Three More Early 17th Century Projects

Program: #24-35   Air Date: Aug 26, 2024

I. Stylus Phantasticus (Pacific MusicWorks/Stephen Stubbs). Reference Recordings FR-742.

From Early Music America: Stylus Phantasticus, music by Schmelzer, Biber, Fontana, and others. Tekla Cunningham, baroque violin; Pacific MusicWorks, Stephen Stubbs, director. Reference Recordings FR-742.

There’s a passage in Johann Heinrich Schmelzer’s Violin Sonata No. 4, the central work in his Sonatae unarum fidium, that both meets and defies expectations. The violin melody hovers over soft organ chords, knotting itself in quick mordents before rushing downwards in a wild frenzy. Yet there is always a sense of songlike expressivity, the musical line present even in the thickest of technical flourishes.

That is the sense conveyed by violinist Tekla Cunningham and Seattle-based Pacific MusicWorks in Stylus Phantasticus, a comprehensive exploration of a 17th-century performance style that dazzles as much as it brings resolution.

The stylus phantasticus was as much a performative style as a compositional device, finding expression in sonatas, ricercares, toccatas, and fantasias that came to fruition in Italy and the Habsburg court. Considered the most unfettered of instrumental styles, the music often takes on wild contrasts that evoke feelings of both urgency and poignancy.

For this disc, Cunningham and company set their sights on nine Italian and German composers who each used the style to serve dramatic ends. Played with verve, the music presented here reaffirms the old notion that instrumental music can have the flair of any theatrical spectacle.

The Schmelzer works offer some of the album’s richest rewards. In the Sonata No. 2 from Sonatae unarum fidium, Cunningham unspools an aria-like line that takes on sudden energy in the ensuing variations. The Sonata No. 4 showcases her in passages of Terpsichorean flair, where a vocal plushness is always present.

Schmelzer’s Ciaconna from Serenada in Mascara offers another scene of vibrant lyricism. The music unfolds as a series of variations with the violin over a simple harmonic progression. Cunningham makes the most of the wide leaps to capture a tender expressivity.

Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber’s Violin Sonata No. 1 in A major offers the album’s widest contrasts. With the robust sound of a country fiddler, Cunningham unfolds a series of figures that range from chant-like statements to sprightly flourishes. As the music progresses, her lines take on more energy, and she deftly tosses off the leaps, double stops, and quicksilver runs that resolve into a lilting dance.

Ignazio Albertini’s Sonata No. 1 takes on an improvisatory feel that results in both bold and delicate statements. So, too, does Marco Uccellini’s Sonate, correnti, et arie, Op. 4, No. 2, in which the ensemble supports Cunningham’s phrases with supple continuo.

Carlo Farina’s Sonata No 2, “detta la Desperata,” is more impulsive. Sudden bursts from Cunningham’s violin fizzle into smooth cadences. Elsewhere, she renders her melodies in wide arcs over the sturdy ensemble figures. All bring dramatic flair and dark wit to the sonata’s quick passages.

A sense of freedom also marks Giovanni Antonio Pandolfi Mealli’s Sonata Op. 3, No. 4, “La Castella,” a work where the stylus phantasticus also yields a sweet-toned balance. The work is a chamber sonata in the fullest sense of the term, as harpsichord and cello peek out of the texture to colorful effect.

Giovanni Battista Fontana”s Violin Sonata No. 2 provides a fitting segue to the Mealli. Simple chords in the opening provide the springboard for Cunningham to unfold deft, acrobatic statements from her instrument.

Two works showcase the fine players of the ensemble. Giovanni de Macque’s Toccata spotlights harpist Maxine Eilander in playing of assurance and sensitivity. Francesco Corbetta’s Partite sopra la folia, with its familiar harmonic progression, takes on Iberian zest in the hands of guitarist and leader Stephen Stubbs. The stylus phantasticus, this reading reminds us, is a stellar vessel for the boldest showmanship.

Aaron Keebaugh

II. Francesco Cavalli: Missa 1660 (Galilei Consort/Benjamin Chénier). Chateau de Versailles CV5006.

From Music Web International: Cavalli’s operas are reasonably well known, albeit often in rather hammed-up performances – Il Giasone completely spoiled for me by too much tomfoolery (Dynamic DVD33663 – DL Roundup September 2012/1). I did, however, enjoy DVDs of La Didone – review – Elena – review – and Ercole Amante – review. Artemisia on Glossa now costs a little more from eclassical.com than when I reviewed it (Recording of the Month), but remains good value against the CDs and other downloads. Most recently, I enjoyed a Ricercar album of Cavalli arias entitled Heroines of the Venetian Baroque – review.

His sacred music is much less well known: this is the only recording of the 1660 Mass generally available on CD but there’s a decent Tactus recording of his Requiem Mass, motets and sonatas (TC600312 Coro Claudio Monteverdi di Crema, Quoniam Ensemble, Academia Dia Pason/Bruno Gini). That’s well worth searching out, as is a more assured recording by The Sixteen and Harry Christophers of Cavalli’s Salve Regina (Coro COR16053, Venetian Treasures – DL Roundup October 2011/2). For the links given, substitute thesixteenshop.com.)

Cavalli’s Magnificat is included on Volume 1 of the Coro recording of Monteverdi’s 1650 collection (COR16142) and his Salve Regina on Volume 2 (COR16160).

Cavalli was one of Monteverdi’s top students – modern scholarship tends to the belief that he and Francesco Sacrati helped the master compose L’Incoronazione di Poppea, with Cavalli the likely composer of Pur te miro – so lovers of the 1610 master’s Vespers should find themselves at home in the successor’s 1660 Mass. Faced with a commission to celebrate the treaty which ended decades of war between France and the Habsburg dominions, rather than compose something new, Cavalli pieced together a complete work from his 1556 publication Musiche Sacre. The Mass in this form may even have done service at St Mark’s as early as 1644. Why not recycle? Bach and Handel did so, and modern performers have done something similar in raiding Monteverdi’s publication Selva morale e spirituale for an ‘alternative’ Vespers service (The Other Vespers, Decca 4831564, I Fagiolini/Robert Hollingsworth and similar collections – Summer 2017/1).

I’ve said that this is the only generally available recording of the Mass from the 1656 collection, but it can also be found with the title Messa concertata, recorded by Seicento, The Parley of Instruments and Peter Holman in 1997, which I recommended in Download Roundup May 2012/1. The download, in mp3 and lossless, with pdf booklet, is a little more expensive than when I reviewed it (£7.99) and the CD is available only from the archive service.

Like the new recording, the Hyperion intersperses other vocal and instrumental music by Cavalli between the sections of the Mass. Holman generally takes the music a little faster than Benjamin Chénier with the Galilei Consort. Because he starts with the Kyrie, however, without the Fanfare and Toccata, his performance at first actually sounds more measured. I’m not going to be dogmatic about how the music might have sounded in St Mark’s in 1644 or in Paris in 1660, but Chénier’s approach certainly grabs the listener slightly more than Holman’s. He also employs a slightly larger instrumental ensemble, with a tambour, two cornets, a trumpet and four trombones to Holman’s three, thus accounting for the brighter, brassier sound of the new recording.

Holman also fields a smaller team of singers, with the two groups of soloists doubling as the choir and with high tenors rather than altos on the second line. What they lack in numbers they make up for in quality – Andrew Carwood, now the director of both the Cardinall’s Musick and St Paul’s choir, no less, is one of the tenors.

The Galilei Consort also field a fine team of two sets of soloists, a separate eight-voice choir and instrumentalists. I was so impressed by their performance that I also listened to their recording of Giovanni Rovetta’s (1596-1668) Messe pour la Naissance de Louis XIV – pretty good going to get a Mass written for your birth! Recorded in 2015, it carries the Château de Versailles logo on the cover but comes on the Alpha label (Alpha 965). The Mass is interspersed with music by Monteverdi, Giovanni Gabrieli, Rigatti and Bassano. It’s perhaps not as much sheer fun as the Cavalli recording, but it’s well worth hearing. Subscribers to Naxos Music Library will find it there, along with Rovetta’s Vespers for the birth of Louis XIV (Cantus Cölln directed by Konrad Junghänel, Harmonia Mundi HMC901706)¹.

The Rovetta Vespers recording is download only – from eclassical.com for US$ purchasers or better value from Prestoor Qobuz for those afflicted by the Brexit-diminished UK£. There’s no booklet from any source.

The Galilei Consort end with the psalm Lauda Jerusalem Dominum,² from Cavalli’s 1675 collection of Vespers music – a shorter setting than that from the 1656 collection, included in one of Paul McCreesh’s famous reconstructions with his Gabrieli Consort and Players, a putative Venetian Vespers for the feast of the Annunciation, as it might have been celebrated in St Mark’s in 1643. With music by Monteverdi, Rigatti, Grandi, Cavalli, Marini, Banchieri, Giovanni Gabrieli et al, it’s a glorious 95-minute concoction which I strongly recommend (Presto CD 4761868 or download E4594572).

There would have been room on the new recording for that more elaborate setting. As it is, however, the shorter setting makes a fitting conclusion to a moreish recording. Perhaps if and when the Galilei Consort do give us a second helping of Cavalli they may include more Vespers music from either the 1656 or the 1675 collection, or a mixture of both.

There is room for another recording of the Vespers music: Johan van Veen thought the Coro Claudio Monteverdi on Dynamic in the Vespero della Beata Vergine (Marian Vespers, from the 1675 collection, CDS7782) ‘good enough to allow enjoyment’, but hoped for a complete recording from a first-rate ensemble – review – and he thought their Vespero de Domeniche (Sunday Vespers, CDS7714) ‘not … ideal … but very respectable’ – review.

There’s a very fine 2-CD Glossa recording of Vespers music from the 1656 Musiche Sacre, for those wanting to explore further the music from that collection (GCD922509, Concerto Palatino, rec. 1994 – DL Roundup May 2012/1). There’s also a collection of Cavalli’s music for Marian Vespers from the 1675 collection on Tactus TC600311 (Athestis Chorus and Consort on period instruments, directed by Nicola Bellinazzo in 1997 – reviewed in Winter 2017-18/2).

I certainly shan’t be abandoning the more considered Hyperion recording of the Mass, nor shall I be setting its new rival aside as too brash. Force me to a choice between two fine recordings and I imagine that most prospective purchasers will prefer the more overt style of the new version. Either way, you get some really uplifting music from Monteverdi’s principal successor, very well performed. Did I mention that a very good, spacious recording sets the seal on this very attractive new release?

¹ It may be egging the pudding somewhat also to attribute this Vespers collection to Louis XIV’s birth; only a Mass and Te Deum are recorded, unless there is evidence to the contrary in the Harmonia Mundi booklet to which, unfortunately, I had no access.

² Someone has done some unwarranted ‘correction’ to the Latin title in the track listing, changing the singular lauda to the plural laudate. Fortunately, the actual text is correct.

Brian Wilson

III. Music for Lady Louise (Ensemble Leviathan/Lucile Tessier). Harmonia Mundi CD  HMN 916119.

From BBC Classical Music: Lady Louise de Keroualle was the mistress of Charles II. She was sent to England when the King returned from France and given the task of keeping him under the influence of the Sun King, Louis XIV. With her came musicians who performed French and English theatrical music and airs suitable for Charles’s tastes.

This release gives a fascinating glimpse into that world.The pieces by Lully are performed very stylishly. The instrumental ‘Air pour les pêcheurs’ (from Alceste) could not be played in a more sprightly and captivating spirit, though perhaps a little over-sprayed with decoration – an approach matched in the dancing brilliance of the hornpipe from Purcell’s Bonduca. The singers bring a quiet depth to the lullaby ‘Dormons tous’ from Lully’s Atys(one of Charles II’s favourites), and a searing sense of horror to his vision of madness in ‘Ciel! Quelle vapeur m’environne’ from the same opera.

Best in the section of mad songs here is the anonymous ‘Forth from the dark and dismal cell’, presented unaccompanied but with colourful drama by the bass David Witczak. Naturally in a French/English exchange there have to be songs mocking nationalities: the anonymous ‘De foolish English Nation’ is nicely sung with disdainful amusement by David Cornillot, and Akeroyde’s ‘A new song sung by a fop from France’ delivered with effete hauteur by Clément Debieuvre. Textures and tuning can be a little murky at times, but Lucile Tessier directs throughout with panache and insight.