Tag: Keyboard music

Colin Booth harpsichord
121:43 (2 CDs)
Soundboard SBCD218

Colin Booth is an exceptional musician: he has been making harpsichords for at least 45 years; he has written an indispensible book Did Bach Really Mean That? investigating the unwritten assumptions on which much performance practice depends, together with a number of scholarly articles; and he has made a number of recordings including the Goldberg Variations, a fine CD of Byrd (reviewed recently by Richard Turbet in EMR), Mattheson Harmony’s Monument, Buxtehude, Croft, Purcell and Couperin amongst others.

As is right the bulk of the 22 page stiff covered booklet which forms the excellent case for the two CDs is taken up by a well-argued essay on what Wohltemperierte means in the context of the 48, of which volume one was already in circulation amongst pupils and practitioners by 1722 while the second part seems not to have been available till about two decades later. What temperament will retain the sense of differentiation between the keys, which making them tolerably playable? In the end, he settles for Kirnberger III, and certainly the results seem to justify that choice. This is a wonderful example of what a serious booklet can be, and I hope it has wide circulation.

But it is the playing that counts. And I was bowled over. First, the sound. Colin Booth plays on an instrument that he made in 2016. ‘With an extension of the compass it is based on the design of an original instrument signed Nicholas Celini 1661, purchased and restored by Colin during 2013.’ It seems to have been built by aprovincial Italian maker, working in Narbonne. Strung in brass, it has a beautiful singing tone and gives great clarity to the part-writing. He only uses the 8’ ranks (there is a 4’ on the lower keyboard) but alone and in combination these provide both a sonorous richness and weight while allowing a degree of finesse to shine through.

His fingerwork is elegant, ornaments well-considered and never obtrusive, and the absence of that percussive brittle clatter we so often experience makes the whole experience of listening to two CDs straight through a real pleasure. Listen to how he articulates the subject in the B-flat fugue (2.18) where there is a studied ambivalence in how he shapes the grouping of the semi-quavers, or the final B minor fugue, where the wandering subject introduces us to the continuingly unfolding shifts in the tonality: here each phrase in this monumental construction builds upon what has gone before but you are sure that the performer will guide you home. I have no hesitation in saying that this is the most congenial playing I have heard of this remarkable set of pieces. The next volume is due for release this coming year. You will need to order from ColinBooth direct via his website – easily accessible at www.colinbooth.co.uk, where you will find a Christmas offer of three for the price of two.

David Stancliffe

Yoann Moulin harpsichord
55:24
Ricercar RIC394

This is the first in a new series of recordings by Ricercar devoted to German Baroque keyboard music. Scheidt and Scheidemann both worked with Sweelinck in Amsterdam before returning to Halle and Hamburg respectively; this disc alternates groups of pieces by both of them. The CD cover writes of the ‘introverted Scheidt and the more flamboyant Scheidemann’ but the choice of works and the playing here seems to invert this binary divide. Apart from a lively Gagliarda, the Scheidemann tracks – four Praeambula and his Pavana Lachrymae – are played rather solemnly and a touch too carefully for my taste. There is more flamboyance on display in some Scheidt variation sets, particularly those on Also geht’s, also steht’s and O Gott, wir danken deiner Güt. It is a pity that the track change has been mis-positioned between the latter and the previous track. The most interesting piece is probably the final extended Fantasia on Palestrina’s Io son ferito which displays some challenging rising and falling chromatic fourths, which also stretch the temperament. Moulin plays on an Andreas Ruckers copy by Philippe Humeau which works very well for the music and recording quality is excellent. The playing is a bit too safe and respectful overall, but this is a useful introduction to early Baroque German keyboard music.

Noel O’Regan

Clément Geoffroy harpsichord
73:00
L’Encelade ECL1705

Despite his artistic and financial successes, the Dutch-born but Hamburg-based Reincken has left very little music behind – something which, on the strength of this recording, is a great shame. In order to fill up his programme, Clément Geoffroy has included a number of unauthenticated works as well as the few whose attribution is secure. Among the latter, two particularly fine extended sets of variations stick out, those on Die Meierin (the same tune as Froberger’s Mayerin) and on the Balletto. Both are highly inventive and show what Reincken’s improvised performances must have been like. There is also a C major suite which shows strong Italo-German traits. A second suite in A minor, taken from an anthology by Roger, sounds quite different – much more French – and is probably not by Reincken (Geoffroy suggests Pachelbel). Two unauthenticated toccatas are also rather fine: one uses the stylus fantasticus while the other is more Frescobaldi-like. With such a small corpus, it is difficult to establish Reincken’s style, but all of the music on this CD is worth listening to, and it is a good representation of Northern European keyboard styles around the turn of the 18th century. Geoffroy’s playing is exemplary, as is the recording quality. He plays on a Ruckers copy by Emile Jobin which provides the right mixture of resonance and clarity for Reincken’s music. The tuning is a bit sour in the opening track (the stylus fantasticus toccata) but otherwise it works very well. This is an attractive compilation with some real exuberance and virtuosity in the playing and is highly welcome.

Noel O’Regan

Pieter-Jan Belder
77:58
Brilliant Classics 95656

[dropcap]I[/dropcap]n the course of this programme, Pieter-Jan Belder plays three modern copies of harpsichords by Giusti, Blanchet and Ruckers respectively, each producing a distinctive sound appropriate for the music he plays on it. We have a stimulating mix of familiar music by J. S. Bach, Purcell, Tomkins, Couperin and Frescobaldi, and unfamiliar works by less than well-known composers such as Giovanni Picchi, Louis Marchand, Antonio Soler, Bernardo Storace and Georg Muffat. There is something very reassuring about a repeating bass pattern, and by the middle of this CD I found myself well and truly in a chaconne groove – on a day which started badly when Morrisons changed its breakfast menu, it is good to know some things can be relied on. The inventive choice of basses, the imaginative variations set above them, and Belder’s expressive and highly rhetorical playing prevented any boredom setting in, and had ennui threatened, the inclusion of Soler’s flamboyant D minor Fandango would have headed it off at the pass. Technically assured and musically intelligent, Belder makes a reliable and authoritative guide through this interesting Baroque repertoire.

Brian Clark

Gwennaëlle Alibert, Clément Geoffroy
67:29
Encelade ECI 602

[dropcap]I[/dropcap] was surprised that I had never heard of Vivaldi’s concertos for two clavecins – of course, there are Bach’s transcriptions of Vivaldi for two harpsichords and strings, and indeed transcription turns out to be the key to this CD. Frustrated by the lack of music by Vivaldi for harpsichord, Gwennaëlle Alibert and Clément Geoffroy have transcribed a selection of his concertos and trio sonatas for a pair of harpsichords. This would appear to be a singularly random thing to do until you read François Couperin’s instructions on how to transform the orchestral music of previous generations into music for two harpsichords. We should bear in mind that, before the days of electronic music reproduction, to hear Vivaldi’s music in the later Baroque you had to assemble a chamber orchestra and persuade them to play this outdated repertoire. Much easier to devise a way of reading it on two harpsichords with one of your mates! The results sound quite unlike anything else you are likely to hear on the harpsichord, wonderfully dense tinkling textures through which you follow the melodic lines like an inquisitive hobbit through Fangorn Forest. Bach’s transcriptions for massed harpsichords such as the charming concerto for four harpsichords spring to mind, but in these transcriptions, all the lines including the orchestral strings are taken by the two keyboards. I found the results absolutely delightful and a feast for the ears – a million miles perhaps from Vivaldi’s original intentions, but – if we are to believe Couperin and others – a sound which might not have been all that alien to the ears of the later Baroque musician. Alibert and Geoffroy use a 2012 Marc Ducorner harpsichord after Ruckers and a 2013 Michel Chabloz harpsichord after the legendary Edinburgh le Taskin, which together produce a wonderfully tinkling ensemble sound. Not everybody’s cup of tea but I love it!

D. James Ross