Tag: Chamber music

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From Rome to Vilnius

CD cover From Rome to Vilnius

Canto Fiorito, directed by Rodrigo Calveyra
51:02
Brilliant Classics 97227

This attractive CD is based on sacred and secular music, which is featured in the Sapieha album of music associated with the Vasa Court in Vilnius. The composers were mainly Roman, but many had served at one time or another as Kapellmeister to Sigismund III in Poland and Vilnius. The list of composers includes the familiar and the unfamiliar: Annibale Stabile, Asprillio Pacelli, Giovanni Anerio, Marco Scacchi, Barthomiej Pekiel, Diomedes Cato, Tarquinio Merula and Francesco Rognoni. The repertoire ranges from large-scale sacred settings for voices and instruments to small sets of instrumental variations. The playing and singing of Canto Fiorito is of a very high standard, while the recording venue – appropriately the Palace of the Grand Dukes of Lithuania in Vilnius – provides a rich full acoustic to allow the music to bloom. The group’s director has reconstructed a missing bass part for Merula’s Benedicta tu allowing it to be recorded here for the first time. This varied programme reflects the cultural richness of the Baltic states at the end of the 16th century and during the first part of the 17th century. Based in Vilnius, this fine consort is symptomatic of the flourishing early music scene in Eastern Europe.

D. James Ross

 

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Bravura: Repertoire for natural horn and pianoforte

CD cover of Bravura

Louis-Pierre Bergeron horn, Meagan Milatz fortepiano
70:01
ATMA ACD2 2864

Perhaps the only familiar name on this recital of music for natural horn and piano is that of Beethoven, who is represented by his opus 17 Sonata. The other composers, Vincenzo Righini, Cipriani Potter, Nikolaus Freiherr van Krufft are largely unknown, while Franz Xavier Süssmayr is largely remembered as the man who completed Mozart’s Requiem. The common denominator among them all is unsurprisingly Vienna, to which they all gravitated at one time or another. The Beethoven is a recognised masterpiece of the genre, composed for the virtuoso Giovanni Punto, although it was probably Beethoven’s publisher Nikolaus Simmrock, also a horn player, who provided him with the necessary advice on how to write idiomatically for the instrument. Potter’s Sonata di Bravura (which provides us with the eye-catching CD title) is also associated with a horn virtuoso, Giovanni Puzzi, but it is as much the virtuoso piano part, presumably designed to show off the composer’s keyboard skills, that make this piece so attractive. In addition to playing the repertoire with admirable expressiveness and indeed bravura, the performers have made an astute choice of repertoire, and in addition to the Beethoven at least one piece – the Potter – is a considerable masterpiece deserving of further attention. Clearly horn players who have the Beethoven safely in their repertoire need to go in search of further gems in the wealth of repertoire from the same period. Bergeron plays a copy of a pre-classical valveless Viennese horn by Anton Kerner, while for the Beethoven, Krufft and Potter he plays a copy of a slightly later instrument by Lucien-Joseph Raoux, both of which have rich and flexible tone. Milatz plays a fine copy of a Viennese fortepiano of around 1792 by Anton Walter. The extensive programme notes include a fascinating essay by Claude Maury on the valveless horn.

D. James Ross

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Chansons musicales, Paris 1533

CD cover Chansons musicales, Paris 1533

Zephyrus Flutes led by Nancy Hadden
58:56
crd 3548

The 50th anniversary of the crd label provides the perfect reason for the rerelease of this 2013 recording by flautist Nancy Hadden and her consort, Zephyrus Flutes. The most groundbreaking aspect of this performance is the fact that it presents a lovely selection of Renaissance French chansons played on a consort of Renaissance flutes or alternatively played on solo flute with lute accompaniment, or consort with lute interspersed with music for solo lute. Where we might be more accustomed to hearing this repertoire played on a consort of recorders, the sound of three Renaissance tenor flutes and a bass flute is strikingly different in texture and timbre, which when I originally reviewed this CD I found instantly attractive. The solo flute playing is beautifully nuanced, while the consort with and without lute achieves a lovely blend. The group’s lutanist, none other than Jacob Heringman, adds his own customary musicality and technical virtuosity to this selection. The repertoire is drawn from Pierre Attaignant’s Chansons Musicales of 1533 in editions for flute consort by Nancy Hadden, while the lute solos are from roughly contemporary collections by Francesco da Milano, Pierre Phalèse, Hans Newsiedler and Vincenzo Galilei. Neither flautists nor lutanist are happy with obvious repertoire, and they all range far and wide through their chosen sources in search of the less familiar. I remember being struck ten years ago by how accessible this repertoire is and the sound of flutes and lute combined has stuck very firmly in my memory. I am not aware of this CD having a lasting legacy in the form of the formation of rival flute consorts, but it is lovely and thought-provoking to have it re-released in 2024.

D. James Ross

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Stanley: Complete Flute Sonatas

CD cover Stanley Complete Flute Sonatas

Daorsa Dervishi baroque flute, Alessia Travaglini gamba/cello, Nicola Bisooti harpsichord
112:46 (2 CDs in a single jewel case)
Brilliant Classics 96397

The story of this partially-sighted English composer is indeed a remarkable one. In spite of his blindness, or perhaps because of it, he used his remarkable musical memory to be able to perform and direct even complex scores after one hearing. Himself an accomplished organist, he composed voluntaries and concertos for the instrument, spanning the period between the high Baroque style of Handel, with whom he worked extensively, and the Galant style exemplified in London by the music of J C Bach. The eight flute sonatas of his opus 1 and the six sonatas of his opus 4, all of which are recorded here, demonstrate an enormous debt to his mentor Handel, but at the same time express an individual talent and facility with the instrument which should not be overlooked. Anybody who could make a living in the cut-throat musical world of 18th-century London deserves respect, and in these fine performances by Albanian Baroque flautist Daorsa Dervishi and her superb continuo team we hear the considerable charm and musical imagination in these works. Dervishi’s stunning technique and fine declamatory style on her Rottenburgh/Tutz flute are complemented by a warm tone and beautifully clear articulation. These are very enjoyable CDs which will surely also redirect listeners to Stanley’s other music, and the disappointment that of the wealth of music he presumably wrote when in later life he succeeded William Boyce as Master of the Chapel Royal hardly anything survives.

D. James Ross

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In Copisteria del Conte

CD cover In copisteria del conte

Musical delights from the Genoese palazzi
Jacopo Ristori cello and artistic director
136:00 (2 CDs in a card triptych)
Snakewood Editions SCD202401

The arrival of this set took me back to the good old days of the “early music revival” when almost every consignment sent for review contained at least one recording that explored completely new repertoire. These days, with groups driven to devise original “takes” on well-known music that set them apart from the crowd and far less financial support from recording companies, it is quite unusual to come upon a project such as this that champions the obscurity of its material: music from late-18th-century Genoa.

Pretty much the only composer most people will have heard of on the playlist is Boccherini, two of whose sonatas (G. 571 & 579)  open the second disc. Elsewhere, there are violin duets by Barbella (not the one recorder players know!), “contests” for two cellos by Ferrari, two sonatas for psaltery, violin and continuo by Arnaldi, and two string quartets attributed to Pietro Nardini in the sources (copies in the hand of the “conte” of the discs’ title) but most likely composed by Franz Anton Hoffmeister.

Cellist Jacopo Ristori is joined by fellow cellists Viola de Hoog and Gied von Oorschot, violinists Antoinette Lobmann, Giorgos Samoilis and Sara de Vries (who also plays viola in the quartets), Jesse Solway on contrabbasso, Anna Pontz on psaltery and Earl Christy on lute/theorbo. For me, the most musically satisfying pieces were the string quartets; the prominence of the violist in the second was surprising but indicative of advances in that genre at the time. The two psaltery sonatas are interesting for what they are, but the two treble instruments spent too long doubling one another for the material to make any lasting impression. The contests between two cellists are – I imagine – more entertaining in real life than on a recording, with each player trying to outdo the other. Barbella’s violinistic skills are evident from his duets, but they are not in the same league as Leclair’s or even Pleyel’s better contributions to the repertoire. If this all sounds like I’m damning the recording with faint praise, that is not the impression I would like to give; Count Federico Taccoli’s contribution to the dissemination (and, in some cases, survival) of music heard in Genoa in the second half of the 18th century is invaluable. These performances reveal some of it in the best possible light. Ristori and his colleagues are to be complimented and thanked for their pioneering endeavour!

Brian Clark

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Bach: Arias for alto

CD cover Zoltan Darago Bach arias for alto

Zoltan Darago, Les Talens Lyriques, Christophe Rousset
Aparté AP336

Zoltán Daragó is a young Hungarian countertenor who made a name for himself in his homeland as a star in the opera company there at an early age, and sang the title role of the Pharoah in Philip Glass’s opera AKHNATEN in Helsinki when he was just 28.

This CD is a set of splendid arias from the Bach cantatas, put together as a dramatic showcase of the range and diversity of arias for the alto voice. It was recorded in Paris, where Daragó has made his European base, with a period band, Les Talens Lyriques, who are directed by Christophe Rousset, a deservedly well-known Parisian harpsichordist.

This sounds all good. But – and it’s a big but – there are some real oddities. First, I do not care for his voice much – there’s a tight vibrato that means that the instrumental and vocal timbres never meet; and second, some of the wonderful music is really beyond what this style of singing can cope with: In the opening aria from BWV 83, Erfreute Zeit, he barely gets his voice round the semiquavers in tempo while the violin concertato and corni are whooping it up. The third oddity is the enormous size of the band: 6.5.3.4.1 plus another cello in the continuo group is a bit much with traversi, a four-part oboe band, and a couple of corni, and so they are miked down. There’s some splendid playing, like the oboe d’amore obbligato in BWV 115, but the instruments are not conceived as a Bachian band of equal partners so much as an accompanying orchestra.

Perhaps the opening aria of BWV 170, Vergnügte Ruh’, shows Daragó at his best: not hurried, and the ensemble neater. But I still would not rush to buy this CD, however much of a hoped-for calling card this might be.

David Stancliffe

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The Madrigal Reimagined

CD cover The Madrigal Reimagined

Hannah Ely, Toby Carr, Monteverdi String Band, directed by Oliver Webber
63:41
Resonus Classics RES10341

This is an extraordinary CD – an exercise in recreating performance practice for music published around the year 1600, when the seconda prattica was sweeping through the world of song and reinvigorating the old forms with new techniques. Oliver Webber chronicles how the practice of ornamenting the melodic line of a song or a dance tune with diminutions grew from its vocalised beginnings to become the mainstay of what would emerge as the Italian concerto style in the hands of Vivaldi and his contemporaries.

What is so enlightening is that this exploration is about instrumental as much as vocal music. There is indeed vocal music – and Hannah Ely sings stylishly and elegantly – but much of the material is presented instrumentally. After a Canzona by Merulo, a setting of Cruda Amarilli by Johann Nauwach with his own vocal diminutions is followed by Monteverdi’s setting played instrumentally before we come to Cipriano de Rore, the father of the madrigal, where Toby Carr’s sensitive presentation of Anchor che col partire is given in lute intabulation by Emannuel Adriaenssen before we hear it vocalised with diminutions by Giovanni Battista Bovicelli – Ely’s final major third is splendidly tuned – and Webber presents his own diminutions alongside those of Orazio Bassani on Vergine Bella.

The string band (Oliver Webber and Theresa Caudle, violins, Wendi Kelly and David Brooker, alto and tenor viola and Mark Caudle, bass violin) are heard not only with the voice and in canzonas by Merulo and Giovanni Gabrieli, but in Monteverdi’s dance music. His Ballo dell’ingrate is the source not only of the ballo but of the lament Ahi, troppo è duro – introducing the theme of regret at losing this life and the shadowy underworld, the theme that is central to Monteverdi’s Orfeo from which a sequence of numbers concludes this elegant essay in balancing the melodic with the improvisatory which was such an important feature in establishing the new Baroque style. Webber’s diminutions for voice and bass violin on Palestrina’s Vestiva i colli show us how the old world of polyphonic madrigals morphed into the expressive world of the new music. The give and take here as the two listen to one another and exchange ideas reveals a central feature of performance practice in the Baroque – how to ornament a line while keeping your inventiveness within the bounds of what can be imitated: this is still the foundation for J.S.Bach’s two-part inventions 100 years later. Ornamenting a line is only possible of course when there is a single singer or player on each part – something taken for granted throughout the 17th century, I suspect.

I learned a lot not only from the splendid playing and singing on this CD but also by being introduced to novel ways of thinking about the evolution of and interplay between the musical elements that made up the momentous changes that music was undergoing in Italy. Storytelling, the foundation of what was becoming opera, would become public spectacle in the opera theatre of Venice and not just as courtly entertainment in private gatherings and so gripped the imagination in Italy. The combination of recitative and arioso, derived ultimately from the Madrigal, was translated into music of an extraordinary emotional intensity and would lead ultimately to Bach’s great Passion narratives.

Webber’s carefully planned programme is not only a treat to listen to; it also tickles the imagination and stimulates us to think hard about the source and development of the changes that were taking place in music in Italy at the hinge between the 16th and 17th centuries. This is a challenging as well as an elegant programme and I am grateful for having heard it. Webber’s liner notes are stimulating, and include details of the instruments as well as the sources: they are a model for what we need to engage with this stimulating performance.

David Stancliffe

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Fasch: Die Vier Tageszeiten

CD cover Fasch Die vier Tageszeiten L'arpa festante Uhl

Ulrike Hofbauer, Monika Mauch, Georg Poplutz, Thomas Gropper SATB, L’arpa festante, conducted by Markus Uhl
64:54
Christophorus CHR 77480

Johann Friedrich Fasch is today arguably best known for something he didn’t do rather than what he did. In 1723, having recently accepted the position of Kapellmeister at the court of Anhalt-Zerbst, he withdrew his application to become cantor at the Thomaskirche in Leipzig, of which he was an alumnus, apparently because he did not wish to teach Latin. That post ultimately went to J S Bach. What Fasch did do was create a body of compositions, many now lost, that makes Bach’s prodigious output look positively miserly. In addition to a huge number of instrumental works, it includes no fewer than eight cycles of sacred cantatas, having been expected during his tenure in Zerbst (from 1722 until his death in 1758) to provide at least three cantatas for each weekend.

It is not known how much Fasch contributed to a genre that played an important role in the occasional life of an 18th-century court. That was the ceremonial odes or serenatas that were an integral part of the celebration of births, birthdays, marriages and deaths of rulers and their closest kin. In Fasch’s case only two such works survive today, the first celebrating the birthday of Johann August, the ruling prince of Anhalt-Zerbst on 9 August 1723, the second, interestingly, that of the Princess Sophie Augusta Frederica of Anhalt-Zerbst, the future Catherine the Great in 1757. It is the earlier with which we are concerned here.1

Freudenbezeugung der Vier Tageszeiten (Joyful Testimony of the Four Times of Day) is described as a serenata, implying it was given in a dramatic context, although this is not clear. Both words and music were written by Fasch, the text introducing four allegorical figures – Aurora, the morning, Phoebus, noon, Hesperus, the evening, and Cynthia the night – whose panegyrics celebrate Johann August’s birthday. The work is lavishly scored for three trumpets and timpani (who only appear in the final chorus, sung by the soloists), two recorders that have a concertante role in the charming triple-time sleep aria for Cynthia, and oboes, given a concertante part in arias for Aurora. Arias are all in da capo form, while stylistically the music is in the galant style that forms the bridge between the Baroque and Classical. As anyone that has heard any of Fasch’s innumerable suites or concertos knows, his music is never less than enjoyable, melodically highly inventive and frequently displaying felicitous touches of instrumental colour – all features on generous display here.

The performance is dutiful and efficient without ever catching fire. Of the four soloists only soprano Monika Mauch is likely to be familiar outside Germany and here in the alto role of Aurora she is the pick of the soloists singing her single aria with considerable charm. The soprano Ulrike Hofbauer (Cynthia) has a bright, agile voice, but her diction is poor even by the low standards that prevail today. The opening of the central section of the ‘sleep’ aria mentioned above screams for a messa di voce but doesn’t get one, but Hofbauer’s ornamentation is good and she even has a trill. Neither of the male soloists rises above average, while the orchestral playing is proficient but hardly inspired by Markus Uhl’s pedestrian direction. Like so many German Baroque ensembles, L’arpa festante favour fussy, over-indulgent continuo that includes a lute, an instrument that was not on the pay role of the Anhalt-Zerbst court in 1723. I was recently berated by a reader on my Facebook site for complaining about the lack of an essential translation of a text. Well, this also comes with only the German text, but it would be idle to pretend it matters as much here.

The serenata is preceded by a four-movement Fantasia featuring different concertante instruments, including in the Largo (iii) a chalumeau. Full marks here to Uhl for understanding that a Baroque largo does not proceed at a funereal pace.

Brian Robins

  1. Textbooks for many others survive in the library of the Francisceum in Zerbst, now a secondary school but once a renowned university. ↩︎
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Kagami : Mirror

Music by Hume, Marais, Bach, Dollé, Purcell, Couperin
Kaori Uemura gamba, Ricardo Rodríguez Miranda gamba, Aline Zylberajch harpsichord
63:06
Ramée RAM2204

The Japanese viol player Kaori Uemura has chosen the yamato or old Japanese word “kagami” for a mirror as the title of her CD to acknowledge the fact that musicians of the 17th and 18th centuries viewed music as a reflection of the divine. Of the composers represented, Charles Dollé is perhaps the only unfamiliar one. He was active as a gambist in and around Paris in the first half of the 18th century and was much in demand as a teacher and performer. He left a large body of published music for gamba of which Uemura gives us the attractive Premiere Suite from Pieces de Viole avec Basse Continue (1737). In this and the other more familiar music, Uemura’s rich tone, declamatory style and technical dexterity combine with the musicality of the whole ensemble to give us a very enjoyable account of his chosen repertoire. A couple of pieces are arrangements, of which that for solo viol of Dido’s Lament by Purcell is particularly effective and affecting. Although with its visionary title and its prologue, three acts and epilogue this recording seems unnecessarily to aspire to be more than the sum of its parts, what it is is a thoroughly effective programme of familiar and unfamiliar music compellingly played and a joy to listen to.

D. James Ross

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Un clavecin pour Marcel Proust

CD cover Olivier Baumont Un clavecin pour Marcel Proust

Olivier Baumont
46:00
Encelade ECL2204

The idea of a harpsichord for Marcel Proust may at first glance seem like a bit of a historical mismatch between an essentially Baroque instrument and a writer of the late 19th and early 20th century. But of course this is an author in search of times gone by, and harpsichords and harpsichordists make regular appearances in his writings. Olivier Baumont has cleverly sought out these allusions and constructed a programme of the music mentioned as well as pieces ‘in the old style’ by Proust’s friends and fellow enthusiasts for earlier centuries, Reynaldo Hahn and Louis Diémer. Playing appropriately three impressive 20th-century copies of 18th-century original harpsichords, Baumont explores the 19th-century revival of this Baroque repertoire witnessed by Proust and included in his novels. Grouping the music by Rameau, Bach, Scarlatti and Couperin interspersed by pastiches by Anthiome, Hahn and Ravel under the heading of the Proust characters the music is associated with, Baumont constructs a concert programme for an event which never in fact took place on an instrument (Proust’s clavecin) which never actually existed – a very proustian questioning of memory! He is joined by soprano Ingrid Perruche, violinist Pierre-Eric Nimylowycz, and fellow clavecinist Nicolas Mackowiak for what turns out to be a very engaging sequence of music. This CD is very much a flight of fancy of harpsichordist Olivier Baumont and for all it hangs on what in Scotland we would call ‘a bit of a shoogly peg’, his beautiful playing and the thought-provoking juxtaposition of pieces makes for a satisfying and involving experience.

D. James Ross