Tag: Choral music

Early Opera Company, conducted by Christian Curnyn
99:22 (2 CDs)
Chandos CHSA0408(2)

The story of Jephtha and his rash vow to sacrifice the first person from his household he encounters on his return from battle if God will support his military action is known in music chiefly through the brief, but renowned 17th century oratorio by Carissimi (c.1648) and Handel’s eponymous final oratorio composed in 1751. To them can be added the version composed by Maurice Greene, the leading English composer during much of the period Handel was domiciled in London. Greene’s Jephtha appeared in 1737, but exact details of its earliest performance(s) remain shrouded in mystery. In his notes, Peter Lynan, who produced the edition used in the present performance, dismisses the theory that Jephtha was first given at the King’s Theatre during Lent 1737, no evidence for a public performance existing until its modern revival in 1997.

As with Handel’s setting, Greene’s libretto was the work of a clergyman, John Hoadley. However, the inexperienced Hoadley’s book is poor stuff compared with Thomas Morell’s, couched in stilted verse – ‘It is decreed, And I must bleed’ – and clumsily constructed. It also lacks any hint of the kind of dramatic element achieved by Morell’s fleshing out of the basic story with additional characters, while supplying a redemptive conclusion in which Jephtha’s daughter is dedicated to rather than sacrificed to God. Greene’s Jephtha is written for just four characters: Jephtha himself, his unnamed daughter (Iphis in the Handel) and two Elders of Gilead, the first a bass, the second a tenor. Like most oratorios of the period, it is cast in two parts (or acts; Handel’s is in three) and of course there is a substantial role for the chorus, Curnyn’s here being one of the successes of the performance. Like much else in the score, they cannot totally escape the taunt so often levelled at Greene that he was merely a lesser Handel. As so often with such lazy labels, there is plenty of evidence that the Englishman was his own man and we might at times more advantageously look back to Purcell. I’d suggest as an example the chorus that ends Part 1, ‘God of Hosts’. Here the reiterated war-like cries of ‘strike, strike’ have a distinctly Purcellian flavour. The final chorus is interesting, too. Since there is no redemption, the daughter’s death will happen, but unlike the sublimely tragic and bitterly chromatic chorus that concludes Carissimi’s Jephte, Greene’s follows a broad, throbbing course that is not so much tragic as understated, while reaching a peroration of real beauty. It is somehow very English.

Thanks are certainly owed to Christian Curnyn and his Early Opera Company forces for this first recording. Sadly, such gratitude must be tempered with the conclusion that Curnyn’s performance is lacking the kind of persuasive qualities needed to revive such a work. His direction overall is prosaic and lacking dramatic purpose. Too often tempos are sluggish and although the orchestral playing is neat and tidy it lacks spirit, while the almost certainly spurious inclusion of a theorbo in the continuo is greatly exacerbated by the narcissistic inclination of the player to be heard as clearly as possible as often as possible. The best of the soloists is the First Elder of bass Michael Mofidian, splendidly vibrant and producing some impressive low notes. Andrew Staples’s Jephtha is neatly and reasonably stylishly sung, but his lyric tenor is too small to convey the authority of the character, who was a renowned war leader. Mary Bevan’s Daughter lacks control in the upper register, though she is affecting in her beautiful final air, ‘Let me awhile defer my Fate’, with, to this listener at least, its affinity with Handel’s ravishing duet ‘As steals the morn’ from L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato, which postdates Greene’s Jephtha by three years.

Even if it cannot match the Handel, one of his greatest creations, Greene’s Jephtha contains much fine music and if we ever start to place some value on our 18th-century English musical heritage, it will doubtless occupy a valued place.

Brian Robins

Complete Cantatas for two sopranos and bass
Marie Luise Werneburg, Hanna Zumsande, Dominik Wörner, Kirchheimer BachConsort, directed by Florian Heyerick
78:43
cpo 555 557-2

Best known to history as one of the many failed applicants for the job of Thomaskantor in Leipzig when Bach secured the post, he first came to my attention as the composer of some of the earliest concertos for chalumeaux. The fact that Graupner spent fifty years composing for the court in Darmstadt meant that most of his compositions are on the modest scale befitting a court chapel – one of the main reasons he failed to secure the Leipzig job – while he was largely overlooked by ensuing generations. These cantatas for two sopranos and bass voices with strings and occasionally wind, although sadly not chalumeaux, are charming compositions making imaginative use of their limited forces. The singers on this CD seem to be enjoying Graupner’s idiomatic vocal turn of phrase, and respond intelligently and musically to his innate sense of drama. The strings and wind play one to a part, allowing for an admirable clarity and reflecting the likely custom in the modest context of Darmstadt. Graupner was only J S Bach’s senior by two years, but their music is very different indeed, and this attractive CD of Graupner’s church music underlines the variety of styles employed by German composers at the time. It is interesting to think how a lifetime composing church music in Darmstadt contributed to Graupner’s very sure compositional hand and rich musical vocabulary, and also allows us to engage in some gratuitous what-ifs had the decision of the Thomaskirche committee gone in another direction.

D. James Ross

Isabel Schicketanz, Elizabeth Mücksch, Britta Schwarz, Tobias Hunger, Christoph Pfaller, Tobias Bendt SSATTB, Collegium Vocale Leipzig, Merseburger Hofmusik, Michael Schönheit
106:34 (2 CDs in a box)
cpo 555 365-2

A slightly older contemporary of J S Bach and Handel, Georg Friedrich Kauffmann has passed under the radar for a number of reasons, being born, living and dying in relative obscurity. Four decades spent composing for the court and chapel in Merseburg must have resulted in many more sacred pieces than have survived, all of which appear on this 2CD set. To compound Kauffmann’s ill fortune, several boxes of his music were sent to Dresden, where they were subsequently consumed by the firestorm which destroyed much of the city towards the end of WWII. One tantalising what-if in Kauffmann’s career was his application for the post of Thomaskantor in nearby Leipzig. If the committee preferred the slightly younger J S Bach, it seems a little unfair that Kauffmann has suffered from this comparison with the great Bach ever since. The present recording has mustered excellent forces from Merseburg and Leipzig to present highly impressive accounts of Kauffmann’s surviving oeuvre, opening with an undoubted masterpiece, the oratorio ‘Rüstet euch, ihr Himmelschören’ for six soloists, four-part choir and a large orchestra with trumpets and drums. This piece, surely not the only such piece he wrote, but sadly the only one to survive, speaks to the resources of the Saxe-Merseburg court but also to the inventiveness and imagination of the composer in his deft handling of these lavish forces. Equally adept in his handling of the large vocal and instrumental forces is the director of these performances Michael Schönheit. He and his impressive line-up of musicians are not content to produce a big sound, but provide wonderfully nuanced accounts of Kauffmann’s music. Expressive solo singing and beautifully defined choral contributions are effectively complemented with precise and musical instrumental support. The rest of the two CDs is devoted to Kauffmann’s surviving cantatas, again surely a tiny remnant of what must have once existed. Certainly, the composer’s facility with this form suggests considerable experience, and these surviving works range in scale from solo cantatas to one which matches the oratorio. Having heard some of Kauffmann’s sacred music serving as concert and CD ‘fillers’, the present collection featuring his entire body of sacred music and in first-class performances serves to shine a spotlight on this neglected master and allows his music to shine in its own right.

D. James Ross

Soloists, Coro e Orchestra Ghislieri, conducted by Giulio Prandi
73:01
Naïve OP8564

The mammoth undertaking that is the Vivaldi Edition moves on to another series within the series, this time devoted to sacred choral music. In this case, that is a bit of a misnomer given that the present CD includes three works that do not feature a chorus. While some elements of the Edition are unique documents – the complete operas particularly come to mind – intégrales of the sacred works have been undertaken previously by Philips and Hyperion. However, even on the first disc, there are two works that were not included in either of the earlier sets simply because they are recent discoveries. In a customarily scholarly note, Vivaldi expert Michael Talbot describes the Dixit Dominus, RV 807 as ‘the largest and most important new sacred work by the composer to have emerged in the last twenty years’. The last of the three settings of the Vespers psalm composed by Vivaldi, Talbot suggests a date of around 1732. He points to the high quality of the work, rightly drawing particular attention to ‘De torrente’, where the mimetic evocation of the constant murmuring of the brook acts as a foundation for the long cantabile lines of the alto soloist, Margherita Maria Sala, described here as a mezzo but more accurately a rich-toned contralto with a timbre not unlike that of the great French alto Lucile Richardot.

Sala also sings the other recently rediscovered work, the motet Vos invito barbaræ faces, RV 811. Scored for solo alto, strings and continuo it consists of two extremely contrasted arias placed either side of a plain recitative and is concluded by the customary bravura Alleluia. The opening is an aria agitata urging battle against the forces of evil, which are compared to wild beasts, while the second gently welcomes the worthwhile wounds sustained in the battle.

Sala also has a prominent role in the Magnificat in G minor, RV 611, a work composed for the Pietà in Venice originally around 1715, but later considerably revised; it is the final version that is recorded here. She is particularly effective in the exquisite ‘Sicut locutus est’, where the long, beautifully sustained cantabile line culminates in a cadential trill, an ornament otherwise sadly lacking. Overall RV 611 is a work fully deserving of its place as one of Vivaldi’s most popular sacred work. From the chromatically-inflected opening chorus through the exuberant and well-executed soprano solo ‘Et exultavit’ and the succeeding ‘Quia respexit’, also a soprano solo, the work exudes a heart-warming expression of humility.

It’s a quality that fits well with Giulio Prandi’s approach to this music, his performances particularly notable for their warm affection and the space he is prepared to allow the music, a welcome change from the driving rhythmic impetus and virtuosity so often sought by conductors in this repertoire. Of the works not so far mentioned, Sanctorum meritis, RV 620 is a hymn, alternate verses being set, it being assumed that the intervening verses were intoned by the priest. It is sung here by soprano Carlotta Colombo (not the alto, as claimed by Talbot), whose fresh, youthful-sounding voice and agile technique are a pleasure throughout, though on this evidence she needs to improve her articulation of ornaments. Confitebor tibi, Domine, RV 596, a setting of the Vespers Psalm 110, is unique among Vivaldi’s sacred works in being the only one scored for a trio of solo voices, here alto, tenor and bass, its main interest coming from the contrapuntal interweaving of the three soloists.

This is an excellent start to coverage of the sacred works, a mini-series to which I imagine that Prandi and his accomplished forces will contribute a major role.

Brian Robins