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Recording

Binder & Clavecin Roïal : Chamber Music at the Dresden Court

Ricardo Magnus, Ensemble Klangschmelze
68:33
Etcetera KTC 1753

The programme note for this intriguing CD is quick to answer the first of two obvious questions raised by the title. The Clavecin Roïal is a type of square piano, specially reconstructed for this recording, which has the facility to change from one timbre to another at short notice. In fact, under the fingers of Ricardo Magnus it is not so much rapidly changing tones but its constantly tinkling presence, soothing and absolutely charming, that is its distinguishing feature. To my ears, it combines the virtues of the clavichord and the early piano. In his introduction to the instrument, the builder Johann Gottlob Wagner announced it has a number of stops which reproduce the sounds of clavecin, harp, lute, pantaleon, and fortepiano – some explanations raise as many questions as they answer! The second question – who or what is a Binder? – is answered almost as quickly. Christlieb Siegmund Binder is the composer of the chamber music featured on the CD: two keyboard quartets and a trio for obbligato keyboard and flute, all receiving their premiere performances, as well as a further trio for obbligato keyboard and viola. This innocuously entertaining repertoire, sensitively and expressively played by Magnus and his ensemble, helps further to confirm the role of the Dresden Court as an important focus of music-making in 18th-century Germany. Binder was born and died in Dresden, and in his youth played the pantaleon, a type of large hammered dulcimer invented by Pantaleon Hebenstreit, so would certainly have appreciated the Clavecin Roïal’s ability to reproduce its sound.

D. James Ross

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Recording

Mozart : Piano Concertos K107s K175 K336

Robert Levin, Academy of Ancient Music, Laurence Cummings
62:33
AAM 042

The Academy of Ancient Music’s complete recordings of the Mozart piano concertos with Robert Levin is a project begun in 1994 under the direction of Christopher Hogwood and resumed in the 2020s, now under the direction of Laurence Cummings, in which the latest scholarship is combined with state-of-the-art period performance. For volume 10, we return to Mozart’s earliest essays in the genre, a movement from Nannerl’s Music Book reconstructed by Levin, the composer’s three concertos K107 based on J C Bach Sonatas and his first completely original Concerto K175 no 5. Famous for his quest for authenticity as a keyboard player specialising in the music of the 18th century, Levin’s flair for embellishment is given full rein here – I remember him explaining to me at a concert (only partly in jest) that he had the musical notes in front of him on his piano mainly so that he knew what to avoid in his embellished versions. The radical approach of this project is further manifest in the fact that no piano features in the making of the CD! In the extensive and lavishly presented programme notes, Cliff Eisen makes a very cogent case for the K175 concerto having been intended for performance on organ, and this imaginative piece flamboyantly scored by the young Mozart fresh from a visit to Mannheim for horns, trumpets, timpani, oboes, bassoon and strings works very well as an organ concerto. The solo instrument is the recently restored George England in Christ’s Chapel in Alleyn’s College of God’s Gift, Dulwich, which offers a range of characteristic stops which bring this lovely music to life. If the geography of the chapel just occasionally takes the edge off the crispness of this performance compared to an account on fortepiano, the colour palette more than compensates. In similar vein for the G major fragment and the K107 concerti Levin very convincingly employs a harpsichord, a 2013 copy by Alan Gotto of an instrument of around 1770 by Johann Heinrich Silbermann of Strasbourg. It is interesting that having composed them in his teens in 1773, Mozart continued to perform these concertos on tour, clearly enjoying their freshness and originality. The influence of Mannheim and the revolutionary Stamitzes is never far from this music, while J C Bach’s sonatas provide a useful framework and springboard for the developing young composer. Levin and the AAM provide beautifully nuanced accounts, crisp and fresh but also thoughtful and profound. For a brief bonus track Levin returns to the organ for no 17 of Mozart’s K336 church sonatas, a set of effervescent works in which I have observed elsewhere Mozart’s originality found perhaps its most unfettered expression. With its rippling cadenza and its dynamic interaction between soloist and ensemble, it provides the perfect sign-off for this excellent CD.

D. James Ross

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Recording

Antico tastame

Organi storici dell’Arcidiocesi di Monreale
Giovan Battista Vaglica
63:20
Tactus TC 720003

This recording has been a labour of love by Giovan Battista Vaglica who is heavily involved in cataloguing and restoring organs in the Archdiocese of Monreale in Sicily. He plays on three of these instruments here: a 17th-century organ, originally by Antonino La Valle but much altered, in the church of Maria SS. del Carmelo; an anonymous 18th-century instrument in the Chiesa Madre of Terrasini; a 19th-century instrument by an unknown maker in the church of S. Vito in Monreale. The music – all by Sicilian or Neapolitan composers – is well chosen to show off the variety of stops on each of the organs. The two earlier instruments are used for Toccatas by Alessandro Scarlatti and Francesco Durante, as well as a fine fugue by Domenico Scarlatti. A rather over-long set of partite on the Follia di Spagna by the elder Scarlatti provides a good opportunity to put the Terrasini instrument through its paces. The majority of tracks on the recording are played on the Monreale organ, featuring music by Cimarosa, Paisiello and Pergolesi, as well as the lesser-known Neapolitans Pietro Altieri and Fedele Fenaroli. This is all attractive music, without taking itself too seriously, and successfully showcases the surprising variety of timbres available – with only five stops – on the Monreale organ. This recording is a useful reminder of the riches that survive in just one small area of Sicily and the importance of keeping organs such as these in playing condition.

Noel O’Regan

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Recording

Bernard Storace In Modo Pastorale

Marouan Mankar-Bennis harpsichord & organ
77:00
L’Encelade ECL2101

This is an endearing recording which plunges the listener into a South Italian Christmas via a church bell and a bagpipe-like Pastorale, played on a 1768 Spanish organ by Buenafuente del Sistal (now in the church of Saint-Éloi de Fresnes near Paris). In this and other organ pieces, some subtle – and some not-so-subtle – percussion is added which provides a sense of theatre. Storace described himself as vice-choirmaster to the City of Messina, when publishing his only print in Venice in 1664; otherwise, nothing is known about him. His compositions represent a generic post-Frescobaldi idiom using familiar dance and variation forms: the Ciacona, Follia, Monica, Passacagli, and Ruggiero all feature, as well as as a couple of Recercars and a Toccata-Canzona pairing. One of the Recercars uses the ‘Sancta Maria’ refrain as its starting point, before introducing a chromatic subject and then moving on to a further one, eventually combining all three in what is a very effective piece. The other is entitled ‘di legature’ and was probably intended for the Elevation, though played here on a spinet: it strays into some strange chromatic territory towards the end.

While using familiar genres, Storace proves to be an inventive composer and Mankar-Bennis is a persuasive advocate. He adds a couple of his own short improvisations, on the Bergamasca and the Trombetta/Girometta. As well as the organ, with its blaring Spanish trumpets, he plays on an Italian-style harpsichord by Sean Rawnsley, after Giusti, and an Italian spinet by Jean-François Brun, based on a 1626 instrument. Recording quality is clear throughout and there is a very good variety of tone colours between the three instruments. The recording is sited within a putative grand tour of Sicily by the performer, imagined during the Covid lockdown, taking with him a series of readings by Alexandre Dumas, Guy de Maupassant, and others. Some random short street recordings are added as a preface to many of the tracks; these do add atmosphere, rather than being just a distraction. This may not be to everyone’s taste, but I rather enjoyed the conceit. Full texts are given in the booklet (and online), though only in French, with just a short summary in English. This is an imaginative approach to the music of a neglected composer and making it more accessible.

Noel O’Regan

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Recording

Winged Hands

Handel: The Eight Great Suites & Overtures
Francesco Corti harpsichord
147:00 (2 CDs in a card triptych)
Arcana A499

The title of this collection refers to a comment by Cardinal Benedetto Pamphili, Roman patron of the young Handel, who is reputed to have said: ‘he has wings in his right hand, indeed with that hand he does works that are more than mortal’. This has been taken as praise of Handel’s virtuosity at the keyboard, though Pamphili might also have been referring to the young composer’s expressive ability. Both traits are on full display in this fine recording by Francesco Corti. He is a player of great fluency, with a deep understanding of the styles of the period; he also shows an exceptional talent for idiomatic ornamentation. Sometimes he gets a bit carried away and I find the Gigues a bit rushed and breathless. But when the tempo is right, as it is for most of these movements, there is time for breath without ever losing the sense of the line. His right hand does indeed take flight, slightly behind the left in slower movements, and with good use of agogic accents and a fluid application of notes inégales. There is a real sense here of the impact the young Handel’s playing must have had on his listeners, a long way from other, more literal and careful, recordings of this repertoire. Played in this way, Handel’s music covers a very wide gamut of emotions and styles. I particularly liked his treatment of the introspective F minor Suite (HWV433), but all the suites have their highlights. Registration is imaginative and the harpsichord – by Andrea Restelli after Christian Vater’s Hannover 1738 original – is very well suited to this music. The recording is quite reverberant and more distant than some, mimicking a large public room rather than a smaller one. As well as the eight Suites there are arrangements of opera overtures and other movements from Radamisto, Rinaldo, Rodelinda and Teseo by Handel and William Babell. While excitingly played, I found these rather less satisfactory and often rushed. The Menuet from Rinaldo, for instance, lacks the poise and elegance which David Vickers points to in his excellent sleeve notes. That apart, this is very welcome recording indeed and can be very highly recommended.

Noel O’Regan

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Recording

Handel: 8 Great Suites for harpsichord

Asako Ogawa
135:32 (2 CDs in a card triptych)
First Hand Records FHR142

Coming in the wake of Francesco Corti’s recent recording of this repertoire, Ogawa’s CD inevitably invites comparison, and I am pleased to report that her playing stands up very well. While not by any means eschewing flamboyance, Ogawa is more sparing in her displays and concentrates on lucidity of sound and clarity of voice leading, with a subtle use of ornamentation. She is reflective in slower movements and exciting in faster ones like the Courantes and Gigues, while retaining a sense of poise. Occasionally, some stodginess creeps into her use of notes inégales, particularly in the Allemandes. As well as the eight Suites, she includes the Chaconne in G major, HWV 435, where effective registration and a strong sense of momentum keeps the music alive throughout. Climaxes in this and other pieces are built steadily, for instance in the so-called ‘Harmonious Blacksmith’ variations in HWV 430: this builds inexorably to a thrilling ending, with Ogawa giving us an extra repeat of the final section where she metaphorically pulls out all the stops. Her reading of the G minor Suite HWV 432 particularly impressed me. She plays on a harpsichord by Klaus Ahrend 1973, based on a model by Dulken, with a beautifully mellow sound; it is quite closely miked, but with just enough reverberation for beauty of tone and clarity. Ivan Moody manages to cram lots of relevant information into his liner notes. Overall, this recording is a considerable achievement and can be recommended for many gratifying insights.

Noel O’Regan

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Recording

Mozart: Piano Concertos

Academy of Ancient Music, Robert Levin, Bojan Čičić, Laurence Cummings
62:33
AAM AAM042

Many will doubtless recall that among the most exciting projects of the last decades of the 20th century was the recording of complete sets of the Mozart keyboard concertos undertaken by Malcolm Bilson (Archiv) and Robert Levin (L’Oiseau-Lyre). Employing instruments of the period and stylish ornamentation, both cycles were path-breaking in the manner in which they gave us the most historically informed ideas yet of how the piano concertos might have sounded to Mozart’s own audiences. The Bilson cycle was to all intents and purposes completed – though you had to go ‘off-piste’ to get the three very early concertos of K107 – but Levin’s came to a halt around the turn of the century after eight volumes. The death of Christopher Hogwood, the conductor of the series, in 2014 might have set the seal on determining that the cycle would remain incomplete. Now however comes the first of a series of five discs on the AAM’s own label that will complete Levin’s set by 2024.

It is something of an assortment of curiosities on which you will not even hear a note played on the fortepiano! Perhaps most curious of all is the concerto fragment that appears in the music notebook of Mozart’s sister Nannerl. The notebook is home to several of Mozart’s earliest efforts at composition (K1a, b and c) and the proposition made here (by Mozart scholar Cliff Eisen) is that the fragment was composed by Mozart and entered in the notebook by the children’s father Leopold. The orchestral passages are not notated but the music has been reconstructed by Robert Levin. It has a strangely familiar feel to it, which annoyingly I cannot put a name to at present, though the saucy folk-like tune could be that of any number of cheeky songs or comic arias. Like the three concertos of K107, it is played on a two-manual harpsichord built by Alan Gotto of Norwich after c.1770 Silbermann, an instrument that does in fact at times sound disconcertingly like a fortepiano (at least as recorded here).

The three concertos of K107 represent a small step in Mozart’s giant advancement of the keyboard concerto. Dating from 1771 or 72, they are not original works, but arrangements of the keyboard sonatas opus 5 of J C Bach, who had befriended the child Mozart during his London visit some six years earlier. Only the first, a charming work, has three movements, the others just two. All three betray the galant elegance of their original composer, as does the sentimental style of the set of variations that form the second movement of the G-major Concerto (No 2). Like all the music on the CD the concertos are played with an easy fluency and nimble, precise finger-work. There are, however, times when I felt that Levin might have allowed a little more affection into his playing, which does carry more than the odd hint of the dutiful.

For those that haven’t read the notes prior to listening to the disc, another surprise comes with the Piano Concerto No 5, K175 (1773), Mozart’s first original piano concerto, for it is played not on the piano (or fortepiano) but on the organ. Eisen’s argument for doing so is convincing. You’ll have to read the full note to find out why in detail, but in brief it hinges mainly on two facts. Mozart’s lost autograph titled the work ‘per il Clavicembalo’, at the time a generic term for keyboard instruments. Perhaps still more persuasively the keyboard part lacks the dynamic markings expected in music for piano, but not that for organ. Although not mentioned by Eisen the general character of the work might also suggest organ for the original solo instrument, for it is a grandiose D-major concerto with trumpets and timpani. To my mind, it works well enough in the outer movements but the lyrical central Andante (without the drums and trumpets, of course) sounds far more ‘pianistic’ and arouses doubts. I also have a question mark about the instrument used, the organ completed by George England in 1760 for Christ’s Chapel of Alleyn’s College of God’s Gift, Dulwich, and restored by William Drake in 2009. I’m no organ expert, but it doesn’t sound remotely like the Austrian organs of this period known to me. Levin’s playing of it is again remarkable for its easy facility, though there are hints of skating over some of the more florid passage work. Lastly, there’s an organ work that there’s no debate about, the final Church or Epistle Sonata, K336. The AAM gives Levin generally tidy support, although the ensemble playing of the strings is variable, the above-mentioned variations of K107/2 being an example of less than perfect ensemble. Overall the disc is an interesting addition to the cycle if not quite of the highest calibre.

Brian Robins

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Recording

ALLA MILANESE

The Gonzaga Band directed by Jamie Savan
74:19
Resonus RES 10314

The Gonzaga Band is small group of acclaimed experts who deliver music-making of extraordinary power, where the whole seems miraculously more than the sum of its parts.

Partly this is because their expertise is forged in bringing exactly this music – music written in the years when Renaissance polyphony was just bursting out of its ecclesiastical shell into a more florid, instrumental-driven freedom of divisions or passaggi as these techniques of ornamenting the four-square polyphonic writing were called – to life. It was this development – along with the development of instrument-making – especially in violin making – that would enable Corelli and Vivaldi and their associates to emerge into what we know as the high Baroque, and Milan was particularly important in the development of the violin and its music in this period.

But partly also it is because their leader, Jamie Savan, researches and prepares music for performance that is not only a pleasure to listen to, but which makes the links between Milan’s past and future as a distinctive player in the extraordinary flowering of the Nuova Musica along the Po valley from Lombardy to the Veneto. Savan’s liner notes are always a model of good practice: the sources are listed, along with the performing pitch (A=465Hz) and the temperament (1/4 comma mean tone); so are the instruments they all play, including the Hauptwerk organ sampled from S. Maria d’Alieto, Izola, Slovenia used by Steven Devine. I would love to hear them play with an organ by Walter Chinaglia based on open wooden principal pipes described in his Duoi organi per Monteverdi, https://www.organa.it/monteverdi/ for details.

Attention to balance and allowing space for sonorities to bloom is second nature to this group, and we should be grateful for a glimpse into such a wide variety of music. There is a good deal of the best-known Milanese composer of the time, Giovanni Paulo Cima, and his Capriccio 8, 1606 (track 12) will give you a good idea of the instrumental sonorities offered here. Particularly interesting to me as examples of how the earlier polyphonic masterworks were being transformed by passaggi are the tracks 6, 11 and 15 where music by Palestrina, Lassus and de Rore is re-presented with divisions: here Mark Caudle’s violone playing in Rognoni’s version of Lassus’ well known Susanne un jour is a star turn, as are Jamie Savan’s cornetto divisions in track 15. Towards the end, we hear two tracks by Caterina Assandra, a novice nun who was clearly a remarkable composer in her own right at a young age.

Faye Newton has a wonderfully clear yet expressive voice, negotiating the passaggi and trills with ease, she manages to convey the varying moods of the music without the aid of those modern singerly conventions like vibrato or unaccountable swelling on weak notes. This means she matches the instruments splendidly: Cima’s Surge propera (track 16) is a motet with echo effects on the cornetto, and Rognoni’s Ave Virgo Benedicta (track 17) lets us hear her unadorned. You would expect a degree of athleticism from the cornetto, but here you can hear it from the bass sackbut too in the skilled hands of Guy Morely (tracks 5 and 18). Oliver Webber whose relaxed technique is so well-suited to this period’s divisions is heard on his own in Canzon ‘la Porcia’ by Antonio Mortaro with divisions by Francesco Rognoni (track 7), where Steven Devine is playing a harpsichord by Colin Booth (1998) based on one by Domenico da Pesaro (Venice, 1533).

The whole CD is a treat, introducing us to a distinctive sound-world which helps us make sense of the rise in instrumental skills which preluded the shift from Canzone to Sonatas and Concerti, marking the distinctive Baroque period both instrumentally and vocally. I commend it wholeheartedly.

David Stancliffe

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Recording

Tears from Babylon

J. S. Bach: Piano Transcriptions
Alexandra Papastefanou
59:54
FHR 141

This is an unlikely CD to come my way, and I would not normally think myself qualified to make any comment on the style and performance of such an unashamedly pianistic collection. But Alexandra Papastefanou is a celebrated Greek pianist and takes her jumping off point from the well-known and popular transcription by Dame Myra Hess of the cantata movement from BWV 147 known as ‘Jesu, joy of man’s desiring’, with which this CD ends.

But Papastefanou’s skill is shown by the opening two tracks – transcriptions of the first two movements of the Trio Sonata for organ BWV 529 – in which she demonstrates not only her technique as a performer, but also as an arranger. The majority of her CD is given to arrangements of cantata movements, but there are also versions of the chorale preludes BWV 711 and 653. BVW 35.vi comes off well where the instrumental obligato part dovetails with the alto vocal line in a way that is reminiscent of Bach’s own arrangement of BWV 6.iii as the fifth of the Schübler Chorales for organ. It was nice to hear a version of the Chorale in BWV 22.iv that formed another of the older favourite transcriptions along with ‘Jesu, joy of man’s desiring’ that sat on my childhood piano.

If you like piano transcriptions of Bach’s music – and many listeners to Radio 3’s ‘Bach before Seven’ seem to – then you will enjoy this collection.

David Stancliffe

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Recording

A. Scarlatti: Cantate da camera

Lucile Richardot mezzosoprano, Philippe Grisvard, harpsichord
69:58
Audax Records ADX11206

Given that Alessandro Scarlatti wrote some 500 chamber cantatas, it is not surprising that recordings of them can frequently claim to be premieres. No fewer than four of the five included on the present CD are identified as such; I’m in no hurry to attempt verification or otherwise. The cantatas are set off by interspersed keyboard works, in particular two Toccatas (in A minor and G minor) that in keeping with the typical 17th-century character of such works are both virtuoso pieces that include quasi-improvisatory arpeggio passages. They are played with great dexterity by Philippe Grisvard on a modern instrument inspired by 18th-century Italian instruments.

Grisvard, whose notes are otherwise intelligent and helpful, opens by implying that opera in Rome in the second half of the 17th century was essentially an underground operation due to papal disapproval. It’s a curious misnomer and one that certainly does not, as he suggests, explain the popularity of the chamber cantata, which served the function of providing entertainment for the sophisticated audiences that gathered in the palace salons of sacred and secular princes. Almost entirely concerned with the Roman Arcadian literary movement that played such an important role in operatic reform around the turn of the century, the chamber cantata was predominantly the milieu of shepherds and shepherdesses and the complications of their love lives. The treatment ranged from tragedy to humour, but texts frequently alluded to allegory or metaphor, being written by such leading Roman figures as Cardinal Benedetto Pamphilj, one-time patron of both Scarlatti and Handel. One of his cantatas, ‘Sarei troppo felice’, figures in the present collection and is particularly interesting as an example of the extreme flexibility the form enjoyed. While most cantatas were cast as a simple alternation of plain recitative and aria, or the reverse, here the opening is an exquisitely set two-line rumination, ‘I would be only too happy, If I were master of my thoughts’, that becomes a linking ritornello for a series of philosophical musings that enjoy the freedom to move with ease between recitative and aria. The effect is extraordinarily modern, rather akin to a stream of consciousness dialogue.

Far from simply purveying the simple innocence of the pastoral life, the best of the chamber cantata repertoire is a demanding one for singers. I have lost count of the number of recordings of the genre that fail because singers treat it as an extension of opera, even as miniature operas. In fact, its demands are quite different, requiring an intimate approach in which text and music can be directly conveyed in a nuanced manner to an audience that is in close proximity to the performers.  The French mezzo Lucile Richardot and her accompanist well understand this. She is the possessor of what is intrinsically an unusually dark-hued mezzo, more contralto in timbre. Yet the voice has great range and colour, upper notes having the capability to surprise, sometimes bursting into brightness like the sun emerging from a darkened sky. Her chest notes are exceptional. Understandably she has particularly made her mark in French opera, yet recently she recorded a quite sensational Penelope in Monteverdi’s Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria, a powerful assumption that drew full value from the all-important text. That attention to text is what makes these performances so completely engaging and idiomatic, along with a subtle and never overuse of rubato and portamento. Richardot also captures so well the humour, allegory and ambivalence of ‘La lezione di musica’, a cantata that delivers an unexpectedly painful conclusion.

There is so much here that is admirable – more than admirable – that it seems churlish to enter a caveat, but Richardot’s ornamentation is not as convincing or as efficiently articulated as it could be. Grisvard makes the point that the performers felt da capo ornamentation needed to be kept to a minimum in these works, which is arguable, particularly in the case of ‘Là dove a Mergellina’, Scarlatti’s last cantata, which is a more bravura work. But embellishments in general are not as fluently turned as is desirable. But that is a relatively small flaw in what from nearly all aspects is an exceptional recording of outstanding works.

Brian Robins