Tag: Keyboard music

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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

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Bach: Klavierwerke

CD cover Alessandrini Bach Klavierwerke

Rinaldo Alessandrini harpsichord
79:02
naïve OP 30581

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For his lockdown solo release, Rinaldo Alessandrini has chosen three groups of pieces, each linked by a key – A minor, D minor and C minor. Each group has the pair of preludes and fugues from Das wohltemperierte Klavier I & II at its heart, and the A minor group has the praeludium  BWV 931, the inventio BWV 784 and sinfonia BWV 799 before them and the fantasia con fuga BWV 904 after. In the D minor group, the praeludium BWV 940, inventio BWV 775 and sinfonia BWV 790 come before them, and the sonata per il cembalo solo BWV 964 comes after, while in the C minor group it is the praeludium BWV 934, inventio BWV 773 and sinfonia BWV 788 coming before them with the fantasia BWV 906 and finally the ricercar à tre voci from the Musicalisches Opfer BWV 1079.

This makes an architecturally elegant yet suitably diverse programme for his recital, recorded in 2019 in the Parco della Musica in Rome on a 1984 copy by Kees Bom of a Dulcken original.

Alessandrini’s playing is lyrical and relaxed, but the sense of shape and direction in his playing gives the music clarity and momentum. The harpsichord is well-recorded and it sounds mellow, as it should, and the counterpoint is well-articulated.

All in all, this is a very satisfying recital and I was particularly glad to hear BWV 964, the sonata for cembalo solo after the sonata for violin in A minor BWV 1003, which I do not recall hearing in this incarnation before. What a lot there is to learn from Bach’s reworking of his own compositions: here his inventive mind and fevered imagination compete to provide fresh insights that are both subtle and intellectually challenging.

David Stancliffe

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Kerll: Complete Harpsichord and Organ Music

CD cover Matteo Mesori Kerll Complete keyboard music Brilliant Classics

Matteo Messori
173:05 (3 CDs in a case)
Brilliant Classics 94452

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This 3 CD set of all Kerll’s surviving keyboard works is likely to become the benchmark recording, and was only released in 2021 despite having been recorded in 2012, it appears. There is an excellent and substantial (10 page) essay on Kerll by Matteo Messori in the liner notes, together with details of the instruments on which the recordings were made. As well as being a harpsichordist and organist with many recordings to his name, Messori also founded Cappella Augustana with whom he recorded the complete Schütz for Brilliant Classics: these are fine recordings and established his credentials as a scholarly and musical interpreter of 17th-century German music.

In his lifetime, Kerll was a famous keyboard player and teacher and enjoyed the patronage of the Imperial Court, so spent time in Vienna, where he wrote his Missa in fletu solatium at the time of the plague and the Turkish invasion of 1683. An influential teacher, who probably taught Pachelbel as well as Fux and had his compositions parodied by Bach and Handel, his keyboard music is in the post-Frescobaldi style popularised by Froberger. Having been a pupil of Carissimi in Rome, his operas and much of his church music has been lost. Some masses survive and these keyboard works including the justly famous Modulatio organica, that sets verses of the Magnificat to alternate with the Gregorian chant in all eight modes.

The organ used in this recording is the 1732 instrument built by J. I. Egedacher in the Pfarrkirche in Vornbach am Inn, which was conserved by Kuhn in 2009, having its pitch of A=465 reinstated. It has a Bavarian/Italianate style that matches Kerll’s musical pedigree and is well recorded for this project. Kuhn’s website provides details of the complex history of the instrument and the specification; no details are given in the liner notes of the detailed registration chosen. Of the three harpsichords used, two are copies by Romain Legros – one of an anonymous instrument in the Ca’ Rezzonico museum in Venice and another after Giovanni Battista Giusti (Luca 1681) – and one by Barthélémy Formentelli after a southern French instrument. All three have a full resonance and seem suitable, though no details are provided of the originals.

CD 1 has the toccatas and canzone, CD 2 the four suites with the Ciaccona, Passacaglia, Capriccio sopra il Cucu and Battaglia played on the three harpsichords, and CD 3 the Modulatio organica super Magnificat octo Ecclesiasticis tonis respondens  (1686) played entirely on the organ. The acoustic in the church is not overpowering, so the change from one of the harpsichords to the organ in CD 1 seems perfectly plausible, even though the slight pitch difference provides a little frisson. After the fluent, improvisatory nature of the toccatas the measured part-writing of the canzone provides a welcome contrast and the use of a single 4’ on the organ for the central section of Canzone quarta is a good touch.

Modulatio organica super Magnificat, the work for which Kerll is best known, takes us through the proper transpositions of the eight tones and allows us to experience the clarity of the various registrations of the organ in the contrapuntal part-writing. Each organ verse is preceded by its proper plainsong sung by the male soprano, Lukasz Dulewicz, to fine effect. Messori captures the improvisatory nature of what might often have been the quite short extemporised verses performed by Kerll very convincingly and confirms my belief that this is the definitive performance for this oeuvre.

Anyone who needs to understand the link between the Italian and the German composers for keyboard in the seventeenth century will be rewarded listening to these enlightening performances.

David Stancliffe

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Bach: Concerto à Cembali concertati vol. 4

CD cover Bach Concerto à Cembali concertati vol. 4

Concertos for 3 & 4 harpsichords
Aapo Häkkinen, Miklós Spányi, Cristiano Holtz, Anna-Maaria Oramo, Helsinki Baroque Orchestra
77:45
Aeolus AE-10107
+Müthel: Duetto in E-flat major

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This recording brings the set of four CDs of Helsinki Baroque Orchestra’s recording of Bach’s Concerti à Cembali concertati, with Aapo Häkkinen as the leading harpsichordist, to a conclusion. The first volume was released in 2012.

The playing is light and bright, and with one-to-a-part strings, the harpsichords – especially in BWV 1065 – are in no danger of being smothered. As in the previous recordings, the Helsinki Baroque Orchestra plays on an interesting array of instruments with violins by Stainer and Klotz, a viola by Leclerc c. 1770 and a ‘cello from Rome c. 1700. The odd one out is a Bohemian double bass dated 1840, and it sounds like it: much too boomy in some places. Clearly, they do not always play with a 16’ – there is a delightfully transparent Youtube video of their performance in Japan of Brandenburg V which not only eschews a 16’ violone but has only two other upper strings alongside the concertante violin! So why use a double bass when a slighter-toned violone would have matched the other strings far better?

The ‘filler’ in this volume – it has included pieces for single harpsichord in the earlier volumes like the Italian concerto – is a quite different piece: Johann Gottfried Müthel (1728-1788)’s Duetto in E-flat major of 1771 is in three movements played here on two closely-recorded clavichords from the very end of the 18th century, reminding us of the continuing popularity of the clavichord as a boudoir instrument, which is just what is right for this piece.

I have quite a few recordings of the complete set of harpsichord concerti: Ton Koopman with the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra from the early 1990s, Trevor Pinnock with The English Concert, Lars Ulrich Mortensen with Concerto Copenhagen, and there is Pieter-Jan Belder with the Amphion Consort for Brilliant Classics and Davitt Morony with colleagues on historic instruments – all of which have strong claims as a complete set.

Only the more recent like Concerto Copenhagen, the Amphion Consort and the emerging (but not yet complete) series with Francesco Corti and Il Pomo d’Oro use (rightly to my mind) single strings, so this recording may be a good choice.

David Stancliffe

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Richard: Professeur du Roy Soleil

CD cover of L'Encelade Etienne Richard harpsichord teacher Fabien Armengaud

Richard: Professeur du Roy Soleil
Fabien Armengaud harpsichord
70:00
L’Encelade ECL 190

The Bauyn manuscript is most famous as a major source of keyboard music by Chambonnières and Louis Couperin, but it has a third layer in which can be found the music of Richard, harpsichord teacher to none other than Louis XIV. There are three suites by him in the programme, surrounded by the music of his contemporaries, both illustrious (d’Anglebert, etc.) and shadowy (Jacques Hardel, etc.). The suggestion is that these pieces may have been part of Richard’s teaching repertoire, though the point is not forced.

The instrument (modern, but ‘in the spirit of French instruments of the last decades of the 17th century’) is quite brightly voiced and closely recorded so you may find a lower than usual volume setting is desirable, especially if listening through headphones. It is very well-tuned, both in terms of the temperament chosen and the accuracy of the octaves, and I didn’t mind the occasional mechanical noise – usually the shove coupler being (de)activated – though there are a few moments when the dampers could have done a better job at the end of a piece. Its resources (three registers on two manuals) are deployed sensibly.

This is very committed playing, with sprightly ornamentation, determined (in a good way) to make the best possible case for this little-known music though an extra layer of enjoyment can be detected in the luxuriant textures of the Louis Couperin Passacaille that closes the programme.

The supporting essay (in French and English) is informal in style but manages to stay on the right side of ‘gushy’ and tells us what we need to know. This is a valuable issue, not just in itself but for the wider context that it provides for the keyboard masterpieces of the period and the insight into the Sun King’s skills and taste.

David Hansell