Although perhaps not quite reaching the social cachet of Glyndebourne or Garsington, the opera season at Iford Manor is always a delight, both for the setting and the standard of the music. A few miles south-east of Bath, the manor house is surrounded by the famous Peto garden, with an Italian cloister that is turned into a delightfully intimate opera house for the season. Unlike their companion’s ‘posh frocks and picnic’ focussed events, the dress code is ‘smart casual’ and picnicking opportunities come before, rather than during the opera, with a welcome coffee and biscuits filling the 20 minute interval. All this encourages a welcome focus on the music, rather than the surrounding social razzmatazz.
This year’s early music opera was Handel’s wonderful Agrippina, one of his most approachable operas despite, or perhaps because of, having been written when Handel was around 24, at the end of his enormously productive three years in Italy. This period produced some of his finest music, as reflected in the fact that Agrippina borrows extensively from Handel’s previous works – and, in turn, many extracts were later borrowed for later works. Continue reading
Loyset Compère is not as well-known as he deserves to be, and this recording could be the means by which his (recently re-assessed) place in musical history is acknowledged. The key to the re-assessment is the slightly embarrassing realisation that the Josquin that musicologists assumed to have been born in 1440 was not, in fact, Josquin des Prez, but another Josquin altogether. That makes Josquin des Prez around 10 years younger than thought. Similar birth date realignment concerning Obrecht and Agricola also make them younger than first thought. As David Fallows explains in his comprehensive programme notes, this leaves Loyset Compère as one of the earliest composers in the imitative style, now known to be later developed, rather than instigated, by Josquin and others. 
A CD launch concert in Handel’s own parish church of St George, Hanover Square featured the programme from the CD ‘Mozart: Stolen Beauties’. Ironwood is an Australian period instrument ensemble formed in 2006. They were joined by the distinguished horn player Anneke Scott, here playing both natural (or ‘hand’) and piston horn.
The first cello concerto to be played was the more advanced in style of the two. CPE Bach’s Concerto in a opening in typical Empfindsamer Stil with an orchestral unison, immediately challenged by contrary-motion scales and a yearning melody for the solo cello followed by a motif built on rapidly repeated notes – a typical CPE Bach mix of colours and textures. The first movement ended with the first of Poppy Walshaw’s excellent cadenzas, all kept well within the bounds and style of the piece. In the slow movement, the sound of the solo cello was allowed to grow delicately out of the orchestral texture. The skittish final movement saw the cello finally break free from its former collaborative role with a virtuoso series of flourishes.
The evening ended with the Violin Concerto in G (B1:520) by Allessandro Rolla, an Italian composer better known today as the teacher or Paganini than for his own compositions. Clearly in a later genre that the other works on the programme, this was very obviously a work written by a violin virtuoso to demonstrate his own skills. In contrast to the earlier composers, the solo moments were accompanied by the full orchestra, rather than a Baroque-style continuo group. As with Poppy Walshaw earlier, George Clifford produced a superb extended cadenza towards the end of the first movement, building on the advanced techniques already demonstrated. Switching between arco and pizzicato (and on one occasion, both at the same time) and taking the melodic line well towards the top of the violin fingerboard, Rolla would have approved.
I have been watching violinist Johannes Pramsohler make his mark in the world of period violin playing over the past few years, and this CD shows that his growing reputation is well deserved. This well-chosen programme of relatively unknown Sonatas from the Bach circle, is a telling reminder that although his later fame came from his organ playing, Bach’s early childhood was spent learning the violin from his violinist father. As Pramsohler’s notes point out, it was only when the 10 year-old Bach, now orphaned, moved into his organ-playing elder brother’s house, that he started to focus on the organ. But he kept his father’s violin, his only inheritance, all his life. Although only one work is definitely by Bach, with two possibly Bach’s, Bach is suffused throughout the other works, by Pisendel, Graun and Krebs, representing the extraordinary flowering of musical talent in 18th century Weimar, Leipzig and Dresden. The Graun and Krebs works are world premiere recordings, taking us into a slightly later musical period. The CD ends with Bach’s extraordinary Fugue in g (BWV 1026). 
Whether it was a commercial or a musical project, Beethoven’s own arrangements of his works for a smaller number of different instruments form a fascinating insight into the complex musical world of the late 18th and early 19th century. The two works represented on this CD reduce the Op.20 Septet for clarinet, horn, bassoon, violin, viola, cello and double bass to a Grand Trio for piano, clarinet and cello; and the Op.16 Quintet for piano, oboe, clarinet, bassoon and horn to a Quartet for piano, violin, viola and cello. 
Based on the Stylus Phantasticus that influenced so much music during the 17th century, this CD explores its use over different musical forms, notably music for keyboard and the violin sonata, examples of the latter coming from Biber, Fontana. Pandlfi-Mealli, and Schmelzer. Each of the sonatas is paired with a piece from the keyboard repertoire, often reinterpreted by the addition of the other instruments. So we hear a Tunder organ Praeludium played on violin and archlute, and part of Bruhns’s substantial choral 
The Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, part of the Shakespeare Globe on London’s South Bank, has come up with an enterprising series of candlelit musical events and, increasingly, theatrical events using music as an integral part of the production. The latest of the latter genre is ‘All the Angels: Handel and the first Messiah, a play by Nick Drake that explores Handel’s visit to Dublin where the first performance of Messiah took place on 13 April 1742.
(the 5th in their spectacular new home on the Wormsley estate) saw them spreading their wings with more educational projects and partnerships with the Royal Shakespeare Company and, in future years, Rambert and the Philharmonia Orchestra. As usual, they presented a mixed programme of popular operas, including the regularly returning Mozart, in this case with Così fan tutte.
Although Tartini is better known nowadays, no doubt because of the myths surrounding his ‘Devil’s Trill’ sonata, it was the virtuoso violinist Veracini that was hitting the headlines in early 17th century Italy, Dresden and London. There is a certain degree of comeuppance in the fact that Tartini was described (by Charles Burney) as a humble and timid man, whereas the now relatively unknown Veracini was considered ‘foolishly vainglorious’. When Veracini descended upon London, Roger North was scathing in his criticism of the influx of Italian violinists, based on hearing Veracini play – in a style he described as ‘not better than insane’.
least given the nature of Armonico Consort’s rather staid production. It was also singularly unwise of director Christopher Monks to tell us all in his introductory talk that we would have “never seen a performance like this before”. I am still not quite sure what he meant by that remark, but it kept me waiting for something special or unusual to happen – which it didn’t. His comment did turn out to be true, in a way, but not in the way that I think he intended. 
What is a song? The music on this CD responds to that question by crossing the bridge between art song and pop song. It combines pieces from the English 16th century lute song repertoire with compositions influenced by those works by three present day musicians, more usually associated with rock music. We hear the Genesis keyboard-player, Tony Banks, reflect on Campion’s The cypress curtain of the night and Follow thy fair sun – as well as the Campion originals. Sting’s Bury me deep in the greenwood (written for the film, Robin Hood) is firmly in the lute-song tradition.
new heights of curiosity. With wholesale ‘borrowing’ from his own, and around seven other composers’ music, this doesn’t seem to be Handel at his most sincere. Amongst other oddities, he turned a wedding cantata by Stradella into a chorus about plagues. It was performed in the almost ideal acoustic of Christ Church Spitalfields (as part of the Spitalfields Festival) by La Nuova Musica, directed by their flamboyant conductor David Bates.
There are some people, even in the fairly rarefied early music world, who would rather pluck out their eyes than listen to a recorder consort. In normal circumstance I would just warn such people that this probably isn’t the CD for them. But this is an exception that might convert some doubters. Consortium5 (Oonagh Lee, Kathryn Corrigan, Gail Macleod, Roselyn Maynard, Emily Bloom) have established themselves as some of the most exciting and committed performers of early and contemporary music on recorders. And this CD demonstrates why they deserve that reputation. 
Catalina’s Hatchlands recital explored the influence of Italian Renaissance keyboard music on late 16th and early 17th century English music, focussing on some of the first music publications. England was just one of the countries that fell under the spell of Italian music and musicians as they ventured north over the Alps. Usefully played in chronological order, Catalina’s programme also provided a fascinating insight into the early development of keyboard music itself.
The recital in Worcester on 31 July will mostly be played on the ‘Wetheringsett’ organ, a reconstruction of a medieval English organ based on a fragment of an East Anglian organ dating from around 1525. Thomas Tomkins was organist at Worcester Cathedral. He was also an avid collector of earlier music, dating from around the time of the Wetheringsett organ. I will be playing music by Tomkins and from the earlier manuscripts that Tomkins owned and commented on – “A daynty fine verse” being just one of his comments. I will also play an Organ Concerto by William Hayes, an 18th century Worcester Cathedral organist, on the 1795 Gray organ. 
Andrew Benson-Wilson : Early Music Reviews + 