Ensemble Céladon, Paulin Bündgen 52:41 fuga libera FUG 767
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The vocal trio of the Ensemble Céladon, under the direction of the counter-tenor Paulin Bündgen, provides a selection of 13th-century French music in the Notre Dame style juxtaposed with music for the same forces by the French composer Jean-Philippe Goude composed in 2017. In addition to concert music, Goude writes music for films, commercials and television, but in these pieces he has thoroughly imbibed the world of the earlier repertoire, writing music which complements it perfectly. The vocal trio sing with wonderful energy, rapt intensity and perfect intonation throughout, genuinely allowing the music of these two repertoires, separated by some 800 years, to interact and comment on one another. Conceived in the awful shadow of the burning of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, this programme seems to exude much-needed comfort. The title Hieros, Greek for sacred, pinpoints some of the more philosophical elements underlying the project, such as the consideration of the very concept of ‘sacred’ down the ages. It is a mark of the extent to which the burning of this national icon has led to the questioning of many aspects of religion in France, and this would seem like the perfect soundtrack to underpin this sort of profound philosophising.
Lautten Compagney, Wolfgang Katschner 70:34 deutsche harmonia mundi 1 94398 07952 3
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The wonderfully energetic accounts of the instrumental music of Samuel Scheidt as well as some of his sacred music in instrumental performances are well worth buying this CD for. The very conscious scoring of this music provides a huge number of different timbres and textures from a large consort of wind string and percussion instruments, and while some might doubt whether this degree of processing ever happened in Scheidt’s lifetime, the results are compelling and delightful. The pairing of these performances with the quirky, haunting and slightly weird music of Erik Satie may seem eccentric, and indeed it is. A saxophone is added to the pantheon of early instruments to create equally heavily processed accounts of what in most cases were piano pieces. Due to these clever arrangements by Bo Wiget, these too are constantly intriguing, while the excellent musicianship of the members of Lautten Compagney ensures that they are all utterly convincing. Once the programme gets underway, the juxtaposition of Scheidt and Satie, particularly the former’s motets and the latter’s Pièces Froides, is genuinely uncanny. However, I am not sure that it is a juxtaposition that throws any additional light on either repertoire, and tempting as it is to do something just because it is possible, the eccentricity of mastering 17th-century instruments so completely that you can play 20th-century repertoire seems something of a non sequitur. I don’t want to sound a HIP bore, and this CD is a lot of fun, and all of the arrangements and performances are stunningly effective.
This CD opens and closes with ‘conventional’ Baroque instrumental music by Salomone Rossi, accounts on viols and lute of Songs to Solomon setting Hebrew texts and referencing Jewish chants. Also featured are a couple of Hebrew melodies and elaborations from Benedetto Marcello’s Estro Poetico-Armonico. These latter movements are rather imaginatively rendered on a selection of Baroque instruments, one of them with an underlying drum rhythm. These tracks prepare the way for a selection of traditional Jewish melodies sung by a group of traditional singers and accompanied mainly by atmospheric drones on a selection of Baroque instruments including a Baroque clarinet. It strikes me that these are heavily arranged and very much through the lens of contemporary traditional performance. I have mentioned the penchant for drones and prominent rhythms, to which should be added a dash of Kletzmer (surely a much more recent development) as well as the use of the wind instruments in multiple octaves – all in relatively modern taste. As such, these are very speculative accounts of how this music may have been performed in previous centuries. Having said that, the performances are beautifully idiomatic and sensitive. It crossed my mind that rather than extracting the Jewish melodies from Rossi and Marcello, it would be really nice to hear complete and authentic performances of Rossi’s Songs to Solomon and Marcello’s Estro Poetico-Armonico with these melodies in place – there is something perverse in ‘unravelling’ the textures so carefully constructed by these Italian masters. But I guess that is a whole other CD. Thanks to the imaginative approach and considerable musicality of the present performers, and the richness of the seam of music they are exploring, the CD that they did make is engaging and enjoyable, if at under 45 minutes a little brief.
I suspect your reaction to this CD will depend on your response to the question posed on the back of the package ‘Mozart combined with traditional Cuban music: do these two go together?’ The answer given is unsurprisingly ‘Absolutely!’ As someone who loves and plays Mozart frequently, as well as loving and playing mambo music, I would never dream of mixing to two, and I’m afraid this CD confirms my decision. We have Sarah Willis playing modern horn with the Havana Lyceum Orchestra in inoffensive performances of the K 370b movement and the K371 Rondo for Horn and Orchestra, as well as the complete K447 Concerto. We also have spirited accounts of orchestral arrangements of actual mambos, which have the usual pros and cons of such reworkings, but then we have further mambos based on Mozart melodies from Eine kleine Nachtmusik and the K447 Concerto. If this is your kind of thing, then you will undoubtedly be happy sashaying along to this – I wasn’t and I didn’t. Sometimes such genre-blurring can be a revelation, but I fear this CD seems a bit of an indulgence. I was left wondering who is going to buy it. Fans of Mozart’s horn music can easily find more convincing and thought-provoking performances, while serious mambists are surely going to feel the performances here rather tame.
Philip Glass’s Train to São Paologets this recording off to a pounding start, followed by the equally stirring Gloria ad modum tubae by Guillaume Dufay. The similarities in construction between the two pieces are brought out in the instrumentation – there are no voices used in the Dufay – and this CD sets out to display how the use of rhythmic and melodic repetition is a common factor to both composing traditions, even if separated by more than five hundred years. The Glass contributions come mainly from two films, Powaqqatsi and Naqoyqatsi; other tracks are by fellow minimalists Steve Reich, John Cage, Meredith Monk and Peter Bauer, while Dufay stands alone. It is imaginative programming which, at times, groups pieces from one tradition together while, at others, alternates them. Some tracks move directly from one composer to the other: the most successful of these moves seamlessly and cleverly from Steve Reich’s clapping music (played here on instruments, including a Jew’s Harp) to Dufay’s chanson Se la face ay pale – and back – keeping a constant ostinato rhythm. While one does miss the words in the Dufay tracks and the greater flexibility usually practised by singers, there was a habit of instrumental substitution in this music and these imaginative transcriptions allow the listener to concentrate on the recurring patterns and on the counterpoint. The Circle Line of the title is exemplified by repeating the opening two tracks at the end, in reverse order, so that the CD starts and ends with a train. This is the second recorded foray into minimalism by the Lautten Compagney, founded in 1984 in the former East Berlin, who have otherwise generally specialised in Baroque music. Playing and recording are excellent and this disc has grown on me with repeated hearing. I can certainly recommend listening to it.
Vincent Lhermet accordion, Marianne Muller viola da gamba 62:26 harmonia mundi musique HMM 902610 Transcriptions of Bull, Dowland, East, Gibbons & Hume, etc.
A review of this CD of music by 17th-century masters Tobias Hume, John Dowland, Orlando Gibbons, Michael East and John Bull and contemporary composers Thierry Tidrow and Philippe Hersant played on modern button accordion and viola da gamba probably has no place on the EMR website. However, I found the arrangements and the playing so charming and idiomatic that I decided to include it. The plain vibrato-free sound of the accordion (yes, they can switch off that offensive warbling effect!) blends absolutely beautifully with the viol’s elegant tone, and at times you forget you are listening to what on paper looks like a bizarre combination, and hear instead the sound of a viol consort or a viol and organ combination. Of the two contemporary pieces receiving their world premiere recordings, I preferred the Hersant, but actually the early music is the main strength of this CD. Both accordionist Vincent Lhermet and viol player Marianne Müller have a fine sense of the idiom of this 17th-century chamber repertoire. This CD is a testimony to the fact that fine musicianship and a feel for idiom can transcend the mere mechanics of HIP performance. I play clarinet in a duo with a button accordionist, and we shall now be exploring some of this earlier repertoire!
Julia Schröder, Lautten Compagney
70:49
deutsche harmonia mundi 8 89853 44082 5
Biber + Piazzola
[dropcap]F[/dropcap]inding suitable bedfellows for Biber’s amazing set of Rosary Sonatas is a real challenge. Julia Schröder and her colleagues have gone about as far as it is possible to go in pairing them with music by the Argentine tango king, Astor Piazzolla. (They also include a funky, violin-free version of the Passacaglia from Biber’s Harmonia Artificiosa no. 5). I confess that my eyebrows did arch when I opened the envelope that brought the disc; after a good few listens, though, this fine quartet had drawn me into their soundworld and, if I’m honest, I didn’t even notice the move from one composer to another on a couple of occasions. For those who like to know such things, Schröder performs sonatas 1-3, 9, 10 and 14. I’m not sure that I would want a second such disc, nor do I think I want a set of all of the Biber which had been given the same treatment, but I cannot deny enjoying (a lot!) what I heard.
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The Curious Bards
62:47
harmonia mundi HMN 916105
Scottish & Irish airs, reels, jigs, dances and variations with compositions of Carolan
[dropcap]T[/dropcap]his minimally packaged CD seems to be the first of a new series from harmonia mundi entitled “Harmonia Nova”, designed to bring new artists to a wider audience – it is a mark of the trendy packaging that, until I looked into it, I had transposed the name of the CD with that of the performing group. The recording is devoted to the music of 18th-century Scotland and Ireland, and (with the naivete of youth) Alix Boivert opens his programme note with the extraordinary assertion that the music of eighteenth-century Scotland and Ireland is ‘practically forgotten’ and that it is the mission of the group ‘to bring to light a cultural legacy’. The hazards of bringing to light someone else’s cultural legacy are laid horribly bare in the vocal contributions by guest singer, Ilektra Platiopoulou, who – perhaps understandably – has little concept of any attempt at authentic pronunciation or even an appropriate style of vocal production.
[Video commentary in French]
Having said that, Boivert has gone to all the right 18th-century sources and he and his players have mastered to a remarkable degree traditional Scottish and Irish playing techniques, and have applied them very convincingly on their period instruments. As a reviewer, it is important just to wait around long enough and you learn that there is truly nothing new under the sun; for me, these well-intentioned performances recalled the work of the Baltimore Consort around twenty years ago. I think those fine players and advocates of the musical legacy of Scotland and Ireland, as well as more recent tireless exponents of precisely the repertoire represented here such as David McGuinness and his superb Concerto Caledonia, might take issue with the idea that this repertoire is ‘practically forgotten’, but the Curious Bards are undoubtedly making a valuable contribution to bringing this attractive music to a still wider audience. Just sit back and get in touch with the curious Celt within.
[dropcap]I[/dropcap]n a fashion which has been growing over recent years, encouraged by the example of Jordi Savall and others, this CD blends an ensemble of traditional Armenian and early instruments with voices in accounts of sacred and secular music associated with Armenia. I have got past grumping about the lack of rigorous scholarship behind such projects and now just enjoy the sounds of melodies, passed down through indeterminate generations, played on evocative instruments which suit them very well.
Indeed, it would be a cold listener who is not transported by the plaintive sounds of duduk and kanun, even though the ancestry of both these instruments in their modern form is doubtful, and the technology of the kanun as we know it could hardly predate the 18th century. The pleasing “give and take”, as the traditional melodies are developed and passed around the ensemble, are enhanced by the vocal contributions of Barbara Kusa and Emmanuel Bardon, the former with a hauntingly poignant voice, the latter slightly too operatic for my taste with an indulgent inclination to vibrato and portamento. The overall effect is narcotically beautiful and very evocative, although a health warning would need to be attached to any suggestion that this is the authentic sound of ancient Armenia.
