Tag: Baroque

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Handel: The Recorder Sonatas

Handel Recorder Sonatas Stefan Temmingh CD cover

[Wiebke] Weidanz, [Stefan] Temmingh
63:20
Accent ACC 24353

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This account of the six recorder sonatas by Handel, each one tastefully ‘set up’ by a short prelude, either a keyboard prelude by Handel or Purcell, an anonymous Fantaisie for solo recorder, or in one case an improvised flourish on recorder and keyboard, has many virtues. The playing of Stefan Temmingh on a trio of Bressan copy recorders by Ernst Meyer is flamboyant and imaginative, while the accompaniment of Wiebke Weidanz on a Taskin copy harpsichord by Matthias Griewisch is equally so. If the harpsichord is consistently recorded a little ‘closely’ and dominates the balance somewhat, this is quite possibly a reflection of the natural dynamics of both instruments, although some of the detail of the recorder playing in the lower register is lost. Temmingh is always keen to embellish, sometimes ornamenting the first playthrough of a section, sometimes improvising on even the opening statement, before departing even more radically into the realms of fantasy on the repeat. This will not be to everyone’s taste, but I found the approach on the whole engaging and entertaining, particularly as Weidanz was quick to reflect this exciting level of spontaneity in the keyboard accompaniment. There is certainly no denying the highly imaginative nature of this improvisation, which manages to sound both utterly compelling and completely convincing. The programme note is in the (for me) annoying form of a dialogue between the two performers, which is necessarily more about their approach to the music and its performance and recording than the historical/musicological background. However, we do learn that, as we might have suspected, Weidanz plays from the original figured bass, allowing her imagination to realise the keyboard part spontaneously in response to Temmingh’s account of the melody line. This is perhaps not the recording to buy for a no-nonsense account of Handel, but the playing is very impressive and thoroughly musical – and you can’t help feeling that this is the sort of approach the composer might have taken in performing his own music.

D. James Ross

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Recording

La Gracieuse: Pièces de Viole by Marin Marais

Robert Smith gamba, Israel Golani guitar/theorbo, Joshua Cheatham gamba, Olivier Fortin harpsichord
66:13
resonus RES10244

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Virtuoso gambist Robert Smith is joined here by a superb consort in imaginative and supremely musical performances of four of Marais’ suites for viol and continuo. Never one to rush the music he is playing, Smith imbues this wonderfully eloquent repertoire with the time to breathe and the results are truly revelatory. Ever since Gerard Depardieu’s appearance in the film Tous les Matins du Monde brought Marais’ music to a wider audience, it has frequently featured on CD, but not always as well and expressively played as it is here. The continuo ensemble of guitar/theorbo, gamba and harpsichord allows for subtle changes in instrumentation to reflect the mood of the melody. I am less convinced by the employment of a deep drum in some of the more rustic sounding movements – surely Marais would have been using the viol itself to imitate the sounds of a traditional band? I am prepared to overlook this in light of the very imaginative approach taken to Marais’ music, which otherwise sounds utterly convincing to me. The rich resonance of the Lutherse Kerk in Groningen provides a spectacular resonance for Smith’s ringing viol tone and the resonus engineers have done a fine job in capturing the sound so vividly.

D. James Ross

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Recording

Welcome home, Mr Dubourg!

Irish Baroque Orchestra, Peter Whelan CD cover

Irish Baroque Orchestra, Peter Whelan
60:58
Linn Records CKD 532

The music of Matthew Dubourg is a genuine discovery, and one still in the making. This timely CD provides a useful taster of what scholarship may be able to salvage in the future. A contemporary and associate of Handel, nowadays chiefly known for his association with the latter’s visits to Dublin, Dubourg was in his day an admired violin virtuoso and composer in his own right. Opening with the spectacular ‘Hibernia’s Sons your voices raise’ from the Ode for Dublin Castle 1753, the CD goes on to supply Dubourg’s only surviving violin concerto and movements from other Dublin Castle Odes as well as a concerto for two violins by Vivaldi and Corelli’s violin sonata op 5 no 9, provided with quirky ornamentation by Dubourg. Interspersed among these larger works are charming small traditional Irish pieces which Dubourg either wrote down or arranged. Along with an excellent line-up of soloists, The Irish Baroque Orchestra provide energetic and evocative performances of this unfamiliar repertoire – Dubourg was clearly influenced by the music of Handel, but inflections also find their way from the traditional music he clearly loved and appreciated into his more formal compositions. It seems extraordinary that this substantial body of music by a talented local composer has escaped the attention of Irish musicologists until now, and they have their work cut out for them now reconstructing the Odes and other music from fragmentary sources. Only then will we be able truly to evaluate Dubourg’s oeuvre. The title of the CD comes from an incident when Dubourg was playing for Handel and after a particularly wayward cadenza, Handel is supposed to have shouted, ‘Welcome home, Mr Dubourg!’ I have heard the same anecdote applied to Handel’s favourite soprano Mrs Cibber – it is a mark of Dubourg’s undeserved obscurity, that it has perhaps been felt expedient to transfer this anecdote from the forgotten violin virtuoso to the more familiar soprano whose reputation has fared better in our own times! The event is touchingly evoked at the end of the CD when violinist Sophie Ghent ‘goes off on one’ and is welcomed back home by Mr Handel!

D. James Ross

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Recording

Violin Sonatas by Gottfried Finger

Gottfried Finger violin sonatas Hazel Brooks CD cover

Duo Dorado (Hazel Brooks violin, David Pollock harpsichord/organ)
78:00
Chandos Chaconne CHAN 0824

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Bohemian Gottfried Finger was just one of an army of European composers who made their way to the musical ferment of late 17th-century London, arriving in 1685 and leaving in a strop in 170,1 having come last in a musical competition! A composer of considerable talent and a catholic, Finger was snapped up by James II for his Catholic Chapel, but on the latter’s flight to the continent, Finger had to make his own way in the cut-throat world of freelance music-making. A British Library manuscript Add. 31466, a bumper collection of 66 violin sonatas, provides all of the sonatas recorded on this CD, which prove to be works in a fascinating range of styles and of limitless imagination – hard to reconcile this with the verdict on his ill-fated entry in the ‘Prize Musick’ which was deemed to be old-fashioned. It seems likely that Finger’s Catholicism and his foreign status probably weighed more heavily in his defeat than his perceived lack of talent. Hazel Brooks plays an 18th-century Viennese violin, which possesses an ideal glowing tone and crisp attack for Finger’s lyrical music, while David Pollock, playing a replica Ruttgers/Hemsch harpsichord and a continuo organ, provides a wonderfully sympathetic and responsive accompaniment. Brooks deftly ornaments the violin part, and clearly enjoys Finger’s spontaneous and often rather chromatically daring idiom. Finger was also a renowned trumpeter, and I have played a trio sonata by him for trumpet, violin and continuo on Baroque clarinet, becoming aware in the process that this was a composer with a distinctive musical voice who deserved further attention. The Duo Dorado are clearly of the same opinion, and this recording is a valuable advance in our awareness of his many musical virtues.

D. James Ross

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Recording

Caresana: Secular Chamber Cantatas

Caresana secular cantatas CD cover Brilliant Classics

Juliette de Banes Gardonne mezzo-soprano, Ensemble Démesure
53:23
Brilliant Classics 95923

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Perhaps it is the effect of ‘lockdown’ or the remarkable number of recent CDs featuring Italian cantatas of the late 17th and early 18th centuries which I have been reviewing, that when I put this one on I had a serious attack of déjà entendu, and had to doublecheck that I hadn’t already reviewed it and put it in the wrong pile. Of course, it isn’t the fault of Caresana or the present performers that I have overdosed on Italian cantatas, and I wasn’t very far into the programme notes and the CD when I realised that this was reasonably distinctive music from a distinctive context. Venetian by birth, Caresana moved to Naples in 1659 and as a protégé of Monteverdi pupil, Francesco Cavalli, was soon at the heart of Neapolitan music-making. This was a crucial period in Naples, before the arrival of Alessandro Scarlatti in 1683 and the subsequent remarkable flourishing of opera there. As a unique survival of the secular cantata just before these dramatic developments, Caresana’s cantatas, of which we have seven recorded here, are after all of considerable interest. Despite my initial reaction, the Ensemble Démesure has done a fine job in selecting seven contrasting pieces, which demonstrate Caresana’s versatility. Mezzo-soprano, Juliette de Banes Gardonne, has a rich, full voice and imbues the music with considerable drama, negotiating its intricacies impressively, although she has an annoying habit of ‘scooping up’ to notes and her intonation in the upper range isn’t always entirely convincing. She is ably supported by her continuo ensemble of harpsichord, theorbo and cello.

D. James Ross

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Recording

Duni: Trio Sonatas Op. 1

Duni op. 1 trio sonatas CD cover

Duni Ensemble
48:20
Brilliant Classics 96023
+Contradanze 1m 3m 4 + Minuetto 2, Minuè no 18 and Minuetto

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Neapolitan by birth, Egidio Romualdo Duni spent time in the great musical centres of the 18th century, Milan, Rome and London, before moving to Holland for reasons of health and to study at Leiden University and to publish two important collections, his opus 1 Trio Sonatas and Minuetti e Contradanze in 17838/9. The six trio sonatas are all performed here, interspersed with a number of the minuets and contradances. Where Duni had stipulated that his sonatas were for the standard ensemble of two violins, cello and continuo, the DuniEnsemble take a refreshing approach to this Galante music by using flutes and recorders for the melodic lines and a bassoon for the cello, occasionally employing Baroque violin and cello for contrast. The continuo group includes a harpsichord, a mandolin, and Baroque guitar/theorbo. The overall sound is very pleasing and nicely varied, allowing this complete recording of Duni’s opus 1 to benefit from an engaging degree of textural variety. It is perhaps unfortunate that the booklet information as to ‘who does what on what’ is a bit of a mess, and that the translation into English of the otherwise interesting programme is a little garbled – worth spending a little more on the printed material to support what is an excellent recording. The motivations behind Duni’s movements around Europe remain mysterious – he seems to have enjoyed considerable success wherever he went – his opera ‘Demofoonte’, staged in London in 1737, featured no less a figure than the great castrato Farinelli in his retirement performance. That his move from London to Holland seems to have been the result of depression, for which he was seeking help from the famous Dr Boherave, may hint at his failure to settle and to enjoy his success – perhaps the dog-eat-dog musical world of early 18th-century London just didn’t suit him. There is no hint of any dark moods in his published music; is it not trite or superficial either, but rather imaginative and original. And the DuniEnsemble, applying considerable musicality and inventiveness to his music, bring it vividly to life for us.

D. James Ross

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Il più bel fiore

Cover of digital download of lute music played by Luca Tarantino

Archlute music from the Doni manuscript
Luca Tarantino
64:38
CGS 003

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In his extensive liner notes Dinko Fabris describes the Doni manuscript as “one of the most important musical sources of the early seventeenth century.” He attributes most of the pieces (29) to Andrea Falconieri, 11 to Giuseppe Baglioni,  two to Giovanni Girolamo Kapsberger, one to Arcangelo Lori, and an incomplete piece to Pietro Paulo Melii. The pieces are typical of that time: gagliarde, correnti, toccate, fantasie and a few others.
 
(It took me quite a while to locate the music in my SPES facsimile because no page references are supplied with the CD, which is why I supply them here: Track 1: pp 24-5; 2: 78-9; 3: 10-1; 4: 63; 5: 84; 6: 74; 7: 76-7; 8: 110-1; 9: 94-6; 10:.99; 11: 22-3; 12: 27, 28-9, 30-1; 13: 70-2; 14: 6-7; 15: 90-2; 16: 103: 17: 14-5; 18: 54-5; 19: 100-1; 20: 44-5; 21: 19: 22: 20: 23: 104-5; 24: 66-7; 25: 50; 26: 109-110; 27: 4-5: 28: 88-9.)
 
Tarantino’s first track is Gagliarda by Andrea Falconieri (1585-1656). As would be expected, there are three minims per bar, but the composition seems more like a toccata, with big chords at the start, then running passages, and the sequential development of musical ideas, some of which can be predictable and tedious. Tarantino interprets the piece with sensitivity, building up to a flurry of fast cadential notes at the end. Closer in character to a gagliarda is Track 8, Gagliarda del Falconieri, which is enhanced by fast slurred notes, always descending; Tarantino’s lively interpretation is most pleasing. In Track 10, Corrente francese, there are places where I think he is too free with his rhythm, and we lose the feel of a corrente. Track 11 is untitled in the manuscript, but looks like another corrente. Tarantino’s speed seems to drag in the first two sections, but is most effective in the third section, which has interesting echo effects: each bar is played twice, first without, and then with, left-hand slurs. Tarantino plays the slurred notes quietly, producing a charming series of echoes, which explains why he calls the piece “Eco”. Track 20, Gagliarda, has some interesting changes of rhythm early on, but the last page consists of rather unimaginative sequences of descending quavers. Just towards the end, there is an unexpected b natural in the manuscript which Tarantino plays, but since it leads us to the final tonic chord of F major, there is perhaps a good case for changing it to b flat.
 
Two of the five toccate have the title Toccata del Tedesco, and it is reasonable to assume that this particular German is Giovanni Girolamo Kapsberger (c. 1580-1651). The first Toccata, Track 9, has much variety, with a stop-go two-part texture, now with fast runs, now with two voices exchanging ideas, now parallel tenths, and a great flourish with the final chord. The second, Track 15, is another fine piece, with interesting changes of mood. One expects some freedom of expression here, but there are places where I think Tarantino overdoes playing out of time. Kapsberger’s music is full of surprises, not least the first chord in the fourth bar of p. 92: after a chord of D dominant 7th one expects a chord of G, but instead we get an augmented chord with e flat.
 
Track 12, Passamezzi del Falconieri, consists of three variations on the passamezzo moderno. Tarantino’s rhythm, particularly for the first passamezzo which consists entirely of crotchets, is played unevenly giving a feeling of rushing and unease, and I would have preferred a slower, more restful interpretation. Not everything needs to be exciting. The third passamezzo is an attractive dialogue involving very high notes going up to f” at the tenth fret, and very low notes going down to C on the tenth course. More extreme contrasts appear in Track 25, Toccata del S. Arcangelo (p. 50), an extraordinary piece running up to top g” at the 12th fret and down to low A on the 13th course, and ending with a descending 3-octave scale. Tarantino plays the piece beautifully.
 
Track 13, Capriccio detto il gran Monarcha (pp. 70-2) by Pietro Paulo Melii (1579-?) differs from the version in Melii’s Quinto Libro (Venice, 1620), in having its own opening five bars, and duplicating only bar 55 to the end of the printed source. In the antepenultimate bar, Tarantino wisely plays semiquavers as in the printed source, but otherwise he plays the piece as it is in the manuscript.
 
There is much to enjoy and admire in Tarantino’s playing, but unfortunately he has been let down by the recording engineers. I suspect the microphone was placed too close to the archlute, which results in a rather echoey sound with a sharp edge to it, similar to the sound you hear when your ear is right up against the instrument. It exaggerates the squeaks you get when moving the left-hand fingers along the strings, e.g. for the change of position after bar 6 of Track 27, Gagliarda detta La Lunara [recte Leonara]. A percussive sound is heard as the right-hand fingers strike the strings, particularly noticeable in Track 14, Volta, and Track 20, Gagliarda, where the clatter of finger noise is very much in evidence. If only the microphone had been placed further away. One of the delights of the archlute is the rich sound of the long bass strings, but in the present recording the low notes are often too quiet, drowned out by the louder treble notes. Again, I suspect the recording engineer is to blame, turning up the treble volume too much.
 
Stewart McCoy

 

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Recording

Routes du café

Cantatas by bernier and Bach on the theme of coffee's arrival in Europe CD cover

Ensemble Masques, Olivier Fortin
71:39
Alpha Classics Alpha 543
Music by Bach, Bernier, Locke, Marais & Nâyi Osman Dede (+Tanburi Cemil Bey & Kathleen Kajioka)

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This clever CD charts the spread of coffee through Europe, starting with the original cafés in Turkey and then finding music associated with its arrival in France, England and Germany. The famous coffee cantata by Bach finds an equally witty contemporary French counterpart in the cantata Le Caffe by Nicolas Bernier, while France is also represented by the viol piece Saille du caffé by Marin Marais. In London Matthew Locke’s Consort of Fower Parts, we have the sort of music he and Pepys might well have played together when they met in the Turk’s Head coffee house around 1660. The rest of the music is Turkish traditional music played either by a Turkish instrument ensemble or by Kathleen Kajioka on the violin to the accompaniment of Turkish percussion. The Bernier with its obbligato flute part is charming, while the Bach, also with obbligato flute, is very effectively dramatised by the three singers. Soprano Hana Blažíková sounds a little taken by surprise by some of the more eccentric musical phrases in the Bernier and doesn’t sound entirely comfortable in the higher passages in the Bach, but the two men help to keep things on the rails. The mixing of Baroque music and the traditional music of the east doesn’t always work, but here I feel it does so very well. In particular, Kathleen Kajioka’s violin Taksim and Wahda sound very much like the sot of music that might have been played in the cosmopolitan London coffee houses of yore!

D. James Ross

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Oratorio by Perti on French music label CD cover

Maria Cristina Kiehr Anne de Bretagne, Lucile Richardot Louise d’Angoulème, Valerio Contaldo Charles VIII, Stephan MacLeod St Francis de Paola, Concerto Soave, Jean-Marc Aymes
75:30
Lanvellec Editions LE00002

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Such is the embarrassing abundance of gifted Italian composers in the 17th and 18th centuries that the likes of Giacomo Antonio Perti, a composer of operas and oratorios, could be completely forgotten until virtually our own times. Boasting probably the longest career in the history of music, he began composing in 1678 at the age of 17 and was still composing when he died in 1756 at the age of 95! The musicologist Franco Lora has been able to ascribe this anonymous and rather curious oratorio to Perti on the basis of circumstances, style and sheer quality. Three of the four vocal parts are French Royals and the fourth is St Francis, and the music is democratically divided between all four with each receiving the same number of recitatives and arias. Surprisingly each half concludes with a duet, seemingly a convention which allowed the audience to prepare their exit! The piece demonstrates Perti’s inventive sense of melody and skill with his voices and orchestral forces. For me, the highlight of the casting is the presence of alto Lucile Richardot, whose lovely full contralto voice and innate musicality I noticed immediately before consulting the cast list. Unfortunately, the singing is not uniformly of this superlative standard – the two men are fine, but soprano Maria Cristina Kiehr sounds a little uninspired and vocally lazy by comparison. Perti’s reputation is slowly returning in the light of performances of his work, and if this piece is by him, it further enhances the reputation of a man much admired as a composer and teacher in his own very long lifetime. A star pupil of Celano, in turn the star pupil of Carissimi and in turn the teacher of Torelli and Padre Martini, he occupies a pivotal position in the development of Italian music, and like Clementi a century later, his sheer longevity and constantly evolving style ensured that he was extensively influential. 

D. James Ross

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Recording

D. Scarlatti: Alio modo

Scarlatti alio modo CD Amaya Fernandez Pozuelo

Amaya Fernández Pozuelo harpsichord
67:28
Stradivarius STR 37140
+ de Albéniz, de Albero, López, Soler

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This is an impressive recording of keyboard sonatas by Domenico Scarlatti and four of his Spanish followers: Antonio Soler, Sebastián de Albero, Felix Máximo López and Mateo Pérez de Albéniz. The last three were new to me, though I did recognise what is the sole surviving sonata by Pérez de Albéniz. López’s variations on a ‘Minué afandangado’ are an entertaining fusion of French and Spanish dances, played here with panache. De Albero’s Sonata no. 12 is very much in Scarlattian mode. Fernández Pozuelo is a persuasive advocate for her ‘alio modo’ of performing this repertory: it involves considerable flexibility in tempo, lots of added ornamentation and variation in phrasing, as well as more than unusual asynchrony between the hands. This allows her to explore the rhetorical possibilities of the music successfully and to provide a greater level of contrast than is customarily found in performances of this repertory. This is particularly the case in her fine performance of the extended D minor Scarlatti Sonata K213. Other pieces show bravura and a real joy in the music. Her interpretations are helped considerably by some fine recording engineering, which gives her copy of a Hemsch harpsichord by Fernando Granziera of Milan real presence, highlighting the richness of its sound. My only disappointment is with the booklet, where some informative notes on the composers and the music are printed only in Italian and not translated into other languages. There are translations of some summary notes and a lengthy rumination on the instrument used, but these are not so useful and the English translator struggles to convey the rather flowery sentiments of the original Italian. However, the recording itself is highly recommended.

Noel O’Regan