Tag: Choral music

Eboracum Baroque, Chris Parsons
132:08 (2 CDs in a card triptych)
1 98000 82190 6

If you would like to by this, you can use the Twitter handel @eboracumbaroque

Whenever I am presented with a new version of a frequently-recorded work such as Messiah, my first question has to be what does this performance add to the body of existing recordings? After I have expressed my admiration for this project, conducted under the most difficult pandemic conditions and representative of the sort of ‘can-do’ attitude which has seen us through the worst of Covid restrictions, I have to report that this recording doesn’t really add much at all. Although its virtues are several, the problems with it are – I fear – predominant. It is a reduced-forces performance (the oboes are dropped and everything else is one-to-a-part), by its own admission unlike any performance from Handel’s time, providing us with what the performers hope will be ‘an exciting take on Handel’s masterpiece’. While the singing of a line-up of young soloists, who double as chorus, is generally perfectly presentable and the instrumental playing is effectively detailed, the latter is underpowered and the former is undistinguished – and neither of these features is adequate in a field of superb performances. While audiences would have been forgiving of the occasional blurring due to social distancing in a live performance, this is harder to condone or live with in a recording. Problems are compounded with the ‘popping’ of a mic in several of the choral tracks. I wanted to be more positive about this crowd-funded recording by what is clearly an enterprising and excitingly talented young ensemble out of York University, but perhaps pressing ahead with a recording of an established classic in these far from conducive conditions was a mistake.

D. James Ross

Choeur & Orchestre Marguerite Louise, Gaétan Jarry
77:43
Château de Versailles Spectacles CVS 5052

Click HERE to buy this recording on amazon.co.uk
[These sponsored links are the only way to keep this site free]

Such is Rameau’s renown as an opera composer that today we have a forgivable tendency to forget that the long period of his creative life before the sensational appearance in 1733 of Hippolyte et Aricie was devoted near exclusively to sacred music. As Gaétan Jarry notes in a long and helpful note, Rameau was organist of ‘at least a dozen churches’, though his observation that not a single organ work of Rameau’s has come down to us can almost certainly be explained in one word: extemporisation. Such was its importance as a fundamental of French organ technique that unless someone was on hand to transcribe it such improvisation belonged near exclusively to the moment.  

Unlike Lully and Delalande, Rameau’s output of the major sacred form of the Baroque in France, the grand motet, is small, just four examples considered to be authentic being extant (a fifth, Diligam te has been dismissed from the canon). All four are included on the present disc for the first time. Of these Laboravi clamans, a setting of verse 3 of Psalm 69, is a tiny work (just 73 bars) of uninterrupted counterpoint, its long melismatic lines reflecting its opening line, ‘I am weary of my crying’. The other three motets are on a considerably larger scale, alternating contrasted solo and solo ensemble verses with those for full chorus. Each has its own distinctive character. Quam dilecta tabernacula (‘O how amiable are thy dwellings’, a setting of Psalm 84 (83)), for example, opens with tranquil, luminescent flutes and a soprano solo, sung with vernal freshness by the excellent Maïlys de Villoutreys. It’s a mood broadly sustained throughout the work, a brief excursion for a joyous triple-time contrapuntal chorus at the words, ‘My heart and my flesh rejoice…’ being an exception. In convertendo (‘They that put their trust in the Lord’, Psalm 125 (126) on the other hand has a text that juxtaposes the pain of captivity in Babylon with joy at the prospect of release. In keeping with such ambiguity, it contrasts the exuberant joy of ‘Magnificavit Dominus’ a florid duet for soprano and bass (Villoutreys again superb with the fine bass David Witczak), with, for example, the final movements, a madrigalian solo trio, ‘Qui seminant’ (They that sow in tears) followed by a magnificent chorus that opens with astounding chromatic harmony, a passage as great as anything in the choral works of Handel or Bach. The final and longest motet, Deus noster refugium (God is our refuge, Psalm 46 (45)) has a text filled with vivid imagery that was a gift to a man shortly to become one of the great dramatic composers of the age. One notes among many examples the shuddering strings at ‘the earth is moved’ and the thrilling, surging impetus of the choral writing at ‘The waters roared out …’

As already intimated the performances are outstanding, with the chorus aided by the acoustic of the Chapelle Royale in Versailles achieving a wonderful breadth and depth. All six soloists are first-rate, with special plaudits once again going to haute-contre Mathias Vidal. Jarry’s outstanding ensemble can today be considered among the best of the Baroque ensembles in a country more richly endowed with them than any other.

Brian Robins

Elisabeth Scholl, Julia Grutzka, Larissa Botos, Rebekka Stolz, Fabian Kelly, Julian Clement, Hans Christoph Begemann SSAATBB (only the tenor is common to both discs), Gutenberg Soloists, Neumeyer Consort, Felix Koch
133:43 (2 CDs in a box)
cpo 555 436-2

Click HERE to buy this on amazon.co.uk
[Doing so helps keep this website FREE TO VIEW. These sponsored links are our only source of income!]

From the long-held, slumbering details of illuminating musicology, along with the impetus of Canberra Baroque’s editions, we find a most noble project underway; to record the first ever full cycle of cantatas from a composer known to have written about 20 or so. Some may have had knowledge of just a few “glinting stars” from this major constellation, but gradually we shall be able to experience the whole year’s worth of 72 works. Here alone we have about nine premieres! It opens with the resplendent Jesu meine Freude TVWV1:966 with an eight-part choir (the rest more modest!), sporting some very finely crafted arias – the soprano one has four recorders, while the final bass one mirroring the words with a bell-effect motif in Schlage bald… This is an excellent opening to these versatile and delightfully prismatic cantatas upon which a spotlight is finally being held!

These ten works (mostly from the Lenten period) offer special glimpses into the musical application of a master fusionist, and melodic interpreter. As the cycle’s modern nickname implies, elements of French music have been cleverly imported and interwoven. TVWV1:32 Ach sollte doch die ganze Welt opens with a fine fleeting Overture! There are rondeau-forms and other movements with Gallic flavour and modes. Mostly scored for four vocalists, with another four ripienists and strings, Telemann also applies modest sprinkling of  extra woodwinds, such as in the third aria of TVWV1:678 with no fewer than three bassoons! The Palm Sunday piece (TVWV1:1585, with two oboes) is a most welcome premiere, though some of our readers might recognise the opening and one of the chorales, which Bach lifted for his (pasticcio) Passion Oratorio with a backbone of mostly C. H. Graun’s music, on a previous CPO CD.

This cycle – written a few years after moving from Eisenach to Frankfurt – displays a dazzling array of musical invention and inspiration guided by the famous theologian poet Erdmann Neumeister’s texts. Judging by how many times he undertook the task of setting cycles by this poet with great diligence, this proved a most fruitful collaboration for Telemann .

Right from the start, you feel Felix Koch has mustered an extremely fine team to do justice to these neglected gems of spiritual music with often special twists redolent of France. The Neumeyer Consort is responsive and vibrant with a crisp, alert sound. The Gutenberg Soloists provide really balanced, radiant support to the main soloists! Elizabeth Scholl (who has already shown her mettle as Agrippina in Telemann’s opera, Germanicus), comes to the fore and often gives a striking performance above her peers… with just the occasional tonal sharpness delivered in all earnestness!

All in all, there is an astounding display of a masterful and engaged musical mind at work within these spiritual cantatas. Felix Koch et al are about to place this full “constellation” into the heavens, and it will shine with some intensity, gradually informing all of the inexhaustible musical abilities of one of the baroque’s finest. The 67-page booklet will equally inform all about this most noble and worthy undertaking. Roll on Easter!

David Bellinger

Ensemble Correspondances, Sébastien Daucé
80:20
harmonia mundi HMM 902625

Click HERE to buy this album on amazon.co.uk
[Doing so supports the artists, the record company and keeps this site available – if no-one buys, this ad-free site will disappear…]

Michel-Richard de Lalande (1657-1726) is a rare example of a composer who knew nothing other than success and renown, a favourite of two French kings who served at Versailles for over forty years. Already in his twenties proficient enough to hold the position of organist at no fewer than four Paris churches, he first joined the court in 1683 as one of the sous-maîtres of the chapelle du roi. From there he went on to hold a number of posts culminating not only in leading the royal chapel, but in 1709 his appointment as maître da la musique de la chambre. He therefore became responsible for not only providing and directing the music for the king’s chapel but also providing secular music.

The main vehicle for the music of the royal chapel was the grand motet, a genre developed through composers such Henri Du Mont and Lully, but brought to a glorious fruition by Lalande, who wrote some 75 authenticated examples. Multi-sectional works scored for a substantial chorus and orchestra, the grand motet achieved a richly variegated texture by means of the introduction of solos and contrapuntal ensembles that contrast with the imposing grandeur of the largely homophonic choruses. The three included on this recording are the setting of the hymn Veni creator, composed in 1684, and a text that at Versailles had wider application than its usual Whitsun context, a large-scale and immensely imposing Miserere (Psalm 50) and an equally impressive Dies irae. This last departs from the norm in having been composed not for Versailles but the funeral of the Dauphine Marie-Anne-Christine of Bavaria at Saint-Denis, the historic location of princely funerals, in 1690. It became something of a fixture at state funerals and is believed to have been performed at the funeral of Louis XIV. In addition to the motets the recording sensibly separates the Dies irae and Miserere with a brief sample of Lalande’s secular orchestral music in the form of an extract from one of his Symphonies pour les Soupers du roi.

Over the past few years Sébastien Dauce’s Ensemble Correspondances has established a reputation enviable even in a country at present endowed with more than its fair share of outstanding early music ensembles and performers. The present CD will only enhance that reputation further. Given that the excellence of Daucé’s performers can by now be more or less taken for granted, perhaps the most notable aspect of these performances is the quite extraordinary depth and breadth he brings to the music where appropriate, particularly striking in the slower moving music of the Dies irae where Daucé creates a sublime spaciousness. The listener senses this right at the outset, where the period strings probe profoundly to bite into the rich orchestral texture, an impression only compounded when the profound strength of the opening chorus is added. Yet there is a wonderfully contrasted lightness and luminescence, too, in passages like ‘Quaerens me’ for two sopranos (the outstanding Caroline Weynants and Perrine Devillers). There is also a robust, uplifting vigour where appropriate. This applies especially to the later exuberant verses of Veni creator, brought to a resplendent peroration by the urgent vitality of the final doxology.

There are many, many more examples of the outstanding qualities of the performances that could be brought to notice, but I’ll restrict myself to a couple, the first of which provides a splendid illustration of not only the sheer variety of effect and texture, but also an acute textual awareness on the part of the composer that is one of the great qualities of Lalande’s compositions. In the Miserere the verse ‘Cor mundum’ (Create in me a clean heart, O God) starts with an exquisitely tender solo quartet, madrigalian in its weaving of imitative contrapuntal lines. The second part of the verse brings a greater urgency (‘renew a right spirit within me’) that Lalande responds to with lightfooted, dance-like verve, beautifully caught by Daucé. My other example takes us back to the Dies irae and the longest solo passage of récit and air in any of these works, the four verses commencing at ‘Liber scriptus’ and superbly sung and projected by alto Lucile Richardot, the possessor of a voice with the rare qualities of a genuine contralto.

I’m writing this in mid-January, which might seem a little early to start talking of ‘records of the year’. Notwithstanding I will be more than surprised if this superlative achievement is not way up there in the forefront of candidates.

Brian Robins