Music for the Mayflower

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

They that in ships unto the sea down go
Music for the Mayflower
Passamezzo
Resonus  RES10263. 61’23

It is 400 years since the Mayflower set sail for the New World. It had been commissioned by English Puritans, along with another ship, the Speedwell, bringing Puritans that had earlier moved to Leiden to escape religious persecution in England. The complicated initial stages of the journey started in July 1620 from the River Thames just east of the City of London. The Mayflower waited to join the Speedwell in Southampton Water and both ships set sail for America in early August, calling into Dartmouth for repairs. They reached well beyond the Scilly Isles but again had to return to Plymouth for further repairs. The Speedwell gave up, and some of their passengers joined Mayflower which finally set off alone. Continue reading →

Kate Lindsey: Ariana

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Kate Lindsey: Arianna
Arcangelo, Jonathan Cohen
Outthere/Alpha Classics Alpha 576. 72/13

Cover Alpha 576

A Scarlatti: L’Arianna (Ebra d’amor fuggia)
Handel: Ah! Crudel, nel pianto mio
Haydn: Arianna a Naxos

Arianna is a programme from the American mezzo-soprano Kate Lindsey, focussed on contrasting cantatas by three composers on the myth of Ariadne (aka Arianna). She was the daughter of King Minos of Crete and granddaughter of the Sungod Helios. She stars in the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur, saving Theseus from the maze, falling in love with him, and then being cast off onto the Island of Naxos. Continue reading →

Elizabeth Kenny: Ars longa

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Ars longa
Old and new music for theorbo
Elizabeth Kenny
Outhere/Linn  CKD603. 75’34

Cover

This recording from Elizabeth Kenny focuses on the early development of the chitarrone/theorbo towards the end of the 16th century, its 18th-century peak of sophistication, and its reinvention for modern composers in the 21st-century.  The music contrasts the early pioneers of Piccinini and Kapsberger, the later stylistic development of Robert de Visée 21st-century pieces by Sir James MacMillan, Benjamin Oliver and Nico Muhly. The programme note includes one of the best descriptions of the chitarrone/theorbo that I have read. Continue reading →

Telemann: Melodius Canons & Fantasias

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Telemann: Melodius Canons & Fantasias
Elysium Ensemble
Resonus Classics RES10207. 59’13

The Elysium Ensemble are the Australian duo Lucinda Moon, baroque violin, and Greg Dikmans, baroque flute. This recording is part of a historical performance research project aiming to identify neglected or newly discovered chamber music from the Baroque and early-Classical periods, in this case looking at Sonatas from Telemann’s Melodious Canons, composed in Paris. together with three of his solo fantasias dating from his 1728 and 1735 publications in Hamburg. Continue reading →

Solarium

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Maxime Denuc: Solarium
Cindy Castillo, organ
VLEKD31   94’36

Solarium is a piece for organ, first performed by Cindy Castello in l’église du Gesu, Toulouse during the 2019 Électro Alternativ festival. It is an hour-and-a-half organ piece intended for “… that period of slack that follows the frenzy of a techno-fuelled night” and took place at 10am on a Sunday morning as an “after-party”. I am not sure that many organists get up to frenzied techno-fuelled nights, but there is much here for organists to appreciate, not least the extraordinary sounds that a traditional pipe organ can produce, as well as anybody interested in the techno world of ambient minimalist music. Continue reading →

Handel in Ireland Vol.1

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Handel in Ireland Vol.1
Bridget Cunningham (harpsichord)
Signum Classics SIGCD478. 72’52

This is a rather delayed review of a CD released in 2017. It is part of an ambitious series of Handel recordings from Bridget Cunningham and her London Early Opera, including Handel in Italy and Handel at Vauxhall, but this one is for solo harpsichord. This recording explores “some of the myths and mysteries surrounding Handel’s visit from London to Dublin in 1741 and reflects on the influences that Handel experienced from being in Dublin and also the inspiration he gave to others through his music and skills of improvisation at the keyboard”. Continue reading →

Leuven Chansonnier

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Leuven Chansonnier Vol. 1
Sollazzo Ensemble, Anna Danilevskaia
Passacaille PAS1054. 62’02

The Leuven Chansonnier was discovered in 2015 when an art historian approached the Alamire Foundation with a tiny (120x85mm) music book. It turned out to be a previously unknown 15th-century book of chansons. It has been dated to around 1475, and probably originated in the Loire Valley. It was purchased by the King Baudouin Foundation and loaned to the Alamire Foundation in Leuven. As there is no indication of original ownership or provenance, it has been called the Leuven Chansonnier. It contains fifty compositions, a Latin Ave Regina by Walter Frye and 59 French chansons, many of which were recognised as being by leading 15th-century Franco-Flemish composers such as Johannes Ockeghem. There are twelve previously unknown works, eight of which are included on this CD. Continue reading →

Von Westhoff: Suites for Solo Violin

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Johann Paul von Westhoff: Suites for Solo Violin
Plamena Nikitassova
Outhere: Ricercar RIC 412. 56’59

Johann Paul von Westhoff (1656-1705) was one of the leading members of the flourishing school of Dresden-based violinists during the latter decades of the 17th-century. He was born in Dresden. His father was a lutenist and trombone player from Lübeck, who had briefly been a captain of horse in the Swedish army. Apart from influence from his father, the young Westhoff also learnt while serving in the Dresden Hofkapelle. He was one of the first to compose music for unaccompanied violin, a genre that culminated with Bach. This excellent recording by Plamena Nikitassova reveals the enormous talents of this adventurous composer. Continue reading →

James MacMillan: Symphony No.5

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

James MacMillan
Symphony No. 5 Le grand Inconnu & The Sun Danced
The Sixteen, Genesis Sixteen + Alumni, Britten Sinfonia
Mary Bevan, Harry Christophers
Coro COR16179.78’54

You wouldn’t normally associate The Sixteen with a recording of a Symphony. But with their continuing involvement with the music of Sir James MacMillan, which included giving the premiere of his Stabat Mater in 2016, it was perhaps inevitable that, with his thoughts of making his next symphony a chorale piece, a commission was put together for a choral symphony, sponsored by the Genesis Foundation. This is the premiere recording, made live at a concert in The Barbican, London, on 14 October. Continue reading →

Alessandro Grandi: Celesti Fiori

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Alessandro Grandi: Celesti Fiori – Motetti
Accademia d’Arcadia, UtFaSol Ensemble, Alessandra Rossi Lürig
Outhere: Arcana A 464. 62’39

Alessandro Grandi (1590-1630) was Monteverdi’s deputy in Saint Mark’s Basilica in Venice and was prominent in the development of Venetian style of the early seventeenth century. He was considered by his contemporaries to be supremely talented, an equal to Monteverdi, but he hasn’t survived the transfer to posterity very well and is little known today. This CD of motets published between 1610 and 1630 is the first complete recording dedicated to Grandi. The title Celesti fiori (Celestial Flowers), comes from his Libro Quinto de suoi Concerti, published in Venice in 1619. Continue reading →

Les Caractères d’Ulusse

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Les Caractères d’Ulusse
Rebel & Boismortier: Suites pour deux clavecins
Clément Geoffroy, Loris Barrucand, harpsichords
Château de Versailles Spectacles CVS021. 74’03

Rebel, J-F: Suite d’Ulysse; Les Caractères de la Danse; Les Élémens;
Les Plaisirs Champêtres 
Boismortier: Premier ballet de Village; Suite de Daphnis et Chloé

Using two of the historic instruments from the collection at the Château de Versailles, one by Ruckers the other by Blanchet , harpsichordists Loris Barrucand and Clément Geoffroy present arrangements of music by Jean-Féry Rebel, (1661-1747) and Joseph Bodin de Boismortier (1691-1755). The impetus for this venture came from a commission in 2016, the 350th anniversary of Rebel’s birth, for a piece for two harpsichords and dancers combined with Rebel’s own comment that he wanted his 1715 orchestral piece Les Caractères de la Danse (an uninterrupted succession of fourteen dances completed in around eight minutes) to be played “like a piece on the harpsichord”. Continue reading →

Stefano Bernardi: Lux Aeterna; Ein Salzburger Requiem

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Stefano Bernardi
Lux Aeterna; Ein Salzburger Requiem
Voces Suaves; Concerto Scirocco
Outhere: Arcana ACAA470. 68’15

Stefano Bernardi (1577-1637) was born in Verona. He was an active member of the Accademia Filarmonica and became their Maestro della musica in 1606. He was appointed as Maestro di cappella at Verona Cathedral in 1611. In 1622 he became Court Kapellmeister to the Bishop of Breslau and Brixen, Archduke Carl Joseph. Following the Archduke’s death in 1624, Bernardi took up a similar post in Salzburg with the Prince-Bishop Paris von Lodron. Continue reading →

Diego Ortiz: Trattado de Glosas

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Diego Ortiz: Trattado de Glosas
Les Basses Réunies
Bruno Cocset, Guido Balestracci
Outhere: Alpha 563. 59’31

We know little about the life of Diego Ortiz (c1510-c1576). He is believed to have been born in Toledo, and worked in Naples for Ferdinand Álvarez de Toledo, Duke of Alba when he was the Spanish Viceroy there. He eventually became Maestro di Cappella of the Neapolitan Chapel Royal. He seems to have spent his final years in Rome. He published his influential Trattado de glossas sobre clausulas y otros generos de puntos en la musica de violones nuevamente puestos en luz in 1553, while in Naples. Continue reading →

JS Bach: Six Suites for Viola Solo

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

J S Bach: Six Suites for Viola Solo
Kim Kashkashian
ECM New Series ECM 2553/54. 2CDs 65’05+77’26

Six Suites for Viola Solo

Yes, you read the title correctly – these are Bach’s six ‘Cello’ Suites, but are here played on a viola by the distinguished American violist Kim Kashkashian. With no original manuscript in Bach’s own hand, there have been many questions about these Suites, one being what type of instrument they were actually written for. Continue reading →

Teatro Spirituale: Penitential music in the Chiesa Nuova, Rome c1610

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Teatro Spirituale
Penitential music in the Chiesa Nuova, Rome c1610
Alice Foccroulle, Reinoud van Mechelen
InAlto, Lambert Colson
Ricercar RIC399. 72’15

This is one of the finest recordings I have heard in a while. Beautifully planned and performed, with singing and instrumental playing of the highest quality combined with exemplary recording quality. It reveals an intriguing insight into the musical activities of the Chiesa Nuova Oratory Church of St Philip Neri in Rome, the location of the premiere of the first known spiritual opera, Cavalieri’s La Rappresentatione di Anima e di Corpo. Continue reading →

Bach: Orgelbüchlein

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Bach: Orgelbüchlein
Stephen Farr
1724-30 Trost organ, of Waltershausen, Germany.
Resonus RES10259. 79’02

Bach’s Orgelbüchlein (Little Organ Book) is one of the most extraordinary of all Bach’s organ collections and compositions. At first sight, it a simple collection of chorale preludes intended to introduce the sung chorales in the Lutheran services. Bach also intended it as a way “in which a beginning organist receives instruction on performing a chorale in a multitude of ways while achieving mastery in the study of the pedal”. But the sequence of 45 chorales, and the tantalising sight of 119 potential chorales for which only the title and an empty page exists, are a sum of a great deal more than a sum of the parts, leading to Albert Schweitzer’s description of it as “one of the greatest events in all music.”.    Continue reading →

Requiem: Music for Royal Spanish Funerals

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Requiem
Musiques pour les funérailles royales Espagnoles
La Maîtrise de Toulouse, Les Sacqueboutiers, Mark Opstad
Regent REGCD551. 61’34

In a search for a collaborative musical partnership, the Toulouse-based children’s choir La Maîtrise de Toulouse and early brass ensemble Les Sacqueboutiers settled on Victoria’s Requiem as a way of combining the Spanish Renaissance traditions of the niños cantorcicos children’s choirs and the ministries, or Cathedral wind players. It is the focus of this recording of music for a Royal Spanish funeral. combined with other related pieces, some recorded for the first time. Continue reading →

The Early Horn

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

The Early Horn
Ursula Paludan Monberg
Arcangelo, Jonathan Cohen
Hyperion CDA68289. 78’32

One of the most astonishing developments in musical instrument technology came with the elevation of the horn from its role a rather elemental rallying call to 17th-century aristocratic huntsmen to a sophisticated member of 18th-century court orchestras and chamber groups. One of the key aspects of this development was the technique of hand-stopping to alter the pitch. This was combined with the division of the 15 or so feet of tubing of the wound hunting horn into two parts, the smaller changeable crock allowing for changes of key. This recording explores the wide range of music composed for the natural horn during the 18th-century. Continue reading →

Mozart: Concerto for Basset Clarinet & Concert Arias

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Mozart: Concerto for Basset Clarinet & Concert Arias
Pieter Van Maldere: Sinfonia in D
Terra Nova Collective, Vlad Weverbergh, Coline Dutilleul
Etcetera KTC1627. 

This recording contrasts two composers, one well known, one little known, who were influenced by the Mannheim School and Classical Viennese Symphonies of Haydn, Vanhal, and Albrechtsberger. Pieter Van Maldere (1729-1768) was one of the principal composers of the Austrian Netherlands during the mid 18th century. He was a virtuoso violinist and Kapellmeister to Prince Karl of Lothringia (Regent of the Austrian Netherlands, brother of Emperor Franz Stephan and uncle of Emperor Joseph II). He composed 49 Symphonies, generally in the Galant style. Continue reading →

Mon Dieu me paist

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Mon Dieu me paist
Psalms by Claude Le Jeune
The Choir of St Catharine’s College, Cambridge, Edward Wickham
Resonus RES10206. 58’26

This fascinating recording from the mixed-voice choir of St Catharine’s College, Cambridge under their director Edward Wickham looks at a little-known part of the late Renaissance vocal repertoire – settings of Psalms from the Genevan Psalter during the Calvinist Reformation in France composed by the Franco-Flemish composer Claude Le Jeune (c1530-1600). Le Jeune’s Psalm collection, Dodecacorde, was published in 1598. Four of the twelve multi-verse settings are performed here, each preceded by a simple harmonised setting from the Calvin Psalter. Continue reading →

La Gracieuse: Pièces de Viole by Marin Marais

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

La Gracieuse
Pièces de Viole by Marin Marais
Robert Smith
Resonus Classics RES10244. 66’13

“Marais has taken the viol to its highest degree of perfection … he is the first to make known all its extent and beauty”. So wrote Évrard Titon du Tillet (in his 1732 Le parnasse françois) about Marin Marais (1636-1728). This recording explores the depth of that degree of perfection in a series of four Suites. Only one of them is an original Marais Suite, but instead, three of them have been assembled from the 600 or so pieces that make up the Suites contained in Marais’ five volumes of music for viola da gamba and continuo. This practice of selecting individual pieces from Suites was an acceptable practice at the time and has the advantage of allowing us to hear some of the lesser-known pieces.

Continue reading →

Bonporti: Sonatas Op.1 for 2 violins

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Francesco Bonporti: Sonatas Op.1 for 2 violins and bc
Labirinti Armonici
Brilliant Classics 95966. 60’43

Francesco Antonio Bonporti (1672-1749) was born in Trento to a well-established family and remained there for much of his life. His family encouraged him into a career in the church, and those studies took him briefly to Innsbruck and then Rome, where he studied at the Collegium Germanicum from 1691-95. Whilst there, he studied music with the director of chapel music and came under the influence of Arcangelo Corelli. Bonporti’s Opera Prima: Suonate a Tre. Due violini, e violoncello obligate was published in 1696, just after his return to Trento from Rome. Continue reading →

Bach Organ Works Vol IV

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

JS Bach: Organ Works Vol IV
Robert Quinney
Coro COR16132. 77’31

J.S. Bach: Organ Works Volume 4 album cover showing detail of a stained glass window in reds, oranges and yellows

For the third time in this series, currently of four CDs, Robert Quinney returns to the influential 1976 Metzler organ in Trinity College Chapel, Cambridge. It was built into the 1694 ‘Father’ Bernard Smith case, and retains several of Smith’s pipes in the principal chorus. The new organ was an early example of the North German Baroque-influenced organ style that had hitherto largely avoided the UK. Although it lacks the historical interest of restored organs of Bach’s time in Germany, it remains a suitable UK organ for Bach performance.  Continue reading →

Gonzalo de Baena: Art de Tanger

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Art de Tanger
Gonzalo de Baena’s New keyboard method (1540)
Bruno Forst, organ
Brilliant Classics 95618. 2CDs 61’21+73’55

Gonzalo de Baena (c1480-1540+) was a Castillian musician in the service of the King of Portugal. His Arte novamente inventada pera aprender a tãger (New method for learning to play) was printed under royal charter, but was never published. It was the first book of keyboard music printed on the Iberian Peninsula. Its discovery (by Alejandro Iglesias) was announced in 1992, having been previously incorrectly catalogued and titled in Madrid’s Biblioteca del Palacio Real. Continue reading →

Dall’Abaco: Cello Sonatas

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Giuseppe Clemente Dall’Abaco: Cello Sonatas
Elinor Frey (cello)
with Mauro Valli, Federica Bianchi & Giangiacomo Pinardi
Passacaille PAS1069. 62.27′

Dall abacos-cello-sonatas.jpg

 

Giuseppe Clemente Dall’Abaco (1709 – 1805) was a cellist and composer with Italian descent. His early musical training was with his father, Evaristo Felice Dall’Abaco, Kapellmeister to the Bavarian Court, who at the time of Giuseppe’s birth was exiled in Brussels during the War of the Spanish Succession. Giuseppe later travelled widely, working in Bonn, London, York, Paris, Verona, Venice, Vienna, and Munich. During his London visit in 1736-37, Charles Burney wrote that he “brought the violoncello into favour, and made us nice judges of that instrument”. Although his solo cellos pieces have been known for some time, this is the first recording of any of his 35 Cello Sonatas in their original form. Continue reading →

Sigfrid’s Unbeaten Tracks

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Sigfrid’s Unbeaten Tracks
Sigfrid Karg-Elert, Op 46 & 101
Graham Barber (organ)
Fugue State Films FSRCD016. 70’53

FSRCD016

Graham Barber has built a reputation for exploring some of the lesser-known byways of the organ world, particularly from the 19th and 20th centuries, and this recording is an excellent example of that focus. Sigfrid Karg-Elert (1877-1933) was a high profile organ composer in the UK and USA during the early years of the 20th century, so much so that the Organ Music Society of London arranged a ten-day festival of his music in 1930. He was, however, almost completely overlooked in his native Germany, where composers were taking a rather different path. A brief renaissance in the UK in the 1970s soon melted away, with the exception of the ‘March Triomphale’ on Nun danket alle Gott (Op65/59) which remains popular to this day, perhaps because it is a rare example of a German chorale melody that is also well-known in England, as ‘Now thank we all our God’.

Continue reading →

Akoé: Nuevas Musicas Antiguas

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Akoé: Nuevas Musicas Antiguas
Taracea, Rainer Seiferth
ALPHA 597. 51’13

https://outhere-music.com/en/albums/akoe-nuevas-musicas-antiguas-alpha597

This is the debut recording of the Madrid-based Taracea ensemble, the core trio expanded by three guest musicians. They describe the ancient Greek word Akoé as “the poetic concept of remembered sound, the idea of giving noise a meaning and a sense of order to prevent it from being forgotten.” Taking well-known pieces from the Medieval and Renaissance they mould a new sound world that evolved from a holiday-like recording session in a remote location. The music combines early music, jazz and improvisation to “create a bridge between past and present”.  Continue reading →

Contrapunctus: Salve, Salve, Salve

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Salve, Salve, Salve
Josquin’s Spanish Legacy
Contrapunctus, Owen Rees
Signum SIGCD608. 71’02

Cristóbal de Morales: Jubilate Deo omnis terra
Tomás Luis de Victoria: Missa Gaudeamus, Salve regina
Francisco Guerrero:Ave virgo sanctissima, Surge propera, amica mea
Josquin Desprez: Salve regina

Some of the most interesting recordings and performances of early music in the UK over the past decades has come from (generally Oxbridge) scholars whose academic research interests led them into (or kept them in) academia, many achieving high academic office. One such is Owen Rees, like many such, a former Oxbridge organ scholar. He is now Professor of Music at Oxford University and Fellow and Director of Music at The Queen’s College. His research interests are Iberian and English vocal music of the Renaissance, and his professional vocal group Contrapunctus allows this research to be presented to a wider musical audience. Their latest recording explores the influence of Josquin Desprez on Morales, Guerrero, and Victoria, the rather disparate composers united by their use of ostinato (the repetition of a motif throughout a piece), a technique inspired by Josquin.

Continue reading →

Venetian Cello Sonatas

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Venetian Cello Sonatas: Under the shade of Vivaldi
Gaetano Nasillo
Outhere/Arcana A465. 77’24

The subtitle of this recording “Under the shade of Vivaldi” explains its remit of exploring the lesser-known composers for the cello in Venice at a time when the music of Vivaldi held sway. The pieces chosen demonstrate two moments of musical transition. The first is the use of the cello as a solo instrument, rather than as a ‘mere’ bass continuo instrument, a development that started in the mid to late 17th-century. The second example of transition is in the structure of the Sonata from the traditional four movements to the more modern three. Perhaps tellingly, the two Sonatas in the later three-movement form (by Vandini and Stratico) are the most technically advanced of the eight Sonatas. Continue reading →

Handel Singing Competition 2020

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

London Handel Festival
Handel Singing Competition: Semi-Final
St George’s, Hanover Square, 6 March 2020

UPDATE: It is intended that the final of the competition will be held at some future date.

I would normally wait until the final of the annual Handel Singing Competition before mentioning some of those who I heard in the semi-final but, with the Coronavirus cancellation of the entire London Handel Festival, this turns out to be the only review of the festival that I will be writing. The final would have been this evening, 24 March, so it seems an appropriate time to post this review of the semi-final. The reason I try to attend semi-finals of competitions like this is that I frequently hear people who, in my view, should have got through to the final but, for reasons best known to the judges, don’t make it. The London Handel Festival’s annual Handel Singing Competition is no exception to this situation.

Continue reading →