Early Music Round-up,
Early Music Round-Up - Autumn 2022
In the first of our new quarterly round-ups of recently-released early music recordings and books, there's a bumper crop from underrepresented backgrounds, reflecting increased attention being paid to the diversity of early music - with recordings of works by Isabella Leonarda, Vicente Lusitano, Joseph Chevalier de Saint-George and Maddalena Sirmen.
A pared-back account of Handel's Amadigi di Gaula from the Early Opera Company contrasts with a characteristically opulent performance of Lully's Acis et Galatée from Les Talens Lyriques; elsewhere the medieval German Minnelied is the focus of Ensemble Céladon's Unter den Linden, Robert Levin lends his formidable scholarship to a complete Mozart piano sonata cycle recorded on the composer's own 1782 instrument, and the journeys of composer and travel writer Francisco Guerrero inspire a novel approach to the East-meets-West concept.
Recordings
Isabella Leonarda: Solo and Duo Motets, Trio Sonatas and a ‘Cantata Morale’
Robert Crowe (soprano), Sandra Röddiger (soprano), Emanuele Breda (violin), Barbara Mauch-Heinke (violin), Daniela Wartenberg (cello), Toshinori Ozaki (theorbo), Sofya Gandilyan (harpsichord)
Nun, composer and lyricist Isabella Leonarda sits firmly in the Italianate tradition of Corelli and Carissimi - not afraid to imbue her sacred music with lively rhythmic devices and virtuosic text-setting. The eight-minute "cantata morale" is a curiously self-referential work in which Leonarda humbly dedicates her own words and music to the Virgin Mary before professing a longing for Christ.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Vivaldi: The Four Seasons & Saint-George: Violin Concertos Op.5 & 8
Renaud Capuçon (violin), Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne
Set against Capuçon's account of Vivaldi's ever-present Four Seasons, with its vivid intensity of musical weather, the airy Classical idiom of two violin concertos by Saint-George provides a graceful breath of fresh air. The uncertain, almost anxious-sounding slow movement at the heart of the G major concerto is a particular highlight.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Handel: Amadigi di Gaula
Tim Mead (Amadigi), Mary Bevan (Melissa), Anna Dennis (Oriana), Hilary Summers (Dardano), Patrick Terry (Orgando), Early Opera Company, Christian Curnyn
Handel's choice of four high solo voices and no chorus puts Amadigi at risk of a certain vocal sameness, but Christian Curnyn's take on this tale of witchcraft, wizardry and tragic romance plays up the contrast between Tim Mead's countertenor timbre and Hilary Summers's contralto to great effect. Listen out, too, for star turns from the woodwind, as Handel expands his palette as a means of plumbing the characters' depths of emotion.
Available Formats: 2 SACDs, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Like the troubadours of French-speaking parts of Europe, German Minnesänger concerned themselves with the poetic and musical celebration of courtly love. While little is known for certain about how these songs would have been performed and accompanied, Ensemble Céladon provide a variety of approaches ranging from lusty dances to atmospheric evocations of winter.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res+ FLAC
Long known to scholars as an influential music theorist, Lusitano's own musical output is extensive and impactful - combining an assured grasp of the intricacies of post-Josquin composition with an instinct for emotional directness, it wears its composer's learning lightly. The Marian Consort bring a selection of Lusitano's choral works to vivid life on this groundbreaking recording.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Combining the musical traditions of Catholic Europe with those of its neighbours around the Mediterranean into imagined "voyages" is a well-trodden path - but this new recording from Le Banquet du Roy and friends takes an original approach, tracing the very real voyages of the composer Francisco Guerrero, who is known to have visited Damascus, Bethlehem and Jerusalem. A selection of his works (both the sacred and the less-heard secular) sit alongside the traditions he might have encountered on his travels.
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Robert Levin's position as one of the foremost Mozart scholars of his generation makes him the perfect combination of musician and musicologist to approach Mozart's piano works authentically and authoritatively. In addition to being the first Mozart piano sonata cycle recorded on the composer's own instrument, this box-set also includes Levin's completions of unfinished fragments left behind by the composer.
Available Formats: 7 CDs, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Zefirova Valova and Il Pomo d'Oro place a world-premiere recording of Saint-George's stately D major violin concerto alongside a concerto in B flat by Maddalena Sirmen - an alumna of the Ospedale della Pietà in Venice where Vivaldi had previously taught. Sirmen's concerto shows her at the cutting edge of musical development, with Classical elements already beginning to make their presence felt. Its foot-stomping square-dance of a final movement hints, too, at a taste for folk-inspired writing.
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
A pupil of Heinrich Isaac, whose monumental Choralis Constantinus compilation he completed after his teacher's death, Senfl's career was disrupted by religious turmoil. This selection of his sacred and secular music shows not just the influence of Isaac and of des Prez but also Senfl's unique gift for mellifluous, singable vocal lines in his polyphony. His Ave rosa sine spinis, in particular, is true to its name, with no thorns or spikes disrupting the music's rich smoothness.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Fast-rising stars De Swarte and Taylor take us back in time to the era of a great French dynasty - not the royal Bourbons, but rather the violinist Francœur clan. The brothers Louis and François are the focus of this duo album, and their writing makes innovative use of double-stopping. Also well represented, in the form of a varied selection of theatrical airs, is their contemporary François Rebel.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res+ FLAC
Lully: Acis et Galatée
Cyril Auvity (Acis/Apollon), Ambroisine Bré (Galatée/Diane), Edwin Crossley-Mercer (Polyphème), Les Talens Lyriques, Christophe Rousset
The tragic love-story of Acis, Galatea and Polyphemus - a popular source of inspiration for numerous composers - draws a typically colourful and dramatic response from Lully. From the swaggering march introducing the brutish cyclops to the imposing appearance of the god Neptune near the end, or the numerous dances sprinkled throughout the action, it's easy to see why the work was so successful - with even Madame de Pompadour taking the stage in a later revival.
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Books
Mark Kroll explores the presence of three key Baroque composers within the British music scene of the Classical period - from elite performances to popular arrangements for the home, from journalistic and critical reactions to scholarly assessments. Tantalisingly, he also investigates the possibility that later revivals of Bach and the caro Sassone may have helped plant the very first seeds of what eventually became the early music movement.
Available Format: Book
Transcription, editing and arranging are central to much work at the coalface of early music; the changes in musicians' training and in audiences' expectations make the adaptation of original sources an indispensable part of the early musician's toolbox. Alon Schab surveys approaches to adaptation over the centuries, from Baroque composers' own self-arrangements to the early music revival and down to the present day, and includes valuable practical tips on instrumentation and arrangement.
Available Format: Book
David Smith - Head of Digital
