Tag: Vocal music

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Concert-Live performance

Sense and Musicality

Sense and Musicality

Jane Austen’s connections with music have been long acknowledged. They are by no means without controversy and apparent contradiction, Austen’s own undoubted life-long interest in music is to a certain extent counterbalanced by her own observations such as implying that while music might be a good thing on its own terms, sitting listening to a concert might perhaps not be. Otherwise Jane’s large collection of music books, many transcriptions written in her own hand, offer an argument that might serve to arrive at a different conclusion.

Such matters were among those explored in a programme mounted to celebrate the 250th anniversary of Austen’s birth in 2025. It is being presented in various venues by The Little Song Party – soprano Penelope Appleyard and the pianist Jonathan Delbridge, who accompanies her on a Broadwood square piano dating from 1814 and which is thus an instrument that Jane Austen could have known. I suppose the correct name for their well-researched programme would be ‘lecture-recital’, but that hardly does justice to the delightfully relaxed ambiance the performers achieved in presenting it as a part of the Newbury Spring Festival at Shaw House in Newbury. The venue in itself made for a highly appropriate setting, being an Elizabethan house built in 1581, but substantially altered during the 18th century by the then owner James Brydges, 1st Duke of Chandos (he of Handelian fame) and subsequently several James Andrews, the last of whom takes us up to Austen’s day.

The programme juxtaposed introductions and readings with a judicious choice of music that ranged from popular ballads through folk songs and operatic ‘hits’ of the day to themes associated with contemporary films of Austen’s works and in one instance a new work especially commissioned for the concert series. This was ‘Ode to Pity’ by Donna Mckevitt, a rare example of the poetry of the novelist being set to music. Written when she was in her teens, the song captures well the wry sense of humour that would become a hallmark of Austen’s writing. It was well projected by Appleyard, who not only delivered her spoken words with winning natural charm, but whose clear, fresh-sounding soprano is ideal for this type of repertoire. This is not the kind of programme that requires a detailed critique, but it is worth noting that where needed Appleyard added appropriate ornamentation (I thought the principal theme of Gluck’s ‘Che faro’ might have been afforded a little more decoration on its repetition). Delbridge supported the singer throughout with playing of character and sensitivity, providing several solos on his own account. One of the greatest successes of the afternoon was the ‘Storm Rondo’ by Daniel Steibelt, the piece believed by one commentator to be the agitated music played by Marianne Dashwood in Sense and Sensibility to cover up her sister Elinor’s secret conversation with Lucy Steele. Delbridge’s fine playing was ideally complemented by Appleyard’s muttered reading of both parts, the dramatization deservedly bringing the house down.

The programme will be given several more times, perhaps most notably at the Jane Austen Festival in Bath in September . If you happen to be in the vicinity don’t miss this enchanting event.

Brian Robins

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Recording

If the fates allow

CD cover If the fates allow Helen Charlston

Helen Charlston mS, Sounds Baroque
58:46
BIS-2734

If the title of this outstanding CD gives little away, its appendage is rather more forthcoming – ‘Music by Purcell and his contemporaries’. Even so and although there are several staples from the Purcell recital repertoire (‘O Solitude’, ‘I attempt from love’s sickness’), there are some rather more unexpected inclusions; ‘If music be the food of love’ is included in two of the three settings made by Purcell, but neither is the well-known one (Z. 379b).

Also unusual is the absence of programme notes, foregone in favour of a fascinating conversation between Helen Charlston and Emma Kirkby, in which they express their feelings about Purcell’s songs and what it means to sing them. Naturally, there is much accord, but what is interesting when it comes to performances is just how contrasted the approach is. One need only listen to a little of Emma Kirkby’s wonderful 1983 recital of the songs after this CD to recognise that the objectives of the singers are quite different. Dame Emma’s performances are all about vocal purity, clarity of diction and a near-perfect musical technique, with cleanly articulated ornaments and shaping of phrases. Charlston comes from a new generation, the best of whom – certainly including singers like her and Lucile Richardot – is starting to recognise that there is potentially more to this repertoire than simply singing it perfectly. Take Charlston’s singing of ‘Morpheus thou gentle god’ by Daniel Purcell, Henry’s younger brother. In this at-times fiery text about jealousy by Abel Boyer – the penultimate passage starts ‘I rage, I burn, my soul on fire, Tortured with wild despair and fierce desire’ – the demands on the singer are in stark contrast to the long cantabile of the earlier part, dramatically intense and full of rhetorical gesture. Charlston rises to these demands superbly, bringing the song to a terrifying peroration on the final word ‘destroy’.

This is, of course, an extreme example that takes us into a world of Italianate fervour and intensity, but this attention to the rhetorical detail of all the songs here is one of the striking details of the recital. One is given the impression that Charlston has thought deeply and carefully about every word she sings and never forgetting, or letting us forget, that in Purcell’s day this repertoire was often sung by actor-singers. Rarely, for example, in my experience has the Virgin’s fear in ‘Tell me, some pitying angel’ been so graphically expressed, each ‘Why?’, each ‘How?’ given a marginally different inflection, while the lack of a ‘vision from above’ at the ‘wondrous birth’ brings near panic in the repeated calls of ‘Gabriel, Gabriel’. The result is a compelling mini-drama. In ‘Music for a While’ Dryden’s snakes drop from Alecto’s head with languid perfection. And there are so many more examples to explore. I urge you to discover them for yourself.

Throughout the recital Charlston is supremely well supported by Sounds Baroque (Jonathan Manson, bass viol, William Carter, Baroque guitar and theorbo, and Julian Perkins, harpsichord and chamber organ); on their own account they contribute a set of Divisions by Christopher Simpson and John Blow’s Morlake Ground, the latter played by Perkins on a richly sonorous copy of a two-manual Ruckers Hemsch instrument by Ian Tucker.

At a time when I frequently have cause to compare the state of early music in the UK unfavourably with what is happening in several European countries, France in particular, this is pure manna from heaven. Here are British artists performing English music to as near perfection as one has any right to expect.

Brian Robins

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Concert-Live performance

Les Talents Lyriques at Les Invalides

Les Talents Lyriques at Les Invalides

Given its history of rule by the Bourbons and Napoleon, neither averse to the limelight, it is no surprise that grandiosity plays no small role in French architectural and artistic history. Even so, the Hôtel des Invalides still has the power to overwhelm. It was the inspiration of the most brilliant of all the Bourbons, Louis XIV, who founded Les Invalides for all those that had seen service in his massive and long-time all-conquering army. The huge complex first opened to veterans in 1674, on one site housing a hospice, barracks, convent, hospital and factory. Home to some 4000 boarders in the 17th century, today it still serves its initial function, having needless to say gained additional fame as Napoleon’s burial place.

Among many spectacular aspects, the Grand Salon, the former council room, is especially impressive with its ornamental fireplaces, monumental chandeliers, weaponry, portraits of Napoleon III and Louis XIV and red velvet hangings. All combine to produce the elegant effect of an exceptional room. Today, Les Invalides plays host to a series of concerts, the majority of which are chamber concerts given in the opulent surroundings of the Grand Salon, thus keeping alive the institution’s long association with music, most notably as the venue of the first performance of Berlioz’s Requiem, the Grande Messe de Morts.

The concert given on 28 April by Christophe Rousset and members of Les Talens Lyriques was on a rather less ambitious scale. Entitled ‘Louis XIV au Crépuscule’(the twilight of Louis XIV) it consisted mainly of chamber works by François Couperin, concentrating particularly on three of the sonates en trio. Of these La Steinkerche was particularly appropriate in the context of Les Invalides, it having been written to celebrate the victory of Louis XIV’s forces over the Dutch in the eponymous battle in 1692, its witty evocation of the sounds of battle well portrayed by Les Talens Lyriques, as was La Superbe (1695) with its alternation of nobility and playfulness. The sonata La Visionnaire post-dates the king’s death in 1715, since it dates from 1726 and it demonstrates how far Couperin had travelled in his desire to unite elements of the French and Italian styles. All this music was played with the faultless command of idiomatic style long a hallmark of Les Talens Lyrique’s performances.

In addition to the instrumental music, the concert included vocal music sung by the exceptionally promising young bass Lysandre Châlon. The possessor of a richly rounded, well-projected bass-baritone, he impressed with his ability to communicate effectively text in cantatas and airs by Couperin and Monteclair’s striking cantata L’enlèvement d’Orithie, which relates the tale of the abduction and rape of the Athenian princess Orithyia by the north wind Boreas.

The combination of concert and introduction to Les Invalides made for an outstanding experience, but a word of caution to anyone who might think of going to a concert there. If you are not fully mobile, there is the walk across the courtyard then a considerable flight of stairs (no lifts in the 17th century) and further long corridor walks before reaching the splendour of the Grand Salon.

Brian Robins

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Recording

Georg Österreich’s resurrected treasures

CD cover Georg Österreich's resurrected treasures

Musica Gloria, directed by Nele Vertommen oboe, and Beniamino Paganini harpsichord/organ
79:06
Et’cetera KTC 1819

Rather disarmingly, the track listing for this generously filled CD notes at its conclusion, ‘All world-premiere recordings – as far as we know’. Well, here’s one listener happy to take the directors’ word for it, particularly given the meticulous research that has evidently gone into planning this recording. So who was Georg Österreich and what are his ‘resurrected treasures’? Well, for a start he was a very lucky man since he inherited a brewery. More importantly for our present concerns, he was a virtuoso singer born in Magdeburg in 1664. His early career was spent in Leipzig, Hamburg and Wolfenbüttel, but in 1689 Österreich was appointed Kapellmeister at the ducal court of Gottorf, now part of Schleswig-Holstein in northern Germany. There he made an extensive collection of German sacred music before the time of Bach along with Italian secular music. The former, now housed in Berlin and known under the name of Österreich’s pupil and its inheritor, Heinrich Bokemeyer (1679-1751), is the largest collection of north German sacred music in central Europe. The present CD, subtitled ‘North-German Cantatas around 1700’, is the result of intensive research on the collection by Baroque oboist Nele Vertommen.

The selection chosen by Vertommen and Beniamino Paganini, her co-director of the vocal and instrumental ensemble Musica Gloria, reflects the links to Österreich’s circle, including as it does two works by the man himself, one by his elder brother Michael (1658-1709), one by his teacher Johann Theile (1646-1724), one by Bokemeyer, and one by his singing teacher Giulio Giuliani (? – ?), the two last named being Latin settings. Also included is the more modern style of cantata by Johann Philipp Förtsch (1652-1732), one-time resident composer of the Hamburg Opera and later court physician at Gottorf to Duke Christian Albrecht of Schleswig-Holstein and then the Bishop of Lübeck. The works included are particularly notable for the wide variety of instrumentation and vocal forces required, the latter quite properly restricted to one-voice-per-part (OVPP). It is a general and welcome feature of the performances that the young singers of Musica Gloria bring a robust and strongly rhetorical performance style to all the music, singing also with generally excellent diction.

Arguably the most imposing and impressive of the works included is Georg Österreich’s own motet in the concertato style Weise mir Herr, deinen Weg, scored for four voices (SATB) plus ripieni and instrumental forces including two oboes, two violins, two violas, bassoon obbligato, cello and continuo. Worth noting is that the organ continuo is played on an Arp Schnitger instrument dating from 1690 and sited in the recording location, the Mauritiuskirche in Hollern-Twielenfleth on the banks of the Elbe. A setting of verses from Psalm 85 (86), it takes full cognisance of the potent and dramatic text, the solo trio at the supplicatory words ‘Wende dich …’ (Turn to me and have mercy on me) being especially telling, as is the beautiful bass solo ‘Denn deine Güte ..’ (For great is your love toward me).

Also impressive is brother Michael’s setting of the Lord’s Prayer for two sopranos, alto and tenor with instrumental parts for two violins, two violas, bassoon and continuo. But in truth there is nothing in the collection that is not without merit and worthy of these searching, communicative performances, which are not only worth discovering in their own right but provide valuable clues as to where Bach’s early sacred works come from.

Brian Robins

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Recording

Greene: Jephtha

CD cover Greene Jephtha Early Opera Company Curnyn

Early Opera Company, conducted by Christian Curnyn
99:22 (2 CDs)
Chandos CHSA0408(2)

The story of Jephtha and his rash vow to sacrifice the first person from his household he encounters on his return from battle if God will support his military action is known in music chiefly through the brief, but renowned 17th century oratorio by Carissimi (c.1648) and Handel’s eponymous final oratorio composed in 1751. To them can be added the version composed by Maurice Greene, the leading English composer during much of the period Handel was domiciled in London. Greene’s Jephtha appeared in 1737, but exact details of its earliest performance(s) remain shrouded in mystery. In his notes, Peter Lynan, who produced the edition used in the present performance, dismisses the theory that Jephtha was first given at the King’s Theatre during Lent 1737, no evidence for a public performance existing until its modern revival in 1997.

As with Handel’s setting, Greene’s libretto was the work of a clergyman, John Hoadley. However, the inexperienced Hoadley’s book is poor stuff compared with Thomas Morell’s, couched in stilted verse – ‘It is decreed, And I must bleed’ – and clumsily constructed. It also lacks any hint of the kind of dramatic element achieved by Morell’s fleshing out of the basic story with additional characters, while supplying a redemptive conclusion in which Jephtha’s daughter is dedicated to rather than sacrificed to God. Greene’s Jephtha is written for just four characters: Jephtha himself, his unnamed daughter (Iphis in the Handel) and two Elders of Gilead, the first a bass, the second a tenor. Like most oratorios of the period, it is cast in two parts (or acts; Handel’s is in three) and of course there is a substantial role for the chorus, Curnyn’s here being one of the successes of the performance. Like much else in the score, they cannot totally escape the taunt so often levelled at Greene that he was merely a lesser Handel. As so often with such lazy labels, there is plenty of evidence that the Englishman was his own man and we might at times more advantageously look back to Purcell. I’d suggest as an example the chorus that ends Part 1, ‘God of Hosts’. Here the reiterated war-like cries of ‘strike, strike’ have a distinctly Purcellian flavour. The final chorus is interesting, too. Since there is no redemption, the daughter’s death will happen, but unlike the sublimely tragic and bitterly chromatic chorus that concludes Carissimi’s Jephte, Greene’s follows a broad, throbbing course that is not so much tragic as understated, while reaching a peroration of real beauty. It is somehow very English.

Thanks are certainly owed to Christian Curnyn and his Early Opera Company forces for this first recording. Sadly, such gratitude must be tempered with the conclusion that Curnyn’s performance is lacking the kind of persuasive qualities needed to revive such a work. His direction overall is prosaic and lacking dramatic purpose. Too often tempos are sluggish and although the orchestral playing is neat and tidy it lacks spirit, while the almost certainly spurious inclusion of a theorbo in the continuo is greatly exacerbated by the narcissistic inclination of the player to be heard as clearly as possible as often as possible. The best of the soloists is the First Elder of bass Michael Mofidian, splendidly vibrant and producing some impressive low notes. Andrew Staples’s Jephtha is neatly and reasonably stylishly sung, but his lyric tenor is too small to convey the authority of the character, who was a renowned war leader. Mary Bevan’s Daughter lacks control in the upper register, though she is affecting in her beautiful final air, ‘Let me awhile defer my Fate’, with, to this listener at least, its affinity with Handel’s ravishing duet ‘As steals the morn’ from L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato, which postdates Greene’s Jephtha by three years.

Even if it cannot match the Handel, one of his greatest creations, Greene’s Jephtha contains much fine music and if we ever start to place some value on our 18th-century English musical heritage, it will doubtless occupy a valued place.

Brian Robins

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Recording

Maria: Josquin in Leipzig

CD cover amarcord Maria Josquin in Leipzig

amarcord
80:25
Raumklang RK AP 10124

Before I listened to this fabulous recording, I hadn’t realised how much I miss the music of Josquin. My first encounter (after a cursory introduction in my first year at St Andrews, when it all sounded terribly dry and dull) was the Hilliard Ensemble’s Reflexe tape (remember them?!) that opened – as does the present recital – with his gorgeous setting of Ave Maria, gratia plena. By the time I’d made it to fourth year, this was set as one of the test pieces in my “musical paleography” exam, which, trust me, was what we now call “a challenge”…

Amarcord’s performances are anything but a challenge; the voices blend beautifully and the recorded sound is rounded and crisp, capturing the natural decay of cadences before the composer’s next masterstroke is delivered.

Although I bought several, I was never taken by the mass recordings by The Tallis Scholars. I suspect that has more to do with having seen them perform and watching someone “conduct” two singers and not being able to get that out of my mind. Here, amarcord can interact freely with one another so that we hear Josquin, rather than someone’s interpretation of Josquin.

An interesting difference between the Hilliards and amarcord is their approach to ficta (the application of accidentals that are not in the original notation but may have been understood and applied by singers of the time). Especially at cadences, our modern ears “expect” a sharpened leading note if the bass note is what in our terms is the dominant of the “home key”. Applying that principle, the Hilliards sharpened many more notes than amarcord, but I cannot say for sure which version I prefer.

It is also a definite bonus to hear Ave Maria twice, the second time with its contrafactum text Verbum incarnatum , taken from a manuscript that is today held at the State Library in Berlin. Like the other manuscripts upon which the project is based, its origins lie in Leipzig; although there is no record of Josquin ever visiting the city, the rising popularity of printed music at the thrice-annual book fairs brought his music to Germany, where it was widely copied and performed. Other contrafacta on the recording include some of the composer’s secular chansons. Full marks to Raumklang, too, for the high-quality booklet; the informative essay, full translations of the texts, and a selection of magnificent illustrations from the sources.

If – like me – you have been lacking a bit of Josquin in your life, please do not miss this. Very rarely do I listen to a CD lasting over 80 minutes at one sitting – I enjoyed this twice this morning!

Brian Clark

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Recording

In chains of gold

CD cover In chains of gold

The English Pre-Restoration Verse Anthem Vol. 3
Magdalena Consort, Fretwork His mAjestys Sagbutts & Cornetts with Silas Wollston 83:39
signum classics SIGCD931

This is the last of three discs in a series dedicated to the consort anthem in England during the Tudor and Stuart periods. The first contained all of Gibbons’ surviving pieces in this genre, the second featured Byrd and included works up to Edmund Hooper, and the prevailing presence over the current disc is Thomas Tomkins with a judicious combination of known and unknown musicians besides. These are anthems which were not performed liturgically in these versions, in the Anglican Church, because of their being accompanied by viols: only the organ was used in church; very occasionally on major festive, royal or other ceremonial occasions it is known that winds – usually a maximum of four waits using cornetts and sackbutts – supplemented the organs. Many consort anthems survive with alternative accompaniments for the organ, rendering these arrangements suitable for use in church; this is true of many of Gibbons’ verse anthems. While I have long stated the argument, in the face of opposition (not necessarily from this project!), for there being no evidence for the use of viols in the Established Church at this time, it is the experience of Fretwork accompanying these works in different environments during the course of this project which has led to the seemingly final acceptance of my position.

All the vocal works here are revelations to a greater or lesser extent. It is excellent that William Pising and Simon Stubbs are represented, given the minute numbers of their works that survive. They are short-winded but lively pieces, worth reviving. Thomas Ravenscroft will be considered by many as a miniaturist, but he is represented by two consort anthems, one of which – In thee O Lord – has considerable substance even among some of the other big hitters.

Who are these big hitters? John Ward certainly demands attention with two assertive pieces, one of which, accompanied by winds, begins the proceedings, the rest of which are dominated by two huge anthems (and several fine instrumental works) by Tomkins, Know you not and O God, the heathen are come. The surviving sources for both pieces required major elaboration (cf. Elgar/Payne, below) in order to become roadworthy, and have been recorded before. Know you not concludes the album with an opulent accompaniment for winds, appropriately given that the text laments the death of the youthful heir to the throne. Even mightier is O Lord the heathen, correctly listed as “Tomkins (attr.)” though the work is as certainly by him as it is possible to be without an actual contemporary attribution. Here Tomkins laments the devastation wrought upon the Church of England by the victorious Puritan forces, and to support him musically he turns to the most utterly bleak and visceral of all Byrd’s motets, Deus venerunt gentes, a work of astounding profundity and beauty which sets the same text, Psalm 79, and which illustrates musically so vividly that the music seems itself like an eye witness to the appalling events which it describes, in this instance the biblical devastation of Jerusalem as a metaphor for the barbarous executions of Byrd’s fellow Catholics. Tomkins makes his debt to Byrd crystal clear during the very first solo verse: his phrase at “and made Jerusalem an heap of stones” clearly echoes Byrd’s heartbroken and indeed heartbreaking phrase for “et non erat qui sepeliet”, and there was none to bury them. Both of these anthems are magnificent, and both reconstructions can, in the context of their own genre, be mentioned in the same sentence as Anthony Payne’s historic completion of Elgar’s Third Symphony.

Even now, there is one more anthem which requires special attention. Richard Nicolson’s When Jesus sat at meat narrates the first meeting of Mary Magdalen and Jesus, with incomparable sensitivity and pathos, never straying into sentiment, and while it is a substantial work, it never once outstays its welcome, maintaining its elevated tone throughout, besides radiating beauty. Nicolson’s setting of his text is most distinguished, his music clarifying and projecting its meaning in approved Protestant manner. Particularly notable are the dissonance on “thy faith have saved thee”, perhaps indicating the struggle that Mary endured to achieve that faith; and the exquisite phrase for “go thy way in peace”, with its fleeting consecutives, through which her Saviour imparts a reassurance for eternity.

This entire repertory has proved revelatory. Given the variety and quality of the material, consistent excellence has been essential for the performances and for the interpretations, and the musicians have delivered everything that is required. Nicolson’s anthem stands as the epitome of all that is best in Bill Hunt’s triumphantly successful project.

Richard Turbet

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Recording

From Byrd

CD cover From Byrd Trio Musica Humana

Trio Musica Humana, Elisabeth Geiger muselaar
42:59
Seulétoile SE12

This is an intriguing and quirky recording, built around Byrd’s Mass for Three Voices. The French Trio Musica Humana (CT T Bar) sing Byrd’s smallest mass superbly, with immaculate blend and intense engagement. They omit the Credo, and intersperse the remaining movements with other works for three voices by Byrd himself, Weelkes and Morley, and with works for keyboard by Byrd, Tomkins, Farnaby and Johnson. Some movements of Byrd’s Mass are performed with muselaar. It is easy to disagree with this approach, but contemporary accounts mention the participation of unspecified instruments in illegal performances of Catholic masses in Protestant Elizabethan England by recusants, so it is not out of order to experiment with instruments of that time. By current standards, this is a brief album, but is worth possessing by Byrd’s enthusiasts for the performances of the two sacred works by the composer which are included in addition to the Mass. Both are the only alternatives to previous recordings in omnibus projects. The longer of the two is Memento salutis auctor, from the Gradualia of 1605, following The Cardinall’s Musick (TCM) on disc 12 of their Byrd Edition. The other is the penitential psalm From depth of sin previously recorded only by Alamire on their complete version of the Songs of sundrie natures, which collection was originally published in 1589. The former interpretation is slower than TCM but every bit as fine. However, the USP of the current disc is the latter: Alamire sing From depth of sin divinely, and again Trio Musica Humana’s performance is slower than its predecessor, but at least for this reviewer their combination of tempo, blend, balance and perception achieves a perfection seldom conveyed on such recordings, elevating its two and a half minutes to the ranks of the very finest renditions of Byrd’s music on disc.

Richard Turbet

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Recording

Gregor Werner Vol. 4

CD cover Werner Caldara vol. 4 Rovatkay

Voktett Hannover, la festa musicale, Lajos Rovatkay
59:41
audite 97.833

For the fourth volume of this excellent series, director-cum-musicologist Lajos Rovatkay has chosen to focus on Gregor Joseph Werner’s relationship with his teacher, Vice-Kapellmeister to the Viennese court, Antonio Caldara. As well as tracing the birth of the two-movement church sonata from sinfonie to the elder composer’s oratorios to an excellent sonata a4  by the pupil, it compares and contrasts their church music, culminating in a performance of a Requiem in G minor by “Werner”, which Rovatkay identified as featuring music by both composers (whether with or without the permission/knowledge of the teacher is not made explicit in one of the densest booklet notes I have ever read… faced with such an impenetrable text, I’m not surprised that even a highly skilled translator like Viola Scheffel struggled to save us from some of its obscurity!)

All eleven (!) singers of the Voktett Hannover (only one tenor and one bass sing on all the vocal tracks) are excellent; they blend beautifully and take the solos stylishly though I did long occasionally for some ornamentation when the dense counterpoint (for which both composers are rightly famed) allowed. Similarly, the string playing (33211 strings with chamber organ and lute) is stylish – nicely pointed bow strokes give the contrapuntal lines shape.

At a little under an hour, some might feel hard done by. However, with music of this quality (speaking as a self-confessed lover of fugal writing), I feel this is just about right. I also found myself hearing pieces of a musical jigsaw falling into place, hearing echoes of Legrenzi (reputedly Caldara’s Venetian teacher) and foretastes of Haydn (who followed Werner as Kapellmeister at Esterházy). It is remarkable that audite has thusfar produced four outstanding CDs of music by a relatively unknown composer and I for one hope there are more in the pipeline!

Brian Clark

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Recording

Francesco Scarlatti: Il Daniele nel lago de’ leoni

CD cover Francesco Scarlatti Il Daniele Armonico Consort Christopher Monks

Armonico Consort, directed by Christopher Monks
61:46
Signum SIGCD 881

While the Scarlattis were not quite able to match the Bachs as a family music business, they were nonetheless pretty industrious. Francesco Scarlatti was one of seven younger siblings of the greatest of them, Alessandro (adherents of Domenico need not write in!). He was born in Palermo, Sicily in 1666 and studied in Naples, where he subsequently joined the Royal Court orchestra, doubtless owing the post to his elder brother, who became maestro di capella in 1684. In 1691 he moved back to Palermo and then – after a brief period in Vienna – to London (in 1719), where his name appears in concert programmes, as it does in Dublin, where Francesco Scarlatti died around 1741. Although little is known of his activities in either city, it appears likely that he worked mainly in theatre orchestras.

Francesco is known to have composed a comic opera, Lo Petrachio, and four sacred dramas. Two of these were Latin works performed in Rome in 1699 and 1710 respectively and two Italian, of which one, La profetessa guerriera, was performed in a convent in Naples in 1703. The other, Daniele nel lago de’ leoni is the only one of the four to survive but paradoxically it is not known for whom it was written nor its place of performance, although it was almost certainly Palermo or Naples. Daniele conforms closely to the style of the Italian late 17th-century sacred drama or oratorio often for didactic purposes featuring a colourful Old Testament story related by both biblical and allegorical characters but without recourse to a narrator. In Sicily this kind of oratorio was well established in the works of Michelangelo Falvetti, a couple of which have been revived and recorded under Leonardo García Alarcón.

Daniele progresses through an alternation of plain recitative and mostly brief da capo arias, with a single duet and one trio. Choruses are few, restricted primarily to the opening – a splendidly dramatic outburst for the Babylonian priests as they threaten Daniel – and closing pieces. The oratorio’s somewhat uninspired libretto concerns not only the familiar story of Daniel surviving his visit to the lion’s den, but also the more lurid tale of his overcoming of the dragon Baal, who explodes having consumed Daniel’s cakes, a concoction of boiled pitch, fat and hair! Written in five parts, Daniele is here, surely correctly, assigned to solo voices with a small string ensemble plus trumpet, the latter not mentioned or credited among the performers in the booklet. The results are more appropriate than Alarcó’s over-blown performances of the Falvetti oratorios. Indeed the solo ensemble in the choruses is, along with the orchestral playing, one of the most satisfying aspects of the present performances. All the solo parts are demanding, particularly the arias for the two sopranos, Daniel (Hannah Fraser-Mackenzie) and the Angel (Billie Robson) and while the cast makes a brave attempt it needs virtuoso rather than good honest singers to do real justice to such a work. Ornaments are generally rather tentatively added, the trill being a foreign country. Finally, it has to be said that although Daniele is agreeable enough, there is little in the oratorio to suggest that Francesco Scarlatti is a forgotten master. Top marks for endeavour, rather fewer for attainment.

Brian Robins