musica Dei donum





CD reviews






"Keyboard Music from Codex Vienna, Minorite Convent, 714"

Mario Aschauer, harpsichorda, organb

rec: Dec 20 - 23, 2021, Huntsville, TX, Sam Houston State University (Gaertner Performing Arts Center [Recital Hall])
Aulicus Classics - ALC 0074 (© 2022) (66'17")
Liner-notes: E
Cover, track-list & booklet
Spotify

anon: Balleta; Conzona; [without title]b; Girolamo FRESCOBALDI (1583-1643): Fantasia VIII sopra tre soggettib; Giovanni GABRIELI (c1554/47-1612), arr anon: Conzon à 6b; Hans-Leo HASSLER (1564-1612), arr anon/Mario Aschauer: Gott sei gelobet und gebenedeietb; Orlandus LASSUS (1532-1594), arr Paul SIEFERT (1586-1666): Benedicam Dominum in omni temporea; Luca MARENZIO (1553/54-1599), arr anon: Liquide perle amorb; Claudio MERULO (1533-1604): Toccata 1. tonia; Philippus DE MONTE (1521-1603), arr anon: Ahi chi mi romp'il sonno à 5b; Alessandro STRIGGIO (1536/37-1592), arr anon: Nasce la pena miaa; Jan Pieterszoon SWEELINCK (1562-1621): Toccata 5. tonia; Giovanni VALENTINI (1582/83-1649): Conzon à 6a; Conzon à 6b; Liberale ZANCHI (c1570-1621): Conzona

Keyboard instruments have played a key role in music history, and continue to do so in our time. No wonder that a large repertoire from all eras is available for performers. It could have been even larger if keyboard players, who often improvised (and that goes especially for organists playing in the liturgy), had written down everything they played. Fortunately they sometimes did write it down, for pedagogical purposes, or their pupils did so.

Apart from printed editions, libraries and archives include manuscripts with keyboard pieces of all kinds. The disc under review sheds light on a large and important source: a codex from the Minoritenkonvent in Vienna, catalogued as XIV.417. It comprises more than 500 pieces written around 1600. In it composers from across the continent are represented; the selection Mario Aschauer made for his recording attests to that. Alongside pieces by Italian masters as Girolamo Frescobaldi and Claudio Merulo, he plays compositions by Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck, the organ master from Amsterdam, and intabulations of motets by composers from or working in Germany, such as Hans-Leo Hassler and Orlandus Lassus.

The programme includes specimens of some of the main genres of the time. One of these is the toccata, the most free form of keyboard music which gives free reign to the imagination of a composer. Most toccatas have their roots in the practice of improvisation. Claudio Merulo published two books with toccatas; the first includes the Toccata 1. toni that is played here, but the manuscript offers a version that differs from the printed one. That is one of the features of manuscripts of keyboard music: they often include different versions of pieces that have been printed.

However, one can also find pieces that are not known from any other source. That is the case here with the pieces by Liberale Zanchi, who in the 1590s first worked as Kapellmeister and organist to the Archbishop of Salzburg, and then as chamber organist to the Emperor Rudolf II in Prague. The same goes for the canzonas by Giovanni Valentini, who worked as organist in Poland and Austria. The canzon(a) - here spelled as conzon - was another popular keyboard genre, which had its roots in vocal music, as the word suggests. With time it moved away from its vocal origin. Notable is that Zanchi's Conzon is based on an instrumental canzona by Giovanni Gabrieli.

The human voice was considered superior to any instrument. No wonder that vocal music was a rich source of inspiration for all kind of instrumentalists. Ensembles of various instruments often played motets and secular vocal works, and individual players did the same, either intabulating vocal works as they came or adding diminutions of their own. The programme offers specimens of both practices. Philippe de Monte's madrigal Ahi chi mi romp' il sonno is a literal transcription by an anonymous composer, whereas Nasce la pena mia by Alessadro Striggio and Liquide perle amor by Luca Marenzio have been treated with quite some freedom by the equally anonymous arrangers.

Not only secular pieces were intabulated by keyboard players, but also sacred works, such as motets. That was a widespread practice; we find such arrangements in the oeuvre of composers from the North German organ school. Paul Siefert's version of Lassus's motet is a particularly brilliant example. This motet for five voices consists of two parts: the second opens with the words "In Domino laudabitur". These two parts are different musically, and that is immediately noticeable in this keyboard version. Hans-Leo Hassler's oeuvre includes a number of works connected to Lutheranism, among them his arrangement of Luther's hymn Gott sei gelobet und gebenedeiet. This is the subject of an intabulation by an anonymous master. As this work is not finished, Aschauer completed it for this recording.

This disc offers only a small portion of what the manuscript includes. I am very curious about the rest; I hope that more of that is going to be recorded. This seems to be the only recording to date that explores this fascinating collection (individual pieces may be included in anthologies). Mario Aschauer delivers splendid performances on a harpsichord and an organ which are new, but based on historical instruments. The temperament does full justice to the harmonic pecularities of these pieces. All of them can be played on either instrument; which of the two is chosen, is to the discretion of the performer. Notable is that the intabulation of Lassus's motet is played on the harpsichord rather than the organ, which one may expect. I personally would have preferred the organ, but it works well on the harpsichord.

This is a disc that no lover of keyboard music should miss.

Johan van Veen (© 2024)

Relevant links:

Mario Aschauer


CD Reviews

Home