CONCERTI CURIOSI Johann Wilhelm Hertel (1727–1789) Concerto No
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CONCERTI CURIOSI Johann Wilhelm Hertel (1727–1789) Concerto no. 3 for trumpet e Allegro ma non troppo [3.23] Pietro Domenico Paradies (1707–1791) r Largo [4.19] A favourite concerto for the organ or harpsichord t Vivace [2.54] 1 Vivace e staccato—Allegretto [7.33] William Croft (1678–1727) 2 Adagio [2.00] Sonata for four violins and continuo [PG, BS, OS, HH, IA] 3 Allegretto [3.04] y Allegro [1.11] Anton Reichenauer (1694–1730) u Adagio [1.19] Concerto à 5 for oboe i Allegro [1.47] 4 Allegro [3.50] Pietro Baldassari (c.1683–after 1768) 5 Adagio [3.14] Sonata for cornett and strings 6 Allegro [3.16] o Allegro [2.20] Johan Daniel Berlin (1714–1787) p Grave [2.35] Sinfonia à 5 for cornett a Allegro [2.05] 7 Allegro [3.32] Total timings: [62.23] 8 Largo [3.32] 9 Allegro [2.07] CHARIVARI AGRÉABLE directed by Kah-Ming Ng Johann Christoph Pepusch (1667–1752) Concerto for four violins Violin: Persephone Gibbs (leader; PG), Oliver Sändig (OS), Doublebass: Elizabeth Harré Holly Harman (HH), Benjamin Sansom (BS), Oboe: Geoffrey Coates 0 Allegro [2.48] Colin Coleman, Richard Wade Bassoon: Michael Brain Viola: Rachel Stott, Joanne Miller Cornett: Jamie Savan q Largo [1.46] Viola da gamba: Ibi Aziz (IA) Natural trumpet: Simon Desbruslais w Vivace [3.45] Violoncello: Jennifer Bullock Harpsichord & chamber organ: Kah-Ming Ng www.signumrecords.com This curious conglomeration of concertos is a charitable institutions (ospedali) and academies, arena of subscription concerts. Their success is Happily none of the concertos in this disc fits celebration of contrasts. It is Charivari Agréable’s and (as entr’actes) in operas. sourly noted by Johann Mattheson, who, perhaps that description. They are not of the ilk of, say, 20th CD, and thus represents a milestone for a young betraying a smidgen of xenophobia, enjoined Pietro Antonio Locatelli’s fiendish concerto op. ensemble. In keeping with its contrarian ethos, The first solo concertos were putatively codified in his countrymen in 1713 to do better than the 3/12 from his seminal L’arte del violino (1733), it seems apposite to devise a recital that 1711 by Antonio Vivaldi, although their genesis Italians who otherwise would ‘make all the subtitled Il Labirinto Armonico: facilis aditus, embraces two seemingly opposing concepts. can be traced to a generation before. Published money and return home’. Indeed many were not difficilis exitus. Rather, they are facilis auditus, They are ‘individualism’ (i.e. independence from in Amsterdam as his opus 3, the L’estro armonico enamoured of the southerners’ hot-blooded difficilis exsecutus. As a collection, they arouse the conformity of a collective) and ‘playing in concertos spread across Europe with the musical excesses. The French essayist Jean curiosity, not just in the usual sense of ‘exciting concert’ [from the Latin concertare, meaning ‘to ferocity of a pandemic, simultaneously serving as Laurent Le Cerf de la Viéville criticized composers attention’. By ‘curious’ we mean to invoke the work together’]. blueprints for the writing of (solo and multiple) who were ‘ardent imitators of the Italian manner’ alternative definitions by Nathaniel Bailey in his concertos and re-defining the already-fashionable for seeking ‘bizarre effects’. Weaned on the Dictionarium Britannicum (rev. edn 1736), in The nascent concerto was also called sinfonia Italian style. Vivaldi’s models soon became sobriety of the Corellian style, England’s reverse which is enumerated such adjectives as rare, (differentiated perhaps by a stronger contrapuntal the sine qua non for channelling the virtuosic snobbery is best voiced by the musical historian excellent, fine, and neat (meaning clever). Indeed flavour) or sonata (especially the Bolognese aspirations of the performer-composer. He led Roger North c.1726, who sniffed at the ‘many the easy charm of the works on this disc belies trumpet sonata), and some – such as the by example, occasioning in 1715 a nobleman persons that doe not well distinguish between both the consummate writing and the technical concerto grosso and the ripieno concerto – were on his Grand Tour Johann Friedrich Armand von real good and evill, but are hurryed away by demands required to execute them. quite egalitarian. But inevitably some parts Uffenbach (later to be mayor of Frankfurt) to caprice, as in a whirlewind, and in naming became more equal than others. This procedure be ‘astonished … at a cadenza that really Vivaldi (tho’ he hath his fellows) I have instanced Nonetheless, the debt they owe to Vivaldi involves the elevation of one – traditionally frightened me … although I cannot say that it enough’. Many observers were particularly is writ large upon their scores. This is evident violin – part via exuberant displays of delighted me, for it was more skilfully executed exercised by the combination of tasteless in Reichenauer’s oboe concerto, which, with the prodigious prowess. These episodes of than it was pleasant to hear’. flashiness and the vapid depiction of nature. descending scales in the opening motif, recalls domination are then interspersed and framed Fuelling the rancour was the composer Charles the one in the eighth concerto from Vivaldi’s by a recurring motto (or ritornello) played Italy was a net exporter of violin virtuosos – Avison, for whom those ‘of the lowest class L’estro Armonico. Unsurprisingly Reichenauer by the rest. With the right resources the and violins, for that matter – who exhibited are Vivaldi, Tessarini, Alberti and Locatelli, was in the employ of the Bohemian count and concerto could be adapted for a multitude of untrammelled impulsiveness in their performance. whose Compositions, being equally defective in imperial chamberlain Wenzel [Václav] von purposes, from the personal and pedagogic They were enthusiastically welcomed like various Harmony and true Invention, are only a Morzin, who was the dedicatee of Vivaldi’s opus to those of publication and patronage. Avenues gladiatorial heroes, especially by Europe’s fit Amusement for Children’. 8 concertos entitled Il cimento dell’armonia e for performance abounded at court, in church burgeoning merchant class, as concerts dell’inventione. This set of twelve, beginning with (during mass), in the musically ambitious gravitated away from the court to the public the now-ubiquitous Four Seasons, contains two - 4 - - 5 - concertos suited for performance on the oboe. instruments and basso continuo by Gottfried The arrival in London in 1714 of the two we owe the preservation of the Fitzwilliam When they were published in 1725 Reichenauer Finger and Johann Gottfried Keller, both of Francescos – Veracini and Geminiani – may Virginal Book. He enjoyed great longevity, dying had stepped into the shoes of the previous whom were active in London around the turn of have prompted Pepusch to try his hand at the in his mid-eighties, and was eulogized ‘for his Kapellmeister Johann Friedrich Fasch in one of the century. This genre of writing remained in fashionable genre of the concerto. Veracini, cast learning as well as fine composition and skill Europe’s most celebrated court ensembles. This vogue for generations, as is evinced in Pepusch’s as a solo performer between the acts of operas, in musick’. Virtuosissima Orchestra had earned the highest six concerts [sic] for two pairs of trebles op. 8 was an audience-puller at the Queen’s Theatre praise from Vivaldi, the count’s maestro di musica (c.1717–18). in the Haymarket (re-named the King’s Theatre Another octogenarian who received considerable in Italia, which title is a sinecure for furnishing in that year on the accession of George I). acclaim in England was Paradies [anglicized the court with music on a mail-order basis. Croft was awarded the doctoral degree of Geminiani was rumoured to have left Naples from Paradisi]. But unlike Pepusch, Paradies’ DMus from Oxford University in 1713 along under a cloud; apparently he had been demoted repeated attempts at writing for the stage, Ingratiating his way up the ladder of patronage, with Pepusch, whom, despite his limited from violin to viola for not being able to play firstly in Venice, then in London (where he Vivaldi dedicated his next opus to von Morzin’s contribution, posterity has unfairly shackled to in time (thereby possibly initiating the emigrated in 1746), were all poorly received. sovereign, the Habsburg Holy Roman Emperor John Gay’s satire The Beggar’s Opera. Adding institution of the viola joke). But by asserting Charles Burney in his General History of Music Charles VI. The imaginatively titled La Cetra was insult to injury his reputation was posthumously his pedigree as Corelli’s pupil, Geminiani would (1776–89) derided Paradies’ arias as ‘ill-phrased’ published in 1727, the year in which Vivaldi’s sullied by the historian Sir John Hawkins in his have been poised to cash in on England’s and wanting ‘estro or grace’. It was, however, exact contemporary Croft died. He was buried in General History of the Science and Practice of Corelli obsession and lack of good indigenous as a harpsichord composer and a teacher of Westminster Abbey close to fellow organist Henry Music (1776) with the wholly unjustified violinists. Pepusch’s own musical language composition that he ultimately triumphed. Purcell, on whose music he modelled much of his observation of Pepusch to have been ‘a learned had been honed by immersion in Italian The publication in 1754 of his dozen Sonate di choral works. Croft’s overtly Italianate composition but dry composer, apparently deficient in the opera, and thus was perfectly suited to the gravicembalo brought him international plaudits. on this disc calls to mind Giuseppe Torelli’s sonata powers of invention’. Even before his elevation as writing of concertos. But his nominally entitled This collection was reprinted several times in for four violins, which was performed orchestrally an academic heavyweight, Pepusch had enjoyed ‘Concerto for four violins’ is no such thing.