03_Greene.jpgMaurice Greene – Overtures
Baroque Band; Garry Clarke
Cedille CDR 90000 152

Aficionados of English classical music endured decades of the taunt “Who was the greatest English composer between Purcell and Elgar? Handel!” Dr. Arne’s masque Alfred (including Rule Britannia) and William Boyce’s eight symphonies (“as English as a country garden”) somehow weren’t up to scratch. William Boyce’s tutor was Maurice Greene, who is forgotten even among baroque enthusiasts. Enter Chicago-based Garry Clarke and the Baroque Band. Their interpretation of Greene’s Overture for St. Cecilia’s Day is lively and effervescent – how appropriate for the patroness of music!

This spirited approach continues with the allegro assai, andante and vivace of Greene’s first overture (D major). The other overtures too, delight the listener: note the chirping first allegro of the fourth overture or the presto of the fifth, just two of what the sleeve-notes describe as “whistleable melodies.” And what else does the Baroque Band cram into this wonderful introduction to Maurice Greene? Well, Greene composed a pastoral opera Phoebe. The allegro to its overture must have conveyed a tremendous sense of expectation to the audience.

There’s even more. David Schrader is soloist in Greene’s Collection of Lessons for the Harpsichord. As an example, the pieces in C minor are demanding but still bring home the liveliness of English baroque music. Greene deserves much more recognition, not least as he was organist of St. Paul’s and of the Chapel Royal, Master of the King’s Music and Professor of Music at Cambridge. Garry Clarke is, I hope, the pioneer of a long-overdue revival.

 

04_Bach_Well-Tempered.jpgBach – Well-Tempered Clavier Book II
Luc Beauséjour
Naxos 8.570564-65

In the CDs of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier some performers use a modern piano, while other performances are on instruments that Bach was familiar with: the clavichord, the organ and (most often) the harpsichord. I am not about to launch into a diatribe on the unsuitability of the modern piano. It is true that I have never liked Glenn Gould’s Bach (sacrilege!) but I have listened with pleasure to Rosalyn Tureck, to Keith Jarrett and especially, to Angela Hewitt.

Beauséjour is a French-Canadian musician, who studied in Montreal with Mireille and Bernard Lagacé and subsequently in Europe with Ton Koopman and Kenneth Gilbert. He won First Prize in the 1985 Erwin Bodky International Harpsichord Competition in Boston. He has recorded a substantial number of works by Bach, including Book I of The Well-Tempered Clavier (also on Naxos).

For the sake of comparison I have been listening to two other performances on the harpsichord: those by Masaaki Suzuki (on BIS) and those by Christophe Rousset (on Harmonia Mundi). I felt that Beauséjour was holding his own, although of the three I liked the Rousset best since he found a poetic quality that was not always there in the other two. I have to add though, that when I want to listen to these Preludes and Fugues, it is the Angela Hewitt recording (on Hyperion) that I shall play most often. That goes to show that, for me at any rate, a stupendous technique, clarity of voicing, a wonderful sense of phrasing, a subtle sense of rubato and a thorough grasp of baroque performance practice matter more than whether these pieces are played on the “correct” instrument.

 

05_Bach_Viola.jpgBach – Krebs – Abel
Helen Callus; Luc Beauséjour
Analekta AN 2 9879

Though Bach’s longest and most major career posting, in Leipzig, kept him more than busy writing and preparing music for the church, he managed to find time to continue composing extraordinary chamber music as the director of the town’s Collegium Musicum. This ensemble of students and young professionals would give weekly performances at Zimmerman’s coffee house. It is thought that Bach wrote the three sonatas for viola da gamba and harpsichord (BWV1027-1029) for performances by members of this Schola Cantorum. They are a combination of new compositions and arrangements of existing music written for other forces.

These three extraordinary pieces form the centrepiece of this fine recording by violist Helen Callus and harpsichordist Luc Beauséjour. Also included are a gamba sonata by Carl Friedrich Abel and Callus’ arrangement of a movement from a trio by Johann Ludwig Krebbs. Both Krebbs and Abel had close family connections to Bach.

From the opening plaintive notes of this beautiful recording, violist Callus’ rich and gorgeous tone announces that these will be performances of a high standard. Though they share a range, there are major differences in timbre and intensity of sound between the viola and the gamba which take getting used to, but the clarity and sensitivity of Callus’ playing is so compelling that one is drawn past the instrument directly to the music. As always, Luc Beauséjour’s playing is elegant and stylish. Highly recommended.

 

06_Beethoven_Period.jpgBeethoven, Period
Matt Haimovitz; Christopher O’Riley
Pentatone PTC 5186 475

Beethoven’s interest in the cello appears to have begun early on. His first set of two cello sonatas Op.5 were written in 1796 in his 26th year, his last, Op.102, dates from 1815, by which time the composer was experiencing the trauma of increasing deafness. In between came another sonata and three sets of variations, all of them presented here in this two-disc Pentatone/Oxingale recording featuring cellist Matt Haimovitz and pianist Christopher O’Riley, the first in a series titled Beethoven, Period.

Most cellists choose to perform on early instruments, and Haimovitz is no exception – his cello of choice is a Goffriller, crafted in Venice in 1710. But rather than overpower the cello with a modern concert grand as is sometimes the case with cello/piano pairings, O’Riley proves to be the perfect musical partner in his use of an 1823 Broadwood pianoforte, both instruments tuned slightly below the standard A440. The result is a wonderfully authentic sound, very close to what Beethoven would have heard in the early 19th century

The first CD contains the earliest two sonatas and the 12 Variations on See the Conquering Hero Comes of Handel. From the opening hesitant measures of the Sonata in F Major, we sense the two artists are in full command of the repertoire. Their playing is stylish and precise while the interaction of the two period instruments allows for a compelling degree of transparency.

In disc two, we move into a new period in Beethoven’s style – the Sonatas Op.69 and Op.102 show evidence of a more mature style, somewhat darker and more dramatic, while the seven variations on Bei Männern... from Mozart’s The Magic Flute aptly demonstrate Beethoven’s facility at extemporizing on a popular theme. The “magic moment” for me on this disc came in the second movement Adagio con moto sentimento d’affetto of the Sonata Op.102, No.2. Here Haimovitz’s lyrical tone and the sensitive interpretation by O’Riley evoke a wonderful sense of mystery before the start of the jubilant Allegretto fugato, bringing both the sonata and the set to a most satisfying conclusion.

Bravo to both artists in this exemplary pairing; the “great mogul” himself would have been pleased.

 

07_Assi_Karttunen.jpgBeyond the River God
Assi Karttunen
Divine Art dds 25120
(divineartrecords.com)

This intriguing program of music for solo harpsichord makes unexpected but successful partners of Baroque France’s great François Couperin, who died in 1733, and the gifted English composer Graham Lynch, who is still very much alive. Couperin’s music here, a prélude from his L’Art de toucher le claveçin and four other pieces from various of his Ordres, makes up just over one-third of the substantial track list, and Finnish harpsichordist Assi Karttunen’s supple interpretation of L’Exquise from Ordre XXVII is particularly beautiful.

That said, where Karttunen really shines is in Lynch’s music for her instrument, which reflects both a panoply of stylistic influences and a well-nuanced understanding of how to compose for the harpsichord. Karttunen’s playing is deftly mercurial in the second Rondeau of the five-movement Beyond the River God, and she’s introspective yet always welcoming in the many meditative movements of this and other works. A particular small delight is the short, stand-alone Ay!, which to me sounds a little like what Edgar Allen Poe might have improvised over a French ground bass. The four movements of Lynch’s Petenera make perhaps the best connection in spirit to the unmeasured préludes of Couperin’s time; you can almost see Couperin listening curiously from the doorframe. The recorded sound is beautiful, and Karttunen’s notes offer much food for thought. The combining of old and new music can be tricky alchemy, but this experiment is a happy success.

 

01_Beethoven_Explored.jpgBeethoven Explored – The Chamber Eroica
Aaron Short; Peter Sheppard Skǽrved; Dov Scheindlin; Neil Heyde
Metier msvcd 2008
(divineartrecords.com)

It may come as a surprise to those of us accustomed to hearing a symphony performed by a full orchestra that during the early 19th century, an adaptation for a much smaller ensemble would have been a perfectly acceptable means of presenting large-scale works, particularly in domestic settings. Indeed, there was an enormous demand for arrangements during the days before recorded music, and this is the idea behind The Chamber Eroica. It’s the sixth in a series titled Beethoven Explored on the British label Metier, and features pianist Aaron Shorr, violinist Peter Sheppard Skǽrved, violist Dov Scheindlin and cellist Neil Heyde in a piano quartet version of Beethoven’s Symphony No.3.

The groundbreaking third symphony was completed in 1804, while this anonymous arrangement – requested by Beethoven himself – was published just three years later. Hence, this recording (the first ever) provides the modern-day listener with a keen insight as to what the composer had in mind with respect to chamber arrangements of his orchestral works. And without the use of period instruments, the four performers admirably evoke a rightful sense of grandeur in this majestic symphony. The opening movement, marked Allegro Moderato, contains a wonderful sense of momentum with the central theme continually being passed among the piano and the strings. The second movement is suitably sombre and mysterious and the third movement scherzo, all lightness and grace. While it would be challenging to duplicate the grandeur of the finale with a four-piece ensemble, the players ably capture its optimistic buoyancy.

In all fairness, there are instances when the arrangement seems not as performer-friendly as it might be. At times, the violist’s range seems uncomfortably high and the strings are sometimes required to perform melodic lines ordinarily given to the woodwinds. But the group remains undaunted and produces a most satisfying sound very much in keeping with the robust spirit of the original work.

The disc is to be commended on two levels: exemplary performances by the four musicians; and for providing the present-day listener with a glimpse into a particular facet of music-making during the early 19th century. Highly recommended.

 

03_Liszt_Hewitt.jpgLiszt – Piano Sonata; Dante Sonata; Petrarch Sonnets
Angela Hewitt
Hyperion CDA68067

The name Franz Liszt conjures up pianistic showmanship of devilishly difficult bravura pieces that have enthralled audiences for nearly 200 years. Many pianists fall easily under this spell, but Angela Hewitt is certainly not one of them. Her new recording and her first brave foray into Liszt territory is the most unforgiving, immensely difficult B Minor Sonata, 30 minutes long in one single movement that can easily lapse into aimless banging on the piano, sound and fury signifying nothing from a lesser hand. Technical brilliance almost taken for granted, her approach is essentially analytical, fully understanding the structure, the relationships of parts to the whole, the thematic, harmonic and rhythmical subtleties, avoiding excesses so the work feels an integral whole and shines in all its majesty.

The essence of Liszt in Hewitt’s words, “Nobility of spirit and depth of expression,” is also manifest in the second major item here, written during his Années de pèlerinage in Italy, the Dante Sonata, its program much inspired by the Inferno, giving ample room for the pianist’s unbridled imagination in depicting the horrors of hell and the exquisite tenderness of “Nessun maggior dolore/Che ricordarsi nel tempo felice” (Dante’s Inferno), of recalling past happiness in time of pain. The wonderful tremolo at the high end of the keyboard representing unattainable Paradiso is especially poignant and moving.

In between these two mountain peaks there is a valley of heavenly peace, the three Sonetti del Petrarca , whose love poems Liszt set into music for his beloved Countess Marie, played with languid gentleness and throbs of passion. All this adds up to another triumph in Ottawa-born Hewitt’s extraordinary career.

 

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