Tag: Chamber music

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Bach: Metamorphose

Cover of Neobarock Bach CD Metamorphose

NeoBarock
55:55
ambitus amb 95 606

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This CD is one of those many available in recent years that give us the supposed original of works by J. S. Bach that are known from later parodies, versions or arrangements by the composer. They increase the availability to – in this case – string players of works that might only be known to us in fuller or more varied combinations of instruments. In this case all four reconstructions are for two violins and basso continuo, the classic trio sonata combination for which Bach seems to have written nothing in spite of the fact that his obituary declared that he left ‘a large amount of other instrumental pieces’.

Probably the best-known work to receive this treatment is BWV 1043, the double violin concerto in D minor. In a substantial essay, the moving spirit of NeoBarock, Maren Ries, makes the case for the concerto version being a later adaptation, where nothing substantial is added to the doubling violin parts in the tuttis, and the viola adds only such harmonies as are implied by the bass, and indeed nothing is lost in their trio sonata version.

The playing is neat and spirited, and I never found myself wishing for the large backing group. In terms of the clarity of the composition and the engagement of the players, this opening movement version sounds much like the ritornelli in the tenor aria in Part IV.6 of the Christmas Oratorio, Ich will nur dir zu Ehren leben. Nor does the second movement with its minimal string chords lose anything. I found some of the sudden ritardandi surprising, but elegantly managed, otherwise I think the most ardent HIP purist will find nothing except delight in this version.

The same goes for me in the adaptation of the violin sonata in A (BWV 1015). While playing this, I never found it possible to balance the violin part with the right hand of the harpsichord as I am sure it should be. In those trio sonatas that are so many of the arias for voice and a single obbligato instrument in the cantatas, I have been keen to explore similarity in dynamic range with distinctiveness in tone colour. So I welcome a version that puts the two melodic lines on instruments of similar dynamic range, but wonder about tonal contrast. Would an oboe d’amore or a traverso be worth a try here? Series VII Band 7 of the NBA gives us five reconstructions of presumed solo concerti: might the editors consider the reverse process and be ready to include the reconstructions of supposed original chamber works?

The other works here are versions of BWV 1029 and 1028. We already have Bach’s own version of 1027 for two traversi and continuo in BWV 1039, and there is good circumstantial evidence that the others have earlier versions along the lines of those offered here. The essay is wholly plausible, and I hope that some of the other material in the Bach-Archiv will find varied life in chamber music versions. I enjoyed La Tempesta di Mare’s versions of the trio sonatas for organ when they came out, and hope that other groups will take up the challenge.

David Stancliffe

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Recording

Bach: Sonatas & Partitas for solo violoncello piccolo

Cover of Brunello CD of Bach violin music on cello

Mario Brunello
161:00 (2 CDs in a card folder)
Arcana A469

First we had Rachel Podger playing the ‘cello suites on the violin, and now we have the cellist Mario Brunello playing the Sei Soli – the sonatas and partitas for solo violin (BWV 1001-6) – not on a violin, but on a four-string violoncello piccolo made Filippo Fasser in Brescia in 2017. The model is an instrument by Antonio and Girolamo Amati of Cremona dated between 1600 and 1610; the pitch is A=415 and the bows and strings are all detailed in the booklet which contains a mood piece entitled ‘An unexpected gust of wind’, an essay dated 2019 by Peter Wollny ‘Johann Sebastian Bach and the violoncello piccolo’, and finally Brunello’s article on playing the Sei Soli on the violoncello piccolo ‘A looking-glass reading’ during which he observes that while a violinist naturally strokes the highest string first, with a cellist it is the other way round: the texture builds up from the bass line.

In the fugal writing in particular, this gives a different perspective to the polyphony that Bach creates from the single instrument, and listening to these performances of the Sei Solo is a richly rewarding experience, offering a new take on Bach’s artistry, and in particular on the way in which a single instrument can, and in this case does, create a complete fugal texture. I was expecting some of the lighter dance movements in the Partitas to feel heavier and lumpier, but this is not the case. The bottom-up bowing seems to lighten the texture, and let the strong/weak pairing of notes find a natural sense of being placed just right. In addition, the baritone register of these pieces, likened by Brunello to a counter tenor’s take on music we are used to hearing in a different register, seems less anguished and tormented than many versions we are used to hearing.

The instrument sounds responsive: its light, singing tone fills the space in which the recordings were made – the Villa Parco Bolasco in Castelfranco in the Veneto – and is far removed from the grainy, hard-worked sound of Peter Wispelwey’s ‘cello in his later recording of the Six Suites, for example.  A 4-string violoncello piccolo (without the bottom string of a 5-string one) is pitched exactly an octave below a violin, so although the register sounds strange at first, by the time we are into the D minor partita, the great ciacconna sounds as if it was always meant to be pitched there, and because, I suspect, of the slacker bow, the chords of the D minor chaconne (in BWV 1004) and the great fugue in the C major (BWV 1005) to take two obviously ‘polyphonic’ numbers sound as convincing as I have ever heard on a violin.

So like Rachel Podger’s ‘cello suites, I love these versions. The novel tessitura offers both challenges and insights, and I ended up after several listenings thinking that this was a more comfortable pitch for the music. And Bach did re-pitch his favourite material. He made several different versions of, for example, the resoundingly bass/baritone tessitura of cantata BWV 82 Ich habe genug, transposing it up both for soprano and for alto and altering the instrumentation with each reworking, notwithstanding the obvious identification of the bass singer with old Simeon in the Temple. In the same way I hope that this version of the Sei Soli will find a ready following among those who can get hold of such an instrument, and appeal to listeners as a proper reworking of well-known music that offers new but valid insights.

Singers as well as string players would do well to listen to this recording and to ponder what this might mean for the way they sing their Bach. And I urge violinists as well as ‘cello players to listen and learn from this enormously rewarding performance; I have learnt a lot.

David Stancliffe

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J. S. Bach: Soprano Arias & Swedish folk chorales

Cover of Bach and Dala chorales CD

Maria Keohane, Camerata Kilkenny
58:10
Maya Recordings MCD1901

In the booklet, Kate Hearne writes that ‘the idea of pairing Bach’s music with Dala Chorales is an idea that has been with me for a long time’. 

Dala chorales come from a region in central Sweden where the first official psalm book in the Lutheran tradition was published in 1695, influenced as much by folk song as by the memories of what had been sung in the pre-Reformation masses. A number of these free chorale-like tunes are sung here by Maria Keohane, paired with seven Bach arias for soprano with obligato violin played by Maya Homburger, appearing here with Sarah McMahon and Malcolm Proud as Camerata Kilkenny.

The recording was made in the Propsteikirche Sankt Gerold in Austria, a small former Benedictine monastery. Details of the project, and how the performance was prepared are sketchy, but the booklet manages to convey the slightly folksy, Nordic, tree-spirit world that the Dalakorals conjure up.

The playing and singing is of a high standard as you would expect from the starry Swedish Maria Keohane and the Swiss violinist Maya Homburger. All the arias are just for soprano voice, violin and bc, and have all the elegance of chamber music, with perfectly matched and balanced partners listening to one another. This is how arias should be sung – not as if they were solos with an accompaniment in the background. Whether the pairing of the arias with the Dalakorals works for you I cannot predict, but you would not be sorry to have heard the Bach.

David Stancliffe

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Jean Baptiste Loeillet: Trio Sonatas

Loeillet Trio sonatas CD cover

Epoca Barocca
61:10
cpo 555 143-2

Sometimes it’s enough to write music that is well crafted, if not especially striking, and then get someone to play it with sensitivity, style and a sense of purpose. Jean Baptiste Loeillet did just that and in Epoca Barocca he has found his ‘someone’. Arguably, these trios provide pleasure for the players rather than excitement for the listener, but if you can experience enjoyment without excitement then this is for you. The balance between flute and oboe is good, the musical relationship between them intimate and complementary and all aspects of the performance are delicately judged. With one possible exception. I’d have been quite happy to hear the whole programme with just cello and harpsichord on the continuo line. Here we have from time to time and in addition to those, bassoon, organ and theorbo. The music doesn’t need these further colours, however: there is more than enough attractiveness in the top lines. I also found myself wondering how often a bassoon was actually used as a continuo instrument in chamber music.

The booklet (in German and English) offers a good and informative essay about the music and the basic information about the ensemble.

David Hansell

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Bach: Violin Concertos

CD cover of Bach violin concertos

Kati Debretzeni, English Baroque Soloists, John Eliot Gardiner
70:15
Soli Deo Gloria SDG732

On this accomplished CD, Kati Debretzeni, the leader of the English Baroque soloists among other things, plays the violin concertos in A minor (BWV 1041) and E major (BWV 1042) as you would expect and then adds two reconstructions drawn from the harpsichord concertos – a new version of BWV 1053 transposed down a tone into D major with its singing siciliano middle movement and a version of BWV 1052 in D minor, which has long been posited as a violin concerto in origin.

Debretzeni recalls the moment in the Bach Cantata Pilgrimage of 2000 when the beautiful Trost organ in the Schlosskapelle in Altenburg that Bach had played and commented on developed a fault and they had to fit in a recording of BWV 146 the next morning before flying home. The first two movements of Cantata 146 with obbligato organ form part of what Bach used again in BWV 1052. A version of the final movement is in Cantata 188. She also reflects upon the large number of violin obbligati in the church cantatas with pleasure and clearly the interplay between these various sources has informed her judgment of how to reach back behind the decisively keyboard-style passagework with its built-in bass line to a plausible violin original which needs a reconstructed basso continuo.

I enjoyed her playing as much as her editorial additions and decisions. Spirited and rhythmically infectious, she is well served by her 3.3.2.2.1 colleagues from the EBS and the beautifully judged continuo playing of James Johnstone. The slow movements never loose momentum – how easy it is to degenerate into a maudlin self-indulgence – while the outer movements never collapse into a scramble. They are helped by the wonderfully warm acoustic of St Jude’s, Hampstead Garden Suburb where they recorded.

Like Debretzeni, I hope that her versions find their way into the repertoire of many violinists. Bach did not only quarry his ‘instrumental’ work for concerto movements but used material from the cantatas, whether sacred or secular, to provide the sounds of heaven, and from the number of recordings of ‘arrangements’ appearing now, I can see that the process of re-inventing Bach’s multiple versions is set to continue. When they are in the hands of players so immersed in the whole oeuvre as this, we have a good deal to look forward to.

David Stancliffe

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J B Bach: Orchestral suites

J B Bach suites cover of CD

Thüringer Bach Collegium
82:22
audite 97.770

These four suites by Johann Sebastian’s second cousin and near contemporary display his skill and invention. Cast in the form of suites with a series of dances, some movements feel more like concerti so close are they to the Italian and French models current in the cultured courts of the principalities of central Europe, where French cuisine and dress and Italian music were known.

From 1703, Johann Bernhard held the post of organist in Eisenach till his death in 1749, overlapping between 1708 and 1712 with Telemann. He was also harpsichordist to the admired court orchestra of Duke Johann Wilhelm of Sachsen-Eisenach.

J. S. Bach had copied out at least three of these suites for the Collegium in Leipzig, and it is because of this set of parts that Johann Bernhard’s music survives. The two Bachs were cross godparents to each other’s children, and Johann Bernhard’s ease with the French as well as the Italian style gives us an interesting glimpse of the cosmopolitan nature of this small Saxon court.

The competent players of the Thüringer Bach Collegium use single strings plus the director, Gernot Süßmuth’s solo violin and muster two oboes, a taille and fagotto, and one is heard playing recorder and traverso.

The performances are snappy, and sometimes a little rustic – some slapping of the instruments from time to time; but the major and in the end irritating fault is that the kontrabass is either miked far too closely or else just plays insensitively. With single strings, I would have been quite content with a violone or bass violin at 8’ pitch, but a substantial double bass thumping away – frequently joined by the harpsichordist’s lute stop – is an error of judgment and doesn’t blend with the rest of the band as it should.

The music was recorded in the Georgenkirche in Eisenach and from the photo in the booklet the players were standing just east of the font in which JSB was baptised. The essay (in German and then in English) on where this music fits into the high Baroque in Saxony is admirably informative. But there is no information on instruments or temperament, which would have been a plus. The ensemble has already recorded concerti by Prinz Johann Ernst von Sachsen-Weimar on the same label, and is clearly performing a notable service in making this kind of court music available to a modern audience.

The music is novel, fills a gap in our understanding of court life in the early 18th century and is tuneful as well as original. If you can bear the kontrabass, you will enjoy this music.

David Stancliffe

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Sheet music

New sheet music from Ut Orpheus

Schickhardt Ut orpheus edition cover

Schickhardt: Principes de la Flûte avec Quarante deux Airs à deux Flutes
Edited by Nicola Sansone
vi + 43pp.
FL29 ISMN 979-0-2153-2555-5
£18.95 (UK retail; from website €16.95 + P&P)

After what must be the briefest introduction to notation ever (Schickhardt’s four tables with explanations in French and Flemish), and a fingering chart including trills, it is straight into the music. The first piece is all of six bars and played in unison; the second is shorter but has more notes and tonguing indications, then the third is already conceived in two voices, introduces binary form and only has tonguing marks for certain parts, then the remaining 39 pieces work their way through a variety of keys and dance styles as well as occasional through-composed movements. While the upper voice might “take the lead” more, it certainly does not hog the limelight; the composer is very careful to involve both players in a thoroughly musical dialogue. None of the pieces is longer than two pages, and the majority are far shorter, so these are study rather than recital pieces. That said, I can definitely see a market for this nicely printed volume.

Buchner Ut orpheus edition cover

Buchner: 2 Sonate a Tre from Plectrum musicum Op. 4 (Frankfurt 1662)
Edited by Nicola Sansone
iv + 16pp.
FL30 – ISMN 979-0-2153-2556-2
£21.95 (UK retail; from website €19.95 + P&P)

Ostensibly published as a set of sonatas for strings, the “Viola da braccio” part-book for these two sonatas (nos. 10 & 11 in the set) give the scoring as “Flautto vel Viola da braccio”, so the editor is correct to publish them as recorder music but sadly a little hopeful in describing the piece on the cover as “Treble Recorder in G” – unless, of course, that is a misunderstanding of the English usage of Treble in this context to refer to Alto. Printed originally in the soprano clef (middle C on the bottom line), the opening phrase of Sonata X extends to E which is below the instrument’s standard range. But worse is to come – just in case someone was screaming at the screen about fudging that note – as bar 67 has a D, and then bar 78 has a C. Sonata XI has the same range, so there is little doubt that the music is actually far better suited to a Tenor Recorder. Were I to have edited this piece for publication, I would have ignored that fact that there is a separate bass part, since it is identical to the continuo line; rather than fifteen staves per page with the (also identical) figured bass squeezed into the available space, the layout would be much more comfortable. The music is well worth playing, and groups programming – for example – sonatas and concertos by Telemann for the same line-up should not hesitate to deploy these as variety.

Chaconnes and Grounds Ut orpheus cover

Chaconnes and Grounds from English Baroque Masters
Edited by Nicola Sansone
v + 30pp.
HS253 – ISMN 979-0-2153-2542-5
£23.50 (UK retail; from website €20.95 + P&P)

The eight pieces in this very useful volume are by Thomas Williams and Gottfried Keller (one ground each) and Gottfried Finger (three grounds and three chaconnes), all of them taken from four volumes printed in Amsterdam at the beginning of the 18th century. The range of the solo part suites the treble (=alto) recorder perfectly and the music here is far more demanding than in the Schickhardt collection above. Violinists should not be put off, though, as there is much elegant music here which will help younger players in particular to find ways to differentiate between each iteration of the theme above which they must weave their filigree. Ut orpheus has already published the source books (FL2, FL6, FL11 and FL17), should you fancy playing more of the repertoire than variations on a bass! 

Coelho Flores de Musica Ut orpheus edition cover

Manuel Rodrigues Coelho: Flores de Musica (1620) Vol. I: Tentos (1st-4th tone)
ECHO Collection of Historical Organ Music [volume 3]
Edited by João Vaz
xxvi + 128pp.
ECHOM3 – ISMN 979-0-2153-2606-4
£56.50 (UK retail; from website €50.95 + P&P)

I am by no stretch of the imagination a keyboard player. That said, in order to develop something akin to a reasonable technique, I remember shutting myself away in a practice room at university and devoting hours to playing Andrea Gabrieli’s organ music; it had the perfect blend (from my perspective, at least!) of sustained chords and moving parts, limited harmonic movement and few – if any – demanding leaps (especially in the left hand). That is also how I would described the contents of this excellent volume which contains 12 Tentos (three in each of the four modes). The original (as shown in the facsimiles dotted throughout the book) was printed on four staves; in compressing them on to two, the editor has (to my mind) sometimes been a little too pedantic (why print a superfluous bar’s rest when there are two other parts vying for the space on the staff at the time?) and not pedantic enough at others (where a note is inflected in one voice but not in the other, if the second accidental is not in the original, should it not be bracketed as an editorial insertion?) One small quirk of the printing is the notation of triplets; instead of the standard chunky 3 over the middle of the figure, this volume prints small 3s over the first note of each group which, in keyboard music, made me think they were fingering instructions. These are, however, minor faults in such an excellent volume. If I had access to an organ (or even a piano!), I think I might be tempted to sit down and play these pieces!

Brian Clark

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Handel: Uncaged

Zazzo Handel Uncaged cover of the CD

Cantatas for Alto
Lawrence Zazzo cT, Jonathan Manson cello/gamba, Andrew Maginley theorbo/guitar, Guillermo Brachetta harpsichord
74:26
resonus Inventa INV1002

The curious title of the CD is inspired by one of the most unusual of the cantatas composed during Handel’s youthful Italian sojourn, Amore uccellatore. The work itself has an odd background. It consists of two short cantatas, Venne voglia (HWV 176) and Vendendo amore (HWV 175), both extant in autograph scores and part of the repertoire. However a further unique and un-attributed copy in the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge includes a dozen more numbers continuing a narrative cast throughout in the first person. Handel scholars have until recently remained undecided about the authenticity of the continuation, but recent work now adds to the likelihood of his authorship. The result is the longest of all the solo cantatas (not, pace Lawrence Zazzo’s notes, all the cantatas), running to no fewer than 30 numbers alternating recitative and mostly very brief arias, some simple AB structures rather than da capo. The tragi-comic text is rather different to the Arcadian topics usually found in cantatas of this period, consisting as it does of the first person narrative of a bird as it tries to evade capture (and re-capture) by Cupid and five women. The metaphor is obvious, but the ending, in which the bird is finally left in peace after losing its tail (and thus its beauty), is not clear. The arias, a mixture of the light-hearted and serious, are necessarily contrasted for such a lengthy work. As Zazzo notes, it is unlikely that the cantata would have been given uninterrupted, so he has found short instrumental pieces and improvisations to serve as links, a formula that works well.

In addition to Amore uccellatore three other early alto cantatas are included: Udite il mio consiglio, HWV 172 (1707), originally for soprano, but here heard in the shortened alto version; Stanco di più soffrire, HWV 167a (1708); and Figli del mesto cor, HWV 112, chosen by Zazzo for their ability to form a satisfying group.

As is clear from the foregoing, it is evident that much thought and preparation have gone into the programme, so it is regrettable to have to report that the performances in general do not do it full justice. The principle problem is the excessively slow tempo at which most of the more reflective arias are taken, which coupled with Zazzo’s inability to bring texts to life results in interpretations that remain obstinately one-dimensional. This applies particularly to the three additional cantatas, which have pastoral texts conforming to the archetypal love concerns of shepherds and shepherdesses being resolved or unresolved, as the case may be. Zazzo seems to find more to interest him in the text of Amore uccellatore, particularly in the lighter arias, which he projects with greater intent and agreeable good humour. Yet vocally, too, I have heard him in better voice; the slow tempos contributing to both occasional insecurity and excessive vibrato, prevalent in sustained passages. Nonetheless there is always pleasure to be had from Zazzo’s pleasing timbre and ease of production. His support is technically unexceptionable, but there too I find little to convey the Italianate verve or lyricism inherent in the music of the young Handel. Ornamentation is fairly un-ambitious, with turns poorly articulated and no sign of such standard improvisatory devices as the messa di voce or trill. Otherwise on a musical level there is little here to complain of, but it is to be honest all a little worthy and ultimately uninspiring. The CD’s greatest value is its inclusion of the first complete recording of Amore uccellatore.

Brian Robins

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Sheet music

John Jenkins: Fantasia-suites: III

The cover of Musica Britannica 104, John Jenkins Fantasy suites volume 3

Musica Britannica CIV
Transcribed and edited by Andrew Ashbee
Stainer and Bell, 2019 ISBN 978 0 85249 956 6
(ISSN 0590-2954; ISMN 979 0 2202 2545 1)
xxxvii (including three plates), 186pp. £105

This third volume of Ashbee’s edition of Jenkins’ fantasia-suites for treble, bass and organ includes the 17 entries in the Viola da Gamba Society’s Group I (comprising a fantasia, almain and ayre) and bothof their Group IV entries (where the sequence is fantasia, air, corant). There are four sources for the first group and five for the second and, with typical care and precision, the editor lists even the smallest variance between them.

I cannot recall ever hearing these pieces in performance. As Ashbee says in his introduction, the last two suites are entirely different in character from the first 17. For one thing, both of the string parts are far more technically demanding – the fantasy of no. 18, for example, has wide leaps and demisemiquaver (32nd note) scales as well as chords for the bass viol. The original organ part survives for only the first movement of these two suites, and even the figured bass that exists for the next three movements is lost for the final air and corant; Ashbee has done an excellent job in reconstructing them.

As usual with Musica Britannica, the book is itself thing of great beauty, printed on luxurious paper and handsomely bound. This is the sixth volume in the series devoted to Jenkins, and I am sure it will not be the last.

Brian Clark

The publisher’s website is HERE.

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Recording

The Oboe in Dresden

Cover of Xenia Löffler's "The oboe in Dresden" CD

Xenia Loeffler [and friends]
78:00
Accent 24361

Just by the merest suggestion of any link to the superb Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, the level of music-making seems already guaranteed. The marvellous array of chamber works gathered here by the co-founder of the famous Berlin ensemble are presented in such a way as to beguile and delight from start to finish! Not only is the amazingly dexterous, mellifluous oboe given full centre-stage exposure, but the excellent qualities of the top-draw instrumentalists follow in a trail of captivating musicianship. The opening Vivaldi (RV53) does that well-known slow-fast-slow-fast trick, but if the transition between these modes is truly faultless, the last two movements are quite stupendous! Next we come to an anonymous piece in B flat major, which uses a typical Telemann device of “Replique” responses in the two main instrumental voices, found in the Paris Quartets and elsewhere. The second movement seems to be a parody of a vocal line from one of his Harmonsicher Gottesdienst cantatas (TVWV1:447?) another quite typical device of hidden tunes used by him, equally prevalent in some of the Kleine Kammermusik of 1716. The Fasch work is a sprightly exposition of double oboes and virtuoso bassoon, perfectly written and performed to a treat. The links to Dresden’s fine orchestra become ever stronger moving through these excellent works. Next some known Telemann, one of his Sonatas Auf Concertenart, i. e., a neat blend of Trio and concerto styles; the soloists again display such an admirably vivacious interplay, one is swept along in their joyous wake. The final pieces show contrasting styles and varying instrumentation, the Platti is more conventional in layout, yet played with intimate skill, while the Hasse is truly a gem of a real master, the distinct timbres of the chalumeau, oboe and bassoon creating a glorious, warmly glowing sonority! The following anonymous Trio, possibly by Pisendel himself, leader of the Dresden Band. The violin part does seem to support this with its lively virtuosic interactions with the oboe, yet another high point on this remarkable recording which ends with a brilliant quartet by Stölzel for oboe, violin, horn and b.c.

What a superb selection of works, ideal for any concert, played with gusto, insight and consummate skill; as enthralling as gifted members of the Dresden orchestra itself, in a remarkable “pool of talents”. No little histories on the soloists’ past exploits or collective rewards are mentioned in the slim CD booklet, just a few lovely publicity shots; the whole CD concentrates purely on the music itself to such a rewarding extent! Top-draw!

David Bellinger

Click HERE to buy the MP3 on amazon (the CD is not yet available on the site – 13/1//2019)