GRANDIOSE

This new release from Chandos' early music label, Chaconne, focuses on Buxtehude's seven cantatas, collectively known as Membra Jesu nostri. These are among Buxtehude's best-known works, and perfectly exemplify the seventeenth-century preference for musical structures that are broadly symmetrical, but subtly varied in detail. Each of the seven cantatas has roughly the same shape: Biblical passages are set for the whole ensemble and enclose stanzas from the mediaeval poem Rhythmica oratio, which are set as arias for reduced vocal forces and interspersed with instrumental ritornelli.

Buxtehude's Membra Jesu nostri takes the form of a sequence of seven meditations on the crucified body of Jesus, beginning with the feet ('Ad pedes'), followed by the knees ('Ad genua'), the hands ('Ad manus'), the side ('Ad latus'), the breast ('Ad pectus'), the heart ('Ad cor'), and the face ('Ad faciem'). As such, the work is written from the perspective of a penitent kneeling at the foot of the cross and gradually extending his gaze upwards, meditating on each part of the body in turn. The keys chosen for the cantatas seem to have added symbolic meaning. As the gaze rises, they move from flats to sharps, from C minor to E minor, before finally returning to the opening key to produce a beautifully unified cycle. On this release the cantata cycle is complemented by Matthias Weckmann's Kommet her zu mir alle, a setting of the words from St Matthew's Gospel (11: 28 - 30), in which the composer gives the words of Jesus to a virtuoso bass singer with an impressive range of nearly two octaves, a part here performed by Peter Harvey, and provides him with an accompaniment of two violins, three bass viols, and continuo.

The works on this disc are performed by an excellent ensemble of early music specialists. As exclusive artists, The Purcell Quartet is today popularizing the cantatas of Buxtehude in concerts and recordings involving a fabulous quartet of soloists - Emma Kirkby,Michael Chance, Charles Daniels, and Peter Harvey - to which, for the occasion, the group is joined by the soprano Elin Monahan Thomas. The Quartet has also recorded a huge range of music exclusively for Chandos, including works by Purcell, Corelli, Lawes, Bach, Handel, Vivaldi, Weckmann, Buxtehude, Leclair, Schütz, Couperin, and Biber, to outstanding critical and public acclaim. The early music specialists Fretwork, the viol ensemble, also performs on this recording.

Classical Music

Named a 'Choice' recording by BBC Music Magazine upon release, this popular recording of seventeenth century vocal music features mezzo-soprano Catherine King and lutenist Jacob Heringman with tenor Charles Daniels. Originally released in 1999, 'Airs de cour' has been re-issued as part of Linn's ECHO series which offers a second chance to enjoy the best of the label's award-winning catalogue. The listener is transported to the French court in a program of courtly airs and solo lute pieces, the latter a suitable complement to the airs and the lost ideals of the courtly society they reflect. Both the self-indulgent texts of these songs and their suave and rhythmically evasive melodies, reflect a society rich in excess, intrigue and dissembling, all the more fascinating for being so distant, no less impressive for being so introverted. Well schooled in period performance, all the performers pay due attention to the authenticity of pronunciation and ornamentation for which scant records remain. 'O dieux je ne s�ais pas' is a rare example where an ornamented variant of the melody is included in the manuscript revealing a further level of riches in these songs. Catherine King is acknowledged as one of the most versatile mezzo-sopranos of her generation with an impressive breadth of repertoire. Jacob Heringman has established himself as one of the world's most respected and most innovative solo lute players. Catherine King and Jacob Heringman have made numerous appearances together in festivals throughout Europe, as well as broadcasting frequently for the BBC and for WDR in Cologne. Charles Daniels is an English tenor, particularly noted for his performances of baroque music. He is a frequent soloist with The King's Consort, and has made over 25 recordings with the ensemble.

Classical Music

This selection is a High Definition Compatible Digital (HDCD) recording.

Classical Music

BACH Trauer-Music, BWV 244a • Andrew Parrott, cond; Emily van Evera (sop); Clare Wilkinson (ms); Charles Daniels (ten); Tom Meglioranza (bar); Taverner Consort & Players • AVIE AV2241 (78:40 Text and Translation)


Anyone wishing to perform the funeral music for Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Cöthen, Bach’s onetime boss, comes up against a serious technical problem:There is no music for it, though the text survives. Doing something about such situations is the very stuff of much modern musicology. Consider the new movements for the music of Mahler, Elgar, Britten, even whole new music (in the style of or, perhaps, not: Manfred Tojahn’s for La clemenza di Tito or Luciano Berio’s for Turandot ). The arguments for this sort of thing are well worn but are still making the rounds: The composer did this sort of thing himself, the composer would have wanted this piece finished, it gives us a new view of this or that period, approach, style of the composer, and so on without any end in sight. Bach is an especial victim of this sort of carpentry, and BWV 244a is a tempting target, along with the St. Mark and St. Luke Passions.


When he compiled the Bach Werke-Verzeichnis in 1950, Wolfgang Schmieder noted that a good deal of Picander’s 1728 text fit certain numbers of the 1725 St. Matthew Passion (which is why it shares the same BWV number) and the 1727 Trauer-Ode (BWV 198). In what I assume will be the notes for this recording, Andrew Parrott makes clear what fits where, leaving only the problem of the recitatives, which he composed himself and about which he himself says “caveat emptor,” and the final organization of the whole, which he posits took place in four sections instead of what seems to be only two or three, and began the night before with the funeral itself, followed the next day with the memorial service. This necessitates a rearrangement of the libretto as printed, which he argues may not have represented exactly what happened.


To the question of why we need this reconstruction Parrott gives no direct answer, but, as the longest of the known remaining texts for which there is no music, it clearly constitutes a challenge. He also thinks it refreshing to encounter some of this music in a different context. It must be said, then, that Parrott meets this challenge with his customary energy and expertise.


This performance is made with the kind of disposition Parrott has used for decades, and argued forcefully for in The Essential Bach Choir (2001), mostly one-to-a-part, with the choruses doubled here. While this approach seems reasonable for the church cantatas, I think it entirely unlikely for the passions, the Trauer-Ode , and this piece, music that required the greatest possible effect, not least in the choruses. Interestingly, as with the Trauer-Ode and the secular cantatas, but not with the Passions, there are no chorales.


Let it be noted, then, that, within his musicological choices, Parrott has made a convincing job of this piece. The Taverner Consort plays with long-won expertise, and the soloists are uniformly good. The eight-member chorus just does not have enough gravity, and the sopranos tend to be a bit shrill in places. When it joins the tenor in two numbers, they are recorded distantly, though on their own quite close up, as is most of the recording. As near as I can tell, there is no other recording of an attempted reconstruction of this music. No matter; if one is needed, this one will do nicely.


FANFARE: Alan Swanson

Besides the fact that they both celebrate Augustus III, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, there is a close connection between the two works included on the eighth volume of Bach's secular cantatas. On October 2nd, 1734, the King and his family made a surprise visit to Leipzig, and in all haste a festive event was planned for three days later, in celebration of the anniversary of Augustus's ascension to the Polish throne. Bach was asked to provide the musical entertainment, and consequently had to put aside the work he was busy composing...namely BWV 206 ''Schleicht, spielende Wellen'', intended for a celebration of the King's birthday on October 7th! The new cantata, Preise dein Glucke, gesegnetes Sachsen, BWV 215, is a substantial work, and it is not surprising that Bach, with only a few days to produce it, had recourse to earlier compositions: the only parts that were written completely from scratch were the recitatives, the soprano aria and the final chorus.

In the meantime, BWV 206 - the birthday cantata that Bach had to put on hold - came to good use two years later, when the King's birthday was celebrated with a concert at Zimmermann's coffee house in Leipzig. Both works are richly scored with trumpets and timpani, and here receive suitably festive performances form Bach Collegium Japan and Masaaki Suzuki.

REVIEW:

Schleicht, spielende Wellen (‘Flow, playful waves and murmur’) follows the dramma per musica template of allegory – this time with four competing rivers yearning for the primacy of the monarch’s affections. However ludicrous, Bach constructs a very significant work which Suzuki treats as an undertaking of serious critical engagement. After 22 years of intensive Bach recording, Suzuki and his forces just seem to get better.

– Gramophone

Classical Music

One of JS Bach’s most famous and loved masterpieces with the Portland Baroque Orchestra conducted by Monica Huggett. The double-CD package includes full texts and translations. (Avie)

The English composer Edmund Rubbra described the string quartet as 'the purest and most lucid texture available to a composer', his essays in the form enlivened by Beethovenian vigour and song-like beauty.

State of the Art is not only singer Dee Daniel's debut leader date for Criss Cross, but the label's first-ever release by a vocalist after three decades and hundreds of recordings by Jazz' best and brightest. It's a worthy addition-the Seattle-born vocalist, who sang two numbers on Wycliffe Gordon's recent Criss Cross date the intimate Ellington, brings her richly textured multi-octave voice, instrumentally-flexible phrasing, and keen interpretative abilities to a program comprising 13 gems from various corners of the American Songbook. Enhancing the swinging, soulful, old-master flavor and 21st century feel are tenor saxophonist Eric Alexander, who contributes apropos testifying solos and obligatos throughout, and a synchronously grooving rhythm section with pianist Cyrus Chestnut, bassist Paul Beaudry, and drummer Alvester Garnett.

Off the heels of 2017's acclaimed release Just Friends - Live at the Village Vanguard from 1988, jazz clarinet icon Eddie Daniels has a new project paying tribute to the world-renowned Brazilian composer and multi-instrumentalist, Egberto Gismonti. Heart of Brazil features Daniels with the top-shelf trio of pianist Josh Nelson, bassist Kevin Axt and drummer Mauricio Zottarelli, plus the Grammy Award-winning Harlem Quartet. Includes new arrangements by Ted Nash, Kuno Schmidt and Josh Nelson.

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