Briefly Noted: Schumann for Four and Five (CD of the Month)

Schumann, Piano Quartet/Piano Quintet, I. Faust, A.K. Schreiber, A. Tamestit, J.-G. Queyras, A. Melnikov (released on November 24, 2023) Harmonia Mundi HMM902695 | 52'42"

Many musicologists have described Robert Schumann's youthful piano quartet and piano quintet as twin works, not least because they were composed in the same key, E-flat major, and within a few weeks of one another. Neither of these pieces, early experiments by Schumann with pairing his favorite instrument, the piano, with different combination of string instruments, lasts over a half-hour, but the young composer, still only 19 years old, laid the foundations for many later examples of both of these still relatively rare genres.

This delectable new release assembles a dream team for these exemplary works: violinist Isabelle Faust, violist Antoine Tamestit, cellist Jean-Guihen Queyras, and pianist Alexander Melnikov. All play on historical instruments, with the strings all made roughly around the year 1700, as early as 1672, in the case of Tamestit's Stradivarius viola. Melnikov plays on a historical fortepiano made by Ignace Pleyel (Paris, 1851), technically constructed after Schumann composed these pieces, but that is a minor point.

Even though it was composed slightly later, the quartet is the lesser work to my ears, but its slow movement, with ardent cello solos here played subtly by Queyras, is nothing short of gorgeous. Schumann's piano quintet, however, has always struck me as one of the most perfect pieces of chamber music ever written. This performance, with Anne Katharina Schreiber joining on second violin, is going to be rather difficult to improve on, and it is certainly in competition with Melnikov's own recording of the same pairing from a decade ago (with the Jerusalem String Quartet) and the version made around the same time by the Takács Quartet and Marc-André Hamelin. The second movement surprises, both by the detached, somewhat brisk pacing of the funeral march and the understated rubato of the B section. The use of historical instruments and the individual strengths of each player put this disc a notch above.

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Briefly Noted: Pichon's 1610 Vespers (CD of the Month)

Monteverdi, Vespro della beata vergine, Pygmalion, Raphaël Pichon (released on September 1, 2023) Harmonia Mundi HMM902710.11 | xx'xx

Claudio Monteverdi is a favorite composer, and there is no piece of his greater in my estimation than the Vespro della beata vergine. The Vespers of 1610, as the piece is sometimes known, has been reviewed in these pages many times, both in recordings and live. In other words, it would take a lot for me to be surprised by a new recording of this piece, but that is precisely what conductor Raphaël Pichon and his ensemble, Pygmalion, have done in their newly released recording. The opening movement, in which Monteverdi interweaves his brilliant brass fanfare from Orfeo with the opening versicle of the Vespers service, is adorned with added brass riffs. Then, just when I thought that Pichon was going to omit the final statement of "Alleluia" from this compact section, his forces delivered it, after a long pause, with expansive delicacy.

Pichon's St. Matthew Passion was a CD of the Month last year, and this release is no less fulfilling a listen. An older version of the Vespro, led by Frieder Bernius, remains my favorite because it is presented liturgically, rounded out with exquisitely performed chant. Pichon's approach could not be more different: where Bernius favors reserve and propriety, Pygmalion goes for spectacle, with a big chorus on many numbers, clarion brass, and splashy surprises of sound.

Not surprisingly, Pichon says in his booklet interview that he feels that "the Vespro is the first cinematic work in the history of music. Monteverdi’s dramatic genius means that each psalm (and especially the first three) is presented as a genuine scene of dramatic action. He sets the scene, and makes us feel, visualise, even touch it!" This situates the work in that most dramatic of stylistic periods, the Baroque, the same era that created the genre of opera. The experience Pichon wants is "immersive," and it is: as he puts it, "to attend a performance of Monteverdi’s Vespers is to experience ecstasy," in a way similar to a viewing of a room-filling work by Bernini.

Many elements will strike a listener familiar with the work as quite different. Pichon opts to eschew the "chiavette" system, by which the often high tessitura of some music of this period was transposed down by a fourth, as heard on many recordings. By not only adhering to the original keys, but also resorting to the high pitch standard of Italian tunings of the time (A set somewhere between 440 and 465 Hz), the singers add further virtuosic, one might say "operatic," intensity to many key climaxes.

Like most conductors, Pichon shuffles the order of numbers slightly in the work's final section. The most significant change is the interpolation of another piece by Monteverdi, Sancta Maria, succurre miseris (SV 328) from Promptuarium musicum, published in 1627, to serve as the "antiphon" to the Magnificat. (In his "liturgical" recording, Bernius added a chant antiphon with an almost identical text in this position.) The motet is followed by the litany-like Sonata sopra Sancta Maria, with which it shares intriguing melodic elements, as if the composer were alluding to one in the other. The concluding number is also a nod to cinematic style, as the Orfeo fanfare that opened the work returns, retrofitted to the closing formulas of Vespers.


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Briefly Noted: Faust Channels Locatelli

P. Locatelli, Violin Concertos / Concerti Grossi, I. Faust, Il Giardino Armonico, G. Antonini (released on August 25, 2023) Harmonia Mundi HMM902398 | 68'22"

If you've heard of Pietro Locatelli, it is likely as part of a list of other 18th-century violinist-composers in the mold of Corelli and Vivaldi: one of those Italian -i names. At most, early music groups will include a Locatelli piece along with more famous composers in a program from time to time. So be prepared to be wowed when you take in the latest disc from Il Giardino Armonico and the mesmerizing violinist Isabelle Faust, which is devoted entirely to the works of this under-played composer. He was born in Bergamo in 1695, but his peregrinations took him from Rome, where he trained, throughout Italy and Germany and eventually to Amsterdam, where he died in 1764.

This recording features two of Locatelli's concerti grossi, including the intriguing and intensely introspective Op. 7, no. 6, given the subtitle "Il pianto d'Arianna." Likely a sort of programmatic setting of an unknown text about the abandonment of Ariadne by Theseus, it is a sort of quasi-operatic instrumental drama: conductor Giovanni Antonini compares its structure to that of Monteverdi's Lamento d'Arianna for clues to each movement's meaning. Broken into ten movements, the first five, all quite short and featuring turbulent contrasts, are joined together here in a single track. The ensemble's lead violinist, Stefano Barneschi, takes the second solo violin parts under Faust in this and the less noteworthy Op. 1, no. 11, with opulent results.

While the concerti grossi emphasize Locatelli's melodic invention and musicality, two solo violin concerti showcase his other compositional side, the virtuosic exploits of a true showman. Locatelli ornamented his solo concertos with astounding cadenzas, each of which he gave the title of Capriccio. These Capricci, twenty-four in number, are an important forerunner of and likely influence on Paganini's 24 Caprices. Faust is magical in the insane runs of whistle-tone harmonics in the Capriccio from the first movement of Op. 3, no. 11. Likewise, she somehow navigates the perilous extended positions in the Capriccio for the third movement, so high in range that it reminds one of the anecdote that Locatelli once stunned a canary off its perch with his sound. Melodically these pieces are often as dull as a Hanon exercise, but the facility of the playing is nothing less than amazing. Locatelli also often marked a fermata in places where the soloist was meant to improvise, and here Faust plays written-out cadenzas by Godefridus Domenicus Reber from an edition of 1743.

As Faust puts it in her booklet essay on the solo concertos, these excessive cadenzas "are of such great technical difficulty that Locatelli expressly left it up to the performer whether to play them or not. He was obviously aware that not every violinist’s hand could master these cadenzas." Fortunately with Faust, her hands are up to the challenge. The tender Pastorale movement from another concerto grosso, Op. 1, no. 8, serves as an encore to cool down the strings.


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Briefly Noted: London, Circa 1740 (CD of the Month)

London, circa 1740: Handel's Musicians, La Rêveuse, F. Bolton, B. Perrot (released on August 18, 2023) Harmonia Mundi HMM902613 | 68'57"

Gambist Florence Bolton and theorbist Benjamin Perrot, who co-direct the early music ensemble La Rêveuse, continue to survey the lesser-known corners of 18th-century music in England. The concept for the first half of their latest release is to bring together music of Handel with other pieces by the virtuosos who performed under him during his English period.

Flutist Carl Friedrich Wiedemann and oboist (and flutist) Giuseppe Sammartini both became principal players in Handel's orchestra. Both were likely featured in humorous engravings by William Hogarth: Sammartini's notorious bad temper was lampooned in The Enraged Musician. Traverso player Oliver Riehl and soprano recorder player Sébastien Marq contribute remarkable solo playing in concertos by Wiedemann and Sammartini, respectively.

Violinist Pietro Castrucci, whom Handel met when they both worked for the Ruspoli family in Rome, later came to London and became the concertmaster of Handel's opera orchestra. Florence Bolton takes the solo part in a gamba sonata by Castrucci, as well as contributing a wide-ranging booklet essay giving a vivid portrayal of musical taste in the period. Handel is represented by a fine trio sonata, featuring the gorgeous, intertwined violins of Stéphan Dudermel and Ajay Ranganathan. As lagniappe, there is the Hornpipe that Handel wrote for the budding concert series at Vauxhall Gardens, organized by the entrepreneur Jonathan Tyers at one of the summer retreats from London for the nobility. (The Prince of Wales, who used his artistic patronage in his ongoing campaign for popularity against his father, King George II, was a patron and even maintained a Prince's Pavilion there.).

The second half of this pleasing disc goes in a completely different, folk music-influenced direction. Cellist and composer James Oswald, although not directly connected to Handel, was a Scotsman active in London from the 1740s on, later even becoming chamber composer for King George III. Born in Crail, a town in Fife (the region where my own Scottish ancestors lived for a time), he made many arrangements of Scottish folk tunes, beginning with a popular Sonata of Scots Tunes in five movements. The recording also features a selection of melodies from his Caledonian Pocket Companion, an anthology of twelve volumes, rounding out this diverting late-summer delight.

Briefly Noted: Queyras and Tharaud go for Baroque (CD of the Month)

Marin Marais, Pièces de Viole, Jean-Guihen Queyras, Alexandre Tharaud (released on January 27, 2023) Harmonia Mundi HMM902315 | 62'24"

Alexandre Tharaud has not visited Washington since 2018, and cellist Jean-Guihen Queyras was last here in 2017. The two esteemed French musicians have continued their long and fruitful collaboration in a striking new Baroque album, with delightful transcriptions of Marin Marais’s pièces de viole, originally for viola da gamba and continuo, for the cello and piano. The performances, in the spirit of Baroque elaboration but taking full advantage of modern dynamic range and harmonic content, are delightful.

The two longest tracks are celebrated works in Marais's oeuvre. About a third of the disc is given to Couplets des Folies d'Espagne, from the composer's second book of Pièces de Viole, Marais's epic variation set on the widely known tune "La follia." This version of the piece shivers with rhythmic vitality, including some folksy Spanish twists, not least Tharaud's guitar-like repeated notes in one variation.

The second-longest piece on the disc, though only a quarter the size of the Folies d'Espagne, is La Rêveuse, included in Marais's Suite d’un goût étranger in his fourth book and used crucially in the splendid movie about Marais, Tous les Matins du Monde. From the same odd suite is the single track performed by Tharaud alone, an arrangement of the viol piece "Le badinage" somehow rendered on the Yamaha grand piano. Queyras also has one solo track, an arrangement of "Les Regrets," a charming piece sometimes attributed to Marais, given a soulful rendering on Queyras's 1696 Gioffredo Cappa cello.

Also not to be missed is the truly bizarre "Le Tableau de l'opération de la Taille," a piece that describes the horribly painful operation to remove a stone from the bladder. Actor Guillaume Gallienne reads the descriptions of this surgery, which Marais himself underwent without anesthesia in 1720. Unfortunately for those who do not speak French, there is no translation of this brutal text in the booklet, but the vivid demonstrations by the musicians give more than enough sense of their meaning.

Briefly Noted: Andreas Staier completes Well-Tempered Clavier Set

Bach, Well-Tempered Clavier, Vol. 1, A. Staier (released on January 6, 2023) Harmonia Mundi HMM902680.81 | 109'13" Vol. 2 [2021]

It was long past time to check in with what Andreas Staier has been up to recently. The esteemed German specialist in historical keyboards went back to recording Bach, with a two-release set of the complete preludes and fugues of the Well-Tempered Clavier. He began with the more substantial second volume, released in 2021, leaving the earlier volume, the kernel of Bach's monumental collection, for now. Uniting the set is Staier's choice of instrument, a modern one built in Paris by Anthony Sidey and Frédéric Bal in 2004, modeled on a harpsichord made by Hieronymus Albrecht Hass in Hamburg in 1734, right between the appearances of Bach's two volumes.

In Staier's hands, this harpsichord belies the myth of the instrument as monotonous in sound. In both volumes, Staier uses the many registration possibilities to create a bewildering range of textures. The original Hass instrument, now in the collection of the Musical Instruments Museum in Brussels (I think), is a bit of a monster, a double-manual harpsichord with a disposition combining a 16', double 8', and 4' choir of strings. There is also a lute stop, as well as buff stops on the lower manual's 8' and 4'. (A few years later, Hass built an even larger harpsichord, with five choirs of strings controlled by three manuals, thought to be the largest original harpsichord of the period and the only historical harpsichord with three manuals.)

German harpsichords like this one can have a dozen or more possible registration combinations, and Staier seems to use them all. Some of the preludes and fugues stand out for their light sound, like the D#/E-flat minor pairing, giving an understated finish to the incredible complexity of this very long fugue, complete with tortured chromatic twists. (Only the final fugue of Book 1, in B minor, is longer.) Other pairings, using the big sets of strings, have a more orchestral sound, almost like a Busoni transcription of Bach with all the parallel octaves. The buff stops come in handy for a couple delicate pieces: one of these softened stops buzzes with a reedy twang like a Nasalzug, heard in the E major and F# major preludes. Staier engages the harp stop only on the very first prelude, the almost too-famous C major, to novel effect (also on the C# major prelude in Book 2). Staier's touch is not uniformly fluid, with some preludes having more tiny inconsistencies than others, but the variety of connections in the playing is always diverting.

Best Recordings of 2022 (Briefly Noted)

The weekly CD review known as "Briefly Noted" made a comeback in 2022, with the added benefit that I listened to a lot more recordings more closely this year. As had been the case during the coronavirus lockdown era, beautiful music on my headphones continued to be a comforting presence. Here were the best new discs to hit my ears in the last twelve months.

1. Vivaldi, The Great Venetian Mass, Sophie Karthäuser, Lucile Richardot, Les Arts Florissants, Paul Agnew (Harmonia Mundi). Les Arts Florissants set the too-famous Gloria as the centerpiece of a hypothetical reconstruction of a Great Venetian Mass by Vivaldi. The Redhead Priest, although he was required to produce several settings of the Latin Ordinary during his career at the Ospedale della Pietà, left no complete Mass that has survived. Paul Agnew, a long-time tenor with the ensemble and now serving as its musical codirector with founder William Christie, conducts a convincing interpretation that can only make the listener lament what such complete masses have been lost.

2. Grieg, Haugtussa / Songs, Lise Davidsen, Leif Ove Andsnes (Decca). This is a beguiling recital of songs by Norway's most beloved composer. To seal the deal, Norwegian soprano Lise Davidsen partnered with Norwegian pianist Leif Ove Andsnes. The two musicians, working together for the first time, recorded the album in the town of Bodø in the Arctic Circle. It is anchored on Grieg's only song cycle, the mysterious Haugtussa (The Fairy Maid), with poetry by Arne Garborg in Nynorsk, the New Norwegian that had been reinstated after Norway had finally regained its independence from Denmark. Davidsen sings with both shimmering transparency and, where needed, overwhelming power, incarnating the voice of Veslemøy, the young Norwegian girl with psychic powers.

3. Le Manuscrit de Madame Théobon, Christophe Rousset (Aparte). Christophe Rouuset made these two discs of music from a newly rediscovered manuscript, which he acquired from a bookseller over Ebay. The instrument he plays on the recording is a harpischord made by Nicolas Dumont in 1704, around the same time that the music was likely copied. Restored by David Ley from 2006 to 2016, it is one of only three Dumont harpsichords known to have survived. Rousset has identified the manuscript's first owner as Lydie de Théobon. King Louis XIV began a two-year affair with her at the Château de Chambord in 1670, shortly before Molière and Lully premiered Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme there.

4. György Kurtág, Kafka-Fragmente, Anna Prohaska, Isabelle Faust (Harmonia Mundi). György Kurtág composed the Kafka-Fragmente from 1985 to 1987, a song cycle on bits of text gleaned from Franz Kafka's diaries, letters, and unpublished stories. Like much of Kurtág's music, each of the forty movements is a dense, carefully thought out nugget of music. Isabelle Faust and Anna Prohaska made this recording in May 2020 in a Berlin studio, which must have been surreal given the circumstances. Its text captures some sense of the lockdown year: "Slept, woke, slept, woke, miserable life." After living through the coronavirus lockdown, the sentiments of this complicated piece now strike me in new ways.

5. Jean Mouton, Missa Faulte d'argent / Motets, Brabant Ensemble, Stephen Rice (Hyperion). Jean Mouton was prolific enough that all but one of the pieces on this disc are receiving their first recordings. Mouton's style is intricately contrapuntal, drawing comparison to the music of Josquin Desprez, with whom he was roughly contemporary. Confitemini domino combines four voices in points of imitation on the outer text. These unfold over a clever puzzle canon, notated with the inscription "Preibis parare viam meam." Like St. John the Baptist, who was to prepare the way for Christ, the comes voice is supposed to enter first, followed by the dux, an unexpected inversion of the normal canon process.

6. Polish Songs, Jakub Józef Orliński, Michał Biel (Erato). Not surprisingly, countertenor Jakub Józef Orliński has mostly recorded Baroque music, often in partnership with the historically informed performance ensemble Il Pomo d'Oro. For this new album, the Polish singer has partnered with Polish pianist Michał Biel, his longtime friend from their student days in Warsaw and at the Juilliard School. The program is the fruit of their collaboration in song recital repertory by more recent Polish composers, all from the last 150 years. Some of these composers may be familiar, although Karol Szymanowski's Songs from Kurpie may not be.

7. Bach, St. Matthew Passion, Julian Prégardien, Pygmalion, Raphaël Pichon (Harmonia Mundi). Raphaël Pichon calls this St. Matthew Passion "a consciously choral performance," with the solo singers also serving as section leaders in what is an exquisite choral sound. As the finishing touch, fifteen young singers from the Maîtrise de Radio France take the chorale tunes woven into the complex textures of the opening and closing movements of Part I, a part marked by Bach as "soprani in ripieno." The solo parts range from very good to excellent, with soloists from each choir taking the arias as Bach indicated and some of the characters named in dialogues given to other chorus members.

8. Mackey, Beautiful Passing / Mnemosyne's Pool, A. Marwood, Sydney Symphony Orchestra, D. Robertson (Canary Classics). This disc brings together two major works by Steven Mackey on the theme of human perseverance in the face of death. Washingtonians heard the American composer's violin concerto, Beautiful Passing, from the National Symphony Orchestra a decade ago, a riveting tribute to Mackey's mother. That rarest of rare birds, a new full-length symphonic work, appeared this year in his Mnemosyne's Pool, a meditation on memory and death partly inspired by the loss of Mackey's father-in-law. David Robertson conducted the piece with the NSO earlier this month, in a program including Barber's Knoxville: Summer of 1915 with the gorgeous soprano Masabane Cecilia Rangwanasha.

9. Schubert, "Great" and "Unfinished" Symphonies, B'Rock Orchestra, R. Jacobs (PentaTone). René Jacobs continues to surprise in his complete traversal of the symphonies of Franz Schubert with the B'Rock Orchestra, a period instrument ensemble based in Ghent. Jacobs based his interpretation of the "Unfinished" Symphony on a theory put forward by Arnold Schering in an essay published in 1938, relating the music to the allegorical narrative Mein Traum (My dream), which Schubert drafted in pencil in 1822. As Jacobs puts it in an extensive booklet essay, including a section-by-section analysis of both works, in Mein Traum "Schubert tries to put into words what he seems far more able to say without words in his music."

10. William Bolcom, The Complete Rags, Marc-André Hamelin (Hyperion). In a liner note to this dazzling recording, composer William Bolcom describes the origins of his obsession with the rag. It began in 1967, when he first heard of Joplin and his opera Treemonisha, and continued for much of his career, as he and some fellow travelers shared new ragtime discoveries and wrote their own compositions in the style. Most of the original rags in this collection date from the ragtime revival period of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Marc-André Hamelin, himself a musical mimic not unlike Bolcom, gives these pieces a studied nonchalance.

Honorable Mentions
11. Carlos Simon, Requiem for the Enslaved, Marco Pavé, MK Zulu, Hub New Music (Decca)

12. Georg Philipp Telemann, Fantasias for solo violin, Alina Ibragimova (Hyperion)

13. Michel Richard de Lalande, Grands motets, Ensemble Correspondances, Sébastien Daucé (Harmonia Mundi)

14. Pâques à Notre-Dame, Maîtrise Notre-Dame de Paris, Yves Castagnet, Henri Chalet (Warner)

15. Mendelssohn, Violin Sonatas, Alina Ibragimova, Cédric Tiberghien (Hyperion)

16. Vivaldi, Nisi Dominus, Eva Zaïcik, Le Poème Harmonique, Vincent Dumestre (Alpha)

17. Beethoven, Complete String Quartets, Vol. 3, Dover Quartet (Cedille)

18. Handel, Opera Arias and Concerti Grossi, Sandrine Piau, Les Paladins, Jérôme Correas (Alpha)

19. Carols after a Plague, The Crossing, Donald Nally (New Focus Recordings)

20. Berlioz, Les Nuits d'été / Harold en Italie, Michael Spyres, Timothy Ridout, Orchestre philharmonique de Strasbourg, John Nelson (Erato)

Briefly Noted: Kafka-Fragments

György Kurtág, Kafka-Fragmente, Anna Prohaska, Isabelle Faust (released on August 19, 2022) Harmonia Mundi HMM902359 | 58'06"

György Kurtág composed the Kafka-Fragmente from 1985 to 1987, a song cycle on bits of text gleaned from Franz Kafka's diaries, letters, and unpublished stories. Like much of Kurtág's music, each of the forty movements is a dense, carefully thought out nugget of music. The piece grabs the ear from the first moment: in this new recording, as violinist Isabelle Faust plods along on an oscillating major second, soprano Anna Prohaska first joins her ("the good march in step") and then spirals around her in disjointed staccato dissonance ("unaware of them, the others dance around them the dances of time").

Some movements have the chaotic feel of Sprechstimme, à la Schoenberg's Pierrot lunaire, while others are lushly melodic, such as the hypnotic "Berceuse I." The two performers are paired beautifully, both up to the virtuosic demands, extended techniques executed with perfect intonation. One of the longest movements, "Träumend hing die Blume" (The flower hung dreamily), is offered as an homage to Robert Schumann. Prohaska and Faust draw out its gorgeous lines beautifully, answered by the disconcerting shrieks of the movement that follows it, "Nichts dergleichen" (Nothing of the kind), which is embedded below.

Faust and Prohaska made this recording in May 2020 in a Berlin studio, which must have been surreal given the circumstances. Der wahre Weg, the longest piece in the set at almost seven minutes, is a drawn-out drone of sorts, addressed as an homage/message to Pierre Boulez. Its text, by chance, captures some of the sense of the lockdown year: "The true path goes by way of a rope that is suspended not high up, but rather just above the ground. Its purpose seems to be more to make one stumble than to be walked on." The same goes for a text that appears twice in the cycle, as Fragments 11 and 25: "Slept, woke, slept, woke, miserable life." After living through the coronavirus lockdown, the sentiments of this complicated piece now strike me in new ways compared to previous years.

Briefly Noted: Great Venetian Mass (CD of the Month)

Vivaldi, The Great Venetian Mass, Sophie Karthäuser, Lucile Richardot, Les Arts Florissants, Paul Agnew (released on June 24, 2022) Harmonia Mundi HAF8905358 | 68'09"

One does not really need an excuse to make another recording of Vivaldi's well-known Gloria (RV 589), but it helps to have something that could set a new version apart. The distinguished French early music ensemble Les Arts Florissants hit on an ingenious solution, setting the Gloria as the centerpiece of a hypothetical reconstruction of a Great Venetian Mass by Vivaldi. The Redhead Priest, although he was required to produce several settings of the Latin Ordinary during his career at the Ospedale della Pietà, left no complete Mass that has survived. Paul Agnew, a long-time tenor with the ensemble and now serving as its musical codirector with founder William Christie, conducts a convincing interpretation that can only make the listener lament what such complete masses have been lost.

The Kyrie (RV 587) suits as a first movement, especially the second statement of "Kyrie eleison," with its playful rising chromatic scale, passed around the choir and orchestra, zipping along at a fleet tempo. A particularly nice touch comes in the motet placed between the Kyrie and Gloria, Ostro picta, armata spina (RV 642), surviving only in a manuscript in Turin. This piece, subtitled "Introduzione al Gloria," is something like a trope to preface the Gloria, because of its text likely sung for the Visitation of the Virgin on July 2, the convent-orphanage's patronal feast. Soprano Sophie Karthäuser gives a plangent edge to this solo piece, including the striking text painting of sudden silences in the main theme, "Linguis favete / Omnes silete" (Let tongues be still / Let all be silent), as the singer imposes silence so that only the words of the angelic hymn that follows can be heard.

Agnew helps his musicians shape a worthy interpretation of the famous Gloria, one of only two by Vivaldi that survive. The opening movement, adorned by two rustic natural trumpets, moves at a bubbly speed and with expressive, text-sensitive shaping of the choir's homophonic phrases. Karthäuser and steely mezzo-soprano Lucile Richardot share the solo movements to optimal effect, and the aching suspensions of the "Et in terra pax" section are drawn out to languorous effect. The concluding fugue ("Cum sancto spiritu"), borrowed from another Gloria by one Giovanni Maria Ruggieri, a contemporary of Vivaldi's in Venice, is in the context of this mass reconstruction just another piece of the patchwork. Of Vivaldi's two surviving settings of the Credo, the group selected RV 591, the only one still confidently attributed to the composer. Its "Crucifixus" especially is quite lovely, a web of plaintive vocal lines over a detached walking bass.

No musical setting of the other movements of the Mass by Vivaldi survives, requiring this reconstruction to conclude with other pieces by Vivaldi retrofitted to the text of the Sanctus and Agnus dei (editions prepared by Pascal Duc). This makes perfect sense, as Vivaldi was known to cannibalize his own work in this way, as did most Baroque composers. The flowing strings of the Benedictus are particularly effective, adapted from a movement of the composer's Dixit dominus. In an apt echo of the return of the start of a cyclic mass setting at its conclusion, the final section of the Agnus dei is based on the solemn opening of the Kyrie (sadly not that zippy chromatic section of the second Kyrie). The sound, captured in 2020 in the resonant acoustic of the Église Notre-Dame-du-Liban in Paris, has a pleasing ring.

Briefly Noted: New B Minor Mass from René Jacobs

Bach, Mass in B Minor, R. Johannsen, M.-C. Chappuis, H. Rasker, S. Kohlhepp, C. Immler, RIAS Kammerchor, Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, R. Jacobs (released on May 13, 2022) Harmonia Mundi HMM 902676.77 | 1h44

René Jacobs, the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, and the RIAS Kammerchor made a recording of Bach's B Minor Mass in the 1990s. It was a fine interpretation, featuring solo work from Hillevi Martinpelto, Bernarda Fink, Matthias Goerne, Axel Köhler, and Christoph Prégardien, backed up by a large complement of choral singers. Last year, Jacobs came back to this monumental score, second among Bach's achievements only to the St. Matthew Passion, in a new recording made at the Bürgerhaus in Neuenhagen bei Berlin, released last month on the Harmonia Mundi label.

Jacobs has drawn his ideas for this new interpretation from an article by musicologist and church musician Wilhelm Ehmann (an essay called ‘Concertisten’ und ‘Ripienisten’ in der h-Moll-Messe Joh. Seb. Bachs, published in 1960). As Jacobs puts it in a booklet essay, "Ehmann argued that Bach’s ideal in his choral works was a ‘vocal concerto’, that is, an alternating juxtaposition of the full choral sonority (ripieno) and a small group of soloists (concertino)."

To realize this concept, Jacobs gives the large choral sections to the entire RIAS Kammerchor (29 singers), contrasting that sound with sections for a small choir within the choir (15 singers). The quintet of soloists, all current or former choral singers, handles the solo and duet movements, as well as some of the complete choral sections, like the intimate "Et incarnatus est" and "Crucifixus," and a few passages within the large choral sections. The effect is a pleasing increase in the variety of choral textures across what is a rather long work. (Raphaël Pichon and Pygmalion used a similar approach in their new recording of the St. Matthew Passion, although Pichon's soloists also sang with the chorus.)

Jacobs has sped up his tempos in several movements, noticeable from the opening Kyrie movement, choices that shave about six minutes off the total duration. Much of that time difference may come in the Sanctus, taken at breakneck speed, about twice as fast as his previous interpretation. That being said, Jacobs is not the sort to go for HIP speed all the time: the gently flowing "Et in terra pax" movement in the Gloria is very calm, just not as slow as his old recording.

All five soloists are excellent, especially in combinations, particularly the treble voices (Robin Johannsen, Marie-Claude Chappuis, and Helena Rasker) and the impeccably light tenor of Sebastian Kohlhepp, ideal for Bach. The instrumental contributions are equally fine, with a more diverse continuo sound, organ with prominent lute from Michael Freimuth mixed in to pleasing effect. Christoph Huntgeburth and Laure Mourot give the two flauti traversi a wonderful, breathy sound, featured unusually in the parts retrofitted to the "Cum sancto spiritu" fugue of the Gloria (added by Bach when he adapted the piece in his Christmas cantata Gloria in excelsis deo).

Margherita Lulli gives a rustic touch to the corno da caccia part in the "Quoniam tu solus sanctus," and the three natural trumpets and timpani add regal dignity to the largest movements. Perhaps in a nod to the nickname of the piece in the time even of Bach's sons ("‘Die große catholische Messe"), Jacobs opts in this version for the Roman pronunciation of the Latin Ordinary.

Briefly Noted: Domenico Scarlatti

D. Scarlatti, Stabat Mater (inter alia), Emmanuelle de Negri, Paul-Antoine Bénos-Djian, Le Caravansérail, Bertrand Cuiller (released on April 8, 2022) Harmonia Mundi HMM905340DI | 76'22"

The little surviving sacred music by Domenico Scarlatti should be sung more often than it is. In my limited experience with it as a choral singer, it is always worth knowing. Bertrand Cuiller puts a setting of the Stabat Mater at the center of this recent survey of the composer's music with Le Caravansérail, the early music ensemble he founded in 2015. Cuiller conducts the work from the organ, leading a small continuo ensemble consisting of cellist Bruno Cocset, plus double bass and archlute. This puts the emphasis appropriately on the voices, soprano Emmanuelle de Negri and countertenor Paul-Antoine Bénos-Djian, blossoming into a rarefied choral sound at climaxes with eight other singers.

Cuiller shifts gears with the remaining pieces on the disc, all of a secular nature, which he performs on or leads from a harpsichord. The selections highlight the melodic variety of Scarlatti the Younger, from the somber Keyboard Sonata in D Minor, K.213 (Cuiller on harpsichord), to an unusual arrangement of the Sonata in G Major, K. 144, for harpist Bérengère Sardin. The group's lead violinist plays the diverting Sonata in D Minor, K. 90, one of the multi-movement sonatas Scarlatti left open to the possibility of performing with added instruments. The disc also includes a movement from one of the Scarlatti sonatas enlarged as a concerto grosso by English composer Charles Avison.

Other vocal works include three arias from the opera Amor d’un’Ombra e Gelosia d’un’aura, composed in Rome and later adapted as Narciso for London, as well as the cantata Pur nel sonno almen tal'ora, composed during Scarlatti's later period in Madrid. Sardin gets another pleasing harp turn on the Minuetto that forms the latter's second movement. Of the two leading soloists, de Negri is the more consistenly pleasing, featured beautifully in the cantata's three vocal movements, as Bénos-Djian at times falls into the nasal shrillness associated with some countertenor voices at loud dynamics. The two singers are heard together to their best effect, as Narcissus and Echo, in the final selection from Amor d'un'Ombra.

Briefly Noted: Pichon's Pygmalion Passion (CD of the Month)

Bach, St. Matthew Passion, J. Prégardien, Pygmalion, Raphaël Pichon (released on March 25, 2022) Harmonia Mundi HMM902691.93 | 2h42

Raphaël Pichon's ensemble Pygmalion, founded in 2006, is another early music group I have been following closely in recent years. Although they have yet to make the trip to Washington, we have had plenty of chances to hear them via stream and recording. The group has released some fine Bach discs over the years, all with a specific goal in mind. As Pichon put it in an interview about their newest recording, "When I founded Pygmalion, I had a single certainty, one big dream: that we would give our first St. Matthew Passion for our tenth birthday." That is exactly what happened in 2016, with most of the musicians who ended up being recorded on this excellent set at sessions in April 2021 at the Philharmonie de Paris.

Pichon calls this "a consciously choral performance," with the solo singers also serving as section leaders in what is an exquisite choral sound. As the finishing touch, fifteen young singers from the Maîtrise de Radio France take the chorale tunes woven into the complex textures of the opening and closing movements of Part I, a part marked by Bach as "soprani in ripieno." The solo parts range from very good to excellent, with soloists from each choir taking the arias as Bach indicated and some of the characters named in dialogues given to other chorus members. The two superb sopranos, Sabine Devieilhe (whose solo album with Pygmalion has also been in my ears recently) and Hana Blažíková, lead the topmost sections of Choir I and II, respectively, as well as splitting the soprano arias.

Mezzo-soprano Lucile Richardot is sublime in "Erbarme dich," as she was when she sang with Ensemble Correspondances recently. (She sang with the Maîtrise de Radio France in her youth, which is a nice connection to the young performers in the group now.) Julian Prégardien takes the part of the Evangelist with authority and beauty of tone, while baritone Stéphane Degout brings a plangent resonance to the part of Jesus, wreathed in its halo of strings. The instrumental contributions are all lovely, especially the soft flutes. The continuo realization has a pleasing variety, split among organ, harpsichord, and theorbo, all used quite inventively. Pichon has thought deeply about this massive score, which he has spoken about in interviews. There is no small chorale or bit of recitative that does not reflect the conductor's care for it, such as the last chorale in the work, "Wenn ich einmal soll scheiden," performed by the singers alone after the death of Christ. This marvelous rendition is both full-textured and brimming with the intimacy of historically informed performance practice.

Briefly Noted: Lalande's grands motets

Michel Richard de Lalande, Grands motets, Ensemble Correspondances, Sébastien Daucé (released on February 4, 2022) Harmonia Mundi HMM902625 | 80'20"

Long-time readers are already aware of my admiration for the French early music group Ensemble Correspondances. Their streamed concert, aired by the Library of Congress, was one of the highlights of 2021, and a few years ago they made a stellar disc of music by this composer, Michel Richard de Lalande, back when the Washington Post was still publishing recording reviews. While that earlier recording focused on Lalande's solo motets, this even more satisfying disc brings together three grands motets, large-scale choral works that also feature parts for solo voices, recorded February 2021 at the Arsenal de Metz.

The new recording immediately grabbed my ears with the opening verse of Lalande's Dies irae, a substantial work composed for the funeral of the Dauphine Marie-Anne-Christine of Bavaria, who had died in Versailles on April 20, 1690. Likely performed when she was interred in the Abbey of Saint-Denis, on May 5, the dessus (treble) part makes an intoxicating, dance-like quotation of the first verse of the famous chant melody. The direct reference to the chant melody ceases after that first verse: an almost fandango-like spirit invades the "Tuba mirum" movement, and the happy setting of "Confutatis" dances, a curious opposition to the "Voca me" music. Gorgeous choral textures return in the "Lachyrmosa" and "Pie Jesu" movements.

The group's earlier recording included the solo version of the composer's most celebrated motet, Miserere, an expansive setting of the penitential psalm. Daucé has now added an authoritative recording of the original choral motet, composed in 1687. The group's female voices excel over the male voices, especially in the opening section and the "Asperges me," composed on the ground bass pattern associated with the chaconne, with lovely paired flutes and chiffy organ. The closing choral section, "Benigne fac deus," is fast and taut.

The most complex of the motets, in terms of choral textures, is Veni creator spiritus, composed in 1684 on the Gregorian hymn text for Pentecost. The performances, full of many running lines taken at generally rapid tempos, are exceptional. This is a motet likely heard many times, not only at Pentecost but at other ceremonies for the Ordre du Saint-Esprit, of which the King was Grand Maître, on other significant feast days. Lalande also served as composer of the king's secular music, and there are three instrumental pieces included from that part of his work. Thomas Leconte, a researcher at the Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles, contributes not only authoritative program notes but editions of the scores for some of these pieces, taken from the Symphonies pour les Soupers du Roi and other sources. The most interesting is an unlisted final track, the disc's Easter egg, a lengthy, complex Grande pièce en G-ré-sol.

Briefly Noted: Christie's latest, best "Poppea" (CD of the Month)

Monteverdi, L'incoronazione di Poppea, S. Yoncheva, K. Lindsey, S. d’Oustrac, C. Vistoli, Les Arts Florissants, W. Christie (released on August 30, 2019) Harmonia Mundi HAF8902622.24 | 186'38"

Claudio Monteverdi is something of an obsession of mine, particularly his final opera, L'incoronazione di Poppea. It is a work under review here in myriad versions, somehow never tiresome to these ears. William Christie and his ensemble Les Arts Florissants have performed and recorded the work before, not among my favorite interpretations. This live recording, made at the Salzburg Festival in 2018, finally captures the American conductor's best work on this seminal piece. Its release coincides with the ensemble's 40th anniversary celebrations.

Christie has assembled a cast this time that is not merely optimal for each role but that blends together in a pleasing whole. As the amoral principal characters, Poppea and Nerone, soprano Sonya Yoncheva and mezzo-soprano Kate Lindsey have a collective vocal luster that seduces, especially in the famous duet "Pur ti miro" at the opera's conclusion. Mezzo-soprano Stéphanie d’Oustrac makes a biting Ottavia, with baritone Renato Dolcini as a resonant, moralizing Seneca.

In a booklet interview, Christie explains why he does not always want to use countertenors in castrato roles, although he has found an alluring examplar of this voice type in Carlo Vistoli for his Ottone. The instrumental component, reduced to minimal forces, turns on a dime to move with the singers, with Christie leading from the harpsichord rather than conducting. Operas in this period rely so heavily on recitative that it can be quite boring if not performed with instrumental variety and lively unpredictability. For example, in the third scene of the first act, when Poppea and Nero waken after a night of love-making, Yoncheva's handling of the lines beginning "Signor, deh, non partire" purrs with sleepy desire.

Besides the rich continuo section, pleasing and virtuosic solos come from a few instruments added to the texture, especially Sébastien Marq on recorder and crisp, focused cornetto playing by Jean-Pierre Canihac and Marie Garnier-Marzullo. While occasional misalignments are to be expected in a live recording, especially in this chamber-like arrangement without a conductor, the verve of live performance makes up for the occasional problem. Although the pictures of the production by Jan Lauwers are beautiful, it was clearly not for everyone.

Briefly Noted: Half-Adapted Bach Sonatas

J. S. Bach, Gamba Sonatas (arr. for viola and harpsichord), A. Tamestit, M. Suzuki (released on August 23, 2019) Harmonia Mundi HMM902259 | 44'32"

Johann Sebastian Bach's three sonatas for viola da gamba and harpsichord are one of the curious delights of his catalog. The instrument, in the family of softer antecedents to the violin and relatives, was on its way out even in Bach's time. Thanks to the historical instruments movement, we now have plenty of excellent performances of these works available on the original instruments. That makes this arrangement for viola, but still accompanied by harpsichord, mostly a curiosity.

Although violist Antoine Tamestit has recorded and played some Bach in his career, he is not a musician often associated with early music. His sound here is quite luscious, using a Baroque-style bow (Arthur Dubroca, 2010) on the Stradivari viola ("Mahler," 1672) he regularly plays. He partners with harpsichordist Masato Suzuki, son of the pioneering early music conductor and keyboard player, who is carrying on his father's work with Bach Collegium Japan.

The musical chemistry is not always settled, pristinely balanced as each player solicitously makes room for the other's important lines but not always locked into place rhythmically. They present the three sonatas in reverse numerical order, which leaves the best, the G major sonata, for last. Besides the gorgeously rendered third movement, one of Bach's simplest and most moving, what the duo gives a charming surprise to the end of the first movement, which unwinds like a clock at the end of its spring. A single movement, an arrangement of the aria “Ergieße dich reichlich” from the cantata Wo soll ich fliehen hin (BWV 5), is the runaway favorite of the disc.

Briefly Noted: Mr. Handel's Dinner

Handel (et al.), Concertos, Sonatas, Chaconnes, M. Steger, La Cetra Barockorchester Basel (released on May 17, 2019) Harmonia Mundi HMM902607 | 76'31"

The last time recorder virtuoso Maurice Steger was in the area, he played with Les Violons du Roy in a blockbuster concert at Shriver Hall. The concept of his new album is to recreate the free-wheeling virtuosity of the pieces Handel led from the organ during his oratorios. The latter, rather than the often somber performances they receive these days, were usually given in a secular, even theatrical setting, with Handel dazzling the crowd at intermission with his own concertos or those of others adapted for his use.

Accordingly, many of these pieces are arranged and adapted by Steger as star vehicles for himself. The disc opens boldly with Handel's Concerto in F Major, which the composer adapted from his own recorder concerto for himself to play at the organ. Steger has mingled the two versions, often bringing out the recorder part from its embedded place in the organ version, even adding a striking improvisation in between movements, as Handel often did on these occasions. Steger entertains with dizzying finger precision and surprising embellishments, especially in Geminiani's Concerto Grosso in E Major, made after Corelli's Sonata, Op. 5, No. 11, and here arranged for alto recorder.

Steger plays on six different flutes, from a breathy tenor recorder in a Ground in D Minor by Gottfried Finger up to the fife-like "sixth flute," or high soprano recorder, in William Babell's Concerto for Sixth Flute and Four Violins. The "voice flute" has an especially pleasing turn in Handel's Trio Sonata in C Minor, especially in dialogue with the harp in the Andante movement. Other pieces feature the pleasing ensemble sound of La Cetra, the Baroque orchestra from Basel, particularly the suite of pieces from Handel's Almira, where the theorbo fills out the continuo part of the Sarabande movement with rich melodic fancy.

Briefly Noted: Debussy Feast

C. Debussy, Late Works, I. Faust, X. de Maistre, A. Melnikov, M. Mosnier, J. Perianes, J.-G. Queyras, A. Tamestit, T. de Williencourt (released on October 5, 2018) Harmonia Mundi HMM902303 | 54'02"

During the First World War, Claude Debussy began a series of six instrumental sonatas. Although he managed to complete only three of them, he planned for the set to range into unusual combinations, including one for oboe, horn, and harpsichord, and another for trumpet, clarinet, bassoon, and piano. The project would conclude with a sonata for all of the instruments featured in the series up to that point. Each of these late sonatas is a marvel of economy, a startling variety of harmony, rhythm, and texture compressed into three-movement tours de force, each one lasting under twenty minutes. Within just a year of finishing only the third sonata planned in the series, the Sonata for Violin and Piano, Debussy died of colon cancer, in the midst of the German army’s bombardment of the city of Paris.

This disc brings together a dream team of musicians, some of them French, to record those three completed sonatas as part of a Harmonia Mundi project to mark the centenary of Debussy's death. Each of the three sonatas receives an ideal interpretation: the limpid and playful violin tone of Isabelle Faust accompanied by Alexander Melnikov in the Violin Sonata; the balanced, engaging narration of cellist Jean-Guihen Queyras accompanied by pianist Javier Perianes in the Cello Sonata; and the outstanding combination of flutist Magali Mosnier, harpist Xavier de Maistre, and violist Antoine Tamestit, all performing on historical instruments, in the triple sonata. Pianist Tanguy de Williencourt adds short character pieces for piano as amuse-gueules to clear the palate after each of these more substantial main courses.

Briefly Noted: In a Strange Land

In a Strange Land: Elizabethan Composers in Exile, Stile Antico (released on January 11, 2019) Harmonia Mundi HMM902266 | 71'10"

We have been following the British choir Stile Antico for over a decade at Ionarts. They are the inheritors of the work of the Tallis Scholars among the younger generation of early music singers, and each CD they release, especially of music from the English Renaissance, has been exquisite. Their latest disc is no exception, in pieces by William Byrd, Peter Phillips, and Robert White. The theme of this program is especially poignant: it brings together composers who found themselves alienated, either in foreign lands (John Dowland, Peter Phillips, Richard Dering) or as Catholics in Protestant England (William Byrd, Robert White).

The choir goes somewhat outside its comfort zone with the affecting part-song arrangements of lute songs by Dowland, Flow, My Tears and In this trembling shadow cast. The results are impeccably balanced homophony, with crunchy cross-relations underscoring emotional peaks. The same is true of a modern piece, The Phoenix and the Turtle by Huw Watkins, premiered by Stile Antico in 2014 and set to an eccentric text possibly revealing the Catholic sympathies of one William Shakespeare. In that context we must place the impassioned dissonances of Bird's ultra-personal motet Tristitia et anxietas or of Quomodo cantabimus, the same composer's musical response to Philippe de Monte's motet Super flumina Babylonis, both about people marooned among non-believers oppressing them.