musica Dei donum
CD reviews
Music for loud wind instruments
[I] "Musik für San Marco" (Music for St Mark's)
Capricornus Ensemble Stuutgart
Dir: Henning Wiegräbe
rec: June 8, 2019 (live), Maulbronn, Kloster Maulbronn
K & K Verlagsanstalt - KuK 138 (© 2020) (47'50")
Liner-notes: E/D
Cover & track-list
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Giovanni BASSANO (c1551-1617):
Anchor che col partire (Rore);
Giovanni Battista BUONAMENTE (c1595-1642):
Sonata XXII à 6;
Dario CASTELLO (1602-131):
Sonata III à due soprani;
Sonata XIII à 4;
Giovanni GABRIELI (c1555-1612):
Canzon III à 6;
Biagio MARINI (c1587-1663):
Canzon La Bemba;
Canzon III à 4 tromboni;
Canzon VIII à 6;
Canzon X à 6;
Sonata IX à 6;
Claudio MERULO (1533-1604):
Qui manducat meam carnem;
Toccata prima undecimo detto 5° tuono;
Francesco USPER (?-1641):
Capriccio à 6 sopra La sol fa re mi
Andreas Pilger, Cosimo Stawiarski, violin;
Julia Fischer, Sabine Gassner, Felix Schlüter, Henning Wiegräbe, sackbut;
Simon Reichert, organ
[II] "Stadtpfeifer, Piffari - Musique à cinq souffleurs"
Capella Itineris
rec: July 20 - 21, 2020, Roche (CH), Musée de l'orgue; July 22 - 24, 2020, Saint-Légier-La-Chiésaz (CH), Église réformée Notre-Dame
Aparté - AP292D (© 2022) (71'18")
Liner-notes: E/D/F
Cover, track-list & booklet
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John ADSON (c1587-1640):
No. 20 for cornetts and sackbuts;
No. 21 for cornetts and sackbuts;
Bartolomeo BISMANTOVA (c1670-c1730):
Preludio cornetto;
Dario CASTELLO (1602-1631):
Sonata XIII à 4;
Jacob VAN EYCK (c1590-1657):
Wat zalmen op den Avond doen;
Girolamo FRESCOBALDI (1583-1643):
Toccata II;
John HINGESTON (c1610-1683):
Fantazia for 2 cornetts and sagbut with the organ;
Giovanni Pierluigi DA PALESTRINA (1524/25-1594):
Caro mea (diminutions: Marc Pauchard);
Vineam meam (diminutions: Davide Lombritto);
Giovanni PICCHI (c1571-1643):
Sonata X a due flauti e due tromboni;
Johann ROSENMÜLLER (1617-1684):
Sonata II à 2;
Sonata IX à 6;
Daniel SPEER (1636-1707):
Sonata for 2 cornetts and 3 sackbuts;
Sonata III for 3 sackbuts;
Jan Pieterszoon SWEELINCK (1562-1621):
Ballo del Granduca (SwWV 319)
Rachel Heymans, recorder;
Marc Pauchard, recorder, cornett;
Josquin Piguet, cornett;
Davide Lombritto, Morgan Jaffré, Constantin Meyer, sackbut;
Adrien Pièce, harpsichord, regal, organ
[III] "Hidden Treasures - Seventeenth-Century Music of Habsburg and Bohemia"
¡Sacabuche!
Dir: Linda Pearse
rec: May 20 - 23, 2019, Mirabel (Québec), Église Saint-Augustin
ATMA - ACD2 2798 (© 2021) (62'52")
Liner-notes: E/F; lyrics - translations: E/F
Cover, track-list & booklet
Spotify
anon:
O quam suavis;
Salve Regina à 4;
Sinfonia à 8;
Antonio BERTALI (1605-1669):
Sonata I à 6;
Sonata II à 6;
Sonatella I;
Sonatella II;
Sonatella III;
Sonatella V;
Giovanni Battista BUONAMENTE (c1595-1642):
Sonata à 6;
Federico CAUDA (?-?):
Laudate, pueri, Dominum;
Wendelin HUEBER (1615-1679):
Sonata IV à 6;
Johannes Maria MANDL (fl 17th C):
Transfige o dulcissime mi Jesu;
Massimiliano NERI (c1621-1666/after 1670):
Sonata IV;
Georg PISCATOR (c1610-after 1643):
Sonata à 7;
Philipp Jakob RITTLER (c1637-1690):
Sonata à 3;
Giovanni Felice SANCES (c1600-1679):
O dulce nomen Jesu;
Giovanni VALENTINI (1582/83-1649):
Canzona à 4
Vicki St. Pierre, contralto;
Matthew Jennejohn, Étienne Asselin, cornett;
Martha Perry, Tanya LaPerrière, violin;
Catherine Motuz, Maximilien Brisson, Peter Christensen, Linda Pearse, sackbut;
Daniel Zuluaga, theorbo;
Raúl Moncada, organ
Loud wind instruments - cornetts, sackbuts, dulcians - have played a key role in music of the (late) renaissance and early baroque periods. The trumpet played a minor role in art music during the Renaissance, as it was mainly a military instrument, and made its entry into art music in the course of the 17th century. As the three discs under review here focus on the 16th and 17th centuries, it does not participate in the performances. On the other hand, in all three ensembles we find some other instruments: violins in the Capricornus Ensemble Stuttgart and ¡Sacabuche!, a recorder - a soft wind instrument - in the Capella Itineris. This has its effects on the way the programmes have been put together. ¡Sacabuche! is the only ensemble which also included vocal music in its programme.
In Venice music of all kinds, and certainly the music performed in the basilica of San Marco, had to reflect the splendour of the city. One of the hallmarks of Venetian music was the writing for two or more choirs. The cori spezzati technique had its roots in the age-old antiphonal practice in liturgical music. The splitting of the ensemble in two or more sections allowed for different effects, such as dialogue and (dynamic) contrast. Instruments played a major role in and outside the church. In the liturgy they did not participate in 'common' services, but rather at special occasions. If they participated in liturgical music, their role was usually not specified: it was left to the discretion of the maestro di cappella, when to use them and which instruments. In the second half of the 16th century composers started to write instrumental music, which could be used in the liturgy, but also on other occasions. They left it to the performers to choose the instruments. However, across Europe the combination of cornetts and sackbuts was especially popular.
The Capricornus Consort, in this live recording from 2019, focuses on Venice; the programme includes music by some of the main composers. Those who know this repertoire won't find an unknown name in the track-list. That is not to say that all the pieces are familiar; after all, the repertoire which was written at the time, is sizeable, and it is no problem to put together a programme that avoids the most obvious pieces. One interesting aspect of this recording is the line-up: rather than cornetts and sackbuts, we hear violins and sackbuts. None of the pieces is in eight parts, which was the most common scoring of cori spezzati music, but even in pieces for smaller scorings composers liked to create contrasts by juxtaposing combinations of instruments, and this explains that in several pieces we hear violins and sackbuts at the opposing ends of a score. One piece represents the popular art of diminution, which was in vogue from the last decades of the 16th century to the mid-17th century. Giovanni Bassano was one of the most important masters of this art, and Cipriano de Rore's madrigal Anchor che col partire one of the most popular subjects of diminutions. Dario Castello's Sonata III a due soprani is typical for the time, in that it is left to the choice of the performers to decide which instruments should play the two solo parts. Qui manducat meam carnem by Claudio Merulo is a four-part motet performed instrumentally - another common practice of the 16th century.
The programme is rather short, but this disc is well worth investigating, as it offers a nice survey of the various genres of instrumental music at the time, and the combination of violins and sackbuts is a less common one. The Capricornus Ensemble is an excellent group of players, which has already shown its skills in previous recordings. This disc confirms its qualities.
The Capella Itineris is from Switzerland and was founded in 2016 by former students of the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis. "Stadtpfeifer, Piffari" is their first disc, and its title mentions the ensembles that were responsible for the performance of music outside the church in many cities and towns across Europe. In such ensembles cornetts and sackbuts played a major role, as they were often performing in open air. However, its members usually played different instruments, and many of them certainly also played one or several string instruments. On this disc the ensemble confines itself to cornetts and sackbuts; sometimes also recorders are played.
Although Venice is represented with pieces by Picchi and Castello, the programme has a wider scope than that of the Capricornus Ensemble, as the track-list shows. It includes two sonatas by Johann Rosenmüller, who was of German birth, but worked for most of his life in Venice. These two sonatas are from a collection of pieces which were intended for strings or other instruments, according to the conventions of the time. That justifies the use of winds in pieces that are mostly played on strings. For those who know them in performances on strings, these offer a different perspective, and that may be something one needs to get used to. I personally did not find the performance of the Sonata II - one of the most frequently-performed from the set - very convincing; I prefer strings here.
An interesting part of the programme are the pieces from England. Music for cornetts and sackbuts by English composers is not frequently performed and recorded. Whereas in other parts of Europe these instruments were used in various roles, including the liturgy, in England they seem to have been exclusively played in open air. A few years ago The English Cornett & Sackbut Ensemble devoted a disc to the repertoire written or adapted for loud wind instruments. John Adson figures in their programme as well as in that of the Capella Itineris. The latter adds two pieces by John Hingeston; he was an organist and viol player and only left a few pieces for cornetts and sackbuts. According to New Grove they are all incomplete; the liner-notes, which pay attention to only a few composers in the programme, don't mention this, and therefore I don't know whether the lost parts have been found or some reconstructions have been made. Germany is represented with Daniel Speer, a composer and theorist from Breslau (now Wroclaw, Poland), who worked in Stuttgart and Göppingen. The Capella Itineris has a special interest in Speer; their second disc is devoted to him.
Apart from music for wind ensemble we also get some solo items. The most interesting and unusual of these is a prelude for cornett solo by Bartolomeo Bismantova. It is taken from a treatise with instructions on playing the recorder, the flageolet and the cornett of 1677, which was not published. At that time the cornett was already past its heydays.
This disc was my first encounter with the Capella Itineris, and I hope it is not my last. I enjoyed this disc because of the choice of repertoire, which shows that they are not afraid to leave the trodden paths, and also the excellent playing. Two items testify to a most welcome fashion in today's performance practice: performers playing diminutions of their own making rather than what they find in treatises of around 1600. What makes this disc even more interesting is the use of large historical organs (rather than chest organs) and a historical regal. This is ensemble to keep an eye on.
The last disc offers music from 17th-century Habsburg lands and Bohemia. The track-list shows a mixture of rather well-known and unknown composers. The latter term has partly to be taken literally: three of the pieces are by unknown composers. Add to them Georg Piscator, Philipp Jakob Rittler, Wendolin Hueber, Johannes Maria Mandl and Federico Cauda - only the former two have an entry in New Grove.
The thread of the programme is one of the best-known composers of the 17th century. Antonio Bertali is the main representative of the music in the Habsburg empire. When in 1619 Ferdinand II was elected emperor, he replaced the musicians at the court in Vienna with the personnel of his own chapel in Graz. The new Kapellmeister was Giovanni Priuli, and with him the whole chapel came under Italian influence which should last until the early 19th century. One of the musicians entering the service of the new emperor was Antonio Bertali. It seems that he served at the court since 1624, but the first firm evidence of his presence dates from 1631, when he is listed as an instrumentalist in the imperial chapel. In 1649 he was appointed Kapellmeister as successor to Giovanni Valentini, who is also represented in the programme.
Only one printed collection of instrumental music from Bertali's pen is known, and there are some doubts about the authenticity of some of them. The pieces included here are all from manuscripts which are not mentioned in the worklist in New Grove. Bertali was a violinist, and the music in the printed edition just mentioned is undoubtedly intended for strings. The Sonata I recorded by ¡Sacabuche! also calls for strings, but is performed here by cornetts and sackbuts, whereas the Sonata II requires two violins, two cornetts and two sackbuts (the latter can be replaced by violas). This results in a contrast between three different groups, a token of the stylus phantasticus that is the basic principle of all the music performed here. The hallmarks of this style, which has a strong improvisatory character (although the music is entirely written out), are sequences of sections of a contrasting character, either through differences in metre and tempo or through a juxtaposition of different (combinations of) instruments. Six Sonatellae are preserved in two different manuscripts: one requires strings, the other offers cornetts and sackbuts as alternatives. This suggests that there is no reason to criticize the decision to perform the Sonata I with winds rather than strings.
Splitting an ensemble into two sections in the manner of the technique of cori spezzati perfectly matched the stylus phantasticus, as the two 'choirs' could be used to create contrasts. That is the case in the Sonata à 6 by Giovanni Battista Buonamente, who worked at the court in Vienna, coming from the Gonzaga court in Mantua. Massimiliano Neri did not work in Vienna; he was organist at St Mark's in Venice and later worked in Cologne, which was also part of the Habsburg enpire. Moreover, he was ennobled by Ferdinand III in 1651. His Sonata IV requires "due canti, alto è basso". The liner-notes say that "Neri specifies options for instrumentation that include the violin, cornetto, and two trombones performed here". I did not see that in the material at the Petrucci Music Library, but that is incomplete. However, Neri adds that the performers are free to derive from his indications "to suit their own taste and convenience".
The liner-notes include some information about the unknown quantities in the programme. Wendelin Huebner was organist in Vienna at a monastery and at St Stephen's Cathedral. Georg Piscator worked in Innsbruck, then in Munich, and from 1643 in Vienna as organist and Kapellmeister. The German-born Philipp Jakob Rittler worked in Bohemia, lastly in Olomouc and Kromeriz.
Of the three recordings, the one by ¡Sacabuche! is the only one which includes vocal music. The combination of voice(s) and instruments is a logical one. During the renaissance and early baroque periods instruments often either supported singers - playing colla voce - or substituted them. In the seventeenth century more and more music was written for one or several solo voices with obbligato instruments and basso continuo. The programme offers several specimens of this practice. It is notable that often the instruments don't play when the voice is singing; they enter when the voice goes silent. The reason is undoutedly to avoid the voice to be drowned out by the instruments. Especially if loud wind instruments are used, as is mostly the case here, it is not easy to keep a good balance. In this part of the programme, two unknown composers make their appearance. Nothing seems to be known about Johannes Maria Mandl; the motet performed here is sometimes wrongly attributed to Vejvanovský. Federico Cauda is not mentioned in the liner-notes.
Some years ago I reviewed another disc by ¡Sacabuche!, devoted to 17th-century Italian sacred music. I was impressed by the playing of the instrumentalists, but disappointed about the vocal part. The same is true for this disc. The programme is highly interesting, as it includes music by unknown composers and unknown pieces by the rather well-known Bertali. The playing is again excellent. However, Vicki St. Pierre's performances are disappointing. She masters the art of declamatory singing, which is required here, and has no problems with the coloratura, which is often quite demanding. However, her incessant vibrato is hard to swallow, and dynamically her performances are too flat. An important tool of singers at the time, the messa di voce, is not used at all, whereas especially a piece like the anonymous O quam suavis, in which many phrases open with "O", really needs it. This is all the more regrettable as the vocal items are among the least-known and there is little chance that they are going to be recorded in better performances.
Even so, the instrumental parts of this disc deserve it to be taken into consideration by those who have a particular liking of music for loud wind instruments from the 17th century.
Johan van Veen (© 2024)
Relevant links:
Capella Itineris
Capricornus Ensemble Stuttgart
¡Sacabuche!