CPE Bach: Symphonies, Harpsichord Concerto - Norrington

Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach
Symphonies, Harpsichord Concerto
Florian Birsak, Camerata Salzburg, Sir Roger Norrington
Profil PH 08018

C. P. E. Bach’s posthumous reputation, immediately after his death and today, was compromised by the fact that his career and musical output are sharply divided into two very different styles: the simple, genteel, easy-to-assimilate music he wrote for the court of Frederick the Great (foursquare keyboard pieces and lots of flute music, most of it not very challenging, tailored for the adequate but not virtuosic flute-playing abilities of the King), and the wild, imaginative, harmonically and rhythmically daring music he wrote after he left Frederick’s court and moved to Hamburg. Indeed, he was generally referred to, even after his death, as “The Hamburg Bach,” and it was this phase of his creative life that won him the lifelong admiration of Haydn and Haydn’s most famous pupil, Beethoven. “No one is so varied in sentiment, so inexhaustible in new modulations, so harmonically fertile as he,” wrote Christian Friedrich Schubart during the composer’s lifetime, but a decade after his death he was almost completely forgotten. His scores sat on the shelves of his publisher, Breitkopf and Härtel, unsold for years. Beethoven finally wrote and asked them to send some of their extra scores to him for study.

I write all this by way of preface to a composer I only discovered in the early 1990s. For years I had heard some of the music of his brothers, and of course quite a bit of his happy-dandy flute and harpsichord style, so I was completely unprepared for what awaited me within the digital groove of Virgin Veritas 61182, a deceptively plain-packaged disc of C. P. E. symphonies by Gustav Leonhardt and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. Enlightenment, indeed. I was totally blown away by this music, but sadly, it would be some years before I could find more. Eventually I was lucky enough to acquire other symphonies, and a marvelous organ concerto, conducted alternately by Harmut Haenschen with the C. P. E. Bach Kammerorchester (Berlin Classics) and Stefan Mai conducting the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin (Harmonia Mundi), Evelyn Garvey playing his incredible harpsichord fantasias (on Élan), and wonder of wonders, not one but several volumes of his wildly varied keyboard concertos played by a madman named Miklós Spányi and conducted by the equally incandescent Péter Szüts on BIS. And then there was his Magnificat in D (also conducted by Haenschen), on its own terms as brilliant as the one written by his famous father.

Of course, I listened to my existing recordings of the Symphonies Wq 182/1 and 182/6 before putting this CD on. The aesthetics involved are quite different. Harmut Haenschen (182/1) and Stefan Mai (182/6) sound much more Classical in their approach. Rhythmic accents are closer to Mozart and Haydn than they are to Handel or Vivaldi, as Norrington plays them here. This stylistic choice also extends to the solo keyboard-writing in the Concerto Wq 20, where the rhythms are more jutting and angular, particularly in the first movement, but also in the Adagio. This gives an entirely new slant to the music. The first movement of the Symphony Wq 182/1, for instance, seems to have a lot more counter-rhythmic accents underneath the surface here than in the Haenschen recording. If this surprised me, and it did, I quickly grew to like it. It’s simply a different way of looking at C. P. E. Bach and, considering how woefully under-recorded he is in comparison to his father, any alternative interpretation of his music is indeed welcome.

I must admit, however, that after hearing Spányi play the various concertos on fortepiano, I found the very weak, tinny sound of Florian Birsak’s harpsichord a little hard to take. This instrument is so mild that you’d never be able to hear it if the microphone hadn’t been shoved virtually under the player’s nose; it would be completely lost in a concert hall, particularly against the strong orchestral forces that C. P. E. wrote for his concertos. Mind you, on discs it’s okay. Birsak is a sensitive and highly musical player, and his performance is splendid in style and feeling. But there is no way it could carry in a concert hall of even medium size without help.

There’s a wonderful moment at the end of the second movement of this concerto that shows just how imaginative C. P. E. Bach was. The harpsichord resolves the harmony in the tonic of C, but the orchestra is still playing the dominant seventh, stubbornly hanging onto that B for dear life until just two seconds before the movement is totally over. I know this doesn’t sound like much, but think about it. This was pretty radical considering that this concerto was written before he moved to Hamburg, when he was still in the employ of Frederick.

The same is true of the Symphony Wq 173, yet despite its being much more Baroque in style and less harmonically daring, there is still much to admire. When he allowed his imagination free rein, even in this earlier period, he was able to create and sustain interesting development sections. Perhaps one reason why his music was so quickly forgotten after his death was that the melodic lines are not as memorable or attractive as those of Haydn or Mozart, not even as attractive as those of the technically skillful but less inspired Vanhal. Still, this particular symphony is a moment of comparative conventionality in an otherwise advanced and challenging program.

With the Symphony Wq 182/6 we are back in the eye of the hurricane, even though the first movement of this symphony is played at a much more moderate pace than 182/1. One interesting feature of Bach’s Hamburg symphonies is his linked movements. I can’t think of many other composers who were writing anything this innovative at that time. In this symphony, for instance, there is a dead stop at the end of the first movement, but it is on an unresolved chord; when the chord resolves, we learn that it is the beginning of the second movement. The second and third movements are not linked, but the quirky, edgy rhythms of the rapid 6/8 finale almost seem to put us in another musical world entirely.

The Symphony in E♭ covers a middle period, after his father’s death but before the flowering of his Sturm und Drang style. You can tell that he was already reaching towards something new and exciting; the orchestra contains oboes, horns, and bassoon, a rarity for 1757, and the rhythmic power of the first movement is almost explosive, leading into a gentler passage with stop-time rhythms. These two ideas, the headlong rhythmic rush of the swirling triplets and the playfulness of the soft, sparse moments, alternate throughout the first movement like the alternating mental images of a schizophrenic. The second-movement Larghetto gives us a mirror image of the first, pensive lyrical passages with occasional rhythmic outbursts. The finale is a whirling jig.

C. P. E. Bach’s music is so dense that I recommend listening to only one work at a time so as not to provide overload. Despite the fact that these recordings were made in a church, the acoustic is actually less reverberant than the recordings Haenschen made a decade ago. This, too, gives a different perspective to these works, an immediacy of presence that is almost tangible. Enthusiastically recommended. Roger, you have a winner here!

Lynn René Bayley, Fanfare Magazine

Dvorák - Old World - New World / Emerson String Quartet

Antonin Dvorák
Old World - New World
Emerson String Quartet
Deutsche Grammophon 001410602

The latest release from The Emerson String Quartet, winner of 9 Grammys, is an album of works never recorded during the course of their 30-year career.

The release of Old World–New World has been a long cherished dream and features the Emerson’s favorite Dvorák middle and late string quartets.

A bonanza of romantic melody, not a note on this 3-CD release has ever before been recorded by the Emersons. Also includes Dvorák’s youthful and infrequently performed song cycle on the subject of love, Cypresses, which provides a compelling thematic trove for several of these enamoring quartets.

R E V I E W:

In these Dvorák scores the Emerson maintains an impressive and consistent standard of playing that few other quartets can achieve.

Dvorák composed some of these scores during his exile in the USA and others in his home city of Prague; hence the set title. We are told in the booklet notes that the Emerson have never recorded any of these works before. With such a theme it feels like an oversight not to have included the popular String Quartet No. 12, Op. 96, B. 179 (1893) known as the ‘American’ as it would have sat perfectly within this collection. The Emerson have in fact already recorded the score.

Few composers can match the Bohemia-born Dvorák’s emphasis on melodic invention and sparkling lyricism. This is coupled with a rich and individual coloration often deeply rooted in his native Slavic folk music.

The first disc opens with the earliest completed work here the String Quartet No. 10 from 1878/9. Brahms had by then become a staunch champion of Dvorák. Earlier in 1876 the great German composer had written a letter of recommendation to the publisher Simrock. The E flat major Quartet, B. 92 was composed in response to a commission for a “Slavonic” work from Jean Becker the founder and leader of the Florentine Quartet. For this reason the score is sometimes called the ‘Slavonic’. Only a short time later, in 1881, Dvorák wrote his String Quartet No. 11 for the Viennese Quartet led by its founder Josef Hellmesberger Sr.

Disc two commences with one of Dvorák’s best known chamber works the String Quintet No. 3 in E flat major ‘American’. This specifies an extra viola and was written in 1893 during his three year stay in the United States working at the New York National Music Conservatory. Dvorák holidayed at the Bohemian colony at Spillville, Iowa and there his writing became inspired both by African-American spirituals and by ritual music of the Native Americans. Sister works to the ‘American’ Quintet that were also composed during his stay in the USA include the String Quartet No. 12 ‘American’ and the Symphony No. 9 ‘New World’.

The 12 Cypresses for string quartet, B. 152 originate from 1865 when as a young man Dvorák composed a set of love songs based on the work of the Moravian poet Gustav Pfleger-Moravský. He arranged twelve of the songs in 1887 as string quartet movements; the title Cypresses was conferred at the time of their publication in 1921. Unfortunately in the booklet the titles are not given.

The third disc of the set has Dvorák’s two final quartets both completed in 1895 after returning to work at the Prague Conservatory. The String Quartet No. 13 took Dvorák only a few weeks to write. A frequently overlooked masterwork of the genre the String Quartet No. 14 had been started in New York and was completed in Prague. Overshadowed by the enduring popularity of the ‘American’ Quartet it is a shame that these two quartets are not played as often as their quality deserves.

Formed in 1976 the award-winning New York City-based Emerson Quartet use traditional modern strung instruments. It seems a pointless exercise to go through the performances of each quartet movement individually as the Emerson maintain throughout an impressive and consistent standard of playing in a way that few other quartets could achieve. With fine musicianship the players handle the challenges of the varying emotional depth and meter of the scores with accomplishment. I noted that they eschew any temptation unnecessarily to exaggerate dynamics. In the ‘American’ Quintet violist Paul Neubauer fits in seamlessly with the group. I never felt any lack of emotional attachment; an unfair criticism sometimes levelled at this elite group. Their technical command and precision is legendary and their tone has been closely recorded to great advantage by the DG engineers. It would be hard to imagine these scores played better.

-- Michael Cookson, MusicWeb International

Geminiani: Concerti Grossi 2 - Capella Istropolitana, Krecek

Francesco Geminiani
Concerti Grossi Vol. 2
Capella Istropolitana, Jaroslav Krecek
Naxos 8.553020

The violinist and composer Francesco Geminiani was one of those Italian musicians who found a ready livelihood in England in the first half of the eighteenth century. Born in Lucca, probably in 1687, he was a pupil of Corelli and of Alessandro Scarlatti in Rome, after earlier violin lessons from his father, whom he succeeded in Lucca in 1707 in the Capella Palatina, the principal musical establishment of the city. He was released from his obligations there in 1710, as a result of the alleged frequency of his absences, and led the opera orchestra in Naples from the following year. Here he was referred to as furibondo, reference to a tendency to freedom in rhythm that was not always welcome, a trait perhaps acquired from his teacher Corelli, who had had his own problems in Naples. According to Charles Burney, who cannot always be trusted in these matters, he was demoted to the viola section for his remaining time in Naples. In 1714 Geminiani moved to London, where he enjoyed immediate success as a performer and the patronage of Johann Adolf Baron von Kielmansegg, the Hanoverian courtier who had been instrumental in bringing Handel to Hanover and helping to establish him in England. Geminiani dedicated his first set of a dozen violin sonatas to von Kielmansegg in 1716 and was indebted to the Master of the King's Horse for his introduction to the court of King George I, before whom he played, accompanied, at his own insistence, by Handel.

Geminiani won the support of a number of the nobility in England and exercised very considerable influence also through his pupils, including the young violinist Matthew Dubourg, who spent a considerable part of his life in Dublin, where he led the orchestra at the first performance of Handel's Messiah, Michael Festing, later Master of the King's Musick, and the Newcastle composer Charles Avison. Charles Burney, whatever his later thoughts on the subject, admits in a letter of 1781 that as a young man "Handel, Geminiani and Corelli were the sole Divinities of [his] Youth", although he was later "drawn off from their exclusive worship . . .by keeping company with travelled and heterodox gentlemen , who were partial to the Music of more modern composers whom they had heard in Italy". Indebted as he was to his own teacher Corelli, Geminiani derived his own style of writing largely from him. Evidence of this may be seen in his publication in 1726 and 1727 of Corelli's twelve violin sonatas as concerti grossi. Through the agency of the Earl of Essex it was proposed in 1728 that Geminiani should become Master and Composer of State Music in Ireland, but from this position he was, as a Catholic, excluded and the honour went instead to his pupil Dubourg.

In London Geminiani continued teaching and performing, taking part in series of subscription concerts and in 1732 publishing two sets of concerti grossi, Opus 2 and Opus 3. He extended his activities, at the same time, to Ireland, where Matthew Dubourg was now established, continuing his connection with Dublin as occasion and Dubourg demanded during the following years. Quarrels with the London publisher Walsh, who had pirated Geminiani' s compositions as he had Handel's, would have been settled by the granting of the royal privilege of exclusive rights to his compositions in 1739 and a similar licence in France the following year. Other publications followed in the 1740s, notably his Opus 7 concerti grossi in 1746 and a set of cello sonatas listed as Opus 5, in the same year, works later arranged for violin and harpsichord. He travelled abroad to the Netherlands and to Paris, presumably attending the performance in the latter city of a staged version of his musical interpretation, later published in concerto grosso form, of an episode in Tasso's Gerusalemme liberata, under the title The Enchanted Forest.

It was in 1748 that Geminiani published his Rules for Playing in a True Taste and the fuller A Treatise of Good Taste in the Art of Musick in the following year. In 1751 he published his very influential The Art of Playing on the Violin, a vital source of information on contemporary practice. Of less importance are his Guida armonica and The Art of Accompaniment, with a later supplement to the former and a final The Art of Playing the Guitar or Cittra appearing in Edinburgh in 1760, published by his former pupil Robert Bremner.

Geminiani finally settled in Dublin, at the invitation of Dubourg, although there were still visits to Scotland and to England. The last concert of his of which there is any record was in Dublin in 1760, when he was still able to give a masterly account of himself, through his artistry concealing the physical weakness of age. He died in Dublin in 1762.

The form of the concerto grosso owes much to Geminiani's teacher, Arcangelo Corelli. Written as early as the 1680s, but published only posthumously in 1713, Corelli's twelve concerti epitomize a form that was to appeal to a very wide public, attracting both professional and amateur performance. If the dominant instrumental form of the period was the trio sonata, a composition for two melody instruments, with a figured bass line for cello or viola da gamba and keyboard, the concerto grosso was an extension of this. The latter form contrasts a small solo group, usually of two violins, cello and harpsichord, known as the concertino, with the main body of the now generally four-part string orchestra and its keyboard instrument. It was easy enough to transform the sonata into a concerto by allowing the main body of the orchestra, the so-called ripieno players, to reinforce the louder sections, leaving softer passages to the concertino. The concerto grosso developed soon more individual concertino parts that differed in elaboration from those of the ripieno or concerto grosso. In origin, then, the concert grosso may be seen as a trio sonata writ large, a trio sonata arranged for orchestra. It should be added that both trio sonata and concerto grosso existed as either secular da camera compositions or as sacred da chiesa works, the former akin to a dance suite in a number of movements and the latter incorporating more solemn fugal elements in the second and often the fourth of its four movements. The rigid distinction between the two forms, clear enough in Corelli, did not continue.

The first set of original concerti grossi by Geminiani, after those earlier works based on Corelli, was published in London in 1732, followed by a second edition in 1755 of both Opus 2 and Opus 3, printed for the author by John Johnson, in Cheapside, in score for the first time, as well as in parts, as in 1732, but now corrected and enlarged, some thought to the detriment of the works. For this new edition it seems that he borrowed from Dr Burney a transcription that the latter had made many years before, not having the originals by him. Burney adds that Geminiani failed to return the manuscript.

The present volume includes two concerti from Opus 3. In this collection the ripieno, unusually, is without a viola, while a solo viola is included in the concertino, a procedure possibly dictated by purely practical considerations. The fifth of that set, the Concerto grosso in B flat major, Op,3, No.5, is in the usual four movements. The first of these is an Adagio that makes some use of dotted rhythms before a compound rhythm Allegro. It is followed by an E flat major Adagio, leading to a final triple-metre Allegro.

The Concerto in E minor, Op. 3, No.6, follows a similar pattern, with a solemn opening Adagio and a first Allegro of fugal suggestion. There is a very short second Adagio that serves, as so often, as a simple transition to the final Allegro.

Opus 7 was published in London by John Johnson in 1746. The collection is preceded by a dedication to the Royal Academy, in which Geminiani takes the occasion of pointing out the unsatisfactory nature of ill-informed praise, which is "like jarring Dissonance on the Ear" and declaring his concerti to be designed for the discerning, and, in particular, the Academy. The concertino is again expanded to include a solo viola, while now violas are included in the ripieno. The first of the set, the Concerto in D major, Op. 7, No. l, starts with an Andante, here a slow introductory movement that finds room for the expected contrast between the smaller and larger groups of players. It is followed by a fugal movement, described by its title as L'Arte delta Fuga, à 4 parte reale, worked out with the "great Study and Application" that Geminiani had claimed in his dedication to have used. This ends with relative suddenness, to be followed by a slow movement that moves from Andantino to a concluding Adagio. There follows an Allegro that makes use of the compound rhythm expected in a final movement.

Concerto No.2 in D minor has an opening slow movement marked Grave, including dramatic dynamic and textural contrasts. This leads to an Allegro of fugal texture, again using compound rhythms and making considerable use of descending scale patterns. There is use of the fuller concertino in the succeeding Andante, before the final Allegro, in which it is apparent that Geminiani is making marginally greater technical demands on his soloists than had his teacher Corelli.

The Concerto No.3 in C major is described as composti in tre stili diferenti (composed in three different styles) and is, in consequence, in only three movements. The device of imitating the supposed musical or behavioural characteristics of different peoples was not a new one. Among others Telemann, in his Ouverture des nations, had produced entertaining, if prejudiced, vignettes of the inhabitants, old and young, of various countries. Geminiani offers a first movement Francese, which, in a spirited Presto presents the French in lively and jerky rhythms and passages of three-part solo writing. There is an appropriately stately conclusion, before the appearance of the English, a solid Inglese movement, described as an andante con due flauti, which suggests unusual optional alternative instrumentation. The Italians are less formal in the final Italiano, an Allegro assai, which offers a Handelian triple-metre, with hints of Vivaldi in some of its effects.

The fourth of the set, a Concerto in D minor, starts with a moving Andante, an extended movement that makes ample use of imitation and contrasts between concertino and ripieno. This leads to a cheerful Allegro, dispelling any trace of melancholy. The original mode is restored for a last movement that includes, in a spirited framework, an Adagio passage of gentler pastoral suggestion. The Concerto No.5 in C minor is in the form of a French overture, opening with the marked dotted rhythms characteristic of the form. This is duly followed by an Allegro, a movement of fugal texture. There is a brief transition, marked Grave, leading to the final Allegro, an original and attractive movement, with a moving bass, all in the French style.

The set ends with the Concerto No.6 in B flat major, a work of greater variety, that has a precedent in Corelli, except for its optional inclusion of a bassoon. Here there are thirteen episodes, changes of speed and mood, contained, broadly, within four movements. This offers a fine example of the variety possible within the traditional form developed fifty years before by Corelli. Geminiani is, of course, relatively conservative, writing music of a kind that was certain of a market in England and that suited admirably his own style of performance. He is none the worse for that and is able to impart to the form of the concerto grosso an unusual variety of texture and mood, within the established general structure.

Capella Istropolitana
The Capella Istropolitana was founded in 1983 by members of the Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra, at first as a chamber orchestra and then as an orchestra large enough to tackle the standard classical repertoire. Based in Bratislava, its name drawn from the ancient name still preserved in the Academia Istropolitana, the orchestra works in the recording studio and undertakes frequent tours throughout Europe. Recordings by the orchestra on the Naxos label include The Best of Baroque Music, Bach's Brandenburg Concertos, fifteen each of Mozart's and Haydn's symphonies as well as works by Handel, Vivaldi and Telemann.

Jaroslav Kr(e)cek
The Czech conductor and composer Jaroslav Kr(e)cek was born in southern Bohemia in 1993 and studied composition and conducting at the Prague Conservatory. In 1962 he moved to Pilsen as a conductor and radio producer and in 1967 returned to Prague to work as a recording supervisor for Supraphon. In the capital he founded the Chorea Bohemica ensemble and in 1975 the chamber orchestra Musica Bohemica. In the Czech Republic and Slovakia he is well known for his arrangements of Bohemian folk-music, while his electro-acoustic opera Raab was awarded first prize at the International Composer's Competition in Geneva. He is artistic leader of the Capella Istropolitana.

Naxos.com

Geminiani: Concerti Grossi 1 - Capella Istropolitana, Krecek

Francesco Geminiani
Concerti Grossi Vol. 1
Capella Istropolitana, Jaroslav Krecek
Naxos 8.553019

The violinist and composer Francesco Geminiani was one of those Italian musicians who found a ready livelihood in England in the first half of the eighteenth century. Born in Lucca in 1687, he was a pupil of Corelli and of Alessandro Scarlatti in Rome, after earlier violin lessons from his father, whom he succeeded in Lucca in 1707 in the Capella Palatina, the principal musical establishment of the city. He was released from his obligations there in 1710, as a result of the alleged frequency of his absences, and led the opera orchestra in Naples from the following year. Here he was referred to as furibondo, a reference to a tendency to freedom in rhythm that was not always welcome, a trait perhaps acquired from his teacher Corelli, who had had his own problems in Naples. In 1714 Geminiani moved to London, where he enjoyed immediate success as a performer and the patronage of Johann Adolf Baron von Kielmansegg, the Hanoverian courtier who had been instrumental in bringing Handel to Hanover and thence to England. Geminiani dedicated his first set of a dozen violin sonatas to v6n Kielmansegg in 1716 and was indebted to the Master of the King's Horse for his introduction to the court of King George L before whom he played accompanied his own insistence, by Handel.

Geminiani won the support of a number of the nobility in England and exercised very considerable influence also through his pupils, including the young violinist Matthew Dubourg, who spent a considerable part of his life in Dublin, where he led the orchestra at the first performance of Handel's Messiah, Michael Festing, later Master of the King's Musick, and the Newcastle composer Charles Avison. Charles Burney, whatever his later thoughts on the subject, admits in a letter of 1781 that as a young man "Handel, Geminiani and Corelli were the sole Divinities of [his] Youth", although he was later "drawn off from their exclusive worship... by keeping company with travelled and heterodox gentlemen, who were partial to the Music of more modern composers whom they had heard in Italy". Indebted as he was to his own teacher Corelli, Geminiani derived his own style of writing largely from him. Evidence of this may be seen in his publication in 1726 and 1727 of arrangements of Corelli's twelve violin sonatas as concerti grossi. Through the agency of the Earl of Essex it was proposed in 1728 that Geminiani should become Master and Composer of State Music in Ireland, but from this position he was, as a Catholic, excluded, and the honour went instead to his pupil Dubourg.

In London Geminiani continued teaching and performing, taking part in series of subscription concerts and in 1732 publishing two sets of concerti grossi, Opus 2 and Opus 3. He extended his activities, at the same time, to Ireland, where Matthew Dubourg was now established, continuing his connection with Dublin as occasion and Dubourg demanded during the following years. Quarrels with the London publisher Walsh, who had pirated Geminiani's compositions as he had Handel's, would have been settled by the granting of the royal privilege of exclusive rights to his compositions in 1739 and a similar licence in France the following year. Other publications followed in the 1740s, notably his Opus 7 concerti grossi in 1746 and a set of cello sonatas, listed as Opus 5, in the same year, works later arranged for violin and harpsichord. He travelled abroad to the Netherlands and to Paris, presumably attending the performance in the latter city of a staged version of his musical interpretation, in concerto grosso form, of an episode in Tasso's Gerusalemme liberata, under the title The Inchanted Forest. It was in 1748 that Geminiani published his Rules for Playing in a True Taste and the fuller A Treatise of Good Taste in the Art of Musick in the following year. In 1751 he published his very influential The Art of Playing on the Violin, a vital source of information on contemporary practice. Of less importance are his Guida armonica and The Art of Accompaniment, with a later supplement to the former and a final The Art of Playing the Guitar or Cittra appearing in Edinburgh in 1760, published by his former pupil Robert Bremner.

Geminiani finally settled in Dublin, at the invitation of Dubourg, although there were still visits to Scotland and to England. The last concert of his of which there is any record was in Dublin in 1760, when he was still able to give a masterly account of himself, through his artistry concealing the physical weakness of age. He died in Dublin in 1762.

The form of the concerto grosso owes much to Geminiani's teacher, Arcangelo Corelli. Written as early as the 1680s, but published only posthumously in 1713, Corelli's twelve concerti epitomize a form that was to appeal to a very wide public, attracting both professional and amateur performance. If the dominant instrumental form of the period was the trio sonata, a composition for two melody instruments, with a figured bass line for cello or viola da gamba and keyboard, the concerto grosso was an extension of this. The latter form contrasts a small solo group, usually of two violins, cello and harpsichord, known as the concertino, with the main body of the now generally four-part string orchestra and its keyboard instrument. It was easy enough to transform the sonata into a concerto by allowing the main body of the orchestra, the so-called ripieno players, to reinforce the louder sections, leaving softer passages to the concertino. The concerto grosso developed soon more individual concertino parts that differed in elaboration from those of the ripieno or concerto grosso. In origin, then, the concerto grosso may be seen as a trio sonata writ large, a trio sonata arranged for orchestra. It should be added that both trio sonata and concerto grosso existed as either secular da camera compositions or as sacred da chiesa works, the former akin to a dance suite in a number of movements and the latter incorporating more solemn fugal elements in the second and often the fourth of its four movements. The rigid distinction between the two forms, clear enough in Corelli, did not continue.

The first set of original concerti grossi by Geminiani, after those earlier works based on Corelli, was published in London in 1732, followed by a second edition in 1755 of both Opus 2 and Opus 3, printed for the author by John Johnson, in Cheapside, in score for the first time, as well as in parts, as in 1732, but now corrected and enlarged, some thought to the detriment of the works. For this new edition it seems that he borrowed from Dr Burney a transcription that the latter had made many years before, not having the originals by him. Burney adds that Geminiani failed to return the manuscript.

The first of the Concerti grossi, Opus 2, in C minor, opens with an Andante, an introduction to an Allegro that starts with a descending arpeggio figure for the first violins, before moving on to contrasting rhythms. Directions in the following movement, marked Grave and then Andante, suggest contrasts of plucked and bowed strings. This movement proceeds immediately to an Allegro.

A second concerto in C minor, Opus 2, No.2, follows a similar pattern, with a slow introduction, leading to an Allegro of contrapuntal interest. A slow movement, with imitative interplay between the upper parts, leads at once to a final Allegro, in which concertina and ripieno are contrasted.

Concerto, Opus 2, No.3, has, in its first Allegro, something of the brilliance and melodic contour of Vivaldi. In the key of D minor, it is followed by a relaxation of tension in the gentle slow movement, capped by the final Allegro in triple time.

The pattern of a slower introductory movement, linked to a following Allegro, is resumed in the Concerto in D major, Opus 2, No.4, which, as with most of the concertos of Opus 2, lacks the virtuoso demands made on the first violin of the concertina in much of Opus 3. The following Andante varies the key and mode, moving forward directly to a final triple time Allegro.

The key of D minor returns in the Concerto, Opus 2, No.5, with its Corellian opening Adagio, introducing a contrapuntal Allegro. This leads to a relatively short Andante, linked to a final movement that brings frequent contrasts between the smaller and larger groups of players.

There is a slow introductory movement in the last concerto of the set, the Concerto in A major, Opus 2, No.6. This includes the necessary contrasts of texture of the form, proceeding to an Allegro with an imitative opening and a slow conclusion, marked Grave. The concerto ends with an Allegro marked by the triple rhythms that continued an older convention.

Geminiani's Concerti grossi, Opus 3, like the earlier version of Opus 2, differ from Corelli's in that the concertina group includes a solo viola, while the ripieno orchestra is in three parts, scored for two violins and bass, with a keyboard instrument providing the necessary chordal filling. The revised versions of 1755, not followed here, reduce the solo viola part and add a viola to the ripieno. The Concerto grosso in D major, Opus 3, No.1, opens with an Adagio in which concertino and ripieno are immediately contrasted. This leads to an energetic Allegro for the whole body of players, an opening forte being followed by an echoing piano, before an extended passage for solo violin. The opening material returns, following the ritornello pattern of the movement, leading to a further burst of activity from the solo violin. The pattern continues in this way, finally allowing the solo violin some scope for even further virtuosity. There is a short Adagio, with multiple stopping for the two violins of the concertino, leading to a final Allegro in the expected gigue rhythm, here 12/8, four groups of triple quavers in a bar, allotted first to the solo violins. As the movement continues the first soloist assumes greater prominence.

The Concerto grosso in G minor, Opus 3, No.2, starts with a movement marked Largo e staccato with an element of dotted rhythm. This introduces a lively triple rhythm Allegro in which the principal solo soon assumes prominence, a pattern that is continued. The solo instruments enter one by one, over a sustained cello note, in the following Adagio, marked by the descending figure of the solo violin in the opening bars. In the final Allegro, with its imitative violin entries, the solo viola has a little more independence and even one triple-stopped chord.

The third of the set, the Concerto grosso in E minor, Opus 3, No.3, has the briefest of Adagio introductions, six bars that lead to a contrapuntal Allegro. Here the first solo violin proposes a chromatic fugal subject, answered by the second violin of the concertino, by the cello and by the viola. It is only later that the ripieno players join in a movement that includes other contrapuntal devices. The second movement is an Adagio, with a moving quaver pattern sustained at first by the two violins of the concertino. There are contrapuntal entries in the final Allegro, the subject suggested by the first violin, repeated by the second and briefly, in inverted form, by the viola and then by the cello. The repeated notes of the opening figure continue to hold some importance as the movement proceeds.

The Concerto grosso in D minor, Opus 3, No.4 has a slow introduction that is relatively extended, leading to a rapid 3/8 Allegro without significant solo activity. A short Largo then serves as a prelude to a final Vivace in which a gigue-like triple rhythm predominates in relatively short contrasting passages between concertino and ripieno.

Naxos.com

Albinoni: Oboe Concertos - London Harpsichord Ensemble

Tomaso Albinoni
Oboe Concertos
Sarah Francis, London Harpsichord Ensemble
Regis RCC 1095

Francis is an immensely stylish & gifted soloist... accompanied with warmth and grace…recording is first class, full and naturally balanced (Penguin Guide)

Uninterrupted pleasure from start to finish... Strongly recommended (Gramophone)

Händel: Water Music, Music for the Royal Fireworks - OCO

Georg Frideric Händel
Water Music, Music for the Royal Fireworks
Orpheus Chamber Orchestra
DG 435 390-2

Readers acquainted with the Haydn symphonies recorded by this chamber orchestra will already know of its excellence. This new Handel disc is no exception and contains one of the few performances of the Water Music on modern instruments to jostle with the now very elderly Boyd Neel and Philomusica recordings for my affection. While on the subject of Boyd Neel, incidentally, it is now high time that Decca with its spirit of enterprise and rich back catalogue reissued that orchestra's recordings of Handel's Op. 3 and 6 Concerti grossi. They were torch-bearers for so much that has happened since and deserve better than to be consigned to oblivion.

The Orpheus Chamber Orchestra hurl themselves into the robust spirit of the music with exhilarating zeal. Their playing of the resplendent French overture to the Fireworks Music is supple and resonant, introducing a real sense of occasion which Handel most certainly intended. Sometimes I found the orchestra's tendency towards clipped articulation a little predictable but this is a very minor point in the context of so much else that is first-rate.

The Water Music is sensibly subdivided into three suites, each anchored to its own key and dominated by an instrument of a contrasting timbre: a horn for the Suite in F, a trumpet for the Suite in D and a flute for the G major Suite, the most modestly scored of the three. The performances are, as I say, full of spirit and technically highly refined. An occasional predilection for rubato sounds somewhat anachronistic as do one or two of the rallentandos at closing cadences but one can only marvel at the precision of ensemble, the clarity of articulation and the sheer joie de vivre which these players bring to Handel's music. Textures are admirably translucent and this quality in the playing is further enhanced by a sympathetic if slightly dry recording acoustic. The various woodwind groups are effectively balanced and I especially enjoyed the ensemble playing of oboes and bassoon which often feature prominently as in the concluding movement of the F major Suite. The solo flute ornaments in the G major Suite however, struck me as lacking in propriety and considerably at odds with all else in this performance.

Little more need be said. It is a great joy to hear modern instrumentalists approach baroque music in such an enlightened way.

N.A., Gramophone.net

B. Marcello: 12 Concerti Grossi Op. 1 - Kaunas SO, Frontalini

Benedetto Marcello
12 Concerti Grossi Op. 1
Kaunas Chamber Orchestra, Silvano Frontalini
Bongiovanni GB 5550.51-2

As far as I know this is the only recording of these concertos ever released on CD. That in it self should trigger the serious classical music collector. Try it!