Tag: Chamber music

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Vivaldi incognito

CD cover of Vivaldi-Incognito

Hexaton, Guillaume Rebinguet Sudre
60:00
Encelade ECL 2302

Whatever the artistic merits of this recording (and I do not deny that Hexaton and its violinist, Guillaume Rebinguet Sudre, are outstanding artists), there are elements of the project itself that I find baffling. The recital does not consist of some freshly discovered works, but rather three sonatas from the “Manchester” manuscript (two of which also survive in the Saxon State Library in Dresden), and another from that German repository which was copied out by Johann Georg Pisendel – Konzertmeister of the renowned Hofkapelle in Dresden under Augustus the Strong, and a pupil of the Red Priest. It is odd (I think) that the booklet notes do not mention that RV6 (the Dresden manuscript of which is online HERE) is headed “Suonata a Solo fatta per Mr Pisendel”, or that Pisendel himself wrote the second source of RV12 (online HERE). The third Pisendel-related sonata RV10 (see his manuscript HERE) is similarly in the German’s handwriting… In the booklet note, the first movement of RV10 is listed as “(Preludio a Capriccio)”, as if there is no heading in the original – it is clearly marked “Suonata All[egr]o:”.

So much for the musicology. Now to the music. To be fair, in a live performance, these might be terrifically exciting. The violinist certainly has flair, and his exuberance is echoed by the continuo team of cello, theorbo and harpsichord. While I am mostly open-minded about whether or not a particular instrument might have been involved in an 18th-century performance (how can we ever be sure that certain combinations really were frowned upon?), I struggled here – especially in slow movements – with the competition for my ears’ attention! The violinist went full William Babell on his rapid octave scale ornaments, while the harpsichordist and lutenist spread chords, flew all over their respective ranges (even when the manuscript is clearly marked “Tasto solo”!), and even picked out some (unfigured) dissonant notes at cadences (I’m talking about the horrendous B flat in the antepenultimate bar of RV10’s opening movement!)

And then there are what, for wont of a better word, I shall call “the fillers”… Presumably unable to find any pieces by other incognito composers for solo harpsichord and theorbo, the violinist composed his own.* Even though they are relatively short, and might be adjudged to be reasonable pastiches, why on earth not champion some real neglected works by some of Vivaldi’s contemporaries? Surely this would have been an ideal opportunity (given that the CD is only 60 minutes long) to promote some obscure Venetian(s)? And what did the poor cellist do that meant he didn’t get a new piece and instead had to make do with the slow movement of one of Vivaldi’s concerti?

As I say, there are many things here to enjoy. I found that repeated listening – instead of broadening my mind – convinced me even more that the soundscape is too busy for too much of the time. They are violin sonatas after all, not sonatas for violin with a competing backing group…

Brian Clark

*As if to prove that he IS the Baroque man, Rebinguet Sudre also built the harpsichord!

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Gregor Werner Vol. 4

CD cover Werner Caldara vol. 4 Rovatkay

Voktett Hannover, la festa musicale, Lajos Rovatkay
59:41
audite 97.833

For the fourth volume of this excellent series, director-cum-musicologist Lajos Rovatkay has chosen to focus on Gregor Joseph Werner’s relationship with his teacher, Vice-Kapellmeister to the Viennese court, Antonio Caldara. As well as tracing the birth of the two-movement church sonata from sinfonie to the elder composer’s oratorios to an excellent sonata a4  by the pupil, it compares and contrasts their church music, culminating in a performance of a Requiem in G minor by “Werner”, which Rovatkay identified as featuring music by both composers (whether with or without the permission/knowledge of the teacher is not made explicit in one of the densest booklet notes I have ever read… faced with such an impenetrable text, I’m not surprised that even a highly skilled translator like Viola Scheffel struggled to save us from some of its obscurity!)

All eleven (!) singers of the Voktett Hannover (only one tenor and one bass sing on all the vocal tracks) are excellent; they blend beautifully and take the solos stylishly though I did long occasionally for some ornamentation when the dense counterpoint (for which both composers are rightly famed) allowed. Similarly, the string playing (33211 strings with chamber organ and lute) is stylish – nicely pointed bow strokes give the contrapuntal lines shape.

At a little under an hour, some might feel hard done by. However, with music of this quality (speaking as a self-confessed lover of fugal writing), I feel this is just about right. I also found myself hearing pieces of a musical jigsaw falling into place, hearing echoes of Legrenzi (reputedly Caldara’s Venetian teacher) and foretastes of Haydn (who followed Werner as Kapellmeister at Esterházy). It is remarkable that audite has thusfar produced four outstanding CDs of music by a relatively unknown composer and I for one hope there are more in the pipeline!

Brian Clark

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Brahms: Cello sonatas

CD cover Brahms Cello sonatas Amy Norrington Piet Kuijken

Amy Norrington cello, Piet Kuijken fortepiano
61:55
Etcetera KTC 1820

It is not often Early Music Review strays into the second half of the 19th century, or indeed that I do when it comes to reviewing. The reasoning here is that the performances of the two Brahms cello sonatas are played on period instruments, the cello being a 1695 Francesco Ruggiero with covered gut strings while the piano is a Johann Baptist Streicher from 1868. As will be seen both play a prominent role in contributing to the success of the performances. And many readers will doubtless guess from the names that the performers have strong connections with early music, Amy Norrington being the daughter of Sir Roger, while Piet Kuijken is the son of Wieland Kuijken, a distinguished member of perhaps the most prominent of all early music families.

A period of over twenty years separates the two sonatas for cello and piano. The first, the three-movement op 38 in E minor, dates originally from 1862, but three years later Brahms replaced the slow movement with a new fugally-orientated finale. The sonata is dominated by its expansive opening Allegro non troppo, here running for over 14 minutes. It opens with a gently lyrical statement for the cello which is immediately answered by the piano, and already in the laying of the foundations of this movement we hear a number of features that will come to typify the characteristics of these performances. The first is the beautiful shaping of the cello theme and the tone produced by Norrington, a long line in which the purity is maintained without recourse to a distracting degree of vibrato. And although Norrington proves in many places she has the technique for the more strenuous writing, it is these expressive cantabile passages more than anything that remain in the mind. Secondly, the piano proves to my mind ideal for this music, perhaps unsurprisingly given that apparently Brahms himself owned a Streicher constructed in the same year as the instrument employed here. The top has a beautiful silvery tone in lyrical writing, but across the range produces a rich tonal quality of real character. Most importantly, the balance between cello and piano is near ideal in denser, more intense passages where the cello can tend to be swamped by a modern piano.

The later four-movement Sonata in F, op 99, dates from 1886 and is technically more demanding in some ways, particularly the urgent, thrusting third movement, its dynamism alleviated to some degree by the more lyrical central section. The briefer, fleet-footed final Allegro molto also demands considerable agility, again more than convincingly met in the present case. Finally, and especially rewarding for the present writer, are three song transcriptions – presumably made by the performers – ‘Es träumte mir’ from op 57 especially inducing some of the magically sensitive playing on the disc, the little touches of portamento in particular perfectly judged. It was a pleasing idea to include the texts and translations of the songs; it adds to the excellent impression left by what is for this writer an unexpectedly rewarding excursion into unfamiliar territory.

Brian Robins

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Baroque Arabesque

CD cover Baroque Arabesque

Fiori Musicali Austria
62:19
Gramola 99279

‘With this album Baroque Arabesque the ensemble Fiori Musicali Austria invites a variety of thought-experiments’ – I open my review with a sentence from the programme note as it perfectly sums up what this CD is aiming to achieve. At a time of mass migration, the musicians are conjecturing about cultural interactions in earlier centuries. They alternate tracks of Sephardic folk music and other traditional music with eastern elements with mainstream western Baroque music by composers such as Caccini, Athanasius Kircher, Handel, Tomaso Vitali and Couperin. So far so good, but actually if they had left it at this, the obvious contrast between the two idioms is considerable – this is where the thought-experimenting comes in. The group’s percussionist, who plays a seminal role in the traditional music, is let loose on the Baroque music, ‘Arabesquing it up’ in a way which to my mind is entirely implausible. The most extreme example of this is the group’s version of Tornami a vagheggiar from Handel’s Alcina, where a lovely Baroque aria is well and truly put through the mill with oud and percussion additions triggering some alarming responses from the group’s vocalist and other instrumentalists. We can’t of course say categorically that performances of this kind of mainstream Baroque repertoire never took place, but this is surely modern ‘makey-uppy’ performance practice of the most ridiculous kind. I have been consistently critical of lazy attempts to overlay music of one cultural genre with the practices of another – more than once I have felt that the great Jordi Savall has engaged in cross-cultural fantasy at the expense of the music – but this thought experiment is of another order. Shoe-horning oud and ethnic percussion into the self-contained world of Baroque music is at the same time unconvincing and pointless. I do hope that Fiori Musicali Austria spend more of their time engaging honestly with early repertoire, as their performances are not without merit, but sadly this project seems to me a misconceived and fundamentally dishonest waste of everybody’s time.

D. James Ross

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Navigating Foreign Waters

CD cover Navigating foreign waters

Spanish Baroque & Mexican Folk Music
Maria Cristina Kiehr, Krishnasol Jiménez, Roberto Koch 51:30
Brilliant Classics 96205

This CD arose from the quest of three musicians based in South America to explore the Spanish roots for their folk music. The already distinctive son of much Spanish music in the 16th and 17th centuries underwent further transformation on contact with the Spanish colonies in Mesoamerica, most notably the jarocho music of Mexico. Krishnasol Jiménez plays the famous Stradivarius ‘Sabionari’ guitar of 1679 (beautifully illustrated inside the CD package), while Roberto Koch improvises a bass line on a colascione, a sort of three-stringed bass lute employed in folk music and also known as the liuto della giraffa on account of its long neck! The sound of these two plucked instruments in combination with Maria Cristina Kiehr’s pure and expressive soprano voice is very pleasing. I find it interesting that these musicians from Mexico, Venezuela and Argentina respectively, performing with a genuine New World perspective, take a much more restrained approach to the Mexican idioms than do many Old World musicians. Their performances are often languidly charming rather than spikey with cross-rhythms, although at the same time, I don’t want to make them sound dull – where appropriate they are infectiously toe-tapping. There is even a bit of ‘body-tapping’ of one of the stringed instruments – one would hope of the colascione rather than the venerable guitar. Perhaps it is the participation of this priceless survivor, which dictates the generally respectful approach of the performers. In any case, the performers’ backgrounds and musical experience as well as the instruments they employ give their performances of this repertoire considerable authority, and this minimal ensemble of three performers has a delightful completeness about it.

D. James Ross

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Biber: Sonatae Violino Solo 1681

CD cover Biber Sonatae Violino Solo 1681 Nikitassova

Plamena Nikitassova, Les  Elémens
111:25 (2 CDs)
cpo 555 481-2

Wow – these are barnstorming accounts by violin virtuoso Plamena Nikitassova of Biber’s ground-breaking Sonatas for violin and BC of 1681! Such is the dynamic approach of the soloist and her ensemble that it is easy to imagine the stunning effect these works had when Biber first launched them on the Salzburg public. They have all the spontaneity and originality we associate with Biber at his finest, and were an instant success, remaining popular in the repertoire for two centuries. Nikitassova follows instructions clearly laid out in two German treatises of the 17th century regarding her playing position and where she places the instrument – both illustrated on the cover painting on the CD but also in a photo inside of Nikitassova in performance. It looks like a risky way to hold a violin, but perhaps it contributes to the dangerous edgy qualities in these accounts. Flying through terrifying technical demands with breathtaking assurance, Nikitassova always sounds as if she is living dangerously, but the result is thrilling and surely just right for this eccentric and risky repertoire. This is the music of a new kid on the block out to impress – I was reminded of Beethoven’s opus 1 trios – and must have taken the musical scene in Salzburg by storm. Interesting that just a century later Mozart found Salzburg so stifling, clearly little of Biber’s radicalism had survived. The performers find room at the end of the programme for an anonymous Sonata in a similar vein to the Biber probably by his pupil Johann Vilsmayr, which found its way to Dresden but which was also probably composed in the musical ferment which was late 17th-century Salzburg. I must admit to being a huge ‘Beliber’, but I loved the courage and sheer chutzpah of these performances and am sure Biber would approve 100%.

D. James Ross

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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