Variations: Goldberg & Topelius

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Goldberg Variations & Topelius Variations
Arctic Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra, Henning Kraggerud
Simax PSC1353. 74’20

Bach: Goldberg Variations (arr. Kraggerud & Lund)
Henning Kraggerud: Topelius Variations

This is a combination of an arrangement for string orchestra of Bach’s Goldberg Variations with a set of variations composed in 2017 by Henning Kraggerud, the leader of the Arctic Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra. It was inspired by the life of the Swedish-speaking Finn, Zachris Topelius (1818-1898), a historian and a writer of essays, poems, fairytales and children’s stories, who helped to develop a Finnish identity as it moved towards eventual independence. Continue reading →

Bach: Solo Cantatas for Bass

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

JS Bach: Solo Cantatas for Bass
David Greco, Luthers Bach Ensemble, Tyman Jan Bronda
Brilliant Classics 95942. 49’36


Cantata BWV 82: Ich habe genug
Cantata BWV 158: Der Friede sei mit dir
Cantata BWV 56: Ich will den Kreuzstab gerne tragen

These three cantatas for bass voice explore the Lutheran concept of a longing for death, relief from the torments of life, and a reuniting of the soul with God with an inevitable focus is on lamentation and consolation. They all date from the first decade of Bach’s time as Kapellmeister in Leipzig and are some of the most beautiful of all Bach’s cantatas. This example comes from the Australian baritone David Greco and the Luthers Bach Ensemble, directed by Tyman Jan Bronda. Continue reading →

Heavenly Songes

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Heavenly Songes
Nicholas Ludford: Missa Sabato
La Quintina, Jérémie Couleau
Parity PTY220191. 60′

Nicholas Ludford (c1490-1557) was a contemporary of the organist composers John Taverner, John Redford and Thomas Preston, and preceded Thomas Tallis and John Sheppard by a generation. Knowledge of his life is a lot clearer now than it was, thanks largely to the work of David Skinner and Nicholas Sandon. Born into a musical family, the earliest reference to him seems to be in 1517 when he rented lodgings from Westminster Abbey. This suggests employment at the Abbey or the adjacent St Margaret’s, where Ludford was later connected for the rest of his life. In 1527 Ludford became a singer and organist at the Collegiate Chapel of St Stephen’s within the Royal Palace of Westminster. The chapel was in two parts, the upper (destroyed in 1834) was the sumptuous private chapel of the Royal Family, the lower crypt chapel was for lesser mortals. The lower part of that chapel still exists in the current Houses of Parliament with the name of St Mary Undercroft. It is a ‘Royal Peculiar’ still under the control of The Queen.

Continue reading →

Rosa Mystica. Musical Portraits of the Blessed Virgin Mary

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Rosa Mystica: Musical Portraits of the Blessed Virgin Mary
Royal Birmingham Conservatoire Chamber Choir
Paul Spicer conductor, Callum Alger organ,
Somm, SOMMCD 0617. 62’45

This recording from the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire Chamber Choir presents a wide variety of musical portraits of the Blessed Virgin Mary, covering composers from the early 16th-century to the present day. It takes its title from Benjamin Britten’s setting of a Jesuit text by Gerard Manley Hopkins. Continue reading →

Vivaldi: Concerti per Flauto

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Vivaldi: Concerti per Flauto
Giovanni Antonini, Il giardino armonico
Outhere/Alpha 364. 59’45

Vivaldi: Concerti per flauto

Concerto in do maggiore per flautino, RV 444
Concerto in fa maggiore per flauto, RV 433 La Tempesta di Mare
Concerto in do maggiore per flautino, RV 443
Nisi Dominus per chalumeau, RV 608 Cum dederit
Concerto in do minore per flauto,  RV 441
Concerto in la minore per flautino,  RV 445
Concerto in fa maggiore per flauto, RV 442 Tutti gl’istromenti sordini

Giovanni Antonini is both the recorder soloist and the director of his own group, Il giardino armonico. With many Vivaldi recordings under their belt, this CD selects six Concertos for recorder and contrasts those with an arrangement of a movement from the Nisi Dominus for chalumeau, a forerunner of the clarinet. Continue reading →

Karina Gauvin: Nuits Blanches

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Nuits Blanches
Arias from the 18th-century Russian court
Karina Gauvin, Pacific Baroque Orchestra, Alexander Weimann
ATMA Classique ACD 22791. 57’04

This recording (Nuits Blanches = White Nights) explores, in theory, music from the Russian Court in the 18th-century. The “in theory” bit is because there is very little music on the CD that was directly associated with the Russian Court, although there is certainly evidence of music that would have fitted the title rather better. With the exception of Christoph Willibald Gluck (whose presence on this disc is the weakest link to the title), the composers are unlikely to be known to anyone but the most dedicated follower of Russian musical fashion. Continue reading →

Bach: An Italian Journey

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Bach: An Italian Journey
Luca Oberti, harpsichord
Outhere/Arcana A443. 71’18

This 2018 release is from a harpsichord player that I am not familiar with. His programme gathers together pieces with an Italian influence, including transcriptions of concertos by Vivaldi and Marcello, and pieces of Italian inspiration like the Aria Variata alla maniera Italians and the Capriccio sulla lontananza del fratello dilettissimo. It finishes, inevitably, with the Italian Concerto. Continue reading →

Bach: Well-Tempered Clavier Book II

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

J S Bach: Well-Tempered Clavier Book II
Céline Frisch, harpsichord
Outhere/Alpha Classics: Alpha 451. 2 CDs. 69’45+76’06

Bach: The Well-Tempered Clavier Book II
Following on from her CD of Book I of the Well-Tempered Clavier, Céline Frisch (o-founder of the Café Zimmermann ensemble) now offers us Book II. It was completed twenty-two years after Book I, in 1744. It was recorded on a 1998 two manal copy by Andrea Restelli of the single manual 1738 Christian Vater harpsichord now in the Germanisches National Museum, Nuremberg. Continue reading →

Giovanni Sances: Dialoghi Amorosi

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Giovanni Felice Sances: Dialoghi Amorosi
Scherzi Musicali, Nicolas Achten
Ricercar RIC385. 74’53

Giovanni Felice Sances (c1600-1679) was born in Rome to a family of singers. He studied at the Collegio Germanico and took part in the opera Amor pudico in 1614. He then moved to Bologna, Venice and finally Vienna, where he eventually became Kapellmeister at the Imperial court chapel. He published his four collections of Arcadian cantade (or cantatas – one of the earliest uses of the word, although not in the recitative-aria form of later pieces with this name) in Venice around 1640, although only two volumes have survived. Continue reading →

Bach: Johannes-Passion

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

J S Bach: Johannes-Passion
Collegium Vocale Gent, Philippe Herreweghe
Outhere/PHI LPH031. 2CDs 107’08

 

Cover of CD of Herreweghe Bach Johannes Passion

I can often predict the way in which a performance of the Johannes-Passion is going to develop by the manner in which the opening instrumental bars are performed. The texture appears simple. Swirling low strings underpinned by the repetitive pulse of continuo bass, with two oboes slowly intertwining dissonance-laden melodic lines above them. It is one of those passages of music that can be interpreted in many ways, resulting in differing moods ranging from sinister, threatening, mysterious, to gently calming. Continue reading →

Handel Uncaged: Cantatas for Alto

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Handel Uncaged: Cantatas for Alto
Lawrence Zazzo
Guillermo Brachetta, Jonathan Manson, Andrew Maginley
Resonus/Inventa Records INV1002. 74’26

 

This nicely-planned programme brings together cantatas for alto voice and continuo from Handel’s remarkably productive early years in Italy. The principal item is the world premiere recording of the conglomerate cantata Amore Uccellatore. This combines two cantatas, Venne voglia (HWV 176) and Vendendo amore (HWV 175) together with an additional sequence of recitatives and arias into a single cycle of ten arias. It is from an anonymous manuscript in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge that has only recently been credited with reasonable confidence to Handel. Continue reading →

Piano Sonatas by Haydn, Mozart & Beethoven

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Piano Sonatas by Haydn, Mozart & Beethoven
Walewein Witten (fortepiano)
Resonus RES10242. 71’29

Beethoven: Sonata in D minor, Op. 31/2 ‘The Tempest’
Sonata in E-flat major, Hob. XVI:52
Mozart: Sonata in F major, KV 533/494

The question of what Beethoven, or Bach, would have done if they were composing for modern instruments, rather than those of their time, is often asked. The question is, of course, impossible to answer but I would hazard a guess that their music would be totally different to what it actually is. So, in a way, they would no longer be Beethoven or Bach, but a different composer, writing in a different age and for different listeners. So the first, and possibly the most important, thing about this recording is that it is performed on a fortepiano. Continue reading →

The 16: Palestrina – Vol 8

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Palestrina – Vol 8
The Sixteen, Harry Christophers
Coro COR16175. 73’21

Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (1525-1594) was one of the most influential composers of the Renaissance. His grasp of polyphony is combined with an ability to draw intense emotion from what might at first appear to be rather technical musical exercises. This 2019 release is the eighth in the series of Palestrina recordings from The Sixteen. Each CD has as its core a complete Mass setting, together with pieces on a related theme. On this occasion, the Eucharist-based theme is the Last Supper and Easter with the Missa Fratres ego enim accepi – not as well known as many of Palestrina’s Mass settings. As in previous releases, there are also motets and three settings from the Song of Songs. Continue reading →

Gervais: Hypermnestre

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Charles-Hubert Gervais: Hypermnestre
Purcell Choir, Orfeo Orchestra, Gyorgy Vashegyi
Glossa GCD924007. 2CDs 74’32+71’27

Hypermnestre is a tragédie en musique by the almost totally forgotten French composer Charles-Hubert Gervais (1671-1744). It was first performed in 1716 at the Paris Opera (the Académie Royale de Musique) and was followed by several revivals. It sets a libretto by Joseph de Lafont based on the myth of Hypermnestra, one of the 50 daughters of Danaüs (Danaus), King of Argos. Danao had been told by an oracle that he will be murdered by one of his nephews. But he had 50 of them, courtesy of his brother, King of Egypt, so decided to marry all 50 of his daughters off to their cousins, with instructions to kill their new husbands on their wedding night. That they do, with the exception of Hypermnestre who refuses to kill Lyncée because he had respected her request to remain a virgin. The plot is similar to Francesco Cavalli’s much earlier Hipermestra, was performed at Glyndebourne in 2017 (review here).  Continue reading →

The Excellency of Hand

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

The Excellency of Hand
English Viola Da Gamba Duos
Robert Smith, Paolo Pandolfo
Resonus Classics: RES10186. 73’52

 

This CD, released in 2017, features a range of 17th-century music for viola da gamba duos by Christopher Simpson and John Jenkins together with two pieces by their contemporary,  Simon Ives, and a tiny Prelude by one of the performers. Most of the pieces are in the form of ‘divisions’, an international improvisatory method dating back to the early 16th century which involves elaborating on a theme by joining up the notes with shorter ones in a variety of forms. Such elaboration and ornamentation of a melodic line forms the basis of subsequent keyboard and instrumental music. Continue reading →

Resonances of Waterloo

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Resonances of Waterloo
St Salvator’s Chapel Choir (University of St Andrews),
Tim Wilkinson, Sean Heath (organ)
The Wallace Collection, Anthony George
Sanctiandree SAND0007. 71’23

Ernst Sachse: Concertino in B-flat major
Alexandre Guilmant: Morceau Symphonique
Jean Bellon: Adagio ma sostenuto (Quintette no. 12: III)
Sigismund von Neukomm: Requiem à la mémoire de Louis XVI

What an extraordinary recording! It combining musical curiosity with a fascinating peek at a history that many will recall from school. It features the joint forces of the Saint Salvator’s Chapel Choir of the University of Aberdeen and the brass instruments of The Wallace Collection, together with a historic organ dating from 1829 in a church that couldn’t be more appropriate for the programme. The principal work is the Requiem à la mémoire de Louis XVI by the Austrian composer, Sigismund von Neukomm (1778-1858). Composed in memory of the French King Louis (who was guillotined in 1793 at the height of the Revolution), it was first performed in 1815 in St Stephen’s Cathedral, Vienna on the anniversary of the King’s death as a landmark event during the Congress of Vienna, the two-year gathering that brought to an end the Napoleonic Wars. Continue reading →

Bach: Well-Tempered Consort 1

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

J S Bach: Well-Tempered Consort – 1
Phantasm
Linn CKD 618. 66’55

Cover CKD 618

This CD could well become essential listening for all organists and harpsichord players, alongside the various examples of Bach organ works played on recorder consorts. Transferring Bach’s keyboard works, such as The Well-Tempered Clavier, Musical Offering and Clavier-Übung III, to a viol consort reveals the sensitivity of timbre possible with bowed string instruments rather than a plucked or wind-blown one. Of course, keyboard players have their own, often complex, way of imparting musical expression to their playing within the limitations of their particular instrument, principally by using aspects of touch and articulation. But it is only the clavichord, which was arguably the instrument of choice in the Baroque era, that has the ability to change the nature of the sound of a note once it has started sounding, using the technique known as bebung which imparts a controllable vibrato to sounding notes.

Continue reading →

Cornhill Visions – A Century of Musical Innovation

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Cornhill Visions
A Century of Musical Innovation
The Choir of St Michael’s Cornhill, Jonathan Rennert
Regent Records, REGCD550. 66’03

The City of London’s churches are something of an institution. Architecturally fascinating, they have idiosyncrative opening and service times, with most closed at the weekends. Many retain medieval links to city guilds and livery companies. With an area of just over one square mile, the City of London has 46 churches for a resident population of less than 10,000 but a working week population of around one million. It is to the latter that most of the churches cater, not least in thriving programmes of lunchtime musical events. Continue reading →

Bach: The Well-tempered Clavier, Book One

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

JS Bach: The Well-tempered Clavier, Book One
Colin Booth, harpsichord
Soundboard SBCD218. 2CDs, 59’31+62’12

This is the first of two double-CD volumes of Bach’s Das Wohltemperierte Klavier (The Well-Tempered Clavier) from Colin Booth. It covers the 24 Preludes and Fugues (BWV846-869) written in all 24 major and minor keys forming what is now known as Book 1 of ‘The 48’. It only survives in manuscript copies from 1722, with no printed edition unto around 1800. The manuscript title page announces that it was composed “for the profit and use of musical youth desirous of learning, and especially for the pastime of those already skilled in this study”. Continue reading →

J S Bach: Soprano Arias & Swedish Folk Chorales

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

J S Bach: Soprano Arias & Swedish Folk Chorales
Maria Keohane, Camerata Kilkenny
Maya Recordings MCD1901. 58’10

This recording contrasts the little-known genre of Swedish Dalakorals with seven Bach soprano arias, all with obligato violin. The Dala chorales come from the region of Darlana in the centre of Sweden and the 16th-century Protestant Reformation. The first Lutheran Psalm book was published in 1695 and included many of these melodies. They are influenced by folk song and pre-Reformation melodies combined with an improvisatory practice common in village churches. Continue reading →

Quantz: Flute Concertos

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Quantz: Flute Concertos
Greg Dikmans, Elysium Ensemble
Resonus Classics RES10252, 70’37

Concerto in a minor (QV 5,236)
Concerto in F (QV 5,162)
Concerto in G (QV 5,178)
cantabile e frezzante from Concerto in e minor (QV 5,116)

Johann Joachim Quantz (1697-1773) is one of those composers who is known to many musicians, but whose music is rarely heard. He is best known for his 1752 treatise Versuch einer Anweisung die Flöte traversiere zu spielen (On Playing the Flute), to this day an important reference work for all musicians, not just flautists. He is also known for his 45-years association as flute teacher to Frederick the Great of Prussia, including during his days as Crown Prince under a brutal father who disapproved of his flute playing. Continue reading →

Bach: Sei Suonate

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

J S Bach: Sei suonate à cembalo certato è violino solo
Chiara Zanisi, Giulia Nuti
Outhere/Arcana A426. 2CDs, 41’16+54’03

Bach’s Six sonatas for violin and obbligato harpsichord (BWV 1014–1018) were first composed during Bach last few years in Köthen (c1720-23) although he continued to revise them after his move to Leipzig in 1723, from where all the surviving sources are found.  This recording, released in 2017, features  violinist Chiara Zanisi and Giulia Nuti, harpsichord. Continue reading →

Johan Löfving: Fandango!

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Fandango!
Music for solo guitar and String Quartet
Johan Löfving, Consone Quartet
Resonus Classics RES10260. 72’43

The guitar is more usually associated with rock/pop music from the 1950s onwards or, in more classical thinking, as a Baroque continuo instrument of Spanish origin and influence. But in this recording, Swedish-born guitarist Johan Löfving puts paid to both those assumptions with a lovely exploration of the guitar in the early Romantic era in places such as Paris and Vienna where the newly developed six-string guitar enjoyed a relatively brief moment of glory. Continue reading →

Il Barbarino: Musica per Liuto e viola

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Il Barbarino
Musica per liuto e viola da mano nel cinquecento Napoletano
Paul Kieffer
Outhere/Arcana AD 105. 59’54

As the title suggests, this recording focusses on the flourishing of music for lute and the viola da mano in early 16th-century Naples. The viola da mano is the Italian version of the Spanish vihuela, with the same tuning as a lute but in a guitar-shaped body, It has a slightly more delicate and resonant timbre than the lute, and is used for six of the 24 pieces on the CD. 15 of the tracks are premiere recordings with 11 taken from from the Barbarina lute book of the title, dating from around 1600 and now in the Kraków Biblioteka Jagiellońska (PL-Kj Mus. ms. 40032), having been removed from the Berlin Deutsche Staatsbibliothek during the war and lost to researchers until the 1980s. Continue reading →

Tessarini: Violin & Trio Sonatas

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Carlo Tessarini
6 Violin Sonatas Op.14 & 6 Trio Sonatas Op.9
Valerio Losito & Paolo Perrone, violins
Federico Del Sordo, harpsichord
Brilliant Classics, 95861. 2CDs 48’52+57’45

Sei sonate a violino ò flauto traversière e cembalo (Op.14 Venice, 1748)
6 Sonate da camera e chiesa a due violini e basso (Op.9 Paris, 1747)

Carlo Tessarini (1690-1767) is now a little-known Italian composer, but was famed in his day. He was born in Rimini and worked in Venice in the early part of his career, including such positions as violin master at the Ospedale dei Derelitti and a violinist in St. Mark’s. Some of his music was published without permission in London and Amsterdam, so he started publishing his own editions in 1729. Although later notionally attached to in the chapel of the Holy Sacrament in Urbino for some 30 years, he travelled around many regions of Italy as well as Paris and London before finally moving to Amsterdam for the last nine years of his life. Continue reading →

Haydn: London Symphony & Harmoniemesse

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Haydn: ‘London’ Symphony 99 & Harmoniemesse
Handel and Haydn Society, Harry Christophers
Coro 6176. 68’24

Haydn’s Symphony No. 99 in E♭ major is one of his twelve ‘London’ symphonies. Although it was composed in Vienna in 1793, its first performance was in London in 1794 at the Hanover Square Rooms during Haydn’s second London visit. It is his first use of clarinets in a symphony. The woodwind plays a key role, as they do in the Harmoniemesse, the Mass in B-flat major. That name, given after Haydn’s death, refers not to any idea of harmony, but to the use of the Harmonie, the German name for a wind band. With similar instrumentation, these two pieces make for an obvious pairing on the recording from the Boston based Handel and Haydn Society. Continue reading →

Caccini: Le Nuove Musicale

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Caccini: Le Nuove Musicale
Ricercare Antico, Riccardo Pisani
Brilliant Classics, 95794. 66’41

Giulio Caccini (1551-1618) was a Florentine singer, instrumentalist and writer. He was one of the first to establish the stile recitativo that formed the basis of Baroque-era opera. His Le Nuove Musicale (or Musiche) of 1602 explored the use of solo voice and continuo bass in what was to be referred to the following year (in Artusi’s 1603 Seconda Parte dell’Artusi), as the Seconda pratica. Caccini’s introduction to Le Nuove Musicale outlines the move from the Renaissance ideas of polyphony and counterpoint to the monodic style of the Baroque, with examples of the manner of adding ornaments to reflect the emotional expression of the text, in the affetto cantando style. Continue reading →

Marianna Martines: Il primo amore

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Marianna Martines: Il primo amore
La Floridiana
Nuria Rial, Nicoleta Paraschivescu
Deutsche Harmonia Mundi 88697885792. 64’55

Regular followers will have realised that I am using the lack of live concerts during coronavirus lockdown to catch up on CD reviewing. This one dates back to 2012, the 200th anniversary of Marianna Martines’ death. Quite why it took so long to reach the top of the pile is beyond me, but it is certainly worth reviewing. Marianna Martines (1744-1812) is one of the rare examples of a female musician that held her own amongst her distinguished male musical colleagues in Vienna. This recording, with four of the five pieces being world premiers, is a long-overdue acknowledgement of her position in the musical hierarchy of late 18th century Vienna. Continue reading →

Le Clavecin Mythologique

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Le Clavecin Mythologique
Anne Marie Dragosits
L’Encelade ECL1801. 73’00

J-H. d’Anglebert: Les Songes Agréables d’Atys, Passacaille d’Armide, Les Sourdines d’Armide
F. Couperin: Les Satires, Ls Sylvains, Les Ombres Errantes
J.-P. Rameau: L’Entretien des Muses, Les Cyclopes
J.-B. Forqueray: Jupiter
P. Royer: L’Imagination, Allemande, La Sensible, La Marche des Scythes
J. Duphly: Médée, Les Grâces

One of the essential tasks for any musician or music promoter is putting together a programme that will make sense to the listener as well as providing a satisfactory ‘hook’ for the performer to share their musical wares. This recording (released in 2018) by the Vienna-based harpsichordist Anne Marie Dragosits presents us with a Suite mythologique consisting of music by composers covering the whole range of the French Baroque harpsichord school from d’Anglebert to Duphly, all based on the mythological world of antiquity. Continue reading →

Pieter Hellendaal: Violin Sonatas

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Pieter Hellendaal: Violin Sonatas
Antoinette Lohmann, Furor Musicus
Globe, GLO 5271. 72’21

In what is billed as a “hand-numbered limited edition” on the paper slip on the off-white card CD case (which, as you can see above, doesn’t show up too well against a white background), violinist Antoinette Lohmann and Furor Musicus offer world premiere recordings of Violin Sonatas by Pieter Hellendaal (1721-1799). He was an Anglo-Dutch composer, organist and violinist, sometimes referred to as  “The Elder”, to differentiate him from his musician son. He was born in Rotterdam and, aged 30, moved to England where he lived for the rest of his 78-year life. Continue reading →