Tag: Chamber music

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The Soule of Heaven

CD cover The Soule of Heaven Ferrabosco B-Five

Pavans and Almaines by Alfonso Ferrabosco I & II
B-Five Recorder Consort | Sofie Vanden Eynde lute
63:16
Coviello Classics COV92108

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This lovely CD presents a cross-section of the consort music Alfonso Ferrabosco, father and son, as it might have been heard at the Court of Elizabeth, and later that of James I, played by the five-part recorder consort established in 1609 by the Bassano brothers. The title of the CD comes from the epithet thought up for Ferabosco II’s music by that master of epithets, Ben Jonson. Constantly buffeted by complications of their catholic faith, it is amazing that both Ferraboscos managed to produce such sublime music. It is played with a simply awesome blend, luminous tone and superb musicality by the B-Five Consort and their lutanist, Sofie Vanden Eynde, who contributes an occasional lute solo to the proceedings. Further variety is provided by the consort occasionally migrating up through the smaller recorders to alter entirely the character of the music they are playing. The clinching virtue of this charming CD is the superbly idiomatic virtuosic ornamentation which pervades these performances. Lovely repertoire and stunning performances – so what is not to enjoy about this production? Well, the programme notes. A deeply irrelevant of piece of creative writing by Annemarie Peeters embodying the headings of the pieces in the programme purports to illuminate, but actually just annoyed me – I think I would have been even more annoyed by this stupid squandering of an opportunity to inform if I hadn’t been soothed by the lovely playing. Fortunately a brief biographical sketch of the two Ferraboscos’ lives almost saves the day, although this could have been expanded, with an explanation of the music, into a very presentable programme note. I can’t be the only one driven to distraction by this new fashion of replacing ‘proper’ programme notes with spacey effusions that have little or nothing to do with the matter in hand? Get in a musicologist to write your programme note, and if you’re lucky then you would have something to match the superlative quality of this recording!

D. James Ross

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The Taste of this Nation

CD cover The Taste of this Nation Spiritato

Clara Hendrick mezzo-soprano, Spiritato directed by Kunga Ujszászi
74:26
Delphian DCD34236

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With this imaginative CD Spiritato open a window on the London music scene just prior to the arrival there of Handel. Resident musicians such as the three represented here were already introducing the Italian taste to the English – it has to be said that they are very much ‘silver’ composers, and I found myself constantly wondering what a first-rater like Purcell would have been writing in their place had he survived. Perhaps the best known of our trio, and probably the best composer among them, is Prussian-born London resident Pepusch, whose four cantatas beautifully sung by Clara Hendrick vividly bring the scene to life, and directly prefigure the operatic world of Handel. The most striking of these is his ‘While pale Britania sate’, the very impressive precursor of so many similarly patriotic numbers by Handel and in which Hendrick duets stirringly with the group’s trumpeter, William Russell. Perhaps the biggest surprise for me were the Concerti Grossi of Obadiah Shuttleworth, music I was completely unfamiliar with. Perhaps wisely relying on the inventiveness of Corelli, Shuttleworth reworks this composer’s op 5 Violin Sonatas into very effective concerti grossi. In doing so, he usefully introduces Corelli’s music to London, but more than that he too is preparing the way for the greater master to come, Handel and his ground-breaking op 6 Concerti Grossi. Of the three composers represented here, the most English and the one who owes most to the previous generation of English composers is William Corbett. There are constant echoes of Purcell, although his Sonata for Oboe and Trumpet recalls the work of the Czech-born but London resident Godfrey Finger. With these wonderfully passionate performances, Kinga Ujszászi and Spiritato prove powerful advocates of this largely unfamiliar music, and make a powerful case that even in the few years between the death of Purcell and the arrival of Handel England was anything but a ‘Land ohne Musik’.

D. James Ross

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Buxtehude: Sonate à doi

CD cover Les Timbres Buxtehude

Les Timbres (Yoko Kawakubo violin, Myriam Rignol viola da gamba, Julien Wolfs harpsichord)
131:04 (2 CDs in a card triptych)
Flora 4320

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These first two publications by Buxtehude, printed at the composer’s own expense, proved so successful that his future as a published composer was secured. It is only in relatively recent times that we have begun to rediscover Buxtehude’s versatility in a range of genres, and it has once again become apparent why it is to Lübeck and to Buxtehude that the young J. S. Bach headed to perfect his art. These 14 trio sonatas are firmly in the stylus phantasticus, the quirky and inventive manner prevalent in Germany and Italy at the time, and like all European music at this time, they flirt with French and Italian flavours over a ground of thorough Germanic counterpoint. If not quite as flamboyant as his contemporary Heinrich Biber, Buxtehude is a more consistent musician, although at the same time writing attractive melodies which both beguile and surprise. These small-scale pieces are charming in their inventiveness, and these wonderfully imaginative performances are technically impeccable and beautifully persuasive. The recording is very vivid and captures just the right degree of resonance. These artfully presented CDs make an excellent introduction to the composer’s wide range of musical accomplishments and are deeply enjoyable in themselves.

D. James Ross

 

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Stradella: Complete Violin Sinfonias

Stradella: Complete Violin Sinfonias

Ensemble Giardino di Delizie, Ewa Anna Augustynowicz
125:31 (2 CDs in a single jewel case)
Brilliant Classics 96079

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This double CD set presents all 12 of Alessandro Stradella’s Violin Sinfonias and two of his Sinfonias a tre played by Ewa Anna Augustynowicz, who also directs a continuo ensemble of cello, archlute/guitar/theorbo and organ/harpsichord. In keeping with the music of a man who knew how to live dangerously, there is a wonderful almost improvisatory spontaneity about these performances, which incorporate inspired ornamentation. In the Sinfonias a tre, in effect trio sonatas, the archlute takes the second melodic voice while the organ plays continuo, an approach which works very well indeed. Instrumental music is only a very small part of Stradella’s output, but his confident writing for this chamber ensemble with its vividly wayward approach to harmonic progressions and mercurial changes of rhythm is wonderfully engaging, especially when played with such imaginative musicality as it is here. Augustynowicz plays a warm-toned and declamatory Baroque violin by the Ravenna maker, Marco Minnozzi.

D. James Ross

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Florish in the Key

Florish in the Key The solo violin in London 1650-1700

The solo violin London 1650-1700
Peter Sheppard Skæved
72:48
athene ath 23211

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This CD relies on several elements – firstly the activities of the 18th-century musical publishing magpie, John Walsh, who between 1700 and 1704 produced Preludes or Voluntarys – a Variety of Compositions by all the Greatest Masters in Europe. In a period in London which saw an insatiable appetite for music for the talented amateur to work away at on his own, which at the same time could open his mind to the wider potential of Europe, this collection enjoyed considerable success. Secondly, by borrowing from the best composers at the time, Walsh ensured that the quality never faltered. Thirdly, Peter Sheppard Skaerved’s imaginative accounts of the music on a wonderful 17th-century violin, the Charles II, at one point a feature of one of Charles II’s violin bands, using a little early baroque bow by Antonino Airente, are lovely airy readings, lightweight but eloquent. And fourthly, Skaerved’s comprehensive programme note evokes the period context of the music superbly. Finally, there is the choice of programme – after an engaging selection from the Walsh publication, Skaerved chooses to end the CD with a tribute to the great 17th-century violin virtuoso, Thomas Baltzar, on a wonderfully mellow 1629 Amati violin. A CD which could so easily have degenerated into the experience of the neighbour of an aspiring early 18th-century gentleman violinist constantly practising, turns out to be so much more – both a genuinely intriguing musical journey and a fascinating window opened on the world of the early violin.

D. James Ross

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Basevi Codex

CD cover Basevi Codex Dorothee Mields Boreas Quartett Bremen

Music at the Court of Margaret of Austria
Dorothee Mields, Boreas Quartett Bremen
61:30
audite 97.783

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The Basevi Codex is a music manuscript associated with the Mechelen Court of Margaret of Austria, produced by the famous Alamire workshop and containing mainly secular music by such big names of the early 16th century as Pierre de la Rue, Loyset Compère, Antoine Brumel, Matthaeus Pipelare, Johannes Ockeghem, Alexander Agricola, Johannes Prioris, Jacob Obrecht, Heinrich Isaac and Johannes Ghiselin. The Boreas Quartett of Bremen are a superb recorder quartet, who give beautifully nuanced instrumental performances of some of the material, while also blending wonderfully with the voice of Dorothee Mields – one of my favourite moments of the whole CD is in the account of de la Rue’s Plorer gemier where Mield’s voice magically emerges from the recorder ensemble texture singing the Requiem cantus. This enchanting blend amongst the recorders and in turn with the voice is a major asset of this revelatory CD. The account of three movements from Obrecht’s Missa Fortuna desperata highlights the expressive potential of this combination of recorders and voice, and makes a very plausible case for the performance of this fine music in a secular chamber context.

D. James Ross

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Vivaldi: Cantatas for soprano 1

CD cover Vivaldi cantatas for soprano 1 Arianna Vendittelli

Arianna Vendittelli, Abchordis Ensemble, Andrea Buccarella
62:42
naïve OP7257

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It cannot be stressed too often just what an extraordinary project Naïve’s complete Vivaldi Edition is. With their striking, sometimes bizarre covers featuring models – this one a very 21st-century young woman adorned with a ruff and blossom in her tousled hair – each CD adds to a total of issues that with this addition devoted to soprano cantatas reaches volume 68.

By definition the Edition has introduced many new works to the catalogue, but Vivaldi’s 30-odd cantatas have in general been reasonably well represented on record and all six here (RV 650, 652, 669, 667, 660 and 665) are or have been previously available on CD. That is not to detract from the present issue, which, while not flawless, has a great deal to recommend it. Not the least of the appeal comes from the beguiling quality and personality of Arianna Vendittelli’s soprano, which heard at its best gives to these pastoral cantatas of love in its various guises an empathy and seductive warmth that is irresistible and frequently touching. Ornaments are neatly turned and passaggi negotiated with an agile ease, though I fear as so often it is necessary to report there is no convincingly articulated trill to be heard, though Vendittelli deserves credit for at least attempting this most elusive, but essential of decorations.  

If only that were the whole story, but sadly it is not. In common with so many singers today Vendittelli exercises less than perfect control over her higher register, which is too often unevenly produced. This is particularly in evidence in the most ambitious and outstanding of these cantatas, ‘Sorge vermiglia in ciel, la bella Aurora’ RV 667. In four movements alternating recitative and aria, it is, as it not uncommon, the complaint of the lover whose affections are not returned but who will still remain faithful to the loved one, in this case Sylvia. The passion and fervour are barely contained and the cantata, which concludes with a full-blooded aria di furia was obviously written for an exceptional virtuoso castrato or soprano, with expansive often awkward vocal leaps in all four movements. The opening recitative allows Vendittelli to reveal impressive chest notes in the lower register, but in the aria ‘Nasce il sole’ the lack of control is cruelly revealed, with the difference in volume between the chest notes and upper head notes running counter to everything we know about the technical requirements of the day (cf. Tosi). Yet what is disappointing is that both here and elsewhere Vendittelli shows she has a lovely mezza voce perfectly capable of ‘touching’ (Tosi’s word) upper notes. There’s an especially noteworthy example in the final aria, ‘Vedrò con nero’ from the delightful lighter cantata ‘La farfalletta s’aggira al lume’, RV 660. Here the word ‘splendor’ is positively caressed on its final appearance with each repetition. I relish, too, the undulations of the B section of this aria, with their little hints of portamento.

The singer is given well-played continuo support by the members of the Abchordis Ensemble (here harpsichord or organ, cello, chittarone or archlute) and bassoon (in slighter RV 669 and 665), but it is not always tastefully judged. This applies particularly to movements where the plucked instrument is given full reign to make a tiresomely over-intrusive contribution, while the introduction to the opening aria of RV 660 sounds positively twee rather than capturing Vivaldi’s delightful evocation of flitting butterflies and meandering bees. Nonetheless, and as stressed above, Vendittelli brings to these cantatas much that is to be cherished and relished. For that reason the CD is welcomed as yet another valuable addition to the Vivaldi edition.    

Brian Robins

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Con arte e maestria

CD cover Con arte e maestria Oliver Webber

Virtuoso violin ornamentation from the dawn of the Italian Baroque
Monteverdi String Band In Focus, Oliver Webber, Steven Devine
78:45
resonus RES10282

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It has become apparent that Italian music composed towards the end of the 16th century and in the early part of the 17th century was almost invariably intended to be lavishly ornamented in performance. Tantalisingly, but also mercifully for players aiming for historically informed performances of this repertoire, some composers and players occasionally wrote out the divisions they were clearly using all the time, while a number of theoreticians wrote treatises with examples of ornamentation. One such, the Selva di varii passagii by Francesco Rognoni, gives us the heading for this CD as the title ends con arte e maestria. The violinist Oliver Webber and keyboard player Steven Devine, individually and together, apply these treatises to a variety of appropriate pieces, as well as performing versions of works which have survived in ornamented forms. In addition, Webber supplies a couple of improvised showpieces ‘in the style of Bassano and Monteverdi’ – there can be little doubt that once the early violin virtuosi had mastered the art of ornamentation, in a sense recreating the original works, they would have been emboldened also to improvise more freely in the style of the time, as we know for a fact all the great keyboard masters did. I still remember my astonishment at leafing as a student through Ganassi’s Fontegara, a guide to ornamentation from the earlier 16th century, with its blizzards of scales and other written-out ornaments, including trills in thirds and fourths – who does those? While we can never be absolutely sure how performances sounded in the historical past, Webber and Devine have done an excellent job of thinking themselves back into the role of early Baroque virtuosi, and their performances of this repertoire, encrusted with ornamentation, is musically convincing and thrilling. The nearest parallel to this ‘living art’ of ornamentation must be the aleatoric nature of some jazz idioms, but of course the difference is that we can hear how the latter worked in performance. Webber and Devine apply their consummate technical skills and flawless musical instincts to bring this vital performance technique vividly back to life – and with considerable ‘art and mastery’. 

D. James Ross

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Ich schlief, da träumte mir

Anne Marie Dragosits Ich schlief, da träumte ich

Anne Marie Dragosits harpsichrod
65:00
encelade ECL 2002

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This imaginative programme of movements associated with sleep and night-time in general from the late Baroque period features a wonderful harpsichord by Christian Zell and the equally impressive playing of Anne Marie Dragosits. Some purists may object to her extraction of individual movements from larger works by these German composers, but in reality many of these are pieces which are rarely played in their entirety anyway, and I found myself more intrigued by their shared and contrasting moods and idioms than by their lack of musical context. If sometimes the mood is slightly ‘souped up’ by Dragosits’ occasionally mannered presentation and changes of stops in mid-piece, I found myself less critical of this than you might expect, and by contrast I was engaged by the range of timbres she found in her remarkable instrument. Also, we shouldn’t underestimate the avant garde nature of some of this music from the late Baroque, a period when keyboard composers particularly were experimenting with unexpected harmonic progressions and melodic lines – perhaps they too were keen to emphasise these features in their performances. It was curious to find the constituent materials of the harpsichord – ‘diverse wood and metal, ivory, tortoise-shell’ (both mercifully long dead) – listed in the notes, but as the several illustrations in the booklet reveal this is a stunningly handsome instrument to look at as well as to listen to.

D. James Ross

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Lully’s followers in Germany

Lully's followers in Germany

El Gran Teatro del Mundo
68:24
Ambronay AMY314

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At first glance it may seem odd to have a Telemann ouverture-suite alongside works by the first-wave of lullists in germanic lands, but this is a perfect lesson in musicology, where the date that a work was copied does not imply its actual date of inception. This particular suite (TWV55: Es4) belongs to a small handful to have been transmitted through keyboard settings, some just a few movements (TWV55: E1 and E2) that long pre-date the copied versions; here we know that Bach’s eldest brother, Johann Christoph made a complete keyboard copy in the “Andreas Bach book” c.1708-12. Thus, the original may be from Telemann’s student days in Leipzig (1701-5) or when he was in the employ of count Erdmann von Promnitz at Sorau (1705-8). Compilations of Lully’s works first began to appear in 1682, when Jean Philippe Heus published two collections called: Ouvertures avec tous les airs, extracts from Cadmus et Hermione and Persée.

These works were the creative catalyst for the succession of germanic Lullistes to begin to capture the livel y“theatrical style” and place it into their own compositions; Kusser, Erlebach, Fischer, Fux, Muffat, Aufschnaiter and Steffani did just that. The early Telemann suite fits into this timeline just behind the first-wave of composers. Muffat studied under Lully for six years, and absorbed a great deal from source. This was at the very beginning of the vibrant cosmopolitan blend in music known as vermischter Geschmach or Gouts Réunis (“Mixed Taste”).

The disc opens with a fairly well known G-minor sonata (concerto grosso) from Muffat’s “Armonico tributo”, given a rather playful interpretation with fewer strings than we may have been accustomed to hearing, yet with attractive additions of oboe and recorder and an actively strumming theorbo to bolster the basso continuo section. The overall effect is much slighter, and the graves aren’t in any way onerous or overbearing.

Next the splendid Suite no1 in C from Fischer’s Journal du printemps (1695), again a lovely flowing, dulcet interpretation which makes for very clear melodic lines, especially in the unfolding final chaconne. Following on, another later Muffat work Nobilis Juventus from his 1698 Florilegium Secundum which does have a certain theatrical flair, well captured by the ensemble’s delicate tones.

Closing with the (nine-movement!) Telemann suite, originally for strings, we can hear the neat interplay of French, Italian and Polish elements from an early date. The Entree is a direct adoption from French opera, often employed for scenic changes. The menuets are wonderfully done here, before a far-too-ponderous, introspective reading of the loure (twice as long as the version on Carus 83.337!) followed by a vibrant italianate gigue, and a fine set of the bourrees. Next, a playful, neatly done polonaise and cheekily inserted “prelude” (Not original, not needed!) before the Aria, which I again felt was in too slow to be fully emotive. Lastly – in vivid contrast – the blithesome passepieds.

All are played with a polished delicatesse and relish, just waning in the latter slower movements of the final suite, yet overall capturing the essence of the emergent “mixed taste” with cosmopolitan flair.

David Bellinger