Putting aside any presumption of “authentic performance”–which guitarist David Härenstam acknowledges at the outset of his informative liner notes–this turns out to be a very engaging, entertaining project that honors Bach’s music while offering a thoughtful interpretation and uniquely distinct and vibrant sonic result. Although Bach didn’t write these sonatas (or any works) for violin and guitar, there’s no reason why two skilled and creative performers shouldn’t explore the possibilities, taking on the challenges of contrast and compatibility with guitar rather than keyboard as continuo.

Nils-Erik Sparf, whose recording resumé is quite respectable and varied, is not a baroque specialist–his use of baroque violin here was more for aesthetic and technical reasons related to learning and understanding the music than for any attempt at period “authenticity”–but he’s an experienced practitioner of 18th-century music and is well-versed in style. He employs a restrained vibrato technique that’s mostly used on longer-held notes, an approach that allows a compatible match and favorable balance between the bowed and plucked instruments. Härenstam also notes that to help make the tonal balance even better between his modern guitar (built in Holland in 1994) and Sparf’s early-1700s violin, he “tuned the guitar down in pitch” (he doesn’t give details).

The playing and interaction between the performers is expert and exciting, with the melodies more exposed against the quick-decaying notes of the guitar than we would experience with a harpsichord continuo. There are some very beautiful moments (the gentle interplay between violin and guitar in the Andante and Adagio of BWV 1033), and even surprising ones, as in the first movement (Adagio) of BWV 1021, where you might think you’ve temporarily wandered into a rendition of some French love song. In that same movement we also encounter some of Sparf’s consistently tasteful and affecting ornamentation. Härenstam offers his own improvisational expressive touches, and although the violin has the dominant role, the accompaniments clearly have a certain independence even as they support the “soloist”, and with his clear articulation Härenstam makes sure we don’t miss the interesting happenings in his own part.

The sonatas featured on this program are not among the six (BWV 1014-1019) usually performed and recorded, the ones with fully written out keyboard accompaniments. Two of them–BWV 1020 and BWV 1022–are of disputed provenance–and another two (BWV 1021 and BWV 1023) are for violin and continuo with only a written out figured bass line (the accompanist, within certain rules, freely fills in the harmonies). BWV 1033 exists as a sonata for flute and continuo in the hand of C.P.E. Bach, and its attribution to J.S. is not certain. All of which provides no end of interesting study and investigation for historians and musicologists, and is certainly worthy of notice by anyone who is a lover of Bach’s music. However, for the purposes of listening to this recording, it matters little: these two performers have made these pieces work very well in a context that’s both stimulating to the ear and artistically fulfilling. The studio sound is intimate without being too close (you do hear an occasional squeak or click of fingers on guitar strings or fingerboard), while the instruments have a natural presence and pleasingly resonant, realistic timbral quality. Strongly recommended.

-- David Vernier, ClassicsToday.com

Although this overview of Cavalli's music is necessarily condensed, it nonetheless succeeds in painting a meaningful picture of both the nature of opera as it was developing in Venice at the time, and the composer's own artistic and compositional talent. Cavalli was of course influenced by Monteverdi, yet he imbued his music with his own individual style, in effect setting the artistic seal on the rest of the seventeenth century. The tales told by these early operas had a lot in common with our soap story-lines. Heroes undergo the unlikeliest of hardships, become involved in unrestrained love affairs, get caught out in embarrassing situations, and so on, only for everything to be rapidly unraveled for an unambiguously happy ending, removing all concerns from the minds of a rapt audience (the operatic star system had not yet established itself at this point). There was a sense of liberation from the purely aural allusiveness of the madrigal form, as well as from the compositional and performance difficulties also associated with it, and an increasing interest in the visual impact of the sets and costumes that were soon to become the norm. Madrigal quartets, quintets and sextets were on their way out, seen as music for an aesthetic elite, to be replaced by the more approachable duets. There is perhaps an analogy to be drawn with our own times, in which the spoken and written word are being replaced by a TV videocracy, whose power is taking hold in the same way as opera did in the seventeenth century. By happy coincidence, however, Cavalli was born at precisely the right time and place, and his genius was translated into intricate, convoluted love stories and impetuous passions and rages expressed with perfect aesthetic and expressive musical symbiosis in masterly passacaglias. The Lament can be seen as a kind of condensed version of this artistic sensibility, an opera in miniature, and is therefore essential to the history of opera (cf. The three Lamenti Barocchi CDs I have recorded with Naxos). This kind of love lyric, in which languor alternates with fury, and invective is followed by immediate repentance ("What have I said? What unhappy ravings are these?") drew inspiration from both historical and contemporary episodes (Lament of the Queen of Sweden, Lament of Cinq-Mars), and then moved on to self-mockery in semi-serious laments (such as the Lament of the Castrato - whose details are indelicate in the extreme but fascinating in historical terms - or that of the Impotent Man).

BUXTEHUDE Benedicam Dominum. Gott hilf mir. Wie wird erneuet. Wo soll ich fliehen hin? Mein Gemüt erfreuet sich. Herr ich lasse dich nicht. Ihr lieben Christen • Roland Wilson, cond; La Capella Ducale; Cologne Musica Fiata • cpo 777318 (78:18 Text and Translation)


This collection of unfamiliar cantatas of Dietrich Buxtehude includes two first recordings, Benedicam Dominum and Wo soll ich fliehen hin? ; the program concludes with the most familiar one of the group, recorded five times before. (With reference to first recordings, colleague Brian Robins in 30:6 overlooked previous recordings of BuxWV 82 on Vox, Hungaroton, and Ricercar, and of BuxWV 25 on Metronome, neither included here.) If the familiar Ihr lieben Christen concludes the program, the first recording of the stunning Benedicam Dominum opens it. Perhaps it has been neglected because of the required forces, six choirs to be placed in the six balconies of the Lübeck church. The text from Psalm 33 (34) lends itself to a festive treatment using trumpets and drums, and the composer takes full advantage of the sonorities of the instruments. This is a real addition to the composer’s discography, and it’s worth noting that two other recordings of the piece were made at almost the same time, the sort of thing that happens in an anniversary year such as this.


Gott hilf mir , on a German text from Psalm 68 (69), is superior to older recordings under Günter Graulich and Martha Johnson, while Wie wird erneuet , a non-Scriptural poem, can be heard in Ton Koopman’s three-disc box (11:4). Wo soll ich fliehen hin? is the other first recording, a poetic text in the same style as the previous piece. Mein Gemüt erfreuet sich is also in Koopman’s box, and Herr ich lasse dich nicht has been recorded with Helmut Rilling’s group and the Ricercar Consort. Among those who have given us the concluding work, Koopman stands out for the boxed set.


The comparison of three of these performances with those duplicated by Koopman is instructive. Wie wird erneuet is more brilliant, more jubilant here than Koopman rendered it, his trumpets more restrained, his singers more subdued. Mein Gemüt erfreuet sich is a similar expression of rejoicing that Wilson, with a more forceful bass soloist, captures more effectively than Koopman. Ihr lieben Christen , like the other two duplicated here, uses the verb “rejoice” with trumpets and trombones in the first line, but Koopman again finds less to rejoice about, and he is slower in all three of these works. Wilson’s superiority in these works makes me eager to hear his new Das jüngste Gericht on Sony, not issued over here yet but a work that contrasts in mood with these pieces. This generous collection is well worth hearing, a splendid contribution to the anniversary.


FANFARE: J. F. Weber

The first instrumental collection by Giovanni Legrenzi, Sonate a due e tre Op. 2, was published during the composer's last years as organist at the Santa Maria Maggiore Church in Bergamo, along with three other collections, including 'Sonate da chiesa, da camera, correnti, balletti, alemane e sarabande a tre, due violini e violone' Op. 4 (1656), perhaps in an attempt to secure a better position by dedicating his works to high-ranking personalities. After all, other important composers with an interest in instrumental music, such as Tarquinio Merula and Maurizio Cazzati also held positions in Bergamo. The collection includes nine sonatas 'a due,' of which six for two violins and continuo and three for violin, violone or bassoon and continuo, and eight sonatas a tre for two violins, violone and continuo.

R E V I E W S:

"This follow-up to La Serenissima’s anthology ‘Vivaldi in Arcadia’, is particularly interesting for the Concertos RV212 and RV554a, which have been reconstructed by Adrian Chandler. The former is a violin concerto, composed in 1712 for a festival in Padua and played by Vivaldi himself. A set of parts surviving in Dresden was damaged; the booklet note remarks, seemingly without irony, that this was ‘whilst in safe-keeping’ during the Second World War. Chandler has added the harmony here and there, and selected one of the three slow movements and two cadenzas. The result is a delight... In Laudate pueri Dominum, Mhairi Lawson sings with great passion, wonderfully responsive to the meaning of the words. In the surprisingly meditative Gloria, her vibrant soprano and Chandler’s violin sigh like lovers.The Salve regina is just as good...
Chandler’s direction is as gripping as his playing. As ever, one is lost in admiration at the skills of the girls who sang and played at the Ospedale della Pietà, to whom this is a noble tribute."
- Richard Lawrence, GRAMOPHONE

"The mastermind behind this terrific CD, Adrian Chandler, is not only Director of La Serenissima and a violinist of flair and distinction; he is also a meticulous scholar, as his excellent booklet notes reveal. He has clearly engaged in much fruitful research in preparing for this recording, even carrying out imaginative reconstruction where necessary.
The result is a rich musical treat. All of this music was written by the ‘Red Priest’ for use in the Chapel of the Pietá, the Convent School for orphans (or ‘foundlings’) in Venice. The music on the generously filled disc consists of three instrumental concerti and two solo vocal cantatas, Laudate Pueri and Salve Regina. These are sung by the Scottish soprano Mhairi Lawson, who turns in thoroughly delightful performances... This, and all the other instrumental music, is realised superbly by the players of La Serenissima, the enlarged chamber ensemble named after the city of its inspiration; the name being, of course, a poetic soubriquet for Venice itself. The string sound is pure and bold, yet capable of great subtlety when required. They are underpinned by a continuo section of great richness: the harpsichord of Joseph McHardy, the theorbo (bass lute) of Richard Sweeney, and the organ playing of Robert Howarth.
Despite the scholarship, there is nothing ‘academic’ about the performance of this music. Indeed, it is exuberant and often full of élan and humour."
- Gwyn Parry-Jones, MusicWeb International

Monica Huggett and her ensemble Sonnerie scored a hit on Avie with their recording of Handel's Trio Sonatas, Op. 2 (AVI33). They continue their traversal of Handel's chamber works with the Organ Concertos, Op. 4, featuring soloist Matthew Halls, a brilliant young soloist who spins out Handel's endlessly tuneful works with an improvisatory flair that the composer - himself a virtuoso organist - would surely have approved of. On this CD, he plays a replica of a Baroque style chamber organ, built by Jaap Fama and Henk Klop, and owned by the Dutch Bach Society.

R E V I E W S:

"Sonnerie elect to open this delectable recording with the bright, extrovert Concerto No 4, which Handel based on music he had rejected from his autograph of Alcina. Matthew Halls begins this with a fabulous flourish on the organ before Sonnerie launch in, setting the pace for this lively and engaging disc. Halls, using a fascinating Dutch chamber organ which is perfect for the intimately balanced ensemble, plays the solos in Concerto No 6 (the 'harp' concerto) with admirable delicacy and affection...Although Halls is sometimes accompanied only by six musicians, the slow movements are surprisingly lush and evocative. Inspiring interpretations that are a joy from beginning to end"
- David Vickers, GRAMOPHONE