Tag: Chamber music

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Recording

Violin Sonatas by Gottfried Finger

Gottfried Finger violin sonatas Hazel Brooks CD cover

Duo Dorado (Hazel Brooks violin, David Pollock harpsichord/organ)
78:00
Chandos Chaconne CHAN 0824

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Bohemian Gottfried Finger was just one of an army of European composers who made their way to the musical ferment of late 17th-century London, arriving in 1685 and leaving in a strop in 170,1 having come last in a musical competition! A composer of considerable talent and a catholic, Finger was snapped up by James II for his Catholic Chapel, but on the latter’s flight to the continent, Finger had to make his own way in the cut-throat world of freelance music-making. A British Library manuscript Add. 31466, a bumper collection of 66 violin sonatas, provides all of the sonatas recorded on this CD, which prove to be works in a fascinating range of styles and of limitless imagination – hard to reconcile this with the verdict on his ill-fated entry in the ‘Prize Musick’ which was deemed to be old-fashioned. It seems likely that Finger’s Catholicism and his foreign status probably weighed more heavily in his defeat than his perceived lack of talent. Hazel Brooks plays an 18th-century Viennese violin, which possesses an ideal glowing tone and crisp attack for Finger’s lyrical music, while David Pollock, playing a replica Ruttgers/Hemsch harpsichord and a continuo organ, provides a wonderfully sympathetic and responsive accompaniment. Brooks deftly ornaments the violin part, and clearly enjoys Finger’s spontaneous and often rather chromatically daring idiom. Finger was also a renowned trumpeter, and I have played a trio sonata by him for trumpet, violin and continuo on Baroque clarinet, becoming aware in the process that this was a composer with a distinctive musical voice who deserved further attention. The Duo Dorado are clearly of the same opinion, and this recording is a valuable advance in our awareness of his many musical virtues.

D. James Ross

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Recording

Duni: Trio Sonatas Op. 1

Duni op. 1 trio sonatas CD cover

Duni Ensemble
48:20
Brilliant Classics 96023
+Contradanze 1m 3m 4 + Minuetto 2, Minuè no 18 and Minuetto

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Neapolitan by birth, Egidio Romualdo Duni spent time in the great musical centres of the 18th century, Milan, Rome and London, before moving to Holland for reasons of health and to study at Leiden University and to publish two important collections, his opus 1 Trio Sonatas and Minuetti e Contradanze in 17838/9. The six trio sonatas are all performed here, interspersed with a number of the minuets and contradances. Where Duni had stipulated that his sonatas were for the standard ensemble of two violins, cello and continuo, the DuniEnsemble take a refreshing approach to this Galante music by using flutes and recorders for the melodic lines and a bassoon for the cello, occasionally employing Baroque violin and cello for contrast. The continuo group includes a harpsichord, a mandolin, and Baroque guitar/theorbo. The overall sound is very pleasing and nicely varied, allowing this complete recording of Duni’s opus 1 to benefit from an engaging degree of textural variety. It is perhaps unfortunate that the booklet information as to ‘who does what on what’ is a bit of a mess, and that the translation into English of the otherwise interesting programme is a little garbled – worth spending a little more on the printed material to support what is an excellent recording. The motivations behind Duni’s movements around Europe remain mysterious – he seems to have enjoyed considerable success wherever he went – his opera ‘Demofoonte’, staged in London in 1737, featured no less a figure than the great castrato Farinelli in his retirement performance. That his move from London to Holland seems to have been the result of depression, for which he was seeking help from the famous Dr Boherave, may hint at his failure to settle and to enjoy his success – perhaps the dog-eat-dog musical world of early 18th-century London just didn’t suit him. There is no hint of any dark moods in his published music; is it not trite or superficial either, but rather imaginative and original. And the DuniEnsemble, applying considerable musicality and inventiveness to his music, bring it vividly to life for us.

D. James Ross

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Recording

Schubert: 3 sonatas (1816)

CD cover Schubert violin sonatas

Peter Sheppard Skærved violin, Julian Perkins square piano
58:38
(Divine Art) athene ath 23208

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This is part of an ongoing series by the violinist and historian Peter Sheppard Skærved devoted to historic violins. For this traversal of the three sonatas composed by Schubert in 1816, he is playing an instrument made in 1782 by the most renowned member of a German family of makers, Martin Leopold Widhalm. As heard here the instrument has a bright, at times rather thin upper range, but satisfyingly full and rounded middle and lower gamut. Sheppard Skærved plays the sonatas using an early Tourte bow (c.1770-1780). Julian Perkins, his pianist on this occasion, plays on a square piano built by Clementi and Co in 1812. While it stresses the domestic purposes for which the music was composed, there are times in more demanding passages where I felt the need for an instrument with greater body. However, as Perkin’s modestly points out in his notes, this is just one of many ways of playing these works.

Both players are understandably protective about the music which as their comprehensive notes makes clear they have thought about in considerable detail and value greatly. All three are indeed pleasing if to my mind hardly memorable works in which, as in the sonatas of Mozart, the piano is often the leader when it comes to presenting thematic material. The D-major is the slightest of the three, having only three movements as opposed to the four of the two minor-key sonatas. But its Andante has a charming little march-like theme, the kind of thing one might expect to accompany a child playing at soldiers. Both the A-minor and G-minor sonatas explore both the melancholy and restlessness one might expect, though to my mind not too profoundly and I have to admit to finding the Mozartian echoes that Sheppard Skærved identifies in the latter to be rather distant ones.

It is so manifestly obvious that much thought, care and affection has gone into this project that it makes it exceedingly hard to confess that I find the results to be in major respects unsatisfying. The principle problem is that Sheppard Skærved’s tone, at least as recorded here, is less than agreeable, especially in the upper range where it too often sounds acidic. Neither is his intonation always reliable and one victim is his frequent perfectly legitimate use of portamento (or portes de voix). In respects such as bowing and phrasing, the violin playing is certainly musical, and in unassertive passages where the music sits in a comfortable mid-range – the beguilingly ambiguous opening of the A-minor’s finale for example – the results can be pleasing. Julian Perkin’s contribution is stylish and technically excellent, although as suggested above I’d have preferred a rather less modest instrument; it would have given a more dramatic sound to, for example, some of the stormier passages in the opening Allegro moderato of D.385.

In sum, this is a CD that deserves the attention of anyone interested in historical instruments and an intelligent approach to playing them, but despite the integrity of the performances I’m afraid it is simply not possible to overlook technical flaws.

Brian Robins

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Recording

Routes du café

Cantatas by bernier and Bach on the theme of coffee's arrival in Europe CD cover

Ensemble Masques, Olivier Fortin
71:39
Alpha Classics Alpha 543
Music by Bach, Bernier, Locke, Marais & Nâyi Osman Dede (+Tanburi Cemil Bey & Kathleen Kajioka)

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This clever CD charts the spread of coffee through Europe, starting with the original cafés in Turkey and then finding music associated with its arrival in France, England and Germany. The famous coffee cantata by Bach finds an equally witty contemporary French counterpart in the cantata Le Caffe by Nicolas Bernier, while France is also represented by the viol piece Saille du caffé by Marin Marais. In London Matthew Locke’s Consort of Fower Parts, we have the sort of music he and Pepys might well have played together when they met in the Turk’s Head coffee house around 1660. The rest of the music is Turkish traditional music played either by a Turkish instrument ensemble or by Kathleen Kajioka on the violin to the accompaniment of Turkish percussion. The Bernier with its obbligato flute part is charming, while the Bach, also with obbligato flute, is very effectively dramatised by the three singers. Soprano Hana Blažíková sounds a little taken by surprise by some of the more eccentric musical phrases in the Bernier and doesn’t sound entirely comfortable in the higher passages in the Bach, but the two men help to keep things on the rails. The mixing of Baroque music and the traditional music of the east doesn’t always work, but here I feel it does so very well. In particular, Kathleen Kajioka’s violin Taksim and Wahda sound very much like the sot of music that might have been played in the cosmopolitan London coffee houses of yore!

D. James Ross

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Recording

Makaris: Wisps in the dell

Makaris Classical arrangements of Scots and Irish folksongs CD cover

Classical era arrangements of traditional Celtic folk songs
67:54
New Focus Recordings FCR916

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This delightful CD offers a selection of Scottish and Irish folksongs in arrangements by classical composers. As part of the vogue in things Celtic which followed the Jacobite rising and the Ossian craze, a number of enterprising publishers in London secured the services of leading continental composers to ‘set’ mainly Scottish folk songs. In this process of ‘setting’, the angular modality of the melodies was generally ironed out, while the texts often had to be ‘civilised’ too – this would seem to us to water down the original appeal of the traditional music and powerfully raw folk texts, but this was the price of capturing the attention of the large amateur market which would make this enterprise viable. The settings by Haydn and Beethoven are relatively familiar, but the Makaris have spread their net wide and trawled in settings by Schubert, Pleyel, Hummel, Neukomm, Weber, Kuhlau, Kozeluch and Clementi. They take a free approach to the realisation of these settings, both from the point of view of instrumentation and elaboration of melodies and counter-melodies. In some accounts, a heavy fortepiano backbeat sounds a little bit of an indulgence, but elsewhere their approach definitely enhances their material. Vocalist Fiona Gillespie opts for a distinctly folky voice production, but her delightfully pure voice and subtle ornamentation represent a winning combination. Knowing many of these original folksongs, it is fascinating to hear the fingerprints of the better-known composers on their settings. Particularly striking is Beethoven’s uncompromising approach – his publisher worried that the settings would be beyond the amateurs he was targeting, but Beethoven refused to compromise! Equally charming are settings by Hummel and Weber, who fresh from the triumph of his ‘Freischütz’ is thoroughly imbued with folk melody. In a delightful touch, the band have commissioned their bass player to add to the repertoire with his own setting of ‘The Bonnie House o’ Airlie’ which takes this 18th- and 19th-century tradition firmly into the 21st century!

D. James Ross

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Recording

The Food of Love

The Baltimore Consort perform music related to Shakespeare

Songs, Dances and Fancies for Shakespeare
The Baltimore Consort
68:04
Sono luminus DSL 92234

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It really is quite surprising that no music contemporary with Shakespeare’s plays which can be directly associated with them has survived, but this has not prevented musicians from compiling programmes based on music from the playwright’s lifetime which ‘relate’ to his plays or from just after his lifetime which reference the plays. There are some old friends here, played with imagination and sensitivity by the Baltimore Consort. They are at their most convincing when creatively riffing on some of the more traditional related material, but I found the same shortcomings as with another recent CD by the revived Baltimore Consort. Compared to the wonderful spontaneity of the vintage Baltimore recordings, the tempi here seem a bit ponderous, the ‘riffing’ a little contrived. Sadly, this may just come down to the change in personnel, and the departure of a couple of truly remarkable musicians. Even in ‘the golden days’, the group’s account of vocal music seemed its Achilles heel, and this still seems to be the case. Soprano Danielle Svonavec has a pleasantly pure voice and ornaments delicately and idiomatically, but there is something mannered and laboured about her pronunciation and presentation of the texts which makes the songs sound a little twee. I can’t help feeling that in my eyes these new Baltimore recordings suffer largely from comparison with the group’s own remarkable back-catalogue, which is possibly a little unfair, and it could be that listeners coming fresh to these recordings will be perfectly happy and, indeed, charmed by the group’s undoubted affinity with and creative approach to this repertoire. The playing and singing are technically impeccable and the recording admirably vivid.

D. James Ross

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Recording

Haydn : String Quartets opp 71 & 74

London Haydn Quartet play opp 71 and 74 complete

The London Haydn Quartet
155:52 (2 CDs)
hyperion CDA 68230

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Haydn’s opp 71 and 74 sets of string quartets were composed in Vienna in 1793 between his two London visits, and with London performances very much in mind. It is not too fanciful to speculate that the earlier London performances of some of Haydn’s op 64 quartets, the first time the composer had witnessed his quartets being presented to large audiences, may have influenced the style of the two later sets of quartets, which may sometimes seem to sacrifice intimacy in favour of a more public musicality, with boldly declamatory melodies and occasional flamboyant gestures. The London Haydn Quartet’s choice of acoustic, the relatively intimate ambience of Potton Hall, may seem to be at odds with this, and (to begin with) I found the relatively cramped sound a little off-putting. The Quartet’s superlative playing soon helped to overcome this, and the smaller bloom allows the listener to focus on their impeccable technical prowess, warm tone and perfect balance. Playing period instruments, the Quartet has also returned to the original 1796 publications of both sets, but more importantly, like their fellow period-instrument quartet the Quatuor Mosaïques, their freshness of approach allows us to experience this music as if it was new. The group was founded in 2000 with the specific aim of exploring the chamber music of Haydn on period instruments, and this delightful and packed double CD set provides wonderfully eloquent accounts of some of Haydn’s most satisfying string quartets.

D.James Ross

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Recording

Beethoven transformed volume 1

Boxwood & Brass Volume 1 of Beethoven Transformed

Boxwood & Brass
61:40
Resonus Res10249

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This is the first volume of a projected exploration of Harmonie-Musik, including original music by Beethoven, as well as arrangements of his music by his contemporaries – hence the ‘transformed’. Thus it is that we have an arrangement for the standard Harmonie ensemble of two clarinets, two horns and two bassoons of Beethoven’s celebrated Septet, originally conceived for strings and wind. I have always struggled slightly to like Beethoven’s Septet – a disgraceful admission for a clarinettist – and remember vividly my heart sinking when, during a performance by the BPO Soloists, it dawned on me that they were going to do all the repeats… So it came as a surprise to hear the piece afresh in Czerny’s clever arrangement. To cover the violin part, he takes the first clarinet into risky and exciting altissimo territory, realised with enormous skill and panache on her boxwood clarinet by Emily Worthington. Perhaps it is precisely Beethoven’s rather cautious writing for the wind instruments in the original op 20 that failed to charm me – whatever the reason, Czerny’s arrangement is a valuable rediscovery, which to my mind enhances the original. The Septet’s companion piece on this CD is one of Beethoven’s actual Sextets, a later work (op 71), by which time the composer felt free to be more adventurous with the wind instruments. Both works are given charming performances by Boxwood and Brass, and indeed the distinctive sounds of their period instruments help to bring this music vividly to life. I have enjoyed very much both of the previous CDs by this enterprising group, and await with interest the continuation of this promising series.

D. James Ross

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DVD

Galerie Dorée

DVD cover for Galerie Dorée recital

Le concert du Tricentenaire
Le Concert de la Loge, Julien Chauvin
+ Quatuor Cambini-Paris, Jodie Devos, Justin Taylor, Thomas Dunforn, Atsuschi Sakaï, Tami Krausz
77:00
BelAir classiques BAC171 (DVD) BAC571 (BluRay)

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The Banque de France’s Galerie Dorée was constructed in the late 1630s and then refurbished and refashioned 1714-1719. This DVD marks the 300th anniversary of that undertaking. There are many splendid pictures both on the bank’s own website and online generally.

The contents of the disc are partly a film of a commemorative concert, partly an exhibition of the building’s decorative artwork and partly a tour of the building itself with musicians playing in spectacular surroundings. But, for me, the whole enterprise doesn’t quite come up to the mark on any of those counts. Filming the concert was clearly problematic as the long thin venue with the orchestra halfway down the long side offered no opportunities for decent camera positions, and as far as the building and the art are concerned the shots are not really long enough to appreciate the detail of what we are being shown. Yes, the accompanying book is very informative and lavishly illustrated but you can’t look at that and the screen, and if you pause the picture for study you also pause the music. In addition, the book doesn’t deal with the music in the order in which it is played but the order in which we encounter the art in the building. I also found the camera work too fiddly (and not always well aimed) and the editing not particularly skilful, and there were times when imperfect coordination of sound and vision made me think I might not be hearing the performance I was seeing.

As noted above, the main gallery where the concert took place is long and thin and the orchestral items are filmed here mostly with the audience present though sometimes without. This latter option was a mistake as the rows of empty red chairs in the background look pretty awful. Surely they could have been removed? There are no such visual issues with the other venues which, with more space and fewer performers, look very much better.

The music itself is inspired by the art, which is a reasonable enough idea, though it does mean we get ‘movements from’ rather than complete works. The repertoire is enterprising though: when did you last hear a movement from an early Haydn symphony or a string quartet movement by Félicien David (terrific viola playing in this)? All the playing has much gusto and the live audience clearly loved what they got. But class will out, and, for me, in currently sunny Surrey (UK) the solo harpsichord Couperin and Rameau steal the show.

David Hansell

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Recording

Telemann: Frankfurt Sonatas

Telemann Frankfurt Sonatas Aparté CD cover

Gottfried von der Goltz violin, Annekatrin Beller cello, Torsten Johann harpsichord/positive organ, Tomas C. Boysen theorbo
Aparté AP21
66:01

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This is only the third time these finely crafted sonatas, reputedly Telemann’s first publication, have appeared on CD (Stephan Schardt got there first for MDG in 2014 and Valerio Losito followed on Brilliant Classics in 2017). Spearheaded by the impressive skills of Gottfried von der Goltz, you can sense the sheer artistic relish and appreciation for the neat progressions through the boldly contrasting movements which offer some vivacious artistic flourishes, as well as moments of great theatre and pathos. By this time, Telemann had written about 10 operas for Leipzig, and you can hear the wistful, lovelorn motifs in the slower movements lifted directly from the stage. This delightful set of six sonatas was dedicated to Prince Johann Ernst IV of Sachsen-Weimar (who sadly passed within a year of their publication), the foreword grandiloquently noting at the very bottom in French: At the author’s expense!

The truly wonderful continuo team here is allowed to star alongside the dominant violin part, and do all share the limelight at some stage. The use of a positive organ really hits the mark with a particular reverence and piety. These works flow between the two kinds of sonata style with a well-measured intensity and balance. The high-flying runs of semiquavers in the finales of Sonatas III and IV are a touch of free-flowing virtuosity. With a perfect feel for tempo and the desired application of Affekte, the ensemble navigates these cleverly conceived sonatas with intelligent application and balanced variation.

A very fine, well-balanced interpretation all round. We fervently hope they might decide tackle the long-languishing 1718 set, awaiting full premiere status, before too long!

David Bellinger