Categories
Recording

Resonanze

music for viola da gamba
Ibrahim Aziz
63:31
First Hand Records FHR83
Abel, J. S. Bach, Martínez Gil, Rowe & Schenck

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This CD is a vehicle for the gamba virtuosity of Ibrahim Aziz. The programme consists of two Baroque pieces and two modern compositions for gamba, and an arrangement of the Bach second cello Suite. Notwithstanding Aziz’s formidable technique and sonorous tone, I found this the least successful piece on the recording, being so familiar with the work as a cello piece and feeling that the gamba with its frets acted as a restraint on the player. Carlos Martínez Gil’s Suite Estiu is very much in the neo-Baroque style, a nostalgic homage to the gamba compositions of the 18th century. He manages to find unusual textures and resonances in the work’s five varied movements, as does gambist and composer, Rebecca Rowe, in her impressive 2018 composition Journeying, specifically written for Ibrahim Aziz. As a player of the instrument, she seems more confident and enterprising than Martínez Gil in her exploration of its potential. The Three Pieces by Carl Friedrich Abel are surprisingly consequential, although this is hardly surprising from the leading gamba virtuoso in London in the 18th century. Curious to think of his gifted pupil, the painter Thomas Gainsborough, working away diligently on this sort of repertoire. The D-minor Suite V by another 18th-century gambist/composer Johann Schenck is the most substantial work in the programme, technically dazzling and musically powerful. It is not surprising to learn that his music was widely published and performed throughout Europe, although the present suite survives in manuscript only. This is a delightfully varied CD, demonstrating the full and varied potential of the gamba in the hands of a capable and wonderfully gifted young player. 

D. James Ross

Categories
Recording

Continuum Scarlatti:Ligeti

Justin Taylor harpsichord
69:20
Alpha Classics ALPHA 399

[dropcap]I[/dropcap]f you like your Scarlatti harpsichord music spiced with Ligeti, then this is the CD you have been waiting for. Issued under the umbrella of ‘outhere music’ (presumably ‘out there’ rather than ‘out here’), these performances by the young French harpsichordist Justin Taylor aim to let the music of two vastly different periods engage in a musical dialogue. Taylor’s playing of the Scarlatti repertoire is stunningly good – I am less able to judge his playing of the Ligeti but this also seems deeply idiomatic and effective. Indeed, although I am not a natural fan of this type of recontextualization, I found myself drawn into this project in spite of myself. So in fact, for me, the Ligeti did comment on the Scarlatti and vice versa, although I do wonder whether such dialogues are better designed for concerts rather than CDs – how often will I want to hear this dialogue repeated? Anyway, as I have said, the Scarlatti performances stand very much on their own merits as well, so it would be entirely possible to ‘program out’ the Ligeti should you so wish, and there would still be a highly enjoyable programme to listen to. Grouping the individual Scarlatti movements into three-movement pseudo-sonatas, Taylor seems to find the ideal balance between momentum and rhythmical freedom, never seeming to linger just for the sake of it and always maintaining momentum. He plays a Ruckers harpsichord made in 1638 (and adapted in 1763 by Hemsch) which has an appropriately bright tone for the Scarlatti – and, for that matter, also seems to suit the Ligeti well.

D. James Ross

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Categories
Recording

5[five]

Flanders Recorder Quartet & Saskia Coolen
64:25
Music by J. S. Bach, Boismortier, Lully, Schein, Schein + 20th/21st-century music

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]his recital CD mixes contemporary and early music, the former written for recorders the latter generally arranged from a variety of sources. From its hip title to its pixilated picture of the players, this CD is almost trying too hard to make recorders cool, but – having said that – there is some truly lovely recorder playing here with warm, exquisitely blended tone, exemplary articulation and a high level of musical intelligence. The modern music often demands a hair-raising level of individual and group virtuosity, and is imaginative, catchy and wonderfully idiomatic for recorders. Unfortunately, by comparison, much of the Renaissance and Baroque music sounds a little staid by comparison, but the playing by the expanded quartet is never less than deeply artful, and the accounts of consort music by Johann Hermann Schein, which could conceivably have been played on recorders at the time, are particularly beautiful. Primarily this type of programme is simply a recital put on disc, and none the worse for that – and they say variety is the spice of life. For stunning unanimity of purpose in a recorder consort listen to track 19, the Allegro of a Boismortier concerto, but who would imagine that even an expanded quartet would need to employ twenty-nine instruments? OK, recorder playing is cool after all, and, from the impressive list of top instrument makers, apparently rather lucrative too.

D. James Ross

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Categories
Recording

Seasons

Oliver Davis, Antonio Vivaldi
Kerenza Peacock violin, Grave Davidson soprano, Trafalgar Sinfonia, Ivor Settlefield
62:16
Signum Records SIGCD437

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]his is an interesting disc, combining Vivaldi’s most famous violin concertos with a new orchestral song cycle entitled “Anno” by Oliver Davis (b. 1972) setting the the Italian sonnets that were printed in the Op. 8 partbooks in which the “Four Seasons” were published. Grace Davidson’s pure voice combines well with the Trafalgar Sinfonia’s largely vibrato-less string sound, and the rhythmic vitality and neo-Baroque style of Davis’s writing lend the cycle an easy instant accessibility.

BBC Radio 3’s CD Review programme the other day had several versions of the Vivaldi works (including solo organist and gypsy violinist!) and I would say the present recording lies halfway along the spectrum from HIP to wacky (although, to be honest, that doesn’t make allowance for several “wacky HIP” crossovers, which I would rather did not exist…) – Kerenza Peacock is an accomplished violinist, and she is mostly very well accompanied; I’m afraid I just did not hear anything new in these performances. Of course, the whole premise of the disc is to contextualize the Davis composition; actually, I think I would have preferred to hear more of his music.

Brian Clark

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