Tag: Baroque

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Les arts florissants

40[th anniversary]
235:57 (3 CDs in a card triptych)
harmonia mundi musique HAX 8908972.74
CD1 Music and theater CD2 Sacred music CD3 Secular music

Here’s the least surprising (re-)release of the year, three generously filled discs recalling and celebrating the work of LAF over the last four decades. It’s a shame that a little more effort hasn’t gone into the presentation, however. No details or dates of the source recordings; no texts or translations; and not all prominent instrumentalists are named (the flautist contributes at least as much as the singer to Bach’s Benedictus). In this context, it would be unreasonable to expect notes on the music but we do get a brief history of the ensemble and a flagging-up of its future projects.

The musical content is well-planned. Each disc has a theme (Music and the Theatre; Sacred Music; Secular Music); each programme includes one or two substantial works or extracts; and there is an amazing amount of music included. I was pleased to be reminded of and to enjoy again Lully’s Atys (on CD1 – a notable recording), his Salve Regina for high voices and Charpentier’s remarkable Le Reniement de saint Pierre (CD2) and the Monteverdi, including Il Combattimento, on CD3. There are, inevitably, one or two tracks I won’t return to, though they did make me think before I decided ‘no’! I also felt that the continuo instrumentation could often, and to all-round musical advantage, be less fussy but nothing diminishes my gratitude to LAF for their pioneering work, especially in French repertoire 1650-1770ish. They’d be no less admired and appreciated if that were all they’d ever done. Without them we may never have given Brossard’s haunting Miserere as much as a glance.

David Hansell

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H. Praetorius: Motets in 8, 10, 12, 16 & 20 parts

ALAMIRE, His Majestys Sagbutts & Cornetts, Stephen Farr organ, David Skinner
100:25 (2 CDs in a single case)
Inventa Records (Resonus Limited) INV001

The music on this disc unfolded exactly as I had anticipated it would: mainly homophonic, predominantly Gabrielian, with some cute quirks of harmony. For this reviewer, one of the few miscalculations that Stile Antico have made in the course of their recordings is on A Wondrous Mystery: Renaissance Choral Music for Christmas (Harmonia Mundi HMU 807575) where they intersperse the movements of Jacob Clement’s Missa Pastores quidnam vidistis with later German music: the teutonic matter of the latter is entirely the wrong flavour to mingle courses with the refined and piquant Franco-Flemish helpings of Clement (note: please can we dispense with the cumbersome and no longer hilarious moniker Jacobus Clemens non Papa?). The current recording provides a banquet of such Teutonic matter with 16 pieces, including ten motets for from eight to 20 parts, by the Hamburg composer Hieronymus Praetorius (1560-1629), many of them seasoned with historic brass. For variety, there is his complete Missa summum for (mainly) organ with chanted plainsong, two sequentiae similarly for organ and voices, and a couple of motets played by brass alone. For all their differing vocal resources, the motets began to sound much of a muchness, and in fairness to David Skinner, he shuffles the pack to some extent, with usually no more than two similar works adjacent. Nevertheless, not everyone who relishes barnstorming motets full of voices and brass might be enthusiastic about the interspersed movements of the Missa summum with its long passages played on the historic organ at Roskilde. This is performed sensitively by Stephen Farr, but even he cannot make a case for Praetorius’s uninteresting writing for the organ here in the Mass and in the sequentiae. I take respectful issue with David Skinner’s description of this Praetorius (no relation of his contemporary Michael) as a master polyphonist. This reviewer was left desperate for some counterpoint amidst the onslaught of homophony, apart from some passages in the two motets a8 entrusted to the historic brass. One of Praetorius’s motets – perhaps the opening Dixit Dominus a12 – would stand up well on a disc of music varied by genre, period or locality. Together they become monotonous, and the music chosen to provide some variety within this disc is itself undistinguished. The performances are of course excellent, although perhaps inevitably, given the material, there is a residual impression of some shoutiness in the wake of the polychoral motets. Exultate iusti a16 brings the proceedings to a sonorous conclusion, but perhaps the finest work on this pair of discs is the dramatic Levavi oculos meas a10. It has a structural momentum not apparent in the other motets, which feel more sectional, and this momentum builds to an electrifying climax, with harmonic sparks flying.

Richard Turbet

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Marini: Concerti A quatro 5. 6. Voci & Istromenti op. 7

Ensemble Constanza Porta, Cremona Antiqua, Antonio Greco
81:25 (2 CDs in a single jewel case)
Tactus TC 591390

Famous primarily as a virtuoso violinist and as a composer for that instrument, Marini also composed very effectively for voices and instruments in ensemble. Writing around the middle of the 17th century when the madrigal was acquiring increasingly lavish instrumental accompaniment and flirting with the newly created world of staged opera, it is a testimony to Marini’s skill that his concerti sound not unlike the comparable work of the great Claudio Monteverdi. The concerti recorded here are pleasingly rich in texture with a powerful element of drama. In these world premiere recordings, the vocal Ensemble Costanza Porta is ably supported by the instruments of Cremona Antiqua, and the combined sound is wonderfully rich and expressive. The concerto Non lagrimar complements the two tenor voices and continuo with two obbligato parts for solo violins, and it is nice to think that the composer might have played one of these himself.

D. James Ross

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Music from the Golden Age of Rembrandt

Musica Amphion, Pieter-Jan Belder
132:01 (2 CDs in a single jewel case)
Brilliant Classics 95917

I am not a huge fan of musical programmes which use visual artists as a peg – music and painting were often at dramatically different expressive places, a fact illustrated by these CDs of music – delightfully mannered, elegant songs and dance music – which the programme attempts to attach to Rembrandt, who was engaged in an entirely unrelated project of striking gritty realism. Still, I suppose as the music he would have heard around him, it must have some bearing on his work, and anyway two lovely CDs of 17th-century Dutch music beautifully performed are a welcome addition to the canon. The performers have delved deep into the archives and have researched beyond the familiar van Eijck, Hacquart, van Noordt and Sweelinck to find some genuinely unknown music from the period to widen our knowledge. The playing from a wonderfully sonorous consort of viols, with violins and viola, complemented by a fine quartet of vocal soloists and harpsichord and recorder soloists, is beautifully expressive throughout. The music ranges from the sacred to the secular, and from the very beginning of the 17th century with music by Cornelis Schuyt to its very end and a trio sonata by the splendidly named Benedictus Buns. By this time, the artist had been dead for thirty years, but this music usefully rounds off the century and the Golden Age of Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn. If this was the soundtrack behind the paintings of Rembrandt, probably the best way to approach it is to have it playing gently in the background much as the original music would have done, and who knows, perhaps you too will be inspired to put brush to canvas.

D. James Ross

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Bach in Bologna

Mauro Valli
195:18 (3 CDs in a card folder)
Arcana A459
Bach: Cello suites; D. Gabrielli: 7 Ricercari

This epic project presents the complete music for solo cello by perhaps the greatest of the Baroque composers, J. S. Bach, interspersed by the complete solo cello oeuvre of one of the lesser composers of the period, Domenico Gabrielli. Did the two ever meet? As Bach was only five when Gabrieli died prematurely at the age of just thirty, the answer is almost definitely no. Did Bach know Gabrielli’s music? Just possibly, although there is absolutely no circumstantial or musical evidence. So why juxtapose the two sets? I must admit I was sceptical at first, seeing this as just another excuse to add to the already groaning piles of recordings of the Bach. Valli gives thoughtful and musically consummate accounts of the Bach, although I still prefer the absolutely luminous accounts by David Watkin on resonus (RES10147). Valli’s sound is darker, his playing more unrelentingly intense and the recording generally closer. But what eventually got me about these performances was precisely the juxtaposition with the Gabrielli. As the programme note is quick to concede, this is not an attempt to place the Bach and Gabrielli on the same pedestal, but what I found really interesting is that the Gabrielli did have something to say about the Bach and vice versa. For all the differences in style, texture and melodic sense, as Baroque works for solo cello these pieces have more in common than they first seem. Gabrielli’s belong in a simpler, more innocent world than Bach’s, but the juxtaposition brings out the profundity of these Ricercars, suggesting that they deserve much wider attention from cellists than they have hitherto received. So these CDs with their powerful accounts of Bach and Gabrielli are after all more than just the sum of their parts.

D. James Ross

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Purcell: The Cares of Lovers

Rowan Pierce, Richard Egarr, William Carter
59:47
Linn Records CKD 592

Approaching some of these well-worn Purcell songs must be a similar experience for singers as the prospect of a great Shakespeare soliloquy is for an actor. What to do with this familiar material? Rowan Pierce with her musical team decide to approach this music as if they were the first ever to perform it, and the resulting freshness and spontaneity are hugely engaging. Of course, to be able to present Purcell’s music as effectively as this demands consummate technique, but it is technique that must be worn lightly and the present performers do this very effectively. The accompanying texture of harpsichord with lute/theorbo works very well indeed, and variety is achieved by thinning this out occasionally. The success of this sort of recital relies of course ultimately on the solo voice, and Rowan Pierce has a beautifully flexible, sweet, and technically secure instrument at her disposal which she employs with musicality and intelligence to produce highly engaging accounts of her chosen songs. As ever, the Linn engineers capture every nuance perfectly, and the result is a charming and highly enjoyable CD which rewards repeated listening.

D. James Ross

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Royer: Premiere Livre de Pièces de Clavecin

Mie Hayashi harpsichord
65:11
resonus RES10236

At an aristocratic funeral recently I was impressed by the fact that one of the participants had a double-barrelled middle name, but the French Baroque harpsichord composer Royer knocks that into a cocked hat with his triple-barrelled name! From the generation after the great François Couperin, Royer powerfully illustrates that the French harpsichord tradition continued to go from strength to strength. One of the most influential French composers of his time, Royer oversaw much of the more lavish orchestral and chamber music which graced the French court in the mid-eighteenth century. It is striking that his First book of harpsichord music from which this programme is drawn appeared in 1746, the year of the battle of Culloden, and the world of contrived elegance it evokes stands as testimony to the refinement of the Court of Louis XVth. Playing a lovely 2010 reproduction by Andrew Garlick of a Jean-Claude Goujon harpsichord of 1749, harpsichordist Mie Hayashi has selected a wonderfully varied set of pieces, ranging from demure dances to a thunderous pair of Tambourins, an unsettlingly unbalanced Vertigo and Royer’s only well-known piece nowadays his wonderfully virtuosic Marche des Scythes. My favourite piece was the enigmatic Les tendres Sentiments, as with all the repertoire, played with sensitivity and élan by Miss Hayashi.

D. James Ross

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François Couperin: Quatrième Livres de Pièces de Clavecin

Guillermo Brachetta harpsichord
resonus RES10240
156:56 (2 CDs inj a card triptych)

Couperin’s final collection of ordres is the first release in this series which will eventually include all his harpsichord music. Brachetta’s playing can be quite flamboyant but here he adopts a suitably sober approach to match that of the composer who always comes across as rather wistful in this last publication. Tempos are calm and nicely judged, inégalité gentle and fluide, and ornaments almost unobtrusively absorbed into the musical lines. And the instrument is lovely too – a copy (2010) by Keith Hill of a notable Taskin (1769). Some might feel that this is a little late for music published in 1730, but the clear treble and rich lower registers do serve the music well. It can be frustrating when the titles of French character pieces are neither translated nor explained but here careful reading of the booklet’s tiny print will add significantly to the listener’s understanding and enjoyment of the music. The booklet (in English only) includes a general introduction by the player, notes on the music (which could have been longer – there’s space) and biographical information. Couperin’s music comes across as finely-spun gold.

David Hansell

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Cabanilles: Keyboard works, volume three: 21 works for organ and for harpsichord

Timothy Roberts
70:49
Toccata Classics TOCC 0451

This is the third release in a series of as yet unspecified length that may eventually include the composer’s complete keyboard music. This is quite an ambition as there is a lot of it; much is not yet published; and the sources are poor, requiring a creative and corrective approach from editors and performers. Three instruments are used: two splendidly restored historic Spanish organs (one big, one small) and a Ruckers-style harpsichord by Michael Johnson and I’d like to pay a small tribute at this point to those who prepared the instruments for the recording. Though one seldom hears on disc an instrument that is unacceptably out-of-tune, it is also rare to hear instruments, especially organs, that are quite as well in tune as these two. Given the pungent nature of some of the sounds, this is an important and a significant factor in the recital’s success. The booklet (English only) contains concise essays on the composer’s life, his musical style, the instruments used and the player: frustratingly, footnotes suggest referring to the notes from previous releases in the series. I hoped to find these online but was unsuccessful.

Many EMR readers will know Tim Roberts as a player of skill and taste, and there is plenty of both on display. Typically, the pieces consist of a florid and colourful solo line supported by a gently contrapuntal accompaniment. Cabanilles’s sequential passages can sometimes threaten over-predictability, but here they always have a sense of direction and purpose. Some Spanish theorists recommended an approach to rhythm that combines elements of French-style inequality with almost modern concepts of rubato. Perhaps there could be a bit more of this in the performances: on the other hand, there’s a lot to be said for a relatively conservative approach when recording, especially when music is committed to disc for the first (and only?) time. I enjoyed this, and recommend that anyone not yet familiar with the idiosyncrasies of the Spanish organ school give it a try. But be prepared for a few shocks!

David Hansell

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Messe du Roi Soleil

The Sun King’s Mass
Marguerite Louise, directed by Gaétan Jarry
53:13
Château de Versailles Spectacles CVS008
Music by Couperin, Delalande, Guilain, Lully & Philidor

One expects better of Versailles. Although the performances are quite decent, the programme is rather a rag-bag and very short and the booklet (Eng/Fre) poorly designed. Why not all the French essays together, then all the English, rather than interleaving them? And the notes, once found, aren’t that great either – whether in French or English. A case of trying too hard, rather than incompetence, but either way the reader loses out.

The Sun King heard various types of mass in his chapel, most famously the ‘solemn low mass’ which consisted of a grand motet, a petit motet and a Domine salvum fac regem, all sung while the priest quietly spoke the liturgy. On other occasions, he heard organ music and chant and here we get a bit of everything, sometimes a very short bit. So the overall effect is rather unsatisfying even though the major works – psalm settings by Delalande and Lully – are splendid pieces, worthily sung. Indeed, the soprano solos and duets are some of the best I’ve heard for a long time. Nonetheless, the overall verdict has to be ‘could do better’.

David Hansell