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Blitzstein: Regina / Krachmalnick, Lewis, Carron, Brice, Hecht
Sony Masterworks · Jul 2010CD$24.99 -
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- Monteverdi: Il primo libro de madrigali, 1587
- Monteverdi: Il secondo libro de madrigali, 1590
- Monteverdi: Il terzo libro de madrigali, 1592
- Monteverdi: Il quarto libro de madrigali, 1603
- Monteverdi: Il quinto libro de madrigali, 1605
- Monteverdi: Il sesto libro de madrigali, 1614
- Monteverdi: Il settimo libro de madrigali, 1619 'Concerto'
- Monteverdi: Il ottavo libro de madrigali, 1638 'Madrigali guerrieri et amorosi'
- Monteverdi: Il nono libro de madrigali, 1651
- Monteverdi: O ciechi il tanto affaticar, SV 252
- Monteverdi: Voi ch'ascoltate
- Monteverdi: È questa vita un lampo
- Monteverdi: Spuntava il dì, SV 255
- Monteverdi: Chi vol che m’innamori
- Monteverdi: Confitebor tibi III alla francese, SV267
- Monteverdi: Gloria a 7, SV 258
- Monteverdi: Crucifixus, SV 259
- Monteverdi: Pianto della Madonna 'Iam moriar, mi fili' (sopra il Lamento dell'Arianna), SV 288
- Monteverdi: Et resurrexit, a quattro
- Monteverdi: Et iterum
- Monteverdi: Laudate Dominum in sancta Eius
- Monteverdi: Salve Regina, SV 285
- Monteverdi: Laudate Dominum
- Monteverdi: Beatus vir (from Selva Morale e Spirituali)
- Monteverdi: Sanctorum meritis (Primo)
- Monteverdi: Dixit [Dominus] Primo
- Monteverdi: Ab aeternum, SV 262
- Monteverdi: Confitebor tibi Domine, SV266
- Monteverdi: Memento Domine David
- Monteverdi: Laudate pueri Primo
- Monteverdi: Salve Regina, SV 284
- Monteverdi: Laudate Dominum omnes gentes II
- Monteverdi: Magnificat Primo
- Monteverdi: Gloria (1641)
- Monteverdi: Dixit Dominus secondo a8 SV 192
- Monteverdi: Deus tuorum militum sors et corona
- Monteverdi: Confitebor tibi, Domine
- Monteverdi: Iste confessor
- Monteverdi: Beatus vir (second setting)
- Monteverdi: Ut queant laxis, hymnus sancti Joannis
- Monteverdi: Laudate pueri (Secondo)
- Monteverdi: Deus tuorum militum sors et corona
- Monteverdi: Credidi propter quod locutus sum, SV 275
- Monteverdi: Jubilet a voce sola in dialogo
- Monteverdi: Magnificat (Secondo)
- Monteverdi: Salve Regina
- Monteverdi: Laudate Dominum
- Monteverdi: Canzonette
- Monteverdi: Vespro della beata Vergine (1610)
- Monteverdi: Cantate Domino
- Monteverdi: O beatae viae
- Monteverdi: Currite populi
- Monteverdi: Ego flos campi
- Monteverdi: Venite, venite
- Monteverdi: Christe, adoramus te
- Monteverdi: O quam pulchra es
- Monteverdi: Salve Regina
- Monteverdi: Fuge, anima mea
- Monteverdi: Sancta Maria
- Monteverdi: Domine, ne il furore
- Monteverdi: Ego dormio
- Monteverdi: Ecce sacrum paratum
- Monteverdi: Salve Regina
- Monteverdi: O bone Jesu, o piissime Jesu
- Monteverdi: En gratulemur hodie, SV 302
- Monteverdi: Laudate Dominum omnes gentes
- Monteverdi: Adoramus te, Christe
- Monteverdi: Messa a 4 voci da Cappella (1650)
- Monteverdi: Dixit [Dominus] Primo
- Monteverdi: Confitebor tibi, Domine
- Monteverdi: Nisi Dominus a 6, SV201
- Monteverdi: Laudate pueri
- Monteverdi: Laetatus sum
- Monteverdi: Lauda Jerusalem a 3, SV202
- Monteverdi: Beatus vir (from Selva Morale e Spirituali)
- Monteverdi: Magnificat Primo
- Monteverdi: Missa 'In illo tempore' (1610)
- Monteverdi: Dixit Dominus II
- Monteverdi: Confitebor tibi Domine II, SV194
- Monteverdi: Nisi Dominus a 6, SV201
- Monteverdi: Laudate Dominum, SV197a
- Monteverdi: Laetatus sum
- Monteverdi: Laetaniae della Beata Vergine a 6 voci
- Monteverdi: Lauda Jerusalem a 5, SV203
- Monteverdi: L'Orfeo
- Monteverdi: Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria
- Monteverdi: L'incoronazione di Poppea
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Grandi: Vulnerasti Cor Meum / Jacobs, Schola Cantorum Basel
Deutsche Harmonia Mundi · Jun 2008CD$17.99 -
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Dolente Partita - Madonna e Maddalena - Works by Monteverdi and his contemporaries
Coviello · Apr 2024CD$22.99 -
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Da Gesualdo a Piccinni - Neapolitan Harpsichord Music 1500-1700 / Porfido
Digressione Music · Nov 2022CD$37.99 -
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Vivaldi - Music For The Chapel Of The Pietá /Chandler, La Serenissima
Avie Records · Feb 2005CD$19.99 -
Blitzstein: Regina / Krachmalnick, Lewis, Carron, Brice, Hecht
Like so many musical works that originated on the Broadway stage, Regina exists in several different versions. Basing his score and libretto on Lillian Hellman’s familiar play The Little Foxes, composer— librettist Marc Blitzstein created a hothouse musical melodrama that eventually, after many changes, found a home in the opera house. But with its tuneful, easily accessible score, its dance, jazz and folk elements and its abundance of spoken dial ogue, Regina resists easy classification, occupying a middle ground between opera and musical theater.
Regina has been treated best by New York City Opera, where two successful revivals, using the original 1949 Broadway sets, took place during the 1950s. This classic recording was made during the second of these revivals, in 1958. Although the version of the score used here differs substantially from both the Broadway original and the more complete recording conducted by John Mauceri in 1992, this remains an uncommonly satisfying souvenir of a great, neglected American opera. Blitzstein was very much a man of the theater, and the vibrancy of this work and this performance leap out at the listener across six decades.
Dramatic soprano Brenda Lewis had created the key supporting role of Birdie when Regina had its premiere on Broadway in 1949; at City Opera she assumed the title role and made it her own. She wields her gutsy, multi-hued voice to stunning effect, and she stints not one bit on delivering this character’s full quotient of vileness. Frequently descending into nasty chest tones and leaping up into blazing high notes, she creates a vocal aura that is rarely pretty yet always exciting. Bette Davis used the subtlety of screen technique to make her own Regina Giddens so effective; Lewis knew that in this vastly different arena she needed to pull out her full operatic arsenal. She delivers a thrilling performance.
Elizabeth Carron is a touching Birdie; she makes a fine, poignant moment of her “Lionnet, Lionnet” aria. As Regina’s daughter Zan, Helen Strine is clearly in vocal trouble. Although she acts the role well, her top is strident and beset by a wiry wobble, which threatens to destroy the sublime “Listen to the Rain” quartet. Carol Brice, as the maidservant Addie, brandishes the kind of authentic contralto sound we don’t hear much anymore. George Irving and Emile Renan etch sharp characterizations as Benjamin and Oscar Hubbard; so does Loren Driscoll as Oscar’s whiny son, Leo. Joshua Hecht is moving as the doomed Horace Giddens, though he drops the southern accent and reverts to pretentious mid-twentieth-century operatic diction during his sung passages.
Samuel Krachmalnick takes a very spirited approach to conducting the New York City Opera Orchestra and Chorus. This disc’s accompanying booklet contains brief informative articles by Frank Loesser, Lillian Hellman and Leonard Bernstein; what it lacks is Blitzstein’s libretto. That’s a shame, because Blitzstein did not simply set Hellman’s play to music — he was a poet who adapted it into a true libretto.
Eric Myers, Opera News
Monteverdi Edition
This substantial set dedicated to the vocal music of Claudio Monteverdi (1567–1643) features the great cycle undertaken (to date) by Krijn Koetsveld and the singers of Le Nuove Musiche: all nine books of madrigals, the music in Monteverdi collections such as the Selva Morale e Spirituale (1641), the posthumous Messa a quattro voci ed salmi (1650), and the individual works by Monteverdi compiled in the collections of others, the so-called Fragments. To this is joined the cycle of operas directed by Sergio Vartolo and sung by casts of Italian early music specialists, including the first recording of the five-act version of Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria.
These thoroughly researched, historically informed interpretations demonstrate Monteverdi’s pioneering and transformative role in the emergence and development of staged, dramatic vocal music. Also featured are the grand Vespers – sacred music in the Gregorian plainchant tradition but on an operatic scale – in a fantastic recording with fine Italian soloists and authentic period instruments including the early brass of La Pifarescha. Federico Bardazzi and Ensemble Felice make scrupulous interpretative decisions about the order of movements, interpolating the choral motets within the prescribed sequence of psalms to great effect. Finally, there are Monteverdi’s youthful three-part canzonettas, written when the composer was 17. They are rather simpler than the madrigals, both to sing and to appreciate, but their musical worth is amply demonstrated by the largely female voices of Armoniosoincanto joined by a mixed period-instrument ensemble of flutes, violas, theorbo and harpsichord. They impart just the right light-hearted mood and dramatic impact to the playful, folkloric secular strophic poetry.
CONTENTS:
Renaissance Am Rhein / Singer Pur
RENAISSANCE AM RHEIN • Singer Pur Ens • OEHMS OC 820 (66:39 Text and Translation)
Music of JEAN DE LATRE, ZANGIUS, PEVERNAGE, HAGIUS, PEUDARGENT, JOHANNES DE CLEVE, LASSUS, MANGON, CASTRO, ANON
The occasion for this recorded program was an exhibit in Bonn (just concluded) devoted to the art and culture of the Renaissance as it flourished in the lower Rhineland, from Liège and Aachen to Cologne, Düsseldorf, and Cleves. The program mixes seven Latin-texted works, some with unfamiliar texts, with eight secular songs in German or French. The works are mostly obscure, but certainly one of the most obscure is O Dee cunctipotens by Martin Peudargent (active at the court of Cleves), which the notes describe as “one of the few works [of his] that has not been released on CD.” Since I couldn’t find his name in any record catalog before this, this seemed strange, but it turns out that a full SACD of his music appeared on an obscure German label a couple of years ago. Petit Jean de Latre, who served in Liège, had a whole LP devoted to his sixth book of chansons ( Fanfare 7:4), but none of his three selections here duplicate that program. These composers are poorly represented on discs, nothing here being duplicated. Such names as Konrad Hagius and Johannes de Cleve are totally obscure. Even the single Lassus motet seems to be a first recording.
Singer Pur, graduates of the Regensburg choir school (with a soprano added), have been recording regularly. This is one of their more imaginative programs, interesting for its variety, the rarity of the selections, and the special occasion that resulted in its production. Pevernage’s Salve Regina is interesting for its alternation between the solemn chant setting and polyphony, considerably more than simply intoning the first phrase in chant. Lassus’s meditation on death, O mors quam amara , is exquisite. The program ends on a lighter note with two German songs, hard to appreciate fully in the German dialect without English (only the Latin texts are translated into German). The Bonn museum exhibit focused on art and culture as well as music, emphasizing the distinct character of the Renaissance in northern climes, inconsistent with the familiar Italian models. This program will not duplicate anything in your collection.
FANFARE: J. F. Weber
Grandi: Vulnerasti Cor Meum / Jacobs, Schola Cantorum Basel
Alessandro Grandi might have been a pupil of Giovanni Gabrieli. He spent the initial part of his musical career singing (falsetto soprano) and directing music at establishments in Ferrara, culminating in his appointment as director of music at Ferrara cathedral in 1616. In 1617 he moved to Venice and became a singer, under Monteverdi's direction, at St. Mark's, going on to become Monteverdi's deputy in 1620. He and Monteverdi are reputed to have been in open rivalry and Monteverdi is supposed to have prevented Grandi from presenting large-scale works of his own. Grandi seems to have made a virtue of necessity and produced a ravishing string of solo motets and concerti spirituali. In 1627 he moved on to become director of music in Bergamo. He published 11 volumes of motets, many of them very popular, 3 volumes of psalms and 5 masses. His motets with symphonies, involving obbligato violins, had an influence on Schütz.
In the 1620's sacred music underwent a significant change, out went the polychoral techniques of the Gabrielis and in came the new concerted style. A more intimate style with a few solo voices and instruments, with a greater emphasis on virtuosity. Monteverdi used this style in his later church music, but it was fully developed by his colleagues and followers such as Alessandro Grandi.
Grandi had an advantage over colleagues such as Monteverdi and Gabrieli in that he was a singer. His art revolves around the expression of the text, using the music to bring out the prosody of the words. His earliest motets were published in 1610 and they are admirably lacking in youthful inexperience. 'O quam pulchra es' uses three voices in an almost madrigalian setting of words from the Song of Songs.
Grandi's works crop up in the catalogue mainly in surveys of Monteverdi's contemporaries. Despite his importance in early 17th century Italian music, record companies have mainly cast him in Monteverdi's shadow, so it is pleasant to welcome this CD back. It has an enviable line up of singers with the young Andreas and Elisabeth Scholl alongside René Jacobs and Maria Cristina Kiehr.
The motets all receive fine performances. This vocal chamber music requires a good interplay between performers and those on this record are generally admirable. Jacobs sings two of the solo motets, 'Salve Regina' with its cornet obliggati and 'O quam tu pulchra est'. Whilst I was able to admire his artistry greatly, not everyone will like his distinctive resinous tone. But these are two of the most affecting motets on the record and Jacobs' way with the words is hauntingly persuasive. Though all the artists on the disc are excellent, Jacobs proves to be the most penetratingly responsive to the text.
The admirable cornettists are Jean Tubery, and William Dongois and their playing combines discretion and subtlety along with virtuoso effect. They appear on two further tracks. 'Transfige', a solo motet well sung by Gerd Türk with his mellifluous, bright, if slightly unvarying tenor voice and 'Bone Jesu verbum patris', a lovely duet charmingly sung by Elisabeth and Andreas Scholl, who blend exquisitely. The two cornets beautifully balance the two vocalists and show off Grandi's expertise with the new structural developments in sacred music.
Dramatic and structural interest are rarely absent from these lovely works. Solo voices are counterbalanced by two violins in three of the motets. 'Osculetur me', in which Andreas Scholl brings to bear his creamy alto voice; 'Virgo prudentissima' sung with a brilliant urgency by Elisabeth Scholl; 'Vulnerasti cor meum' sung by the bright toned Maria Cristina Kiehr who gets the bulk of the soprano solos.
In the multi-voiced motets, some are in the more traditional style of the late 16th century, like the 5-voiced setting of Job's lament, 'Versa est'. But others reflect Grandi's more recent concerns. 'Heu mihi! - Quid ploras?' is a conversation between the despairing sinner (hauntingly sung by Gerd Türk) and God (sung by Andreas Scholl, Otto Rastbichler and Ulrich Messthaler). 'Quemadmodum desiderat' is another dialogue, this time between two voices (Maria Christina Kiehr and Ulrich Messthaler). a lover and beloved, which ends with a hymn to the Virgin!
The motet 'Plorabo die ac nocte' uses a text which links the lamentations of Jeremiah with a pain-filled Marian lament. The text is sung by each soloist in turn. But, in an effect reminiscent of a Greek chorus, all soloists join together at the end of each solo. But the most remarkable is possibly 'Missus est Gabriel'. This setting of the annunciation uses St. Luke's Gospel, allocated to Evangelist (Ulrich Messthaler, singing with a wonderfully dark tone), Angel (Gerd Türk) and Virgin (Andreas Scholl). But this mini-oratorio increases the drama by adding an off-stage chorus (sopranos Maria Cristina Kiehr and Elisabeth Scholl) who constantly sing the praises of the virgin, providing a chorus which comments on and interrupts the main dialogue.
All the items on this CD are gems. Grandi had great melodic gifts and good ear for dramatic presentation of his texts. A singer himself, his vocal lines are always effective and grateful. All the singers on this recording are admirable and it manages to showcase the talents of a remarkable group of young singers and instrumentalists.
Grandi's motets deserve to be better known, but his works have been difficult to come by in performing editions. This seems to be the only CD in the catalogue devoted solely Grandi's works, so it is pleasing to see its return and the artists are also to be commended for their musicological research. It is a shame that the CD booklet does not manage to print the texts of the motets. Grandi was such a text based composer that one misses the opportunity of following the words in translation. Not all of these texts are well known and not everyone has the requisite Latin.
This is a lovely CD to listen to in one sitting or simply to dip into. I can highly recommend it.
-- Robert Hugill, MusicWeb International
reviewing this title reissued as DHM 77857
Jan Dismas Zelenka: Lacrimae
Mendelssohn: Early Works / Biondi, Europa Galante
In this new album of music by the young Mendelssohn, Fabio Biondi and Europa Galante explore the influence of Classicism on the Italian repertoire, while researching some of the composer’s lesser known works. Mendelssohn is rarely spoken of as a child prodigy, and yet he showed extraordinary talent from a very young age. This program of works composed when he was between eleven and eighteen, selected by Fabio Biondi and his ensemble Europa Galante is proof. “Here you can perceive,” writes the Italian violinist and conductor, “this knowledge of the past uniquely combined with an already profoundly Romantic sensitivity: Mendelssohn shows both the teachings of Bach and the Baroque school, and the flamboyant spirit of the young Romantics.”. Taking inspiration from his predecessors in the German tradition, Mendelssohn polished his counterpoint, and practiced the fugue – as Mozart had done before him on discovering Bach – and the concerto. We discover a young composer well versed in Baroque and Classical forms, which he embellished with his own sparkling charm.
This album is also an opportunity to discover some of Mendelssohn’s lesser-known works, including the noteworthy Salve Regina sung by the soprano Monica Piccinini, several solitary fugues, a Largo and Allegro for piano and strings and a Concerto for violin and string orchestra in D minor. “This is a profound work,” says Biondi, who also plays the violin solo here, “with a rich orchestral part, which does not merely accompany the soloist, but is also fully engaged in all its sections, and a particularly interesting violin part. It conveys a constant good humor, in a huge kaleidoscope of formulations, while always retaining its formal construction.”
Dolente Partita - Madonna e Maddalena - Works by Monteverdi and his contemporaries
The depiction of emotions came to the fore in the music of the late 16th century. Religious content is foregrounded, told from the perspective of the protagonists in order to generate compassion and understanding. In Tarquinio Merula's Canzonetta sopra la nanna, Mary's love for her child is just as palpable as her fear of his impending fate. Sacred songs such as the Salve Regina are transformed by Claudio Monteverdi into an intimate prayer to the Virgin Mary. Placing secular texts in a spiritual context was another means used by early Baroque composers. Claudio Monteverdi rewrote the then-popular Lamento d'Arianna as Lamento della Maddalena; Arianna, who laments for her beloved Theseus, becomes Marie Maddalena, who has been abandoned by Jesus. The Aria sopra la Romanesca by Paolo Quagliati is a reinterpretation of a love sonnet. "Working out and showing all these emotions in an almost theatrical style is the appeal of this music. We particularly enjoyed doing that," says Pia Davila.
Invocazioni Mariane / Scholl, Tampieri, Accademia Bizantina
For the first time with naïve, the counter-tenor Andreas Scholl joins the Accademia Bizantina and Alessandro Tampieri to present a Neapolitan programme, centred on the Virgin Mary.
Andreas Scholl and the Accademia Bizantina have for several decades enjoyed a successful musical partnership, encompassing the whole Baroque repertoire. As usual, this new album together includes both renowned and less well-known vocal and instrumental pieces. The figure of Mary, which has inspired a huge repertoire, both sacred and profane, runs through this Easter programme of exquisite affliction, virtuosic for both voice and orchestra. “Neapolitan music has a unique melodic vein and a great capacity to communicate emotion profoundly," says Alessandro Tampieri.
Thus, Vivaldi’s iconic Stabat Mater, which the German counter-tenor has enjoyed singing for many years, is placed alongside lesser-known airs from oratorios by Nicola Porpora and Leonardo Vinci, which had the character of the Virgin sung by a castrato. “I endeavour to place humanity before gender," says Andreas Scholl, “and I interpret the role of Mary with the greatest sincerity, without the slightest notion of 'travesty’. Love, despair and pain transcend the notion of gender."
We also find a Salve Regina by Pasquale Anfossi, requiring a particularly participative orchestra, a sonata by Angelo Ragazzi and a violin concerto by Pergolesi, both strongly echoing Pergolesi’s famous Stabat Mater. The solo violin parts are played by Alessandro Tampieri, first violin of the Italian ensemble, who conducts here from his instrument in the purest tradition of the Baroque orchestra.
Vivaldi: Sacroprofano / Mead, Cohen, Arcangelo
Although he already has a rich stage and recording career behind him, this is Tim Mead’s first solo album. ‘Juxtaposing the sacred and secular aspects of Vivaldi’s work, this program explores the earthly passion of the divine and the heavenly beauty of love’, says the English countertenor. ‘When they are placed side by side, his highly individual approach reveals that these two worlds are closely intertwined, in music at once astonishing and highly virtuosic.’ With his partners from Arcangelo, directed by Jonathan Cohen, we hear him in the famous Nisi Dominus and the no less celebrated cantata Cessate, omai, cessate, alongside the Salve Regina RV618 and Amor, hai vinto.
Intavolatura De Cimbalo
Pergolesi: Stabat Mater / Piau, Lowrey, Rousset, Les Talens Lyriques
Longstanding partners Sandrine Piau and Christophe Rousset have frequently performed the Stabat Mater, an emblematic work of the eighteenth-century Neapolitan repertory, both together and with other musicians. It was therefore a natural step for them to record this supreme masterpiece of sacred music. They are joined here by a relative newcomer to Les Talens Lyriques who has also become a regular partner with the ensemble, the American countertenor Christopher Lowrey (already heard on an Alpha album devoted to Monteverdi, Alpha 216). The programme is completed by a Beatus vir by Leonardo Leo (1694-1744), sung by Sandrine Piau, and a Salve Regina for alto by Nicola Porpora (1686-1768), two totally unknown works by two composers who were nevertheless very famous at the time – Porpora, for example, was Farinelli’s singing teacher and mentor to the youthful Haydn. Christophe Rousset finds in this music ‘an expression of very Mediterranean, very highly flavored piety, in which one moves from tears to laughter quite quickly’. Sandrine Piau sees in Leo ‘an elegance of style, a certain distance in sorrow’.
Dialogue
Da Gesualdo a Piccinni - Neapolitan Harpsichord Music 1500-1700 / Porfido
This boxed set collects the jewels of the Music of the Great Neapolitan School for harpsichord, starting from its founder Carlo Gesualdo, Prince of Venosa, up to Niccolò Piccinni, great opera composer and reformer of the Italian Opera. A path that weaves the history of Southern musicians, who saw in Naples their great cultural capital, a spring-board to take flight and cross the Italian borders and bring their music throughout Europe. Often forgotten, the musicians contained in this double album show a great artistic vein and a strong and very personal musicality, which still enchants the attentive listener; they are: Gesualdo da Venosa, Rocco Rodio, Antonio Valente, Giovanni Maria Trabaci, Giovanni Salvatore, Bernardo Storace and Niccolò Piccinni.
A precious disc for the compositional art and the artistic inspiration of the authors, for the originality and the variety of the pieces, all authentic starting from the most ancient forms such as the Salve Regina by Rodio, the fantasies by Rodio and Valente, the French Songs by Gesualdo da Venosa, Giovanni Salvatore, Giovanni Maria Trabaci , the dances of Antonio Valente and Bernardo Storace, up to the splendid "Three Sonatas and a Toccata" of Niccolo' Piccinni (the only work of the author for harpsichord) published in Paris in 1775 and which preceded his arrival in the French capital by one year. Margherita Porfido's research, precise analysis, and exemplary performance are the compendium of a discographic product that is fundamental for the understanding of music between the 16th and 18th centuries in southern Italy.
ARVO PART: ESSENTIAL CHORAL WORKS
Durante: Requiem in G Minor / Centemeri, Astrarium Consort
The second of three settings that can firmly be attributed to Durante, the G minor Requiem is dated 27 November 1738, by which time the composer was established as a senior figure in the vibrant and fast-moving culture of 18th-century Naples. Durante was a contemporary of Nicolo Porpora and Leonardo Leo, whose Salve Regina settings have been newly recorded on another recent Brilliant Classics album (96092) but they were better known as operatic composers; Durante’s fame and reputation rested then and now on his music for the church, which is noble without ponderousness, moving without sentimentality, elegant without triviality. Compared with other Neapolitans, Durante was not prolific; he strove instead, within the conventions of his age, to strike a popular tone with intimations of the sublime, and he did so by using startling dissonances, expressive use of dynamics, diminished chords and chromaticism. The G minor Requiem demonstrates all these features. It is scored for two four-part choirs, strings and two hunting horns used exclusively in the ‘Tuba mirum’. Even a casual glance at the score shows why Durante was greatly sought after as a counterpoint teacher and also why composers as different in as Pergolesi and Paisiello can be numbered among his pupils. Previous recordings have used large choirs, but performing the Requiem with small forces highlights the madrigalian qualities of Durante’s style, with an emphasis on solo rather than choral lines, as well as achieving much tighter ensemble and more precise intonation. Several of the soloists on this album also featured on the previous Brilliant Classics recording by the Astrarium Consort with their founder/director Carlo Centemeri, of motets by Giovanni Paolo Colonna (94647). ‘Soprano Francesca Cassinari has a particularly appealing sound (for me). Her clear, pure voice serves the music well… The Astrarium Consort has a good ensemble sound.’ (wtju.fm)
Werner & Caldara
LAMBETH ANONYMOUS
Maria, Dolce Maria
Monteverdi: Frammenti / Koetsveld, Le Nuove Musiche
On this album, we find a wonderful collection of often short sacred works by Monteverdi, all published in compilations made by others. Parts of psalms and hymns of all descriptions make up the texts – and always in the style that we know so well from, among others, the concertos in the Vespro della Beata Vergine; the pieces from the Selva Morale e Spirituale (a collection by Monteverdi himself, containing only his own music); and the posthumous collection from 1650, Messa a quattro voci ed salmi.
The repertoire on this album derives from multiple sources and was probably included in the various collections because the compiler simply liked it. Besides the polyphonic, madrigal-like pieces such as Adoramus te, Christe adoramus te and Domine in furore, the often highly virtuosic duets and solo pieces stand out. Sometimes, for example in Salve o regina, the embellishments are written out, which in turn teaches us a lot about how Monteverdi envisioned them.
TIMOR MORTIS
Tomas Luis De Victoria - God's Composer
VICTORIA Sancta Maria succurre miseris. Salve Regina. Super flumina Babylonis. Seniores populi. Vidi speciosam. Q quam gloriosum. Misericordiae Domini. Lux aeterna. Congratulamini mihi. Kyrie • Harry Christophers, dir; The Sixteen • CORO CORDVD 6 (DVD: 60:00)
This hour-long program was produced for BBC together with Spanish and German television to mark the anniversary of the composer’s death. The singing was filmed in the Church of San Antonio de los Alemanes in Madrid, a lavishly ornate Baroque church built by Philip III soon after coming to the throne and before Tomás Luis de Victoria’s death. Simon Russell Beale narrates the life of the composer and Harry Christophers has some comments to add. The video format allows the integration of music, painting (El Greco), architecture, and spirituality into one presentation. St. Teresa of Avila was also born in Victoria’s home town, where he knew her as a boy. She reformed the Carmelite order along with St. John of the Cross, and both contributed immensely to the spirit of the times by their writings in mystical theology. We also see the chapel of the Carmelite convent where Victoria spent the last 25 years of his life as chaplain to the dowager empress Maria, Philip II’s sister, and the chapel of El Escorial, the palace that Philip II built outside Madrid.
The music is a sampling of Victoria’s output, including excerpts from his two masterpieces, the Officium Hebdomadae Sanctae and the Officium Defunctorum . Christophers argues that Victoria is the greatest composer of the Renaissance, a claim that has been made for Palestrina and Lassus, but one that has led him to a fervent interpretation of the composer’s music on six CDs (including the Tenebrae Responsories on Virgin). There are several video features added to the main program. Sometimes the music seems subsidiary to the unfolding story, but the whole is greater than its parts. This disc is a worthy tribute to mark the quatercentenary of a great composer.
FANFARE: J. F. Weber
NTSC, Region 0, 16:9 (Widescreen), Color, English w/ Spanish Sub (Stereo), Not Rated, Run Time: 60 min.
Binchois, Dufay, Dunstable, Power: Lux Laetitiae / La Reverdie
With Lux laetitiae, La Reverdie continues its discographical journey after the success of its most recent production devoted to Francesco Landini: from the Florence of the great blind composer of the fourteenth century, to the splendor of the Este court in fifteenth-century Ferrara! The program presents twelve pieces from an important codex that belonged to the court, in which fashionable composers such as Guillaume Dufay and John Dunstaple tried their hand at the motet genre. The performances combine six voices with a rich array of instruments and aim to reproduce the resplendent sound of the Este cappella at the time of Lionello and Borso, passionate patrons who attracted to Ferrara many talented artists charged with adorning the court with art, beauty and harmony. An exploration of the prolific tradition of the Marian cult which, from the twelfth century onwards, was manifested in an extraordinary wealth of musical forms and which, in the fifteenth century, resulted in grandiose compositions that can still captivate us today with their complexity and fascination.
REVIEWS:
[The] music presented here is neither dry nor academic. It’s drawn from a 15th-century codex that belonged to the Este court in Ferrara, which contains motets by an odd assortment of four composers: the Franco-Flemish masters Gilles Binchois and Guillaume Dufay, and the English composers Leonel Power and John Dunstaple; all four are important figures of the early Renaissance period. You’ll hear hints of ars nova in Dufay’s setting of Flos forum, and Power’s soft but powerful Salve Regina misericordie slowly builds a mesmerizing melody line and then adds harmony as the work progresses, to quietly spectacular effect. As always, the La Reverdie ensemble imbue everything they perform with a golden light. Highly recommended to all collections.
-- The CD Hotlist
Vivaldi - Music For The Chapel Of The Pietá /Chandler, La Serenissima
"This follow-up to La Serenissima’s anthology ‘Vivaldi in Arcadia’, is particularly interesting for the Concertos RV212 and RV554a, which have been reconstructed by Adrian Chandler. The former is a violin concerto, composed in 1712 for a festival in Padua and played by Vivaldi himself. A set of parts surviving in Dresden was damaged; the booklet note remarks, seemingly without irony, that this was ‘whilst in safe-keeping’ during the Second World War. Chandler has added the harmony here and there, and selected one of the three slow movements and two cadenzas. The result is a delight... In Laudate pueri Dominum, Mhairi Lawson sings with great passion, wonderfully responsive to the meaning of the words. In the surprisingly meditative Gloria, her vibrant soprano and Chandler’s violin sigh like lovers.The Salve regina is just as good...
Chandler’s direction is as gripping as his playing. As ever, one is lost in admiration at the skills of the girls who sang and played at the Ospedale della Pietà, to whom this is a noble tribute."
- Richard Lawrence, GRAMOPHONE
"The mastermind behind this terrific CD, Adrian Chandler, is not only Director of La Serenissima and a violinist of flair and distinction; he is also a meticulous scholar, as his excellent booklet notes reveal. He has clearly engaged in much fruitful research in preparing for this recording, even carrying out imaginative reconstruction where necessary.
The result is a rich musical treat. All of this music was written by the ‘Red Priest’ for use in the Chapel of the Pietá, the Convent School for orphans (or ‘foundlings’) in Venice. The music on the generously filled disc consists of three instrumental concerti and two solo vocal cantatas, Laudate Pueri and Salve Regina. These are sung by the Scottish soprano Mhairi Lawson, who turns in thoroughly delightful performances... This, and all the other instrumental music, is realised superbly by the players of La Serenissima, the enlarged chamber ensemble named after the city of its inspiration; the name being, of course, a poetic soubriquet for Venice itself. The string sound is pure and bold, yet capable of great subtlety when required. They are underpinned by a continuo section of great richness: the harpsichord of Joseph McHardy, the theorbo (bass lute) of Richard Sweeney, and the organ playing of Robert Howarth.
Despite the scholarship, there is nothing ‘academic’ about the performance of this music. Indeed, it is exuberant and often full of élan and humour."
- Gwyn Parry-Jones, MusicWeb International
