Tag: Baroque

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Recording

Lully: Dies iræ, De profundis, Te Deum

[Sophie Junker, Judith Van Wanroij, Matthias Vidal, Cyril Auvity, Thiabut Lenaerts, Alain Buet], Choeur de Chambre de Namur, Millenium Orchestra, Leonardo Gracía Alarcón
82:50
Alpha Classics Alpha 444

This is the kind of repertoire (and the kind of performances) that make it easy to understand why Lully was the favoured royal composer and how his was such an important voice in the development of the grand motet even though he had no involvement with the regular chapel music. There is an interesting and clear explanation in the notes of the musical politics involved. The Dies Irae opens as if it were to be a standard overture but the startling entry of the choir men singing the solemn plainchant rather sets the tone for the dramatic variety to come. The choir and orchestra are both very accomplished and comfortable in the style, though there are a few moments when the former’s crisp rhythms veer too close to clipped for my taste. Other small reservations are a few rather laboured ornaments and some less-than-beautiful tone from one of the male soloists but I still really enjoyed the programme. It was while ‘conducting’ the concluding ebullient Te Deum that Lully sustained (possibly) the most famous injury in the history of music.

David Hansell

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Recording

Georg Philipp Telemann: Chameleon

Chamber music in changing colours
New Collegium, directed from the harpsichord by Claudio Ribeiro
73:51
Ramee RAM1904 (Black series)

Examined from a purely discographic point of view, this recording brings just four little premieres to our attention, the menuets from TWV34; the other works comply to a befitting Latin phrase: Non nova sed nove, “nothing new, but told in a new way”! From the most elegant opening Prelude of TWV43:e4, the sixth of the Nouveaux Quatours of 1738 to the final, enchantingly elegiac chaconne from the same work which closes the CD, there’s a charismatic display of incredibly balanced musicianship, a most perfect synergy between polished musical application and skill, and the engaging joy of an enthralling interpretation.

The various members of New Collegium (Formerly Collegium Musicum den Haag) feel totally at ease with the musical polyglot, Telemann’s intentional blend of national colours in these cleverly nuanced ouvrages. The impeccable and quite irresistible élan captured in the “Allegro assai” (Track 5) in TWV42:a4 feels like a dazzling Polish stomp found elsewhere in equally familiar works. From the marvellous sonata TWV42:G7, first heard about ten years ago from Concerto Melante (with members of the Berlin Philharmonic and a couple of the Berliner Barocksolisten) the ravishing cantabile lines in the adagio, sitting in the middle of this work (Track 8), almost certainly an aria in disguise, are played to perfection with just enough melting tenderness. Another fine stand-out moment in miniature, the sublime A minor menuet of just over one minute (Track 19) feels so incredibly French! Before this beguiling little gem, there’s a splendid little composite Suite, comprising cleverly extracted movements from works found in the pages of Der Getreue Music-Meister (1728) running from Track 11-18; perhaps the “Polonaise” TWV41:D4 could have been included, but it’s a real masterful stroke highlighting fine fragments from this accessible and enticing musical journal.

Anh. (Appendix) TWV42:A1 (related to the work with flute, TWV43:A7, heard at the Boston Early Music Festival some years ago) takes us back to one of Reinhard Goebel’s very first outings on LP then CD, 1979 and 1987 respectively. The two scordatura violins make this work feel very much akin to the works of Biber, and possibly Schmelzer, yet there’s an individual style present.

Besides the trip through “Les gouts reunis” from this neat selection of Telemann works, we have “Les talents reunis” of New Collegium in dynamic musical interplay that could easily enchant and captivate veteran Telemannophiles and many new converts…speaking to us in compelling, chameleonesque new ways through these mostly known works.

David Bellinger

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Recording

Caccini: Le Nuove Musiche

Riccardo Pisani tenor, Ricercare Antico
66:41
Brilliant Classics 95794

Giulio Caccini’s Le Nuove Musiche, the first volume of which appeared in 1602, is for the most part better known by name than in performance. As every student of music history knows, it is a collection of solo songs composed over some two decades. It owes its name and existence to the experimentation and theories of the Count Bardi’s Florentine Camerata, an academic gathering of which Caccini was a member. Although not quite as ground-breaking as its composer suggested, this ‘new music’ played a fundamental role in the birth of a form that emerged at much the same time as publication of Le Nuove Musiche and which to this day plays a major role in musical life – opera.

Presciently, as if its author was unconsciously aware of its epoch-making importance, the volume was preceded by a lengthy forward that is part manifesto, part singing tutor that is essential study for any singer aspiring to sing the vocal music of the 17th century. Basically the songs fall into one of two forms: strophic songs with a number of verses, often punctuated by an intervening ritornello, and freer structures, sometimes in several sections responding to the verse. The former are generally of a lighter character, often dance-like and incorporating hemiola (syncopated) rhythms – what Caccini terms ‘airy musics’ – while the latter are used for more serious topics. Anyone familiar with Monteverdi’s Orfeo will realise that it includes examples of both.

Caccini’s prime prerequisites for the performance of these songs are recognition of the importance of the text and its communication to the listener. In the Preface he lays stress on realising the emotions, which may change rapidly and which, in Caccini’s words, require an ‘increasing and abating’ of the voice. He also has much to say on ornamentation, in particular the trill, repeated note decoration, and gruppo, which more closely resembles the later Baroque trill.

So how do these performances by the Italian tenor Riccardo Pisani measure up to such tutoring? Not too well, I’m afraid. On the credit side he has obviously taken the trouble to think about the text, while he also articulates and projects words well. But though the voice itself is agreeable enough it lacks the colour and personality to make enough of this music, even the most famous of the songs, ‘Amarilli’ failing to beguile as it should. In short, there is little in the way of responding to Caccini’s ‘increasing and abating’ of the voice. Technically, too, although Pisani shows a reasonable grasp of the style, the voice is not always evenly produced, there is a surfeit of vibrato and the singer’s handling of those all-important ornaments lacks confidence. Too often the need for decoration is passed over and embellishment that is attempted often sounds sketchy. It is sobering to recall that Nigel Rogers was singing this kind of repertoire with far greater style and grasp of the correct ornamentation nearly 50 years ago. Pisani is not helped by the over- elaborate and at times intrusive continuo contribution of Ricercare Antico (violin, harp, archlute and theorbo, violone and (sigh) Baroque guitar), who also intersperse rather more satisfying instrumental performances of items by Filippo Nicoletti, Frescobaldi and Stefano Landi, the last named rather curiously described in the notes as ‘a specialist in instrumental music’.

As is customary with Brilliant Classics you will have to go their website for the Italian/English texts, but be warned that if you print them off (as I did) you will get some odd spacing results.

Brian Robins

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Recording

Monteverdi: Salve morale e spirituale

La Venexiana, Claudio Cavina
208:44 (3 CDs in a card triptych)
Glossa GCD920943

Claudio Cavina’s La Venexiana has hit on a good way of presenting the Selva morale e spirituale, Monteverdi’s late collection of music (largely) for the church, which they seem to have recorded way back in 2005, in the week-long festival of Church Music in Cuenca in Spain, but have only released in this form this year.

The music is divided between three CDs, the first two cast in the form of extended settings of Vespers and the third as a Missa Solemnis. This enables them to use almost all the religious music in the great compendium. I say ‘almost’ advisedly. For example, the seven-voice Gloria is substituted for that in the Missa for four voices, and the Credo has the fuller scored Crucifixus, Et Resurrexit and Et iterum substituted for those parts. The third Confitebor finds a place as the Offertorium in this third CD and Memento Domine David (Psalm CXXXI – 132 in the Coverdale scheme) is squeezed in as a kind of Post Communion, with a couple of Marian pieces – the extended Salve Regina – Audi cœlum verba mea and then the Pianto della Madonna doing duty for the Angelic salutation at the end of mass. There is no space for two of the hymns or Ab æterno but everything else religious is there in the three CDs that total 210 minutes.

La Venexiana in those days comprised three soprani and an alto (Cavina) with two tenori and two bassi, with SAATTB ripieni; two violini, four tromboni, violone, organ and two chitarroni complete the band.

Like Monteverdi’s better-known 1610 publication, the later collection exhibits Monteverdi’s dazzling ability to write in a wide variety of styles, to use parody techniques, and to provide music for virtually every kind of occasion. Selva is less coherent as a collection than 1610, but Cavina’s shaping of the material shows how versatile and useful his late assemblage proves to be. For the most part, his ‘scoring’ is exemplary, even if some of the voices – especially the soprani, with a pretty dramatic and so at times rather vibrato-laden tone – are probably not what everyone would choose 14 years later. If you were brought up – as I was – on Andrew Parrott’s Reflex/EMI recording of some of the Selva material in Vespers format with Emma Kirkby singing, nothing will quite replace the clarity and vivacity of that ground-breaking 1980s disc.

The performances, with a good deal of vocal OVPP singing, are stylish, if slightly dated. The broken voices blend well, and balance – including contrasts between florid solo singing and more substantial homophonic writing – are carefully worked out and executed. It is good to have (almost) the whole of the Selva available in a coherent form – I have reviewed other partial collections in the past few years – but this doesn’t quite set me on fire as I had hoped.

Partly it is the acoustic, which make much of the music sound too distant or just a bit foggy – it may well reflect the reality of Venice in the 1630s and 40s, but it is nowhere near as good as the continuing series of Schütz, for example, published by Carus to coincide with their new complete edition. Partly it is the feeling of sameness, which characterises the very different styles. Seconda prattica and various older styles rub shoulders and I was expecting a greater degree of differentiation.

But with these small reservations, I welcome this undertaking. I just wish that Andrew Parrott would gather today’s equivalent of his 1980s, and give us the rest!

David Stancliffe

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Recording

Buxtehude: Membra Jesu nostri

La Maîtrise de Garçons de Colmar, La Chapelle Rhénane, Benoît Haller
60:35
Christophorus CHR 77436

This is a recent re-issue of a live recording made in October 2007. It is made with single strings, six single voices (one soprano – Tanya Aspelmeier – only sings in cantata 6), a very large basso continuo section including harp, theorbo, organ, harpsichord, bassoon and violones in both G and D. In addition it has a choir, La Maîtrise de Garçons de Colmar, employed largely to give weight to the biblical texts in some numbers.  This is a possibility suggested by Gilles Cantagrel, an excerpt from whose biography of Buxtehude published in 2006 in French forms the essay in the liner notes, and is translated into German and English. The text in Latin is translated into German and English as well.

I find the contrast between the sections with single voices and those that use the whole choir unconvincing. The single voices of Stéphanie Révidat, Salomé Haller, the haute-contre Rolf Ehlers, Julian Prégardien (T) and Benoît Arnould (B) are well blended, and are capable of fine expressive singing, occasionally marred in the sopranos by vibrato on the weak notes. The lower parts are cleaner on the whole – 12 years later, standards have changed vocally more than instrumentally. The playing is splendid, and the key progression from C minor to E flat major, G minor to D minor to A minor to E minor and then to C minor to finish give a fine series of distinct tunings (though details of instruments, pitch and temperament are not given).

The final Amen is light and bright, and has more of the vocal quality I would have liked in some of the sections with single voices. The recording balances the different vocal and instrumental lines well, though the Maîtrise is toned down till the final Amen. Who is this choir of youngsters and their director Arlette Steyer? There is nothing about them (or indeed anyone else!) in the notes.

David Stancliffe

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Recording

Künstel: Markus Passion

Polyharmonique, L’arpa festante
138:00 (2 CDs in a card triptych)
Christophorus CHR 77435

This is an excellent recording of a great new discovery – probably the oldest surviving oratorio passion. Settings of the Passion according to Mark are rare in themselves, and this is a fascinating bridge between the older passion settings in the style of Schütz and the fully developed Passion Oratorios of J. S. Bach.  Künstel (c. 1645–1694) seems to have had his musical formation in the court at Ansbach, but from 1684 was in the service of Duke Albrecht III at Coburg, where his Markuspaßion was frequently performed after his death.  This substantial work (consisting of 99 numbers) was performed over two services on Maundy Thursday and the substantial Good Friday liturgy, including the motet Ecce quomodo moritur Justus by Jacobus Gallus.

The singers of Polyharmonique are headed by Hans-Jörg Mammel, who sings the measured music of the Evangelist accompanied by violoncello, organ and lute. Felix Rumpf, a baritone, sings the music of Jesus with the five-part string band (two violins, two violas and bass.)  The vocal ensemble has two sopranos, two altos, two other tenors, another baritone and two basses who between them sing the character parts and the arias, together with the director, Alexander Schneider, nicely entitled primus inter pares.

What is especially interesting is the way in which the narrative and the character parts merge into arioso passages as well as the more formal choruses. And all of this is woven around Lutheran chorales, often sung by a solo voice and ensemble alternating line by line. It is as if the late style of Carissimi were transported into the German Lutheran world, while at times the instrumental sound is that of Buxtehude’s. The formulaic cadences of the Evangelist belie Künstel’s dramatic characterisation of Peter, Judas and the other parts, where the verses of their arias are interspersed with instrumental ritornelli. Melodic material is partly derived from the chorales, but the whole substantial two-day event breathes its own character.

No-one who is interested in the pre-history of the Bach oratorio passions should miss this. And it is not just a vital link in the historical chain; it is really good and characterful music, admirably performed. Singers do not wobble or need to over-sing; lines are clear and the dramatis personae are well-characterised; balances are excellent and the whole production has a coherence and intensity that I was not expecting.

This is an excellent first recording of this newly-discovered work, and if you learn from it as much as I did, you will be eternally grateful. This is an alpha production and deserves to be widely known and enjoyed.

David Stancliffe

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Recording

Jacob Praetorius, Melchior Schildt: Selected Organ Works

Bernard Foccroulle
68:05
Ricercar RIC400

At the heart of this fascinating presentation of two of Sweelinck’s pupils’ organ works by the scholarly Bernard Fouccroule is one of Germany’s more remarkable organs – the Stellwagen organ in its substantially original late gothic case that hangs on the north wall of the Jacobikirche in Lübeck.

Not only is the music beautifully played and presented – the latest in Fouccroule’s anthology of Northern German early Baroque music – but the instrument is splendid for the music.  A Schwalbennestorgel (a swallow’s nest organ) was built here in 1467 and this great Blockwerk organ – a substantial principal chorus of 16’, 8’, 4’ and six ranks of upperwork giving the characteristic full organ sound of the period before perforated sliders were introduced to ‘stop’ some of the ranks of pipes sounding – was restored in 1515 when the main case was provided. Then the organ was enlarged in 1636-37 by the addition of a Rückpositiv, a Brustwerk and a pedal organ by the great organ builder Friedrich Stellwagen, the builder of the magisterial instrument in the Marienkirche in Stralsund along the coast to the East.

By great good fortune, he kept the late gothic Blockwerk with only minor additions, so the organ speaks with the authentic voice of the period when both composers were in their prime. The pedal organ has not survived, but the careful conservation and renovation of 1978 (reversing some of the post-WW II ‘restoration’) has given us a Stellwagen-type pedal organ including reeds at 16’, 8’, 4,’ and 2’ pitches.  Dominique Thomas is credited with the expert tuning of the organ, which is pitched at A=494 Hz (i.e., a whole tone above modern A=440) in Werkmeister III modified where I was expecting something a little more obviously mean-tone, but it sounds splendid and the reeds are perfectly regulated.

The music from both composers is dominated by the Lutheran chorale, with sets of variations as well as chorale fantasias using Sweelinck’s chromaticism and echo effects as well as plenty of verses where the chorale moves in slower notes in the pedal.  The booklet, in English, French and German, has an essay by Fouccroule and not only detailed information about the history of the organ and its specification but importantly detailed registration of every piece, including stop changes. This is surely a must for every significant recording on a historic instrument such as this, where interest in the instrument and its presentation will be of equal significance to the cognoscenti who might buy the CD – as I would encourage them all to do.

David Stancliffe

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Recording

Handel: Judas Maccabæus

Tarver, Breiwick, Harmsen, Fernandes, Willetts, NDR Chor, FestspielOrchester Göttingen, Laurence Cummings
137:00 (2 CDs in a card triptych)
Accent ACC 26410

Handel’s Judas Maccabæus, dating from 1747, was second only to Messiah in popularity in Handel’s lifetime. Here Laurence Cummings puts out a spirited version, recorded live last May at the Stadthalle Göttingen, where Cummings has been director of the Handel Festival since 2012. His orchestra, regularly assembled for this festival, is 6.6.4.4.2 strings with all the wind and brass you could need and sound not only proficient, but gracious. The string playing is particularly fine, and the occasional sounds of the wind – like the flutes in the final duet O lovely peace – offer lovely glimpses back to an earlier world before the ‘orchestra’ was essentially a string band.

The chorus, sharp and punchy when required but capable of a mellow and sustained gloom when called for, is the North German Radio Choir, their regular partners in this festival, and the text (and programme notes) are in both German and English.

Followers of the Festival’s productions will not be disappointed – the standards in every department are high. The main questions I have are about the size and scale of the performance.

Directors have to choose in presenting large-scale Handel – and even more so in Bach – between the stricter demands of period performance, which might call for voices especially of less developed power, and what will fill a venue and make the whole project financially viable. The solo singers here are admirable, but undoubtedly use more modern techniques of projection. They only rarely out-sing their accompanying band, and, of course, the oratorio is a heroic tale, but it was given first in the relatively small Theatre Royal in London.

The bass, Joäo Fernandes, is quite excellent in the very exposed The Lord worketh wonders, and Judas, Kenneth Tarver, is suitably heroic in Sound an alarm, where the silver trumpets eventually make their appearance to introduce the chorus, praising the abstract virtues of laws, religion and liberty, for much of the actual action takes place off stage making the work for all its political overtones in the wake of the Duke of Cumberland’s victory over the Stuart Pretender’s rebellion at Culloden so much more of an oratorio than an opera.

The opening of Act III marks Handel at his tuneful best in Father of Heav’n where the instrumental lines with their overlapping counterpoint suggest the all-encompassing divine favour. The March has cheerful bumpy jollity, and the unanimity of the chorus following, introduced by single voices, is a splendid advertisement for the about 21 strong NDR Chor, as is David Staff’s trumpet obligato in With honour let desert be crown’d, Judas’ surprisingly reflective final aria in A minor.

At the end of the brief final chorus, the burst of applause reminds us that this is a live take, and after such a seemingly effortless performance it is well deserved.  Nothing is amiss, tempi are beautifully judged and if the scale of the performance calls for more modern vocal techniques than I would ideally have liked, then many people will enjoy this cracking good version.

David Stancliffe

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Book

The Well-Travelled Musician

John Sigismond Cousser and Musical Exchange in Baroque Europe
Samantha Owens
xvi+385pp. £60 (hardback), £19.99 (eBook).
Boydell Press, 2017. ISBN 978-1-78327-234-1

Apologies to both the author and the publisher of this extraordinarily detailed book – convinced that I had already published a review, it has lain on my bookshelves for months since… Only when I came to file it away did I realise that, although I had jotted down some notes, I had never sat down at the computer to commit them to public scrutiny.

The first 180 pages of the book are taken up with nine chapters devoted to aspects and/or phases of the composer’s 67-year-long life, each of them oozing the volume of minutiae that in the hands of a lesser writer would have caused brain numbing. Somehow Owens always finds just the right combination of words to maintain enough interest to make the reader want to know more. And there is plenty to learn!

This is nowhere more evident than in her summary of the composer/musician/copyist/impresario’s commonplace book, in her transcription of his Address Book (complete with identifications of almost everyone mentioned!), and in another transcription, this time of notes made on a journey he made in 1716. The latter is little more than a tantalising list of people, music and places but it is just this kind of diplomatic transcription being published that makes other music historians’ jobs easier – somewhere in amongst the seemingly meaningless, someone will find a link that is a crucial part of their puzzle. For this, if nothing else, the world of research into Baroque music owes both Owens and Boydell a huge vote of thanks. Of course, there is much else to absorb and enjoy – the book itself is a thing of beauty.

As the HIP scene in Dublin takes off, Cousser’s music will become more widely known, so get hold of this excellent volume and immerse yourself in his world.

Brian Clark

Click here to visit the publisher’s website.

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Sheet music

Tomaso Albinoni: Balletti a Quattro

Edited by Simone Laghi
Ut Orpheus ACC80A £30.95 (score, 96pp), ACC80B £29.95 (parts)

Chamber music for 2 violins, viola and continuo from the early 18th century is not that common, so this collection of 12 Balletti (four-movement “dance suites”) will be a welcome addition to any group’s repertoire or teacher’s library. Five of them are in minor keys and most give the first violin the lion’s share of the musical interest. I would call the layout “generous” – the brevity of some movements and the placement of repeat signs at the ends of systems and pages left the typesetter with few options. The four parts present each of the suites on a single opening, which is perfect. According to the introduction (in Italian and slightly odd English), notes have been beamed according to modern principles, yet groupings of matching rhythm are not consistent. Editorial changes are given in tabular form at the end of the score; this could have done with a little copy editing. These small criticisms do not detract from a beautiful presentation of Albinoni’s fine music – this repertoire is just perfect for junior orchestras as everyone plays continually. Highly recommended.

Brian Clark

Click here to visit the publisher’s website.