Tag: Baroque

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António Pereira da Costa: Concerti Grossi

CD cover António Pereira da Costa Concerti Grossi

Ensemble Bonne Corde: Diana Vinagre
70:39
Ramée Ram 2104

Da Costa was one of the myriad composers having their music printed in London in the middle of the 18th century, and in fact almost nothing is known of him apart from his opus 1 Concerti Grossi published by John Simpson in 1741. Some of the few references suggest he was an ordained priest of Portuguese origin and born around 1697, and while it is just possible that he visited London without leaving a trace, it is more likely that he remained in Portugal, part of the time as Chapel Master of the Cathedral of Funchal in Madiera, publishing his music ‘at a distance’. While this may have been a shrewd move commercially as London was riding a wave of published Concerti Grossi, including Handel’s op 3 and op 6, all of which were in turn cashing in on the previous success of Corelli’s op 6, it came with its own hazards. Da Costa would certainly have encountered the latest sets of Concerti Grossi, including those of Corelli in his native Portugal, and certainly used the latter as models. Unfortunately, not being in situ for the publication of his own opus 1 set led to an edition peppered with errors, and while the concertino cello parts for the set would surely have been published along with the ripieno parts, they have subsequently disappeared – they have been expertly reconstructed  for the present recording by Fernando Miguel Jalôto. The circumstances of its publication would surely have doomed this music to obscurity were it not of such high quality. These recordings of half of the set make it clear that da Costa was an important talent with a sound compositional technique but also strikingly original ideas, which one would be tempted to identify as distinctively Iberian – ‘tropical Baroque’ to use the evocative phrase from the CD sleeve. Certainly, the performers are not averse to adding Iberian flavours in the form of lively cross-rhythms and the texture of the guitar. It is doubtful whether da Costa ever heard his opus 1 Concerti performed by orchestral forces, since it seems unlikely Funchal Cathedral would have been able muster the necessary players – intriguing then that he was able to digest the essence of the Concerto Grosso from the sources available to him and then infuse it with such inventive and imaginative elements in his head. 

D. James Ross

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Giuseppe Agus: Sonate a violino solo e basso

CD cover Quartetto Vanvitelli Giuseppe Agus

Quartetto Vanvitelli
68:20
Arcana A531

The name of Giuseppe Agus was new to me. After a degree of disambiguation, Miriam Quaquero – who wrote the excellent programme note for this CD – has been able to distinguish Gabriel Joseph Antonio Agus and Giuseppe (later Joseph) Agus father and son, musicians from Sardinia who lived and worked in London in the second half of the 18th century. In 1751 the son published his opus 1, a set of six sonatas for solo violin and BC, recorded in their entirety here by the Quartetto Vanvitalli with Gian Andrea Guerra playing the solo violin accompanied by a continuo group comprising cello, archlute and harpsichord. Guerra takes an attractively free and confident approach to Agus’s quirky, individualistic music, exploring fully its elegant nuances and unexpected melodic features, in which he is ably supported by the continuo group. In later years, Agus branched out into larger scale compositions including opera, and by necessity became like Handel an impresario and businessman. Notwithstanding artistic success, not unlike Handel, his musical business suffered bankruptcy, and he fled to France where he spent his final years. It is interesting to see how often 18th-century London provided the impetus for the production of superbly inspired music, but also frequently led to the financial ruin of its performers and composers. These spirited accounts of Agus’s opus 1 Sonatas certainly whet the appetite for more of his music.

D. James Ross

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Italian Sonatas 1730 – Remembering Naples and Venice

CD cover Italian Sonatas 1730 – Remembering Naples and Venice

Sabrina Frey, Philippe Grisvard
59:05
TYXart TXA 21166

This is a spectacular recital by two of the great exponents of their instruments, recorder virtuoso Sabrina Frey and Philippe Grisvard a leading harpsichordist. Playing a selection of instruments, copies by Ernst Meyer of originals in F , G and D by Jakob Denner, and a lovely descant recorder by Andreas Schwob, Frey demonstrates her simply stunning technique, but also her unerring sense of phrasing and lyricism. This is a masterclass not only in recorder playing but also in musicianship. I am not sure I have ever heard such a clear and firm sound across the whole range of the recorder, even in rapidly moving passages. Frey’s uniformly rounded tone complements perfectly her complete mastery of her instruments, providing utterly persuasive accounts of these 18th-century Italian sonatas and sinfonias. Some are by familiar masters such as Giuseppe Sammartini, Antonio Vivaldi and Alessandro Scarlatti, while others are the work of more obscure composers of the period such as Ignazio Sieber, Giacomo (possibly Lodovico) Ferronati and Francesco Mancini – such is the depth of compositional talent in Italy in the 18th century that the work of these less familiar musicians is still wonderfully accomplished. One of the great joys of the CD is the interaction of these two superlative musicians – Phillipe Grisvard plays a copy by Markus Krebs of an original harpsichord of around 1700 by Michael Mietke which has a very full sound, but the balance is perfect throughout and the two performers move as one and with a shared concept of each piece. I loved this CD and have been inspired to head off to practise my recorders!

D. James Ross

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La Barre: Pour être heureux en amour

CD cover La Barre Pour etre heureux en amour

Claire Lefilliâtre soprano, Luc Bertin-Hugault bass, Les Épopées, directed by Stéphane Fuget
77:06
Ramée RAM 2302

‘The true character of those who love is composed of tenderness and plaintiveness. They possess a languid air […]. All the words of a true lover, even if he is not unhappy, always have a plaintive tone’. Thus the Abbé Charles Cottin in his Œuvres galantes (Paris, 1665). It’s an eloquent description, perhaps rather more appropriate to what we hear on the present disc than its given title – For Happiness in Love.

The songs here belong to the category of airs serieux, works designed for the salons of Paris and which may be seen as a monodic successor to the fundamentally polyphonic air de cour. They are by Joseph Chabanceau de La Barre, a member of a distinguished French musical family active in the 17th century. Like his father Pierre he was an organist of the chapelle royale at Notre Dame in Paris, but otherwise he appears to be a somewhat shadowy figure. His Airs a deux parties avec les second couplets en diminution were published in 1669, the two parts therefore referring not to the vocal disposition, which is mostly intended for solo voice, but to a form in which the second part, or verse is decorated in a manner designed to allow the singer to display his or her technique. It’s a process that will be familiar to anyone that understands the doubles attached to French dances of the Baroque period, double simply meaning variant.

Perhaps the most important point to stress is that though these may be salon songs, they are mostly of the utmost sophistication, calling as they do not only for refined, sensitive elegance, but equally acute sensitivity and interpretative finesse. It is such qualities that are especially in evidence in these performances, which also employ 17th-century pronunciation. Stéphane Fuget is at the forefront of making us more aware of the importance of expressing text in Baroque music, specifically the operas of Monteverdi, having recorded all three of the composer’s extant dramatic works. Soprano Claire Lefilliâtre, who sings most of the airs, is a thoroughly experienced Baroque specialist who has worked extensively with Fuget and here responds to the interpretative demands of the airs to near ideal effect, singing with exactly the kind of freedom they require. Listen, to the declamatory pain she finds in ‘Forêts solitaires et sombres’ (track 2), the desolate cry of the abandoned lover to the emptiness of the forest wilderness. Here, as throughout, Lefilliâtre uses the text as a springboard to discover the eloquence within the music, bending the music to respond through the use of such devices as rubato and portamento. And it is important to stress that these songs need this kind of interpretative input if they are not to emerge as polite salon music belying their texts. In the songs to which he contributes, bass Luc Bertin- Hugault is also highly effective in his interpretative gestures – listen to his portamento in the anguished pain of ‘Ah! je sens que mon coeur’ – even if his slightly grainy voice is not of the most beautiful quality.

Several of the airs are given instrumental performances by the supporting members of Les Épopées (two bass viols, theorbo and harpsichord) while Fuget himself contributes bewitching performances of three keyboard pieces by La Barre on a lovely unidentified instrument. This is an important issue, one that makes a significant contribution to our understanding of the music and interpretation of French secular music of the 17th century.

Brian Robins

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From Rome to Vilnius

CD cover From Rome to Vilnius

Canto Fiorito, directed by Rodrigo Calveyra
51:02
Brilliant Classics 97227

This attractive CD is based on sacred and secular music, which is featured in the Sapieha album of music associated with the Vasa Court in Vilnius. The composers were mainly Roman, but many had served at one time or another as Kapellmeister to Sigismund III in Poland and Vilnius. The list of composers includes the familiar and the unfamiliar: Annibale Stabile, Asprillio Pacelli, Giovanni Anerio, Marco Scacchi, Barthomiej Pekiel, Diomedes Cato, Tarquinio Merula and Francesco Rognoni. The repertoire ranges from large-scale sacred settings for voices and instruments to small sets of instrumental variations. The playing and singing of Canto Fiorito is of a very high standard, while the recording venue – appropriately the Palace of the Grand Dukes of Lithuania in Vilnius – provides a rich full acoustic to allow the music to bloom. The group’s director has reconstructed a missing bass part for Merula’s Benedicta tu allowing it to be recorded here for the first time. This varied programme reflects the cultural richness of the Baltic states at the end of the 16th century and during the first part of the 17th century. Based in Vilnius, this fine consort is symptomatic of the flourishing early music scene in Eastern Europe.

D. James Ross

 

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Christoph Graupner: Christ lag in Todesbanden

CD Cover Graupner Christ lag in Todesbanden

Complete Cantatas for two sopranos and bass
Marie Luise Werneburg, Hanna Zumsande, Dominik Wörner, Kirchheimer BachConsort, directed by Florian Heyerick
78:43
cpo 555 557-2

Best known to history as one of the many failed applicants for the job of Thomaskantor in Leipzig when Bach secured the post, he first came to my attention as the composer of some of the earliest concertos for chalumeaux. The fact that Graupner spent fifty years composing for the court in Darmstadt meant that most of his compositions are on the modest scale befitting a court chapel – one of the main reasons he failed to secure the Leipzig job – while he was largely overlooked by ensuing generations. These cantatas for two sopranos and bass voices with strings and occasionally wind, although sadly not chalumeaux, are charming compositions making imaginative use of their limited forces. The singers on this CD seem to be enjoying Graupner’s idiomatic vocal turn of phrase, and respond intelligently and musically to his innate sense of drama. The strings and wind play one to a part, allowing for an admirable clarity and reflecting the likely custom in the modest context of Darmstadt. Graupner was only J S Bach’s senior by two years, but their music is very different indeed, and this attractive CD of Graupner’s church music underlines the variety of styles employed by German composers at the time. It is interesting to think how a lifetime composing church music in Darmstadt contributed to Graupner’s very sure compositional hand and rich musical vocabulary, and also allows us to engage in some gratuitous what-ifs had the decision of the Thomaskirche committee gone in another direction.

D. James Ross

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A Bach & Abel Concert

CD cover A Bach and Abel concert

Catherine Zimmer Merlin square piano 1784
Music by K F Abel, J C & C P E Bach, Haydn, Lachnith, [Maria Hester] Park & Stanley
62:00
encelade ECL2401

The year is 1784 and in London the inventor John Joseph Merlin and the Gray brothers have come up with one of the more bizarre offshoots of the development of the piano – a square piano combined with an organ. There was a considerable taste for novelty at this time among the spoiled metropolitan musical public, with an account of one musician in fancy dress and on roller skates performing on the violin before destroying a valuable mirror, his instrument and himself! Remarkably the 1784 Merlin Organised Piano has survived, and it is on this fully restored novelty that Catherine Zimmer presents a recital of music from the time which might just have been played on it. In addition to the promised works by JC and CPE Bach and Abel, we have music by Haydn as well as more obscure repertoire by John Hook, Maria Hesther Park and Ludwig Wenzel Lachnith. Opinions will be divided as to whether a combined sound of piano and organ is even desirable, and some listeners may be distracted by the necessary clanking of the mechanism as Zimmer switches among the various available timbres. I have to say I found this inclusion of the ‘mechanics’ both honest and engaging, particularly when on one track they are joined by the chirping of sparrows, and I even found myself warming to the virtues of the ‘organised piano’. It is perhaps significant that prior to its extensive restoration in 2020, this remarkable instrument had been subjected to ongoing work, suggesting that it had never fallen entirely out of use. At any rate, it is fascinating finally to hear an instrument which hitherto had only been heard about, and particularly when it is in the hands of an expert pianist/organist such as Catherine Zimmer.

D. James Ross

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Stanley: Complete Flute Sonatas

CD cover Stanley Complete Flute Sonatas

Daorsa Dervishi baroque flute, Alessia Travaglini gamba/cello, Nicola Bisooti harpsichord
112:46 (2 CDs in a single jewel case)
Brilliant Classics 96397

The story of this partially-sighted English composer is indeed a remarkable one. In spite of his blindness, or perhaps because of it, he used his remarkable musical memory to be able to perform and direct even complex scores after one hearing. Himself an accomplished organist, he composed voluntaries and concertos for the instrument, spanning the period between the high Baroque style of Handel, with whom he worked extensively, and the Galant style exemplified in London by the music of J C Bach. The eight flute sonatas of his opus 1 and the six sonatas of his opus 4, all of which are recorded here, demonstrate an enormous debt to his mentor Handel, but at the same time express an individual talent and facility with the instrument which should not be overlooked. Anybody who could make a living in the cut-throat musical world of 18th-century London deserves respect, and in these fine performances by Albanian Baroque flautist Daorsa Dervishi and her superb continuo team we hear the considerable charm and musical imagination in these works. Dervishi’s stunning technique and fine declamatory style on her Rottenburgh/Tutz flute are complemented by a warm tone and beautifully clear articulation. These are very enjoyable CDs which will surely also redirect listeners to Stanley’s other music, and the disappointment that of the wealth of music he presumably wrote when in later life he succeeded William Boyce as Master of the Chapel Royal hardly anything survives.

D. James Ross

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Kauffmann: Complete Sacred Works

CD cover Kauffmann Complete Sacred Works

Isabel Schicketanz, Elizabeth Mücksch, Britta Schwarz, Tobias Hunger, Christoph Pfaller, Tobias Bendt SSATTB, Collegium Vocale Leipzig, Merseburger Hofmusik, Michael Schönheit
106:34 (2 CDs in a box)
cpo 555 365-2

A slightly older contemporary of J S Bach and Handel, Georg Friedrich Kauffmann has passed under the radar for a number of reasons, being born, living and dying in relative obscurity. Four decades spent composing for the court and chapel in Merseburg must have resulted in many more sacred pieces than have survived, all of which appear on this 2CD set. To compound Kauffmann’s ill fortune, several boxes of his music were sent to Dresden, where they were subsequently consumed by the firestorm which destroyed much of the city towards the end of WWII. One tantalising what-if in Kauffmann’s career was his application for the post of Thomaskantor in nearby Leipzig. If the committee preferred the slightly younger J S Bach, it seems a little unfair that Kauffmann has suffered from this comparison with the great Bach ever since. The present recording has mustered excellent forces from Merseburg and Leipzig to present highly impressive accounts of Kauffmann’s surviving oeuvre, opening with an undoubted masterpiece, the oratorio ‘Rüstet euch, ihr Himmelschören’ for six soloists, four-part choir and a large orchestra with trumpets and drums. This piece, surely not the only such piece he wrote, but sadly the only one to survive, speaks to the resources of the Saxe-Merseburg court but also to the inventiveness and imagination of the composer in his deft handling of these lavish forces. Equally adept in his handling of the large vocal and instrumental forces is the director of these performances Michael Schönheit. He and his impressive line-up of musicians are not content to produce a big sound, but provide wonderfully nuanced accounts of Kauffmann’s music. Expressive solo singing and beautifully defined choral contributions are effectively complemented with precise and musical instrumental support. The rest of the two CDs is devoted to Kauffmann’s surviving cantatas, again surely a tiny remnant of what must have once existed. Certainly, the composer’s facility with this form suggests considerable experience, and these surviving works range in scale from solo cantatas to one which matches the oratorio. Having heard some of Kauffmann’s sacred music serving as concert and CD ‘fillers’, the present collection featuring his entire body of sacred music and in first-class performances serves to shine a spotlight on this neglected master and allows his music to shine in its own right.

D. James Ross

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Vivaldi: Musica sacra per coro e orchestra I

CD cover VIVALDI – MUSICA SACRA PER CORO E ORCHESTRA I

Soloists, Coro e Orchestra Ghislieri, conducted by Giulio Prandi
 73:01
Naïve OP8564

The mammoth undertaking that is the Vivaldi Edition moves on to another series within the series, this time devoted to sacred choral music. In this case, that is a bit of a misnomer given that the present CD includes three works that do not feature a chorus. While some elements of the Edition are unique documents – the complete operas particularly come to mind – intégrales of the sacred works have been undertaken previously by Philips and Hyperion. However, even on the first disc, there are two works that were not included in either of the earlier sets simply because they are recent discoveries. In a customarily scholarly note, Vivaldi expert Michael Talbot describes the Dixit Dominus, RV 807 as ‘the largest and most important new sacred work by the composer to have emerged in the last twenty years’. The last of the three settings of the Vespers psalm composed by Vivaldi, Talbot suggests a date of around 1732. He points to the high quality of the work, rightly drawing particular attention to ‘De torrente’, where the mimetic evocation of the constant murmuring of the brook acts as a foundation for the long cantabile lines of the alto soloist, Margherita Maria Sala, described here as a mezzo but more accurately a rich-toned contralto with a timbre not unlike that of the great French alto Lucile Richardot.

Sala also sings the other recently rediscovered work, the motet Vos invito barbaræ faces, RV 811. Scored for solo alto, strings and continuo it consists of two extremely contrasted arias placed either side of a plain recitative and is concluded by the customary bravura Alleluia. The opening is an aria agitata urging battle against the forces of evil, which are compared to wild beasts, while the second gently welcomes the worthwhile wounds sustained in the battle.

Sala also has a prominent role in the Magnificat in G minor, RV 611, a work composed for the Pietà in Venice originally around 1715, but later considerably revised; it is the final version that is recorded here. She is particularly effective in the exquisite ‘Sicut locutus est’, where the long, beautifully sustained cantabile line culminates in a cadential trill, an ornament otherwise sadly lacking. Overall RV 611 is a work fully deserving of its place as one of Vivaldi’s most popular sacred work. From the chromatically-inflected opening chorus through the exuberant and well-executed soprano solo ‘Et exultavit’ and the succeeding ‘Quia respexit’, also a soprano solo, the work exudes a heart-warming expression of humility.

It’s a quality that fits well with Giulio Prandi’s approach to this music, his performances particularly notable for their warm affection and the space he is prepared to allow the music, a welcome change from the driving rhythmic impetus and virtuosity so often sought by conductors in this repertoire. Of the works not so far mentioned, Sanctorum meritis, RV 620 is a hymn, alternate verses being set, it being assumed that the intervening verses were intoned by the priest. It is sung here by soprano Carlotta Colombo (not the alto, as claimed by Talbot), whose fresh, youthful-sounding voice and agile technique are a pleasure throughout, though on this evidence she needs to improve her articulation of ornaments. Confitebor tibi, Domine, RV 596, a setting of the Vespers Psalm 110, is unique among Vivaldi’s sacred works in being the only one scored for a trio of solo voices, here alto, tenor and bass, its main interest coming from the contrapuntal interweaving of the three soloists.

This is an excellent start to coverage of the sacred works, a mini-series to which I imagine that Prandi and his accomplished forces will contribute a major role.

Brian Robins