Critic’s Notebook: Gunar Letzbor, Telemann, and Other Baroque Encounters

Also reviewed for Die Presse: Seltene barocke Erscheinungen

Tits'n'Telemann

J.P.v.Westhoff, Sei Partite a Violino Gunar Letzbor Arcana

G.P.Telemann, 2 Fantasias for Solo Violin Gunar Letzbor Pan Classics

J.J.Vilsmayr, Artificosus Concentus pro Camera Gunar Letzbor Arcana

J.S.Bach, Solo Sonatas (BWV 1001, 1003, 1005) Gunar Letzbor Pan Classics

Curious concert I was asked to attend. First of all, it happened in the Vienna Konzerthaus’ smallest main hall, the gorgeous, bright, yellow but uneconomic 320-seat Schubert Saal. It’s the hall where the Alban Berg Quartet got their start before attracting the following that allowed them to graduate to the Mozart Saal and eventually play their respective recitals twice in that hall to satisfy demand. Now, if it is used at all, it’s usually rented out for concerts or events… except, apparently, for the “Zyklus Ars Antiqua Austria”, which is part of the Konzerthaus’ official programming, featuring Gunar Letzbor and his early music ensemble in a series of 3+1 concerts.

On February 25th, I was at the "+1", called “Bach in Private” – and it was a one-man show with Gunar Letzbor and his baroque violin. Very casual and informal in feel, a Bachiana if you will, and I wouldn’t be half surprised if Letzbor knows every one of his subscribers by name. (The hall was about half full.) He started with a long anecdote of driving across the Alps a few nights before, with snow-related mishaps and adventures. Then he elaborated on Johann Paul Westhoff, the “father of solo violin music”, who invented his own ‘dual’ system of notation on eight-line staves and two clefs as a means to early copyright protection) and proceeded to perform, by way of example, Westhoff’s Suite No.6 in D-major. The ear grasps for the nearest known music, which is of course Bach, an involuntary act that might distract from the Westhoff Suite’s originality. Similarities exist, of course, but the differences are considerable and there’s an archaic nature that came through nicely, as Letzbor worked hard on the Suite’s four movements.

Telemann (another – very important – copyright champion of his time) is only 25 years older than Westhoff. Yet, his Fantasie No.9, already marks the end of the baroque period whereas Westhoff’s Suite had opened it for that type of composition. There’s a definite flirting with the Galant style going on here, on Georg Philipp’s part, while the Fantasie No.4 is still rather more demure and academic. Speaking of “flirting”: There were three young characters in the concert that didn’t look like your typical “Ars Antiqua” subscription holders. A young lad, I hesitate to call him “gentleman”, looked so ostentatiously bored, that we would have believed him, even if he hadn’t tried to quietly talk on his phone during the performance of the Westhoff. After the Suite, an audience member informed him, in no uncertain words, about the finer points of concert etiquette, which resulted in sulking looks from one of the young ladies in his company and more ostentatious ennui from the communicative offender.

If you thought this was bizarre, it got a lot better, still. Evidently energized by the Telemann, the third of the group, a female perhaps in her very early 20s, got up mid-Suite and carefully un-peeled herself from her jacket and sweater, inviting a view of her pushed-up assets. After each of the Suites, she jumped up to launch into something resembling a standing ovation, carefully bouncing up and down while daintily clapping at Letzbor’s performance. There seemed to be something of a look of pride in her carefully done-up face, as she juggled standard violin-recital behavior with her early-music love, which so clearly was beating strongly beneath that liberally exposed cleavage. Once done with this performance, she proceeded, still standing, still in the middle of the concert, to get dressed again… and marched, her two friends in tow, out of the Schubert Saal, still before intermission, unconscionably missing the nine-partite Johann Joseph Vilsmayr Partita No.4 in D major that followed. Not that the mind easily shifted back to this excerpt from the 1715 “Artificiosus conceptus pro camera”, after that equally rare earlier baroque display… but the little lecture on scordatura, and the bagpipe character that the violin developed in sections of the nicely flowing, even groovy Partita, did eventually recapture the imagination of the baffled and bemused audience.

For the concluding Bach Partita No.1, the preceding talk about the ancient technique of “diminution” that Bach employs in this work, actually helped to hear the work in a different light; mere variations became audible intensifications of the preceding movements, once the Double hits on each of the movements. The performance was as sympathetic as the preceding ones had been; hardly perfect – but somehow that was never quite the point. Rather, it felt as though one had joined an acquaintance for a performance-lecture (I was reminded of a Charles Rosen performance at La Maison Française from years ago). This impression only deepened, when Letzbor reprised the Sarabande, playing it in an entirely different style as just before, now more forward-thrusting, mellifluous, lighter. A nice cap to a baroque geek’s perfect delightful night of hearing and learning. (A shame that @SugarTitz97 missed it.)

Photo © Gunar Letzbor?

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Briefly Noted: Solo Telemann

Georg Philipp Telemann, Fantasias for solo violin, Alina Ibragimova (released on October 7, 2022) Hyperion CDA68384 | 65'56"

What can a violinist do after recording Bach's "Sei solo" pieces? There is a lot more repertory for the solo violin out there than you might think. The Russian-born violinist Alina Ibragimova, whose Bach sonatas and partitas were so excellent, has chosen an excellent follow-up. (At this summer's Proms in Great Britain, where she now makes her home, Ibragimova made clear her opposition to her home country's invasion of Ukraine.)

Ibragimova has recorded all twelve of Telemann's Fantasias for Violin without Bass, published in Hamburg in 1735 as part of the composer's voluminous output testing the solo capacities of various instruments. Each one is a delightful bite-size miniature, three or four movements lasting five to six minutes per fantasia. The fantasia, of course, is defined by its lack of solid form, favoring the imagination and musical variety. In his description of the set, Telemann said that half of the fantasias were contrapuntal in nature, favoring the older style of composition, and half were in the newer galant style.

Ibragimova plays these pieces much as she did the more complex Bach works, with clean technique and impeccable intonation and articulation. This is not to say that the music comes out cold or heartless, as she also manages to play even the most demanding passages with poignant phrasing. Telemann wrote these pieces for people to play in their homes, meaning there is a range of challenges for amateur violinists to confront. The slow movements, often quite simple technically, offer pleasing imaginative turns. Ibragimova mines each fantasia for its various delights, by turns rustic or polished.

Best Recordings of 2020

After a hiatus last year, it is time for a list of classical CDs that were outstanding this year. This is the ionarts list of the Best Classical Recordings of the Year:

Preamble

I’ve been doing some form of “Best of the Year” list since 2004. 2019 was the first time I slipped. Here’s my attempt at redemption. Granted, my overview of new releases is no longer quite what it was in the days I worked at Tower Records. But the idea of a “Best of the Year” list, if one clings too literally to the idea of “Best” is daft even under the most ideal of situations. It’s of course just short for: “These are a few of the things that I liked” and used, as I’ve been fond of writing in past iterations of this list, because “10 CDs that, all caveats duly noted, I consider to have been outstanding this year” just doesn’t roll off the tongue as easily. Because I skipped 2019, I will include some releases from that year on this list. If you are looking for past lists, here they are:

2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2008—"Almost" | 2009 | 2009—"Almost" | 2010 | 2010—"Almost" | 2011 | 2011—"Almost" | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018

Pick # 10

L.v.Beethoven, Symphonies 1-9, Adam Fischer, Danish Chamber Orchestra, Naxos 8.505251

L.v.Beethoven, The Symphonies Adam Fischer, Danish Chamber Orchestra, Naxos

I wanted these to be on the aborted 2019 list and they definitively belong on it. Yes, we have way too much Beethoven – and 2020 was one of the worst offenders, with it being the 'Beethoven Year' and every artist with ten fingers or access to a baton bringing out a cycle of the sonatas or the symphonies. In the concert halls, at least, Corona saved us from a Beethoven overkill that would have ruined our appreciation of the composers for decades. But just before all that happened, Adam Fischer and his now privately funded Danish Chamber Orchestra come out with something that stands out from the 178+ other cycles we can choose from. These are unpretentious, lively, quick-witted yet totally sober readings that manage to be free of any exaggeration and superbly exciting at the same time. Fischer situates his Beethoven in the near-ideal middle between the stale routine of playing these damn things over and over again on one side and the interventionist re-inventors of the wheel on the other. This is roughly the space Jukka-Pekke Saraste and his West German Radio Symphony Orchestra occupy (review: Precious Vanilla), or the fairly recent and excellent second Blomstedt cycle with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra. Except that Fischer’s band is smaller, more nimble, and a touch more alert which – as might be expected – shifts the focus of strengths towards the earlier symphonies. Like Blomstedt and most other conductors these days, Fischer chooses swift tempi. More to the point: Fischer opts for mediating tempi: quicker slow movements and moderately paced fast movements. The result is Beethoven unassuming and disheveled, and very lovable. A more detailed review will follow on ClassicsToday eventually. But it’s definitely the Beethoven Cycle of the Beethoven year!

Pick # 9

R.Schumann, Rare Choral Works, Aapo Hakkinen, Helsinki Baroque Orchestra, Carolyn Sampson et al., Ondine 1312

R.Schumann, Rare Choral Works, Aapo Hakkinen, Helsinki Baroque Orchestra, Carolyn Sampson et al., Ondine

Here’s an all ‘round terrific disc of off-the-beaten-path Schumann from Ondine, coupling his Ballade op.140 for soloists and chorus with the Adventlied and – an intriguing filler in the middle – Schumann’s reworking of the Bach Cantata BWV 105. The Adventlied is, inexplicably, a world premiere recording. Where has it been hiding? It is Schumann at his most Mendelssohnesque. Meanwhile it’s good to know that even Schumann agreed that Bach’s stupendous Cantata BWV 105 is a masterpiece among masterpieces. Creating this performing version he certainly suggested as much. And he didn’t super-juice it: he held back and limited himself to modernizing the instrumentation to suit his players. It’s not adding to Bach but as the imaginative buffer between the two marvelously Schumann pieces is very welcome. With Carolyn Sampson participating, deftly accompanied by the Helsinki Baroque Orchestra and the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir under Aapo Hakkinen, this disc is a winner that I’ve been wanting to write about for over a year. Consider this the teaser.

Pick # 8

J.S.Bach, Christmas Oratorio , Rudolf Lutz, soloists, Bach Stiftung Orchestra & Chorus, Bach Stiftung B664

J.S.Bach, Christmas Oratorio, Rudolf Lutz, soloists, Bach Stiftung Orchestra & Chorus, Bach Stiftung

Befitting the season, a Christmas Oratorio makes this list. The new release from the St. Gallen Bach Stiftung is perfect in just about every way. Perfection – in a technical sense – isn’t everything, of course, especially when it’s closer to anodyne than riveting. But in this case, the live recording (you’d never know!) has all the spirit of most of this outfit’s releases and absolutely terrific singers starting with alto Elvira Bill (who has appeared on the last three Christmas Oratorios I have reviewed) and tenor Daniel Johannsen who has established himself to the point where neither “young” nor “up and coming” still apply. (I’ve just checked: He’s older now than Werner Güra was when he recorded “Schöne Wiege meiner Leiden”.) A review will follow on ClassicsToday soon and be linked then. By the way: if you haven’t sampled their Cantata-cycle het, but want to, you would do well to start here, with volume 30!

Pick # 7

Hans Zender, Winterreise Re-Composed, Ensemble Modern, Blochwitz, Ensemble Modern 043/44

H.Zender, Winterreise Re-Composed, Ensemble Modern, Blochwitz Ensemble Modern

This year I am not splitting the list up into new and re-releases. But as a nod to the tradition, I must include this re-release of a classic recording which I am so glad to have back in the catalogue: The premiere (and still best) recording of Hans Zender’s Winterreise with Ensemble Modern. My review for ClassicsToday here: Best Remembrance Of Hans Zender

Pick # 6

Richard Strauss, Enoch Arden, Bruno Ganz, Kirill Gerstein, Myrios MYR025

Richard Strauss, Enoch Arden, Bruno Ganz, Kirill Gerstein Myros

When Swiss actor Bruno Ganz and Kirill Gerstein performed Enoch Arden at Vienna’s Konzerthaus in late 2014, it was a quiet high-point of the season. The disc is about as good. Granted, the text of Strauss’ monodrama is quite important, so English-speakers not inclined to read along in the booklet will probably want to look to Glenn Gould and Claude Rains version for Sony. But for the rest: they’ve got a new reference version. The declamation of Ganz is worth hearing even just for how its musical and dramatic qualities, senza parole so to say. A fitting musical memorial for Ganz, who passed away in early 2019. My ClassicsToday review here: Granitic Enoch Arden From Bruno Ganz And Kirill Gerstein.

Pick # 5

Ossesso, Ratas del Viejo Mundo, Floris De Rycker, Ramée RAM1808

Ossesso, Ratas del Viejo Mundo, Floris De Rycker, Ramée

Here’s another album that scores on memorability over perfection. It’s over the top, in some ways, and fabulous for it. Ancient music keeps it grounded; the wild acoustic makes it ring in your head like you’re in a grand gothic cathedral. Or a well. Depending on your mindset. What the Old-World Rats (what a name!) deliver here, singing a variety of Italian Madrigals belaboring the subjects of Love and Affliction, is glorious and just the right touch of weird. “The inflection of notes, the tuning, the character of old instruments like psaltery and kanklės… it all contributes to a sense of gentle alienation. Is this Orlando di Lasso, Vincenczo Galilei, Friulian traditional music (sung in the old language) or are we already on to Arab or even African shores? You could let yourself be distracted by any numbers of unorthodoxies on the album “Ossesso” but it’s much easier and more gratifying to sit back and indulge.” To quote my review at ClassicsToday: Obsessed Rats—Wondrous Voices from Olden Times.

Pick # 4

J.S.Bach, Keyboard Works and Transcriptions, Víkingur Ólafsson, DG 4835022

J.S.Bach, A Recital, Víkingur Ólafsson, DG

Like the Beethoven Symphonies , this is a release that would have been on last year’s list, also… and it’s too good and memorable to miss out on. It’s really just a supremely tasteful Bach recital by a wonderfully talented pianist who is just as satisfying in recital as he is on disc. But that’s enough. As I’ve said in my ClassicsToday review (Icelandic Bach With Heart and Panache): “It’s taken 13 years for a Bach-on-piano recital disc to have come along to match Alexandre Tharaud’s.” That is the hightest praise I can give. As a bonus, not that this need matter for your purely musical enjoyment: Víkingur Ólafsson won’t annoy you on Twitter, if you follow him, which you should at @VikingurMusic.

Pick # 3

L.v.Beethoven et al., Works for Mandolin, Julien Martinean, Vanessa Benelli Mosell et al., Naïve 7083

L.v.Beethoven et al., Works for Mandolin, Julien Martinean, Vanessa Benelli Mosell et al., Naïve

This is a recording I don’t think I’ll ever forget – and if it’s for the mandolin variant of that 1970s Hot 100 smash hit of Walter Murphey’s: A Fifth of Beethoven (also known for its notable appearance in Saturday Night Fever). But no, actually, this is good and memorable all around, elevating some of Beethoven’s B-Music to A-levels. And a recording that memorable deserves a high entry on this list, even if it isn’t perfect. My review at ClassicsToday here: Beethoven for the Mandolin.

Pick # 2

H.G.Stölzel, Ein Lämmlein geht und trägt die Schuld (Passion oratorio 1731), Purcell Choir, Orfeo Orchestra, Glossa 924006

H.G.Stölzel, Passion oratorio, Purcell Choir, Orfeo Orchestra, Glossa

This is such terrific music and so sympathetically performed and well recorded that it is bound to be the first of many Heinrich Gottfried Stölzel works you will want to hear. If, in fact, this is your first one. There is no (baroque) composer other than Bach that wrote no weak pieces. But at their best the Telemanns and Hasses and Zelenkas can be as good and, for being different, offer some extra enjoyment. And the same goes for Stölzel and this Passion oratorio in particular. Listen to “Ein Lämmlein geht und trägt die Schuld”. Treat yourself! My review at ClassicsToday here: Good Enough for Bach, Good Enough for Us.

Pick # 1

Antonio Vivaldi, Il Tamerlano, Accademia Bizantina, Ottavio Dantone, naïve 7080

Antonio Vivaldi, Il Tamerlano, Accademia Bizantina, Ottavio Dantone, naïve

Vivaldi operas have lagged behind those of Handel’s in appreciation and Il Tamerlano a.k.a. Bajazet (RV 703) perhaps even more, because its pasticcio composition style did not fit in with the Urtext and unity-of-the-artwork type of musicological purity that reigned in the last few decades. This perception might have begun to change, slowly, after Fabio Biondi’s fabulous 2005 recording came out. It turns out that it’s a masterpiece and the custom of stitching an opera together from previous hits of his own, newly written music, and arias from other composers – mainly Hasse and Giacomelli – doesn’t hold it back, it aids this work! Vivaldi giving his music, in the Venetian style, to the good guys but his colleagues’ more flashy Neapolitan-style music to the baddies adds welcome variety. Vivaldi’s intended point about the superiority of the former is, alas, undermined by the Red Priest having been too fair and using the finest that his rivals’ had on offer: two of the absolute show-stealing arias aren’t his. But we don’t care, the music is great and this new recording of the Accademia Bizantina under Ottavio Dantone is just what the opera deserves; rivalling (or complementing) Biondi’s, easily. A must-listen for 2021, if you haven’t yet. Review forthcoming.


OK, let’s cheat. Or make up for the lost year of 2019. I simply have to mention a few more recordings, now that I’ve started. Here they are:

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Briefly Noted: Accented Bach & Co.

J. S. Bach et al., Concertos, Les Accents, J. Brégnac, E. Laporte, S. Marq, T. Noally (released on August 16, 2019) Aparté AP206 | 70'18"

For many performers, any experience of the Baroque period was often limited to the music of J. S. Bach. Happily, the early music movement exploded the possibilities by opening up the repertory and the ways of understanding it. The historically informed performance ensemble Les Accents, founded by violinist Thibault Noally in 2014, provides an example.

On the group's new disc, two of Bach's violin concertos (BMV 1041 and 1056R) are set against an array of similar concertos for various solo instruments by composers Bach admired: Johann David Heinichen (1683-1729), Johann Gottlieb Graun (1703-1771), Johann Friedrich Fasch (1688-1758), and Christoph Förster (1693-1745). The last composer's Violin Concerto in G Minor receives its premiere recording, and two fine concertos by Georg Philipp Telemann round out the program. Bach does not so much stand out from his surroundings as fit right in.

The playing is all technically superlative and full of character. Noally takes the violin solos, shadowed by his colleague Claire Sottovia in the double-violin concerto of Telemann. The other soloists are even more polished: Jean Brégnac's subdued traverso, Emmanuel Laporte's perky oboe, and the snappy recorder playing of Sébastien Marq. The sound, recorded by Little Tribeca in the Eglise de Bon Secours in Paris in 2017, feels close, so that you get the grit of bow against string, sharp inhalations of the traverso and recorder players, and the sensation of sitting in the front row.

Forbes Classical CD Of The Month: Festive Telemann Cantatas

...Top of that list was the WQXR-choice of the Telemann Festive Reformation Cantatas by a small local German chorus on the tiny Christopherus label. It’s just the sort of rare, easy-to-overlook gem – and the act of pointing to such a recording and bringing it to the awareness of a slightly bigger audience is really the raison d’être of such lists. I immediately listened to a short sample and was hooked. Then I got the CD and fell in love…

-> Classical CD Of The Month March 2018: Festive Telemann Cantatas

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#morninglistening: Baroque Oboe Concertos

#morninglistening 2 baroque oboe ctos. 4 @musicwebint on @SupraphonCZ w/ Vilém Veverka#c… https://t.co/IcRl6VkRNq pic.twitter.com/NPn2O5r0Na

— Jens F. Laurson (@ClassicalCritic) November 3, 2015

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Briefly Noted: Telemann's Cantatas

G.P. Telemann, Festive Cantatas, M. Feuersinger, F. Vitzthum, K. Mertens, Collegium Vocale Siegen, Hannoversche Hofkapelle, U. Stötzel (released on February 10, 2015) Hänssler Classic CD98.047 | 58'04"

The story is guaranteed to get a laugh, that the Leipzig town council, when searching for its new Kantor in 1722, settled on Johann Sebastian Bach as its third choice, first offering the job to Georg Philipp Telemann and then to Christoph Graupner. Rather than seeing these events as short-sighted, however, we must see them as inevitable. Of course, Leipzig wanted Telemann, who had a proven track record as prolific and ultra-talented, not to mention by far the best credentials. Unfortunately for Leipzig, Hamburg had snapped up Telemann first, and there he was producing cantatas at a dizzying rate. Blessed with a stable work ethic and a healthy constitution, by the time he died Telemann had penned around 3,600 works, including some 1,750 cantatas of every conceivable type and for every sort of occasion. Leipzig had little hope of luring him away.

One can hear around one-tenth of Telemann's cantatas in modern recording, by a rough estimate. Three of them came to my ears in this new disc from conductor Ulrich Stötzel, the period-instrument ensemble Hannoversche Hofkapelle, and the Collegium Vocale Siegen: Der Herr lebet (for Easter Sunday), Ehr und Dank (Michaelmas, September 29), and Der Geist gibt Zeugnis (Pentecost). Of the three soloists, soprano Miriam Feuersinger has the most pleasing sound, although she is given relatively little music here, the one rather charming aria Hilf, dass ich auch. The choral sound is not always as balanced or in tune as it could be, but these performances generally offer a pleasing way to learn about Telemann's cantatas. Although Telemann sometimes simply repeats the opening choral movement by way of concluding a cantata, there are beautiful discoveries, like the striking mezzo-soprano aria Wer bin ich? from the Pentecost cantata.

Hilary Hahn Presented by WPA[S]

In 27 Pieces: The Hilary Hahn Encores, H. Hahn, C. Smythe (DG, 2013) Telemann, Twelve Fantasies for Solo Violin, A. Hadelich (Naxos, 2009)

One of the strangest press releases I have ever received arrived earlier this month. "Announcing a refreshed brand," it began, for Washington Performing Arts Society, changes that consisted of the removal of the last word of its name and a new logo. It was accompanied by news about the 2014-2015 season, during which disappointing trends will continue, sad to say: more crossover, more jazz, more novice performers. In the early years of these pages, I wanted to review pretty much everything on the WPAS Classical series. Fewer concerts have made the cut for me in the last season or two, and it looks that will only be getting worse.

Happily, there are still concerts that will make the cut: Riccardo Chailly and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra; Charles Dutoit and the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande; John Eliot Gardiner and the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique in Monteverdi's Orfeo; pianists Evgeny Kissin, András Schiff, Paul Lewis, Stephen Hough; among younger artists, pianists Beatrice Rana and Igor Levit; and an exciting premiere will be featured in Sila: The Breath of the World, by John Luther Adams, "for multiple choirs of woodwinds, brass, percussion and voices, to be performed in a large outdoor space (location TBA)." Still, it was hard not to see the grandstanding of WPA's president and CEO, Jenny Bilfield -- featured in a fawning bit of promo-"journalism" in Strathmore's glossy program magazine (apparently written before the organization's name change) -- as emblematic of the "refreshed brand": the focus on all the wrong things.

The current season neared its end on Wednesday night, with the latest recital by violinist Hilary Hahn, presented by WPA[S] in the Music Center at Strathmore. Hahn, who hails from Baltimore, could probably move enough tickets under most circumstances, and some of her performances, like those heard recently with the Philadelphia Orchestra here and the Dallas Symphony Orchestra in Munich in 2013, have been worthwhile. Sadly, not this one, which had an unfortunate combination of mediocre programming and lackluster finishing. Hahn had one particularly shining moment, a radiant but understated rendition of the sixth of Telemann's solo fantasies (E minor, TWV 40:19). It was, perhaps not coincidentally, the first piece Hahn played from memory on this concert, and it seemed to be something pondered more deeply by her than the music on the first half. Hahn's restrained vibrato gives her tone a blissfully pure quality, heard to beautiful effect in this piece, where she did not have to compete with any other sound. The first, second, and fourth movements, more contrapuntal, had all the voices sensitively defined and phrased so they could be easily unpacked by the ear, although with a cooler approach than the more viscerally intense interpretation of Augustin Hadelich, whose recording for Naxos from a few years ago is a delight. Hahn's Siciliana was graceful but with an edge that seemed to trade on associations with a folk fiddler's sort of sound, taking the chords strictly in rhythm, often little more than understated grace notes (the one movement where Hahn's interpretation beat out Hadelich's to my ears).

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Les Violons du Roy

Charles T. Downey, Les Violons du Roy concert at Strathmore: Stellar early-music ensemble’s time to shine
Washington Post, October 17, 2013

Handel and Bach Arias, S. Blythe, Ensemble Orchestral de Paris, J. Nelson

Les Violons du Roy, perhaps the best early music ensemble in North America? Check. International opera star Stephanie Blythe? Check. A top-notch program of 18th-century music? Check. The Music Center at Strathmore presented what was probably one of the top 10 concerts of the year Tuesday night, and only a couple of hundred people heard it. As embarrassing as the turnout was, the cantankerous critic now gets to pull out some rarely used superlatives and gush for a change.

The Quebec-based chamber orchestra played two baroque suites with stylistic panache, near-perfect intonation and laser-precise ensemble. Telemann’s Suite in C was distinguished by its crisp “Harlequinade” and playful “Bourrée en trompette,” but the suavely somnolent “Sommeil” took the cake, the strings’ period bows creating impeccably hushed tones. [Continue reading]

Les Violons du Roy
With Stephanie Blythe, mezzo-soprano
Music Center at Strathmore

London Town: Wigmore's Grumpy Mr. Handel

Louis de Bernières reminds me of Dom DeLuise, at least he did when he appeared as the titular composer in a frivolous little ditty of a Wigmore-Hall recital called “Mr. Handel”.

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Concerto Köln at LoC

J. S. Bach, Orchestral Suites, Concerto Köln (2010) E. F. Dall'Abaco, Concerti, Concerto Köln (2005)

The playing of Concerto Köln, heard on Friday night in a blockbuster concert at the Library of Congress, offered an apt contrast to the more pop-oriented approach of Christina Pluhar and L’Arpeggiata last month. Here was musicianship just as virtuosic, a sense of improvisatory freedom just as fluid and spontaneous -- just with actual 18th-century music. The visit by this highly esteemed early music ensemble, its first to Washington in fourteen years, was high on our list of things to hear this month, not least because the ensemble, one of the pioneers of the historically informed performance (HIP) movement, continues to break ground in the refreshing and brash style of their performances.

Harpsichordist Markus Märkl provided a thread of varied improvisation that united the music, a selection of solo concertos and orchestral pieces from the late Baroque hit list, both in his continuo playing, admirably inventive, and in the little intonationes that he spun effortlessly from each tuning session into the key of the piece to follow. Motifs from the ritornello of the first movement of Bach's third Brandenburg Concerto seemed to ripple through Märkl's tuning chords, but it may have been my imagination. Earlier versions of the group's program had included Bach's second Brandenburg Concerto, which perhaps because the group's trumpeter was not on the tour, was replaced with Brandenburg No. 4, which also had to be canceled because the group's concertmaster, Markus Hoffmann, ran into trouble obtaining a U.S. visa.

Without their leader, a few minor moments of uncertainty crept into the violin section, with the firsts and seconds standing on opposite sides of the stage. The tuning of the bass line was at times a little raucous, although it was not always clear if the lead cello, the violone, or the occasionally added bassoon was to blame. Overall, this was a strikingly unified performance, with all of the musicians so rhythmically unified, their careful monitoring of one another replacing the need for a conductor. The dance movements, as in Bach's first orchestral suite, music the group has recorded so memorably, were enlivened with a sense of weight and lightness, giving the aural sense of choreographed movement. The slow movements were shot through with poignancy, and scintillating virtuosity was always put to the service of expressive line. Only a little pre-Classical sinfonia (A major), by Giovanni Battista Sammartini (1700-1775), disappointed and only because it was not as perfectly formed a piece as the earlier Baroque pieces on the program.

The assortment of soloists was mostly excellent, led by Susanne Regel who not only tamed the often unruly oboe d'amore but made it sing poignantly in Bach's A major concerto for that instrument (BWV 1055, reconstructed from the harpsichord concerto Bach later adapted from it). The group's artistic director, Martin Sandhoff, shone on flauto traverso, matched on that instrument by Cordula Breuer in a little gem of a concerto (op. 5/3, E minor) by Evaristo Felice Dall'Abaco (1675-1742), a composer also featured in the group's discography. The pair of musicians came back for another astounding display of virtuosity, with Breuer on recorder and Sandhoff on traverso, in the Telemann concerto for those instruments (E minor) that replaced the Brandenburg Concerto on this concert. Only guest cellist Jan Freiheit, formerly of the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, sounded merely good, in an odd little cello concerto by Vivaldi (D minor, RV 407), with some sour intonation in the slow movement and momentary lacks of clarity in the demanding runs of the fast movements. A single encore, the familiar Air from Bach's third orchestral suite (later adapted as the so-called "Air on the G String"), was played lovingly but straightforwardly, without a single rolled eye, from the musicians or even the critic.

The short American tour by Concerto Köln ends on Tuesday night, with a concert at Walt Disney Hall in Los Angeles. More Bach is on the way at the Library of Congress, when Tonya Tomkins performs all six of the composer's solo cello suites (April 28, 8 pm).

'Germanicus' Unearthed

This article was first published at The Classical Review on April 18, 2012.

Telemann, Germanicus, E. Scholl, M. Rexroth, Sächsisches Barockorchester Leipzig, G. Schwarz (released on January 31, 2012) cpo 777 602-2 | 164'12" M. Maul, Barockoper in Leipzig (1693-1720) (Rombach, 2009)

The Leipzig Opernhaus was only the second opera house built in Germany, opening its doors in 1692. Staging operas during the city’s thrice-yearly trade fairs, its history, despite the chronic absence of documentation, has been studied in depth by musicologist Michael Maul, a native Leipziger based at the city’s Bach-Archiv.

One of the fruits of Maul’s work has been his reconstruction of Germanicus, one of the “several and 20” operas Telemann claimed he composed in his youth at Leipzig. Maul connected the libretto -- written, somewhat unusually, by a woman, Christine Dorothea Lachs, a local Protestant minister’s wife, who happened to be the daughter of the founder of the Leipzig Opera -- with a set of arias in the Johann Christian Senckenberg University Library in Frankfurt. Lachs was reportedly much admired for her stage poetry, having authored at least three opera libretti for Telemann and translated several others from Italian.

The plot -- drawn from ancient Roman history and adapted from the Annales of Tacitus -- is particularly contorted. It concerns a campaign in Germania by the Roman general Nero Claudius Germanicus in the First Century A.D. during the reign of the Emperor Tiberius. Although set against a military background, the vicissitudes of the story all have to do with love and betrayal: the jealousy of Germanicus provoked by increasingly ridiculous misconceptions of the infidelity of his faithful wife, Agrippina.

In the other plot strand, Claudia, the daughter of the conquered Cheruscan prince Segestes, loves the Cheruscan outlaw Arminius but is offered in marriage to the Roman prince Lucius. At the same time, in the occupied city of Cologne, a Roman captain named Florus is plotting to overthrow Germanicus and Tiberius. Magical and divine forces intercede to set things right, notably when the son of Germanicus and Agrippina, the treble role of Caligula, prays to the goddess Juno, whose oracle speaks in defense of Agrippina’s virtue.

Maul’s reconstruction was performed by the Sächsisches Barockorchester Leipzig, under the baton of Gotthold Schwarz, at the Bachfest Leipzig in 2007. This new three-disc set from Cpo was recorded in the Altes Theater am Jerichower Platz in Magdeburg, where the opera was revived by the same forces in 2010. Comprised of young musicians from larger standard orchestras playing on historical instruments, the orchestra, has a high-quality and unified sound. (Unfortunately, the instruments and the musicians are not listed anywhere in the booklet.) Schwarz creates a sound that is perhaps not daring or distinctive but is always distinguished by its clarity and precision.

Because none of Telemann’s music for the opera’s recitatives has survived, Maul created a narrator’s part (spoken here by Dieter Bellmann) who relates the action between arias. That neither the recitatives nor Maul’s narration are translated into English in the booklet renders them less than useful to non-German speakers. On the other hand, reading only a libretto’s arias makes it clear how the opera seria worked. Typical of the genre, almost all of the numbers are solo arias, with three excellent duets (‘Mein süßer Trost’ and ‘Wie glücklich ist die Brust’ for Lucius and Claudia, and ‘Zur flucht, mein Schatz’ for Arminus and Claudia) that are among the work’s best pieces.

The performing version of the opera is further complicated by the fact that the arias catalogued by Maul represent a later version of the opera, with some of the German arias replaced by Italian texts. These are performed with the text with which they are found in the source, but some of the keys, in an attempt to restore the work to something like its original form, have been altered. The resulting confusion dates back to contested authorship, attributed not to Telemann but to one Gottfried Grünewald, who had sung the title role at the opera’s premiere in Leipzig and then brought it to Hamburg.

Thirteen arias and other pieces from the score are also lost, a situation rectified by Maul with substitutions from other works produced in Leipzig, by Telemann, Johann David Heinichen (an agitated rage aria, ‘Furien! Furien!,’ taken from a 1709 Leipzig opera, Das lybische Talestris), Melchior Hoffmann (“Großer Feldherr,” one of the most striking arias, with heraldic horns, borrowed from an Annunciation cantata), and Johann Gottfried Vogler (possibly the composer of “So erhält getreue Liebre,” the ensemble number slotted in to form a finale to the opera, although it may be by Telemann). The final bit of guesswork had to do with the missing overture: Maul chose one of Telemann’s other overtures (TWV 55:Es 4), composed around the same time as Germanicus, between 1704 and 1710.

The music and the performances are all beautiful, if lacking any particular revelations. Agrippina’s moving Act I aria ‘Piante voi’ features the ensemble’s warm strings in dotted-rhythm chords, but the soprano of Elisabeth Scholl in this leading role is just a bit unreliable at maintaining pitch (such as in the gorgeous aria ‘Rimembranza crudel’ and ‘Son troppo tenaci’), but with better work in other pieces (the pastoral pairing of ‘Süße Hoffnung’ and ‘Komm, o Schlaf’ in Act II, for example). Tobias Berndt has a pleasing ring on the bass role of Arminius but for the most part lacks the vocal agility to handle the demanding runs of ‘A lescosse fi fortuna.’

Telemann makes colorful use of the orchestra in some of the arias: fairly standard trumpets and drums in some martial arias, and a striking use of bassoons in Claudia’s ‘Amor, hilf mir überwinden.’ Claudia’s pithy, vivacious ‘Nò lacci crudeli’ is characterized by percolating syncopations, but soprano Olivia Stahn, who has a bright and substantial sound overall (lovely in ‘Ti perdei, mio bel sole’), tends to sag, just slightly, in intonation in faster passages. There are pleasing, slightly wan sounds from a boy soprano, Friedrich Praetorius, as Caligula, and less admirable ones from countertenor Matthias Rexroth as Florus and Lucius, like the woofy ‘Arditi pensieri.’ Albrecht Sack has a heroic but rather plain tone in the couple arias for Segestes, and baritone Henryk Böhm is a somewhat vanilla Germanicus.

Sadly, the considerable debt accumulated by the Leipzig Opera led to it being shuttered in 1720, just three years before the arrival of Johann Sebastian Bach as Thomaskantor in 1723. If the house had still been mounting new German operas, what might Bach have been tempted to write for it?

SEE ALSO:
Tanya Kevorkian, Review of Michael Maul's dissertation, Notes (2010)

Wes Blomster, Leipzig Bachfest explores early opera (Opera Today, June 18, 2007)

Telemann at Table

Telemann, Tafelmusik (complete), Freiburger Barockorchester, G. von der Goltz (released on October 12, 2010) HMC 902042.45 | 4h03 S. Zohn, Music for a Mixed Taste: Style, Genre, and Meaning in Telemann's Instrumental Works

Georg Philipp Telemann's Musique de table, an exhaustive collection of the sort known as Tafelmusik -- suites and other music intended to divert noble listeners while they ate -- is only one example of the genre, with contributions from Biber and others. Unlike much of that music, however, Telemann's collection Musique de table represents some of his most engaging and well-constructed music: as scholar Steven Zohn puts it, it is "a summation of all that he had accomplished in the realm of instrumental music up to the 1730s." He goes on to add that, "despite its parallels with other Baroque banquet works, the Musique de table surpassed all previous Tafelmusiken both in its length and variety of scorings." Zohn singles out the second of the three suites in the collection -- each intended to provide about 60 to 90 minutes of entertaining music -- as an example of the "mixed taste" that Telemann aimed to satisfy, with more refined musical forms (overture, concerto, fugue, rondeau, ritornello) alternating with the rustic style associated with Polish folk music.

Before hearing this new recording of the complete score by the Freiburger Barockorchester, led by Petra Müllejans and Gottfried von der Goltz, my recommendation for a complete recording would have gone to the recording by Musica Antiqua Köln, under Reinhard Goebel. (Conveniently, Archiv re-released this set in a discounted edition, around the same time as the Harmonia Mundi recording appeared.) Nikolaus Harnoncourt's recording, with Concentus Musicus Wien, has also been re-released at a discounted price, and there are other complete recordings, too, all mostly for prices less than the cost of this new release (but not by much, with the discounting now available at Amazon, for example). If you already own one of these good recordings, there is probably no need to duplicate, but someone looking for an excellent recording of the complete score cannot go wrong with this one.

Besides attentive listening to this recording in the headphones, I experimented with playing the entire set during the course of our Thanksgiving meal last week, and both manners of listening had rewards. Little moments popped out of the recording, even in casual listening: the shimmering but still pleasingly natural trumpet in the D major sections of Part 2; the frenetic steps of the Réjouissance movement of Part 1's overture or the cross-metrical accented shifts of the Passepied; the lute stop of the harpsichord in the Bergerie and the jagged postillon calls from the overture of Part 3; bubbly solos for violin, flute (played, quite beautifully, by Karl Kaiser, who also contributed the liner notes for the box), playful bassoon, outdoorsy horns (in the delightful double horn concerto of Part 3); viola da gamba and lute adding gorgeous color to the continuo for some pieces. Each part of the score combines overtures and sinfonias for large ensemble with a diverse menu of chamber-sized pieces -- trio sonatas, solo sonatas, quartets, and concertos for various combinations of solo instruments. The packaging of the set recalls the palate-diverting nature of the music, with closeups of table utensils, one fork for the first volume, a fork and spoon for the second, and so on. The Freiburg ensemble sounds collectively at the top of their game, unified and crisp rhythmically, perfectly in tune, and moving gracefully as one.

Trio Hantaï

Read my review on the Washington Post Web site:

Charles T. Downey, Band of Brothers: Trio Hantaï Warms Up for Boston
Washington Post, June 13, 2009

Couperin, pieces for flute, gamba, harpsichord
Leclair, Second Livre de Sonates pour le violon et pour la flute travesiere avec la basse continue
Marais, Pieces in C minor from Third Book
Telemann, Trio Sonata in B minor
Bach, First sonata for traverso and harpsichord (BWV 1030)
Rameau, excerpts from Concerts for harpsichord

Don Quixote Rides Again with the Folger Consort

This review is an Ionarts exclusive.

Available at Amazon: Don Quixote, new translation by Edith Grossman (2003)

Like many beloved works of literature, Cervantes's novel Don Quixote (published in 1605, coincidentally the same year as Victoria's setting of the Requiem Mass, performed by the Folger Consort last season) had an extensive afterlife in music. It is by its very nature a musical book, a sonic soul that Jordi Savall documented in a remarkable recording of all of the pieces (or as many of them as possible) performed, heard, or even mentioned in the book. The last program in the Folger Consort's season was devoted to two pieces that came after the novel, musical works intended for the stage that preserve the comic spirit of the novel while also adapting it to their own times and locales, Germany and England in the early 18th century. Excerpts from both works, Telemann's Burlesque de Quixotte and incidental music composed by Thomas D'Urfey for three English plays on the Don Quixote story, were interwoven with dramatic readings. This arrangement recounted the general arc of the story with a few of the most famous episodes.

The instrumental ensemble consisted of a well-balanced string quintet, with most of the emphasis on the demanding first violin parts, played with dexterity if not universally clear and beautiful tone by Risa Browder. Pleasing accents were added by the continuo group of Webb Wiggins on harpsichord, William Simms on theorbo and Baroque guitar, and Christopher Kendall on lute and therbo, as well as some occasional solos by Robert Eisenstein on recorder, contributing some much needed variety in the treble range. Particularly worthy were Telemann's music for Quixote's attack on the windmills, the book's most famous passage, a very fast, agitated performance of music focused especially on a rapid-fire repeated-note motif, and for the sighs of love for Princess Aline, with a chromatic sighing motif for the first violin. A country dance medley was added to the conclusion of the program, to give a sampling of Thomas D'Urfey's poaching of pre-existing dance tunes. This had little to do with the program, coming after the death of Quixote, but the different colors applied -- lute and guitar with only double bass on one, recorder featured on another -- relieved the uniformity of the instrumentation up to that point.

William Sharp, bass-baritone

Actors Floyd King and Robert McDonald narrated the story with humor and bonhomie, speaking lines by Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, respectively. Baritone William Sharp was at his best in these broadly comic songs, grimacing and blustery on the hearty guffaws of Sancho in Hat mich der große Menschenfresser, for example. Sharp adapted his elegant and subtle voice to a range of humorous songs, from the mock-epic tribute of Sancho to his donkey (Telemann's Mein Esel ist das beste Tier) to the inebriated stagger of D'Urfey's The Doctor is feed for a Dangerous Draught, sung in praise of a wine bottle. Sharp was paired with soprano Rosa Lamoreaux, who sang first from the upper balcony as a vision of mythical Dulcinea. At times her voice sounded slightly strained, but her performance was especially compelling in the extended and highly varied made scene, From Rosie Bow'rs -- as it turns out, the last piece that Purcell completed, when he was quite ill.

The Folger Consort's 2009-2010 season will be devoted to music from around the year 1610, centered on a performance of Claudio Monteverdi's 1610 Vespers at Washington National Cathedral (January 8 to 9, 2010). Other programs include a comparison of 17th-century music in Italy and China (October 2 to 4), a German Baroque Christmas program with Cantate Chamber Singers (December 11 to 20), a French Baroque program (March 19 to 21, 2010), and Robert Dowland's Musical Banquet, from 1610 (April 9 to 11, 2010).