Tag: Vocal music

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Un clavecin pour Marcel Proust

CD cover Olivier Baumont Un clavecin pour Marcel Proust

Olivier Baumont
46:00
Encelade ECL2204

The idea of a harpsichord for Marcel Proust may at first glance seem like a bit of a historical mismatch between an essentially Baroque instrument and a writer of the late 19th and early 20th century. But of course this is an author in search of times gone by, and harpsichords and harpsichordists make regular appearances in his writings. Olivier Baumont has cleverly sought out these allusions and constructed a programme of the music mentioned as well as pieces ‘in the old style’ by Proust’s friends and fellow enthusiasts for earlier centuries, Reynaldo Hahn and Louis Diémer. Playing appropriately three impressive 20th-century copies of 18th-century original harpsichords, Baumont explores the 19th-century revival of this Baroque repertoire witnessed by Proust and included in his novels. Grouping the music by Rameau, Bach, Scarlatti and Couperin interspersed by pastiches by Anthiome, Hahn and Ravel under the heading of the Proust characters the music is associated with, Baumont constructs a concert programme for an event which never in fact took place on an instrument (Proust’s clavecin) which never actually existed – a very proustian questioning of memory! He is joined by soprano Ingrid Perruche, violinist Pierre-Eric Nimylowycz, and fellow clavecinist Nicolas Mackowiak for what turns out to be a very engaging sequence of music. This CD is very much a flight of fancy of harpsichordist Olivier Baumont and for all it hangs on what in Scotland we would call ‘a bit of a shoogly peg’, his beautiful playing and the thought-provoking juxtaposition of pieces makes for a satisfying and involving experience.

D. James Ross

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Lucrezia: Portraits of a Woman

CD cover Lucrezia Les Paladins

Sandrine Piau, Amel Brahim-Djelloul, Karine Deshayes, Lucile Richardot SSSmS, Les Paladins, Jérôme Correas
64:00
Aparté AP359

The story of the rape and subsequent suicide of the Roman noblewoman Lucretia in 509 BC has resonated down the centuries. As a political event that spelt the end of the Roman monarchy and as a personal tragedy, the sexual violence of Sextus Tarquinius, son of the king of Rome, has captured the attention of writers such as Livy, Ovid and later Shakespeare, painters like Artemisia Gentileschi, herself a victim of rape and portrayer of the scene in four separate paintings, and composers. The best-known versions in music are the early cantata by Handel, included here, and Britten’s opera The Rape of Lucretia. Surprisingly we are told by Jérôme Correas in his note that the Baroque era yielded only three further versions of the tale set to music, all of which are included on the present disc, providing a unique opportunity to compare and contrast the settings.

The earliest of the four is that by Alessandro Scarlatti, the ‘father’ of the Italian cantata, whose setting of a text by the Roman nobleman Cardinal Benedetto Pamphilj dates from 1680. An abridged version of the same libretto was employed by the Venetian Benedetto Marcello, who omitted the final aria. Handel’s version is something of a mystery, since it is not known where or when it was composed, nor has the author of the libretto been identified. It is frequently attributed to Pamphilj, though if it is his work it is a quite different text to the one set by Scarlatti and Marcello. Examination of the paper type has also led scholars to believe it was composed before Handel arrived in Rome, either in Florence or Venice. It is interestingly also the only one of the four cantatas to have a text entirely in the words of the stricken Lucrezia, the others all including narrative passages written in the third person. The final cantata by the French composer Michel Pignolet de Montéclair has an Italian text but the musical style tends to that of the ‘goûts réunis’ that sought to unite French and Italian taste. All four cantatas fundamentally employ the alternating recitative and aria structure, though within this pattern is an array of contrast. Scarlatti, for example, binds his final stretch of recitative with a touching vocal ritornello, ‘Ma che farai mia cor’, its repetitions more affecting as Lucrezia comes ever closer to death. It is here one of the highlights of the performance by the Algerian soprano Amel Brahim-Djelloul. But no one can match the sheer exuberance of the young Handel, whose structure abides by no rules in an extended setting that includes only two arias, but concludes with passages of an infinitely moving arioso, as death starts to steal in on Lucrezia and then a final, furious recitative outburst of unrestrained anger directed at the man who has defiled her.

In nearly every respect, this ought to have been an outstanding release, but sadly it is seriously flawed, not for musical reasons but because Aparté have taken the foolish step of issuing the CD without bothering to translate the texts into English. Such is the importance of the communication of words in this repertoire, both directly by the singer and to the listener that the lack of translation seriously diminishes the impact of these works to those without Italian or French.

It is a luxury to have four different singers, including three of France’s leading early music artists, although Karine Deshayes is generally associated more with bel canto. Her singing of the Handel has considerable merit, but in a work so frequently performed doesn’t quite match the finest versions. The lesser-known name, particularly outside France, is Brahim-Djelloul , whose singing of the Scaralatti veers between the sensitivity described above and some rather overwrought singing more suited to the opera house than the chamber. No reservations apply to Sandrine Piau’s exquisitely nuanced Montéclair or the Marcello of mezzo Lucile Richardot, whose powerful projection reminds us she is today one of France’s paramount actor-singers. Finally, it must be mentioned that the support by Les Paladins is exemplary; on their own account they contribute a fine performance of Marcello’s Concerto in F minor, op 1/7 and a brief but affecting sinfonia from Bernardo Pasquini’s oratorio Il martirio dei santi Vito.

No one that has a fair understanding of Italian and/or French should miss out on this fascinating collection. Those that don’t, well, you’ve been warned. Three boos to Aparté, whose slovenly presentation does poor service to the outstanding performers on the CD.

Brian Robins

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Book

“Puote Orfeo col dolce suono”

Giacomo Sciommeri, “Puote Orfeo col dolce suono” Il mito di Orfeo nella cantata italiana del Seicento

Giacomo Sciommeri: “Puote Orfeo col dolce suono” Il mito di Orfeo nella cantata italiana del Seicento
Strumenti della ricerca musicale No. 24 of the Società Italiana di Musicologia.
Libreria Musicale Italiana,  Lucca: 2022
ISBN 978 88 5543 124 8
viii + 152pp. €20

The title in quotation marks is from the poetry of Benedetto Pamphilj, set by Handel as Hendel non può mia musa. The cover is Orfeo suona tra gli animali by Luca Giordano, ca. 1697 in the Palazzo Reale di Aranjuez in Madrid.

Giacomo Sciommeri’s fairly short book on ‘the myth of Orpheus in Italian cantatas of the 1600s’ gives a rigorous account of how it was acquired historically, understood allegorically, and treated by poets and composers of Italian 17th-century cantatas, thus influencing the development of the pastoral cantata genre in general. The full story of Euridice and Orfeo, which inspired the birth of opera (Ottavio Rinuccini’s L’Euridice by Peri and Caccini in 1600, Alessandro Striggio’s Favola d’Orfeo by Monteverdi in 1607, and Luigi Buti’s Orfeo by Luigi Rossi in 1647) sowed other seeds, from lyrical, dramatic and instrumental laments to Ranieri de’ Calzabigi’s Orfeo ed Euridice by Gluck and perhaps – my conjecture only – even to the magical power of music, one of its themes, that saves and matures Tamino and Pamina in Mozart’s Magic Flute. Readers may already know about these, but less about the presence or mere allusion to Orpheus in cantatas! Sciommeri gives us something entirely different. He chooses six poetic texts on different portions of the story, illustrating four of them analytically in relation to five musical settings.

Analytical studies can be ungrateful reading, finding only dedicated readers, whereas here the intense emotions of the protagonists and those around them, expressed poetically and musically, like Orpheus’s power to move birds, beasts, trees and rocks, is irresistible! We know the fable, as did the Baroque poets, whether from Virgil, Ovid, or the 1480 drama La Fabula di Orfeo by the Tuscan Renaissance poet Angelo Ambrogini (Poliziano) – the earliest known secular theatrical text in Italian, performed in Mantua, probably with music, ending with the Menads’ killing of Orpheus. Some even interpreted Orpheus’s failure to rescue Euridice from death (symbolizing the salvation of the ancient world), as the allegorical defeat of Humanism after the bloody Pazzi Conspiracy against the Medici in Florence of 1478.

Fascinating as Chapters 1 and 2 are (the first one tracing the myth of Orpheus from the classics to the cantata, and the second finding its aesthetic and rhetorical echoes in cantatas that are not necessarily mythological, both replete with poetic excerpts), Sciommeri intensifies the interest for musicians in the next four chapters. He gives a running musical analysis of five mythological Orpheus cantatas, comparing their treatments of the key elements of the fable: the love between Orpheus and Euridice; the power of his music; his descent to Hades and return (catabasis and anabasis); his death. He gives the complete lyrics and structure of these cantatas, with short musical excerpts from every aria and recitative, illustrating how each cantata presents a single episode of the story we know:

♦ Chapter 3: Fuor della stigia sponda (anon.) – the anabasis (ascent) of Orpheus as set by Alessandro Stradella and also by Antonio Foggia

♦ Chapter 4: Cadavero spirante (anon.) – the lament of Orpheus, attributed to Orazio Antonio Fagilla, a Neapolitan abbot.

♦ Chapter 5: Ove per gl’antri infausti (anon.) – the catabasis (descent) of Orpheus, set by Giovanni Lorenzo Lulier, a Roman. (There appear to be one or two wrong notes in ex. 5.7 bar 15, possibly present in one or both of the Roman copies. Harmonically and melodically a”’d” makes more sense than f♯”d”, preserving the sequential imitations, and similarly G instead of B in the continuo – notes off by one staff line, as here, are very common errors by copyists!) Studies of this cantata are mentioned in footnotes, notably by Biancamaria Brumana in Recercare XVII, LIM 2005, and in Quaderni di Esercizi. Musica e Spettacolo, 15, Morlacchi 2007.

♦ Chapter 6: Del lagrimoso lido (anon.) – the lament of Euridice, attributed to Alessandro Scarlatti (cf. edition by Rosalind Halton, Cantata Editions 2005). At the moment Euridice finds herself ‘abandoned’ among infernal flames she addresses Orpheus, expressing her grief and love, encouraging him to come. She begs Cupid not to torment her further and tells Orpheus that she died loving him, while fleeing from Aristeo, and hopes he will use his lyre to rescue her. It is one of three cantatas by Scarlatti based on the myth of Orpheus. See Poiché riseppe Orfeo and Dall’oscura magion dell’arsa Dite in Scarlatti, Alessandro, L’Orfeo, ed. Rosalind Halton, Web Library of 17th-Century Music, 2012, n. 23 www.sscm-wlscm.org and Alessandro Scarlatti, Tre cantate da camera sul mito di Orfeo ed Euridice, in preparation by Giacomo Sciommeri, to be available both in print and online: http://www.sedm.it/sedm/it/musica-vocale/111-scarlatti-orfeo.html.

Sciommeri’s considerations about the historical reception of the Orpheus myth in 17th-century literary circles should stimulate musicians, writers and composers to view the 18th-century pastoral cantata genre linking poetry and music more profoundly. The cantatas analyzed here may also give someone the idea of programming a group of Orpheus cantatas in the order of the narrative!

Barbara Sachs

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Recording

Handel in Rome

Nardus William Dunedin Consort John Butt Handel in Italy

Nardus Williams soprano, Dunedin Consort, John Butt
60:20
LINN CKD747

Handel’s youthful stay in Italy would shape him as a composer in a variety of ways. Not only was it a period that witnessed the defining development of his style and an extraordinary fecundity, but, particularly in the case of the chamber cantatas he wrote, provided a rich storehouse of materials that the resourceful composer would draw on for the rest of his creative life.

Of the large number of secular cantatas Handel composed in Italy, some thirty-odd are designed on a larger scale than chamber cantatas with only continuo accompaniment. Three of the better-known examples are included on the present CD, all composed for Handel’s noble patrons in Rome. Here they are performed with somewhat larger forces than Handel might have had at his disposal, a total of ten strings and continuo, including theorbo, which is not as obtrusive as is now customary but is in my view in any event superfluous (the excellent series of the cantatas with La Risonanza on Glossa found no need to include continuo lute).

Ero e Leandro, ‘Qual ti riveggio, oh Dio’, HWV 150, probably written in 1707 for Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni, also the likely author of the text, relates the words of Hero in the aftermath of the death of her lover Leandro, drowned as he tries to reach her on the opposite side of the Hellespont. Largely cast in the grieving words of the distraught Hero, the cantata ends surprisingly not with an aria but recitative in which four lines from the end a narrator takes over to tell us with dispassionate simplicity that Hero has taken her own life. Tra le fiamme, H 170, one of the most popular of the early cantatas, is one of the few for which we know for certain the name of the text’s poet. He was Cardinal Benedetto Pamphili, who took the well-known story of Icarus’s fatal flight to illustrate a morality with a Christian message – rather than attempting impossible literal flight, send your thoughts soaring heavenward. The mood of much of the cantata is playful, in keeping with the youthful rashness of Icarus. Armida abbandonata, HWV 105 inhabits a very different world. Dating from 1707, it was composed for the Marchese Ruspoli, the most important of Handel’s secular patrons, and originally sung by the soprano Margherita Durastante, the first of the series of great sopranos Handel encountered. Unusually it opens with an acompagnato describing the Crusader Rinaldo’s desertion of the sorceress Armida, a topic Handel would of course re-visit four years later in his first London opera, Rinaldo. The opening aria is a magnificent lament for Armida, ‘Ah, crudele!’, here opened with a breathtakingly lovely pianissimo by Nardus Williams. The cantata as a whole is an outstanding example of Handel’s stunning development in Italy. Finally, as a kind of encore, we have ‘Tu del ciel’, the last aria from the oratorio Il trionfo del tempo e del disinganno (The Triumph of Time and Truth), composed in 1707, also to a text by Cardinal Pamphili. John Butt takes it a little more slowly than I personally would prefer.

Since winning the Rising Talent award at the 2022 International Opera Awards, the young British soprano Nardus Williams has confirmed her place as an outstanding artist. The voice itself is glorious, lustrous, yet bright and securely produced across its range. Her cantabile singing is a special joy, the honeyed-tone spun out with unwavering security and especially impressive in an aria like ‘Si muora’ (the final aria of Ero), another case of the tempo being arguably too slow. Bravura work is also excellent, with passaggi cleanly articulated, while ornaments are in the main well-turned. However, her trill is at an embryonic stage, being at present too shallow and hazy. But at least Williams offers something in that area. Her diction and projection is good in recitative, but tends to lose focus in cantabile writing. But all in all this is a highly impressive display in repertoire that presents challenges quite different to opera. Butt’s conducting is as supportive and as idiomatic as one would by now expect.     

Brian Robins

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Recording

Lambert de Sayve: Ad Vesperas

CD cover Lambert de Sayve Ad Vesperas

Ensemble Polyharmonique, Alexander Schneider; Concerto Imperiale, Fabien Moulaert
69:03
Musique en Wallonie MEW2201

The cathedral of St. Lambert in Liège was one of the richest and best-served ecclesiastical centres in Northern Europe in the 17th century, with sixty canons and connections to a large number of collegiate churches and abbeys from which it could call on musicians. The Grand livre de choeur de Saint-Lambert of c. 1645, which survives in the library of Liège Conservatoire, contains fifty-odd motets for from four to eight voices and includes five Vespers-related pieces performed on this recording. They are arranged as part of an extended Marian Vespers, with three psalms and a Magnificat for double choir by Lambert de Sayve, a fourth double-choir psalm by Matthieu Rosmarin, and motets by de Sayve, Lambert Coolen, Henri de Romouchamps and Léonard de Hodemont. The singers of Ensemble Polyharmonique, together with the wind players of Concerto Imperiale, provide a rich tapestry of sound, beautifully balanced and expertly recorded. There are plainchant antiphons and organ music by Andrea Gabrieli, Peter Philips and Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck, confidently played by Concerto Imperiale’s director, Fabien Moulaert. Sweelinck’s Écho, unique to the Grand livre, is a real tour-de-force, lasting nine and a half minutes (details of the organ are not provided). I was also particularly struck by de Sayve’s setting of the motet O admirabile commercium performed by male voices and low instruments. An extensive booklet in French, Flemish, English and German contains comprehensive liner notes by the musicologist Émilie Corswarem, an expert on the music of Liège. This recording is a real pleasure to listen to and shines a light on a neglected corner of the festive music which graced high holy days in Northern Europe in the early Baroque.

Noel O’Regan

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Recording

CAMPRA – MESSE DE REQUIEM

CD cover Campra Messe de Requiem Daucé

Ensemble Correspondances, directed by Sébastien Daucé
69:56
harmonia mundi HMM 902679

There are doubtless many like myself who first became aware of André Campra’s sublime Requiem through the recording made by John Eliot Gardiner in 1979. This new version, by one of today’s most renowned French ensembles, is very different, taking its point of reference not from Campra’s period as maître de musique at Notre-Dame in Paris (1694-1700), but a new theory as to the provenance of a work that has always been surrounded by mystery as to its original purpose and date of composition. That is explained in the scholarly note by Thomas Leconte in harmonia mundi’s booklet. It is too complex to go into detail here, but it makes a convincing argument for suggesting the Mass is unlikely to have been written for either Notre-Dame or the chapelle royale, where Campra became one of the sous-maîtres from 1723. That leaves open the suggestion that it was the Mass directed by Campra in 1700 at the Église des Mathurins for the funeral service of Louis Boucherat, Chancellor of France.   

That the Requiem was therefore most likely written for less grand surroundings than Notre-Dame or the Chapelle Royale probably explains the reasoning behind the substantially smaller forces in the present performance than are usually heard in the work. Given its nature, which chooses neither to stress the terror of death, nor to bathe in grief, but rather create an ambiance alternating between spiritual rest and the joy to be found in the light and peace attained in death, the more intimate forces are highly effective. This philosophy is clearly laid out in the opening words of the Introit, where the blissfully flowing polyphonic lines of ‘Requiem aeternam’ (Eternal rest …) give way at ‘et lux perpetua’ (and let perpetual light) to delicate dancing rhythms that remind us that Campra is today best remembered as the creator of the opéra-ballet. This dual approach dominates this infinitely touching work, which in keeping with the style of French sacred works of the 17th century flexibly alternates the chorus with a smaller petit-choeur that participates in solos or solo ensembles. It is one of the measures of the outstanding qualities of Sébastian Daucé’s performances that he has not only artists of the known stature of soprano Caroline Weynants and alto Lucile Richardot included in his petit-choeur, but less familiar names such as haute-contre Rodrigo Carreto and tenor François Joron also make distinguished contributions. The latter’s beautifully sustained line in Agnus Dei I is just one of the highlights of a performance that overall is of the highest quality.

It is something of a paradox that having persuasively convinced us that the Requiem has nothing to do with Notre-Dame, the subtitle of the CD is ‘& Les Maîtres de Notre-Dame de Paris’, the remainder of it being devoted to the 17th-century predecessors of Campra. Of these, the earliest is Jean Veillot (ca1600–62), composer of a simple, but effective Ave verum corpus, who succeeded his teacher Henry Frémart in the post in 1640, going on to become a sous-maître at the Chapelle-Royale, a familiar route for French composers. Veillot’s successor at Notre-Dame was François Cosset (ca1610–ca1673), substantial portions of whose six-part Mass ‘Domine salvum fac regem’ are included, as is the source motet by Veillot. The notes wax lyrical about the quality of the work, which seems to me a rather unremarkable setting largely employing old-fashioned Renaissance polyphony, but also syllabic homophony. The disc is completed by two fine motets by Pierre Robert (ca1622–99), one, ‘Tristis est anima mea’ being a brief setting of the words of Christ in the garden of Gethsemane, ‘My soul is sorrowful even unto death’, the closely-worked polyphony of the early part giving way to rhetorical emphasis at the point of Christ’s accusation to his disciples, ‘Vos fugem capietas’ (You shall run away).

A splendid addition to Ensemble Correspondances’ distinguished series of recordings of both sacred and secular music of the French Baroque.

Brian Robins

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Recording

Byrd: The Great Service & English Anthems

Alamire, His Majestys Sagbutts & Cornetts, Stephen Farr, David Skinner
77:20
INVENTA INV1015

This recording of Byrd’s mighty and magnificent Great Service and seven Anglican anthems has two purposes. It concludes Alamire’s project marking the quatercentenary of Byrd’s passing in 1623, after their two acclaimed albums of his complete secular song collections of 1588 and 1589 (INV1006, 2021 and 1011, 2023); and it celebrates the centenary of the first complete performance in three centuries of the Great Service, which was “rediscovered” just after the First World War.

Given a work of this quality and quantity – seven movements for ten voices, the most for which Byrd ever composed – it is surprising that there has been so little inquisitiveness about why he wrote it. Certainly it is not the sort of work anyone would write on a whim, or on the off chance of a random performance, or because they couldn’t sleep. The liturgical context – the Church of England’s services of Mattins (three movements), Holy Communion and Evensong (two each) – and the resources that are required suggest some major celebration. In fairness, because it was not printed at the time, there is no evidence from surviving manuscript sources or contemporary writings, and we are left clutching at circumstantial straws, such as the likely dating of the earliest sources, which renders the fortieth anniversary of the Queen’s accession a possibility. Unsurprisingly surviving sources can be located to only a limited number of major choral establishments.

In a piece that is simply so good throughout its entire length, selecting certain passages for appreciation gives an impression that other passages are not worthy of such attention. This is misleading, as every phrase and passage and movement warrants appreciation, but even in this work of such consistent excellence, there are a few passages of transcendent quality. Two will suffice here. The closing text of the Te Deum (the second canticle at Mattins) is “Let me never be confounded”. Byrd does not eschew repetition in his settings during this work, but nowhere else does his setting become not only so emphatic, but also so emotional, exuding both pathos and passion. Was he even expressing guilt and seeking forgiveness from his God over his employment as a known Roman Catholic within the Protestant Established Church? The second passage is the Amen to the Magnificat (the first canticle at Evensong). Usually it is the Amen to its partner, the Nunc Dimittis, which receives the plaudits, led by E.H. Fellowes, the work’s putative rediscoverer and first editor, and this indeed rounds off the work majestically. But perhaps because of the association of the Magnificat with the Virgin Mary, this might have piqued the interest of the Catholic Byrd more profoundly, and one wonders whether he was showing these Protestants, who were more sceptical about the Virgin, a thing or two about the heights to which the mother of Christ could inspire him as a Catholic composer.

The seven anthems selected from the relatively small number that Byrd composed for the Church of England cover most of Byrd’s composing career, from the early Out of the deep with its debt to Byrd’s mentor Sheppard, to the almost madrigalian Exalt thyself O Lord and O God the proud are risen against me. All differ from one another within the constraints of decorum required for the Elizabethan Church, and a point has been made of including those least served by commercial recordings, notably the understated but exquisite O God whom our offences have justly displeased. Most familiar is what is best known as O Lord make thy servant Elizabeth which became performed with increasing frequency during the reign of the late Queen Elizabeth II. The original version had its text adapted several times up until the reign of Queen Anne in the eighteenth century, twice to reflect Charles I and II; past and present come together for its presence on this recording as O Lord make thy servant Charles its sonorous and beautiful Amen bringing the proceedings to an appropriate conclusion.

Also included are Byrd’s three keyboard settings of the plainsong Clarifica me pater in successively two, three and four parts. They are among his finest and most popular pieces for organ and are played here by Stephen Farr, surely the finest living exponent of Byrd’s music on the organ. His accompaniments to the Service and anthems are faultless both in execution and in what is currently known of Elizabethan practice.

This leads to a consideration of the use of winds to accompany the Service. There is no specific evidence for this in the surviving manuscripts nor in any contemporary writings, but there is evidence of the use of cornetts and sackbutts at certain grand services, and of the numbers employed here. Given the grandeur of the music in the Great Service, it seems credible that if winds were used anywhere, it would be for a work such as this, and His Majesty’s Sagbutts & Cornetts make the best possible case for their inclusion.

The actual signing is in the hands, or rather the voices, of Alamire, themselves a roll call of Britain’s finest exponents of vocal music from this period. In both verse and full passages their blend is excellent, and they are directed cogently by David Skinner, himself a former cathedral layclerk and nowadays a prominent musicologist specializing in the Renaissance whose recent and current academic projects feature Sheppard and Tallis. The recording quality is ideal, with just the right amount of resonance from the venue, All Hallows, Gospel Oak in London. Very occasionally the highest and lowest notes in a passage are lost: the booklet draws attention to a fleeting but significant dissonance early in the Venite at the words “in the strength” but the bass is indistinct at this point; and in the Magnificat the very high note atop the chord at the climactic word “hearts” is almost inaudible. Otherwise, this is a sonic triumph, complementing the majesty of Byrd’s musical creation.

There are six other recordings of the complete Great Service currently available: three by mixed adult choirs and three by ecclesiastical choirs. Musica Contexta (Chandos CHAN 0789) is the only other one to use winds, and their disc is valuable for the inclusion of two of Byrd’s elusive and neglected festal psalms, one of which is otherwise only on an LP long deleted. Also they were the only choir until Alamire to include the passage “O Lord let thy mercy lighten upon us as our trust is in thee”, which survives in just two sources, originating from Worcester and Gloucester. The Odyssean Ensemble use an organ accompaniment in a wiry rendition which omits the Kyrie (Linn CKD608). The Cardinall’s Musick (Hyperion CDA67937) are disappointingly pared down from a live performance double the size prior to the making of this recording. Of the ecclesiastical choirs, the version by King’s College, Cambridge (EMI CDC 7477712, 1987, now available as a download 9029532656 on Warner Classics) was hailed at the time in one daily broadsheet newspaper as what King’s choir “is all about”. They used an edition by James Wrightson that took into account new research about surviving indications of full and verse passages, similar to those subsequently adopted by Craig Monson for his edition of the work as volume 10b of The Byrd Edition published by Stainer and Bell. Westminster Abbey (Hyperion CDA67533) includes a fine selection of filler anthems and distinguished organ playing by Robert Quinney. Historically the most intriguing of all these, and arguably the finest, is the recording originally from 1981 by The Saint Thomas Choir of Men and Boys, Fifth Avenue, New York, the only Episcopalian (Anglican in England) church with its own choir school. This version was reissued as a download in 2023 and on CD as a double album early this year to mark the quatercentenary of Byrd’s passing in 1623 (Signum Classics SIGCD776). It is paired with the current choir (2022) singing his Mass for Four Voices and Propers for Corpus Christi (see my review for EMR dated 17 January 2024). Focusing on the 1981 choir, this is the only ecclesiastical version that is unaccompanied, The layclerks of the day included the likes of Drew Minter among the countertenors, and the boys were stunning. Reassuringly today’s choir is just as fine. This is a recording to cherish.

Alamire’s version emerges as the most distinguished among the chamber choirs, being the only one to field the vocal resources adequate to reflect surviving evidence regarding full, verse, and antiphonal (decani and cantoris halves of the choir alternating) passages in contemporary performances. The ecclesiastical choirs exude a different ethos and timbre. They are of course more authentic in performance (and in numbers), but it has been argued that since treble voices in Byrd’s day could last until boys were towards the end of their teens, they would not have sounded dissimilar to those of the adult females in mixed chamber choirs of today. As ever, choice lies with the customer. You would be well served by Alamire and, within an appropriate level of engagement with the text for the singing of Anglican liturgical music in the Elizabethan Church, you will find consummate artistry giving forth a simmering account of Byrd’s sublime music.

Richard Turbet

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Recording

JS Bach & JC Bach: Motets

CD cover Solomon's Knot Bach motets

Solomon’s Knot
Prospero PROSP0073

This recording of the Bach Motets (BWV 225-230) also includes Ich lasse dich nicht (BWV 1164 – or Anhang 159) and four by Johann Christoph Bach: Lieber herr Gott, Der Gerechte, ob er gleich, Fürchte dich nicht and Herr, nun lässet du deinen Diener in Friede fahren. These motets from the Alt-Bachisches Archiv, known to have been performed by Johann Sebastian in the last decade of his life, are performed at A=440 with a higher pitched organ, while the motets by Johann Sebastian are sung at A=415 with a slightly more substantial instrument and occasionally a large violone.

These performances are committed, with Solomon’s Knot’s characteristic off-copy style of singing, meaning that their ensemble is faultless. Their admirers will love these readings recorded in the generous acoustic of the Bachkirche in Arnstadt. There are no instrumental doublings such as Johann Sebastian provided for the funeral motet Der Geist hilft (BWV 226). Lobet den Herrn (BWV 230) is sung with the voice parts doubled, and the liner-notes refer to the possibility that the genesis of this motet (whose authenticity has sometimes been questioned and the only one where a basso continuo line is absolutely essential) may be a movement from an early cantata, re-purposed for this new use. For the rest, all is much as you would expect.

But not everyone will be content with some of the individualistic mannerisms of each singer. The continuing tradition of formation in boys’ choirs in Germany like the Thomanerchor and the Tölzer Knabenchor ensures a seamless unanimity of sound which few mixed groups of professional singers can emulate. While the two sopranos of Solomon’s Knot give their parts a controlled and pure line in Johann Christoph’s Fürchte dich nicht, in Johann Sebastian’s more complex setting they, with most noticeably the tenors, revert to the ‘one-size-fits-all’ type of voice as their fall-back mode. Notes tied over the bar-line are given a push rather than being left to float in the air, and the squeezing of long notes in a 20th-century manner give a very different overall sound to that produced by groups like Vox Luminis. Listen to the first soprano and the tenor in the Aria section of BWV 225, Singet dem Herrn, for example. Sometimes their obvious enjoyment of this great music unfetters the soloistic inner self that lurks beneath the corporate discipline demanded of all consort singers, as in bars 29ff of BWV 228, Fürchte dich nicht. BWV 229, Komm, Jesu, komm seems to fare a little better than Singet dem Herrn in this respect, perhaps because the singers are in more reflective mode. Perhaps the best performance is in Jesu, meine Freude (BWV 227) where the OVPP lines and the robust organ playing combine to give both a sense of the inherent drama and also a more convincing ensemble.

This is classic singing by highly disciplined professional singers at the top of their game. Whether you think it is a suitable vehicle for the closely wrought, highly ornamented and imitative style of Johan Sebastian’s concerto-style writing in the motets is a different question. For me, the high quality of Solomon’s Knot’s musicianship does not outweigh my sense that this style of singing often fails to deliver the clarity and unanimity of vocal sound that Bach’s intricate and instrumental style of polyphonic writing demands.

David Stancliffe

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Recording

Scheidt: Liebliche Krafft-Bluemlein

CD cover Scheidt Liebliche Krafft-Bluemlein

Twelve duets accompanied by continuo
Marie Luise Werneburg soprano, Daniel Johannsen tenor, Collegium Instrumentale der Kathedrale St.Gallen, directed by Michael Wersin
59:21
cpo 555 513-2

It is difficult to imagine the circumstances in which this music was composed. Published in 1635, during the Thirty Years War, these duets set mostly Biblical texts (and a large percentage of those are from the Book of Psalms); the exception is Johann Walter’s “Herzlich tut mich erfreuen” which has four verses consisting of two rhyming couplets with a refrain. The rather grandly named “Collegium instrumentale…” consists – for this recording – of cello (or piccolo cello for a gamba sonata attributed to Buxtehude), chitarrone (also featured in two toccatas by Kapsberger) and a chamber organ (whose player directs the ensemble and wrote the booklet notes). This is not a recording that will fly to the top of the bestsellers lists, but it is a very valuable addition to the catalogue; the voices are pleasant on the ear and well matched, and the accompaniment is unfussy and stylish. I wonder that the organist did not also take a turn in the limelight (there is plenty of space on the disc), but I would also have rather heard more music from Halle and from the time than a spurious gamba sonata by a composer who was only born two years after Scheidt’s music was published.

Brian Clark

Categories
Recording

Legrenzi: La morte del cor penitente

CD cover Legrenzi La morte del cor penitente Ensemble Masques

Ensemble Masques, directed by Olivier Fortini
77:28
Alpha-classics Alpha 975

This was one of the very first pieces I edited after graduation from St Andrews, and it was the first I convinced the BBC to record. Nigel Rogers, who sang the role of the sinner in and directed those performances, was a great advocate for the work – and the composer’s music in general. Labeled an oratorio, there is no narrative thread; rather, two sopranos (in the guises of Hope and Penance, as the booklet note translates them) give the tenor options for entering Heaven – he should either repent his sins and accept the pains that are their reward, or succumb to the love that has made him sinful in the first place and trust in Heaven’s pity. The second half opens after he has chosen the path of penitence, and a “Choir and Pains” (from which various members emerge to continue the dialogue with the main character) persuades him that the death of his heart is the only way to secure everlasting life. Perhaps best known today for his chamber music, Legrenzi was one of the leading composers of his day, writing everything from solo motets to operas (including one whose staging involved live elephants!) – much like Handel, who incidentally was familiar with his music, he was an expert in conveying emotions. The present performance embraces the theatricality in a way that I don’t recall from previous outings the score has had, pushing and pulling the tempo to suit the mood and deliberately overlapping the cadences of some sections with the beginnings of others for dramatic effect. Rather naughtily, Ensemble Masques insert extra sinfonie; while these are hardly random points in the work, some mention might have been made in the booklet note. All the more forgivable, of course, when the playing – like most of the singing – is so fabulous. Throughout the piece, the (mostly very short) arias recall those from the set of solo motets published posthumously by his nephew, and the ensembles that end each half have sections that echo passages from the Compline service the composer had published eleven years earlier. This excellent recording vividly highlights the latent dramatic qualities of this fine work.

Brian Clark