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Sheet music

The Works of Henry Purcell: Volume 13

Sacred Music: Part I: Nine anthems with strings
Edited by Margaret Laurie, Lionel Pike and Bruce Wood
Stainer & Bell, 2016.
ISMN 979 0 2202 2347 1; ISBN 978 0 85249 932 0
xxxiii+253 pp.
£75

The anthems in question are:

    Behold, I bring you glad tidings
    Behold, now praise the Lord
    Blessed are they that fear the Lord (John Blow’s organ part is in the appendix)
    I will give thanks unto the Lord
    My beloved spake (two versions!)
    My song shall be alway
    O Lord, grant the King a long life
    They that go down to the sea in ships
    Thy way, O God, is holy

This volume is the last of the revisions of the Purcell Society’s early editions of Purcell’s “symphony anthems”, taking into account new sources and re-assessing all of the old ones. In so doing, the slightly bewildering decision to modernise all of the time signatures has been retained; are we not yet sophisticated enough to deal with the originals? If the editors concede that there is some value in them (perhaps in indicating relative tempi), why confine them to the (added) keyboard part? Similarly contrary is the decision to place the later version of My beloved spake after the original. Less contentious is the lack of any means of showing which text was extrapolated from the sources’ idem marks – some publishers use italics, while others bracket added text. Essentially, anyone seriously wanting to know what Purcell’s manuscripts actually looked like will have to seek them out (easily enough done by using the British Library’s online manuscript pages), but surely a revision of this nature ought to have addressed such issues? To be honest, I’m also slightly disappointed that the line about taking into account new sources seems not entirely to be the case, since the accompanying notes for each anthem list those that were collated and those that weren’t… Nonetheless, this is a beautiful book containing much fine music (of course!), and detailed lists of editorial changes. My overall feeling, though, is similar to how I feel about many infrastructure projects in the UK – why cause so many people inconvenience by adding an extra lane to an arterial road when projections show that in 20 years another will be needed? Will the Purcell Society have to fund someone else to produce another revised version of these anthems to address issues such as I have raised? Or is everyone else happy with such unnecessary modernisation of sources?

Brian Clark

Categories
Sheet music

Early English Church Music

English Thirteenth-century Polyphony
A Facsimile Edition by William J. Summers & Peter M. Lefferts
Stainer & Bell, 2016. Early English Church Music, 57
53pp+349 plates.
ISMN 979 0 2202 2405 8; ISBN 978 0 85249 940 5
£180

This extraordinarily opulent volume (approx. 12 inches by 17 and weighing more than seven pounds – apologies for the old school measurements!) is a marvel to behold. The publisher has had to use glossy paper in order to give the best possible colour reproductions of many valuable manuscripts. The textual part of the volume gives detailed physical descriptions of each, with individual historical and bibliographical information, followed by transcriptions of the (often fragmented) texts. Most are from British libraries, but some are from Germany, Italy, France and the United States. Though much of the material is accessible online, the publishers hope that a physical reproduction can help researchers and stimulate new interest in the repertory. It will certainly make an eye-catching centrepiece for an exhibition! In addition to giving scholars direct access to these invaluable source without having to sit, staring at a computer screen for hours. For all of these reasons, this apparent luxury will readily justify its price tag.

Fifteenth-century Liturgical Music, IX
Mass Music by Bedingham and his Contemporaries
Transcribed by Timothy Symonds, edited by Gareth Curtis and David Fallows
Stainer & Bell, 2017. Early English Church Music, 58
xviii+189pp.
ISMN 979 0 2202 2510 9; ISBN 978 0 85249 951 1
£70

There are thirteen works in the present volume. The first two are masses by John Bedingham, while the others are anonymous mass movements (either single or somehow related). Previous titles in the series have been reviewed by Clifford Bartlett, and I confess this is the first time I have looked at repertory from this period since I studied Du Fay at university! At that time I also sang quite a lot of (slightly later) English music, so I am not completely unfamiliar with it. I was immediately struck by the rhythmic complexity and delighted to see that the editions preserve the original note values and avoids bar lines – one might expect this to complicate matters with ligatures and coloration to contend with, but actually it is laid out in such a beautiful way that everything miraculously makes perfect sense. Most of the pieces are in two or three parts (a fourth part – called “Tenor bassus” – is added to the Credo of Bedingham’s Mass Dueil angoisseux  in only one of the sources). Each is preceded by a list of sources, a note of any previous edition(s), general remarks about the piece, specific notes on texting issues (most interestingly where the editors have chosen to include several syllables or words under long notes), and then musical discrepancies. All in all an exemplary work of scholarship, beautifully presented, and just waiting for someone to take up the challenge of recording this intriguing and beautiful music.

Brian Clark

Categories
Recording

Mendelssohn: Lieder im Freien zu singen

Kammerchor Stuttgart, Frieder Bernius
65:00
Carus 83.287
opp. 41, 48, 59, 88 & 100

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]his recording has filled me with joy since it arrived. Many years ago, my friends and I sang in a group we called The Legrenzi Consort and, after giving a few well-reviewed concerts in and around Dundee, we were invited to sing at the University’s Graduation Garden Party. Since we liked to explore relatively little-known repertoire, and being slightly disappointed that only a handful of people had turned out to hear us sing Monteverdi, I went looking for something different and chanced upon a volume of Mendelssohn’s partsongs in the St Andrews University Library. Now, we were just four singers having a lot of fun, but the fantastic voices of the Kammerchor Stuttgart under Frieder Bernius are quite another proposition, but I’d like to think that we shared at least one thing – a total love of the music. Singing this repertoire has become slightly old fashioned, but this new CD from Carus will hopefully convince choirs around the world to take up the cause. Mendelssohn writes fabulously well for voices; with the Sing-Akademie zu Berlin at his disposal, he had ample opportunity to hear his output performed, and it is reassuring to read in R. Larry Todd’s illuminating notes that these sets of songs were intended to for outdoor performance! I shall continue to enjoy listening to this excellent recording for a long time to come – each time I do, I feel a little happier than I did before.

Brian Clark

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Recording

Isaac: Nell tempo di Lorenzo de’ Medici & Maximilian I

I. Dalheim, K. Mulders, P. Bertin, D. Sagastume, V. Sordo, Ll. Vilamajö, D. Hernández, M. Savazza, Ch. Immler, P. Stas, La Capella Reial de Catalunya, Herspèrion XXI, Jordi Savall
76:06
AVSA9922

[dropcap]I[/dropcap] find this disc tiresome. It contains fine music by one of the best composers of his day, performed by capable musicians. Yet if it were a meal, it would come over-seasoned to conceal an underlying blandness. There is too much contrived beauty or animation or suavity at the expense of the music itself – a sort of early music for airports. Bells are so ubiquitous that they become comical in their incongruity. Then to begin dolorous choral works there is the cliché of the funereal drum, beside the rather desperate jollity of some of the instrumental pieces. Sustinuimus is a lovely motet overlarded with an unnecessary accompaniment of assorted winds and strings, bowed and plucked. Innsbruch  is downright slushy, with too many different arrangements crammed into the one piece. Worst of all is Quis dabit  in which the fussy arrangement distracts from the merits of this fine if doleful work: shades of Glenn Miller from the accompanying instrumental ensemble, irritating percussion, fidgety alternating solo and full vocal passages, and tastefully exaggerated lamenting on the part of the singers. Isaac’s music can stand tall without this overindulgent treatment. The two following tracks are cut from the same cloth: more bells bong in the exquisite and undeserving Sancti spiritus, then Angeli, archangeli  rambles on while the sonneur has a field day. And so on, past an achingly, self-consciously beautiful Circumdederunt me  to the final track with the full String of Pearls treatment in the accompaniment, further fidgeting between solo and full choral passages, and enough tings and dings from the sonneur to render Evelyn Glennie envious. In all reluctant humility I entirely understand that many people will find a disc of this sort most attractive, and if it is going to draw folk to Isaac’s music, as presumably Sting’s disc drew folk to Dowland, then well and good; there is room for this sort of presentation, so long as there are recordings of Isaac’s music that let it speak, or sing, for itself, rather than as some in the 21st-century wish to attire it. Oh, noisy bells, be dumb.

Richard Turbet

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Recording

Jean Paul Egide Martini: Requiem pour Louis XVI. et Marie Antoinette

[Corinna Schreiter, Martin Platz, Markus Simon STB], Festivalchor Musica Franconia, La Banda, Wolfgang Riedelbauch
73:46
Christophorus CHR 77413
+ Gluck: De Profundis

[dropcap]S[/dropcap]ymbolism hangs heavily over the music on this CD. The restitution of the Bourbon monarchy marked the start of attempts to cleanse France of the stain of revolution and Napoleonic imperialism. One of the earliest politically potent acts was the re-interment of Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette. It was conducted with elaborate ceremony on 28 January 1816 in the cathedral of Saint Denis, north of Paris, the traditional resting place of French monarchs. A week earlier, on the anniversary of the execution of the king, the same venue had hosted a specially commissioned Requiem Mass. The choice of composer was also highly symbolic. Had it not been for the onset of the revolution in 1788, Jean Paul Egide Martini (1741-1816), today best known as the composer of ‘Plaisir d’amour’, would have become surintendent de la musique du roi, an appointment finally confirmed more than a quarter of a century later. The composition of the Requiem would prove to be one of his final acts, for he died only three weeks after its performance. The following year a rather better known commemorative Requiem, that in C minor by Martini’s successor, Luigi Cherubini, was commissioned for the anniversary.

Martini’s work is planned on a large-scale in twelve movements. It is designed for soprano, tenor and bass soloists, chorus and an orchestra including trumpets, trombones and a tam-tam, an instrument that found its way into funeral music during the Revolutionary period (Berlioz enthusiasts will not need reminding he used three in his Requiem Mass). Despite such implications, such assertive instruments are employed sparingly, but often to compelling dramatic effect, as in ‘Tuba mirum’, where trumpet fanfares play a part in effecting the building of successive climaxes that remind us that Martini was an experienced opera composer. The main heft of the work, both in terms of timing and weight, is in fact to be found in the opening Requiem aeternam  and Dies irae  movements, some of the briefer later sections apparently demonstrating a lack of real substance.

I write ‘apparently’ since any final verdict on the piece must be tempered given the well-intentioned, but ultimately inadequate performance on offer. It stems from a live performance given in Martini’s birthplace, Freystadt in Bavaria (though both his parents were French). The chorus is an enthusiastic, but not very disciplined amateur group, the ensemble of which is poor and whose entries are frequently ragged. The best of the soloists is the tenor, whose singing in the lyrical duet Ingemisco is good. But among the soloists he has the least to do and both soprano and bass are mediocre, the latter at times being woefully off-pitch. The period instrument orchestral playing is on a higher plain, but I can imagine more inspiring direction. The final nail in the coffin is an opaque recording that renders the choral sound as an unintelligible pudding and sloppy English notes that have obviously not been proofread: the Battle of Waterloo was fought in 1815, not 1825, Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were executed nine months apart, not on the same day, and far from being ‘exactly a year after the execution’ 21 January 1816 was 23 years after it.

Brian Robins

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Recording

M. Praetorius: Gloria sei dir gesungen

Choral concerts after hymns by Luther, Nicolai and others
Gli Scarlattisti, [Capella Principale,] Jochen Arnold
71:41
Carus 83.482

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]his CD is a product of the Reformation anniversary, and is devoted to elaborate settings of chorales, with texts mainly by Luther, by Michael Praetorius. His German Magnificat is the centerpiece, and the collection begins and ends with settings of well-known chorales Wie schön leuchtet die Morgenstern  and Wachet auf  by Nicolai. The order of the pieces chosen seems somewhat arbitrary rather than following a scheme like the Liturgical Year, for example; Arnold gives us a rationale in his liner notes, but I am not convinced.

The singing is frequently charming – listen to the two sopranos with the pair of violins in the opening of Nun freut euch  (5), though this number is pitched slightly higher than is comfortable for one of them, and the male alto in Halleluja Christ ist erstanden  is below par – but not up to the clarity and blend we expect these days for music of this period from such groups as Vox Luminis or the Gesualdo Consort. Gli Scarlattisti (6.6.5.4) was founded by Jochen Arnold in 1995, and from the photo in the booklet I imagine that many of them are the founder members. And while perfectly competent in this music, the sound of the full choir sometimes overbalances the instrumental group, who are miked as if placed in a strictly ‘accompanimental’ role instead of being treated as equal partners. This treatment gives us a stylistically slightly old-fashioned feel of soloists, choir and accompaniment instead of being at the forefront of today’s HIP.

That said, I found much to enjoy – not least being the value of hearing a whole recital of these rich and inventive polychoral settings. I would have been helped by some more detailed notes on pitch and tuning – I suspect that the pieces were being performed at A=465, which is why the sopranos sounded occasionally beyond their comfort zone – as well as the instrumental scoring of each verse. And the single organ was a small box organ, I think. I hope we may get more Praetorius this Reformation year, and it would be good if Vox Luminis did a companion CD to their fine Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott: Luther and the Music of the Reformation  which in performance terms is in a different class to this worthy but rather dull performance.

David Stancliffe

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Sheet music

Francesco Foggia: Masses

Edited by Stephen R. Miller
A-R Editions, Recent Researches in the Music of the Baroque Era, B193
xxiv + 2 facsmilies + 354pp, $245.00
ISBN 978-0-89579-844-2

[dropcap]O[/dropcap]ther than Stephen R. Miller, I must be among the only people on the planet actively publishing Foggia’s music; in fact, I had already started work on an edition of one of the pieces in the present volume (his parody mass on Palestrina’s Tu es Petrus  for nine voices). I had decided to explore mid-17th-century Italian music outside Venice, since it seemed to me odd that there were huge gaps in the available music, as if there were no composers worthy of consideration between Monteverdi and Vivaldi.

Foggia held many important positions in Rome and his considerable published legacy reflects that. Miller has chosen six representative masses: the Missa Andianne à premer latte, e coglier fiori  (ATB, continuo – based on the madrigal of that name by Pomponio Nenna), the Missa Corrente  (SATB, continuo), the Missa La piva  (SSATB, continuo), a Missa sine nomine (1663, SSATB, continuo), the Missa Exultate Deo  (SSATB, continuo)and the aforementioned Missa Tu es Petrus  (SSATB, SATB, continuo). The four-voice Missa Corrente  was reprinted as a Missa brevis and it omits the Benedictus.

Foggia was a skilled contrapuntalist with a strong sense of the overall shapes of his works; juxtaposing close imitation with homophonic (often triple time) passages holds the listener’s attention. Miller has done a fine job of editing these six masses, though I question his decision to treat alla breve  cut C as two-minim bars in some pieces and four-minim bars in others, while retaining a uniform three-semibreve bar for triplas, and even more so his decision not to transpose the Missa Tu es Petrus  down from its original printed chiavette  pitch (the lowest note currently is the C below middle C…)

I hope A-R Editions will release each of the masses separately so that small groups and choirs can perform this music and enjoy it – the volume is simply too expensive and too unwieldy for use in church or concert hall.

Brian Clark

Categories
Recording

Schütz: Johannespassion

Jan Kobow Evangelist, Harry van der Kamp Christus, Dresdner Kammerchor, Hans-Christoph Rademann
56:16
Carus 83.270
+Ach Herr, du Sohn Davids SWV-Anhang 2, Litania, Unser Herr Jesus Christus SWV496

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]his excellent projected edition of the complete works of Schütz reaches volume 13 and the composer’s St John Passion. A superb line-up of soloists and exquisitely accurate and idiomatic singing by this first-class German chamber choir have produced authoritative accounts of some of the composer’s lesser-known masterpieces, and the series has grown in authority as it has progressed. The CD opens with Schütz’s lovely setting of the Litania ‘Kyrie eleison’, an unfamiliar gem of the highest order of invention, beautifully sung by the soloists and choir and unbelievably receiving its premiere recording here. It concludes with two haunting motets, Unser Herr Jesus Christus in der Nacht  and Ach Herr, du Sohn Davids, another gem receiving its premiere recording. The Passion itself, of course, consists for liturgical reasons largely of unaccompanied recitative, which for those expecting Schütz’s evocative polyphony throughout may sound a little bare. In fact, the excellent Jan Kobow as the Evangelist and Harry van der Kamp as a compellingly expressive Jesus keep the momentum going, and the Johannespassion is at least interspersed with a number of choral interjections. If this liturgical peculiarity prevents Schütz’s Passion settings from numbering among his most admired works, as for example those of J. S. Bach do, it is important to understand their role in the composer’s output, and the stunning effect when the choir chimes in with polyphony after an extended monophonic episode is truly powerful. Besides which there is more than enough stunning polyphony to enjoy on this CD. Brief mention should be made, beside the excellent soloists and choir, of the continuo team, who, of course, play no part in the Passion, but have made a consistently valuable contribution to the project.

D. James Ross

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Recording

Vaet: Sacred Music

Dufay Ensemble, Eckehard Kiem
224:50 (4 CDs in a plastic box)
Brilliant Classics 95365

[dropcap]J[/dropcap]acobus Vaet had the misfortune to fall out of favour twice. A prominent composer in the middle of the 16th century, he ended up as imperial Kapellmeister in Vienna, although like all but a handful of his contemporaries he lapsed into obscurity within fifty years. Curious then that it was Vaet whom Friedrich Blume chose to feature beside the great Josquin in the opening 1929 volume of his seminal Das Chorwerk. Sadly where the latter went on to be completely rehabilitated, the former somewhat sank back into obscurity. This four CD set of his choral works, a drop in the ocean of his large output but a generous helping nonetheless, serves to outline his strengths and weaknesses by providing a representative cross-section of his sacred music. This proves not to be an unalloyed delight for a couple of reasons. The Roches’ authoritative Dictionary of Early Music  describes Vaet’s early work as ‘solidly imitative’, and this is true of a fair percentage of the music recorded here, before we get into the later, more daring repertoire influenced by Lassus (and perhaps, as the programme note claims, the Venetians, although I found this harder to pin down). The polychoral repertoire is to my ear the most successful, particularly the Lassus-like setting of Ferdnande imperio, while the rather extravagant claims made in Peter Quantrill’s programme note for his mastery of dissonance seem to me a little overblown. The other slight drawback to this set is that the singing is not quite as confidently accurate as it might be – perhaps the main reason why the project has appeared on the budget Brilliant Boxes label. A lot of the singing sounds tentative and a bit workaday, and there is some distinctly uncomfortable intonation. This is a pity, but together with the decidedly patchy quality of the music it makes this set an informative resource rather than a listening delight. Having said that, many of the works here are receiving their premiere recordings, so anybody genuinely particularly interested in the music of Vaet or more generally in the repertoire of the Renaissance Viennese Hofkapelle will want to invest.

D. James Ross

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Recording

A. Scarlatti: Passio Secundum Johannem

Giuseppina Bridelli [Evangelist], [Salvo Vitale Jesus], Millenium Orchestra, Choeur de Chambre de Namur, Leonardo García Alarcón
57:30
Ricercar RIC378

[dropcap]Y[/dropcap]ou have to read almost to the end of the booklet to discover that this is a composite work, created for this live performance by the director by inserting six of the Responsori per la Settimana Santa  from a bound collection of Scarlatti’s Holy Week music held in Bologna into his better known John Passion which can be reliably dated to 1685 in Naples.

This accounts for the abrupt change in style between the sombre polyphonic motet-style insertions and the continuous, narrative-based semi-operatic setting of the Vulgate text of John’s Passion. In this performance the Evangelist is a mezzo soprano, singing in a relatively strict measure with other characters and turbae  interjections. In this mix of recitative and arioso, it is mostly the chorus and the Christus that have the string accompaniment after the opening section. An attempt to colour the narrative and make it more dramatic by introducing changes of instrumentation into the substantial continuo line – cello, double bass, theorbo, archlute, triple harp, bass viol, organ and harpsichord – is only partially successful in making the Passion more dramatic and fluid. The text is predominantly set in major keys, with none of the modal flavour that makes the Germanic Passion narratives so antiquely ambivalent and soul-searching. This just sounds like post-Cavalli on a dull day.

It is partly that the singers – all bar two of whom are drawn from the well-prepared and well-known chorus – are not really specialists in this kind of music, so the effect is rather dated, and the vocal characterization and fluency we now expect from HIP performances just isn’t there.

As you can tell, I do not find this work – in this performance – a transformative experience. But recordings of Alessandro Scarlatti’s Passion secundum Johannem  are not that common, so while I prefer the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis version with Rene Jacobs under Fritz Neff, I’m glad to have heard it.

David Stancliffe

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