Tag: Baroque

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Sheet music

Maria Anna von Raschenau: Le sacre stimmate di San Francesco d’Assisi

Cover of Raschenau oratorio RRMBE 207

Edited by Janet K. Page
Recent Researches in the Music of the Baroque Era, 207
xxxviii, six plates, 92pp
ISBN 978-1-9872-0255-7 $180

One of seven similar works known by the composer, Le sacre stimmate di San Francesco d’Assisi was performed to Emperor Leopold I on St James day at the convent of that name in Vienna. The eight characters (SSSATTTB voices for St Francis, Christ, the narrator and five seraphim) are allocated arias, duets, trios and choruses, interspersed with secco recitative (and some arioso). The writing is melodic if rather brief (though not dissimilar to music by Bertali and Schmelzer for the Imperial court chapel, so perhaps that says more about the emperor’s preferences?) The voices are accompanied by a string group; the editor has chosen to interpret “viole” has violas da gamba and curiously (to my mind, at least) decided to number them 1-3, although the two numbers for which they are specified in only use two, albeit in different clefs. I would question the idea of someone sitting around with their soprano-clef viola, waiting just to play in one movement. Such a level of prescription when there is none in the source strikes me as counterintuitive. Likewise, I see no mention in the (detailed and highly interesting) introduction of that fact that the top violin and the top viola parts pretty much double one another an octave apart for most of the time – which, in turn, largely double the alto part. As the only musical source is a score copied by an imperial scribe (apparently Leopold liked to follow the music as he listened), its authority is dubious and this quirk ought as least to have been mentioned. I absolutely take my hat off to Janet K. Page for meticulously tracking down almost all of the Biblical references given in the printed libretto; while I’m not sure that Latin was absolutely essential, and I’m not 100% convinced that modern performers require such background when the editor has also provided a beautiful translation of the sung Italian text, it shows an exemplary thoroughness. As far as the edition goes, it is laid out in traditional A-R format and follows (broadly) their usual editorial approach. The only thing that I don’t particularly like about that is the tacit suppression of original accidentals; retaining them would have made challenging the dubious D flats in bar 41 on page 41 more difficult (as it is, if there were no flat on the penultimate note of the previous bar, I would have probably added an editorial natural at that point!), and on page 50, surely the brackets in the continuo part are superfluous, since the pitch of the note continues over the barline. But these are very, very small points in a thoroughly excellent edition. I hope performers will be encouraged to investigate this largely unknown part of Hapsburg music history.

Brian Clark

Click HERE to buy the score on amazon.com.

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Recording

The Oboe in Dresden

Cover of Xenia Löffler's "The oboe in Dresden" CD

Xenia Loeffler [and friends]
78:00
Accent 24361

Just by the merest suggestion of any link to the superb Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, the level of music-making seems already guaranteed. The marvellous array of chamber works gathered here by the co-founder of the famous Berlin ensemble are presented in such a way as to beguile and delight from start to finish! Not only is the amazingly dexterous, mellifluous oboe given full centre-stage exposure, but the excellent qualities of the top-draw instrumentalists follow in a trail of captivating musicianship. The opening Vivaldi (RV53) does that well-known slow-fast-slow-fast trick, but if the transition between these modes is truly faultless, the last two movements are quite stupendous! Next we come to an anonymous piece in B flat major, which uses a typical Telemann device of “Replique” responses in the two main instrumental voices, found in the Paris Quartets and elsewhere. The second movement seems to be a parody of a vocal line from one of his Harmonsicher Gottesdienst cantatas (TVWV1:447?) another quite typical device of hidden tunes used by him, equally prevalent in some of the Kleine Kammermusik of 1716. The Fasch work is a sprightly exposition of double oboes and virtuoso bassoon, perfectly written and performed to a treat. The links to Dresden’s fine orchestra become ever stronger moving through these excellent works. Next some known Telemann, one of his Sonatas Auf Concertenart, i. e., a neat blend of Trio and concerto styles; the soloists again display such an admirably vivacious interplay, one is swept along in their joyous wake. The final pieces show contrasting styles and varying instrumentation, the Platti is more conventional in layout, yet played with intimate skill, while the Hasse is truly a gem of a real master, the distinct timbres of the chalumeau, oboe and bassoon creating a glorious, warmly glowing sonority! The following anonymous Trio, possibly by Pisendel himself, leader of the Dresden Band. The violin part does seem to support this with its lively virtuosic interactions with the oboe, yet another high point on this remarkable recording which ends with a brilliant quartet by Stölzel for oboe, violin, horn and b.c.

What a superb selection of works, ideal for any concert, played with gusto, insight and consummate skill; as enthralling as gifted members of the Dresden orchestra itself, in a remarkable “pool of talents”. No little histories on the soloists’ past exploits or collective rewards are mentioned in the slim CD booklet, just a few lovely publicity shots; the whole CD concentrates purely on the music itself to such a rewarding extent! Top-draw!

David Bellinger

Click HERE to buy the MP3 on amazon (the CD is not yet available on the site – 13/1//2019)

Categories
DVD

Lully: Te Deum, Biber: Missa Salisburgensis

Cover of the DVD of Biber and Lully

Les Pages du Centre de musique baroque de Versailles, Collegium 1704, Collegium Vocale 1704, dir. Václav Luks
DVD CVS012
89:00

Although this is a Versailles production, the performances were filmed in Rome’s rather gorgeous Basilica San Giovanni in Laterano. I have two reservations about the performance practice on view. Are theorbo and harp really appropriate continuo instruments for either piece, and should both works really sound at the same pitch? Is this pitch (415) actually correct for either of them? Apart from that, the performances themselves are very good.

I have rather more issues with the format and the use made of it. Particularly if a concert is to be filmed, someone has to think about what it looks like. Someone should have told the conductor to re-tie his tie before he went on stage and also that his light brown suit looked pretty awful in the context of everyone else’s black, and the singers should have been warned to continue to look engaged and not to stare blankly into the middle distance when not directly involved in the performance.

And the potential of the medium has scarcely had its surface scratched. There are no extras, no subtitles and the encores (repeats of sections of the mass and which need not have been included) are not identified. In addition, the camera-work is quite pedestrian and there is no real attempt to convey the spatial aspects of the Biber.

So not a visual success I’m afraid, though the booklet does offer the information that should have been on the screen.

David Hansell

Categories
Recording

Clérambault: Chamber Music from the Brossard Collection

Booklet cover for The Bach Players' Clérambault CD

The Bach Players
58:49
Coviello Classics COV91928

This disc is a further exploration by the ensemble of Sébastien de Brossard’s library, their previous release having presented music by Élisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre. Here, we are offered instrumental music by Clérambault, a useful counter-balance to the image of ‘cantata king’ that has developed around him. As with all Bach Players programmes, there is a strong impression that ‘someone has thought about it’. There are three trio sonatas, two solo sonatas (each prefaced by a keyboard prelude) and two chaconnes, also for solo violin and continuo. Further variety is embedded in the music of course: especially striking are those moments when the bass viol engages in the contrapuntal discourse, sometimes to spectacular effect!

I enjoyed the programme very much. There is an unfussy honesty and a unity of purpose about the playing which most emphatically is not a kind way of saying ‘a bit dull’. One hears so many ensembles in this repertoire with kaleidoscopic continuo sections, changes of instrumentation for repeats. etc., that it really is a welcome relief to hear classy performances with everything in place that just say ‘Here’s the music. Isn’t it terrific?’. Yes, it is. The booklet will not disappoint either.

David Hansell

Click HERE to buy this CD on amazon.

Categories
Recording

Destouches: Issé

Cover of the booklet for Destouche's Issé

Van Wanroij, Vidal, Dolié, [Santon-Jeffery, Lefebvre], Les Chantres du CMBV, Ensemble Les Surprises, L.-N. Bestion de Camboulas
120:34 (2 CDs in a card folder)
Ambronay AMY053

This charming pastorale héroique was one of 18th-century France’s greatest operatic hits. First performed in 1697, re-worked in 1708 and 1724 and still in the Versailles repertoire in 1773, it also enjoyed a sustained run in Paris from late 1733 into 1734. The music is lovely – dramatically engaging, melodically inventive and orchestrally colourful – and, even in this five-acts-and-a-prologue form, of manageable length.

I might have loved much of this in a theatre but the repeated listening that a recording gets raises some questions. The rather studious composed orchestral ornaments for e. g., the first section of the overture do sound less likely on each hearing; I doubt that the percussion was specified by the composer; and while theorboes are perfectly reasonable in French opera until about 1730 I’m not convinced by the guitar.

Moreover, the first two-and-a-half minutes raise the fundamental problem of so many performances, particularly of early opera, that one hears. The (brief) overture introduces us to one sound-world after which we are disturbed (not too strong a word) by a voice from another sonic universe – ironically singing about ‘une douceur profonde’. I really did wince. And I think others will also struggle with the un-reconstructed modern singing (including by the chorus) against much beautiful, gentle instrumental sound. But some might not.

The booklet (French & English) offers every help to those wishing to explore. The essay is concise but informative and there is a full libretto with parallel translation. I do wish, however, that the dull artist biographies offered a glimpse of the person behind the lists of prizes, roles and conductors-worked-with.

David Hansell

Click HERE to buy this CD on amazon.

Categories
Recording

Bach: The Toccatas BWV910-916

CD booklet cover for Bach: The toccatas

Mahan Esfahani harpsichord
76:53
hyperion CDA68244

The seven Toccatas BWV 910-916 are performance pieces sans pareil. They are exactly what you might have expect to hear if you had asked Johann Sebastian to try out a new harpsichord for you – sonorous chords to test the resonance and the stringing, fugal sections to prove the clarity of the voicing and the responsiveness of the action, episodes to test the two-part balance in lighter sections, sequential passages to gauge the temperament as you slide up and down the keyboard, shifting from key to key and slower sections to assess the chromatic and rhapsodic possibilities – they are all there.

This makes them ideal vehicles for Esfahani – and his harpsichord.  Esfahani is a harpsichordist rather than a period instrument player, and is a champion of the instrument’s possibilities in music old and new. On this recording – the microphones are set close enough to give us every nuance of the damping, and the final chords are frequently held very long as the instrument’s resonance is allowed to continue – Esfahani plays a 2018 instrument from the Prague workshop of the Finnish maker, Jukka Ollikka, ‘based on the theories and surviving examples of Michael Mieke with the hypothetical addition of an extra soundboard for the 16’ register and a cheek inspired by Pleyel 1912; the disposition is as follows: 16’ 8’ 8” 4’ with buff on the upper manual/soundboard from carbon fibre composite, EE to f3/length 2.8 metres.’

I quote this note from the booklet (p.5) in its entirety, as there is no photograph there of the instrument or any other information, and listeners must judge for themselves just what they make of it. It is certainly both powerful and technically faultless, like Esfahani’s playing. If you look up the maker on the internet, his website will direct you a Youtube recording of the flute sonatas where Esfahani talks about as well as plays his custom-made instrument.

His essay in the booklet discusses the many variant readings of the texts, as no autograph of the music has survived in Bach’s hand, and in the process reveals something of Esfahani’s spiritual journey. He sees the combination of the ‘earthy free sections of the toccatas with the highly abstract ‘divine’ truth of the fugues as a meeting point of human imperfection and godly perfection.’

His essay offers a well-argued and highly plausible usicological-theological reflection on the interrelationship between text and performance which deserves a wide exposure to critical debate.

I wholly recommend this disc not just for its well-argued and committed performances of these mysterious works, but also for the insights into the performer’s continuing dialogue between ‘authenticity’ and expression.

David Stancliffe

Click HERE to buy this CD on amazon.

Categories
Recording

Amadio Freddi: Vespers (1616)

CD booklet cover for Freddi Vespers

The Gonzaga Band, Jamie Savan
58:10
resonus RES10245
+ Castello, Donati, A & G Gabrieli, Grandi & Biagio Marini

This recording is another triumph for Jamie Savan and his Gonzaga Band. The research on Freddi and the way the performing edition for these elegant and tuneful movements – largely taken from Freddi’s Messa, vespro et compieta (Venice: Amadino 1616) – is excellently presented in five dense pages of informed and practical scholarship of a high order, which informs the whole enterprise. This is a model of how scholarship and performance should complement one another

We are given details of the sources, editions, instruments, pitch and temperament used. Particularly interesting is the use of a digital Hauptwerk organ running samples from the Nachini organ in S. Maria d’Alleito at Isola in Slovenia and played by Steven Devine. In a recording that itself is digitally created, I can see nothing wrong with using such an instrument, though I wonder what it feels like to sing or play next to it where there is no wind reservoir ‘breathing’ with you. The only other instruments alongside the six voices are Jamie Savan (cornetto) and Oliver Webber (violin), who play Freddi’s entwined and imitative writing in a way that not only imitates the florid vocal lines, but gives the impression of a very much larger instrumental ensemble. The richness of the overall texture created with such slender resources is one of the appealing things about this performance.

Just a violin and a cornetto with the organ was what Freddi had at his disposal when the forces at S. Antonio, Padua where he worked from 1592 to 1614, were reduced to keep the music establishment solvent. The combination appears again as the basic instrumental group hired in for the feast of the Assumption at S. Teonisto in Treviso, where he had moved in 1615, and is a combination that appears in places in the writing of Heinrich Schütz, for example.

The psalms Savan has chosen from the collection are those proper to a Vespers of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and as in the Monteverdi 1610 Vespers, he has interspersed the psalms with works for single voices, and a number of sonatas by Donati, Marini  and Castello together with some brief intonazioni by Giovanni and Andrea Gabrieli and a motet by Grandi. This is welcome, as fascinating though it is to hear the Freddi works, the voice and instrument combinations are limited and the textures and idioms feel much more samey than the widely varied styles of Monteverdi’s work – but then Monteverdi was trying to display the maximum number of ways the plainsong could be treated, which was not part of Freddi’s game plan. After repeated listenings, I found the music tuneful but not essentially memorable, though some of the instrumental sonatas and the solo motet by Grandi raised the game.

As before with the Gonzaga Band, Fay Newton’s contributions steal the show. Hardly any other soprano has her wonderful voice: light, bright and flexible, yet capable of astonishing changes of colour and mood. This is not to say that the other voices are not excellent – they are equally well-matched. So this is another example of how to create a wonderful but largely unrecognised musical world, where voices and instruments combine to create big effects with minimal forces. In today’s financially squeezed circumstances there is much to lean and admire. Plus ça change.

David Stancliffe

Click HERE to buy this as a download on amazon, or HERE to order a CD version.

Categories
Recording

Elegy: Purcell & Blow

Elegy: Purcell and Blow duets
Iestyn Davies, James Hall, The King’s Consort, Robert King
77:33
Vivat 118
 

Duets for the countertenor or high tenor voice – often not easy to distinguish between – were popular repertoire during the Restoration, the CD under review featuring a number of well-known examples such as Purcell’s ‘Sound the trumpet’ from the ode Come ye sons of art, ‘O solitude’ and ‘O dives custos’, one of the elegies written to commemorate the death of Queen Mary in 1695, and John Blow’s moving ‘Ode on the death of Mr Henry Purcell’, the most extended work on the disc. There are also a number of solos sung by Davies.

There is therefore rather a concentration on sombre or more reflective topics that seems to have cast something of pall over the CD as a whole. It gets off to a good start with the bright warblings of ‘Hark how the songsters’ from Timon of Athens, Shadwell’s adaptation of Shakespeare. Here the two voices expertly combine with a pair of recorders to weave a colourful tapestry of sound in one of the more agreeable of the Baroque’s ubiquitous bird songs. The following ‘In vain the am’rous flute’ from the Ode for St Cecilia’s day Hail, bright Cecilia is admirable for the sheer sweetness of the sound and the musical way in which the two voices shape the long, melismatic lines. Yet nagging questions start to arise. Does the slow tempo chosen leave it sounding somewhat pedestrian? Is the less than clear enunciation responsible for the lack of engagement felt by at least this listener? A pattern is thus established that extends for the remainder of the disc. The voices are beautifully matched and duet together sympathetically, but is difficult to avoid a feeling of ever-encroaching blandness. Just occasionally something more potent arises, such as Iestyn Davies’ ‘Incassum Lesbia’, particularly at the heartfelt words ‘Regina, heu Arcadiae regina’, where he finds an emotional response to the text not often in evidence elsewhere.

As it happens, over 30 years ago, Robert King recorded for Hyperion a record with almost the same content sung by an earlier generation of countertenors, James Bowman and Michael Chance. I dug it out to find whether it confirmed my impressions of the new disc, which it unquestionably does. Everything on the older recording is brighter, more alive, even the more sober numbers having a deeper expressive quality than those on the new CD. Neither is the presentation on the latter as good, with no source or Z number given in the contents listing, as it was on the Hyperion. The disc will doubtless please the many admirers of Iestyn Davies – though it is worth noting that the lesser-known James Hall is by no means overshadowed – but to my mind it is another reminder that the last quarter of the 20th century was a golden age for the British early music revival.

Brian Robins

Click HERE to buy this CD on amazon.

Categories
Recording

Telemann’s Garden

Telemann's Garden CD cover

Elephant House Quartet
58:56
Pentatone PTC 5186 749

It is with some inevitability that any baroque flautist or recorder player will come to “dabble”, adding their individual flair and sheen to some of Telemann’s neatly conceived, oft charming little gems of chamber music. Many pieces also offer a surprising flexibility in options for possible instrumentation. Here the Elephant House Quartet bring a crisp and balanced interpretation of works chosen to share the limelight, then slip back into the comfortable nucleus of the quartet; this they do with amazingly smooth, unforced ease. The recorder version of the Paris Quartet (TWV43:G4) and the Suite V in A minor (TWV42:a3) display these precise qualities so very well. Camerata Köln recorded the complete “Six Concerts et six Suites” of 1734 back in 2000 on cpo, and perhaps another of the “Concerts” could possibly have been included here to gently push the CD timing over the hour mark?

It would also have been nice to hear all of the fine harpsichord fantasia (TWV33:19) and perhaps the remarkably gifted Reiko Ichise might have tackled one of the recently found gamba fantasias? For another day perhaps…

This said, in the spirit of egalitarian division, all the instrumentalists get their own outings, moments to shine within these selected works which they do with tremendous efficacy and perfectly measured musicianship. All in all, this is a splendidly plucked and blown bouquet/nosegay from Telemann’s neatly conceived musical garden.

David Bellinger

Categories
Recording

Alessandro Grandi: Celesti Fiori – Motetti

Academia d’Arcadia, UtFaSol Ensemble, Alessandra Rossi Lürig
62:39
Arcana A 464

During his lifetime, the Venetian Alessandro Grandi was regarded as the equal of Monteverdi and his influence on the motet was profound. The works recorded here illustrate the dramatic concertato style in which he composed and indicate an original creative genius at work. Blending voices and continuo with cornetti and sackbuts, these performances illustrate how he animates the texts he is setting with rapidly changing bursts of expressive musical ideas, but is also capable of more sustained expressions of passion. The singing and playing here is generally suitably passionate too, with very effective detailed ornamentation subtly applied where appropriate. I have some reservations about the soprano voices which both have more vibrato than is comfortable. Annoyingly they seem able to minimise this at will, but too often they don’t, leaving them sounding unsettlingly wobbly compared to the cornetti and, indeed, the gentlemen. The 15 motets recorded here range from simple two-voice dialogues to larger-scale pieces culminating in a handsome eight-part setting of Nisi Dominus. The recorded sound is best in the smaller-scale works and is a bit crowded in the larger pieces, where surely more use could have been made of the acoustic in the Basilica Palatina di Santa Barbara in Mantua. This CD with Alessandra Rossi Lürig’s detailed and informative programme notes makes a strong case for exploring further Grandi’s sacred music, which has survived in large quantities but of which only a small portion has made it into modern editions. [Ed. Dennis Collins’ fine editions are available from primalamusica and he is one of several editors working on a complete edition for CMM.]

D. James Ross