The Concerto in England: Handel & contemporaries
Avison Ensemble
Kings Place. 30 September 2016
Concertos by Avison, Garth, Handel, Herschel and Stanley.
As part of the Kings Place ‘Baroque Unwrapped’ season, the Newcastle-based Avison Ensemble explored the world of the 18th century concerto, and the equally interesting world of English provincial musical life. Charles Avison (pictured) was a Newcastle born organist and composer who absorbed the musical style of Geminiani and Scarlatti during a short period in London before being enticed back to Newcastle with the promise of prestigious organist post complete with a new organ. He made a handsome living through teaching and arranging subscription concerts. He was also a fierce reviewer of other composers, including Handel.
Avison’s 1758 Concerto Grosso in D (Op6/9) was an excellent example of the rather conservative type of piece that he wrote for the Newcastle Music Society. A rather bucolic opening reminiscent of hunting horns over a drone Continue reading
One of the most important musical events in London in 2015 was the long-awaited opening of the 1735 Richard Bridge organ (restored by William Drake) in the Hawksmoor designed Christ Church, Spitalfields. For many decades it was the largest organ in the UK, and its musical importance is immeasurable. My review of the gala opening recital, given by (the now sadly, late) John Scott, and information about the restoration and an organ specification can be found 
Recorded in 2003, this is presumably a reissue, although I couldn’t anything to confirm that. It is not listed on il Gardellino’s website. Matthessohn seems to have been one of the first to wonder how Telemann managed to compose so much music. This, and the dominance of Bach in the revival of German baroque music, has always been a bit of a problem. The opening Concerto in this CD helps by including several moments that many listeners might recognise. Matthessohn also commented that “Telemann alone is beyond all praise and lauds”, and this CD demonstrates the exceptional quality of his music. Both technically and musically, his compositional skill is self evidence, as is the breadth of his creative imagination. 
With the subtitle of ‘Franz Tausch in Context’, this début recording by Boxwood & Brass explores the music of the clarinettist and composer Tausch as he moved from Mannheim to Munich and then to Berlin. His XIII Pièces en Quatuor for two clarinets, horn and bassoon was his most substantial chamber work, and is performed here complete, in two suites. Published in 1812, the pieces might have been intended for Taush’s own saloon concerts – they are clearly music to be listened to, rather than the mere background music of some of the harmoniemusik repertoire. This is the first time that they have been recorded complete, an important occasion for Tausch and Boxwood & Brass.
One of the most delightful of London’s music venues is Garrick’s Temple to Shakespeare 
Johann Adolph Hasse (1699-1783) is one of those historically unfortunate composers who achieved great fame during their lifetimes but have since been more-or-less forgotten. A prolific composer of opera, he was hailed by Charles Burney as being superior to all other lyric composers. Married to the famed soprano Faustina Bordoni, the couple became the Posh and Becks of their day. Usually based in Dresden in the Court of the Saxon Elector Frederick III, Hasse had special dispensation that avoided the need to travel annually to the Polish Court, where Frederick was also the elected King. He also maintained a post in Venice at the Ospedale degli Incurabili. He lived long enough to have performed in front of Bach and the young Mozart.
The Innsbruck Festival of Early Music celebrated its 40th anniversary this year, although its roots go back a further 14 years or so. After some preliminary events, the festival proper ran for the last two weeks in August. It usually features three fully staged operas, although this year the third of them was reduced to a one-night concert performance of the Ruhrtriennale festival’s production of Gluck’s Alceste, conducted by René Jacobs who until 2009 was artistic director of the Innsbrucker Festwochen and, incidentally, the singer at the first concert of the first festival on 24 August 1976.
Joanne Metcalf: Il nome del bel fior;
the new Globe management, those events seems to have ground to a halt, with only one listed in the current season – and that a hang-over booking from the previous management. So it was fortuitous that the BBC Proms chose the theatre for one of its ‘BBC at …’ events (alongside such venues as a multi-story car park in Peckham), not least because it enabled people to see the inside of this fabulous, but very uncomfortable, theatre for just £14, rather than the up to £62 the Globe are asking for their own next concert there. 
Nevermind is a rather quirkily named group of four musicians (Anna Besson, flute, Louis Creac’h, violin, Robin Pharo, viola da gamba, Jean Rondeau, harpsichord) who met while studying at the Conservatoire Supérieur National de Paris (CNSM). They share an interest in early music, jazz and traditional music. In 2014, they won the Special Price of the Van Wassenaer Competition in Utrecht. They take their name from a quotation by the 19th 
This CD reflects the tradition of polyphonic singing in the style of Palestrina that developed during the 19th century in the collegiate church of Our Lady of the Old Chapel in Regensburg, a tradition that later extended to the Cathedral and its famous Domspatzen boys choir. The recordings are intended as a tribute to the conductor Josef Kohlhäufl, director of music at the Alte Kappelle from 1984 to 2011, who revived the polyphonic tradition during his tenure.
Bantock: Omar Khayyám (172’ 33),
This is a rather curious CD, subtitled “Ramon Llull – chronicle of a medieval voyage: conversion, study and contemplation”. When I first saw the CD, with its mention of Ramon Llull (Raymond Lully), I wondered if this was a discovery of a previously unknown mediaeval composer. But it turns out the Llull/Lully has nothing to do with the music on the recording. The ‘bouquet of pieces’ on the disc are apparently an offering to the admirers of Llull on the 700th anniversary of his death. A rather curious offering, considering that for most of his life, Llull had little or anything to do with music, and certainly not for the sort of music on this CD.
Mozart: Sonata in D, K381; Sonata in C, K521; Sonata in B-flat, K358, JC Bach: Sonata in A.
Despite their name the Elysium Ensemble, at least on this recording, consists of just two people, Greg Dikmans and Lucinda Moon, playing flute and violin respectively. Founded in 1985, the Australia-based Elysium Ensemble has in recent years concentrated on the instrumental duet, with research and concerts exploring the concept of ‘Dialogue: the Art of Elegant Conversation’. The foundation of this is the concept of rhetoric, or “the art of discourse and communication, of speaking with elegance and eloquence.” With roots in Aristotle’s discussions on oratory, and 18th century musicians and writers such as Quantz, they explore the concept of rhetoric in music through Boismortier’s Six Sonatas pour une flute traversiere et un violin par accords, published in Paris in 1734.
Renaissance period and the start of the Baroque. Born in 1562, he was employed by the city of Amsterdam as organist of the Oude Kerk for 44 years until his death in 1621. Organ music in the Calvanist church was limited to occasional playing of pieces to familiarise the congregation with the choral melodies, before or after the service, but not during. So Sweelinck’s duties as city organist were generally to give concerts for the public and visitors. This have him time to build up an extensive teaching practice, attracting a generation of North German organists who returned to develop the influential Hamburg organ school that dominated the 17th century, culminating in the music Buxtehude in nearby Lübeck. His music was known throughout northern Europe, with two of his pieces includrf within the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book.
Since 1996, the cloister has been home to summer opera productions, presented by Iford Arts. Their latest season concluded with ‘A Fairy Queen’ presented by Iford Arts and their regular orchestra from Christian Curnyn’s Early Opera Company.
This fascinating double CD stems from the 800th anniversary (in 2011) of the laying of the first stone of the Cathedral of Reims, where Nicolas de Grigny, the finest organist composer of the French Baroque era, served as organist from 1696 until his premature death in 1703. The current organ in the cathedral is not suitable for the performance of their most famous composer’s music, but the nearby Basilique St-Remi has a Bertrand Cattiaux organ, built in 2000, with the registrations required for the French Baroque repertoire. In an enterprising initiative, the “Association Renaissance des grandes orgues de la Basilique St-Remi” started a musical project in homage to de Grigny by inviting five contemporary composers to write a new work for organ based on one of de Grigny’s five hymn settings. 
Much of Vivaldi’s music was written for the Venetian Ospedali della Pietà, one of many such orphanages set up to cater for the many unwanted, and usually female, babies that seemed to appear some nine months after the carnival season. Although originally funded as charities, they quickly established a reputation for their musical activities, attracting large crowds and provided a secure, and indeed rather opulent, financial establishment. Firmly on the tourist essential to-do list, these female choirs attracted such comments as the one by Charles de Brosses in 1739 who wrote that “there is nothing so pleasant as to see a pretty young nun in a white habit, with a bunch of pomegranate blossoms over her ear directing the orchestra … their voices are delightful in their elegance and lightness”.
For many years I was invited to review the International Young Artists’ Early Music Network Competition, held every other year in York. Apart from initially getting to know the young musicians competing in the final, one of the most rewarding aspects was that competitors would keep me in touch with their developing careers, which usually included them sending me their first CD a few years later. The winner of the 2007 competition was Le Jardin Secret (centred on soprano Elizabeth Dobbin) who, rather unusually for competitions, also won the audience prize. In their case, I seem to have missed out their first two CDs, but have new received this, their third, CD.
Some of Handel’s most exciting and dramatic music was composed during the three short years he spent in Italy, starting when he was just 21. Despite offers of financial assistance from a Medici Prince, Handel famously ‘made his way on his own bottom’, as his biographer Mainwearing put it. Mainwearing suggests that prior to his visit, Handel ‘could see nothing’ in Italian music which, if it is true, is rather surprising, as Italian music had been at the forefront of much of the European Baroque, not least because of the developments in opera, oratorio and cantata. Handel very quickly absorbed the taste and style of Italian musicians both from Rome and also from his shorter visits to Venice, Florence and Naples. In his compositions from this period, he often outdid the Italians in writing in their style – as he did in England later in his life.
this distinguished orchestra has built an enormous international reputation, not least during the years from 1998 to 2011 when Sir Roger Norrington was their chief conductor, bringing his noted ‘historically informed’ performance practice to this modern instrument orchestra, producing a distinctive style – the ‘Stuttgart sound’. The two merging orchestras are both under the auspices of Südwestrundfunk (South West Radio), the public broadcaster for Baden-Württemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate, and have very different repertoires and styles. It was entirely appropriate that Roger Norrington, now their Conductor Emeritus, was the conductor for their final concert.
Andrew Benson-Wilson : Early Music Reviews + 