Early Music Round-up,
Early Music Round-Up - Spring 2024
A pair of albums making full use of single-voice consort sonorities bring the Magnificats of Lassus and the austere Tenebrae Responsories of Victoria beautifully to life in this edition of our Early Music Round-Up. Bruno Cocset completes his pilgrimage around Italy tracing the ancestry of the cello (heavily featuring the craftsmanship of his luthier friend Charles Riché), while Adrian Chandler fearlessly tucks into some of the hottest and spiciest Baroque violin writing around.
The interplay of politics, music and propaganda under Elizabeth I inspires ensemble feuervogel's programme of Tudor masques and songs; Alexis Kossenko presents a majestic, celebratory Mondonville ballet from Versailles; and El León de Oro explore music from the Capilla Flamenca of the Spanish Golden Age.
Sharing Cocset's interest in Naples, Andreas Scholl takes a final look back at the Easter season from the perspective of Neapolitan Marian works (including Vivaldi's ever-popular Stabat Mater), while Vox Luminis and the Freiburger Barockorchester peek ahead to Ascension with a selection of triumphantly uplifting Bach and Telemann cantatas in their second collaborative album and David de Winter and the Brook Street Band explore Schütz's musical relationship with Venice.
The culmination of a truly Herculean labour of love is almost upon us - Masaaki Suzuki and his Bach Collegium Japan's magisterial project to record the complete vocal works of JS Bach, begun in the 1990s with their first volume of cantatas. Released on BIS on April 26th, it's available to pre-order now.
A new album by Solomon's Knot featuring George Jeffreys's striking stile nuovo works was a highlight of our previous Round-Up - we're delighted to have been able to talk to two of the minds that made that album happen, in an interview with organist William Whitehead, who came across Jeffreys in the 2000s, and musicologist Jonathan Wainwright. We've also been chatting to keyboard suprema Bridget Cunningham about the unique music of Thomas Roseingrave, his fascination with Scarlatti, and the hints of Celtic flavour that crept into his style during his career in Dublin. A selection of sheet music by Jeffreys and Roseingrave is featured below - including Jeffreys's anthems for the upcoming festivals of Ascensiontide and Pentecost.
Early Music Round-Up - Spring 2024
Curated by David Smith
Tracks from the recordings featured in the latest of our Early Music Round-Ups. 39 minutes
Recordings
The first volume of a planned three-part survey of the vocal music of Orlando Lassus, with the emphasis on his ability to incorporate other works into his many settings of the Magnificat. This volume looks at madrigal-derived material; the second will turn to motets and the third to chansons. Philip Cave's singers - singing one to a part - bring out the parallels between the often intimate madrigals and the Magnificats based on them.
Available Formats: 2 CDs, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
The combination of low pitch and a single-voice texture pares back Victoria's Tenebrae Responsories for Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday to their simplest and most emotionally direct form - highlighting the contrast between Victoria's music and the opulent polychoral tradition that was flourishing elsewhere. Less is definitely more - these are some of the most moving performances of Renaissance polyphony I've heard for some time.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Bruno Cocset's complete project to explore the early ancestry of the cello takes him from Bologna to Naples and Modena, playing ten different instruments along the way - viols, bass violins, violones, and various hybrids and rare variants that existed as the instrument was evolving. The unseen co-star of the album is Cocset's luthier collaborator, Charles Riché, creator of many of the instruments played here.
Available Formats: CD2+BOOK, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Adrian Chandler's penchant for offbeat album covers continues - with the image of a spicy pizza a natural choice for his album devoted to Tartini, famous for his 'Devil's Trill' sonata. That sonata - reportedly transcribed by Tartini from a dream in which the Devil offered him a deal - is the concluding work on this album, but the five sonatas making up the preceding 58 minutes are by no means lacking in wizardry. Chandler's technical prowess here is undeniable, but his sensitivity in bringing out some of Tartini's more introverted moments is just as remarkable.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
An imaginative exploration of the multifacted Queen Elizabeth I of England - examining how various kinds of music and dance helped to create her public image and bolster her position as queen in a society that often struggled with the concept of female authority figures. Masques, the deliberately unruly 'antimasques', and of course songs sung in praise of Elizabeth herself - all come together to paint a portrait of the last of the Tudor monarchs.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Seeking, as the notes say, to 'mix Spanish flair with Flemish erudition', this recording highlights some of the music that would have been heard at the Capilla Flamenca of Philip II of Spain. The centrepiece is La Hèle's seven-part mass, based on the widely-admired motet Praeter rerum seriem by Josquin that was also used as an inspiration by Daser, de Rore, Lassus, Lusitano, Willaert and others.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res+ FLAC
Mondonville: Le Carnaval Du Parnasse
Hasnaa Bennani, Hélène Guilmette, Mathias Vidal, Les Ambassadeurs ~ La Grande Écurie, Choeur de Chambre de Namur, Gwendoline Blondeel, Alexis Kossenko
From 'severe' and 'sober' Flemish polyphony to Peak French Baroque! Mondonville's 1749 ballet features similar large-scale choruses to those he used in his grands motets, but spiced up with novel approaches to orchestration and exciting dance-movements. By turns elegantly refined and uninhibitedly energetic, like so much grandly-conceived music of this style it's a heady feast for the senses.
Available Formats: 2 CDs, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
The cover art may evoke Jonas Kaufmann's 2014 Winterreise, but this album from Andreas Scholl has an altogether sunnier outlook - drawing on Neapolitan compositions in praise of the Virgin Mary, with a particular focus on the Easter story. Vivaldi's Stabat Mater and Anfossi's Salve Regina are complemented by works by Pergolesi, Ragazzi and Porpora, with violinist Alessandro Tampieri enjoying plenty of limelight alongside Scholl.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
A collaboration between Vox Luminis and the Freiburger Barockorchester is always welcome; their previous album in 2021, featuring Biber's Requiem, was a resounding success and it's great to see more from this partnership. Himmelfahrt presents a selection from the huge number of Ascension cantatas composed by Bach and Telemann, with festive triumph front and centre. Telemann's Ich fahre auf features some especially vivid word-painting, in particular depicting the soul as a ship sailing on the waves.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
The influence on Schütz of the ornate Venetian style is clear - his solo vocal writing has a virtuosic quality that is instantly recognisable. This wasn't just passive transmission of musical fashions - Schütz visited Venice twice in his youth and studied there, certainly with Gabrieli and possibly also with Monteverdi. This album from the Brook Street Band juxtaposes Schütz's own compositions (predominantly his solo cantatas, featuring tenor David de Winter) with some of the Venetian works that might have influenced him.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Box-set Pre-order
Bach Collegium Japan, Hana Blažiková, Carolyn Sampson, Robin Blaze, Yoshikazu Mera, Makoto Sakurada, Gerd Türk, Peter Kooij, Roderick Williams, Masaaki Suzuki
Available Format: 78 SACDs
Sheet Music
A verse anthem for Pentecost/Whitsunday for SSB soloists, SSATB choir and organ. Transcribed and edited by Peter Aston. Editorial Notes and Textual Commentary included.
Available Format: Sheet Music
Anthem for Ascensiontide for SSATB and organ, transcribed and edited by Peter Aston. This anthem is No. 7 from a set of eight 5-part anthems reflecting on events in the Church year.
Available Format: Sheet Music
A celebratory and elating anthem by George Jeffreys, set for STB soloists with an SSATB chorus and organ accompaniment.
Available Format: Sheet Music
Musica Britannica Volume 105. Ed. Jonathan Wainwright
Available Format: Sheet Music
Ed. David Patrick
Available Format: Sheet Music
Musica Britannica Volume 84
Available Format: Sheet Music
David Smith - Head of Digital
