Silvius Leopold Weiss (1687-1750) was a German composer and arguably the master lutenist of the 18th century. In addition to being one of the greatest players of all time, he was one of the most important and most prolific composers of lute music in history. He wrote around 600 pieces for lute, most of them grouped into ‘sonatas’ (not to be confused with the later classical sonata, based on sonata form) or suites, consisting mostly of Baroque dance movements. This recital features some of Weiss’s sonatas (he called them ‘Suonate’) for solo lute. They have come down to us in a variety of tablature manuscripts, and many are missing their preludes, which were usually improvised. Weiss’s music is characterised by a unique understanding of the capabilities of his instrument, its strengths and its weaknesses. Like J.S. Bach’s, his music represents the culmination of a high Baroque style a little at odds with the more progressive aspirations of his younger contemporaries. The cantabile style of playing heard in these marvellous performances is directly inspired by the instrument, a lute-harpsichord built for Mr. Rübsam in 2015 by the acclaimed American instrument-maker Keith Hill. It consists of one manual with one set of gut strings at eight-foot pitch, and two sets of jacks which pluck the strings in two different places. One, positioned farther from the nut, produces a flutey sound, and the other, closer to the nut, produces a more nasal timbre. A second set of strings, made of brass at four-foot pitch, produces a halo-effect by resonating with the eight-foot register played by the performer. It gives the rather dry sound of the gut strings a much more singing quality of tone.

Giuseppe Rosetta (1901-1985) studied in Rome under Respighi but soon returned to his Piedmontese birthplace of Vercelli. There he remained, leading and enriching the local musical culture as an organist, choir conductor and music teacher. He spurned fame and dedicated himself to his vocation and to God. His beautifully crafted music is accordingly modest in expressive ambition: elegant, reflective, at times melancholic, generally characterized by introspective, meditative qualities – nothing brilliant or demonstrative. Very little of it has been recorded, making this new album a valuable contribution to a wider appreciation of postwar Italian music. Rosetta taught composition to Angelo Gilardino, who eventually encouraged him to write guitar music, resulting in the Preludi per GIlardino of 1970. These are beautifully and idiomatically written for the instrument after close consultation with the guitarist. Also from 1970, the Canti della Pianura (Songs of the Plain) is a personal evocation of the countryside of the Po Valley where Rosetta lived and worked. The four movements correspond to times of day: the dawn (Mattutino), the afternoon (Meridiana), the evening (Vespertina) and the night (Serenata). The Fantasia dates from 1979, but Rosetta’s conservative idiom recalls the language of his teacher Respighi and contemporaries such as Casella and Pizzetti: he wrote out of time, vividly evoking a lost era of Romanticism on an instrument that sings naturally of nostalgia and regret. As a student of Gilardino, Gian Luca Barbero has become intimately familiar with the private musical world of Giuseppe Rosetta, and is himself a guitar teacher of renown in Italy. The present release marks his debut on Brilliant Classics within the label’s ever-growing library of guitar music.

Played by Jeroen van Veen, the solo-piano collection (95129) of themes from Yann Tiersen’s film scores is a Brilliant Classics best seller. Now also available, some of Tiersen’s best-known melodies arranged for guitar by George Tossikian, who has given many successful concerts of this repertoire. Tiersen shot to worldwide fame with his quirky, haunting score for the Oscar-winning Amélie (2001), but by that point he had gained considerable experience composing soundtracks for short films and incidental music for plays. Several of these pieces ended up on his first album, Valse des Monstres (1995); they also featured intricate arrangements incorporating various instruments. Borrowing from French folk music, chanson, musette waltz, and street music, as well as rock, avant-garde, and classical and minimalist influences, Tiersen’s deceptively simple style has a classical base in the music of Chopin, Satie, Philip Glass and Michael Nyman. His gentle melodies lends themselves to the intimate language of the guitar, and Tossikian has selected pieces from throughout Tiersen’s career, focusing on these two albums but also including the title track La Plage. Since the days of Segovia, guitarists have practised the art of transcription, and the Greek guitarist George Tossikian continues that tradition with this album. In pieces scored for solo piano or violin, he has aimed for close fidelity, whereas in the ensemble numbers he has taken a freer, more creative approach in order to recreate the colors of Tiersen’s score using guitar techniques such as natural harmonics and tremolo. The result is no less delightful or captivating than the originals.

Three of these marvellous quartets for flute and string trio were composed in 1777/78 during Mozart’s first extended tour without his father. The three quartets K. 285; 285a; 285b are undoubtedly among the most outstanding works in the genre. They share a lightsome; carefree quality with the typical shades of melancholy in the slow movements. The sparkling Quartet in D K.285 is a virtuoso outing for all four instruments. Although the flute has the upper part in the lightning-fast opening concertante movement and the spirited concluding Rondeau; the string trio are also given strikingly brilliant; soloistic parts; creating a dense web of spirited; dazzling sallies and engagements. The central movement is a Romance with a melting flute melody against string pizzicatos – a sort of serenade with guitar accompaniment for his then love (future sister-in-law) Aloysia Weber; Constanze’s sister. The elegant second Quartet in G K.285a is indebted to Johann Sebastian Bach’s youngest son; Johann Christian; who wrote quartets that were very similar in concept and idiom. At the age of eight Mozart had taken lessons with J.C. Bach while in London; and as late as 1778 he wrote: ‘I love him… with all my heart and feel deep respect for him’. Following the ‘London’ Bach’s example; the quartet comprises a substantial opening Andante in sonata form and a lively minuet. The third Quartet in C K.285b is also in two movements. An effervescent movement in sonata form is followed by an elegant set of variations providing a solo variation for each of the four instruments. There follows a dreamy slow variation; before the music snaps back out of its metaphysical mood and into the here-and-now with a clownish minuet-cum-scherzo. The Quartet in G K.370; though originally an oboe quartet in F; was first published in 1801 by the Bureau de Musique; Leipzig; in the G major arrangement for flute and strings. Transposing an oboe piece up a full tone was then common practice in flute adaptations; but in this instance; we are dealing with a genuine arrangement involving substantial modifications. The Quartet in A K.298 is very different. It is of the Quatuor d’airs dialogués type; a popular Parisian form where each movement quotes an aria by a fellow composer or a tune that is widely known. The theme of the first movement is Franz Anton Hoffmeister’s song ‘An die Natur’. The central section of the ensuing minuet quotes the old French song ‘Il a des bottes; des bottes Bastien’. Finally; in the last movement; the theme is taken from Giovanni Paisiello’s opera Gli schiavi per amore. He used the aria ‘Chi mi mostra dolce amore’ (Who will show me sweet love) as the theme for the final movement. This piece completes our cycle of five Mozart chamber works; taking us from Mannheim to Vienna via Munich. Their five different conceptions and characters represent the quartet for flute; violin; viola and cello in its noblest form and set the benchmark for all subsequent quartets composed for these forces.

Volume 4 in a critically acclaimed survey of Bonporti’s music reaches Op.6, perhaps the most overlooked treasure in the output of the ‘gentleman from Trento’. This was the nickname bestowed on himself by Francesco Antonio Bonporti (1672 - 1749), who was born in the northern Italian city, and made his career as a musician in the surrounding region before dying in Padova.

The Opus 6 collection of trio sonatas was published in 1705, and dedicated to the Roman prince Carlo Colonna, who had played a pivotal role in the career of the young Handel as his patron. Perhaps it has been comparatively neglected because of its relatively archaic form: by 1705, a collection of trio sonatas amounted to a tribute to the past, a kind of rite of passage through which every young composer of distinction should pass, before moving on to the more overtly impressive and demanding genres of concerto and solo sonata. Inevitably, the model for any composer of Bonporti’s era was the Op.1 collection of trio sonatas by Arcangelo Corelli. Bonporti’s Op.6 proves itself a worthy successor.

All ten sonatas are arranged in a three-movement form, mostly opening with a Prelude and then a pair of Baroque dances: courantes, gigues, gavottes and sarabandes, though now so stylised as to be distant from their original purpose. This somewhat minimalist form of trio sonata does not employ the theatrical devices heard in some Italian chamber music of the time; there is even a sense of melancholy restraint about Bonporti’s language in Op.6, as though he was straining towards an expressive freedom which emerges in later opus numbers. This tension is held in balance, however, and poured into a harmonic language of delicately placed suspensions which reach a highpoint in the chromatic opening prelude to the Seventh Sonata.

Reviewing Bonporti’s Op.2 Sonatas on Brilliant Classics with Labirinti Armonici (95718), Raymond Tuttle in Fanfare concluded, ‘These performances are excellent, ideally balancing energy and gracefulness… I can think of nothing bad to say about these sonatas and these performances. This disc has raised my curiosity about Bonporti, and I think that is recommendation enough.’

A beloved trio of Romantic violin sonatas in the passionate and assured hands of an exciting Italian violinist near the start of her career: an auspicious debut on Brilliant Classics.

Germana Porcu Morano has produced a gripping account of the three violin sonatas by Edvard Grieg in partnership with one of the great Italian musicians of his generation, Bruno Canino. The pianist brings decades of experience to bear on parts which, especially in the testing Third Sonata, demand a virtuosity beyond anything in the Lyric Pieces. Meanwhile Porcu Morano’s urgently communicative musicianship is well suited to works which exemplify the fascinating tension between Grieg’s musical nationalism and his cosmopolitan outlook as a composer with colleagues and friends across Europe.

There are Norwegian elements to all three sonatas – Grieg’s teacher, Niels W Gade, even pronounced his verdict on the Second as ‘too Norwegian’ – but in counterbalance to the folk-like melodies which especially bring a rustic character to both slow movements and finales, there is a breadth of form and broad current of German romanticism to be appreciated in the first movements. Grieg himself took particular pride in the Third, a work of full maturity written in 1886 unlike the student efforts of the first two sonatas, and Porcu Morano’s performance captures the composer’s sense of its ‘broader horizons’.

Winner of the 30th edition of Michelangelo Abbado violin competition held in Milan in 2009, Germana Porcu Morano studied in Bergamo, and has gone on to win several other national and international prizes. She has performed as a soloist and in chamber ensembles across Europe and in China. She is a member of the Paganini String Quartet, with plans afoot to record the complete quartets by Paganini.

New, fun-filled arrangements—with historical authenticity on their side—bring bright and breezy curtain-raisers by a once-celebrated contemporary of Mozart to life.

In a career not much longer than Mozart’s, Domenico Cimarosa (1749-1801) wrote an astonishing total of 64 works for the stage—as well as substantial collections of symphonies, concertos, and sonatas—that were performed across the length and breadth of Europe.

Cimarosa specialized in lighthearted comedies, for which he supplied stylishly upbeat scores, shot through with Italianate lyricism, and a kind of impetuous vigor which was all his own. This quality makes his overtures particularly suitable for transcription to the kind of plucked-ensemble chamber versions heard on this enterprising new album. During the period after unification, the mandolin became a popular instrument much as the ukulele and the balalaika did elsewhere: relatively easy to learn, highly portable, and well suited to being played in ensemble as a kind of instrumental choir.

The Anedda Quintet have devised a unique synthesis of the two approaches, adding a strong bass component to the classic quartet line-up. This collection of Cimarosa is mainly comprised of modern arrangements by the composer Michele Di Filippo, who had already collaborated with the Anedda Quintet for a previous Brilliant Classics album of Rossini arrangements (95904). In adapting these orchestral scores, Di Filippo aimed to make the melodies sing out while preserving a sense of dialogue, tension, and drama between instruments.

Previous Brilliant Classics albums by this Dutch string orchestra, based in The Hague, have focused on late-Romantic ‘American Pioneers’ (96086) and composers in early 20th-century Paris (95734). Under their founder-director Dick van Gasteren, they now turn to the rich history of Rhineland music from the high-point of its immortalisation in operatic culture as the bedrock of Wagner’s Ring cycle. Das Rheingold itself is present by implication in the cycle of Wesendonck-Lieder which Wagner composed on the shore of Lake Zurich, initially as sketches for Tristan und Isolde, which he had embarked upon as a venture to drum up interest and capital for the larger project of the Ring. Inspired by his intimate association with as well as the poetry of Mathilde Wesendonck, the wife of a wealthy silk merchant who was underwriting the composer’s sojourn in Zurich, Wagner then developed the songs into a self-contained cycle which throbs with transfigured desire much like the opera. The cycle is sung here by the mezzo-soprano Karin Strobos, whose career was launched by singing Octavian in Der Rosenkavalier at the Netherlands Opera under Sir Simon Rattle. She also sings the album’s notable rarity: a setting of Heine’s Loreley text, which describes the mythical creatures who lure unsuspecting Rhenish sailors to their doom like Greek Sirens. Originally composed as a male-voice partsong by Friedrich Silcher (1798-1860), the song has been transcribed by Dick van Gasteren for Strobos and La Ciconia. Complementing the songs are two unfamiliar but attractive examples of late-Romantic German string music: the Serenade Op.242 by Carl Reinecke, and the Concerto for String Orchestra by Max Bruch. Neither work enjoys more than a toehold on the record catalogue, and this engagingly vivid new recording makes the most persuasive case for them.

REVIEW:

Somehow this quartet of pieces brought to my mind the old wedding saw of “something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue.” For “something old” there is this Serenade of Carl Reinecke (1824–1910). Although I certainly recognize his name, I cannot recollect ever having heard any of his music before now, but this thoroughly delightful six-movement work shows that his oeuvre warrants further investigation.

For “something new” we have a work by Max Bruch (1838–1920) — the string octet he wrote in 1920, only a few months before his death. In the score, Bruch indicated that the piece was also suitable for performance by a full string orchestra, and upon publication of that version his publisher Simrock attached the title “Concerto.” While the octet has enjoyed no less than six previous recordings in its original form, this is the first one for full orchestra, and thus makes a welcome addition to the Bruch discography.

“Something borrowed” comes in the guise of Wagner’s Wesendonck Lieder, in a 2006 reduction for string orchestra by Gerhard Heydt. Frankly, I’m not certain what the point of this exercise is; certainly Wagner is hardly in need of reorchestration, and a good degree of tonal color is lost in subtracting woodwinds and brass. Mezzo-soprano Karin Strobos has a reasonably attractive and well produced but not exceptional voice; she sings with sincerity, but not the degree of subtle inflection these texts and settings require. This was by no means unpleasant to listen to, but there is no strong incentive to return to it.

Finally, for “something blue,” Strobos sings a setting by Friedrich Silcher (1798–1860) of Heinrich Heine’s famous poem of the original Rhine Maiden, whose beautiful appearance and singing lure ships and sailors to destruction. Silcher’s Lied is a bit peculiar in that it’s a lilting, waltz-like ditty, devoid of any darker undertones. Here Strobos and the ensemble are in their proper element.

The Ciconia Consort is further identified as being a nom de guerre for The Hague String Orchestra. Dick van Gasteren directs the players with a sure hand. The recorded sound is warm, with a certain degree of plush resonance. The booklet provides brief notes and song texts in German without translations. Although I would have preferred a full disc of lesser-known German string serenades, this definitely makes for enjoyable listening; cordially recommended.

-- Fanfare (James A. Altena)

The trio sonata was one of the baroque period’s most popular instrumental forms. While in its ‘classic’ form it features two higher pitched instruments, a melodic bass instrument and basso continuo, there were several others, including a popular variant for one high-pitched instrument, one bass instrument and continuo, chosen by a substantial number of composers in the 17th century and beyond, and resulting in a significant number of compositions.

In this setup, the writing for the melody instrument is more virtuosic than in a ‘conventional’ trio sonata, and it performs more of a solo role, unlike in the trio sonata, where it is more a first among equals. At the same time, the bass instrument is used idiomatically instead of being relegated to a mere basso continuo. This contributed greatly to bolstering its role as a solo instrument, and it was given ever greater prominence as the second half of the 17th century progressed.

From the numerous Italian composers who wrote for this genre, for this album Mvsica Perdvta have selected the two who had the greatest influence on the establishment and development of chamber music: Girolamo Frescobaldi (1583–1643) and Dario Castello (1602–31). The first edition of Frescobaldi’s Canzoni da sonare a uno, due, tre e quattro, published in Rome in 1628 (and later republished in a slightly different version in Venice in 1634) sits chronologically between the two books of Castello’s Sonate concertate in stil moderno, published in Venice in 1621 and 1629 respectively. While Frescobaldi’s canzoni can be considered the culmination of a genre that was already in decline, Castello ushered in a form that, evolving through countless different variants, would for centuries remain the leading chamber music genre. Castello’s style is faithful to the promise of its title: it still sounds very ‘modern’ for its time, especially when – as in this album – it is paired with the oeuvre of Frescobaldi, the epitome of the instrumental canzona.

Completing the CD is a short work by Giovanni Girolamo Kapsberger (Venice, c.1580 – Rome, 1651), the only sonata that the composer known as the ‘Tedesco della tiorba’, or ‘German of the theorbo’, wrote for this ensemble, taken from Il primo libro di Sinfonie a quattro con il basso continuo (Rome 1615).The sonata à tre was one of the most typical instrumental forms of the Baroque era. While in its 'classical' form it calls for two treble instruments combined with a melodic bass instrument and basso continuo, it had several 'variants' in the ensemble, including the one for treble instrument, bass instrument and continuo, which was very popular. In this formation, to which a substantial number of composers (not only of the 17th century) dedicated an important number of compositions, the part of the treble instrument presents a more virtuosic and soloistic writing than that of the 'conventional' trio sonata. At the same time, the bass instrument, not reduced to the sole function of basso continuo, is treated as an equal melodic counterpart.

This new recording presents the two composers who most influenced the birth and development of instrumental 'chamber' music, namely Girolamo Frescobaldi (1583-1643) and Dario Castello (1602-1631). Whereas Frescobaldi represents the pinnacle of an older style, the works of Castello look forward and form the basis of the chamber music style of centuries to come. The soloist of this recording is David Brutti, playing the Cornetto, a hybrid instrument with the fingerholes of a woodwind and a brass-type mouthpiece. Renato Criscuolo plays the bass violin, and the organ or harpsichord is played by Nicola Lamon.

Pedro de Araújo (c. 1630-1707) is an important figure in Portuguese keyboard music of the late 17th century. His oeuvre consists of a total of 13 keyboard works, one of them with merely attributed authorship. These have come down to us through two manuscript sources in Portuguese collections: the Livro de obras de Orgaõ juntas pella coriosidade de Fr. Roque da Conceição, a source dated 1696, and the Livro de Obras de Órgão, a source compiled in the 17th and 18th centuries and originating in the Bouro Monastery (Braga). De Araújo’s output covers the genres that were in vogue in his day on the Iberian Peninsula (e.g. Batalha, Tento, Meio Registo, Fantasia) and which constituted the traditional repertoire of Iberian keyboard players in the service of ecclesiastical institutions.
The Batalha do 6º Tom and the [Susana] do 2º Tom hark back to the 16th century tradition of intabulating existing vocal works, the former based on the chanson ‘La Guerre’ by Clement Janequin, the latter on ‘Susane un jour’ by Orlando di Lasso, a famous vocal work throughout Europe and the target of many other composers’ intabulations.
The Phantasias, Obras and Tentos fall within the stylistic sphere of the tento (Spanish: tiento), an Iberian genre characterised by contrapuntal writing and multiple contrasting sections. In them De Araújo displays his mastery at weaving contrapuntal lines and varying the thematic material. The Consonâncias de 1º Tom corresponds stylistically to a tento de falsas (Sp.: tiento de falsas / It.: durezze e ligature), with the work developing in a succession of dissonances. The Passo solto de 7º Tom is a work entirely in triple meter with a succession of iambic rhythms reminiscent of the vilancico style.

Born in 1949, Fabio Vacchi stands among the pre-eminent Italian composers of his generation. Working primarily in the operatic field, he has had pieces staged at the Teatro alla Scala and by the Opéra Comique in Paris, the Opera de Lyon, the Maggio Musicale in Florence and the Teato Comunale in his home city of Bologna. Vacchi’s instrumental pieces have attracted similar high-profile performances. His chamber cycle Luoghi Immaginari (1987-1992), has been given across the world, including at the Salzburg Mozarteum conducted by Daniel Harding. Other pieces were commissioned by Claudio Abbado and by the Tokyo Quartet.

The most substantial piece on this new collection of his chamber pieces was commissioned by the Swedish guitarist Magnus Andersson and first performed by him in 1997 as a guitar concerto; this Quintetto Notturno Concertante dates from 2012 and is a masterful condensation of the complexities of the original, rich instrumental texture, while preserving its fleeing moods and subtly shifting changes of harmony. At the other end of this collection, Livia Rado sings Flow my Dowland, a rapturous transformation of five songs by the Elizabethan lutenist, in which the original vocal part is richly embroidered by Vacchi’s own modern reimagination of the accompanying part, scored for a small ensemble of winds, strings, vibraphone and harp, to melting and magical effect. In between come a pair of solo works, though in fact Plynn quotes Britten’s Nocturnal after John Dowland as a study of harmonics on the guitar, evoking its most dreamlike and insubstantial timbres. The earliest piece here is a Suite for flute and guitar, dating from 1971. Here, the 22-year-old Vacchi is at his most experimental in terms of both form and harmony, employing extraneous elements such as pen and paper and sending both instruments to the extremes of their register, though always with an intrinsically idiomatic sympathy. Any listener with an ear for the Italian postwar avant-garde will find this newly recorded album full of delight and discovery.

Over the course of more than half a century, Wolfgang Rübsam has consistently brought new insights to bear on the keyboard music of Bach, firstly in sets of the canonic organ music for Philips, then the same for Naxos. In the last few years, his musicianship and understanding of Bach enriched by those decades of experience, he has turned to the harpsichord/piano repertoire for Brilliant Classics. A series of critically acclaimed albums has shed new light on The Well-Tempered Clavier, the Goldberg Variations, the Partitas and Toccatas with Rübsam’s performance of them on a lautenwerk – a ‘lute-harpsichord’ with a distinctive chime and colour which Bach himself would have been familiar with. Rübsam now returns to the organ, with new transcriptions and recordings of two Orchestral Suites and Chaconne from the D minor Partita for solo violin. While the Chaconne has attracted transcribers and arrangers ever since the 19th century, drawn magnetically to its evolving variations on a ground bass which accumulate an emotional power unusual even for Bach, the Orchestral Suites are much less often encountered outside their original garb. Yet we can be sure that Bach himself would have embraced Rübsam’s idea with enthusiasm. The Suites themselves are compilations of dances, probably not all originally designed for their eventual destination as high-class entertainment music for the concert series at Café Zimmermann in Leipzig, and Bach repurposed some of their movements as sinfonias and even choruses for his church cantatas. As in his fairly free transcription of the Chaconne, Rübsam has made full use of the instrument at his disposal, a magnificent Casavant instrument (1998) at the Church of St. Louis, in St. Paul, Minnesota. The booklet includes a full disposition for the organ as well as an essay introducing both the works and Rübsam’s uniquely imaginative approach to them. ‘If the sound of the lute-harpsichord highlights Bach’s debt to French lute music, especially in the First Prelude, the instrument clarifies that homage while Rübsam’s interpretation transcends it.’ (Fanfare, November 2018, The Well-Tempered Clavier, 96750)