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Froberger: Suites for Harpsichord (vol. 3)

Gilbert Rowland
120: 17 (2 CDs)
Athene ath 23213

This collection of twelve suites for harpsichord represents around a third of the suites he wrote, which in turn are a small part of his oeuvre for keyboard. In a comprehensive programme note, the harpsichordist Gilbert Rowland makes a strong case for Froberger as ‘one of the most important and highly original composers of the seventeenth century’. Listening to this concluding third volume in a complete account of the composer’s suites, I am inclined to agree with him. Born in Stuttgart to a musical family, Froberger soon found his way to Vienna where he was court organist to Ferdinand III, who paid for him to imbibe the very latest keyboard trends from Frescobaldi in Rome. Later in life, he was drawn to the glittering Paris of Louis XIV and the company of Duchess Sybilla of Württemberg, a talented pupil and evidently a close friend in whose company he eventually died. It is easy to hear the influence of Frescobaldi in this music but there is a solid Germanic core to it which recalls the music of much later keyboard composers such as Handel. It would be fascinating to hear the choral music by Froberger which has recently re-surfaced, which may have been written for the Viennese Hofkapelle, but clearly the keyboard lay at the heart of his profession and also his surviving work. Rowland plays an impressive 2-manual French-style harpsichord by Andrew Wooderson after a 1750 original by Goermans of Paris, maybe an instrument with a slightly fuller sound than Froberger would have been familiar with almost a century earlier. It does sound magnificent though, and Rowland makes intelligent use of its available timbres, playing with complete technical assurance and innate musicality – and more than that: His intimate understanding of Froberger’s idiom gives his playing an authority which makes his bold claims utterly convincing.

D. James Ross

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W A Mozart: Fantasy

Florent Albrecht
78:24
Trihort 585

Playing a Baumbach pianoforte of 1780, Florent Albrecht presents a programme of Mozart’s four fantasies for solo piano, bringing under the same umbrella three preludes, as well as a further “Mozart Fantasy” reconstructed by himself. There is an interesting record from 1785 of Mozart playing fantasies for his fellow Masons, and it is highly plausible that this exploratory and improvisatory music would have appealed particularly to this inner circle of deep-thinking connoisseurs. Albrecht’s accounts emphasise the spontaneous nature of this music, managing to make it sound as if he is discovering its secrets alongside his audience. He makes imaginative use of the different textures available on his chosen instrument, a remarkable survivor from a bygone age – it was the property of the Abbé of Vermont, tutor and confessor to Marie-Antoinette, and unlike these two people who are very likely to have played it, it survived the French Revolution to be restored to its original state in 2013 by Olivier Fadini. It produces a remarkably rich array of timbres, which Albrecht exploits to the full in these flamboyant accounts of some of Mozart’s most imaginative piano music. With many composers from the Baroque era onwards, we are painfully aware of the wealth of improvised music, which took many composers to the very limits of their creative talents, but which by definition often existed only in the moment. Fantasies such as these are treasures, preserved by random chance, and the main strength of these recordings is the way in which Albrecht expressively unfolds each piece, much as Mozart may have done in the rarefied setting of his Masonic Lodge.

D. James Ross

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A Bach & Abel Concert

Catherine Zimmer Merlin square piano 1784
Music by K F Abel, J C & C P E Bach, Haydn, Lachnith, [Maria Hester] Park & Stanley
62:00
encelade ECL2401

The year is 1784 and in London the inventor John Joseph Merlin and the Gray brothers have come up with one of the more bizarre offshoots of the development of the piano – a square piano combined with an organ. There was a considerable taste for novelty at this time among the spoiled metropolitan musical public, with an account of one musician in fancy dress and on roller skates performing on the violin before destroying a valuable mirror, his instrument and himself! Remarkably the 1784 Merlin Organised Piano has survived, and it is on this fully restored novelty that Catherine Zimmer presents a recital of music from the time which might just have been played on it. In addition to the promised works by JC and CPE Bach and Abel, we have music by Haydn as well as more obscure repertoire by John Hook, Maria Hesther Park and Ludwig Wenzel Lachnith. Opinions will be divided as to whether a combined sound of piano and organ is even desirable, and some listeners may be distracted by the necessary clanking of the mechanism as Zimmer switches among the various available timbres. I have to say I found this inclusion of the ‘mechanics’ both honest and engaging, particularly when on one track they are joined by the chirping of sparrows, and I even found myself warming to the virtues of the ‘organised piano’. It is perhaps significant that prior to its extensive restoration in 2020, this remarkable instrument had been subjected to ongoing work, suggesting that it had never fallen entirely out of use. At any rate, it is fascinating finally to hear an instrument which hitherto had only been heard about, and particularly when it is in the hands of an expert pianist/organist such as Catherine Zimmer.

D. James Ross

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Un clavecin pour Marcel Proust

Olivier Baumont
46:00
Encelade ECL2204

The idea of a harpsichord for Marcel Proust may at first glance seem like a bit of a historical mismatch between an essentially Baroque instrument and a writer of the late 19th and early 20th century. But of course this is an author in search of times gone by, and harpsichords and harpsichordists make regular appearances in his writings. Olivier Baumont has cleverly sought out these allusions and constructed a programme of the music mentioned as well as pieces ‘in the old style’ by Proust’s friends and fellow enthusiasts for earlier centuries, Reynaldo Hahn and Louis Diémer. Playing appropriately three impressive 20th-century copies of 18th-century original harpsichords, Baumont explores the 19th-century revival of this Baroque repertoire witnessed by Proust and included in his novels. Grouping the music by Rameau, Bach, Scarlatti and Couperin interspersed by pastiches by Anthiome, Hahn and Ravel under the heading of the Proust characters the music is associated with, Baumont constructs a concert programme for an event which never in fact took place on an instrument (Proust’s clavecin) which never actually existed – a very proustian questioning of memory! He is joined by soprano Ingrid Perruche, violinist Pierre-Eric Nimylowycz, and fellow clavecinist Nicolas Mackowiak for what turns out to be a very engaging sequence of music. This CD is very much a flight of fancy of harpsichordist Olivier Baumont and for all it hangs on what in Scotland we would call ‘a bit of a shoogly peg’, his beautiful playing and the thought-provoking juxtaposition of pieces makes for a satisfying and involving experience.

D. James Ross

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Miscellanées

Elisabeth Joyé harpsichord
62:00
encelade ECL2202

This recording grew out of a Covid lockdown project in which Joyé recorded a series of videos of very short pieces covering the whole of the early keyboard repertoire for sharing with students and friends. The CD is a collection of the earlier pieces from that project, many of them very short indeed. It includes music by major 17th-century keyboard composers and makes for a varied and informative programme. Perhaps because of the nature of the project, I found much of the playing to be rather too careful, correct but not very exciting, especially in some non-imitative pieces which would have benefitted from some more panache. I did enjoy her rendition of the Capriccio cromatico by Tarquinio Merula, with some nice uneven semitones, and some similar chromaticism in a Pavan by Orlando Gibbons and a Froberger Fantaisie. The playing does come more alive in some chaconnes by D’Anglebert, Johann Caspar Ferdinand Fischer and Georg Böhm. Most of the programme is played on an Italian virginal by Jean-François Brun after an anonymous instrument of 1626. She also uses a polygonal spinet at low pitch by the same maker, after an anonymous instrument of 1560, and a 4’ harpsichord by Amadeo Castille after Pisaurensis 1543, also made in the Brun workshop. All are recorded quite closely and produce a satisfactory sound. Something of a mixed bag, then, but worth listening to, nevertheless.

Noel O’Regan

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Le Salon de la rue du Hasard

Mlle Certain, claveciniste du Grand Siècle (1662-1711)
Mathilde Mugot harpichord
64:56
Seulétoile SE10

This is a very satisfying recording with some highly idiomatic harpsichord playing from Mathilde Mugot. It celebrates the salon presided over by Mlle. Marie-Françoise Certain on the Rue de Hasard in Paris in the late 17th century. Patronised by the fableist Jean de la Fontaine, it played host to all the great French musicians of the time. Sadly, no compositions by Certain survive but this CD seeks to reconstruct some of the music which she knew. It includes some well-known pieces by D’Anglebert, François Couperin, Lully and Jacquet de la Guerre, but also two pieces by the little-known Françoise-Charlotte Ménétou. One of the highlights is a Suite in D put together from dances by the little-known Jacques Hardel, extracted from the Bauyn and Lapierre manuscripts, which surprised me with its accomplishment. A product of the Covid lockdown, the recording marks the debut of this young French harpsichordist who proves to be an excellent interpreter of the repertoire. Her playing is fluent with lots of idiomatic ornamentation which, however, never disturbs the flow or sense of forward movement. Her interpretations are always well directed and convey their meaning easily to the listener. She plays on a harpsichord by Émile Jobin and the recording, made in the Abbaye de Royaumont, displays great clarity. The accompanying booklet is in French only; the Seulétoile website does give some little information in English but its translation of the CD’s title (‘The livingroom on the Hasard Street’) doesn’t quite convey the project’s significance! It is certainly a very welcome recording and an excellent introduction to the French harpsichord repertoire.

Noel O’Regan

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Andrea Gabrieli: Le peine de mon cœur

Sébastien Wonner harpsichord
63:00
encelade ECL2102

For those of us whose minds turn to epic choral music or madrigals at the mention of the name Andrea Gabrieli, it is a useful antidote to be reminded of his career as keyboard player and his publications of keyboard music. This repertoire is undoubtedly an extension of Gabrieli’s improvisation skills at the organ, and many of his pieces such as the intonazioni and ricercars would have served liturgical purposes in the lavish services in St Mark’s Venice – we have frequently introduced Gabrieli’s largescale choral pieces with relevant intonazioni to establish the tonality. However, it is useful to hear this music, as well as keyboard arrangements of madrigals and motets, on the harpsichord to remind us that it is perfectly effective, freestanding solo keyboard repertoire. Gabrieli was a truly international musical figure, using Venice’s status as a world power to incorporate pan-European influences into his work. He samples French and German secular songs as well as the music of his Italian contemporaries in his work, but the wonderful spontaneity with which Sébastien Wonner imbues his performances constantly emphasises the improvisatory aspect of these works. He plays a fine 1999 harpsichord by Matthias Griewisch, while the distinctive tuning with its occasional spicy discords permits parallels to be drawn with Gabrieli’s exact contemporary Veronese – more remarkably still in 1585 musician and artist collaborated on a production of Sophocles Oedipus with Gabrieli composing the choruses and Veronese designing the costumes! O to have been a fly on the wall at that performance – both Gabrieli’s music and Veronese’s costume designs survive, so await the attentions of some enterprising opera company! Clearly there is much more to Andrea Gabrieli than his magnificent church music, and this excellent CD emphasises just one further aspect of this kaleidoscopic musician.

D. James Ross

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Bach sous les tilleuls

Loris Barrucand, Clément Geoffroy harpsichords
53:00
Encelade ECL2303

What music was performed under the lime trees in the Zimmermann café gardens on Wednesday 17th June 1733, when the flier for the concert by Bach’s Collegium in Leipzig advertised a new harpsichord of a kind never heard before? With this question, the two harpsichordists Loris Barrucand et Clément Geoffroy devise a programme of transcriptions for their two Goujon-based instruments – one by Émile Jobin (1983) and the other by Jean-François Chaudeurge (2014). They introduce us to their transcriptions of two of Bach’s Vivaldi-based concerti for organ, BWV 593 & 596, and end with BWV 1060, taking their model 1061 which survives in two versions – one for just two harpsichords – from which they derive the licence to make this simple version of the triple concerto in A minor (BWV 1044). 

The rest of their programme offers us some chorale preludes – Nun komm der Heiden Heiland (BWV 659), Wachet auf (from BWV 140, but one of the six Schübler Preludes, BWV 645), a transcription of the Sonatina that opens BWV 106, the Pedal-Exercitium (BWV 598) and the great Passacaglia in C minor (BWV 582) which may have been conceived for a pedal harpsichord.  

The latter is the most successful version on the disc to my mind: the clarity of the fugal writing, the echo effects and the nimble arpeggio work all score well on this pair of full-blooded harpsichords. The Pedal-Exercitium is a reminder of how strong the bass resonance of the harpsichord is; but the treble can sing too, as the other chorale preludes and the slow movements show. The playing is neat and controlled, and I am glad they chose to record their disc in the spacious acoustic of a chapel rather than outside under the lime trees of Leipzig! 

What are we to make of these versions? While not autographs by Johann Sebastian himself, they continue his practice of repurposing and adapting which is well-documented in his own re-scoring of Vivaldi’s work and his remaking of several concerti for single instruments in their presumed Köthen originals for harpsichord when he took over to the Collegium in Leipzig in 1729. One of the few bonuses of the Covid lockdown that imposed such restraints on large-scale music-making was to spur musicians into activities like this: we have a welter of chamber music versions of larger scale works, and more CDs of the Sei Soli than we could dream of, as musicians re-discovered their instruments and explored new acoustics that helped us appreciate again how essentially polyphonic Bach’s compositions are – even when they are scored for a single line like BWV 598, the Pedal-Exercitium. 

So this disc is to be welcomed, not only for its musicianship, but for its reminder of the extraordinary multi-layered sound world in which Bach composed, adapted and re-purposed his music. 

David Stancliffe

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Mozart: Piano concertos K503 & K595

Robert Levin fortepiano, Louise Alder soprano, Academy of Ancient Music, conducted by Richard Egarr
66:39
AAM AAM045

This is a significant issue which finally brings to a close a series that was started thirty years ago but was brought to a halt after the AAM’s contract with Universal (Decca) ended. In 2023 the series was resumed on the AAM’s own label, the five CDs needed to complete the series now issued and reviewed by EMR. It is perhaps a piece of serendipity that this final CD is to my mind the most satisfying of the series since its resumption. I think there are three definable reasons: firstly, the restricted sound quality of several of the previous discs has concerned me. Here the venue is for the first time St John’s Smith Square and for whatever reason the quality is more open and spacious than other recent discs; also the fortepiano Robert Levin uses here is a beautifully-toned copy of a Viennese Anton Walter instrument of 1795 by Chris Maene of Ruiselede, Belgium. Warmly and roundly characterful across its range, it responds to Robert Levin’s fluent passage work to often mesmerizing effect. Finally, former AAM director Richard Egarr’s lively, positive direction seems to me a step up from that on other recent recordings in the series.  

A further reason to celebrate this issue is of course that the CD includes not only two of Mozart’s greatest piano concertos but also one of his finest concert arias. The scena consists of an accompanied recitative and aria, Ch’io mi scordi di te? … Non temer amato ben, K505, the reason it is included here being that it includes an elaborate concertante part for keyboard. It was written for Nancy Storace, his first Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro, on the occasion of her final concert in Vienna in 1786. Mozart’s catalogue of works records that it was written for ‘Mlle Storace and me’, underlining suspicions that the relationship may have been more than simply a professional one.  More importantly, it is sung with affectionate warmth by Louise Alder, who displays some fine chest notes and whose ornamentation is excellent with the exception of the absence of cadential (or any other) trills.

It has long been known that the oft-referred to ‘valedictory’ qualities of Concerto No. 27 in B-flat, K595 belong to the imagination, since it is now known to have been composed earlier, probably between 1787 and 1789, than was once believed. However, Cliff Eisen’s notes advance an argument for the same thing applying to Concerto No. 25 in C, K503 an idea new to me. Eisen argues that at least in part it may date from between 1784 and 1786, thus making it one of the works Mozart is known to have started and then put aside for completion when he wanted a new work. More importantly, as noted above, both works are among the greatest Mozart composed in a genre that he transformed over the course of his lifetime. For sheer grandeur he never excelled the opening Allegro maestoso of K503, the contrast with the reflective opening movement of K595 here underlined by the gentle, almost understated treatment of the latter.

Detailed comment on the individual concertos can be restricted to a few points. The opening of K503 might have benefitted from a little more ceremonial pomp, though that impression does not apply to its return after the development. The secondary idea in the same movement might be considered a bit brisk and inflexible. The ornamented entry by the piano in the central Andante of the same concerto is magical and the final Allegretto has a nice sense of operatic bustle. In K595 the unexpected restlessness that develops in the central Larghetto is well brought out, while the solo oboe’s beautifully played lead-back to the main theme can serve as a special example of the high quality of the AAMs playing.

Overall, the merits of Robert Levin’s playing by now need little further rehearsing. His ability to shape Mozart’s lines with equal idiomatic insight in both passaggi and cantabile is a joy, while his imaginative ornamentation never exceeds the bounds of stylish decoration. As already made clear this is a truly fitting conclusion to a series that for long looked as if it would remain a torso. Congratulations to all that oversaw its completion are very much in order.

Brian Robins

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Hélène de Montgeroult

Portrait d’une compositrice visionnaire
Marcia Hadjimarkos fortepiano, Beth Taylor mS, Nicolas Mazzolini violin
61:51
Seulétoile SE09

The composer and pianist Hélène de Nervo, Marquise de Montgeroult by marriage, 1764-1836) lived through tumultuous times in her native France. With such a colourful career and such characterful music as the performers have found here, it is remarkable that she has passed below the radar for so long. A student of Dussek and Clementi, Montgeroult benefited from the rapid development of the piano-forte during her lifetime, a process she was able to take full advantage of during her years in Paris. Pianist Hadjimarkos also takes full advantage of the developing pianoforte in her choice of some striking stops in her performances of the solo Etudes (1812 and 1816) and accompanying Beth Taylor’s powerful accounts of the Nocturnes (1807). She plays a beautiful 1817 pianoforte by Antoine Neuhaus. The piano works appear as an appendix to a Complete Method for Piano, and while seven of the Etudes recorded here are for both hands, a further three focus more intently on the right hand and yet another on the left – presumably Montgeroult’s intention was to strengthen both hands of the performer independently and to build up their distinctive roles. Given their very practical purpose, these Etudes are remarkably imaginative and effective, and are given superbly expressive performances here. The subtitle of the CD is ‘Portrait d’une compositrice visionnaire’ and this aspect of Montgeroult’s strikingly individual musical style is very much to the fore in the performers’ minds. Mezzosoprano Beth Taylor gives beautifully eloquent accounts of the six short Nocturnes op 6 for solo voice and piano accompaniment. In the style of the time, the opus 2 Sonata no 6 (1800) for piano with accompaniment by the violin is just that, a piece very much led by the piano with fairly restrained commentary from the violin. It too is imaginatively presented by Hadjimarkkos with violinist Nicolas Mazzoleni. Montgeroult’s biographer Jérôme Dorival considers her the missing link between Mozart and Chopin, and while she might not be the only deserving candidate for this title, she is clearly an important composer who thoroughly deserves a place in the history of the early piano and in composition generally. These performers have done us all a great service in shining such a musically convincing spotlight on a composer who clearly merits much more attention.

D. James Ross