Tag: Keyboard music

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Veggio · Rodio · Bertoldo: Complete Organ Music

CD cover Veggio Rodio Bertoldo Luca Scandali

Luca Scandali Lorenzo da Prato organ, San Petronio, Bologna
98:42 (2 CDs in a single jewel case)
Brilliant Classics 95804

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The recent untimely death of Liuwe Tamminga has deprived us of a fine organist who spent many years officiating at the Lorenzo da Prato organ in the Basilica of San Petronio in Bologna, the instrument at the centre of these two CDs of music by three little-known Italian composers from the middle of the sixteenth century. One of the oldest surviving organs, it was built in 1471-75 and added to in 1531. Luca Scandali studied with Tamminga and with the latter’s predecessor and mentor, Luigi Ferdinando Tagliavini, so he knows the instrument well and makes very good use of its full range of stops. It can make a very big sound and the Basilica’s acoustic is also big – the reverberation continues long after final chords are released – but the recording engineers have coped very well here. Scandali shows a keen affinity with his repertory, maintaining a good sense of flow while showing considerable flexibility in individual lines and sections.

Not much is known of Claudio Veggio, the earliest of the three featured composers; all his surviving keyboard music can be found in a single manuscript housed in Castell’Arquato (situated between Piacenza and Parma). Scandali plays six ricercars (one of which he has also completed), as well as an attractive canzona intabulation. The ricercars are impressive pieces, two of them quite extended in length. They tend towards imitation by homphonic blocks, rather than by single voices, and come across rather more like intabulations than ricercars.

Rocco Rodio came from Bari but worked in Naples, where he was a contemporary of composers such as Diego Ortiz, Bartolomeo Roy and Jean de Macque in what was a cultural melting pot, leading to a flourishing school of keyboard composition. His only volume of keyboard music, published in 1575, is the first known to have been printed in open score. It contains five extended ricercars, interspersed here with three fantasias on well-known plainchant themes, plus one on La Spagna. The ricercars are imaginative pieces which go in some unexpected directions. For the fantasias, Scandali is joined by sackbut player Mauro Morini who plays the long note cantus firmi. I am in two minds about this: while it does help to bring out the chant for modern audiences not familiar with it, it gives an undue emphasis to the cantus firmus, which was not necessarily intended to be heard, with the sackbut at times overpowering the other voices in the texture.

Sperindio Bertoldo came from Modena but spent most of his life as organist at the Duomo in Padua. He has left just three ricercars, more conventionally imitative than those of the other two composers here. They are interspersed with two toccatas and five French chanson intabulations. The toccatas are a particularly good showcase for full organ, while the canzonas are rich with sprightly figuration and are used to exploit its range of stops. This recording represents an attractive compilation of music by three relatively unknown figures, serving to showcase what was already a flourishing Italian organ music scene between c. 1540 and c. 1575, before Claudio Merulo and the Gabrielis came into their stride. Scandali’s enthusiasm for the repertory shines through and I enjoyed listening to it very much.

Noel O’Regan

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Picchi: Complete Harpsichord Music

CD cover Picchi complete harpsichord music

Simone Stella harpsichord
73:55
Brilliant Classics 95998

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Giovanni Picchi (1572-1643) is best known to harpsichordists for a single fine toccata which was copied into the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book in the early 1600s. He was organist at the church of the Frari in Venice from the mid-1590s until his death and later concurrently held the same post at the Scuola di S. Rocco. As well as a print of instrumental canzoni and a single motet, fourteen dance pieces for keyboard survive and are included on this recording. To fill the space, a representative sample of other Venetian keyboard music is also included, featuring toccatas, ricercars and canzonas by Annibale Padovano, Claudio Merulo, Andrea and Giovanni Gabieli and Vincenzo Bellavere. All this provides a rich illustration of what was being played in Venetian salons in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. For Picchi, it is a pity that we have only that one toccata which shows a singular intelligence at work, as well as providing the performer with opportunities to be creative. His dance music has its moments but inevitably relies a lot on repeated chord progressions and figuration. Stella does his best to bring some characterisation to the different dances, some of which are labelled ‘alla Polacha’, ‘alla Ongara’ and ‘Todescha’, while providing the necessary constant rhythmic pulse. He plays on a copy of a harpsichord by the Sicilian Carlo Grimaldi, made by Roberto Marioni. It suits the range of music recorded here very well, sounding almost virginal like, and allowing Stella to bring out the voices very clearly in the contrapuntal music. Perhaps inevitably, Giovanni Gabrieli’s three pieces at the end of the recording shine through most strongly – all three are classics (the Fuga IX tono, Ricercare del VII/VIII tono and the keyboard arrangement by Girolamo Diruta of the canzona La spiritata). Stella has recorded and engineered the CD himself with excellent results, apart from leaving rather long gaps between the tracks. There are some endearing Italianisms in the English liner notes, but they are informative, and the overall project is very much to be welcomed.

Noel O’Regan

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The Monteverdi Organ

CD cover The Monteverdi Organ

Krijn Koetsveld organ, Ensemble Le Nuove Musiche
71:07
Brilliant Classics 96347

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This recording features a reconstruction of the organo di legno, an instrument described by Monteverdi as ‘soavissimo’, when writing of his Friday concerts in the Sala dei Specchi in Mantua’s ducal palace, and one which he prescribed in his printed score of Orfeo. It was thought most suitable for accompanying the human voice. There has been lots of recent interest in open wooden-pipe organs (including a session at the 2019 Medieval and Renaissance Music conference in Basel), sparked by a realisation that the chamber organ with stopped wooden pipes, beloved of early music groups because of its portability, does not represent the instrument known to Monteverdi and his contemporaries. Oddly, the sleeve notes to the CD under review say that no such instrument survives whereas, in fact, one famously does in the Silberne Kappelle in Innsbruck. Dating from the 1580s, it is thought to have arrived there from Mantua through Anna Caterina Gonzaga who married Archduke Ferdinand in 1582. Various copies have been made and can be heard on the internet, as can the Innsbruck original. In particular, readers of EMR can consult David Stancliffe’s review of Walter Chinaglia’s book and website describing the latter’s reconstruction of this organ (EMR2015 – early music review). It seems odd that Krijn Koetsveld, and the Klop firm of organ builders who have built the organ used on this CD, are not aware of all this.

The hand-pumped Klop organ has a lovely mellow tone and well-balanced voicing, and is shown to full advantage on this disc, both as a solo instrument and in accompanying a series of sacred and secular pieces from Monteverdi’s Selva morale of 1640/41. The sleeve notes do not provide a stop list and do not discuss the rationale behind the choice of items presented. In terms of showcasing the organo di legno, one could imagine a different sort of programme – one which also exploited its importance in chamber settings. This recording was done in the Martinuskerk in Hoogland, Netherlands which has a big acoustic; the instrument is also recorded at some distance. The opening track, a Froberger Toccata, serves to establish a church context, which is continued by a Salve Regina setting from the Selva morale, and later by excerpts from Frescobaldi’s Fiori musicali. Recorded in that same acoustic, the madrigals also have a more public than private feel. That said, the inclusion of Frescobaldi’s Ricercar con obligo di cantare with its Sancta Maria, ora pro nobis refrain does conjure up something of the sound of an oratory where such an instrument would have been particularly useful. Canzonas by Merula and Frescobaldi come across best, with good variety in registration, as does a Frescobaldi Capriccio. Koetsveld is ablest in such imitative music; his playing of two Frescobaldi Toccatas, one for the Elevation, is rather too fast and lacking in the nuance and improvisatory feel that these pieces demand.

The voices of Le nuove musiche, singly and collectively, provide the vocal music; this group specialises in singing Monteverdi and is currently engaged in recording all his madrigals as well as the complete Selva morale; this CD is something of a spin-off from these projects. The singers give a good account of themselves, though more rhythmic flexibility would have been welcome here also. Particularly striking is Ab aeterno ordinata sum – thought to have been written for the same bass singer as sang Caronte in Orfeo; Bas Ramselaar is supremely confident throughout its two-octave range. Despite some shortcomings, this is a welcome recording which will hopefully increase interest in the open-pipe organo di legno.

Noel O’Regan

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Kraus: Complete Piano Music

CD cover Krause Complete piano music

Costantino Mastroprimiano copy of a 1781 Stein fortepiano
79:48
Brilliant Classics 95976

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The portrait which adorns the cover of this CD shows the nineteen-year-old Kraus in a striking pose, looking straight at the viewer in an open-necked shirt, smoking an elaborate pipe and resting his arm on a heart-shaped cushion. Painted in 1775, it depicts both confidence and yearning, as well as creative potential. After studies in Germany, Kraus emigrated to Sweden and made a name for himself at the court of Gustav III as an opera and ballet composer. Sadly, he died from tuberculosis in 1792 (a year after his exact contemporary Mozart) aged just 36. Little of his keyboard music survives, just two sonatas and six other pieces. The Sonata in E major dwarfs the rest: it is a large-scale work in four movements, concerto-like in its ambition. The first movement, despite being in a major key, is very much a Sturm und Drang piece, showing perhaps some influence from C. P. E. Bach in its quickly changing moods. The second and third movements continue this fantasia-like approach with extreme contrasts, in a very effective proto-Beethoven style. The sonata finishes with a set of variations on a jaunty march, showing the full potential of the variation form, as Kraus does in the other Sonata and in a stand-alone extended set of variations on a hunting theme, thought to have been composed in London in 1785. There is also a single (sadly) Swedish dance. Mastroprimiano is a sympathetic interpreter of the music, bringing out its expresiveness and quirkiness, without overexaggeration and with lots of nuance. He plays on a copy by Monika May of a 1781 Stein fortepiano, contemporary with the music, which is very well recorded. There is an endearing quality to Kraus’s music, and it serves as a reminder that Vienna was not the only centre capable of producing good quality keyboard output. On the evidence of this welcome recording, it is a pity that more has not survived.

Noel O’Regan

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Mattheson: The Melodious Talking Fingers

Floral design

Die Wohlklingende Fingersprache
Collin Booth harpsichord
69:47
Soundboard Records SBCD220

Colin Booth’s recordings are always worth looking out for and his latest is no exception, following on from his fine recording of Bach’s 48 Preludes and Fugues. His careful preparatory research is shown by his extremely informative liner notes covering Mattheson’s relations with his close contemporaries, Bach and Handel, as well as providing a running commentary on the Wohlklingende Fingersprache recorded here. This 1735 publication, dedicated to Handel, contained twelve fugues, as well as a number of shorter movements in the manner of galanterien. The fugues come in a carefully constructed key order, moving by fifths from G to E flat and back again. Some are quite extended, with two double fugues and one triple; this last is the longest at just over nine minutes here. As Booth points out, Mattheson wears his undoubted learning lightly, not being afraid to break away from strict writing now and again, while using singable subjects and a variety of musical styles. The result is an attractive programme, with the periodic insertion of the galanterien providing further contrast. Booth plays them straight, allowing the music to speak for itself. He uses the same instrument as he did for the Bach, his own enlarged copy of a 1661 French double, made by Nicholas Cellini. Its brass stringing and clear voicing allow all the contrapuntal parts to come through clearly, helped by the close recording which gives the instrument real presence. It is well worth listening to.

Noel O’Regan

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Sentiment

CD cover Alexandra Ivanova Sentiment

Works by Louis Couperin, Duphly, Rameau, Royer & Anita Mieze (b. 1980)
Alexandra Ivanova harpsichord
82:02
Genuin classics GEN 21733

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This debut recording showcases late French baroque keyboard music by Jean-Philippe Rameau, Jacques Duphly and Pancrace Royer; these are bookended with pieces by Louis Couperin and interspersed with three by the contemporary Latvian composer Anita Mieze. The Russian-born Ivanova displays an excellent feel for French styles, whether the ‘classical’ Couperin, or the more flamboyant Royer and Duphly. She has the necessary exuberance and virtuosity for Duphly’s Médée or Royer’s Tambourines but is equally impressive on the more meditative side of those composers’ work. Her inégales playing is very flexible and gives her performances a strong improvisatory feeling, as if the music was being composed as she goes along. Indeed, she prefaces Rameau’s Gavotte et six doubles with her own-composed short Prélude non mesuré. That track is particularly successful, building the sonority and excitement very well through the variations. In the more exuberant pieces, she occasionally gets a bit carried away by the excitement and rushes slightly ahead of the acoustics but, in general, these are fine performances which provide an excellent introduction to the broad sweep of French baroque music.

I was less convinced by the Mieze pieces which, despite the composer’s stated intention, only really exploit the harpsichord’s possibilities in one piece, Ansichtskarte. The other two seem rather aimless and none relate well to the structured feel of the rest of the programme. Ivanova plays the baroque music on a Joel Katzmann copy of a 1638 Ruckers, presumably with ravalement. For the contemporary pieces she uses a Blanchet copy by Titus Crijnen. It would have been interesting to have heard some of the late French pieces on the latter instrument. Both are expertly recorded here, particularly the Katzmann which has both good clarity and acoustic depth. This contributes to the success of the final track here, Louis Couperin’s Tombeau de Mr. de Blancrocher which I particularly enjoyed.

Noel O’Regan

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Froberger: Suites for Harpsichord, vol. 2

CD cover Gilbert Rowland Froberger suites vol 2.jpg

Gilbert Rowland
116:56 (2 CDs in a single jewel box)
athene ath 23209

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Gilbert Rowland follows up his first volume of Froberger Suites with a further twelve, again taken from a mixture of sources, and played in no particular order. Sources include the autograph manuscripts of 1649 and 1656 as well as a variety of other manuscripts; they include suites which, though anonymous in the sources, have been ascribed to the composer on stylistic grounds. These are pointed out in the substantial liner notes and their presence allows the listener to explore for themselves the validity of the ascription. They certainly contain some of the more recognisable features of Froberger’s style. The composer’s patron, the dowager Duchess Sibylla of Württemberg, wrote that the true interpretation of Froberger’s notes could only be discovered from the composer himself. Rowland has clearly thought deeply about his interpretations, particularly in the allemandes, which tend to have Froberger’s most profound thoughts and where Rowland is particularly sensitive. He uses inventive ornamentation on repeats in these and other movements, giving them an improvisatory feel – almost amounting to a recomposition at times – but always convincingly so. The courantes are fluent, with lots of French swing, though perhaps a bit stately. Sarabandes, on the other hand, are played quietly and meditatively, while Gigues are generally loud and brash. Rowland uses the same double-manual harpsichord, after a Goermans 1750 instrument, by Andrew Wooderson as he did for Volume 1. While not the most obvious choice of instrument for the music, it does allow a variety of timbres and is cleanly recorded. If I have a criticism, it is that the registration becomes a bit formulaic over the twelve sonatas: it might have been good to have played around with our expectations now and then, being more playful in a Courante or Gigue, perhaps, or making a Sarabande more loud and solemn. Rowland probably feels that he is laying down a definitive version, and there is nothing wrong with that. He is certainly a persuasive advocate for Froberger’s particular blend of styles and influences and well worth listening to.

Noel O’Regan

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Worgan: Complete Harpsichord Music

CD cover Worgan Complete harpsichord music

Julian perkins, Timothy Roberts
76:34
Toccata Classics TOCC 0375

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The name of John Worgan (1724-1790) was new to me, not having heard Timothy Roberts’ earlier recording of his complete organ music (Toccata Classics TOCC 0332). A member of an extended family of musicians, he was organist at a number of minor London churches, as well as at Vauxhall Gardens; in both capacities he was particularly famed for his improvisations. Both Domenico Scarlatti and Thomas Roseingrave were early influences on his compositional style. Little of his music survives and what did appear in print was mostly geared to educational purposes and doesn’t necessarily give us a sense of what, or how, he actually played, presenting a challenge to the modern performer. Timothy Roberts elects to play it pretty straight in Worgan’s thirteen short exercises in paired keys for young players, delivering them largely as published in 1780, on a Dulcken copy by Klaus Ahrend. Julian Perkins takes a more adventurous approach in the six sonatas from 1769. These post-Scarlatti works show a considerable variety of forms and styles, in either two or three movements (the sixth is a virtuosic Sarabande with Variations) and allow Perkins to showcase his own virtuosity and sense of whimsy. 

They also allow him to exploit the dozen or so different timbres available on the newly restored double-manual harpsichord of 1772 by Jacobus Kirckman (or his workshop), now in Dumfries House. This instrument is particularly well suited to Worgan’s music; it is beautifully recorded, and it is a pleasure to have the chance to hear it. The same instrument is used for the final item here, Worgan’s New Concerto for the Harpsichord of 1785. No string parts survive, and the work is a bit of a curiosity, in an eclectic mix of styles, but Perkins manages to bring it off with some panache. Roberts’ highly informative sleeve notes conclude by saying that Worgan’s music ‘needs no deep musicological understanding to be enjoyed’. It represents a public, rather than a profound, expression but it is good for the spirits and certainly well worth a hearing. Both players have done the composer proud in this welcome recording.

Noel O’Regan

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Onder de Hemel van Vlaanderen

Gabriel Wolfer plays Flemish music on a Swiss organ

Gabriel Wolfer organ, Cassandre Stornetta voice
72:00
Label G 016

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This 2021 recital by Gabriel Wolfer is played on an organ built in 2019 by Bertrand Cattiaux for the église Sainte-Jacques, Beurnevésin, in the Swiss Jura. The organ is built in the style of Flemish organs of the 17th century, but with the addition of a pedal organ. The twelve manual registers are available as jeux baladeurs on either of the two manuals, enabling a wide range of registrations, and are scaled and voiced after organs by the Bremser family, dating from the mid-seventeenth century Flanders. The speech is direct and singing, and is well-recorded in this small church. The temperament has 8 pure thirds, and the pitch is A=415Hz. The music, beginning with composers from the Low Countries, Du Caurroy and Sweelink, continues with Dowland and Bull, both known to have had connections there, before returning to more strictly Netherland composers. This is music for manuals only and is well-suited to this instrument, as are the English composers who would not have known the North German style of organ.

For me, the only discordant note is the singer, who has too developed a voice to match the directness and simplicity of the organ. She only sings three numbers – Une jeune filette at the start, the chanson on which the Du Caurroy variations are based and Cornelis de Leeuw’s carol Een kindeken is ons geboren that precedes the Bull version at the end, together with the Purcell Evening Hymn. So it is the organ and its able player who take centre stage.

The programme centres on sets of variations and fantasias, so a variety of sounds embroiders these threads giving us ample opportunity to appreciate the organ’s vocal qualities. In part this is due to its winding, and in part to the action which is clearly all of a piece. The sound is fluid, and I should have liked to hear it with a group of singers, like Vox Luminis, who would match its living, breathing tones so well. I find that I am intrigued, and do not tire of it; the organ builders – who have worked on conserving some distinguished 17th-century organs in France – deserve their reputation. I commend this CD not only for the interesting Flemish programme but also for the chance to hear this interesting and beautifully finished organ.

David Stancliffe

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De la Mer du Nord à la Thuringe

Cover of De la mer du Nord Gabriel Wolfer

Gabriel Wolfer
75:00
Label G 011

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This 2019 recital celebrates the fine instrument in the Jesuit church, Porrentruy in the Swiss Jura built by Jürgen Ahrend in 1985, when a young Gabriel Wolfer watched him finishing the voicing, and fell in love with the organ. Made after the style of Silbermann, so within a single case, the blend and finishing of the ranks is an excellent example of Ahrend’s work and the acoustic, though resonant, gives blend without sacrificing clarity. Ludivine Daucourt sings the plainchant verses in the Scheidt Magnificat admirably, and the organ plays at A=440Hz and is tuned in a version of Werkmeister III.

The programme is topped and tailed by Bach – the Fantasia and Fugue in G minor (BWV 542) at the start and the Prelude and Fugue in C (BWV 566a) at the end. Interspersing two chorale preludes An Wasserflüssen Babylon (BWV 653) and Jesus Christus unser Heiland (BWV 665) are the Froberger Lamento sopra la dolorosa perdita della Real Mstà di Ferdinando IV, Buxtehude Toccata in D minor (BuxWV 155) and Sweelink’s four versets on Da pacem, Domine. In the centre is the trio Sonata in E minor (BWV 528). Then follows the Buxtehude Ciaconna in E minor (BuxWV 160) and the six versets of Scheidt’s Magnificat on the 9th tone. The programme is varied, and the organ copes well with the more northerly composers as well as the essentially Thuringian Bach.

Wolfer escapes the temptation to overdo the contrasts in the registration and plays with clarity and a nice flexibility. He clearly knows and loves his instrument, and displays its virtues. It would have been nice if room had been found – or a website link provided – to give us the details of his registration, but the blend achieved in this single-case instrument is a testimony to its builder’s skill. This is a fine introduction to the organ and its curator.

David Stancliffe