Tag: Orchestral music

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Haydn: Les Heures du Jour

CD cover Haydn: Les Heures du Jour

Haydn 2032, vol. 10
Il Giardino Armonico, Giovanni Antonini
78:36
Alpha Classics Alpha 686

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For the latest instalment (the tenth) in their superb cycle of Haydn symphonies, Giovanni Antonini and his Il Giardino Armonico turn their attention to the earliest of Haydn’s symphonies to have retained a regular place in the affections of the composer’s admirers. In part, this is almost certainly due to the programmatic context of the trilogy, each of which bears a title devoted to the times of the day: morning, noon and evening. Yet equally special is the extraordinary concertante element in the three works, which could almost be thought of as an updated version of Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos.

An explanation for the profusion of solo passages can be found in the background to the symphonies, which date from 1761, the year in which Haydn was appointed vice-Kapellmeister to Prince Anton Esterházy. That year also coincided with the expansion of the group of chamber musicians employed by the prince to a full orchestra including a number of exceptional musicians. It seems the idea for an orchestral work that colourfully depicted a storm came from Esterházy himself and Haydn not only duly obliged in the final movement of ‘Le Soir’, in which we hear the first raindrops, thunder and then the full force of the storm, but added two further symphonies enabling him to exploit to the full the capabilities of the new orchestra. This Haydn did by providing both his wind and string players with numerous opportunities to shine in the many solos he gives them over the course of the trilogy.

Perhaps one of the most memorable programmatic moments occurs right at the start with the slow introduction to ‘Le Matin’, a depiction of a sunrise from the first rays, here barely heard, followed by a crescendo which spellbindingly builds dissonance upon dissonance. In Antonini’s hands it’s a wonderfully controlled breath-taking moment, dispelled only by the brightness of the morning’s sunny, cheerful allegro, led by the first of a number of outstandingly played flute solos. Among other special moments in a set of works teeming with incident is the highly original slow movement of ‘Le Midi’, cast as a full-scale opera seria accompagato recitative followed by an expressive adagio aria. The recitative starts out broadly, but bursts into a highly dramatic central section before again subsiding to more contemplative mood that leads to the aria, largely a duet between violin and cello, but also incorporating other solos.

The performances maintain the near exemplary standard that has been a hallmark of the entire series. Outstanding playing, superbly balanced orchestral sound, swinging between exhilarating, full-blooded verve and the most delicate, filigree textures, they are in the main also beautifully paced.  Antonini avoids the trap of taking final movements too fast, which would obscure some of the many points they have to make. Only in the case of the bassoon-coloured Andante (ii) of ‘Le Soir’ did I feel the tempo might be a little slow, but it is so lovely, with wonderful contributions from the solo cello, that to make too much of it would be excessively ungrateful.

In keeping with previous issues there is an addition to the symphonies, in this case Mozart’s well-known Serenade in D, ‘Serenata Notturna’, obviously an appropriate encore to a group of works concerned with times of day. Its three movements are as stylishly conveyed as would be expected, the timpani that give the first movement in particularly that feeling of mocking pomp crisply played. The final movement is played with a great sense of fun, with what sound like spontaneous and witty embellishments adding to a sheer joie de vivre that Mozart would surely have relished.

In sum little more need be said. If you’re following this series you’ll need no encouragement from me to add this CD to the collection. If you’re not, well, it’s time you were!

Brian Robins

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Recording

Vivaldi’s Seasons

CD cover Bolette Roed Vivaldi 4 seasons

Bolette Roed, Arte dei Suonatori
154:51 (2 CDs in a card triptych)
Pentatone PTC 5186 875

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The starting point for this project is recorder player Bolette Roed’s thought that ‘many of Vivaldi’s concertos comfortably fit into the ‘seasons’ theme if one thinks about it.’ What she and Arte dei Suonatori have done here is teamed up three further concerti from Vivaldi’s output with each of his iconic ‘Four Seasons’ concerti on the basis of their perceived mood. I have in the past lamented the fact that people feel free to meddle endlessly with Vivaldi’s ‘Four Seasons’ in the belief that to justify performing music, which to put it politely is already ‘over-performed’, you have to find a ‘new slant’. I suspect your reaction to this project will depend very much on whether you think Roed should be performing violin music on recorders at all, and whether she should be second-guessing the composer’s intentions, when he had already placed the four seasonal concerti in the context of a larger set. I must confess that I have set aside any musicological prejudices to simply enjoy some wonderfully dynamic orchestral playing from Arte dei Suonatori, and some exquisitely expressive and virtuosic recorder playing from Bolette Roed. I was unfamiliar with many of the concerti that have been selected as ‘honorary seasons’, so I set myself a test – if you didn’t know that these were mainly violin concertos, would you really know they weren’t originally for recorder? The answer was invariably no, and in fact, the same might well be the case for the actual Seasons if I didn’t know better. It is only occasionally that I feel Roed is having to find slightly less idiomatic recorder equivalents for violin effects, and most of the time these performances just sound like terrific recorder music. This is a testimony to Roed’s consummate recorder technique, but also to the depth of understanding of the music that gave rise to the original project. You could perhaps argue that we don’t need ‘yet another’ account of the Seasons, but the same cannot be said of the other less familiar music, and there is certainly no denying the superb musicality and wonderful energy of these performances. In the course of some 30 years reviewing, I have had to listen to some horrendously ill-conceived attempts to ‘improve upon’ Vivaldi’s Four Seasons – I am delighted that this CD does not come into this category. These are pleasing, revelatory and above all respectful performances of Vivaldi’s music.

D. James Ross

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Recording

Venturini: Concerti

CD cover la festa musicale play concerti by Venturini

la festa musicale
63:32
audite 97.775


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The 12 concertos for four to nine instruments of Venturini’s op 1 were published around 1713 in Amsterdam by the eminent music publisher Estienne Roger. At times they are reminiscent of Vivaldi’s concerti con molti strumenti, but also look forward to the concerti grossi of the high Baroque, including those of Handel. This is scarcely surprising as the two composers’ paths crossed as the upwardly-mobile Handel briefly occupied the post of Kapellmeister at Hanover, where Venturini subsequently spent most of his working life in that same post. If Venturini had perhaps been ten years younger and had – like Handel – been lured to London, his reputation nowadays might have been very different. As these beautifully crafted and vividly recorded performances attest, he was a composer of enormous talent and imagination, with a prescient approach to colourful orchestration and a wonderful ‘Handelian’ ear for melody. It is fortunate that the Court of Hanover offered him orchestral forces that allowed him to realise fully his ambitious textures, which he combines and contrasts with effortless skill and flamboyance. In addition to performing three of the op 1 Concerti, la festa musicale have sought out and provide premiere recordings of two further works, a five-part overture and a six-part concerto from Swedish sources to further enhance our impression of Venturini’s music. Imaginative use of percussion and sound effects, most notably in the spine-chilling account of the Furies Presto in op 1 no 11, serve further to bring Venturini’s music to life. Although more conservative in texture, the six-part concerto for two solo violins and strings features some surprising and adventurous harmonic progressions.

D. James Ross

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Recording

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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Recording

Bach Unbuttoned

Bach Unbuttoned Brandenburgs

Ana De La Vega flute, Ramón Ortega Quero oboe, Alexander Sitkovetsky violin, Cyrus Allyar trumpet, Johannes Berger harpsichord, Württembergisches Kammerorchester Heilbronn
62:26
Pentatone PTC 5186 893

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This is a CD of Brandenburgs 5, 4 and 2 with the double concerto in D minor played enthusiastically by Ana de la Vega and Ramón Ortega on modern flute and oboe. ‘Regards to instrumentation,’ writes de la Vega in the liner notes, ’in those days it was usual to play a musical line on the instruments available, depending who was on your castle staff and up to the job. Hence we have taken similar licence, playing Brandenburg no. 4 with flute and oboe (instead of two flutes) and the famous double concerto with two different melodic instruments, that happened to be ‘at hand’. (No mention of the fact that in 4 it was two recorders, rather than traversi anyway.)

As an exercise in enjoying playing Bach, this is a polished and wizzy spree. The players are classy, and once you have got used to the high pitch, it sounds well. BUT – and there needs to be a warning ‘but’ – there are regrettable consequences. First, the balance between the instruments goes up the creek – the accompanying orchestra is many players per part, so it becomes the dominant sound with the bass particularly thumpy – and the harpsichord, even in the first movement of Brandenburg 5 is so reticent – why? Second, the ‘solo’ instruments need to have their volume ‘enhanced’ to compete and they lack the natural fluency of the period instruments and their unobtrusive blendability, which is cruelly exposed in Brandenburg 2.

Perhaps surprisingly, I found the slow movement of the D minor double concerto, with its almost trio sonata quality, the most plausible – it reminded me of playing the same work with just that same scoring in the 1950s before we had period instruments. Most Bach can be played on whatever is to hand with a degree of enjoyment. Viva la musica!

David Stancliffe

 

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Recording

The Trials of Tenducci

CD cover The trials of Tenducci

The Trials of Tenducci
A Castrato in Ireland
Tara Erraught mezzo-soprano, Irish Baroque Orchestra, Peter Whelan
65:57
Linn Records CKD 639
Music by Arne, J. C. Bach, Fischer, Giordani, van Maldere & Mozart

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The soprano castrato Giusto Ferdinando Tenducci, born in Siena around 1735, led a life that was colourful even by the standards of his profession. Jailed for debt on more than one occasion, he held a magnetic appeal to women, an attraction that led to a notorious scandal when he married a young pupil in Dublin. After spending the earlier part of his career singing minor roles in such European centres as Milan, Naples, Venice and Dresden, Tenducci arrived in London in 1758. There, following his first spell in a debtors’ prison, he created the role of Arbaces in Thomas Arne’s English opera seria Artaxerses in 1762, a success he later repeated in both Dublin and Edinburgh. Particularly well regarded in lyrical music, Tenducci spent his later years in London, Dublin and Italy, where he died in Genoa in 1790.

As the title suggests, this pleasing CD sets out to give a musical snapshot of Tenducci’s connections with Dublin, even if somewhat tenuously at times  – Mozart’s Exultate, jubilate seems to have gained admission solely by dint of the fact that he wrote a now-lost scena for Tenducci when in 1778 the latter met Mozart in Paris in the company of their mutual friend, J. C. Bach. It is given a very capable performance by mezzo Tara Erraught, whose attractive tone and warmth are heard to particular advantage in the second aria (‘Tu virginum’), where we even get a cadential trill, though the continuous vibrato may be more to the taste of general listeners than early music enthusiasts. But she copes well with the coloratura of the first aria and ‘Alleluia’ and as throughout the programme is accompanied neatly, if in quicker music rather clipped fashion, by the IBO.

A more direct connection with Dublin can be found in the brief and agreeable if not especially distinctive three-movement Symphony in G by the Belgian Pierre van Maldere, a leading figure in the Fishamble Street concert series between 1751 and 1753. The inclusion of extracts from Artaxerses, which ran for a record 33 performances in Dublin, was obviously a given, as were the two arias of Arbaces chosen, the bravura ‘Amid a thousand racking woes’, which Erraught doesn’t always have fully under control in the upper register, and the show’s hit number, ‘Water parted from the sea’, sensitively done, if not entirely without diction problems.   

Tommaso Giordani was another Italian to spend considerable time in Dublin, having been part of a touring opera family that first visited in 1764 and then again in the 1780s, when he founded an opera company that went bankrupt. Two of Giordani’s songs that were particularly associated with Tenducci are included, along with his three-movement overture to the pantomime The Island of Saints (1785). The final movement is a rumbustious medley of traditional Irish jigs and reels, here despatched with great aplomb by the IBO. Another popular Irish melody, ‘Gramachree Molly’ forms the theme for the set of variations that concludes J. C. Fischer’s Oboe Concerto No 7 in F, here very well played by Andreas Helm. Another opera premiered by Tenducci, Mortellari’s Arsace (Padua, 1775) includes a scena consisting of a strongly declamatory accompagnato and aria later adapted for and dedicated to Tenducci by his friend J. C. Bach. It is capably sung by Erraught, though director Peter Whelan’s flowery fortepiano continuo arpeggiations in the recitative are to my mind not in the best taste.

All in all, the CD is an interesting, well-performed showcase of music in and around Tenducci’s Dublin, albeit perhaps in the final analysis not one likely to set the Liffey on fire. 

Brian Robins

 

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Locatelli: Three Violin Concertos from L’Arte del violino

CD cover il labirinto armonico

Ilya Gringolts, Finnish Baroque Orchestra
61:49
BIS-2445 SACD

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Locatelli’s op 3 violin concertos were composed in Venice, under the influence of Vivaldi and in the shadow of Corelli, under whom Locatelli may even have studied previously in Rome. What is much more interesting than tracing Locatelli’s antecedents, though, is to hear in his remarkable music suggestions of the coming generations, including Paganini and even the Mannheim school. A striking feature of the twelve concerti of the op 3 are the 24 Capricci for solo violin, which the composer integrates into the outer movements of each as showpieces for his own virtuosity. The excellent programme note by Marianne Rônez, however, points out that perhaps our obsession with these startling Capricci unfairly overshadows the beauty of Locatelli’s Largo movements, as well as his adventurous and ground-breaking use of harmonic progressions – it is a very fair point. Soloist and director, Ilya Gringolts, produces exciting and profound readings of Locatelli’s music, and he is very ably supported by the Finnish Baroque Orchestra in the 9th, 11th and 12th concertos of the set.

D. James Ross

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Sheet music

Alice Mary Smith: Short Orchestral Works

Alice Mary Smith Short Orchestral Works RRMNETC78

Andante for Clarinet and Orchestra, [2] Intermezzi from The Masque of Pandora
Recent Researches in Music of the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries, 78
Edited by Ian Graham-Jones
ix, 2, 65pp. ISBN 978-1-9872-0452-0. $144

This is the latest of several volumes Ian Graham-Smith has devoted to Alice Mary Smith. An acknowledged expert on the lady and her output, his introduction to these three works is positively bulging with background information.

The clarinet solo began its life as the middle movement of a sonata with piano. The dedicatee and original performer, Henry Lazarus, commissioned the orchestration and played it with universal approbation. Whether or not the composer (who had also been the “accompanist” at its premiere) ever produced a full concerto (as it is described in at least some of the press coverage of performances) is unclear.*

The two intermezzi also originated in a larger work, this time a “grand choral cantata” setting words by Longfellow. “After the storm”, an Andante movement moving from common time into 9/8 then back again, was transposed from its original B flat minor down a semitone to facilitate a more gentle segue into “In the garden”, which is in A major and 9/8.

These are, indeed, brief pieces – at 148 bars, the clarinet solo is longer than both of the others put together. Yet, there is a charm to all three (and not a little virtuosity about the Andante for clarinet!) which makes them ideal introductions to the composer and her music.

Brian Clark

* The publisher also lists two parts for clarinet and piano of just this work for $10.

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Mozart: Serenades

CD cover Mozart sereandes McGegan Capella Savaria


Capella Savaria, Nicholas McGegan
69:30
Hungaroton HCD 32850

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These performances of the Haffner Serenade K250/248b and the Serenata Notturna K. 234 are part of the complete recording of music by Mozart for solo violin and orchestra played by Zsolt Kalló and the Capella Savaria. As the relatively low Köchel numbers suggest, these are works from Mozart’s Salzburg period, but already the young Mozart seems dissatisfied to write conventional Unterhaltungsmusik, incorporating unexpected movements featuring solo violin, which he may well have played himself. One of these is the perky trio to a darkly foreboding minuet, which would not be out of place in one of the late great symphonies. It is not difficult to picture the young genius already chafing at the bit of his conventional role in Salzburg and longing for the challenges of Vienna. The Bartók Concert Hall in Szombathely provides a nicely resonant acoustic for some delightfully idiomatic playing from the Capella and their soloist. Celebrating its 40th anniversary this year, the Capella Savaria was the first period instrument group in Hungary, and has traditionally harnessed the innate talents of this very musical nation in the service of period performance.

D. James Ross

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Edinburgh 1742: Barsanti & Handel, Parte Seconda

CD cover Edinburgh 1742 Ensemble Marsyas Parte seconda

Ensemble Marsyas, Peter Whelan
51:51
Linn Records CKD 626

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This is the second of a pair of CDs evoking the lively world of the 18th-century Musical Society of Edinburgh and bringing us the balance of Barsanti’s op 3 Concerti Grossi, those featuring solo trumpet and two oboes, as well as another four of his Old Scots Tunes and music by Handel. Barsanti’s treatment of the wind instruments in these Concerti Grossi, published in Edinburgh in 1742 just before the Jacobite Uprising, sounds very classical in style, alternating them as a section augmented by timpani with the strings. Perhaps more innovative still and unexpected are the more structurally free slow movements. The four Old Scots Tunes are charmingly played by Colin Scobie – a member of the Maxwell and Fitzwilliam Quartets, in encore slots Colin frequently demonstrates his considerable traditional fiddle skills, and these are very much to the fore here as he is joined by Elizabeth Kenny on the Baroque Guitar for stirring accounts of ‘Dumbarton’s drums’, ‘Ettrick banks’, ‘The bush aboon Traquair’ and ‘Cornriggs are bonnie’. Handel’s Overture to ‘Atalanta’ serves to illustrate a very different treatment of the trumpet and indeed a very different style of composition, notwithstanding that Handel and Barsanti were contemporaries and acquaintances. These works by Barsanti, in an edition from Prima la Musica, provide a valuable counterbalance to our sometimes Handel-dominated and London-centric view of the mid 18th century, and it would be interesting to hear accounts of his later publications, which include a set of six motets for five or six voices and continuo (1750) and his Trio Sonatas op 6 (1769). On first listening, I found the recorded sound a little cramped, but then the Musical Society concerts were presented in the ‘upper room of St Mary’s Chapel, Niddry Wynd’ until 1763 when they moved into the superb surroundings of St Cecilia’s Hall. At any rate, I soon adapted my ear, and the amount of detail captured in the recordings is indeed impressive.

D. James Ross