musica Dei donum
CD reviews
"Ex Vienna" - Violin music from the Habsburg Empire"
[I] "Anonymous - Habsburg violin music"
Ars Antiqua Austria
Dir: Gunar Letzbor
rec: March 14 - 17, 2013, Augustinerstift St. Florian (Altomontesaal)
Pan Classics - PC 10310 (© 2014) (60'17")
Liner-notes: E/D
Cover & track-list
anon:
Musicalisch Urwerk in a minor (No. 68);
Sonata in D (No. 4);
Sonata in F (No. 74);
Sonata in f minor (No. 87);
Sonata in A (No. 77);
Sonata in a minor (No. 73);
Toccata in a minor (No. 94)
Gunar Letzbor, violin;
Jan Krigovsky, violone;
Hubert Hoffmann, lute;
Erich Traxler, harpsichord, organ
[II] "Scordato - Habsburg violin music"
Ars Antiqua Austria
Dir: Gunar Letzbor
rec: Jan 23 - 26, 2014, Augustinerstift St. Florian (Altomontesaal)
Pan Classics - PC 10322 (© 2015) (60'16")
Liner-notes: E/D
Cover, track-list & booklet
anon:
Sonata in d minor (No. 89);
Sonata in F (No. 6);
Nikolaus FABER (?-1673):
Sonata in E (No. 2);
Andreas Anton SCHMELZER (1653-1701) (attr):
Sonata in a minor 'Die Türkenschlacht bei Wien 1683' (No. 80);
Johann Heinrich SCHMELZER (c1620/23-1680):
Sonata in E 'Sonata Amorosa' (No. 1);
Joan VOJTA (Johann Ignaz Franz VOJTA?, c1660-before 1725):
Sonata I in b minor (No. 70);
Sonata II in b minor (No. 71);
Sonata III in C (No. 72)
Gunar Letzbor, violin;
Jan Krigovsky, violone;
Hubert Hoffmann, lute;
Erich Traxler, harpsichord, organ
[III] "Accordato - Habsburg violin music"
Ars Antiqua Austria
Dir: Gunar Letzbor
rec: Feb 11 - 14, 2015, Augustinerstift St. Florian (Altomontesaal)
Pan Classics - PC 10334 (© 2016) (69'14")
Liner-notes: E/D
Cover, track-list & booklet
Antonio BERTALI (1605-1669):
Sonata in G (No. 97);
Heinrich Ignaz Franz VON BIBER:
Sonata in c minor (C 143) (arr anon) (No. 75);
Sonata in F (C 140) (No. 9)a;
Rupert Ignaz MAYR (1646-1712):
Sonata in D (No. 67);
Sonata in E (No. 102);
Sonata in A (No. 78);
Johann Heinrich SCHMELZER (c1620/23-1680):
Sonata in D (No. 100);
Johann Caspar TEUBNER (?-1697):
Sonata in d minor (No. 88);
Giovanni Buonaventura VIVIANI (1638-after 1692):
Sonata in a minor (No. 90)
Gunar Letzbor, violin;
Jan Krigovsky, violone;
Hubert Hoffmann, lute;
Daniel Oman, colascionea;
Erich Traxler, harpsichord, organ
One of the features of the stile nuovo which was born in Italy around 1600 was the strong interest in instrumental virtuosity. This came especially to the fore in music for the cornett and the violin. With time music became increasingly idiomatic, that is to say: specifically written for a particular instrument and not for any instrument of a performer's choice. Above the Alps it was especially the violin which became the favourite instrument. In Northern Germany the Italian Carlo Farina, who lived and worked for some years at the court in Dresden, laid the foundations of the German violin school. In Austria and Bohemia Antonio Bertali, for many years Kapellmeister at the imperial court in Vienna, is considered the father of the Austrian violin school, which was then further developed by Johann Heinrich Schmelzer and Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber.
The repertoire which was created above the Alps has always exerted great attraction to violinists and chamber music ensembles. It is remarkable, though, that in recent years a considerable number of discs have been devoted to this repertoire, and in particular music written in Austria, Bohemia and southern Germany. In this review I pay attention to a series of three discs which include pieces from one of the most important collections of Austrian violin music, preserved in the Viennese Minoritenkonvent as Manuscript XIV 726, recorded by Gunar Letzbor and his ensemble Ars Antiqua Austria.
It is not known for sure when this collection has been compiled and by whom. However, it includes some sonatas by Biber which were first published in the 1680s. From that one may conclude that the collection dates from around 1690 at the earliest. The music is largely from the last quarter of the 17th century, although there are also some sonatas by Bertali which are older, as he died in 1669. There is a strong stylistic coherence which indicates that the music was written in Austria, Bohemia and southern Germany. Some of the sonatas are unique and are not known from other sources. But I already mentioned the inclusion of sonatas by Biber which we know from printed editions. Moreover, we find here sonatas which are known from other sources, but in different versions. That is the case, for instance, with the Sonata No. 75 which is identical with the Sonata VI from Biber's Sonatae, violino solo of 1681. The opening movement is identical, but the remainder of this piece is different. It is impossible to be sure who is responsible for this version, Biber himself or - more likely - the compiler. Other examples are several sonatas by Giovanni Buonaventura Viviani. Until 1676 he worked in Innsbruck which could explain the inclusion of sonatas from his pen in the manuscript. But these also appear in printed editions of his works where they are considerably less virtuosic. It is impossible to say which version reflect Viviani's original intentions.
In his liner-notes Letzbor suggests that other sonatas may also be arrangements. That goes especially for the anonymous pieces which take central stage in the first volume. "Was it the writer himself, for example, who created these works? Was the naming of the authors simply forgotten or are these pieces particularly thorough adaptations of other compositions - to the extent that naming the original creator simply did not appear permissible any more?" In addition to famous names, such as Biber and Schmelzer, we meet some little-known masters here. Viviani has been mentioned already; like Bertali he was from Italy, as so many musicians who were in the service of the imperial court in Vienna which was completely under the spell of Italian music. But there are also pieces by composers from Bohemia and southern Germany. Nikolaus Faber was from Moravia, worked in Rome and then in Kromeriz, where he must have been a colleague of Biber. Joan Vojta is probably identical with Johann Ignaz Franz Vojta who was from Bohemia and worked in Prague. Only four instrumental works from his pen are known, among them the three sonatas in this manuscript. Johann Caspar Teubner was in the service of the court in Munich as a violinist since 1661. As he was from Vienna he may have been a pupil of Schmelzer. A little better known is Rupert Ignaz Mayr who was born near Passau in Bavaria. He acted as a violinist in Munich and became later Kapellmeister in Freising.
Letzbor summarizes the characteristics of the violin school north of the Alps. Violinists "used a high range on the fingerboard almost as a matter of course; players experimented with special bowings and delighted in polyphonic playing on the violin. These musicians conceived tone painting and especially loved rapid playing that could make a strong artistic impression on the listeners. Especially worthy of mention, too, is the popular artistic device of playing on retuned violins (...)". The latter refers to the so-called scordatura technique. The various aspects of the Austrian violin school come to the fore in these three programmes.
The first disc includes several examples of tone painting. Musicalisch Urwerck consists of four sections. The first three open with a repeated figure in the bass; after a while the violin enters with short repeated notes, depicting the ticking of a clock and next the violin turns to more virtuosic playing. The fourth section comes as a surprise: the violin seems to imitate a kind of alarm bell, very loud, which has a quite dramatic effect. The disc ends with a piece called Das Post-Horn, but, to be honest, at least I have not been able to make a link between the music and a post horn. It is a virtuosic, pretty wild piece. The programme also opens with a kind of imitation: a toccata, this time, a term from the realm of keyboard music. It has its roots in the stylus phantasticus from northern Italy and its texture - a quick succession of movements of different character and tempo - is comparable with the toccatas of the North German organ school.
The most remarkable piece of imitation is on the disc devoted to pieces played with the scordatura technique ("Scordato"). The Sonata Die Türkenschlacht bei Wien 1683 (The battle against the Turks at Vienna) is an arrangement of the Sonata X Die Kreuzigung (The Crucifixion) from the Mystery Sonatas by Biber. It was transposed to another key and at the end of the work a new movement was added, describing the "victory of the Christians". This arrangement is attributed to Andreas Anton Schmelzer, the eldest son of Johann Heinrich, but there is no certainty that this arrangement is indeed from his pen.
"Retuning the violin probably originated in the practices of violinists from lower social strata. These Bradlgeiger or Linksfäustler (left-fisted players), as they were pejoratively called, did not necessarily tune their instruments according to the rules of professional musicians, but adapted their tuning to the special requirements of different pieces of music", Gunar Letzbor writes. Scordatura alters the sound of the violin. "A violin with strings that are strung more tightly than in the usual tuning sounds louder and more penetrating. If the tension is decreased, the violin sounds darker, softer and more sonorous. A key can contain a special fullness of sound if all four strings of the violin, if possible, are tuned to the notes of the tonic triad; this results in many resonances. Some forms of scordatura combine notes of the tonic triad with notes of the dominant and subdominant. This results in special timbres that the normal tuning can never produce." The Türkenschlacht sonata illustrates the differences between various tunings. The adaptation requires a different tuning than the original sonata by Biber> "This different tuning lends the violin a special brilliance and powerful sound by means of the resonances of the B- and E strings, which also lend rightness to the instrument. In this way, the composer attains an ideal timbre for the depiction of a battle scene."
The most virtuosic sonata closes the programme of the disc called "Accordato": the Sonata No. 9 by Biber (Sonata VI of 1681). Biber "breaks free of all limits imposed and creates a masterpiece that, centuries later, still inspires awe and manages to captivate the 21st century listener's attention." It is an astonishing piece indeed, and Letzbor feels here like a fish in water. It is technically extreme, and that is how Letzbor plays it. But I have some reservations about his approach. He is certainly right in emphasizing its technical brilliance and the clearly extroverted character of this sonata, but I wonder whether he just goes a little - or even more than a little - overboard. I find it hard to believe that Biber wanted the violin to produce such harsh, rude and even outright ugly sounds as in Letzbor's performance. I also don't like the often extreme percussionistic effects in the basso continuo.
I have heard the Türkenschlacht sonata before, in a more moderate performance by Meret Lüthi. Its theatrical character probably comes off better here, but again I feel that Letzbor goes a little too far. Fontunately most of the pieces selected for these three discs are given excellent performances. Undoubtedly Letzbor is one of the most brilliant players of the baroque violin these days, and in general I prefer his approach to the more modest interpretations of what one could call the 'mainstream'. This repertoire can become very tedious and lose its impact if the contrasts in character and tempo are overlooked. There is no such danger here. Despite my reservations in regard to one or two items I strongly recommend any lover of violin music to investigate these discs.
Johan van Veen (© 2017)
Relevant links:
Ars Antiqua Austria