Tag: Chamber music

Musica Amphion, Pieter-Jan Belder
132:01 (2 CDs in a single jewel case)
Brilliant Classics 95917

I am not a huge fan of musical programmes which use visual artists as a peg – music and painting were often at dramatically different expressive places, a fact illustrated by these CDs of music – delightfully mannered, elegant songs and dance music – which the programme attempts to attach to Rembrandt, who was engaged in an entirely unrelated project of striking gritty realism. Still, I suppose as the music he would have heard around him, it must have some bearing on his work, and anyway two lovely CDs of 17th-century Dutch music beautifully performed are a welcome addition to the canon. The performers have delved deep into the archives and have researched beyond the familiar van Eijck, Hacquart, van Noordt and Sweelinck to find some genuinely unknown music from the period to widen our knowledge. The playing from a wonderfully sonorous consort of viols, with violins and viola, complemented by a fine quartet of vocal soloists and harpsichord and recorder soloists, is beautifully expressive throughout. The music ranges from the sacred to the secular, and from the very beginning of the 17th century with music by Cornelis Schuyt to its very end and a trio sonata by the splendidly named Benedictus Buns. By this time, the artist had been dead for thirty years, but this music usefully rounds off the century and the Golden Age of Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn. If this was the soundtrack behind the paintings of Rembrandt, probably the best way to approach it is to have it playing gently in the background much as the original music would have done, and who knows, perhaps you too will be inspired to put brush to canvas.

D. James Ross

Mauro Valli
195:18 (3 CDs in a card folder)
Arcana A459
Bach: Cello suites; D. Gabrielli: 7 Ricercari

This epic project presents the complete music for solo cello by perhaps the greatest of the Baroque composers, J. S. Bach, interspersed by the complete solo cello oeuvre of one of the lesser composers of the period, Domenico Gabrielli. Did the two ever meet? As Bach was only five when Gabrieli died prematurely at the age of just thirty, the answer is almost definitely no. Did Bach know Gabrielli’s music? Just possibly, although there is absolutely no circumstantial or musical evidence. So why juxtapose the two sets? I must admit I was sceptical at first, seeing this as just another excuse to add to the already groaning piles of recordings of the Bach. Valli gives thoughtful and musically consummate accounts of the Bach, although I still prefer the absolutely luminous accounts by David Watkin on resonus (RES10147). Valli’s sound is darker, his playing more unrelentingly intense and the recording generally closer. But what eventually got me about these performances was precisely the juxtaposition with the Gabrielli. As the programme note is quick to concede, this is not an attempt to place the Bach and Gabrielli on the same pedestal, but what I found really interesting is that the Gabrielli did have something to say about the Bach and vice versa. For all the differences in style, texture and melodic sense, as Baroque works for solo cello these pieces have more in common than they first seem. Gabrielli’s belong in a simpler, more innocent world than Bach’s, but the juxtaposition brings out the profundity of these Ricercars, suggesting that they deserve much wider attention from cellists than they have hitherto received. So these CDs with their powerful accounts of Bach and Gabrielli are after all more than just the sum of their parts.

D. James Ross

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Baroque Masterworks around 1730
Jeremias Schwarzer recorder, Ralf Waldner cembalo
79:26
Genuin GEN 19646
Music by Bach, Chédeville, Handel & Telemann

This is a meaty recital offering works of fame and substance for recorder and harpsichord, either original compositions or perfectly reasonable transpositions/arrangements of music for other solo instruments. Alto recorder and voice flute are both used: thus those allergic to high recorders need not fear. All of this is at eight-foot pitch! The inclusion of unaccompanied Telemann fantasias gives some sonic variety, as do the alternating obbligato and continuo roles of the harpsichord. The playing of both instruments is impressive, though I do find some of the recorder articulation a touch capricious and some of it – especially staccato notes – aggressive for a flauto dolce. The booklet (English & German) offers a general introduction as well as concise comments on each work: the English is reasonable and readable, though not fully idiomatic.

David Hansell

Jakob Rattinger viola da gamba, Lina Tur Bonet violin, musica narrans
64:56
Pan Classics PC 10395
Music by Biber, Corelli, Forqueray, Hume, Marais & Morel

A weak booklet essay (German & English) does this release no favours, but don’t be over-deterred either by this prospect or the rather strange picture on the front. The playing is lively and not afraid of the occasional un-beautiful sound, and the programme presents a (necessarily highly selective) survey of 17th-century chamber music. This ranges from Tobias Hume for lyra viol to a ‘re-mix’ of Marais’s and Corelli’s Folia variations for viol, violin and harpsichord via violin sonatas by Corelli and Biber and the near-inevitable La Sonnerie. I need to express my usual doubts as to whether a continuo section of theorbo, harpsichord and guitar ever took part in any 17th-century performance of chamber music and I also need to note that the playing, while always committed, is not free of occasional technical accidents that become increasingly intrusive on repeated listenings.

David Hansell

Tripla Concordia, Walter van Hauwe
63:08
Arcana A114
BWV527, 997, 1027-29

The five pieces presented on this CD are all transcriptions and arrangements of works by Bach; three of them are derived from sonatas for viola da gamba and harpsichord – BWV 1029, 1027 and 1028 put into keys that are easier for recorders after analogy with the version for two flutes (BWV 1039) of No 1 in G, which may well be the earlier version. The others pieces are an arrangement for recorder and harpsichord of the C minor lute partita BWV 997 and the D minor trio sonata for organ BWV 527.

The idea of re-scoring works so that novel combinations of instruments can play them – perhaps domestically for fun or for instruction – was something that Bach clearly did with his own compositions, so the idea is not new. This group is primarily of recorder players, who had a good time re-imagining these versions which sound pretty plausible.

Bach is always worth playing in any version you can: whether these arrangements will last remains to be seen. They are easy to listen to, the players are more than competent and I am consigning my copy to the car for a bit, as they provide novel but unchallenging listening.

David Stancliffe

Les Esprits Animaux
64:13
Musica Ficta MF8029

This is the second review of this recording we have received. You can find the other here.

Those with knowledge of Telemann’s biography will know that he worked in neither Dresden nor Darmstadt, all the works recorded here linked with those centres by their inclusion in libraries in one or, in the cases of the popular Concerto alla Polonaise and the D-minor Concerto, both cities. Their diffusion testifies to the widespread popularity of Telemann’s works beyond the cities in which he worked. It must be added that his authorship of the concertos in B flat and D remains conjectural; on the evidence of the ear alone, I would certainly be inclined to suspect the former as a work of Telemann’s. It is much the least inventive of this group of works, with a Rococo-style opening Allegro that even at five minutes outstays its welcome. The four-movement D-major Concerto for flute and strings is another matter. Opening with an easy flowing Intrada with interesting ‘riffs’ for violin and cello periodically breaking out, it continues with an appealing Aria in which the flute takes the ‘vocal’ part, a brief, lively Gavotte and a graceful Minuet featuring a solo cello in the central section. The presence of three first recordings (TWV 43:G8; the B flat; and the Intrada) would commend the CD to the attention of Telemanniacs if nothing else did.

In fact there is a much more to it than that. For some years Les Esprits Animaux has shown itself to be one of the foremost Baroque chamber ensembles, its performances above all notable for a sense of spontaneity rarely encountered in this repertoire. Mention above of the word ‘riffs’, more frequently associated with jazz, was not accidental, for there is a strong feeling of the improvisatory about all Les Esprits do. The music lives from bar to bar, every gesture counting and contributing to an exhilarating sense of fantasy, of bizzarie. It is necessary to go no further than the beguiling opening Dolce of the Concerto alla Polonaise to hear the stylishly delicate manner in which first violinist Javier Lupiáñez embellishes repeats to know there will be nothing routine about these beautifully played and balanced performances. Caveats? Well, just occasionally I feel the animal spirits run away with the performers a little too much, leading them to excessively fast tempi, as in the Allegro ma non troppo finale of TWV43:G8. Other than that this a disc that conveys the sheer joy of music making to a degree rarely experienced. If you’ve yet to catch up with the unbounded pleasure of listening to Les Esprits Animaux this is the time to rectify the omission.

Brian Robins