Classical Music

TOUCHEMOULIN Concertos: for Violin; for Harpsichord; for Flute. Symphonies: in G, op. 1/2; in F, op. 1/5 • Daniel Sepec (vn); Alexis Kossenko (fl); Patrick Ayrton (hpsd); Les Inventions (period instruments) • RAMÉE RAM 0807 (68:34)


Our fixation on genius can obscure many whose gifts, though manifold, did not measure up to those held by Mozart, Mendelssohn, and the like. Among those was a man by the name of Joseph Touchemoulin (1727–1801). Some of the critical information regarding Touchemoulin is missing, e.g., regarding his early musical training and what or who was responsible for his move to Germany. But snapshots of the life and career of this older contemporary of Haydn are provided by documents in places as diverse as the University of California at Berkeley and the Benedictine convent of Sarnen in Switzerland.


We find interesting personal correspondence with his family in France and we uncover fascinating tidbits as well, to wit: While Touchemoulin was employed at the court of Thurn und Taxis he was acquainted with and on occasion worked with Emanuel Schikaneder, the director of the city theater. It was he who would later create the role of Papageno in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte . We also learn that a Johann Friedrich Peter, a Moravian immigrating to North Carolina, took with him—among other things—a symphony of Touchemoulin as well as music of Mozart and Haydn.


Composers such as Touchemoulin acquired their skills through instruction, hard work, and self-discipline. His apprenticeship, if you will, was in Padua where he was taken under the wing of the great violinist Giuseppe Tartini. In spite of privation Touchemoulin remained loyal to his art, toiling assiduously, and rendering inexorable service to those who favored him with their patronage. Edison’s aphorism about the disproportionate percentages of perspiration and inspiration apparently paid off for Touchemoulin, as a number of his symphonies were performed to great acclaim at the Concert Spirituel in Paris in 1754, and they were published a few years later by Huberty with a dedication to Madame Cousineau. The symphonies are lightly scored, calling for strings with a pair of horns ad libitum . As for the concertos, those for violin and harpsichord include horns (the latter adds a pair of flutes as well), and the flute concerto employs strings only.


One doesn’t have to listen to this music for any length of time to determine that Touchemoulin was no genius, but he did succeed in composing charming and well-crafted music that speaks directly to the listener. There is not as much as a scintilla of pretense, nor is there any sophistry. The music hints at the younger members of the Bach family, with the galant and Empfindsamkeit almost constantly on display. The flute concerto was previously available on vinyl in a recording by Maxence Larrieu, but as far as the other works are concerned, they are world premieres.


Les Inventions is another of those small period-instrument bands with a string section that numbers 5-4-3-2-1 plus the requisite winds when and where appropriate. Its playing is crisp and cleanly articulated with excellent intonation, sprightly tempos, tight ensemble, and an aural spectrum that is quite good as well.


If you’re looking for another Mozart, then pass this one by. But if you’re looking for something different, interesting, and occasionally stimulating, then I suggest this Ramée release, as on those points it certainly won’t disappoint.


FANFARE: Michael Carter

Classical Music

Includes work(s) by Johann Christoph Pez. Ensemble: Les Muffatti. Conductor: Peter Van Heyghen.

Johann Christoph Pepusch's Venus and Adonis premiered at London's Theatre Royal in 1715. Inspired by the operas of composers like Giovanni Battista Bononcini and Alessandro Scarlatti, it was the most substantial effort of the period to "reconcile Musick to the English Tongue." These works bristle with Italian virtuosity and dynamism and unlike most dramatic music of the time, Venus and Adonis makes ample use of dramatic recitative. A clar model for Handel's later works.

No eighteenth-century composer was so adept at so many musical styles as Georg Philipp Telemann. Telemann's versatility and inventiveness kept his musical style avant-garde during his entire life. He was not only praised by his contemporaries but was highly respected by the next generation: his fame was immense. Therefore New Collegium, one of the promising ensembles of the younger generation, has chosen for their first album on the Ramée label to show Telemann the chameleon, the breadth of his musical palette. Some of the pieces will undoubtedly sound familiar; others, such as the Italianate Trio for violin and cello obbligato, or the pastoral Trio for two violins in scordatura, will surely be delightful, new surprises for many. Coming in and out of disguise with Telemann’s chameleonic notes we often find ourselves wondering: is this truly music by just one composer, not six?

Classical Music

Includes work(s) for recorder by Robert Valentine. Ensemble: Mediolanum Ensemble. Soloist: Susanne Ambos.

Classical Music

A once-celebrated contemporary of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven, and a precursor of Schubert in the domain of the lied, Johann Franz Xaver Sterkel (1750–1817) is today almost unknown to the general public. Given the great success of his symphonies at the Concert Spirituel, he was probably the composer most frequently performed in Paris between 1777 and 1779. This famous and highly influental pianist and composer spent most of his working life at the court of Mainz, where his reputation attracted rising young talents like Beethoven and Weber, and wrote more than 700 works, including 400 German and Italian songs. On this new release, Els Biesemans and Meret Lüthi present a world premiere recording of some of his sonatas for fortepiano and violin, utterly disarming in their charm, inventiveness and refinement.

The present recording constitutes more than just a new version of the Vespers. It is the first recording of the Vespers in the alternative version proposed by the composer, without concertato instruments. It reveals the underlying matrix of the work we all know, the 'original version' to which Monteverdi added concertato instruments for use in large-scale performances. Respecting the structure of the Office of Vespers, Ludus Modalis has chosen to frame the psalms with the antiphons corresponding to a Marian ceremony. The interpretation proposed here is one influenced by the Renaissance tradition. It places the work in perspective in a musical world at the point of equilibrium between prima and seconda prattica, between the achievements of tradition and the contributions of modernity. Ludus Modalis is a professional ensemble of five to twelve singers formed around the tenor Bruno Boterf. The group focuses principally on polyphonic Renaissance and early Baroque repertoire, with incursions into contemporary music. Apart from the absence of a conductor in the standard sense, the ensemble's specificity and it's 'sound blend' are the fruits of thoroughgoing attention to the parameters of a cappella polyphony: the development of an intonation aimed towards achieving a clarity of harmonic intervals; the attention paid to the text on the basis of the declamation and historical pronunciation; and the richness of the sonority achieved through the use of a variety of vocal timbres and colors, as well as a subtle mix of female, male, and even children's voices.

Includes work(s) by various composers. Ensemble: La Morra.

Classical Music

It was in 1747 that Johann Sebastian Bach received an invitation from King Frederic II of Prussia. Bach travelled with Wilhelm Friedmann - his eldest son - to Potsdam, where Carl Philipp Emanuel, his second eldest son, was accompanist to the king's court. This was the famous visit during which Johann Sebastian improvised a ricercar or fugue in three voices on a theme supplied by the monarch and later led him to compose the Musical Offering. This recording presents sections of Bach's Musical Offering, including the Trio Sonata, side by side with Trios by both Wilhelm Friedemann and Carl Philip Emanuel. The intention was to shed light on the familial character of Bach's visit to Potsdam and Berlin in 1747 and it's musical consequences. The importance of this gathering between the three most famous members of the Bach family and the impact it had on their respective lives and careers cannot be overestimated. For Johann Sebastian himself, however, this was to be brief: he died three years later in 1750.

Although we know of at least five concertos J.S. Bach wrote for solo organ we have no surviving Bach organ concertos with orchestral accompaniment. Contrast this with the 200+ cantatas: of these, 18 feature organ obbligato, which Bach uses as a solo instrument in arias, choral sections and sinfonias. The most obviously conspicuous date to 1726. In May to November of that year, Bach composed six cantatas which assign a prominent solo role to the organ. Most of these are reworkings of movements of lost violin and oboe concertos written in Bach's time at Weimar and K�then. Why Bach wrote such a number of obbligato organ cantatas in such a short period remains unknown. One possible explanation may lie in Dresden, where Bach had given a concert on the new Silbermann organ in the Sophienkirche in 1725. Some scholars think that, in addition to other organ works, he also performed organ concertos, or at least a few earlier versions of the sinfonias, with obbligato organ and strings in order to show off the organ. From the cantatas mentioned above, along with the related violin and harpsichord concertos, it is perfectly possible to reconstruct a number of three-movement organ concertos of this type. By using this method, we hope to bring some of the music which Bach may have performed in Dresden in 1725 back to life on this release.

Alfonso Ferrabosco the Younger, viol player at the court of Elizabeth I and Charles I, was the most innovative and influential composer of viol consort music of his generation. Following the steps of his father, composer Alfonso Ferrabosco the Elder, he continued the specifically English "In Nomine" tradition for viol consort into the seventeenth century while adding his own special touch in the "In Nomine through all parts" in using the cantus firmus in all voices with various rhythms and transpositions. His greatest achievement was the development of an imitative counterpoint perfectly adapted to the viol. The particular character of Ferrabosco's music was determined by his love for architecture and symmetrical forms which were integrated in all possible ways into his Fantasies: flexible motives, augmentations and diminutions of themes and a clear harmonic structure. On this release, the Hathor Consort explores his works.

Classical Music

Marin Marais, the most outstanding composer for viola da gamba, was a master in writing Pieces de Caractere, in which he called upon the most diverse subjects for inspiration: La Desolee(The Desolate), La Guitare, Feste Champetre (Country Fair), and Le Tableau de l'Operation de la Taille(A Description of a Gallstone Operation).

Classical Music

Some of the greatest works ever composed were conceived for and inspired by keyboard instruments. Today, however, the splendor of the canonical works for keyboard instruments composed after 1600 — Bach’s Preludes and Fugues, Beethoven’s Sonatas and Chopin’s Nocturnes — tends to overshadow works composed earlier, despite there being a rich history of repertoire and a variety of instruments at that earlier time. Corina Marti here not only explores the earliest keyboard music to be composed in Europe but also provides a fascinating insight into a world of virtuoso players and the music composed for them, playing a selection of instruments that are hardly known today: a metal-stringed clavisimbalum (an early form of harpsichord), an upright gut-stringed claviciterium, two organetti (portative organs) of different sizes, and the church organ in Altenbruch in northern Germany with its array of original pipes that date from the fifteenth century.

Classical Music

Classical Music

When Johann Hermann Schein became Kantor at the church of Saint Thomas in Leipzig in 1616, he had, on the one hand, to satisfy the liturgical demands of his Lutheran parish and, on the other, compose music that was truly contemporary, sensible to the new style coming out of Italy. Schein exploited the new possibilities brought by the basso continuo, demonstrated his mastery of musical rhetoric and wrote extremely ambitious music of great expressive force. The instrumentation calls for instruments such as the cornet, trombone and dulcian, Schein drawing his musicians from the forces of the Stadtpfeiffer and Ratsmusiker, guilds of instrumentalists attached to the City of Leipzig since the 15th century. For this musical portrait of Schein, one of the greatest German composers of the 17th century and one of J. S. Bachs most talented predecessors, InAlto presents an itinerary to the sources of the German cantata and testimony to the extraordinary tradition of city musicians perpetuated over the centuries. In addition to Scheins music, this heritage is represented here by Johann Schelle, Gottfried Reiche and J. S. Bach.

The year 2021 marked the 500th anniversary of the birth of Philippe de Monte. This selection of madrigals, motets and chansons is a contribution to the restoration of his much-merited fame.

This well-known set of suites is rarely gone about by most harpsichordists because of it's distinctive virtuosity. It's popular title refers to only one manuscript-the one of J.C. Bach, who noted "fait pour les Anglois" on it. Dubreuil offers US his interpretation of these suites-an impressive reading of highest artistry.