These reviews first appeared in The Quarterly of the Lute Society of America in significantly altered form.
La Suave Melodia, Performance Practice in Italy 1600-1660, Ensemble Badinerie, Rahel Stoellger, flauto dolce, William Dongois. Cornetto, 68’09, 21 tracks, Accent Plus ACC10401, Recorded 2000, released 2010
Arguably, modern western musical harmony was born in and around the Veneto in Italy around 1605. Venice was in economic decline, it’s 700-year history as the portal between the world of the Byzantine world and the European was coming to an end. The militarily defensive value of being an island city state, and Venice’s form of maritime technology were being eclipsed by the financial and commodity traders in Amsterdam and London, and the multi-masted sailing goliaths being built elsewhere than Italy.
And yet there was Venice as a magnet for musicians from all over the continent at that time. With its epicenter at the oddly shaped San Marco basilica (not even a Cathedral), where for decades Claudio Monteverdi reigned supreme after 1613. Cavalli, Schutz, Gabrielli all were associated with the Basilica at one time, and this musical flowering had reach – including courts as far away as Naples and as near as Mantua, Brescia and Milan. This disk of chamber music includes recorder, cornett, dulcian, keyboard and lute. The terminology regarding organology can be, as we know both confusing and inconsistent, as they are here. The notes to the recording make reference to cembalo, positive organ, zink, bassoon, theorbo and baroque guitar. The lutenist is Karl-Ernst Schröder, whose instruments are a Richard Earle “theorbo”, and a Peter Biffin “gitarre.”
The recording features excellent ensemble playing by the Badineries, led by Vienna-based recorder player Rachel Stoellger. This is secular instrumental music from the first half of the 17th century, repertoire of which we don’t hear enough. This was chamber music, some of which was composed to be played in the great scuola of Venice. The scuola were more guilds than schools and were fabulously decorated by the leading painters primarily of the 16th Century, the most famous of which is the scuola San Rocco, decorated with breath-taking paintings by Tinteretto. Being among the wealthy citizens of Venice attending concerts in this space must have been an fine experience. And this recording gives a satisfying taste of what that must have been like. Something quite different from the grand music of the opera house and church of this period with which we are more familiar. The composers on the recording are unfamiliar names, except for Merula – who contributes a “Ciacona,” which, given the basic descending bass pattern of the chiccone and the nature of improvisatory performance practice of the period, could have been by anyone! The other pieces take the form of sonatas and dances.
A particularly interesting aspect of these performances is the high visibility of the bassoon (played with brio and skill by Christian Beuse), which is not just a participant in the continuo section, but also a virtuosic soloist. The theorbo, by contrast is inaudible, and the guitar plays a percussive part under the playing of the passacaglio and the ciacona. The recorder was not part of the ensemble at San Marco during this period, and so the sonatas for soprano recorder were a showcase. The sonata was a newish name for a musical form at this time, and these works are of a type that are the germ of what became a long history of art music composed for small ensembles. The compositional style generally features parallel lines (often in thirds) over a harmony created by a figured bass. Polyphony is in the past. Modern harmony is in the future. Here is a very well-presented kernel of the musical future from, perhaps, the most important transitional period in Western musical history, created for artistically remarkable spaces, during the closing years of the long run of an empire of previously unsurpassed wealth and global power.
Settecento, Baroque Instrumental Music from the Italian States, La Serenissima, Adrian Chandler director/violin, Tabera Debus recorder, 27 tracks, 70’48, Signum Records SIGCD663; 2021
We’ve come a long way since what was once called the “sewing machine” music of Il Soloisti Venti of the 1950’s performances of baroque music for mostly strings on modern instruments, with steel strings. This recording of English ensemble, La Serenissima, is an exemplary example of contemporary string band performance practice, under the direction of violinist, Adrian Chandler. Following in Monteverdi’s wake, Italy from about 1650 to about 1740 flowered with talented string players (and instrument makers!), and the repertoire for them is vast and diverse – featuring a wide range of concerted instruments.
Chandler’s playing is lively and precisely pitched, and his leadership is spirited. There is a guest appearance of a half dozen of the tracks of English Lute Society stalwart, Lynda Sayce on theorbo and baroque guitar in the continuo group. The disk includes music of the first half of the 18th Century by composers both of La Serenissima itself (Venice) and of the Kingdom of Naples. The composers include Alessandro Scarlatti, Tartini and Vivaldi, but also the less familiar names of Dall’Abaco, Vandini, Mancini, Brescianello. The seven included works are six in sonata form and one concerto for recorder and two violins. Two of the sonatas are also for recorder and two violins; one sonata is for cello, one is for two violins and two are for solo violin. All are scored with continuo, performed mostly with harpsichord.
The music presented here is wonderfully engaging in these performances. Chandler is an impressively virtuosic player, with great flair and theatricality, without excess, and his note in the CD package in quite interesting about the manuscript sources of the scores. Tabera Debus (who teaches at the school of the Wells Cathedral – a very cool gig!) is equally impressive and refined in the works for recorder. The tracks featuring the interplay of recorder and violin are the standouts on the album and are particularly enjoyable. There are seven players involved in this recording, and they make a full, rich, stylish sound together. Unfortunately, in the works calling for a larger band, the ensemble work can tend toward the insufficiently well-coordinated. But otherwise, the music making is bright, clear and pleasing.
Chandler has made thirteen recordings with the group, which, to my best knowledge, has not performed in the U.S. Why not?
Amore la sol mi fa remirare, The music of Leonardo’s Age, Nadia Caristi, Soprano, Massimo Marchese, Lute, 23 tracks, 60’08, Centaur Records CRC 380, 2019
While the early 17th Century may have been a pivotal period for Western art music, centered in Northern Italy, the forces of musical change were already present in the mid-16th Century. Voice and lute were a very much at the center of Italian Renaissance music making, even as Palestrina was spinning out dense, polyphony for the Sistine Chapel Choir in Rome, obscuring the words of the mass, and laying the groundwork for the musical Counter-Reformation and the seeds of the musical reaction of the Council of Trent towards text and simplicity (or faux simplicity). Vocal music moved from the strophic frattola to the formally more rigorous madrigal. Unsurprisingly, Leonardo da Vinci, student of leading sculptor, Verrocchio, was in the middle of things musical in Milan, as he was in the middle of just about everything else at that time and place. It shouldn’t shock you to know that he was an accomplished player of the lyre (as he was accomplished at just about everything else) at the Milanese court of Ludovico Sforza, where the Ducal Chapel and the Musical Chapel of the Duomo were jewels in the ducal crown. This disk presents music which may have been composed by Leonardo and his contemporaries in Northern Italy.
This is a very fine recording by accomplished, stylish artists. Nadia Caristi is a lovely singer, who has mastered period style and uses no vibrato in clearly delivering the texts, as was the goal of composers like Capriola, Spinacino, Josquin and Ockeghem. Lutenist Massimo Marchese, playing a six-course instrument by Ivo Magherini, is her musical equal – and is, unusually, recorded as her absolute sonic equal, to excellent effect. The recording of the lute is just as prominent and forward as that of the voice – and that works just fine. Marchese also provides sterling performances of Ricercars by da Milano (which, according to the note, might be considered the predecessor of the instrumental sonata). This recording is a welcome journey into an important corner of renaissance repertoire.
Kapberger, Secret Pages, For theorbo and sounds of Venice, Claudio Ambrosini (composer), Stefano Maiorana, 26 Tracks, 59’17, Outhere/Arcana 2021,A541
Well, what is a guy named Kapsberger doing in a place like Italy (and a recording like this one)? Giovanni Girolamo Kapsberger was also known as Johann(es) Hieronymus Kapsberger and Giovanni Geronimo Kapsberger. He may (or may not) have been born around 1580 in Venice and died in Rome, where he spent most of his musical career on January 17, 1651. In Italy he was known as the “German of the theorbo” (his father having come from what is now Austria).
The recording has ten tracks of Stefano Maiorana playing the music of Kapsberger on theorbo (Francisco Hervas, 2019). Maiorana bills himself in a specialist and scholar in the composer. The remainder are new compositions for the instrument by Venetian Claudio Ambrosini (who gets top billing on the packaging), and six tracks of recordings of the sounds of Venice (of moving water, mostly, of course). The whole business is driven by Maiorana’s atmospheric playing, making the most of the theorbo’s potential for a variety of sounds. Most of the Kapsberger tracks are Maiorana’s transcriptions from original sources, previously unrecorded.
Abrosini’s music is characterized by what could be called “extended techniques.” Ambrosini has mastered them. The instrument’s sound ranges from blue grass to spikey, mid-twentieth century European modernism in Ambrosini’s compositions. Most of the effects take advantage of the theorbo’s percussive possibilities, more than its melodious ones. There is lots of use of the bordoni for effects and volume. The conceit is that these are previously unknown compositions of Kapsberger, kept under wraps because they were ahead of their time. The recording as a whole does conjure up something of the maritime, dusky spirit of Venice, and the element of surprise that awaits the Venetian pedestrian around twisting alleys across bridges and among canals.
Kudos go to the creators for adding to the theorbo repertoire and presenting them in such an original and evocative context.
AndyManshel.nyc 