Tag: Vocal music

Motets by Hasse and Porpora
Clint van der Linde, Les Muffatti
69:07
Ramée RAM 2012

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Loosely based around a ‘grand tour’, undertaken and recorded in a diary between 1713 and 1715 by one Corneille-Jean-Marie van den Branden, an aristocratic Netherlander, this collection of Neapolitan and Venetian music is of particular value for including first recordings of motets by Hasse and Porpora. Porpora’s Nisi Dominus is indeed housed in a collection in the archiepiscopal archives in Mechelen that has been linked to van Branden, having been presented by him to cathedral there. Scored for solo alto and strings, it must therefore be an early work. There are five movements, the second of which, ‘Vanum est vobis’ has an elaborate violin solo, while ‘Gloria patri’ springs a surprise by unexpectedly changing metre to triple time to carry the motet to a brightly exuberant peroration.

Of greater interest is the other first recording, a setting by Hasse of highly dramatic verses, Hostes averni (‘Foes roaring with infernal rage’), again set for solo alto and strings. The extensive opening aria reflects the text, a surging, driving movement with bravura writing for the singer underpinned by fierce scalic passage work for the orchestra. An intense accompagnato follows, this quasi-operatic motet concluding with a totally contrasted aria (‘Blanda in prata’) typical of the mellifluous sweetness that earned Hasse the soubriquet ‘il divino Sassone‘ in Italy. In addition to the premieres, Porpora is at his most beguiling in a Salve Regina (the opening is pure ecstatic balm), while Hasse’s Alma Redemptoris Mater attempts successfully in its ability to seduce the senses. Finally, to return to the Branden connection, there are two of Vivaldi’s brief string concertos, RV 154 in G minor and RV 136 in F. The traveller records being taken by Vivaldi to a concert at the Pietà.

The programme, then, is an interesting one, the performances regrettably less so. Clint van der Linde is a South African countertenor whose tone is generally pleasing, though upper notes have a tendency to be a bit hooty and intonation is not always completely secure. Where however he is ill-equipped for these works is the lack of technique to do full justice to works composed for virtuoso castrati. While passaggi are capably sung and cantabile lines nicely sustained, ornaments in general are poorly articulated and there is no trill, an absolutely essential piece of technical equipment in this music if it is to make its full effect. Perhaps most damagingly of all, van der Linde’s diction is so poor as to at times give the impression that he is singing vocalises. This lack of projection and clarity is critical in music that oozes the fervour and theatricality of the counter-Reformation from every pore. The neatly turned orchestral playing both in accompanying the motets and in the concertos is of a high standard, but in serious need of a shot of Mediterranean brilliance and colour. It reminds me of what we thought of as stylish Baroque playing before the best Italian groups wrested back their repertoire from northern Europeans.

In sum, if you mainly enjoy your music as background or in car the disc will make for a pleasing experience; if you look for something that probes more deeply then it may not be for you. But van den Branden’s travel diaries sound fascinating, a kind of Dutch Burney avant la lettre.

Brian Robins

Emiliano Gonzalez Toro, Zachary Wilder tenors, Ensemble I Gemelli
57:56
Gemelli GFA001/1

A Room of Mirrors is the initial release of the Gemelli label, which takes its name from the ensemble co-founded by Mathilde Etienne and Swiss tenor Emiliano Gonzalez Toro in 2018. He is one of the most stylish and accomplished singers of early 17th-century music, having underlined the point as the Orfeo de nos jours in the outstanding Naïve recording issued in 2020. In addition, Gonzalez Toro is one of the best singers of the haute-contre repertoire in French Baroque opera.

The title reflects the place played by mirrors, either in a literal or metaphorical sense, in early Baroque thinking, a topic explored in an interesting note by Etienne. She doesn’t mention the importance of the mirror as a familiar trope in Baroque opera and after listening to the CD it would be possible to expand her thoughts. For example, a number of the works here are duets in which Gonzalez Toro is partnered in exemplary fashion by Zachary Wilder, the prevalence of imitation introducing a form of mirroring of the voices. Then the opening track, the familiar and irresistibly catchy ‘Damigella tutta bella’ by the otherwise little-known Florentine court composer Vincenzo Calestani (1589-after 1617) has an first half that is mirrored by the final section as the ardent lover plied with the wine of desire becomes the over-satiated lover who has fallen out of love with the ‘damsel fair and pretty’, the damigella tutta bella. One of Gonzalez Toro’s great strengths as a singer of this repertoire is his ability to colour and interpret the all-important text and the subtle manner in which he contrasts the emotions of ardour and scorn is an outstanding example among many that could be identified in the collection. He revisits Orfeo in a setting of the eponymous hero’s ‘Dove ten’vai’ from act 3, scene 1 by another unfamiliar name, the Prague-born Francesco Turini (1595-1656), who spent most of his career as organist of Brescia Cathedral. Here set as elaborate duet, Orfeo’s rhetorical questioning is paradoxically answered by the second tenor in imitation. The most represented composer is Sigismondo d’India (1582-1629), a prolific composer of vocal music and, with Monteverdi, one of the leaders of the so-called ‘secondo prattica’. Unlike Caccini, d’India’s adoption of the modern style did not mean eschewing counterpoint and the rich dissonant harmony of the duet ‘Giunto alla tomba’, a lament drawn from Tasso’s Gerusalemme liberata, makes for one of the most intense experiences of the recital. A reminder that this was a period of experimentation comes with the extreme, even bizarre dissonance of ‘Intenerite voi’, one of several examples of a lover’s appeal to a haughtily insensitive young woman. Another form of mirroring comes with the judicious contrast of serious with lighter or even comic songs. Among the last named is Biagio Marini’s ‘La vecchia innamorata’, in which the singer contrasts the attentions of an ugly old woman who loves him, with the girl who ‘gives me pains’ in a manner that would shortly become familiar in many a Venetian opera. The comedy is brought off with consummate skill, as is the lavish ornamentation in Frescobaldi’s ‘Se l’aura spira’, perhaps the most graciously enchanting music in the collection.

In addition to the vocal numbers, I Gemelli – which here consists of a continuo group with pairs of gambas and violins, recorder and cornet – contribute extremely well-executed performances of several instrumental pieces, among them Dario Castello’s striking Sonata Quarta and d’India’ s ‘Langue al vostro languir’, for which since the text is published in the booklet comes as something of a surprise. An outstanding recording that serves not only to illustrate the richness of the repertoire but also enhance the reputation of Emiliano Gonzalez Toro and I Gemelli as being in the vanguard of its interpreters.

Brian Robins

Yale Institute of Sacred Music, Masaaki Suzuki
86:14
BIS 2271 SACD

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The prospect of all Bruhns’ surviving cantatas and organ works being recorded – and by such a good team – is very welcome. An additional bonus is that the recordings – or this first one at any rate – are made in the Marquand Chapel at Yale using the substantial Taylor and Boody organ there, built in 2007 and pitched at A=465Hz at a ¼ comma meantone tuning. This produces some delicious sounds, especially in the richly registered fantasia on Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland. It is a pity that we are not given the registrations – or have I missed a link to a website?

Suzuki’s team at Yale, where he was on the faculty from 2009 to 2013, includes an outstanding bass-baritone, capable of a wide range in De profundis, Paul Max Tipton. He is joined by two experienced tenors, Dann Coakwell and James Taylor, professor of voice at Yale: they are experienced in a wide range of music but  – and I nearly wrote ‘therefore’ – do not have quite the same vocal purity and period style as Tipton. Nonetheless, together with one-to-a-part strings, two violins, two violas, two gambas and a continuo group of ‘cello, dulzian, theorbo and organ, the ensemble is excellent, and the clarity combined with the bloom of the YDS chapel’s acoustic gives a sheen as well as blend to this welcome CD.

Nicolaus Bruhns died young: he was 31. He had been a pupil of Buxtehude, and then was sent to Copenhagen, where he came into contact with Italian music and made a reputation as a virtuoso on the violin. He was famously able, according to Mattheson, to perform double-stopping on the violin while playing the bass line on the pedal organ. The solo cantata for bass, Mein Herz ist bereit, exhibits some of this remarkable violin writing, with double stopping suggesting more than the single violin that is scored.

While there are no discernable influences on Bach, his style – bridging the small-scale works of Schütz to the cantatas of the AlteBach-Archiv – marries the Italian concerto with the German choral tradition. These recordings were made in 2016-7, and there is a good liner note on the music by Markus Rathey.

I welcome this recording – over 80 minutes long! – and hope that the second volume appears soon. The more we understand the music of Germany in the final third of the 17th century and learn to appreciate its texture, the better we shall appreciate Bach; and the more likely we will be to make good decisions about performance practice.

David Stancliffe

aus dem mitteldeutschen Barock
David Erler alto, L’arpa festante
75:56
Christophorus CHR 77453

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None of our readers will be particularly surprised to learn that I loved this CD. The repertoire (psalm settings and songs of praise for alto and strings) is right up my street, the instrumental support given to the singer is sympathetic and empathetic (meaning that they understand that lots of their music projects the text every bit as much as the solo voice part) and, well, David Erler. Effortless in the coloratura (and there is plenty of that among the six pieces here, five recorded for the first time!), and glorious in longer, sustained lines, his is the perfect voice for this repertoire. None of the composers is particularly well known (most of our readers ought to have heard of Briegel and Theile) and, indeed, three of the pieces remain anonymous, but my attention was held for the entire length of the disc, from the jubilant opening (J. C. Schmidt’s “Bonum est confiteri Domino”) to the “Gloria” of the final work, an anonymous Magnificat setting – talk about saving the best until last! What a fabulous piece, with its crowning triple-time “Amen”, with the voice and instruments in joyous dialogue. I cannot recomment this recording enough – it’s a cracker!

Brian Clark

Cantate e ariette per soprano e basso continuo Op. VI
Anna Piroli soprano, Luigi Accardo harpsichord/organ, Nicola Brovelli cello, Elisa La Marca theorbo/guitar
56:16
Dynamic CDS7918

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Paduan-born Giovanni Battista Bassani (c.1650-1716) was an almost exact contemporary of Corelli, but an infinitely more versatile composer. Believed to have studied in Venice with Legrenzi, he was not only a virtuoso violinist, but also a fine organist worthy of holding several important posts in the cities of northern Italy in which he worked, Padua, Venice, Modena, Bologna, Bergamo, but above all Ferrara, where he was maestro di cappella of the cathedral from 1686. His extensive catalogue includes at least nine operas (sadly now all lost apart from fragments), oratorios, of which there is an excellent recording (Opus 111, 2001) of his La morte delusa (Ferrara, 1696), many other sacred and secular vocal works and a substantial body of instrumental chamber works.

Bassani’s collection Affetti Canori was published as his opus 6 in Bologna in 1684. It consists of six single-movement ‘arias’ and with six cantatas in several movements that alternate arias with recitar cantando or arioso, often in a highly flexible way reminiscent of the quasi-scena episodes in the operas of composers like Cesti. It is the independent arias that often strike the listener as the more adventurous as to matters of harmony. The opening ‘Occhi amorevoli’, for example, one of the most exceptional pieces of the collection, starts with a plea of heartfelt beauty for the lady’s eyes to give succour to the poor mendicant, its supplicatory tone reinforced by chromaticism. Then comes a vivace giving the pleas greater urgency, before a return to the opening cantabile largo. And this is perhaps a good moment to introduce the singer, soprano Anna Piroli, who like the music itself excels in this work. She is the possessor of a fresh, sweet-toned voice that not only has a technique fully able to encompass agile passage work, though there is nothing over-demanding in that respect here, but also capable of sustaining an unwavering cantabile line. As can be heard in the final bars of this aria, Piroli’s mezza voce is quite ravishing, and with the very occasional exception of a pushed top note she’s one of those rare singers that seem incapable of making an unpleasant sound. Ornamentation is well-executed and mostly stylish, though it would have been good to hear an occasional trill. While her diction is fair there are times where a firmer projection of the text would not come amiss. Her response to text is however often telling; listen for example to her wistful emphasis on the words ‘goduti contenti’ (former pleasures) in one of the recitatives from the cantata Consolata gemea.

That is at once the most extended and arguably the most impressive of the cantatas, though several others come close. While most of them take the vicissitudes of love fairly light-heartedly – and the number of lively triple-time arias tells us we should not take the content too seriously – here the cantata is founded on a beautifully expressive minor-key largo that acts as a ritornello refrain – its repeats intelligently decorated – that seems to speak of something more profound. It is most affectingly sung by Piroli, who sustains the pathetic cantabile lines with especially touching effect. Also particularly noteworthy is another lengthy cantata, Ardea di due begl’occhi, with its captivating aria in chaconne form.

Piroli is given outstanding support by the continuo players, whose contribution is always positive without ever intruding onto the singer’s territory, a lesson some others would do well to take on board. It is, in fact, a compliment to say that most of the time the listener is not aware of them.

Full texts and translations plus extended notes by musicologist Marco Bizzarini are included, rounding off a thoroughly satisfying and rewarding issue that brings this splendid set of works to the catalogue for the first time.

Brian Robins