Tag: Baroque

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Recording

Bach: Chorale Partitas BWV 766-768, 770

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Stephen Farr
55:46
resonus RES10234

Stephen Farr, whose scholarship and playing are of equal excellence, has produced another fine CD in his explorations of Bach’s lesser known works. He produced a CD of the Clavier-Übung III on the Metzler organ in Trinity College, Cambridge which I reviewed for the EMR in June 2016, and enjoyed greatly.

This time it is the four Chorale Partitas, which he plays on a Bernard Aubertin house organ of 2015 in Fairwarp, East Sussex. There are photographs of Aubertin’s instrument, and the full specification and details of the registration for each of the 38 tracks of these four works.

It is a treat to have sensitive and intelligently registered performances of these works, which are probably among Bach’s earliest to survive. They are modelled on the style of Chorale Partitas popularised by Georg Böhm and Johann Pachelbel in the generation before Bach, and probably date from his time at Arnstadt (1703 -1707), or even possibly when he was at the Michaelisschule in Lüneburg from 1700 to 1703 where Böhm was organist at the Johanniskirche and taught the young Bach.

Farr’s sensitive registration and neat playing gives us a well-judged balance and tonal variety – I like for example his use of a 4’ flute for Partita VI of Christ, der du bist der helle Tag, followed by the full chorus on the Positif, with the 8’ Trompette on the Grand Orgue coupled to the Pedal for the final partita (tracks 16 & 17). Overall the registration gives us the benefit of a small-scale organ in a domestic acoustic so that we can hear the complex figuration combined with occasional flashes of a grander sound for the culminating partitas. The elegance of registration (with a soft reed (the Voix Humaine) in the LH) of Partita VI followed by the rhythmically complex Partita VII (my favourite of all) in O Gott, du frommer Gott is beautifully balanced.  This fine judgement is especially evident in the final Partitas with their complex part-writing at the end of Sei gegrüßet.

Both the choice of instrument and the playing are highly commendable, and the sense of relaxed control, where tempi and articulation match each other excellently, make this a splendid performance. The notes provided by David Lee and the details of the organ are excellent as well: Resonus produce finer liner notes than many of their glossier (and more expensive) rivals.

David Stancliffe

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Recording

Giacomo Facco : Master of Kings

Turino, Boix, Matsuoka
51.03
Cobra 0063

One of the myriad Italian composers who travelled throughout Europe in the first half of the 18th century, Giacomo Facco seems to have specialised in music for and featuring the cello. The present recording alternates cantatas for soprano and continuo from throughout his life with three of his Sinfonias for solo cello. If Eugenia Boix’s singing in the cantatas occasionally sounds a little detached emotionally, it is always technically impeccable, while cellist Guillermo Turino and harpsichordist Tomoko Matsouka provide a wonderfully imaginative continuo support. The Sinfonias for cello and continuo are to my ear more musically interesting, and are beautifully played by Turino and Matsouka. Most intriguing is the Spanish cantata Cuando en el Orient, dating from Facco’s years in Madrid, which is in a markedly more advanced melodic style than the other cantatas and which features a prominent obligato cello part throughout. It is always fascinating to see a spotlight shone on an individual composer, who represents the lives and work of so many, whose reputations and compositions have sunk into obscurity. Facco’s mature work is as good as anything being composed in Europe at the time, and it is a shame to think that it has been squeezed out of the familiar canon.

D. James Ross

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Recording

Giovanni Antonio Pandolfi Mealli : Sonate, Roma 1669

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Opera Quinta
61:29
Tactus TC 621602

This collection of 17th-century instrumental music provides a cross-section on strings, continuo and percussion of dances from Mealli’s 1669 publication. Like most of these dance collections, Mealli’s is pleasantly melodic and rhythmically engaging – it has to be said that the present performance is a little rough around the edges, over-resonant in its recording and uncomfortably dominated for no particular reason by a bewildering variety of percussion instruments. The brief episodes where the percussion drops out and the strings are more clearly heard are the most effective parts of this account. The effectiveness of the package is also not helped by the almost unintelligible English translation of Fabrizio Longo’s programme note – it looks as if he did it himself, a foolish saving which largely deprives English readers of the details of what sounds like an excitingly colourful life-story. I think what emerges from this programme is that Mealli’s music probably deserves wider attention, but that this presentation raises interest rather than satisfying it.

D. James Ross

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Recording

Antonio Vivaldi : Concerti per violino ‘La boemia’

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Fabio Biondi, Europa Galante
68:47
Naïve OP30572

Well, the hugely ambitious Naïve project to record the around 450 works by Vivaldi in the National University Library of Turin has reached volume 57 and the composer’s Bohemian concertos. The delight of any attempt at a complete recording of a composer’s oeuvre is the discovery of work that has fallen into obscurity, and these fine concerti surely come into that category. Composed during the composer’s year-long sojourn in Prague, it is interesting to listen in these works for any influence of a native Bohemian style, and it has to be said that there is a freedom of melodic line and a couple of harmonic progressions which suggest that the composer was open to local influences. The other great joy of this Naïve series is the superlative standard of the performances, and Fabio Bondi and his excellent Europa Galante offer sparkling accounts of these concerti. They subscribe to the current school of thought which presents Baroque string music with a degree of percussive attack which not everybody approves of, but which I enjoy when it is not overdone. Meanwhile, Bondi’s virtuosity and wonderful singing tone make him the perfect soloist in this repertoire. I think it is only fair that Europa Galante read a fair amount of Bohemian influence into these scores, and without overdoing it, I think they cleverly bring out the central European flavour of these unusual works. I have to confess to having slightly lost track of this epic endeavour, and it is good to find, on dipping back in, that all is progressing well with the project and that standards are as high as ever.

D. James Ross

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Recording

Monteverdi: Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria

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Monteverdi Choir, English Baroque Soloists, directed by John Eliot Gardiner
185:50 (3 CDs)
SDG 730

Those looking for a HIP recording – and I assume that would apply to most readers on this site – of this marvellous product of Monteverdi’s old age should be warned this is not it. In a long and to me at times pretentious note John Eliot Gardiner makes clear that he views Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria not as an up-to-date opera in mid-17th century Venetian style, but as a continuation of that encountered in his earlier operas and works. This surely contradicts not only practicalities, but also the changed ethos of opera. Monteverdi cannot have been unaware of developments that had taken place, particularly since the advent of public opera in Venice three years before Il ritorno was first produced in 1640. Moreover the libretto, based on Homer’s Odyssey, with which Giacomo Badoaro had tempted him to the public theatre presented a totally different approach to the operas of the early years of the century. It is, for example, quite unthinkable to image the comic glutton Iro in Orfeo or any other opera of the first decades of the century.

Gardiner’s contentious proposal enables him to do two things. Firstly, to indulge in some tenuous comparisons with Shakespeare, who had not only died a quarter of a century earlier, but belonged to a different milieu and culture. Secondly, and more importantly, it allows him to indulge his preference for inflated and unidiomatic performing forces. So here, rather than the modest forces found in Venetian opera houses, Gardiner unapologetically fields a sizable orchestra including not only 6-4-1-1 strings but cornetti, recorders and dulcian in addition to a sizable continuo group that includes four archlutes (or guitars), harp, organ and harpsichord. Experienced Monteverdians will thus at times find themselves thinking they are listening to Orfeo rather than Il ritorno. This may to some sound pedantic. In fact it is not, because the use of such substantial forces tends to obstruct clear projection of text, crucial in works of this kind. Neither is the non-continuo contribution always restricted to ritornellos, as was customary in 17th century Venetian opera. Among a number of examples the worst is the addition of a tasteless violin solo to the sensuous duet at the conclusion of the delightful scene (act 1, sc 2) between the young servant lovers Melanto and Eurimaco.

It’s an unnecessary and vulgar intrusion that jars, especially as the scene is one of the best performed episodes in the opera. Otherwise there is much to be questioned, particularly in the treatment of the stile recitativo that still dominates the opera. In his notes Eliot Gardiner makes much of the work that was put into making sure both singers and instrumentalists understood the fusion of the all-important text and Monteverdi’s music. Yet to my mind much of the recitative is delivered in far too deliberate a manner, with much fragmentation, exaggeration of rhythmic flexibility and unnatural dynamic extremes. The result is not only self-indulgent and mannered but paradoxically also stilted and at times lugubrious.

The multi-national cast assembled by Gardiner has both strengths and weaknesses. I have mixed feelings about the Penelope of French mezzo Lucile Richardot. The voice itself is disconcertingly unusual, with an almost masculine quality in the chest register contrasting with pleasingly feminine head notes, the break always too apparent. Yet she brings a strong dramatic sense to the role and it is probably not her fault if the great opening monologue at times sounds more like whinging than the dignified distress of a queen. But she sings ornaments with greater conviction than most of the cast and the final, long-delayed reunion with her Ulisse is intensely moving, not least since Gardiner here allows text and music a more natural flow, enabling the drama to speak for itself. Her Ulisse is capably sung by the veteran baritone Furio Zanasi, who brings authority and long-established understanding of musical and textural syntax to the role. The voice may no longer be free of the odd rough edge – he was superior in a performance under Rinaldo Alessandrini given at the 2010 Beaunne Festival – but overall this is an impressive assumption of the role. The outstanding performance here is that of the Polish tenor Krystian Adam, whose Telemaco is perhaps the finest I’ve heard. The youthful fervency he brings to his relations with both his mother and father coupled with excellent articulation of text is totally compelling. Mention has already been made of the fine performances of the servants Melanto and Eurimaco, sung with appealingly youthful vivacity by Anna Dennis and Zachary Wilder. The remaining roles are filled with varying degrees of success.

The recording was made at live performances given in 2017 in Wroclaw, Poland, coming at the end of an extensive and, as I understand, highly successful tour of Europe and the US, during which the three extant Monteverdi operas were given in semi-staged productions. I regret not being able to add my endorsement, but feel that, as with his continued refusal to countenance Bach performances that conform to those of Bach’s own day, Sir John simply has this wrong. My recommendation remains the considerably more idiomatic performance by La Venexiana (Glossa).

Brian Robins

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Recording

Monteverdi: Vespro della Beata Vergine

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Ludus Modalis, Bruno Boterf
Ramée RAM1702

A recording of the Monteverdi Vespers with minimalist scoring and the six-voice Magnificat is a welcome alternative to the plethora of versions with a Praetorius-inspired monumentality that could only have been realised in very few establishments in the early 17th century. While more minimalist versions – beginning with Andrew Parrott’s landmark recording in 1984 – are now the preferred way of hearing performances of the large-scale version that includes the opening toccata, the sonata and the seven-part Magnificat, Ludus Modalis are to be congratulated on providing us with a pared down version, with twelve singers grouped around an organ built by Bernard Boulay after Costanzo Antegnati for the church in Prazac near Angoulême, where this recording was made.

The singers are not random soloists, with little experience of consort or choral singing, but members of the group Ludus Modalis – five sopranos, two altos, three tenors (including Boterf himself) and three basses – formed primarily to sing music of the Renaissance. Their sound is homogeneous, free of modern vibrato and in many ways ideal for the prima prattica. But for some of the singers, the seconda prattica episodes in the psalms as well as in the concerti make demands rather beyond their comfort zone. Like the organ, tuned in a meantone temperament at A=440 with a lot of perfect thirds, the group sing with clarity of sound and clean chording. Their blend with the organ can be heard at its best in Audi Cœlum, where the single notes in the organ bass at cadences can be appreciated.

But there are some question marks in my mind. The first concerns the bassus generalis which Boterf sees as an incipient basso continuo part.  Accordingly he has no qualms in adding to the basic organ two harpsichords (one strung in brass, the other with gut), a bass viol, a bass sackbut and a bass cornett. He uses this array to colour the bass line – and sometimes to reinforce a cantus firmus, as in Nisi Dominus – in a way that seems to me anachronistic and sometimes unmusical: hearing the crochets in the verses with the running bass in Laetatus sum played on a bass sackbut is as odd as using the bass viol with a harpsichord to over-rigidify the fluid bass in Nigra sum. The incongruity is heightened when we hear the ritornelli between the verses of the hymn Ave Maris Stella played on differing combinations of these basso continuo instruments, with the wind and string members taking what are sometimes tenor lines in the ritornelli. Why – since he properly omits the ritornelli in Dixit Dominus – does he choose to retain them in these highly questionable instrumentations in the hymn?

Boterf is aware of the liturgical context of this part of Monteverdi’s 1610 publication and adds antiphons from the Common of the Blessed Virgin Mary, repeating them after each psalm. His solution to the gap left by the un-performable Sonata is ingenious. He uses a Recercar con obligo di cantar la quinta parte senza toccarla by Girolamo Frescobaldi, where he gives the wordless sung fifth part to the sopranos, fitting the words: Sancta Maria, ora pro nobis to it; and he doubles the organ tenor with bass cornett and the bass line with the sackbut.

But his treatment of the opening versicle and response is muddled liturgically. He has the opening Versicle: Deus in adjutorium sung by the cantor (officiant) and answered by all the male voices in plain Gregorian tone for Domine ad adjuvandum, but then breaks into the D chords of Monteverdi’s six part Response at Gloria Patri, only to have the Gregorian resume at Sicut before reverting to Monteverdi’s setting at Et in saecula, creating a liturgically unwarranted break up in the lines, presumably to preserve Monteverdi’s setting of Alleluia.

In the psalm settings, Boterf does not always make a clear distinction between the alternating verse structure – a feature of both Dixit Dominus and Laetatus sum; and not everyone will like his rather wooden approach to the tempi and changes in proportion in Laudate pueri and the Magnificat.

As we reach Lauda Jerusalem we realise that he is transposing Lauda down a tone, but when we come to the Magnificat there is no downward transposition at all. This makes a number of the soprano entries in the Magnificat seem terrifyingly high – those on high A in Fecit potentiam and in Sicut locutus est seemed particularly out of the sopranos’ comfort zone. Another curiosity is the relation between the voice-parts in Suscepit Israel where the sextus part, notated in a G2 clef, is suddenly transposed down an octave, so that the voices sing in sixths rather than thirds. It also brings the sextus part well below the organ part in measures 52 to 52. What is the textual (or musical) justification for this rearrangement? But I did warm to the beating rank on the organ from measures 22 to 38 in Quia respexit as Monteverdi stipulated.

In spite of these caveats, I like the overall feel of this performance, even if the recording in this small church does not quite have either the bloom or the clarity we might hope for. So I hope listeners will gain in understanding, and singers will be encouraged to perform this version, for which you need no more than an organ for accompaniment.

David Stancliffe

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Sheet music

New from Peacock Press

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We recently received a bulky packet containing volumes from this publisher. I will go through them as they emerged. All are neatly printed and professionally finished in A4 format with nice covers.

Alan Howard has recreated Sampson Estwick’s Trio Sonata in A minor from the sole surviving Violin 1 part (catalogue number PEMS 33 V, costing £7). It is a continuous movement with alternating sections in different styles and will be a welcome addition to any chamber group’s repertoire, with both upper parts fleixble in their instrumentation.

Hotteterre’s Deuxième Suite de Pieces (op. 6, 1717) has long been popular with flautists. Gordon J Callon has now transposed it for treble recorders (PEMS 048, £7). After six pages of performance advice come 17 of music. While the musical notation is clear enough, a lot more effort might have been invested in the layout; simple things like having six systems on pages 2-3 rather than seven on the first and five on the second, of spreading out the music on pages 4-5 rather than having far too cramped seven staves on the first and only two (with LOTS of blank space) on the other would certainly help. Why does the Contrefaiseurs not reach the bottom of pages 16-17? These might be thought of as aesthetic considerations, but actually the easier one can follow the shape of music on the page (with petites reprises, Da Capos, Dal Segnos and whole-movement repeats to take account of) the more enjoyable the players’ experience. Personally, if there have to be blank pages, I prefer them to be on the left – I don’t know if I’m alone in this… somehow it seems odd to me to have a blank right page; it’s like a sign saying “you’ve finished – no need to turn the page”.

Thalia, A Collection of Six Favourite Songs was originally printed in 1767. Simon D. I. Fleming has produced a new edition (PEMS 079, £13.50) of settings of the famous actor David Garrick’s words by Thomas and Michael Arne, Barthélémon, Battishill, Boyce, and the younger John Christopher Smith (an index would have been useful, and could easily have been provided by squashing up the overly spacious “Editorial method”. The paper is different from the two preceding publications, but it nice that the performing set includes a second copy of the score without the thick cover. The typesetting is neat though, given that the scoring (soprano/tenor, 2 violins and continuo) never changes, I wonder why every staff on every page needs to be labelled. Although I understand why having a keyboard part that is more of a reduction than anything else facilitates the performance of these attractive songs without the extra instruments, it makes it more difficult for non-specialists if they are unable to play from a figured bass. I’m not sure why the editor felt the need to add a second violin part to the Boyce song; I would also suggest that the second figure in bar 35 should have been interpreted literally, giving a far neater temporary shift to A minor than Fleming’s explicit F sharp!

“Purists will hate this – but they don’t have to buy it,” writes Moira Usher in her introduction to two volumes entitled Introduction to Unbarred (Book I ATTB, PEMS 075, £10.50, Book II SATTB, PEMS 076, £12.50). In fact, this purist thinks it quite a sensible idea, even though he didn’t immediately twig that the music she has chosen to present this way is not intended for use by singers. Once again, an index would have been useful. The works are by Lassus, Byrd, Morley, Palestrina and Victoria (Book I) and Byrd, Guerrero, Weelkes and Palestrina (Book II). In a world where more people want to play from original sources, I see this as an excellent starting place. Starting with relatively easy repertoire (and with a score to hand to check if someone can’t quite “get it”), groups can, first of all, see the shapes of phrases (with the aid of the natural rhythm of the texts – what a great idea to choose vocal music!) and liberate themselves from the tyranny of the barline. Next step, learn to read C clefs. Far from rubbishing Usher’s editions, I’d encourage her to go further – if a part ends with a lunga, use that notation (there must be a way!), and similarly use multi-bar rests. Or maybe these are developments planned for Books III and IV and the whole endeavour is a great learning experience?

Andrew Robinson’s Rameau Duets – Volume Two (PAR 465, 8.50) includes 16 movements mostly for a pair of trebles (three of the pieces in this volume require a descant, too). The typesetting and layout are nicely done (even the page I would typically object to where the music doesn’t fill the page, the systems are spaced out and carefully aligned so I respect the typesetter’s effort). Having a common index for the three volumes is fine, but if you are also going to use the same “here’s how to play (or avoid) difficult high notes” advice, at least put them in volume and page order. Small gripes for a book that is bound to bring a lot of fun to Rameau-loving recorder players!

Simple divisions in quavers is the title of Robinson’s editions of four madrigal’s by Cipriano de Rore which appeared in Girolamo dalla Casa’s Il vero modo di diminuir of 1584 (PAS 501, £12.50). The set includes a score, a part with the original de Rore lines, another with dalla Casa’s diminutions, the same transposed up an octave, and finally a mini guidebook to dalla Casa’s advice (and exercises) on tonguing. I was left a little confused about the target audience; if there is a tonguing guide, why do lots of the passages spend so much time below the clef where recorder players cannot reach? Should that not have been printed an octave higher, too? If the editor suggests performing the pieces as four-part madrigals, shouldn’t there be parts for the three lower voices, too? Which could double as parts for a recorder (or other) consort? Since the diminutions always start on the melody note from the original voice part, would it not have been better to omit the voice version from the score and added the text to the instrumental part, thus saving space and (in theory) helping the player see where the textual stresses lay? I think it is a noble project, but it could have been thought through a little better.

Brian Clark

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Recording

Telemann: Chamber music treasures from Dresden and Darmstadt

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64:13
Les Esprits Animaux
Musica Ficta MF8029

It is straight away obvious when an ensemble has taken due care and attention over what they choose to present on their recording. Here Javier Lupiáñez and Les Esprits Animaux are to be commended for their smart choices. Straddled by two fairly familiar works, opening with “Concerto alla polonese” (TWV43:G7) tackled with just enough rustic flair, and ending with the beautiful D-minor work (TWV43:d2) here in the earlier string version, composed circa 1711-15 (aka one of the 4th Book of Quartets, Leclerc Paris 1752) we find two of those “deest” works, that is to say, absent, not to be found in any known catalogue listings; the first of these in D major, seems to my ear to contain more departures from Telemann’s usual musical “modii” than commonalities, but the second (in B flat major) seems to passingly quote from one of the cantatas from the Harmonischer Gottesdienst (TVWV1:447) in the 2nd movement “Adagio”. Interspersed we have two fine premieres: TWV43:G8, which brings us back to some familiar fleetness , and dynamic expression; the 3rd movement “Grave” has a kind of vocalised effect, not overdone by the ensemble’s leader Javier Lupiáñez with his embellishments. Finally, mention goes to the quite excellent TWV42:D10, a marvellous five-movement work, which has a typical mellifluence and design we recognize in other Telemann pieces; even the blending of stylistic elements from Italy and France strike the ear, with movements running from Menuet to Balletto, in this accomplished hybrid, all wonderfully captured by this vivacious and alert ensemble. We feel back on firm, idiomatic ground. This is a most worthy exposition, and we can only hope for more insightful, well-researched explorations to appear in the future. On page 10 of their fine CD Booklet, a neat explanation of the ensemble’s name is provided, coming from a philosophical term used in the Baroque period; we live and learn!

David Bellinger

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Recording

Pour la Duchesse du Maine

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ensemble La Française
55:00
Polynie POL 503 314
Music by Bernier, Bourgeois & Mouret

Praise be! A soprano whose vibrato is not the most prominent feature of her sound!! Marie Remandet sings the splendid cantatas by Bernier and Bourgeois with plenty of dramatic commitment but also some welcome self-control so that she does inhabit the same tonal and stylistic world as her instrumental colleagues. Her trills are not always perfect but that’s a price I’m more than willing to pay for what she does the rest of the time. The Duchesse that gives the programme its title was the colourful Louise Bénédicte de Bourbon, who maintained a rich socio-cultural milieu at the Château de Sceaux. None of this music can be directly associated with her, though Berbier’s fifth book of cantatas was entitled Les Nuits de Sceaux and Mouret was for a while ordinaire de la Musique da la duchesse du Maine. His Concert de Chambre is a suite (overture and dances) with unspecified instrumentation which suits the ensemble’s resident flute and violin (I’ll just about forgive them the piccolo in the Tambourin). Here as everywhere else they play with an impressive unity of purpose, with enough life in the continuo when needed, and make a strong case for this relatively unfamiliar repertoire. They do, however, need a better graphic designer (white print on a yellow background is doomed to illegibility) and translator: the English version of the essay struggles.

David Hansell

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Recording

felice un tempo

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Legrenzi | Bononcini | Scarlatti
Paper Kite
61:18
Coviello Classics COV91719

This disc is a first for Paper Kite, an ensemble whose main focus is on ‘the various European traditions of the baroque cantata’. In cantatas the singer is, by definition, crucial but I did not warm to soprano Marie Heeschen. Yes, she does have a focussed sound, engages with the text and adds appropriate ornamentation but I found her frequent portamentos intrusive and her pronounced vibrato when singing high and loud too at variance with anything that the strings did. And while there is always something to be said for the exploration of new repertoire I just didn’t find any of this music especially striking. But it is only fair to say that the instrumental playing itself is very good. This is an ensemble of great promise though I do think there are issues of collective style they need to address. The booklet (Eng/Ger) does its job though there is a mistake in the track numbering on the back of the case.

David Hansell