French, English and German) note is in interview style, which will irritate some, though there are some interesting comments from MV on the nature of haute-contre singing. As is, I’m afraid, more common than it should be in Versailles issues, there are some unidiomatic turns of phrase in the English translations of the biographies especially. Nice to see that our hero enjoys Offenbach, though!

 David Hansell

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Monteverdi: L’Orfeo

Cover Monteverdi L'Orfeo BIS

Ensemble Lundabarock, Höör Barock, Ensemble Altapunta, Fredrik Malmberg
105:39 (2 CDs in a cardboard box)
BIS-2519 SACD

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The arrival of this set gave me pause to wonder about the number of Orfeo’s I’ve reviewed in my time. It’s a fair few and I’ve actually lost track of the exact number, which is not that important anyway. What is important it is that leaving aside its crucial place in operatic history Orfeo is one of those rare operas that almost never fails to make a strong impression. The secret (leaving aside Monteverdi’s great music) is surely its uncomplicated directness, the ability for the central tragedy to penetrate the heart effortlessly. Could anything carry more grief stricken resonance than the simplicity of Orfeo’s single word response ‘Ohimè’ to the Messenger’s words, ‘La tua diletta sposa è morta’ (Your beloved wife is dead’), the exchange empty, devoid of passion?

It’s a moment that comes off with the devastating effect it must in this exceptional new recording from Sweden. It combines the forces of three early music ensembles based remarkably not in the capital but the south of the country. Brought together under the direction of Fredrik Malmberg, a young conductor making a name for himself in Europe, the performance is especially noteworthy for its near-infallible sense of style (the addition of percussion, which Monteverdi’s published full score does not call for, is in places an aggravating aberration). Above all it has been thoroughly prepared – no fewer than four Italian vocal coaches are credited – not only underlining the critical importance of the text but also in relation to ornamentation, which is invariably sung with great assurance, accuracy and precise articulation.

The cast is led by the tenor Johan Linderoth, a Baroque specialist who has worked frequently with Paul Hillier and has a particular penchant for music of the 17th century. If the timbre of his voice lacks the beauty of the most recent outstanding exponent of the role on record, Emiliano Gonzalez Toro (Naïve), it more than makes up for it in a totally idiomatic and sensitive account. As it must, the ornamented version of ‘Possente spirto’ stands at the centre at the performance and even if Linderoth doesn’t quite achieve the diamantine accuracy of Gonzalez Toro (or indeed the great Nigel Rogers) it is nevertheless a formidable accomplishment. The ‘second’ death of Euridice at the end of act four is another heart-stopping passage, vividly bringing home the moral that Orfeo has been punished not for disobedience, but because, in the words of the Chorus of Spirits that ends the act, he has not achieved ‘victory over himself’.

While it is a truism that any performance of Orfeo stands or falls on its eponymous hero, many of the supporting roles make their own demands. The present performance generally fulfils these admirably, particularly in the cases of Kristina Hellgren, who sings La Musica and Proserpina, Christine Nonbo Andersen (Ninfa 1 and Euridice) and Maria Forsström (Messaggiera). Both Hellgren and Andersen are fresh-voiced sopranos and Baroque specialists and stylists of a kind we now rarely seem to encounter in the UK. Listen, for example, to the exquisite way the former ornaments the many strophic verses of La Musica, or the perfect sense of stillness she achieves in its final lines, an evocation of nature paused. Andersen is a lovely, fragile Euridice, infinitely touching in ‘Ahi vista troppo dolce’ (act 4). Forsström is a fine mezzo who sustains the Messenger’s long story with commanding presence and a vivid communicative sense. Steffen Bruun’s Charonte is rather lugubrious, but Karl Peter Eriksson is an imposing, yet sympathetic Plutone. The roles of the various shepherds, infernal spirits and so forth are all more capably filled in what is a fine team effort.

The instrumental playing is of a high standard, my only minor caveat being some over-fussy arpeggiated continuo work from the plucked strings when chords would have been more telling and less obtrusive; Euridice’s ‘Io non dirò’ (act 1) is an example. But in sum this is a remarkable achievement and to realise just how remarkable try to imagine an Orfeo of this calibre given by early music ensembles based in the south of England.

Brian Robins

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A deux violes égales

A deux violes égales

Sainte-Colombe · Marin Marais
Myriam Rignol, Mathilde Vialle
79:39
Château de Versailles Spectacles CVS043

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Pretty much everything everything makes this offering from Versailles highly desirable: if EMR still used stars I might even give it five! The repertoire and sonorities are sublime (try Marais’ Tombeau de Mr Méliton – played here by the two bass viols with theorbo); the performances are often exceptional; the essay (French, English and German) fluent and interesting; the photographs were taken in the Hall of Mirrors; and there are nearly 80 minutes of music. The only negative element is the occasional unidiomatic phrase in the translated biographies.

I recognise that a recital on low pitched instruments may not be to all tastes, but it really isn’t all lugubrious: the final Couplets de Folies (Marais) are positively frivolous. Give it a go!

 David Hansell

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Bach: Klavierwerke

CD cover Alessandrini Bach Klavierwerke

Rinaldo Alessandrini harpsichord
79:02
naïve OP 30581

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For his lockdown solo release, Rinaldo Alessandrini has chosen three groups of pieces, each linked by a key – A minor, D minor and C minor. Each group has the pair of preludes and fugues from Das wohltemperierte Klavier I & II at its heart, and the A minor group has the praeludium  BWV 931, the inventio BWV 784 and sinfonia BWV 799 before them and the fantasia con fuga BWV 904 after. In the D minor group, the praeludium BWV 940, inventio BWV 775 and sinfonia BWV 790 come before them, and the sonata per il cembalo solo BWV 964 comes after, while in the C minor group it is the praeludium BWV 934, inventio BWV 773 and sinfonia BWV 788 coming before them with the fantasia BWV 906 and finally the ricercar à tre voci from the Musicalisches Opfer BWV 1079.

This makes an architecturally elegant yet suitably diverse programme for his recital, recorded in 2019 in the Parco della Musica in Rome on a 1984 copy by Kees Bom of a Dulcken original.

Alessandrini’s playing is lyrical and relaxed, but the sense of shape and direction in his playing gives the music clarity and momentum. The harpsichord is well-recorded and it sounds mellow, as it should, and the counterpoint is well-articulated.

All in all, this is a very satisfying recital and I was particularly glad to hear BWV 964, the sonata for cembalo solo after the sonata for violin in A minor BWV 1003, which I do not recall hearing in this incarnation before. What a lot there is to learn from Bach’s reworking of his own compositions: here his inventive mind and fevered imagination compete to provide fresh insights that are both subtle and intellectually challenging.

David Stancliffe

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Pachelbel: Organ Works · Volume 1

CD cover Matthew Owens Pachelbel vol 1

Matthew Owens, The Frobenius Organ of The Queen’s College, Oxford
71:03
Resonus RES10285

It looks as if this is to be the first volume of a complete recording of Johann Pachelbel’s organ music and that in itself is to be warmly welcomed. Pachelbel’s organ music occupies a seminal place in the development of a style of composition that is more southern German than northern in style and forms a bridge between the freer, more rhapsodic style of composers like Frescobaldi and Froberger and the more tightly worked contrapuntal compositions of the more northerly school. Although he moved to Eisenach and then Erfurt after a spell at St Stephen’s in Vienna, he later moved to Stuttgart and then to Gotha before returning to his native Nuremberg.

When James Dalton persuaded Queen’s to commission a new mechanical action organ on which he could teach from Frobenius in 1962, there were mutterings: how could such an instrument accompany the psalms to Anglican chant let alone Stanford in Bb? But its beautiful workmanship and clear voice soon won hearts as well as minds, and it remains not only the first but arguably the best Werkprinzip instrument on which to play the Baroque repertoire in England to this day. While it is not a copy of any particular historic instrument, it is undoubtedly inspired by the school of organ builders who created wonderful instruments across north Germany, Holland and Denmark, and is perfect for that repertoire.

But I am not sure why Matthew Owens chose this instrument for Pachelbel. Will all the volumes be recorded there? Pachelbel’s music contains preludes, toccatas, fugues and sets of chorale partitas, as well as chorale preludes. But it also contains music influences more by the Roman Catholic tradition of Italy and Austria, like the Magnificat 5th tone fugues (P314-325) recorded here, and I would have liked to hear some of the splashier music played on an instrument that is less precise and perhaps more colourful, owing more to the central and southern German schools of organ building.

But that said, I enjoyed Matthew Owen’s playing tremendously, and warmly welcome this first CD. Because of the clarity of the Frobenius and the cleanness of his playing, not a note is lost. Yet something is missing: many southern German instruments include a tierce in their chorus mixtures and the Frobenius pedal Fagot is no substitute for a full-length Posaune. It is in the Ciacona in F minor that I think the Frobenius scores most highly, where the variations can be scaled up subtly without needing excessive contrasts in volume.

The sets of chorale variations follow a pattern that sets up a challenge for an organist: how do I register these within an overall framework that underlines the mood of the chorale involved without falling for the temptation to seek variety at any price? With a small organ, however beautifully voiced, there are limits to the possible registrations – limits exploited tellingly in the three chorale preludes (P843 and 844, and P106). With the clarity of Queen’s chapel, we hardly need what I usually lament the absence of – the detailed registration for each piece. Nonetheless, I think this ought to become standard practice for either the liner notes or an accompanying reference to a website.

I much look forward to the next volume.

David Stancliffe