Homage in music can express different things: gratitude towards a benefactor, a more personal greeting to a friend or acquaintance, recognition of a colleague's talent, or a testament raised in memory of a teacher or other departed dear one. Paying homage to a late musician with a Tombeau was already an ancient tradition in the time of Marin Marais. Initially, tombeaux were instrumental transcriptions of middle-age and Renaissance vocal lamentations, and were developed around the middle of the 17th-century for the lute, then for the harpsichord by Louis Couperin and Jean-Henri d'Anglebert, and finally for the viola da gamba by Sainte-Colombe. The Tombeaux of Marin Marais are amongst the most original and expressive of those written for the viol, while the last examples of this tradition are the Tombeau pour Marais le Cadet, by Marin Marais (1725) and the Tombeau de Marais le Père, by Charles Dollé (1737). A programme full of worship, grandeur and sadness.

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

Berlin's libraries contain innumerable historic manuscripts. Studying the 18th century archives, one can't fail to notice the profusion of highly virtuosic works for the viola da gamba. How did such an accumulation of compositions arise for an instrument that — in other parts of Europe at that time — was already long past its zenith of success? Both Frederick the Great (1712-1786) and his successor Frederick William II (1744-1797) were great musical benefactors. Almost every important late-18th -century viola da gamba virtuoso came to play at the Berlin court during their reign. The greatest virtuoso of the time didn't have to be summoned, because he was already engaged at the court: Ludwig Christian Hesse (1716-1772). The presence of this great virtuoso led to the creation of many works for viola da gamba at the Berlin court, generally technically very demanding and idiomatically written, which are directly linked to Hesse.

MUSICKE & MIRTH was founded in 1997 by Jane Achtman and Irene Klein in Basel. The ensemble's name is taken from the title of a piece by Tobias Hume which inspired the two musicians to investigate the exciting repertoire for two or more viols. Its main concern is the rediscovery of less known works, their programs ranging from the first music prints from Nuremburg around 1440, through the English lyra viol music of the 17th century, up to the galant style of the Berlin School.

They perform on period instruments (or their copies) and from original scores, paying great attention to historical performance practice. The combination of authenticity and virtuosity paired with a unique performing flair has made the ensemble successful both in concert halls and at competitions. Musicke & Mirth won third prize in the American Dorian/EMA Recording Competition in 1997, second prize in the Premio Bonporti in Rovereto, Italy in 1998, and second prize at the Van Wassenaer Competion in The Hague in 2000.

Since its formation the ensemble has developed various programs in different combinations, travelling throughout Europe. In 2005 it played at the Festival Concentus Moraviae in the Czech Republic and in 2007 was invited to perform for the WDR3 Funkhauskonzerte in Cologne. The ensemble often participates as a duo in large productions, such as an opera version of Johann Sebastian Bach's Actus Tragicus with the conductor Michael Hofstetter, which was performed in Basel in 2000/01 and in Stuttgart 2006/07 and 2007/08. In 2006, Musicke & Mirth accompanied the Collegium Vocale Gent for a European tour of Dietrich Buxtehude's Membra Jesu Nostri.

Irene Klein and Jane Achtman, viola da gamba
Rebeka Rusó, violoncello
Barbara Maria Willi, fortepiano and harpsichord

Includes work(s) by Anton Eberl. Ensemble: Van Bruggen-Van Hengel-Veenhoff Trio.

DIVISION-MUSICK • Musicke & Mirth • RAMÉE 1204 (64:46)


Music by JENKINS, LAWES, SIMPSON, BALTZAR, BANISTER, ECCLES


Division-musick refers to the improvisatory playing style that musical theorists of the European Renaissance called diminution: put simply, dividing note lengths. It was observed that doing this increased the apparent energy of a passage, displayed one’s technical agility, and provided an opportunity to exhibit one’s creative and appropriate use of ornamentation. The composers of Elizabeth’s day may have turned to their own native folk traditions, or been spurred to do so upon the example of the Italians, whose ballo gave rise to the masque. Whatever the reason, diminution was employed to excellent effect by a host of composers writing for keyboard instruments and various consorts.


This release concentrates on viol works from the troubled reign of Charles I, when the instrument was experiencing its last days of great popularity. Jenkins’s three charming lyra consorts are typically English in the conservative cut of their stylistic cloth. Instead of offering a succession of distinctly different dances as those suspicious foreigners do on the Continent, each consort/suite follows an earlier practice of presenting a succession of dances that are actually variations on the same theme, in the same key. Division appears sparingly, but to good effect, as in the Almaine of the Lyra Consort in D Major, and the Saraband of the second of two consorts in D Minor.


The three Divisions for Two Viols by Christopher Simpson included on this disc are spirited works. The distinctive ostinato bass line of each suggests folk origins, but gives away the sophistication of its composer in the subtle weave of its textures and complexity of its divisions. (The later pages of No. 7 in G Major reverse the progress of energy derived from diminution, obtaining an attractive effect through augmentation.) As for Simpson himself, after a military career on the royalist side, he taught viol. His The Division-violist, or An Introduction to the Playing upon a Ground was published in 1659, and derived from lessons prepared and given to John Bolles, son of his patron and friend Robert Bolles, Baronet of Scampton. Jenkins and Locke were among those who contributed laudatory verses to it. It was extremely popular, and went through two editions during his lifetime.


Lawes’s three-movement suite offers a pavan and two aires. The former makes use of that delightful artifact, the English cadence, while the latter pair might as well be a set of division variations on a single theme, split in half. The level of difficulty suggests a high degree of professional competence, but then Lawes was a composer who wrote secular and sacred music for the court of Charles I, and often performed it for the monarch with others of equal skill. Some of the curious angularity and “wrong note” effects found in his consort music can be heard briefly in these pieces as well.


A Division on a Ground by Mr. John Eccles is credited by its original publisher in 1705, John Walsh, to John Eccles, but the liner notes suggest the style is closer to that of the second half of the 17th century, and put forward Solomon Eccles as a possible composer. But Solomon was only 20 years older than John, and the author of the notes may not be familiar with the John Eccles’s The Judgment of Paris , and its song “Let Ambition Fire Thy Mind,” which follows identical melodic-harmonic procedures to this division. This could almost amount to a separate draft on the same theme.


The four-person ensemble Musicke & Mirth features two gambists (Jane Achtman, Irene Klein), a violinist (Amandine Beyer), and a keyboardist (Johannes Strobl). All are well known in early-music circles, and I’ve reviewed one of Beyer’s previous CDs, False Consequences of Melancholy: Ayres for the Violin (Zig-Zag 090802) very positively in these pages. They’ve chosen their music wisely for its mix of different textures, tempos, expressiveness, and complexity. The performances are reasonably varied in their pacing, without ever producing any sense of scrambling during some of the mercurial divisions Lawes invokes. Vibrato is used lightly for coloring, but the string players’ straight tone never suffers from any anemia. There’s a real sense of mutual engagement here in music-making as something that’s fun to listen to—and I’ll bet, fun to perform as well, at least for those with the technical competence to do so. Above all, Musicke & Mirth remembers that division was all about putting on a show. This they do, while remaining stylistically true to the instruction manuals of the time.


The miking is close enough to catch the full tonal resources of all instruments in good balance, and the ambiance strikes just the right median between dry and self-conscientiously reverberant. It would be easy to close one’s eyes and imagine this ensemble performing 15 feet away, in a relatively small but live space—and it’s a concert I’d gladly attend. Definitely recommended.


FANFARE: Barry Brenesal

Almost all of the works published during Bach's lifetime have been preserved, and the majority of his religious compositions survive in manuscript form. It is the instrumental work – both chamber and orchestral music – that has suffered greater damage and loss. This can partly be explained by the comparatively little trouble taken with this music soon after Bach's death in 1750: his son Carl Philipp Emanuel reorganised the surviving autograph manuscripts, and bundled the instrumental works together in the a category containing a quantity of other instrumental pieces, of various types, and for various instruments. The fact that reestablishment of the original musical text has mostly had to rely on secondary sources (often copies made by Bach's pupils) inevitably brings the authenticity of the works into question. Without using the term »plagiarism« – the concept of »author's rights« was entirely foreign at that time, and the practice of reusing other composers' musical material without mention of its provenance common during the Baroque. The relatively recent »rediscovery« of Vivaldi showed that Bach transcribed a number of the Italian's works, turning them into concertos for harpsichord or organ. Well-founded inquiry has led some musicologists to question authorship even of the celebrated Toccata and Fugue in D minor... Beyond the problem of the autograph manuscripts, there is another aspect of the German master's chamber music that complicates our understanding of his original intentions: the numerous cases of the same work appearing in several different versions, the result of the frequent reuse of material and its adaptation to varying circumstances throughout Bach's career. In this case, the first of the three sonatas for viola da gamba and obbligato harpsichord also exists in a version for traverso, violin and continuo (BWV 1039); the second also appears for violin and continuo (the manuscript is kept in the Berlin Staatsbibliothek, Mus MS Bach P 532); and the third sonata could have served as a draft for the third Brandenburg concerto. The trio sonata BWV 1038 for flute, violin and continuo shares its bass-line with the sonatas for violin BWV 1021 and 1022, and the sinfonia from the cantata BWV 76 for oboe d'amore, viola da gamba and continuo would be adapted some ten years later, becoming the first movement of the fourth organ sonata BWV 528. The musicological problems of attribution and authenticity – without disputing the quality of the composition – paradoxically allows much room for manoeuvre when interpreting Bach's chamber music. Musicians in the 21st century have the opportunity to attempt a reconstruction of the original versions of certain pieces of which only copies or arrangements have survived. Moreover, they can exercise a certain freedom, and use their own judgment when arriving at an instrumentation. This is the notion that the members of L'Armonia Sonora have endeavoured to convey in this recording: the instrumentation of virtually every piece has been reconsidered, with the aim of achieving a unity of approach, but without changing any of Bach's musical text, or claiming that theirs is necessarily the best choice.

MIENEKE VAN DER VELDEN studied with Wieland Kuijken in The Hague and completed her studies in 1988 with the Performer's Diploma. She is one of Northern Europe's most sought-after gambists, and, in conjunction with a wide-ranging career in chamber music, appears regularly as a soloist with various well-known orchestras including the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra (Ton Koopman), Concerto Vocale (René Jacobs), Collegium Vocale (Philippe Herreweghe), Netherlands Bach Society, and Cantus Cölln (Konrad Junghänel). In her solo recitals she collaborates with Glen Wilson (harpsichord) and Fred Jacobs (theorbo). She has been engaged by the Dutch Early Music Network, Het Grachtenfestival, the Bach Festival, the Utrecht Early Music Festival and the Festival of Flanders as well as by many other concert organisations throughout Europe. Her repertoire extends from French solo repertoire (Marais, Forqueray, Couperin), solo arias from the St. Matthew and St. John's Passions, and other cantatas by J. S. Bach, viola da gamba sonatas and violoncello solo suites by J. S. Bach, and 17th-century English repertoire including lyra-viol music, to contemporary pieces by Robert Heppener and others.

L'ARMONIA SONORA was founded by Mieneke van der Velden several years ago in order to perform cantatas with a variety of vocal soloists. The ensemble consists entirely of musicians recognised within the early music world both in the Netherlands and internationally, and who teach at various Dutch and international conservatoria. The make-up of the ensemble often answers the performance needs of a particular cantata – or even a specific aria – and the programming flexibility thus offered allows for some very varied concerts. In this way, the ensemble can consist of a continuo group only, or be extended by the addition of strings and winds. L'Armonia Sonora works with many well-known soloists, such as bass Peter Kooij, counter-tenor Derek-Lee Ragin and counter-tenor Robin Blaze. In 2006 the ensemble recorded its debut-CD De profundis clamavi with Peter Kooij, receiving an overwhelmingly positive critical reception (5 Diapasons, BBC Music Choice).

François Fernandez, Violin
Ricardo Rodriguez Miranda, Viola da gamba
Leo van Doeselaar, Organ
Siebe Henstra, Harpsichord

BACH Motets • Peter Kooij (cond); Sette Voci • RAMÉE RAM 0906 (70:23 Text and Translation)


Since the motets are the only works by Bach that remained continuously in use after his death, one would think that we should know how to perform them. Yet the thinking on so basic an issue as accompaniment has turned completely around. A cappella singing was the norm probably for two centuries, but it is now commonly thought that instruments were used in Bach’s time. By the same token, the motets have been an integral part of the choral tradition for just as long, but there is now an increasing sentiment in favor of solistic performances. One-to-a-part recordings of Bach’s motets are still relatively few, but who can doubt that the number will increase?


Peter Kooij, familiar to listeners as the favored bass soloist of both Philippe Herreweghe and Maasaki Suzuki, hereby casts his lot with the minimalists. Four of the extant motets were written for double chorus, so eight singers are required. His vocal ensemble, Sette Voci, is a veritable United Nations of talent and excellence. Kooij (who does not sing here) presents a very modern, spare Bach, sung with a minimum of vibrato and extraordinary precision. The results are more intense than sentimental, but do not suffer from lack of feeling. The singers are discretely supported by dual organs and a continuo bass player.


Added to the six canonical motets is Ich lasse dich nicht , now, according to Ramée’s notes, confirmed to be the work of Sebastian Bach, not of his cousin Johann Christoph, a common attribution. It’s a fine work, considerably shorter than the other motets, whose attribution has undergone as many changes as the preferred practice of performing the motets.


Kooij’s one-to-a-part performance joins versions by the Hilliard Ensemble (ECM) and Cantus Cölln (DHM). Hilliard, unaccompanied, except for the organ continuo of BWV 230, sounds a bit anemic. Cantus Cölln, directed by Konrad Junghänel and robustly accompanied by an ensemble of 10 instruments, is a better option. Kooij strikes a happy medium, and of the three gets my nod.


Nevertheless, I’m inclined to favor the choral versions by Marlowe, Kuijken, and Herreweghe. Add Bo Holten’s recent entry to the list. Holten, incidentally, a believer in the Rifkin doctrine, chose to record the motets with three singers to a part. His justification, if I may be so bold as to summarize it, is that they sound better that way.


FANFARE: George Chien

For which instrument Bach actually wrote his six suites for unaccompanied violoncello? Pictures, writings, and surviving instruments show that early violoncellos were made in different sizes, ranging from the size of a large viola to the modern full-sized violoncello. The modern cello is ordinarily held between the legs like a bass viol. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries this was not the only possible hold, especially not for small instruments. Bach possessed several violoncello piccolos with both four and five strings. These were made by Johann Christian Hoffmann, a contemporary of Bach in Leipzig. Historical evidence suggests that the appropriate type of violoncello for Bach's suites is that made by Hoffmann, and that, when played on the arm ('da spalla') like a violin, the number of unavoidable shifts is no more than average for baroque music. A violin or viola player can rapidly become accustomed to the fingering, which is almost identical to that of the violin. While not a single source mentions that Bach played the violone or viola da gamba, he is known to have been a capable violinist and viola-player. We can suppose that Bach himself had been the first player of these two great cycles of solo compositions. The present recording suggests a fascinating and convincing interpretation of the Six Cello Suites on violoncello da spalla by Dmitry Badiarov, one of the leading figures in the reconstruction of this instrument, and one of its most promising players.

During the second half of the 18th century, new potential sources of income made it possible for musicians to disengage themselves from the grip of their traditional employers, and attain the level of respectable citizen. Anton Eberl is a perfect example of a composer affected by the changes occurring during the last decades of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th, especially in Vienna. He clearly illustrates the range of services a musician had to develop in order to ensure an independent livelihood, the changes the musical world imposed on the image of musicians, and the effect of these influences on the production of music itself - as much on musical form and instrument choice as on the inexorable evolution of composition towards a romanticism of which Eberl can be seen as a true pioneer.

Classical Music

Most likely belonging to the fourth generation of Flemish polyphonists — that of such musicians as Adrian Willaert, Nicolas Gombert, Clemens non Papa and Cipriano de Rore — Josquin (or Johannes?) Baston was one of the many mysterious figures in sixteenth-century music history. Nothing is known about when and where he was born or died, and much uncertainty exists even about his first name. Many of his compositions appeared in printed anthologies alongside those of some of the most important musicians of the first half of the sixteenth century, such as Josquin Desprez and Orlande de Lassus. For the famous printers Tielman Susato and Pierre Phalèse to have included Baston’s works among those of such luminaries of Flemish Renaissance polyphony, they must have considered him to be an excellent composer. Whether Josquin Baston stayed in his native area, or whether he was the same person as the Joannes Baston who was active in Vienna, Poland, and Scandinavia, will remain an open question. This recording of chansons and motets by Josquin Baston explores the fascinating world of the mid-sixteenth-century Flemish style through the output of a very important though largely forgotten composer.

An Evening at the Theatre is a reconstruction of the musical part of a masque as it might have been performed in a London theatre around 1685. The English masque, inspired in part by the commedia dell'arte and French ballet, was a courtly entertainment combining instrumental music, dance, theatre, song and pantomime; it enjoyed its greatest popularity between 1560 and 1640, during the reigns of Elizabeth I and Charles I. English art music, John Playford’s country dances and Scottish folk music had their place in the same musical event. The antemasque, a ‘Spectacle of Strangeness’, where grotesque costumes and exaggerated gestures by professional actors were used to embody witches, furies and exotic animals, was played in the midst of the performance. Our program bears the traces of this courtly musical heritage but is set in a later period during which musical styles were in transition.

Johann Sebastian Bach was certainly familiar with the Pantaleon – a large hammered dulcimer with a wide range and full chromatic scale. Bach’s contemporary Pantaleon Hebenstreit had developed the instrument, through which he gained international renown and became one of the best-paid Dresden court musicians. The instrument enjoyed great popularity in the 18th century and was an important precursor of the fortepiano, its younger brother. Bach may have heard Hebenstreit with his Pantaleon himself, as he knew several court musicians of the Dresden orchestra personally and also performed with some of them. While we cannot know if they had met in reality, our imagination has nonetheless been much exercised. What would Bach have put on his famous colleague's music stand? Very little music written for the Pantaleon has survived, although the instrument’s use in the court orchestras of Vienna and Dresden suggests that works for the harpsichord and for the violin in particular could have served for arrangements and improvisations. It is hard to imagine that Bach would have objected to a virtuoso like Hebenstreit adapting his violin sonatas for the Pantaleon.

Andreas Pevernage (1542/3–1591) is best remembered today as the choirmaster of Antwerp Cathedral and as the composer of several picture motets that are now classified as masterpieces of Flemish culture. Whilst Pevernage spent his entire professional career in Flanders, which may well have contributed to his music being less well known today, he was nonetheless considered as the equal of Orlandus Lassus, Clemens non Papa and Giaches de Wert during his lifetime: the quality of his music is in no wise inferior to the works of his more famous contemporaries. Pevernage adopted the innovations of the Italian madrigal and also breathed new life into the chansons of the Low Countries. This selection of works, mostly for five parts, is an invitation to discover his stylistic and creative diversity.

Medieval interest in animals and mythical creatures was not limited to the visual arts and literature. At the same time that bestiaries – manuscripts depicting animals and mythical creatures – were being compiled, composers were producing innumerable pieces that describe these same beasts from a musical point of view. “Song of Beasts” combines medieval iconography with texts and music, immersing a modern audience in this fascinating world of verbal, visual and aural imagery. Ensemble Dragma paints a multifaceted, moving and in depth portrait of the bestiaries, giving a glimpse of a long lost medieval mindset. Various mythical and real animals are introduced, including the panther, the viper, the phoenix and the basilisk. These pieces by both renowned and less well-known composers are musical jewels, combining artful poetry with engaging melodies.