Tag: Chamber music

Categories
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)

Categories
Recording

Michael Haydn Collection

Cover of the boxed set of Michael Haydn

28 CDs in a cardboard box
Brilliant Classics 95885

Yes, you read the heading correctly – this set comprises 28 CDs of music by Michael Haydn! Best known for having a more famous brother, or (more flatteringly though “let’s not exaggerate”) the composer whom Mozart thought highly enough of to complete a set of duets for violin and viola, Michael Haydn really hasn’t had the best of press.

Now, at an amazing price of less than £2 per disc, you can totally immerse yourself in his soundworld. Unsurprisingly, this is NOT a Suzuki- or Koppmen-like methodical survey of the complete works; rather, it is a bringing together of various recordings from a number of companies (hänssler, oehms, and cpo, to name but a few) with period instrument performances alongside those by more “traditional” choirs and chamber orchestras; the opera is “modern” (with a HIP conductor to help), while the Singspiels are wholly HIP; two volumes of the complete string quintets (another overlapping interest with Mozart) feature extremely fine gut strung playing, while the quartets are played on steel. A modest booklet gives a biography of the composer and describes each of the discs; the card cover for each gives full information of the original recording.

As someone who has always enjoyed Haydn’s music (I remember the hairs on the back of my neck standing up the first time I heard a BIS recording of masses with oboe band!) I found the journey through these discs (some of which I had actually reviewed before) very enjoyable; his church music is especially attractive and it does not surprise me that it is found in archives across the German-speaking world. I did find myself tiring of amorphous non-HIP basslines and tiered dynamics, but that has nothing to do with the quality of the music, which in general is very high.

I recommend this to anyone into Classical music (in the strict sense) – I remember giving a concert in Dundee in 1991 in which we challenged the audience to identify which pieces we played and sung were by Mozart or not by Mozart; not a single person got the answer correct . If you played any of the present CDs as background music to a dinner party, I doubt anyone would be surprised to learn that it wasn’t Mozart too!

Brian Clark

Click HERE to buy this set of CDs on amazon.

Categories
Recording

Music by Cipriano Rore

CD cover of Blue Heron da Rore madrigals recording

da Rore: I madrigali a cinque voce
Blue Heron
120:49 (2 CDs in a card folder)
Blue Heron BHCD 1009

de Rore: Missa “Vivat Felix Hercules”
Weser-Renaissance Bremen
69:47
cpo 777 989-2

Blue Heron’s recordings of music from the Peterhouse Partbooks resulted in five compact discs which received acclaim and prizes, including the first and so far only instance of the Gramophone Early Music Award being made to an American vocal ensemble. It was therefore with a great sense of anticipation that their next major project, Cipriano de Rore’s complete book of madrigals in five parts, 1542, has been awaited. Unsurprisingly they deliver in spades, both in performance and in presentation, with a booklet including erudite but readable and informative essays by Jessie Ann Owens and Scott Metcalfe. Rore comes over as a natural composer of madrigals, and Blue Heron have the versatility to do his music ample justice. Perhaps sensitive to prospective purchasers contemplating the prospect of up to twenty madrigals in identical scoring being sung off the reel, Blue Heron preface each madrigal with the original texts, the majority by Petrarch, being read by Alessandro Quarta; suffice to say he declaims them as effectively as Blue Heron subsequently sing them. Rore’s 1542 collection was famously innovative, with its intense engagement between the music and the words unprecedented in secular vocal music, and it set the standard, including the use of five vocal parts, for the more serious type of madrigal till the seventeenth century. Basically his madrigals are a fusion of the Franco-Flemish polyphonic style which, as we hear on Weser-Renaissance’s disc, he himself exploited in his sacred music, with the lighter, airier, Italian style. Whereas some such fusions simply refuse to “fuse” in the wrong hands, Rore’s collection exhibits a high standard throughout. This makes it very hard to single out individual works to recommend. Thanks to the versatility and sensitivity of Blue Heron’s singers, and to Scott Metcalfe – the most stylish conductor that I can remember seeing (in Cambridge, 2016) – every work receives detailed individual attention. A work such as Quel sempre acerbo et honorato giorno could pass superficially as a Franco-Flemish motet, while Perseguendomi Amor al luogo usato comes across as what posterity would come to regard as typically madrigalian.

Weser-Renaissance recording of de Rore's Mass - cover of the booklet

Weser-Renaissance’s disc is a different kettle of fish. Partly this reflects Rore’s own versatility as a composer. Although nothing quite beats the frisson of a live performance, one benefit of recordings is that one can listen to performances more than once and, if desired, do so soon after the first hearing, as many times as one wants. This certainly worked for me regarding Weser-Renaissance’s disc. At a first hearing I thought that the performances were inexpressive and stodgy, and the music, especially the Mass, turgid. Unwilling to sound off after a single unsatisfactory hearing, I listened again and the fog began to lift. Come a third helping I had reached my current state of admiration for both the singing and the music. The catalyst occurred during the second session with the electrifying music set to the words “miserere nobis” in Agnus I and II, and again to “dona nobis pacem” in Agnus III. Now I found myself able to listen in a different way, to hear the light and shade in the motets, and to appreciate further impressive passages of writing in Pater noster and especially Da pacem, Domine. In critical mode, I still feel that in the Gloria and Credo of his Mass, Rore is somewhat of a prisoner to his motto “Vivat felix Hercules secundus, dux Ferrariae quartus” which is treated as a Soggetto cavato during the Mass, in the manner of Josquin’s Missa Hercules dux Ferrariae. But overall it is a fine work, interspersed with several estimable motets, featuring imaginative scoring expressed through expert polyphony with judiciously placed sections of homophony. Weser-Renaissance perform it all sonorously ensuring clarity within Rore’s sumptuous textures.

Richard Turbet

Click HERE to buy the Blue Heron CD on amazon.

Click HERE to buy the Weser-Renaissance MP3 recording on amazon.

 

 

Categories
Recording

Clérambault: Chamber Music from the Brossard Collection

Booklet cover for The Bach Players' Clérambault CD

The Bach Players
58:49
Coviello Classics COV91928

This disc is a further exploration by the ensemble of Sébastien de Brossard’s library, their previous release having presented music by Élisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre. Here, we are offered instrumental music by Clérambault, a useful counter-balance to the image of ‘cantata king’ that has developed around him. As with all Bach Players programmes, there is a strong impression that ‘someone has thought about it’. There are three trio sonatas, two solo sonatas (each prefaced by a keyboard prelude) and two chaconnes, also for solo violin and continuo. Further variety is embedded in the music of course: especially striking are those moments when the bass viol engages in the contrapuntal discourse, sometimes to spectacular effect!

I enjoyed the programme very much. There is an unfussy honesty and a unity of purpose about the playing which most emphatically is not a kind way of saying ‘a bit dull’. One hears so many ensembles in this repertoire with kaleidoscopic continuo sections, changes of instrumentation for repeats. etc., that it really is a welcome relief to hear classy performances with everything in place that just say ‘Here’s the music. Isn’t it terrific?’. Yes, it is. The booklet will not disappoint either.

David Hansell

Click HERE to buy this CD on amazon.

Categories
Recording

Amadio Freddi: Vespers (1616)

CD booklet cover for Freddi Vespers

The Gonzaga Band, Jamie Savan
58:10
resonus RES10245
+ Castello, Donati, A & G Gabrieli, Grandi & Biagio Marini

This recording is another triumph for Jamie Savan and his Gonzaga Band. The research on Freddi and the way the performing edition for these elegant and tuneful movements – largely taken from Freddi’s Messa, vespro et compieta (Venice: Amadino 1616) – is excellently presented in five dense pages of informed and practical scholarship of a high order, which informs the whole enterprise. This is a model of how scholarship and performance should complement one another

We are given details of the sources, editions, instruments, pitch and temperament used. Particularly interesting is the use of a digital Hauptwerk organ running samples from the Nachini organ in S. Maria d’Alleito at Isola in Slovenia and played by Steven Devine. In a recording that itself is digitally created, I can see nothing wrong with using such an instrument, though I wonder what it feels like to sing or play next to it where there is no wind reservoir ‘breathing’ with you. The only other instruments alongside the six voices are Jamie Savan (cornetto) and Oliver Webber (violin), who play Freddi’s entwined and imitative writing in a way that not only imitates the florid vocal lines, but gives the impression of a very much larger instrumental ensemble. The richness of the overall texture created with such slender resources is one of the appealing things about this performance.

Just a violin and a cornetto with the organ was what Freddi had at his disposal when the forces at S. Antonio, Padua where he worked from 1592 to 1614, were reduced to keep the music establishment solvent. The combination appears again as the basic instrumental group hired in for the feast of the Assumption at S. Teonisto in Treviso, where he had moved in 1615, and is a combination that appears in places in the writing of Heinrich Schütz, for example.

The psalms Savan has chosen from the collection are those proper to a Vespers of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and as in the Monteverdi 1610 Vespers, he has interspersed the psalms with works for single voices, and a number of sonatas by Donati, Marini  and Castello together with some brief intonazioni by Giovanni and Andrea Gabrieli and a motet by Grandi. This is welcome, as fascinating though it is to hear the Freddi works, the voice and instrument combinations are limited and the textures and idioms feel much more samey than the widely varied styles of Monteverdi’s work – but then Monteverdi was trying to display the maximum number of ways the plainsong could be treated, which was not part of Freddi’s game plan. After repeated listenings, I found the music tuneful but not essentially memorable, though some of the instrumental sonatas and the solo motet by Grandi raised the game.

As before with the Gonzaga Band, Fay Newton’s contributions steal the show. Hardly any other soprano has her wonderful voice: light, bright and flexible, yet capable of astonishing changes of colour and mood. This is not to say that the other voices are not excellent – they are equally well-matched. So this is another example of how to create a wonderful but largely unrecognised musical world, where voices and instruments combine to create big effects with minimal forces. In today’s financially squeezed circumstances there is much to lean and admire. Plus ça change.

David Stancliffe

Click HERE to buy this as a download on amazon, or HERE to order a CD version.

Categories
Recording

Polish Lute Music of the Renaissance

CD booklet cover of Polish lute music of the Renaissance

Joachim Held lute
59:00
hänssler classic CD HC19034

For this excellent CD of Polish renaissance lute music Joachim Held plays seven pieces by Albert Dlugoraj (1558-after 1618), eight by Diomedes Cato (1565-1628), nine by Jakub Polak (c.1545-1605), and seven anonymous pieces. The first track for each of the three named composers is a prelude, setting the mood for the dances and fantasias which follow. The dance pieces are quite short, ranging from a mere 31 seconds to 1’41”, but the fantasias are more substantial. Track 12 is a Fantasia by Diomedes from Besard’s Thesaurus Harmonicus (1603). It is a fine piece, and well sustained by Held, albeit skipping a low G (a6) just towards the end. Track 15 is an extraordinary fantasia, five minutes long, with interesting chromatic turns and a couple of bars towards the end which are reminiscent of Dowland’s Semper Dowland Semper Dolens. The piece was the first to be included in Robert Dowland’s anthology, Varietie of Lute Lessons (London, 1610). From the same source Held plays a fantasia by Polak (Track 31). Something seems to have gone wrong with the recording at bar 15, because some notes are missing.
 
All the anonymous pieces are from D-B Danzig 4022. The first, and at 6’08” the longest, is an interesting set of variations on Monycha [=Monica] aka Une Jeune Fillette, which Held takes at an appropriately unhurried speed. I am less happy with his leisurely speed and use of rolled chords for Track 20, the well-known dance from folio 20v of Danzig 4022, which I feel needs a more sprightly, foot-tapping interpretation.
 
Track 24 is a lively Volte by Polak, which has a clear 2-part texture (occasionally filled out to 3-part), with nice interplay between treble and bass. Held’s brisk tempo is ideal, and he has contrasting loud and soft for the first section. Surprisingly he omits the first note of bar 9, but he does include three chords missing from the source (Lord Herbert of Cherbury’s MS), which were inserted as bar 21 in Piotr Pozniak’s edition.
 
Most useful is a list of sources provided in the liner notes, so if you want to follow the score, or play the pieces yourself, you know where to look. I cannot find any information about the sort of lute Held plays for the present CD. There is an uncaptioned photo of an eight-course lute on page eight of the liner notes, but no information about it or its maker.
 
I have always liked Held’s playing. Unlike so many of today’s lutenists, he eschews excessive rubato, and actually plays in time. He must have heeded the advice from the Johannes Nauclerus lute book, which he quotes in his liner notes: “And you must observe the beat, if you will court fair Maidens.” I wish him luck with amorous activity.
 
Stewart McCoy

Click HERE to buy this CD on amazon.

Categories
Recording

Elegy: Purcell & Blow

Elegy: Purcell and Blow duets
Iestyn Davies, James Hall, The King’s Consort, Robert King
77:33
Vivat 118
 

Duets for the countertenor or high tenor voice – often not easy to distinguish between – were popular repertoire during the Restoration, the CD under review featuring a number of well-known examples such as Purcell’s ‘Sound the trumpet’ from the ode Come ye sons of art, ‘O solitude’ and ‘O dives custos’, one of the elegies written to commemorate the death of Queen Mary in 1695, and John Blow’s moving ‘Ode on the death of Mr Henry Purcell’, the most extended work on the disc. There are also a number of solos sung by Davies.

There is therefore rather a concentration on sombre or more reflective topics that seems to have cast something of pall over the CD as a whole. It gets off to a good start with the bright warblings of ‘Hark how the songsters’ from Timon of Athens, Shadwell’s adaptation of Shakespeare. Here the two voices expertly combine with a pair of recorders to weave a colourful tapestry of sound in one of the more agreeable of the Baroque’s ubiquitous bird songs. The following ‘In vain the am’rous flute’ from the Ode for St Cecilia’s day Hail, bright Cecilia is admirable for the sheer sweetness of the sound and the musical way in which the two voices shape the long, melismatic lines. Yet nagging questions start to arise. Does the slow tempo chosen leave it sounding somewhat pedestrian? Is the less than clear enunciation responsible for the lack of engagement felt by at least this listener? A pattern is thus established that extends for the remainder of the disc. The voices are beautifully matched and duet together sympathetically, but is difficult to avoid a feeling of ever-encroaching blandness. Just occasionally something more potent arises, such as Iestyn Davies’ ‘Incassum Lesbia’, particularly at the heartfelt words ‘Regina, heu Arcadiae regina’, where he finds an emotional response to the text not often in evidence elsewhere.

As it happens, over 30 years ago, Robert King recorded for Hyperion a record with almost the same content sung by an earlier generation of countertenors, James Bowman and Michael Chance. I dug it out to find whether it confirmed my impressions of the new disc, which it unquestionably does. Everything on the older recording is brighter, more alive, even the more sober numbers having a deeper expressive quality than those on the new CD. Neither is the presentation on the latter as good, with no source or Z number given in the contents listing, as it was on the Hyperion. The disc will doubtless please the many admirers of Iestyn Davies – though it is worth noting that the lesser-known James Hall is by no means overshadowed – but to my mind it is another reminder that the last quarter of the 20th century was a golden age for the British early music revival.

Brian Robins

Click HERE to buy this CD on amazon.

Categories
Recording

Telemann’s Garden

Telemann's Garden CD cover

Elephant House Quartet
58:56
Pentatone PTC 5186 749

It is with some inevitability that any baroque flautist or recorder player will come to “dabble”, adding their individual flair and sheen to some of Telemann’s neatly conceived, oft charming little gems of chamber music. Many pieces also offer a surprising flexibility in options for possible instrumentation. Here the Elephant House Quartet bring a crisp and balanced interpretation of works chosen to share the limelight, then slip back into the comfortable nucleus of the quartet; this they do with amazingly smooth, unforced ease. The recorder version of the Paris Quartet (TWV43:G4) and the Suite V in A minor (TWV42:a3) display these precise qualities so very well. Camerata Köln recorded the complete “Six Concerts et six Suites” of 1734 back in 2000 on cpo, and perhaps another of the “Concerts” could possibly have been included here to gently push the CD timing over the hour mark?

It would also have been nice to hear all of the fine harpsichord fantasia (TWV33:19) and perhaps the remarkably gifted Reiko Ichise might have tackled one of the recently found gamba fantasias? For another day perhaps…

This said, in the spirit of egalitarian division, all the instrumentalists get their own outings, moments to shine within these selected works which they do with tremendous efficacy and perfectly measured musicianship. All in all, this is a splendidly plucked and blown bouquet/nosegay from Telemann’s neatly conceived musical garden.

David Bellinger

Categories
Recording

The Jupiter Project

Mozart [arranged by] Hummel, Cramer, Clementi
David Owen Norris fortepiano, Katy Bircher flute, Caroline Balding violin, Andrew Skidmore cello
79:49
hyperion CDA68234

In their informative programme note, David Owen-Norris and Mark Everist make the very good point that in the early 19th century in the absence of gramophone and radio and in light of the expense and scarcity of full orchestral performances, most people would have become acquainted with the music of Mozart in chamber arrangements which they could experience much more easily or even play for themselves. We would recall the very pleasing arrangements for string quartet, flute and piano made towards the end of the 18th century by the impresario Johann Peter Salomon of Haydn’s symphonies for just such a purpose, and similar efforts were made in the early 19th century to bring Mozart’s music to a wider audience. Johann Nepomuck Hummel’s arrangements of Mozart’s overtures to Die Zauberflöte and Le nozze di Figaro are recorded in delightful performances here, but the two major works are a brilliant transcription of the C major Piano Concert no 21 by Johann Baptist Cramer and Muzio Clementi’s remarkable transcription of the “Jupiter” Symphony, no 41. Contemporaries commented on these transcriptions as if they were original chamber pieces, and such is the inventiveness of the arrangers, particularly in the two larger pieces, that we can understand this. As a student of Mozart, Clementi seems particularly at ease with his master’s music, and the arrangement of the “Jupiter” Symphony is indeed a masterpiece of its genre. There is of course a whole orchestral palette missing, but the arranger’s job is to convince you to the contrary, and Clementi makes such masterly use of his four instruments that you forget about all the missing ones. This intriguing CD, the result of a project at the University of Southampton, is valuable addition to our understanding of the propagation of music in the 19th century as well as being thoroughly engaging and entertaining in its own right.

D. James Ross

Categories
Recording

The Food of Love

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

It is good to see the Baltimore Consort back so many years after their glory days on the now defunct Dorian label. There have been some crucial changes in the line-up, but the group clearly retains its funky borderline trad. approach to early music which made their accounts of this repertoire so exciting. It is disappointing and a little puzzling that there is so little surviving music contemporary with and relating to Shakespeare’s plays, but the Consort do the next best thing here, assembling plausible repertoire with more or less tenuous links to a sequence of Shakespeare plays. If I felt the playing lacked something of the youthful energy and brio of some of the group’s vintage releases, this is an undeniably entertaining programme given the recognisably Baltimore Consort treatment. My only major reservation is one which applied equally to their earlier recordings, the rather uncomfortable ‘home counties’ pronunciation of the singer, in this case Danielle Svonavec, which seems entirely at odds with the gritty instrumental playing – the one exception, the archly ‘mummerset’ grave-digger is equally uncomfortable to listen to.

D. James Ross