Domenico Scarlatti’s distinguished career included a royal post in Rome where he competed against Handel, the latter being declared the better organist and Scarlatti the better harpsichordist. Written for his pupil the Infanta Maria Bárbara, Scarlatti’s legacy of hundreds of single-movement keyboard sonatas forms a valuable resource for performers today. This collection includes a wealth of Spanish dances with virtuoso leaps, unusual modulations, flourishes and ornamentation, as well as Scarlatti’s irrepressible verve and energy. Critically acclaimed Steinway Artist Sergio Monteiro was born in Niterói, Brazil. In 2003 he was awarded First Prize at the 2nd Martha Argerich International Piano Competition in Buenos Aires, and has since appeared in prestigious venues across Asia, Europe and the Americas, including the Toronto Centre for the Arts (now the Meridian Arts Centre), The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., the Konzerthaus and the Philharmonie in Berlin, the Steinway Halls of New York and Beijing, and the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires. He has appeared in concert with major orchestras including the Chamber Orchestra Kremlin, and the Buenos Aires, Lübeck and Dresdner Philharmonics under conductors such as Charles Dutoit and Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos. In 2020, in honor of Beethoven’s 250th anniversary, Monteiro will perform the complete cycle of piano sonatas over eight recitals.

Once Again the Swiss Artist Consort Releases a Wonderfully Balanced Production in Their Own Meritorious Genuin Series: The Sixth of the Flutist Felix Renggli. Backed By the Chamber Academy Basel, He Performs Flute Concertos By Carl Philipp Emmanuel Bach and Francois Devienne. We Witness the Stunning Developments in the Music of the 18th Century- from the Offshoots of the Late Baroque, Through the Fury of the Sturm Und Drang Years and Up to the Radiance of Classical Era. Competent Interpreters Help to Do Justice to Music That Is Rarely Played- Absolutely Worth Listening to!

Elephant House Quartet invites the listener for a stroll through the colourful oeuvre of Telemann — himself a gardening enthusiast — presenting a bouquet of chamber-musical jewels. Telemann’s Garden ranges from excerpts of solo fantasias for violin, flute and harpsichord to a sonata for viola da gamba and basso continuo, a trio sonata for violin, recorder and basso continuo, a suite for violin, flute and basso continuo, as well as one of the quartets Telemann wrote during his Paris sojourns. These pieces together constitute a fascinating portrait of one of the most prolific and successful composers of the Baroque era. Elephant House Quartet is a Baroque ensemble featuring virtuosos on each instrument in wonderful interaction, consisting of recorder player Bolette Roed, violinist Aureliusz Golinski, gambist Reiko Ichise and harpsichordist Allan Rasmussen. Telemann’s Garden marks their PENTATONE debut.

REVIEW:

The Elephant House Quartet use period instruments or modern copies. One cannot fault the quality of the playing. It is exquisite, executed with style and eloquent lyricism. I love the way the passages are shaped with exemplary skill and control. One senses a close connection between the four players, who demonstrate a firm grip on the formal and artistic structure of the works with a sense of total engagement. Calm and meditative in the slow movements, buoyant in the faster movements – these are performances to cherish, with striking unity and intonation of the instruments that make a gorgeous sound. Allan Rasmussen’s harpsichord, a modern copy after Harrass (c. 1710), is one of the finest I have heard.

– MusicWeb International

Bach could hardly have imagined how popular his cycle of Six Suites for Cello Solo would become nearly 300 years after he finished writing them in Cöthen. There are more than 200 existing historical and contemporary recordings of "informed" and "modern" interpretations - that tells it all. The music makes extraordinary demands on players' technical and interpretive ability and their overall comprehension. In the suites, Bach managed to create music that is highly innovative (it is worth noting that the cello was still developing at the time), and yet he retained his stylistic purity and comprehensibility. While these are formally dance suites, the architecture of some of them is more like that of a cathedral, in part thanks to the wealth of contrapuntal writing. They are a great challenge for everyone who has mastered the cello, Saša Vectomov included. His first teacher was his father (he studied in Paris with Piatigorsky and Fournier and with Casals's assistant Alexanian). The playing of the young Vectomov was then strongly influenced by Rostropovich's teacher Semyon Kozolupov at the Moscow Conservatoire and by André Navarra in Italy. Besides his solo career, he also excelled at playing chamber music (Czech Trio, City of Prague Quartet) and was an equally wonderful teacher. For the recording of the Bach suites that he made in Prague at the Rudolfinum in the summer of 1984, he prepared himself for several years. In 1980, for example, he played the whole cycle from memory at a single concert. His recording can be characterized as having unmistakable beauty of tone, perfect intonation, and brilliant technique, but above all it is the deep comprehension of the "text" and the immediacy of the musicianship that make this recording something timeless and exceptional. Bach - Cello Suites: timeless music on a timeless recording.

HANDEL Suites, HWV 426–429 • Philip Edward Fisher (pn) • NAXOS 8.572197 (61:55 )


Handel’s keyboard suites—though still not as established in the repertoire of the average pianist as Bach’s are—are steadily gaining popularity with many performers. Just last issue (in Fanfare 33:6), I had the pleasure of reviewing two new recordings of some of this repertoire. Here, we have Volume 1 of what looks like a complete recording of the so-called “Eight Great Suites.”


Philip Edward Fisher certainly has the mechanical capabilities to play this music in a convincing manner, as the virtuosic opening preludes to both the first and third suites, in A Major and D Minor, respectively, can attest. His free way with them pays dividends, as it feeds off the very nature of their origins—improvisation. Fisher does have one eccentricity to his playing in terms of this freedom, though, one that if he did not overuse might be more convincing. He enjoys starting many movements slowly, then accelerating into the full tempo in the second measure of the movement. This most notably occurs, to my ears, in the Gigue to the A-Major Suite, not only the first time, at the onset of the piece, but all four times, as he plays every single repeat of this movement! How this is supposed to be dance-like, I’m not sure. Fisher’s tone, in addition, tends to have a bit more weight than does Gould’s or Perahia’s. He has a keen sense of voicing and tonal shading, as well as tempi which tend to be moderate, except occasionally. The Air to the D-Minor Suite, which he, along with many others, plays just too slowly for me, is an example. For a better overall approach, I prefer Perahia, who is able to lend unity to this movement through the slow accelerando from the onset of the piece—one that continues through all of the variations, bringing a beautiful sense of momentum. Fisher’s E-Minor Suite comes off the best, as he plays it in the most unaffected way: a light and bouncy, virtuosic fugal Prélude, followed by a soft and flowing Allemande, an aggressive and assured Courante, a pensive Sarabande with little ornamentation and played at a gently lilting tempo, and a lively, quirky, and lightly ornamented Gigue. Fisher seems to let the music speak for itself here—something that many performers can do a little more of from time to time.


All in all, this is a very fine disc, to be warmly recommended, not only for its low price, but also for its often assured and inspired playing. In addition to this disc, I would highly recommend those performances by Murray Perahia (Sony 62785), Evgeny Koroliov (seemingly only available for download on Amazon and iTunes, or check out amazon.de for the actual disc), and Racha Arodaky (AIR 001-2009). Here’s hoping that Fisher will grace us not only with the complete “Eight Great Suites” of 1720 in the following volume(s), but all 16.


FANFARE: Scott Noriega


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The modern concert grand lends itself well to the idiomatic flair and delightful variety characterizing Handel's keyboard suites, yet surprisingly few pianists champion them on disc. Philip Edward Fisher is an exception, and his first volume in what promises to be a complete cycle adds up to an absorbing listen.

Naxos' close, dry pickup imparts an analytic, Glenn Gould-like clarity to Fisher's touch, although there's plenty of nuance and tonal shading. You hear this right away in the First suite's Prelude, and also in the Gigue, where Fisher states the main theme's first four repeated notes before accelerating into a faster basic tempo--an oddly convincing gesture.

In contrast to Sviatoslav Richter's straightforwardly plain dispatch of the Second suite's Fugue and Presto movements, Fisher generates more textural variety by elongating accented notes and pressing slightly ahead in sequential passagework. And listeners familiar with the E minor suite's Courante as a courtly allegretto by way of Keith Jarrett or Ragna Schirmer will be surprised by Fisher's relatively subjective deliberation. How the remainder of this cycle will fare next to Schirmer's more warmly engineered traversal of all 16 suites remains to be seen, but so far Fisher and Handel appear to be a provocative and often inspired match.

--Jed Distler, ClassicsToday.com

VIVALDI The 4 Seasons. Sinfonia in b, RV 169, “Al santo sepolcro.” Concerto for 4 Violins , RV 580 • Jeanne Lamon (vn); dir; Tafelmusik Baroque O (period instruments) • TAFELMUSIK 1007 (53:52)


Those of us who have reached a certain age are wont to reflect on the things that are that were not. Smartphones, for example. ATMs. Central air conditioning. Power steering. Color TV; some of us even predate black-and-white televisions. How about The Four Seasons ? Although Vivaldi composed this signature quartet of concertos as early as 1725, give or take a few years, and published it as a part of his op. 8 concerto collection, Il cimento dell’Armonia e dell’Inventione , by the middle of the 20th century it and he were largely forgotten. The first recording of The Four Seasons , made in 1939, rescued both from obscurity, but they didn’t hit the big time until 1969, when Alan Loveday and Neville Marriner’s Academy of St. Martin in the Fields made the recording that launched (by Wikapedia’s estimate) 1,000 calendars, so to speak. There were 168 seasons between 1969 and 2012. Do the math.


Tafelmusik’s recording of The Four Seasons was made in 1991, about halfway between the ASFM’s and the present. I didn’t hear it then, but it was well received at the time, and with good reason. It’s a constant delight—from “Spring”’s avian twittering to “Winter”’s stormy blast. Jeanne Lamon and friends play with utmost skill, of course, and infectious verve, but also with vivid imagination. Vivaldi’s dogs bark, his horses prance, and his wedding guests drift off into blissful sleep after their drunken revelry. His teeth chatter. Lamon makes the most of the programmatic aspects of the score, but always from a superbly musical perspective. I’ve always been fond of the Harnoncourt’s (conductor Nikolaus, soloist Alice) version, but I’m moving Lamon and Tafelmusik to the top of my personal Seasons list.


The mysterious Sinfonia “At the Holy Grave” and the popular Four-Violin Concerto (which Bach later recast for four harpsichords) round out this marvelous disc.


FANFARE: George Chien

It’s a measure of the importance of Whitsun in the Lutheran calendar that, like Christmas and Easter, the feast was celebrated over three days. This latest release in the Bach Cantata Pilgrimage series consists of two concerts given on consecutive days in the same venue, Holy Trinity Church, Long Melford, in Suffolk details. This noble church, much lauded by Simon Jenkins in his book, England’s Thousand Best Churches, is one of the so-called Wool Churches and is mainly late-Perpendicular in style.

Readers who have been following the reviews of this series to date will know that one of its many notable features is the booklet notes. These are taken from a journal that Sir John Eliot Gardiner compiled during the Pilgrimage. It seems to me that his notes for this present volume are the finest to date. He writes with particular eloquence about the feast of Pentecost and Bach’s music for the festival and he’s particularly adept on this occasion at pointing out resonances between the theology of the feast, Bach’s music and the venue for the concerts.

The first concert – and CD – consisted of cantatas for Whit Sunday itself. Proceedings get off to a joyous start with the exuberant, trumpet-led chorus that opens BWV 172. The rhythms bounce infectiously and the trumpets ring out festively. The first aria in this cantata is one of Bach’s puissant bass and trumpet arias, ‘Heiligste Dreieinigkeit’. This is authoritatively dispatched by the German-born Greek bass, Panajotis Iconomou, a singer that I can’t recall hearing before, though he was a finalist in the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World competition in 2001. After this Bach provides respite and refreshment in the form of the easeful tenor aria, ‘O Seelenparadies’ This suits the light, heady voice of Christoph Genz admirably. I also relished the sensuous performance of the duet for soprano and alto, ‘Komm, lass mich nicht länger warten.’ The cantata ends with two choral movements. First comes a chorale, which is enriched by a countermelody for the orchestral violins. Then we are treated to a most welcome reprise of the opening chorus, which rounds off a very fine cantata in a splendid performance.

Next we hear the first of Bach’s cantatas entitled Wer mich liebet, der wird mein Wort halten, BWV 59. The origins of this piece, which dates from 1723 or 1724, are a little uncertain and Gardiner’s note is good on this point. I enjoyed the duet for soprano and bass with which it opens. The two trumpet parts that accompany the singers are surprisingly – and very effectively – restrained in tone. It’s somewhat unusual to find a chorale as the third movement. The bass aria that follows is a fine creation. It’s a lovely, lyrical inspiration in which a graceful vocal line is complemented by an equally suave violin obbligato. I admired the velvety tone that Panajotis Iconomou deploys here. The cantata lacks a closing chorale and it seems to me that Eliot Gardiner’s solution is a sensible one. He repeats the chorale that we heard earlier, but the choir now sings a different verse of the same hymn.

Bach revisited the text of Wer mich liebet, der wird mein Wort halten again in 1725. He re-worked some of the music from BWV 59 in this new cantata, BWV 74, and, apart from the opening movement, he set a different text. The opening movement of BWV 59 is transformed here into a four-part chorus. The music for BWV 59’s above-mentioned bass aria, ‘Die Welt mit allen Königreichen’, is now assigned to a soprano with an oboe da caccia obbligato. This re-worked aria, ‘Komm, komm, mein Herze steht dir offen’, is quite delightful and I share John Eliot Gardiner’s preference for this version of the music. The partnership of soprano and oboe da caccia has been encountered before, in BWV 1 (Volume 21), and I find it highly effective. Lisa Larsson is the accomplished soprano on this occasion. The dazzling tenor aria, ‘Kommt, eilet, stimmet Sait und Lieder’ is a real tour de force. Christoph Genz delivers this virtuoso piece superbly. As we shall see later, the mixture of lightness and steel in his voice is absolutely right for such music. The cantata also contains a hugely demanding aria for the alto soloist, ‘Nichts kann mich erretten’, which is distinguished in particular by the leaps that the singer is required to make from one extreme of his register to the other. It’s a dramatic piece and Derek Lee Ragin gives a graphic account of it. However, the timbre of his voice may not be to all tastes and I must admit a preference for Robin Blaze’s performance in Gardiner’s earlier account of this cantata, to which I shall come in a moment.

Finally we are given the superb cantata, O ewiges Feuer, o Ursprung der Liebe, BWV 34. This begins with one of the most exciting choruses in all Bach. This large- scale, celebratory piece is adorned with silvery trumpets and makes a most splendid impression here. The music is like the rushing of the Pentecostal wind itself and it’s hard to imagine it done with greater fervour than in this exuberant performance. The Monteverdi Choir surpass themselves with singing that is light and effervescent yet which has the requisite weight too. It’s tremendously disciplined yet it still sounds spontaneous. I can see that some eyebrows might be raised at the strong accents in the central section of the chorus but I love it. Gardiner says of this chorus: "In performance it generates colossal energy and elation" and that’s certainly the case here.

In the tenor aria that follows Christoph Genz’s singing reminded me of the splendid and sensitive work he did as the Evangelist in the performances of Christmas Oratorio with which the Pilgrimage began in December 1999. This is followed by the heavenly aria ‘Wohl euch, ihr auserwählten Seelen’. From his comments in the notes it’s clear that Nathalie Stutzmann’s performance made a deep impression on Sir John and I’m not surprised. She gives a serene account of the aria, which I find even more satisfying than Bernarda Fink’s fine performance in the earlier DG recording (see below.) The end of the cantata contains a stroke of genius, with the choir bursting in abruptly at the end of the bass recitativo. This is the prelude to "a typhoon of an orchestral finale" as Gardiner describes it, where choir and orchestra combine to bring what must have been a memorable concert to a jubilant end.

Collectors should note that Gardiner has recorded these four Whit Sunday cantatas, BWV 34, 59, 74 and 172 before. They were issued by DG in 2000 as one of the series of discs issued at the time the Pilgrimage was in progress (DG 463 584-2). The disc is still available, I believe, but it contains different performances, recorded under studio conditions in April 1999 and all the soloists on the DG disc are different, with the exception of Christoph Genz. This earlier disc is by no means eclipsed by the newcomer. However, the SDG accounts seem to me to have that indefinable ‘edge’, which perhaps stems from the fact that they are live performances. I’ve highlighted above a couple of points where I have a preference for the newcomer. What clinches it for me, however, is the opening chorus of BWV 172. Here the new version has more life and buoyancy. The tempo is fractionally faster and the rhythms seem that tiny bit more urgently sprung. Though the 1999 performance is excellent its successor is even more joyous: it’s a real winner.

The next day three more cantatas were given, all for Whit Monday. Erhöhtes Fleisch und Blut, BWV 173 was a re-working of a 1717 cantata written while Bach was in Cöthen, to celebrate the birthday of Prince Leopold, his employer. In its adapted, liturgical format, as BWV 173, the cantata may well have been heard first in Leipzig in 1723 but Eliot Gardiner’s performance is of a further re-working of the score that Bach undertook in 1728. Christoph Genz’s combination of lightness of voice and steely ring, already noted in BWV 74, is again a source of pleasure in the gigue-like aria, ‘Ein geheiligtes Gemüte.’ The busy alto aria, ‘Gott will, o ihr Menschenkinder’ is not, perhaps, one of Bach’s most memorable inspirations. However, the following duet for soprano and bass is a delight. It’s something of a technical tour de force, as Bach moves through a succession of scoring, metres and keys. It’s very well done here.

Also hat Gott die Welt geliebet, BWV 68 is a work that, as Eliot Gardiner comments, "almost seems as if [it] were composed back-to-front" since it begins with what he terms a "lyrical and wistful" chorale and concludes with a much more dramatic chorus of the type that one might expect to find at the start of a cantata. However, as so often, Bach’s musical inspiration fits the text perfectly and the gentle, lilting rhythm of the opening movement serves to emphasise quiet joy that God sent his son to redeem the world. In this splendid performance both the singers and the instrumentalists are alive to every nuance of rhythm and dynamics. Both the second and fourth movements of the cantata were adapted by Bach from his ‘Hunt’ Cantata, BWV 208. The first of these movements is the celebrated soprano aria, ‘Mein gläubiges Herze’. Soloist Lisa Larsson conveys appropriately breathless joy. However, the extremely fleet tempo chosen by Gardiner may disconcert some listeners. This performance is a very different conception from, say, those by Edith Mathis (for Karl Richter) or the incomparable Agnes Giebel (for Fritz Werner) and it’s noteworthy that both of those performances last for over four minutes whereas Gardiner whips through the piece in 2:55. Miss Larsson’s singing isn’t anything like as full-toned as the other two ladies I’ve mentioned and, in fairness, I don’t think the tempo gives her the chance to be. The player of the obbligato violincello piccolo also sounds somewhat pressed. The other movement taken from the ‘Hunt’ Cantata is the bass aria. Bach gives his singer an accompaniment of no less than three gambolling oboes and a bassoon and I find the effect irresistible. The strong and energetic closing chorus is an exciting affair with a cornetto and three sackbuts doubling the choral parts.

The final cantata in what is a slightly short programme is Ich liebe den Höchsten von ganzem Gemüte, BWV 174. The opening sinfonia is a memorable expansion of the first movement of the third Brandenburg Concerto. The expansion is to the scoring: Bach adds highly important parts for pairs of horns and oboes to the original string band and, in Gardiner’s memorable phrase unleashes a "living bombardment of instrumental sounds." Even longer than the sinfonia is the alto aria from which the cantata takes its title. This is an outstanding aria and it’s sung radiantly and expressively by Nathalie Stutzmann. I had reservations about Gardiner’s pacing of ‘Mein gläubiges Herze’ but that’s not the case here. I feel he adopts an ideal tempo for this heavenly aria. It flows with a beautiful inevitability, with two intertwining oboes enhancing the vocal line. The concluding chorale uses the same music that Bach used for the final chorale of St. John Passion and it makes for a very satisfying conclusion to another fine disc.

As this series unfolds I have come to value increasingly the Sunday-by-Sunday presentation. Not only does this seem to me to afford the most logical way to order an intégrale of the cantatas, but also it allows one to appreciate the way in which Bach responded in different ways at different stages in his career to the same liturgical and scriptural themes. That, in itself, I am finding to be an enriching experience.

The Pilgrim’s sojourn in Long Melford was another highly successful artistic enterprise. This pair of discs has given me enormous pleasure. The very high standards of performance, presentation and recorded sound that were set in earlier releases has been maintained and I strongly recommend this latest addition to what is fast becoming a very important and distinguished cycle of the cantatas.

-- John Quinn, MusicWeb International

No other master equaled him in tone; the sweetness and singing of his violin sound; his fine and elegant taste; his perfection in tempo and intonation (...)". What contemporaries attest to the violin playing of Francesco Geminiani (1687-1762) applies without restriction to his compositions, which are still far too little known. He attached less importance to virtuoso effects à la Vivaldi, but rather to the "melodic grace and adornment" à la Corelli, so much appreciated in his adopted country England. Some of the delicate chamber music treasures are presented here by the Ensemble Apollo's Cabinet.

Shortly after taking up the position of Thomaskantor in Leipzig in 1723, Bach wrote a Magnificat in E flat major for performance at Christmas. Around a decade later he revised the work, transposing it down to D major and making it more concise. Utilizing a Biblical text, the piece is suffused with a series of memorable arias and choruses and orchestrated with spectacular grandeur. Lumen is a contemporary musical dialogue that urges empathy between the three Abrahamic religions. Translating the oratorio form into a 'unity of diversity,' Robert M. Helmschrott has converted the poetry of the Old and New Testaments, the Torah and Qur'an into an interfaith 'language of sounds and singing.'