ECCLES The Judgment of Paris & • Christian Curnyn (hpd, 1–3 cond); Roderick Williams ( Mercury ); Benjamin Hulett ( Paris ); Susan Bickley ( Juno, mez 3 ); Claire Booth ( Pallas Athena, sop 2 ); Lucy Crowe ( Venus, sop 1 ); Richard Sweeney (gtr, archlute); 1–3 Emilia Benjamin (b vl); 1–3 early op company • CHANDOS 759 (62:13 Text and Translation)


& Restless in Thought; 1 Love’s but the frailty of the Mind; 2 I Burn, I burn 3


The Judgment of Paris , the tale of the famed competition between three Olympian goddesses that led to the Trojan War, was itself the subject of a competition. In 1700, a group of English nobility offered up a libretto by the famous William Congreve for competitive setting. Four composers were selected from those who replied to this ad in the London Gazette:


Several Persons of Quality having, for the Encouragement of MUSICK Advanced 200 Guineas, to be distributed in 4 Prizes, the First of 100, the Second of 50, the Third of 30 and the Fourth of 20 Guineas, to such Masters as shall be adjudged to compose the best; this is therefore to give Notice, that those who intend to put in for the Prizes, are to repair to Jacob Tonson at Grays-Inn-Gate before Easter-Day next, where they may be further Informed.


All four completed works were presented on stage individually, in events that, according to Congreve, a social snob of the first water, were “crammed with beauties and beaux, not one scrub being admitted.” This was followed by all four Judgments being offered as a single evening’s entertainment, with subscribers choosing the order of winners. John Weldon, organist of New College, Oxford and a former pupil of Purcell’s, scored something of an upset victory, having little previous theatrical experience. Eccles, the favorite, musical director for the Lincoln’s Inn Fields company and one of the king’s 24 musicians-in-ordinary, came in second, ahead of Daniel Purcell, the late composer’s younger brother. Placing last was Gottfried Finger, a Moravian composer and viol-player who a few professional musicians felt made the best showing of all. According to Roger North, James II’s attorney general and an inveterate concertgoer, Finger complained, perhaps unreasonably, that he had hoped to be “judged by men, and not by boys.” Sadly, his Judgment of Paris is lost, though all three of the others have survived; they were presented in 1989 at Proms concerts, where Eccles was given the palm. I can’t speak to the versions of Weldon or Daniel Purcell, though a bundled recording of all three works would have made for some fine comparisons. In any case, the opera of Eccles is by no means easily dismissed. Choral pieces are handled with distinction. Melodies are usually unadorned, and not infrequently possess a popular cast. The work is technically assured, rhythmically varied, and theatrically alive.


The judgment section of the piece, following the exposition, supplies a good illustration of the composer’s gifts. In it, Eccles differentiates among the three goddesses who seek the golden apple from Paris, providing each with a distinctive ritornello and brief, introductory song. Juno receives a majestic march; Pallas Athena, a graceful chaconne, whose accented second beat seems to sweep all before it; Venus, a minor-key sarabande that utilizes two recorders and a flute in the melodic line to emphasize what the period perceived as femininity. (At least she comes off better than in Tannhäuser .) Congreve shrewdly leaves out all efforts at bribery up to this point, however, leading to confusion in the mind of Paris, and a second, intensified round of presentations by the deific trio. In the fey “Let Ambition fire thy Mind,” Juno delivers a darkly martial, minor-key piece. She promises to Paris the delights of ruling an empire without toil or care. (The concluding verse, given to the divided chorus, with the violins running semiquaver figures, is especially effective.) The theme itself proved catchy enough upon publication to survive as a popular solo fiddle tune of the day. Boswell wrote of his almost obsessive affection for it. Ironically, a friend of mine who was part-timing as a Celtic fiddler once asked me if I knew why an old piece he played was given the odd name of “Let Ambition fire thy Mind.” After that, “Hark, hark! the glorious Voice of War” seems a small step down in energy and character, though it grants Pallas the first appearance of trumpets in the opera, alla battaglia . Venus restores an edge to the competition with “Nature fram’d thee sure for Loving,” a haunting minor key tune whose sensuous intimacy proves Handel wasn’t the only one capable of musically ravishing an English Baroque audience.


The recording concludes with three “mad songs.” These were very popular on London stages at the time, involving a female singer whose unrequited or suddenly terminated love leads to insanity. This chaotic madness is then revealed in a series of rhetorically balanced and logically contoured poems. I confess to little love for the genre, as you might guess from my remarks, but these three of Eccles are at least pleasant, if unmemorable. I find the best of the lot to be “I burn, I burn, my Brain consumes to Ashes,” and that’s at least in part due to its performer, Susan Bickley. If this recording were to offer its own golden apple to one of its three female soloists for articulation, tone, and dramatic interpretation, she would win, hands down. Bickley is one of those mezzos who shade up to a soprano, and her upper range is bright and ringingly glorious in its sound. Claire Booth’s slightly dull tone is not always well supported, and though she enunciates well, I find her far too restrained in lines that brim over with ardor for and joy in war. Lucy Crowe’s sweet tone and refined phrasing makes her an excellent choice for Venus, though, and if she’s rushed a bit in the opera, there’s more expressiveness in her mad song, “Restless in Thought disturb’d in Mind.”


The rest of the cast is top notch. Benjamin Hulett displays an attractive lyric tenor voice, notable for its sensitive deployment of color in “O Ravishing Delight.” Baritone Roderick Williams does a particularly fine job with the phrasing of his only song, “Fear not, Mortal, none shall harm thee.” This is my first exposure to the early opera company, an ensemble of 22 performers; effectively 18, if you disregard the brief appearance of the four trumpets. They deploy two bass violins and a bass viol instead of cellos and double basses on this release, along with a lowered A pitch of 392 Hz. The resulting sound is mellow, if not dark, vitiated by a few rushed tempo choices, notably Venus’s second song. Balance between singers and orchestra is good, with excellent choices for continuo.


It’s great to have this major work by Eccles easily available on disc. Perhaps we can now get the other two extant versions of the opera, as well—or possibly his opera Semele , set to another text by Congreve. Regardless, there’s much to enjoy, here.


FANFARE: Barry Brenesal

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Eric Parkin's three CDs of Poulenc's piano music have been attractively repackaged and are available for the price of two, making them excellent value for money. Eric Parkin's interpretations of these works have been highly commended: his tasteful and sensitive performances bring out all the nuances of Poulenc's music. 'Parkin manages to charm through his ability to make the music sound effortless.' BBC Music Magazine 'Eric Parkin is an artist of instinctive taste and a refined musical intelligence who is completely inside this idiom: he has plenty of spirit and abundant sensitivity.' The Penguin Complete Guide 'Eric Parkin plays... with clarity, expressiveness, great sensitivity and complete fidelity to all tonal and rhythmic nuances in the text...' Gramophone Recorded in: All Saints' Church, Tooting, London 2 & 3 October 1986 (disc 1) Recorded in: St Jude on the Hill, Hampstead, London 24 & 25 November 1990 (disc 2) Recorded in: West Road Concert Hall, Cambridge 19-21 August 1996 (disc 3) Producer(s) Tim Handley (disc 1) Tim Oldham (disc 2) Mike George (disc 3) Sound Engineer(s) Ralph Couzens (disc 1) Trygg Tryggvason (disc 2) Ben Connellan (disc 3) Andrew Halifax (Assistant: disc 2)

Volume 2 of Chandos' enterprising Bridge edition makes a better overall impression than did Volume 1, though on the whole it has similar virtues and vices. First, let's say categorically that it's wonderful to have this music (especially the Dance Poem and Dance Rhapsody, which are both terrific pieces) readily available in what are basically very good performances. Richard Hickox elicits some beautiful playing from the orchestra (the opening chord of The Sea positively glows with inner light), but his casual approach to rhythm and accent robs the music of some of its vibrancy. For example, in The Sea he's a minute slower than Groves' classic EMI account in the first movement, though he whips up a satisfyingly stormy finale, and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales has greater polish (if perhaps less timbral character) than Groves' Liverpool band. Also, both "dance" works benefit from plenty of natural momentum that keeps them buoyant, which is more than can be said for the early tone poems included in this series' first release. Chandos' sonics, which are lovely but soft-edged, add to the overall smooth impression; more prominent percussion would have injected a welcome touch of extra energy. But these are not serious faults, and the music is so attractive that on this basis alone many will find this disc to be self-recommending. [11/1/2002]--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

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This is the second volume in the Doric String Quartet’s series devoted to Haydn’s String Quartets.

Op. 76 turned out to be the last full set of six string quartets that Haydn was to compose. While they were written over the period 1796-97, they were not published until 1799. They had been commissioned by Count Joseph Erdödy, and such arrangements often entailed, as in this case, a period of time during which the works were reserved for that person’s exclusive use and enjoyment.

The composition of Op. 76 coincided with Haydn’s work on Die Schöpfung and the first few of the six masses which Haydn wrote for the name day of Princess Maria Hermenegild Esterházy, and one can readily imagine that such compositional preoccupations rubbed off onto the composition of the quartets. However, that cannot be equated with a particular predominant ‘opus character’, a feature of some of Haydn’s previous sets. Rather – like Op. 20, also recently recorded by the Doric String Quartet – the quartets seem to be most remarkable for their sheer variety. If there is anything they take from works such as Die Schöpfung, it is sheer plurality of stylistic references, a sense of traversing an entire world of musical possibilities.

Learned and rustic elements, for instance, are given exceptionally vivid treatment, and there are also passages of the greatest intimacy and grandeur.

Cramer was a virtuoso pianist and composer of German origin who lived mostly in London. A pupil of Clementi and friend of Beethoven, he is best known for his piano studies. He founded the publishing company J.B. Cramer & Co. which still exists today. This is the only available recording of these works. Recorded in: St Silas The Martyr, Kentish Town, London 29 & 30 January 2002 Producer(s) Rachel Smith Sound Engineer(s) Jonathan Cooper Michael Common (Assistant)

Recorded in: The Warehouse, London 11-13 March 1996 (Sonatas Nos 1-4 & 6), 28 March 2000 (Sonatas Nos 5 & 7) Producer(s) Nicholas Anderson Sound Engineer(s) Ben Connellan

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FASCH Overture (Suite) in a, FWV K: a1. Concerti: in D, FWV L: D5; in G; FWV L: G13. Sinfonia in g , FWV M: g1 • Tempesta di Mare (period instruments) • CHANDOS CHAN 0783 (74:12)


Johann Friedrich Fasch (1688–1758), as my grandmother would have said, came by music honestly. He belonged to a respected and distinguished line of Lutheran theologians and cantors. Following early musical instruction in Suhl and Weissenfels, Fasch was recruited by Kuhnau for the Leipzig Thomasschule. While a student at the university in Leipzig, Fasch founded a collegium musicum that rivaled the prominence of the Thomasschule in Leipzig’s musical life. It was here that the young Fasch discovered the concertos of Vivaldi, a composer who exercised a profound influence on not only Fasch but many other composers of his generation, including Bach and Telemann.


To further his musical education, Fasch began a long journey, stopping in several European courts and cities. He eventually arrived in Darmstadt, where he studied with Christoph Graupner. Thereafter Fasch held several positions, reluctantly ending his trek in Zerbst in 1722, a position he held for 36 years until his death. That same year and following the death of his mentor Kuhnau, Fasch was invited to apply for Thomaskantor in Leipzig, but withdrew from the competition as did his friend Telemann. The post went to a man by the name of Johann Sebastian Bach, and the rest, as they say, is history.


Because of the prominence accorded Sebastian Bach in the 19th century, Fasch received little or no attention from musicologists. In the early years of the 20th century and based on his acquaintance with several of Fasch’s suites, Hugo Riemann declared Fasch to be one of the most important innovators in the transitional period between Bach and Haydn. Riemann noted that it was Fasch who “set instrumental music entirely on its feet and displaced fugal writing with modern ‘thematic’ style.” In the intervening years since Riemann’s bold statement, research has proven him correct, and the synthesis of Baroque and Classical elements allowed Fasch to create a new music language using traditional forms.


Fasch’s concertos—of which 64 survive—exhibit the evolution from Baroque to Classical. Most follow the Italian form, a fast-slow-fast sequence, but sometimes Fasch interrupts the proceedings in the ritornello with woodwind figurations that are unrelated to what is going one.


The suites—between 80 and 90 of these are still around in various locales—follow the traditional Lullian form, except that the fugues in the opening movements are occasionally interfered with by contrasting woodwind episodes. The airs, allegros, and andantes that follow, as well as other movements inserted between the dances, are equally “modern.”


This is the second disc of Fasch released by Chandos with Tempesta di Mare, the Philadelphia Baroque Orchestra. I reviewed the first in Fanfare 32: 1, noting that Tempesta “deliver(s) the goods with grace, energy, and elegance” in “performances that are fresh, vibrant, and spontaneous.” This release continues the tradition; it is full of vitality and elegance, not to mention a stylishness that is difficult to equal, let along surpass. The recordings are actual concert performances from 2010 and 2011 and are cloaked in the wonderful sonic aura of the Presbyterian Church, Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia.


Now a decade old, Tempesta is one of America’s great period-instrument bands. They are regular visitors to American Public Media’s Performance Today , heard nationwide on NPR, and both of their recordings should be a part of your collection.


FANFARE: Michael Carter

The work was never performed; its main characters have no singing parts; the music written for the original project was later reworked and reused in several other stage productions. So what exactly is the attraction of Handel’s incidental music for Alceste, a play by Tobias Smollett based on the tragedy by Euripides? First, we should know that the original production—what would have been an elaborate and costly affair, involving a host of performers, supported by a large orchestra and showy scenery—was abruptly cancelled before the opening. Various theories exist as to the reason, but suffice it to say, after the event Handel happily carved up his score to satisfy the needs of other productions, and Smollett’s play ultimately was lost. Which brings us back to the question: What’s the attraction here, with this reassembled program of (much of) Handel’s music for Alceste? For me, the answer is, the two gorgeous soprano arias sung by the Muse Calliope, “Gentle Morpheus, son of night; That when bright Aurora’s beams” and “Come, Fancy, empress of the brain”. But I have to add that although Handel graced these arias with some of his loveliest tunes, they are made extraordinary here by the singing of Lucy Crowe. And this is the true attraction of this program and this disc, which is not to discount the fine contributions of the rest of the cast and players.

It’s just that Crowe so completely embraces, embodies, and possesses her music, her voice so captivating, every phrase delivered with the natural, unmannered purity that comes with consummate technique and comprehensive textual understanding. For her, a climactic high note (as at the close of “Come fancy empress…”) is not an objective but a thing to savor in the context of the whole line, indeed of the whole song; and the reams of twirling runs are a means, albeit a free-spirited and fancy means, through the vibrant, verdant harmonic texture. Ah, but that high note—and also those many earlier passages of leaping intervals—are so perfectly sung, all the more affecting because they are so fleeting, uncatchable, and as a consequence, inevitably repeatable. And those signature Handelian runs—no one sings these with such ease, unencumbered as a bird in flight.

To be sure, there’s lots more to savor on this disc, including Christian Curnyn’s absolutely spot-on direction, keeping things moving with his superb orchestra at a theatrically cheerable pace, even without the actual “theatrical” bits of the original play to define the action (whatever it was). Who cares, when the music is this typically, engagingly Handelian? My only reservations are the usual ones in Handel’s vocal music: the tenor and bass, who both have very fine voices and an excellent sense of style, manage their melismatic passages via the “ha-ha-ha” school of vocalism—which is not only distracting (I would even say irritating), but technically faulty and musically unjustifiable. They are by no means serious offenders—but the mannerism is noticeable; however, for the pure pleasure of Crowe’s singing, these are distractions that you can easily overlook, or skip over. This is one not to miss.

-- David Vernier, ClassicsToday.com

Alceste was planned as a lavish collaboration between the impresario John Rich, the celebrated set-designer Servandoni and the rambunctious author of Roderick Random, Tobias Smollett, but it never made it to the stage. Notes by the librettist Thomas Morell hint that the play may have been cancelled owing to Handel’s incidental music being too difficult for the cast. However, it seems that Rich may simply have decided that an adaptation of a drama by Euripides was too risky a venture. This was, after all, a period in which the tastes of the London audience were as volatile as the explosives that had destroyed Servandoni’s Temple of Peace during the Green Park performance of Handel’s Music for the Royal Fireworks.

Christian Curnyn’s delicious recording of the surviving score is amplified with a sinfonia from Admeto and a passacaglia from Radamisto. These fizzy, sexily swung orchestral additions emphasise the parallels between Handel’s incidental music and Purcell’s music for King Arthur, The Fairy Queen and The Tempest.

Though Alceste was written in 1749-50 and features one aria that could only date from that time (the exquisite lullaby ‘Gentle Morpheus, son of night’), it observes the contours of a Restoration masque. Alcestis’s journey to the Underworld is enchanting, with Curnyn’s fleet strings, intimately proportioned chorus, and polished soloists, soprano Lucy Crowe, tenor Benjamin Hulett and bass-baritone Andrew Foster-Williams. The choral writing marries the pastoral delicacy of Handel’s Acis and Galatea with stylings from Purcell’s Odes to St Cecilia, showing Handel’s feel for local tastes, and Curnyn’s perceptive approach to Handel.
Performance: 5 (out of 5); Sound: 5 (out of 5)

-- Anna Picard, BBC Music Magazine

Recorded in: St Bartholemew's Church, Orford, Suffolk Recorded in: St Jude on the Hill, Hampstead, London (BWV 233 and BWV 236); 10 December 1997 (BWV 529), 7-9 July 1999 (BWV 233 and BWV 236) Producer(s) Martin Compton Sound Engineer(s) Anthony Howell (BWV 529) Ben Connellan (BWV 233 and BWV 236)

This is a Super Audio CD playable only on Super Audio CD players.

This is the eagerly awaited second volume of orchestral works by Pierné, played by the BBC Philharmonic under Juanjo Mena and featuring Jean-Efflam Bavouzet. The first volume, released five years ago, proved ‘a delectable aperitif’ (American Record Review).

More successful than his older rival Debussy in the early twentieth century, the composer Pierné deserves to be better known nowadays. This recording features some of his most virtuosic and yet mysterious pieces, which place him at the frontier between romantic (Liszt, Saint-Saëns, Franck) and impressionist (Ravel, Debussy) influences.

Jean-Efflam Bavouzet, who is often praised for his expressive power and fine technique, here takes on the challenge of bringing such mercurial inventions as the Fantaisie-Ballet or Poème Symphonique to much-deserved recognition.

Les Cathédrales and Paysages franciscains are later works (1915 and 1919, respectively), and while the former evokes scenes of devastation during WWI, the latter offers more airy and impressionist music, with obvious signs of ‘modern’ influences. - Chandos

Review quotes:

Beautifully rendered by Juanjo Mena and the BBC Philharmonic, while Jean-Efflam Bavouzet is not only a dazzling soloist in the three concertante works, but adds two solo-piano pieces, the Nocturne en Forme de Valse and a concert study, for good measure.

- The Guardian

Production values are the usual high Chandos standards ... Bavouzet puts as good a case for the concertante works as possible. He has demonstrated his significant talents across a remarkable range of eras and styles – from Haydn to Bartók – and here on home ground, he doesn’t put a foot wrong.

- MusicWeb International

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