Tag: Instrumental music

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Picchi: Canzoni da sonar con ogni sorte d’istromenti

CD cover Picchi Canzoni da sonar

Concerto Scirocco, Giulia Genini
71:29
Arcana A476

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Published in 1625, Picchi’s 19 Canzoni da sonar range from duets with continuo to full two-choir pieces. Rather than always stick to the composer’s suggested scorings, Concerto Scirocco switch one of a pair of violins for a cornetto; this helps to vary the soundscape, of course, and it seems churlish (given such fabulous performances) to suggest that that might not be what “con ogni sorte d’istromenti” means. My only other (minor) gripe about the performances is the use of the piercing soprano recorder; as a recorder player myself, I really do not enjoy the way it slices through the texture – give me a more mellow tenor instrument any day. Although the duo and trio sonatas with their kaleidoscopic structures are very pleasant, for me Picchi really comes alive when he has four melody instruments (or more) and the three six-part canzoni are fabulous pieces, displaying the composer’s ample talents as a contrapuntalist but not in an arcane way, rather in conjunction with easily memorable melodies. In the two-choir pieces, two pitch equal choirs against one another (in these performances strings against wind in one, and two mixed choirs in the second) and then a high choir against a lower one. Over the course of more than an hour, listening to the texture grow and enriching is wonderful, though I’m not sure Signor Picchi had that in mind! Hats off to Concerto Scirocco for sustaining my interest – but for your next recording, please, please ditch the high-pitched recorders!

Brian Clark

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Recording

Extra Time

La Serenissima play Vivaldi, Albinoni, Brescianello, Matteis

La Serenissima, Adrian Chandler
72:14
Signum Classics SIGCD641

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This splendidly refined recording does feel like an “extended” Part 2 programme, or follow-on from the marvellous “Godfather” which duly reaped wide-spread accolades and glowing punditry; now continuing in a similarly rich vein of fascinating and varied baroquery, including Nicola Matteis the Younger’s impressive and richly scored (four trumpets and drums, etc.) “balletic” insertions into Antonio Caldara’s operas for Vienna; music as diverting and distracting, as it is charged with a processional flair; no doubt some clever scene changes were made during these episodes. This along with healthy doses of core Vivaldi to provide the fillings between the smart, brassy outside wingers! These include Albinoni’s slick Sinfonia with two trumpets for his opera La Statira. This is all grist to the musical mill for La Serenissima, who follow in the wake of their star players. The ostensibly Italianate violinistic passages are unforced and polished with perky tutti replies. On Pages 10-13 in the CD booklet, we read the amazing composite details of the various recording dates of these works. How the cleverly this “jig-saw puzzle” comes together with over-arching practicality and miraculous synchronicity for over an hour’s worth of noteworthy pieces. G. A. Brescianello continues to supply delights in that high-flown italian style, possibly finding – beyond the obvious Vivaldian expression – the absorption and impetus of certain elements from E. F. Dall’Abaco vicariously rubbing off when he played alongside him in Munich; the fine Largo in the rather tuneful G major violin concerto displays a special operatic calibre that stops you right in your tracks! With the Vivaldi Concerto in F for the “Solemnity of St. Lawrence” (composed around 1727), the contrasting movements are tackled well, with the flashy solo peaks of the first movement, a rather apt solemnity in the second, and overtly joyful third: Allegro non molto, where the second violins seem to chime together with festive bell-like tones between the brisk ritornello theme. This line-up of works, the incredible providence of it all coming together strand by strand, and the splendid, collated effect of these highly entertaining works, with new sonorous treats, again around three bold, brassy pillars, combining some familiar pieces with a generous host of new ones to savour; the playing on “extra time” leads to yet another “Golden goal” for La Serenissima and their continued striving to provide Top League baroquery! Bravi tutti!

David Bellinger

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Recording

Circle Line

Luatten Compagney Katschner play Dufay and minimlist music CD cover

Lautten Compagney, Wolfgang Katschner
75:09
deutsche harmonia mundi 1 90759 43102 3

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Philip Glass’s Train to São Paolo gets 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.

Noel O’Regan

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Recording

Akoé: Nuevas Músicas antiguas

Akoé Nuevas Musicas Antiguas CD cover

Taracea
51:13
Alpha Classics 597

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Anybody old enough like me to remember Jacques Loussier and his renditions of Baroque music in a jazz idiom will be slightly prepared for this CD of ‘reworkings’ of early music. There is certainly the same mellow, laid-back atmosphere here, as a broken consort to end all such (flute/recorder, vihuela, double bass, voice, percussion and serpent) go to work on Dowland, Caccini, Isaac, Encina, Josquin, le Roy, Hildegard and Claudin. I have to say that I disliked both what the ensemble was doing to the music and the end result. Unlike in the case of Loussier, there seemed no consistent style into which the music was being translated – this, to me, was just a mess of folky and experimental jazz influences mashed together. The pretentious programme note failed either to explain or convince – ‘This is the very core of Taracea’s Akoé : the thorn, the stinging spur of curiosity, and the memory of past sounds, the integral genetic inheritance of every composer and musician.’  Many of you will also remember pseuds’ corner… Annoyingly, the obvious musicality of the individual players could have been put to much more worthy ends, but there was a worrying inclination towards iconoclasm (e.g. track 3 Caccini’s Amarilli, mia bella being caricatured on a serpent) and a pretentious self-indulgence about this whole project which I found it very hard to warm to. Certainly not hip in either sense of the word!

D. James Ross

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Recording

Barbara Strozzi: Virtuosa of Venice

Barbara Strozzi CD cover Fieri Consort

Fieri Consort
67:18
Fieri Records FIER003VOV
With music by Ferrari, Fontei, Kapsperger, Maione, Monteverdi & Selma y Salaverde

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It is good to see Barbara Strozzi’s music receiving more attention – as more of it becomes familiar, it is clear that she deserves her own place in the history of early Baroque music. As a female composer and performer, her considerable success was greeted with some suspicion in her own lifetime, and even in our own day, acceptance of her skills has been slow and grudging. Her image as a serious performer/composer is perhaps not helped by the familiar bare-breasted portraits, but she was a pupil of the Monteverdi’s pupil, Francesco Cavalli, and was a prolific composer with seven books of madrigals, arias and cantatas plus a collection of sacred music to her name. That this large body of work was published is sometimes ascribed to the prominence of her father as a member of the prestigious Accademia degli Incogniti, but, as more and more of her stylistically varied music comes to be performed, it becomes clear that she was probably being published entirely on her own merits. The Fieri Consort fields six voices in various permutations with gamba, lute/theorbo and harp to present a selection from throughout the composer’s musical life. Thus we travel from the flirty music of the early madrigal collections to the more intense music of the late more profound lagrime. The fact that her music stands up very well beside the pieces by Monteverdi, Nicolò Fontei and Kapsperger with which the consort alternate her songs is a mark of their quality.  The singing and playing are generally good, if the ornamentation occasionally sounds a little laboured, and I like the variety of voices, which appear mainly in dialoguing pairs, as well as the subtlety of the instrumental accompaniments. 

D. James Ross

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Resonanze

Resonanze CD of solo gamba music from the baroque and modern periods

music for viola da gamba
Ibrahim Aziz
63:31
First Hand Records FHR83
Abel, J. S. Bach, Martínez Gil, Rowe & Schenck

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This CD is a vehicle for the gamba virtuosity of Ibrahim Aziz. The programme consists of two Baroque pieces and two modern compositions for gamba, and an arrangement of the Bach second cello Suite. Notwithstanding Aziz’s formidable technique and sonorous tone, I found this the least successful piece on the recording, being so familiar with the work as a cello piece and feeling that the gamba with its frets acted as a restraint on the player. Carlos Martínez Gil’s Suite Estiu is very much in the neo-Baroque style, a nostalgic homage to the gamba compositions of the 18th century. He manages to find unusual textures and resonances in the work’s five varied movements, as does gambist and composer, Rebecca Rowe, in her impressive 2018 composition Journeying, specifically written for Ibrahim Aziz. As a player of the instrument, she seems more confident and enterprising than Martínez Gil in her exploration of its potential. The Three Pieces by Carl Friedrich Abel are surprisingly consequential, although this is hardly surprising from the leading gamba virtuoso in London in the 18th century. Curious to think of his gifted pupil, the painter Thomas Gainsborough, working away diligently on this sort of repertoire. The D-minor Suite V by another 18th-century gambist/composer Johann Schenck is the most substantial work in the programme, technically dazzling and musically powerful. It is not surprising to learn that his music was widely published and performed throughout Europe, although the present suite survives in manuscript only. This is a delightfully varied CD, demonstrating the full and varied potential of the gamba in the hands of a capable and wonderfully gifted young player. 

D. James Ross

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Recording

La Gracieuse: Pièces de Viole by Marin Marais

Robert Smith gamba, Israel Golani guitar/theorbo, Joshua Cheatham gamba, Olivier Fortin harpsichord
66:13
resonus RES10244

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Virtuoso gambist Robert Smith is joined here by a superb consort in imaginative and supremely musical performances of four of Marais’ suites for viol and continuo. Never one to rush the music he is playing, Smith imbues this wonderfully eloquent repertoire with the time to breathe and the results are truly revelatory. Ever since Gerard Depardieu’s appearance in the film Tous les Matins du Monde brought Marais’ music to a wider audience, it has frequently featured on CD, but not always as well and expressively played as it is here. The continuo ensemble of guitar/theorbo, gamba and harpsichord allows for subtle changes in instrumentation to reflect the mood of the melody. I am less convinced by the employment of a deep drum in some of the more rustic sounding movements – surely Marais would have been using the viol itself to imitate the sounds of a traditional band? I am prepared to overlook this in light of the very imaginative approach taken to Marais’ music, which otherwise sounds utterly convincing to me. The rich resonance of the Lutherse Kerk in Groningen provides a spectacular resonance for Smith’s ringing viol tone and the resonus engineers have done a fine job in capturing the sound so vividly.

D. James Ross

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Recording

Of arms and a woman

Cover of the CD Blondel Of arms and a woman

late medieval wind music
Blondel
61:19
First Hand Records FHR69
Music by Bedygham, Binchois, Ciconia, Cordier, Dufay, Landini, Machaut, Morton, Des Prés & Solage

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This CD opens with a wonderfully declamatory account of Dufay’s Se le face ay pale on two soprano shawms, alto shawm, tenor sackbut and tabor, and there are equally stirring performances on the same instruments of other late medieval ‘standards’ such as A cheval, tout homme, a cheval, Lomme armé by Josquin and Robert Morton and the fabulous Files a marier by Gilles Binchois. However, this is a versatile group of players, and the three shawmers are also happy to take to a trio of bagpipes, providing a whole different timbre for engaging accounts of Reveillez vous piccars, Allez a la fougere and two songs by Machaut, Aymi! Dame de valour and Je vivroie liement. I found these Machaut pieces, presented so differently from normal, particularly intriguing. A final permutation is achieved when Belinda Paul, Lizzie Gutteridge and Emily Baines swap their ‘loud winds’ for recorders to give beautiful performances of music by Binchois, Bedyngham, Ciconia, Cordier and ‘Enrique’. As a bonus, the comprehensive programme booklet includes individual commentaries on each piece as well as the original song texts in translation! This is a CD bursting with late-medieval energy and subtlety, and the performers are to be congratulated for their beautifully nuanced performances of a range of well-researched and imaginatively presented music.

D. James Ross

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The Dubhlinn Gardens

Cover of a CD devoted to the Dublin pleasure gardens

Anna Besson, Reinoud van Mechelen, A nocte temporis
69:17
Alpha Classics Alpha 447

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This CD is the pet project of the group’s flautist Anna Besson, whose idiomatic traditional approach to the Baroque flute gives these performances a wonderful authenticity. The music belongs to the vogue for music from the ‘celtic fringes’ of the British Isles, which followed the storming success of The Beggar’s Opera with its use of traditional Scotch and Irish melodies. While many of the instrumental tracks have a suitable twinkle in their eye, the songs are less effective. Belgian tenor Reinoud van Mechelen does his very best, but doesn’t seem to ‘get’ the idiom and struggles with the Irish accent the texts seem to cry out for. Perhaps we would have done better with a singing actor type (as featured in the original performances of The Beggar’s Opera) than van Mechelen’s rather cultivated tone and delivery. This is a pity as much of the selected repertoire is unfamiliar and delightfully lyrical, and the overall idea of the project is an exciting one – the vocal tracks however do tend to labour a little or just to sound a bit worthy. In the slower airs, van Mechelen seems more at home, and his account of “Ah! The poor shepherd’s mournful fate” is lovely, although again the ornaments in the unaccompanied “Eileanóir a rún” sound more like Monteverdi than the subtle inflections of the folk singer.

D. James Ross

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MoZart: Zero to Hero

CD cover of David Behle Mozart Hero to zero

Daniel Behle tenor, L’Orfeo Barockorchester, Michi Gaigg
69:12
Sony Classical 1 90759 64582 6

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This recording of Mozart overtures and tenor arias features the voice of Daniel Behle, the sort of operatic Heldentenor voice I could listen to all day. A selection of much-loved and very familiar arias from Don Giovanni, Zauberflöte and Cosi rub shoulders with the less familiar from Die Entführung, La Clemenza and Idomeneo and the downright unfamiliar “D’ogni colpa la colpa maggiore” from La Betula Liberata. Behle’s mellifluous voice is the ideal guide through these operatic masterpieces, while the Orfeo Baroque Orchestra play with diffidence and stunning precision. I was startled by one or two of the tempo decisions, and remain unconvinced by the rather rushed accounts of “Hier soll ich dich denn sehen” and “Konstanze! Konstanze!” from Die Entführung. My other reservation was the slight lack of definition in the recording of the woodwind contributions – these are referenced in the programme notes, but are not always evident in the recording. Perhaps this is an attempt to recreate the relative balance in an opera-house performance, and certainly the voice is given a pleasingly ‘on-stage’ presence. Notwithstanding these small reservations, this is a very entertaining and rewarding CD. Recommended.

D. James Ross