Tag: Classical

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Sheet music

Joseph Fiala Quartet in B-flat major for Oboe, Violin, Viola and Cello

Pink chrysanthemum

Score and parts, first print, edited by Peter Wuttke (DM 1477)
Doblinger: Diletto Musicale. 22pp + 4 parts.

[dropcap]F[/dropcap]iala was born in 1748 and died in 1816. He was taught oboe and the cello near Prague and later moved to Munich, Salzburg, Vienna, and finally – after various further travels – settled as a cellist at Donaueschingen. He was familiar with Mozart, and was solo cello in the first Salzburg performance of Il Seraglio.

I’ve no experience of Fiala, but I find this quartet for oboe, violin, viola and cello impressive, as far as it goes. But there’s a gap from bar 74 of the first movement: bars 75-164 are omitted. There is then a completely editorial Menuetto, with no basis for it’s presence. The first section of the third and last movement (Rondo poco Andante 2/2 – where does the heading come from?) is interrupted by a 6/8 Allegro beginning at bar 88, before the movement resumes at bar 104: the remaining 26 bars have no close relationship with the first 20. I was struck when I played through the first movement, especially the exposition, which is varied and very impressive: I can understand that the editor longed to complete it, but there are no grounds for completely inventing most of the work. It could be an interesting adaptation by a student, but hardly worth publication. Since it is published, it should be ascribed to Fiala and Wuttke. Meanwhile, I’ll keep my ears open for Fiala’s other oboe quartets. The volume is available from Universal Edition, 48 Great Marlborough Street in London, at £19.50.

Clifford Bartlett

Categories
Recording

Leone: 6 sonates pour mandoline et basse continue – Livre 1 (1767)

Modern floral

Ensemble Spirituoso (Florentino Calvo baroque mandolin, Maria Lucia Barros harpsichord, Philippe Foulon “viole d’Orphée” and “violoncelle d’amour“, Leonardo Loredo de Sá baroque guitar, Ana Yépes castanets)
No total timing given
Arion PV715011

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he modern 4-course Neapolitan mandoline, tuned in fifths like a violin, with metal strings and played with a quill or plectrum, has its origins in the 1740s. Little is known about Gabriele Leone (c. 1725-c.1790), who was one of the earliest virtuosi for that instrument. There is even some confusion with regard to his first name: he referred to himself only as Signor Leoni de Naples. His music was published in London and Paris, where he performed to much acclaim in the 1760s.

The six sonatas from Leone’s Livre 1, are in the gallant or rococo style, mostly cheerful, though with frequent changes of mood, unexpected shifts of harmony and chromaticism, brief switches to triplets, crushed notes (track 16) and so on, which would catch many an inattentive ear. The second movement of the first sonata (larghetto) has a passage of heavy bass notes and ends after a solo cadenza; the third movement (presto en rondeau) begins with a delicate passage with the mandoline alone, before perking up with the rondeau theme, when the harpsichord and bass jump in; the music switches twice to D minor, the second time with much accelerando. In tracks 9, 12 and 18 the the group is augmented with Leonardo Loredo de Sá adding rhythmic punch as he strums his baroque guitar, and in tracks 9 and 12 with Ana Yepes, who clops away on her castanets.

One interesting aspect of this CD is the contribution of Philippe Foulon, who has collaborated with others to reconstruct little-known, obsolete bowed instruments from the 18th century. On this CD he plays the viole d’Orphée (described by Michel Corrette in 1781) and the violoncelle d’amour (otherwise known as the violoncello all’inglese). Unfortunately it is not clear from the liner notes which instrument he is playing at any one time.

All the musicians play well, in particular the mandolinist Florentino Calvo, who is impressive throughout, yet there is something unsettling in the overall sound. The instruments do not seem to blend well, and the balance is not always good. Foulon’s two bass instruments and Maria Lucia Barros’ harpsichord are sometimes too loud for the softer mandoline. Barros adds much melodic material with her right hand, but what can enhance the mandoline one minute, can also appear to compete with it the next. Despite these cavils, this is an entertaining CD, which gives a welcome insight into Leone’s popular concerts in Paris.

Stewart McCoy

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Categories
Festival-conference

Festival de musique Chaise-Dieu – 22nd to 30 August 2015

Pink chrysanthemum

[dropcap]S[/dropcap]ituated at nearly 1100 metres on a promontory in the Haute-Loire, the small village of La Chaise-Dieu is dominated by the massive Benedictine abbey of St Robert. Founded in 1043, the present building dates from the 14th century, when it was built under the patronage of Pope Clement VI, who is buried in the abbey.

Today La Chaise-Dieu is best known as the venue of a music festival begun almost half a century ago with a single recital given by the great Hungarian pianist György Cziffra. From such modest beginnings the festival has developed into an event that in 2015 was spread over nine days during which more than 50 events took place. The festival was one of the first to embrace early music and period instrument performance and, while by no means restricted to such repertoire, a significant number of concerts fall into that context. Many, in keeping with the festival’s focus on sacred music, take place in the vast abbey church, but in more recent years the festival has broadened beyond the confines of Chaise-Dieu to other venues, including the historic town of Le Puy-en-Velay. In 2016 a central pillar of the festival’s 50th anniversary will be a performance of Monteverdi’s 1610 Vespers in the town’s famous pilgrimage cathedral.

Among notable early music visitors this summer were the countertenor Max Emanuel Čenčič, whose ‘Art of the Castrato’ programme included works by Rossi, Porpora, Leo and Handel, La Chapelle Rhénane under Benoît Haller (Bach Mass in B minor), María Cristina Kiehr with Concerto Soave (Purcell), and the concert I was able to hear on my first visit to Chaise-Dieu, given in the abbey church on 26 August by the choir Accentus and the Insula Orchestra under their founder and director, Laurence Equilbey.

The programme consisted of three works, the Miserere in C minor of Zelenka, Mozart’s Solemn Vespers, K339, and the C. P. E. Bach Magnificat, the soloists for the latter two works being Judith van Wanroij (s), Renata Pokupić (a), Reinoud van Mechelen (t), and Andreas Wolf (b). Doubtless to compensate for the vast space she had to fill, Equilbey employed unusually large choral and orchestral forces for this repertoire. While perhaps not ideal this worked well enough for the Zelenka and Mozart, but in the Bach Equilbey was unable to avoid an impression of a certain unwieldiness in passages such as ‘Et misericordia’. Elsewhere there was much to admire; the opening ‘Magnificat’ was imbued with impressive dynamic energy, as indeed the initial urgent ‘Miserere’ of Zelenka’s imposing and agreeably eccentric tripartite setting been earlier. ‘Fecit potentiam’ had splendid authority in the hands of the outstanding Wolf, while Pokupić was wonderfully sensitive in ‘Suscepit Israel’.

Most satisfying of all was the Mozart, given a performance that at once confirmed the impression given by Equilbey’s CD of the Requiem that she is that rare beast, a born Mozartian. Absence of mannerism, beautifully judged tempos and balance in both chorus and orchestra, allied to fine playing and choral singing and a fine line-up of soloists all went to contributing as satisfying a performance of the work as one is likely to encounter. Laudate pueri was notable for the clarity with which the contrapuntal texture was laid out, while Judith van Wanroij shaped Laudate Dominum with exquisite taste and a lack of sentimentality underpinned by Equilbey’s sensitive direction. Laurence Equilbey and her forces will be bringing the same programme to the Barbican Centre on 21 September. London concert goers should not miss it.

Brian Robins

Categories
Recording

Haydn: Klaviertrios

Pink chrysanthemum

Boyan Vodenitcharov fortepiano, François Fernandez violin, Rainer Zipplering cello
62:08
Flora 0805
Hob. XV:10, 18, 21 & 23

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]hese delightful performances of four witty works by Haydn were recorded in 2005. The interplay between the three musicians (even though the cellist does little more than reinforce the bass line – and sustain it when necessary, of course) is excellent – listen to the unisono opening to Track 7, and then contrast it with the snippets of melody tossed back and forth between the violin and the right hand of the keyboard part. The recording is lively and captures all the excitement. Like other reviewers, I am slightly frustrated by Flora’s minimal notes (here restricted to a lengthy quotation – only in German – from the composer himself) but, as I have written before, sometimes the music (and this line-up’s contagious enjoyment of it) should simply speak for itself; if I need more information, I can always read a book!

Brian Clark

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Categories
Recording

The Oriental Miscellany: Airs of Hindustan

compiled and arranged by William Hamilton Bird
Jane Chapman harpsichord, Yu-Wei Hu flute
74:14
signum classics SIGCD415
+W. H. Bird: Sonata for harpsichord & flute

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]his is an intriguing recording, providing insight into Anglo-Indian cultural exchange in the late 18th century but also raising questions about cultural appropriation under colonial rule. The Miscellany was published in Calcutta in 1789 (and in Edinburgh in 1805) and dedicated to Warren Hastings, whose own attempts to work with Indian culture led to his impeachment. One of the contributors may have been the harpsichordist Margaret Fowke, long based in Calcutta and quoted as writing patronisingly in a letter: ‘I have often made the musicians tune their instruments to the harpsichord that I might join their little band. They always seemed delighted with the accompaniment of the harpsichord’. This recording uses Vallotti temperament, appropriate for the time; as a result the music doesn’t really sound Indian; at times the melodies could almost be Irish or Scottish, harmonised as they are in the basic manner of the early Classical period. It is another example of the 18th-century’s ability to absorb music from outside and make it fit for the British drawing room. That said, this is both a fascinating and agreeable collection of short tracks, played on the Horniman Museum’s 1722 Kirckman harpsichord. There is also a Sonata composed by Bird, which weaves at least eight Hindu airs into standard galant structures, played with flair and panache by flautist Yu-Wei Hu. Jane Chapman uses the harpsichord’s features – swell box, machine stop, lute stop – to full advantage. She improvises short preludes and postludes for a number of these tracks (including the first) which sound more Indian than the original pieces. The recording forms part of a Leverhulme-funded research project, which has compared the tunes with other sources and identified the original Hindu songs. There are very informative liner notes, including two helpful facsimile pages from the collection. It is a welcome project which raises lots of issues and provides answers to some of them.

Noel O’Regan

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Categories
Sheet music

Mozart: Symphony in G minor

Pink chrysanthemum

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) Symphonie g-moll… Symphony in G minor, 1st and 2nd Version, KV 550, edited by Henrik Wiese
Breitkopf & Härtel (PB 542), 2014. 68pp, €26.90.

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he Neue Ausgabe sämtlicher Werke, Serie IV, Werkgruppe 11: Sinfonien Band 9, vol. 12 was published in 1957, edited by H. C. Robbins Landon. Editions from the 1950s and 1960s were the result of enthusiasm at discovering MSS that had either been unknown or, in many cases, not fully considered.

The significance of a new No. 40 has changed ideas on the logic of first composing the score without clarinets then later adding them. This is not to say that Mozart started with oboes and clarinets and then removed the clarinets, but Wiese argues that the third version is a return to abandoning the clarinets with minor alterations of flute and of strings in their place. The changes primarily concern with the Andante. Page 26 & 34 has two versions, but otherwise the edition is clear and avoids printing two versions throughout. There are two pairs of oboes notated: the first, in smaller print, is for the first version, below that the second version is in standard print. It seems that the editor assumed the normal difference of 1st and 2nd version rather than giving some status to the third version. The small print of the Prefaces (German and English) means two compressed pages, but the musical text is fine. It saves a lot of cross-checking from editions which come in two versions (e. g. Bärenreiter), but it must be confusing for conductors if they are using different versions.

I like to sample a part or two to give some idea of what they look like. In this case, it wasn’t particularly helpful – I received a Violin I part where only bars 29 & 100 of the Andante have variants. (The oboe and clarinet parts are presumably more complicated.) The publisher is careful to indicate a sensible page-turn in the last movement with a dotted line across the page and a pair of scissors. Squashing 14 lines into a page is a bit tight if the players like thorough pencil marks, but there are advantages in avoiding page-turns. This is a valuable improvement.

Clifford Bartlett

Categories
Recording

Mozart: Sonaten

Pink chrysanthemum

François Fernandez violin, Boyan Vodenitcharov fortepiano
62:39
Flora 0906
K303, 360, 378 & 454

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]his is a delightful disc, featuring three beautiful sonatas dating from between 1778 and 1784 and a set of Variations from 1781. The balance between the two instruments is skilfully handled, with the violin rightly slightly subservient to the keyboard, but not necessarily simply by playing quietly, rather by using different colours for different sections of the music. Fernandez and Vodenitcharov are perfect partners in this repertoire, and I hope that the Flora archives will be found to have recordings of them playing Beethoven and even Mendelssohn, so that we can trace the history of the classical “violin sonata”, now that we have these characterful renditions of Mozart’s finest works. There is not quite the same sense of spontaneity in the watershed recordings by Rachel Podger and Gary Cooper, but there is definitely poise and pathos (try the Largo opening of KV454, for example), and a definite inclination to explore all of the colours of Mozart’s darker side.

Brian Clark

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Categories
Recording

C. P. E. Bach: Zweyte Fortsetzung: Sonatas 4–6

Pink chrysanthemum

Miklós Spányi clavichord
75:30
BIS-2046 CD
Wq52/4–6, 65/47 & 49 [H37, 163, 129, 248 & 298]

[dropcap]I[/dropcap]n this, volume 29 of the BIS complete C.P.E. Bach keyboard series, Miklós Spányi makes a strong case for the clavichord, both in his playing and in the useful sleeve notes. He gets a wide range of dynamics and articulation, and the recording quality is excellent, picking up every nuance. The five sonatas in this volume come from a range of periods: there is one early one from the 1740s (Wq 52/4), two from the middle period and two late sonatas. The most impressive is that in E minor, composed in Zerbst in 1758 (Wq 52/6), a classic combination of CPE Bach’s control of extended structures with very quirky moments. Spányi plays on a copy by Joris Potvlieghe of a 1785 clavichord by Gottfried Joseph Horn of Dresden, now in the Leipzig Musikinstrumentenmuseum. These are very persuasive accounts and contrast well with similar works recently recorded on the pianoforte by Riccardo Cecchetti.

Noel O’Regan

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Categories
Recording

Müthel: The Five Keyboard Concertos

Pink chrysanthemum

Marcin Świątkiewicz hpscd, Arte dei Suonatori
127:10 (2 CDs)
BIS-2179 CD

[dropcap]I[/dropcap]was very impressed by the playing of this young Polish harpschordist when he recently accompanied Rachel Podger for the Georgian Concert Society in Edinburgh and these two CDs confirm him as a formidable talent. He plays on a copy by Christian Fuchs of a 1624 Johannes Ruckers harpsichord which works well in this music. Müthel was a German organist and chamber musician who as a young man visited J.S. Bach in the last year of the latter’s life, on an educational tour which also saw him visit Telemann and C.P.E. Bach. He moved to Riga where he spent most of his life, earning praise from Herder. His concertos provide some fascinating and very attractive music with a considerable part for the keyboard and lots of dialogue between soloist and ensemble. The ensemble playing by the Polish Arte dei Suonatori ensemble is stylistic and supportive, leading to some exhilarating performances. The recording balance is eccellent, allowing the listener to hear every detail of the harpsichord playing. These concertos deserve to be much better known.
Noel O’Regan

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Categories
Recording

Mozart: Mass in C minor

Pink chrysanthemum

La Chapelle Royale, Collegium Vocale Gent, Orchestre des Champs-Elysées, Philippe Herreweghe
60:19
harmonia mundi HMG 501393 (© 1992)
+ Meistermusik K. 477 (479a)

[dropcap]A[/dropcap]lthough this performance has aged well, for me it still lags behind the Eliot Gardiner version. Unusually for a Herreweghe recording, I was aware of a little too much micro-management, especially at cadences. As you would expect, the vocal and instrumental forces are first rate; to wrong an unpardonable oversight in the packaging (as far as I can see, at least), the four soloists are Christiane Oelze, Jennifer Larmore, Scott Weir and Peter Kooy (spellings from the cover of the original release).

Brian Clark

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