Gli Incogniti / Amandine Beyer CORELLI The Complete Concerti Grossi

 Amandine Beyer

                                Gli Incogniti

ARCANGELO CORELLI (1653-1713)
Concerto da chiesa Op.VI no.7 in D major
Concerto da camera Op.VI no.9 in F major
Sinfonia, WoO 1, to the oratorio Santa Beatrice d’Este in D minor
Concerto da chiesa Op.VI no.4 in D major
Concerto da camera Op.VI no.11 in B-flat major
Concerto da chiesa Op.VI no.2 in F major
Concerto da chiesa Op.VI no.8 in G minor, « Fatto per la notte di Natale »
Concerto da chiesa Op.VI no.6 in F major
Sonata a quattro in G minor, WoO 2
Concerto da camera Op.VI no.10 in C major
Concerto da chiesa Op.VI no.5 in B-flat major
Concerto da camera Op.VI no.12 in F major
Concerto da chiesa Op.VI no.3 in C minor
Concerto da chiesa Op.VI no.1 in D major

Alexei Lubimov FRANZ SCHUBERT Impromptus

Alexei Lubimov, one of the last pupils of the great Heinrich Neuhaus, has had a most interesting career. He was an early champion of avant-garde music, playing the Moscow premieres of works by John Cage and Terry Riley in 1968. For this he was “punished” by the Russian regime and prohibited from foreign travel. For a while he toured Russia with the Moscow Baroque Quartet. Then in the early 1990s he made a famous Erato recording of the complete Mozart piano sonatas played on a fortepiano built by Christopher Clarke. Currently he is a professor at the Moscow Conservatory and performs around the world, pursuing his twin interests of modern and period music.
For op. 90, Lubimov plays a fortepiano built in 1810 by Matthias Müller, which was discovered in an attic and rebuilt in the Netherlands by Edwin Beunk. The instrument has three pedals and is capable of a surprisingly full sound (as in the fortissimos in the first two pieces) as well as a pure and silvery tone (shown to advantage especially in the last two). For op. 142, he uses a larger and warmer instrument made in 1830 by Joseph Schantz. It permits more colorism than the Müller piano and is ideally suited to the bigger scope of the op. 142 pieces, especially the variations of No. 3 and the flashy writing in No. 4. Throughout, Lubimov lets the music and the instruments speak for themselves, with tempos that are straightforward but characterful and rubato that is vocally inspired and never artificially applied. These are mainstream performances that rank with the very fine fortepiano recording by Jan Vermeulen (on Et’Cetera) and the stunning modern piano one by Krystian Zimerman (for Deutsche Grammophon). Lubimov’s next recording, of Beethoven’s last three sonatas played on a fortepiano by Alois Graf, was made during the same recording sessions as this one. It is eagerly anticipated. (FANFARE /Charles Timbrell)

Anima Eterna Brugge / Jos van Immerseel, BERLIOZ Symphonie Fantastique - Le Carnaval Romain

Without any prior information, the first thing listeners will notice about Jos van Immerseel's 2008 recording of Hector Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique is the umistakable period instrumentation, with the sheen of the strings and the distinctive sound of early 19th century woodwinds and brass, obvious at the outset. The second thing discriminating listeners will notice is the great care Immerseel takes with connecting notes, not only in the straightforward handling of melodic phrases, but also in linking secondary figures in the accompaniment, so that this chord progression or that isolated pitch makes sense within the larger scheme of things. This is where the performance either rises or falls, depending on what one wants to get out of this work. To the extent that Berlioz created Symphonie fantastique to show off his innovative orchestration, this recording goes as far as any historically informed and scholarly version to make sure that everything is heard clearly, not merely as separate sounds, but as integral parts of the greater, kaleidoscopic whole. Where this rendition might be regarded as a failure is in its lack of visceral excitement, which seems to be the unintended result of producing an immaculate-sounding performance. Immerseel gets astonishing sonorities from the ensemble Anima Eterna Brugge, and the engineers of Zig Zag Territoires capture them to perfection, but no one remembered to make the music cook. If Symphonie fantastique is deprived of its passion, delirium, fury, violence, and horror, it is merely an exercise in futility. The point of this work and its bizarre program is to portray the extreme emotional life of its drug-addled protagonist. Yet because it is played here at somewhat slower tempos that feel plodding, and with a meticulous precision that seems overly fussy, it doesn't rush madly, it doesn't whirl feverishly, and it doesn't fly off its handle, but seems too self-conscious to really let things rip. The sole exception is the Dream of a Witches' Sabbath, which is almost as fiendish and hair-raising as one might wish, but comes much too late to save the performance. Conversely, Le Carnaval romain is the best selection on the album because it has a wonderful period sound and is played with the verve and energy missing in the Symphonie. At points, Immerseel seems to pull back slightly in his pacing, but these are minor adjustments for the sake of clarity that don't impede the vitality of the whole overture, least of all in the final stretch. So if clear performances of these classics are required, this CD will fill that need, but for wild and thrilling Romantic music, this recording of Symphonie fantastique is not a contender. (Blair Sanderson)

Anima Eterna Brugge / Jos van Immerseel DEBUSSY Prélude à l'Après-Midi d'un Faune - La Mer - Images

Debussy suddenly seems to be on the front line of the period-instrument movement's steady advance through music history. This disc from Jos van Immerseel and his Belgian orchestra arrives just a few months after Simon Rattle's London performances of La Mer and Prélude à l'Après-Midi d'un Faune with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, and John Eliot Gardiner's Proms account of Pelléas et Mélisande with the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique. For this recording, Anima Eterna Brugge's woodwind, brass, percussion and harps were French-made instruments of Debussy's time; they're generally more abrasive and pungent than their modern counterparts, and they combine with the gut strings to produce a more open sound than we are used to today.

Van Immerseel's approach can seem a bit too deliberate; there's something ponderous about Prélude à l'Après-Midi, while in La Mer he seems determined to emphasise the work's symphonic credentials. In fact, it's the orchestral Images that gains most from the brighter, rawer colours of this performance, with the myriad subtleties of Debussy's scoring more beguiling than ever. Where most conductors make the three-part Ibéria their centrepiece, with Gigues before it and Rondes de Printemps as the finale, Van Immerseel begins with Rondes and places Ibéria last, following the order adopted by Debussy's friend and assistant André Caplet for performances he conducted after the composer's death. There's logic to that ordering, for Ibéria is significantly longer than the other two movements put together, and makes a substantial finale to the whole sequence; Van Immerseel resists the temptation to turn it into a real orchestral showpiece, but there's enough flair and imagination to make his performance compelling. (Andrew Clements / The Guardian)

Edna Stern / Arie van Beek / Orchestre d'Auvergne W.A. MOZART Concerto No. 9 - Concertos No. 12, 14

Though these two discs have arrived at the same time and offer two of the same works, the differences between them run deeper than the fact that one is on period instruments and one on modern. Edna Stern’s performances are all about intimacy: intimacy of sound, manifested in a close, dry (and sometimes rather unlovely) recording offering sharp textural clarity and emphasising the tightness of the Orchestre d’Auvergne’s ensemble-playing; and intimacy of thought, for this is an artist with a delicate touch who likes to shape every detail of phrasing and articulation as if polishing a tiny gem. Whether that suits this particular music at every turn is open to question and her approach may strike some as too reined in for the extrovert Mozart on show in these concertos. Pearlescent passagework and exquisite voicing is an important part of the Mozartian armoury, of course, but a more assertive swagger is surely required for the first movements of K271 and K449 (why the coy diminuendos in the former’s first piano entry?), along with a more boisterous sense of play in the finales. Surprisingly, Stern also misses the anguish in K271’s extraordinary slow movement, hopping through it somewhat perfunctorily, and although the prettier, more chamber-like K414 suits her style much better and she finds greater depth and nobility in its slow movement, she seems like one of those undeniably talented players destined to divide opinion. Ronald Brautigam’s disc – the first in an intended cycle on period instruments – is projected on a more public scale. The Kölner Akademie is the same size as Stern’s orchestra but sounds bigger in its more resonant acoustic, while the smaller tone of the fortepiano has the effect of allowing Brautigam to play out without inhibition. The piano and orchestra are less integrated here, giving a greater feel of a contest, and this brings generally happier results in an uncomplicated K271 which comes over as it should do – bold, brilliant and strong-fingered but with a dark vein of tragedy in the slow movement (a minute longer in Brautigam’s performance!). K414 has more grandeur, too, with Michael Alexander Willens drawing expansive lines and the occasional massive crescendo from his players. The smooth subtleties of Stern’s playing were perhaps never likely to surface on this recording – but then, natural energy and straightforward assurance are Brautigam’s strengths, and they are fittingly applied here. (Lindsay Kemp / Gramophone)

Edna Stern BACH Nun Komm' der Heiden Heiland

Young Israeli pianist Edna Stern has already recorded one album of what might be called extreme Bach arrangements, called Chaconne. This group of preludes and fugues, together with chorale-based pieces by Bach and (in a mysteriously single case) Brahms, is in its way even more extreme than the earlier release, in that Stern is mostly playing Bach's own notes. The three Bach chorales appear in arrangements by Ferruccio Busoni, and it is Busoni that provides the model for Stern's playing even where he is not present. It's not just that Stern plays a modern piano. The preludes and fugues of The Well-Tempered Clavier, for her, each have their own particular moods, calling forth an entirely different pianistic approach. Tempo is flexible; articulation is varied and often luxuriously legato; the pedal is more or less constantly in action. Bach hasn't been played like this since the days of Russian pianist Samuil Feinberg, who perhaps was part of or close to Stern's pianistic family tree. One thing Stern adds to the style is an emphasis on bass lines, giving the music an organ-like texture. Is it Bach? Only partially; the rest of it is the Romantic adoration of the Baroque. Is it compellingly musical? Depends on your perspective. Plunge in anywhere to sample and determine whether you're on this remarkable young artist's wavelength. The Zig Zag Territoires label's studio sound captures every smear of Stern's pedals. (James Manheim)

Ensemble Discantus / Brigitte Lesne UNIVERSI POPULI

This is rare and rarified music of great beauty and regional historical significance. It represents the beginning of a collaboration between the label, Zig-Zag Territoires, and the early music group, Discantus with its director, Brigitte Lesne. It reflects the work of a substantial new research project lead by musicologist Marie-Noël Colette under the auspices of the Institut Français de Prague and the Sablé Festival. The project has unearthed new antiphoners, processionals and tropers from St George's Basilica in Prague that date from the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries. It is these which are performed with great style, enthusiasm and sophistication on this excellent (though somewhat hard to track down) CD: persevering in obtaining a copy is worth it; it's lovely music and expertly sung.

After these new chants (nova cantica) emerged – along with early motets – in Aquitaine in the twelfth century, Bohemia, interestingly enough, was among the first lands to adopt their usage. This is explained by the stay Machaut made in Prague in the fourteenth century. Indeed what we hear on Universi Populi is testament to a fairly widespread, though perhaps unrecognized, 'cultural exchange' across Europe in the late middle ages: contact between sovereigns; the Crusades; the reforms of Gregory VII; and substantial migration of farmers and merchants explain this. Perhaps as a result, this music is more florid, more luxuriant and in some ways richer to the modern ear than that of Machaut. More like the world of Hildegard. Indeed, more cosmopolitan, extrovert. It is remarkable that the earliest liturgical manuscript from St Vitus' (he of the dance) cathedral in Prague contains twelfth century chants of the Ordinary (Sanctus) which were written in the Limousin and known to have been circulating outside Prague only in France and Catalonia.

This CD uses representative music to trace the developments in the Bohemian liturgy from the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries; most significant was the continuity which obtained once the initial impact of the new chants had been felt: works in honor of Virgin Mary and two patron saints, Ludmilla and Wenceslas, who were responsible for important innovations in Bohemian worship.

There is, though, no sense of the performances on this CD being cultish. Nor are they dry. Discantus (between five and ten women depending on what's right for each piece) presents the music as fresh, but not novel; exciting, but not histrionic; and devotional but not excluding. There is the same kind of ecstasy (in Castus mente corpore/Preclaris, for example) as one expects from Hildegard. But the singing is a trifle more subdued, and appropriately so. If you enjoy early a cappella singing (though minimum tuned percussion is used in places) performed to a high standard, a very high standard, and of considerable historical significance, then you should certainly look into this CD. Its booklet is clear and informative, written mainly by Colette; and you get the full texts. The recording itself is excellent, having been made in the beautiful twelfth century Cistercian Abbaye de Sylvanès between Montpellier and Toulouse. It's not a collection obviously devised to convey holiness or accentuate the innovation (or conservatism) of any one composer; nor really to act as exemplum for the local musical changes described. Yes, it's of its own kind. But the delivery by Discantus was clearly designed – and equally clearly emerges – as a delightful, flowing recital. Recommended. (Mark Sealey / Classical Net)

Edna Stern / Amandine Beyer CHACONNE

The chaconne, like the passacaglia, is an old dance of Spanish origin, often slow and solemn, which is built on a rhythmic scheme in triple time. The term chaconne came to designate a variation form founded on a theme of four or eight bars stated in the bass, and ending with a clearly marked perfect cadence. Cadential regularity, a slow and solemn tempo, triple time, and the ostinato principle are the essential characteristics of this imposing form whose majestic gait and demonstrative, ostentatious character make it a Baroque phenomenon par excellence. This major genre inseparable from the Baroque style, was to prove ideal terrain for the creators of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Its unrivaled period of expansion, notable for distinguished contributions from such men as Frescobaldi, Couperin, and Buxtehude, culminated in the works of Johann Sebastian Bach, with such noted examples as the towering Passacaglia in C minor for organ, BWV582. (Arkiv Music)

Alexei Lubimov HAYDN The Seven Last Words of Christ

Although it is played on a period instrument, no one is arguing that this recording of Haydn's The Seven Last Words of Christ is historically authentic. The work, exceptionally in Haydn's output, exists in multiple versions, for orchestra, string quartet, chorus, and keyboard (either fortepiano or harpsichord). But surely Haydn did not have the instrument heard here, the rare tangent piano, in his head. This was, speaking roughly, a piano-harpsichord hybrid that never really found its footing in the late 18th century. As long as listeners are down with the idea of a fairly speculative recording, the effect of the tangent piano in this particular work is electrifying. Lubimov gets the best of both worlds: the intimacy of the keyboard version and the dynamic contrasts and timbral shadings of the orchestral original. The keyboard transcription is not by Haydn himself but was made in his own time, and he approved it. Lubimov works from this, tweaking it and adding contrasts that break up the seven consecutive slow movements and give them an extraordinarily expressive quality. Even when listeners know it's coming, the final Terremoto movement, depicting the earthquake following Christ's crucifixion, comes as a shock. Listeners will never hear the work quite the same way again after experiencing this recording, and even if Haydn didn't intend it this way, most may well end up wishing he had. (James Manheim)

Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg / Emmanuel Krivine / Karine Deshayes RAVEL Boléro - La Valse - Shéhérazade...

There is a lot to be said for French music performed by the French! An obvious point, but one belied in the history of recording by the traditionally iffy condition of French orchestras and the expatriate nature of great French conductors. In recent years, though, with cultural cross-fertilization a mere Internet click away, Francophone orchestras have begun to stand tall for the sheer excellence of their playing and set convincingly before listeners the special blend of sensuality and Cartesian lucidity that in so many ways makes France French. Gallic orchestras, one might say, are recapturing their musical patrimony through excellence. Indeed, the sort of virtuosity and precision to be found on Radio France these days would make George Szell and his Clevelanders proud. And now there is the French-speaking Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg, under Emmanuel Krivine: beautifully disciplined and all of a piece.  

The special authenticity of orchestras performing music from their own culture is to be found in the little inner details of accent and articulation. Krivine and his musicians appear fascinated with each wriggle in Ravel’s world. Coloristic figurations other orchestras would play on automatic pilot suddenly mean something here. Every woodwind appears to have its own special accent and personality. Even in the snare drum, flurries of atmospheric notes acquire more than a background purpose. and flickers of light illuminate more than just rotating shards in the kaleidoscope. Krivine’s approach emphasizes a sort of Toscaninian precision, or at least I think so. Despite pleasant words written about the Luxembourg Philharmonie, the auditorium as recorded here sounds nearly as crackly as NBC’s notorious Studio 8H—beautifully balanced—but dry as a radiator. The sound itself is good, with an amazingly solid bass line, but the acoustic picture is so flat as to destroy any real sensuality being sought. But taken on its own terms, this analytical close-up is quite fascinating.  

La Valse and especially Une Barque sur l’océan have a lot more going on within than is normally audible, and Krivine’s precision pays real dividends. I thought more of both pieces after hearing this performance. Shéhérazade suffers a bit, though, from the sheer lack of voluptuous appeal. Karine Deshayes sings beautifully, but I’d judge her to be one of the less-voluptuous mezzos around. Her performance does nothing to dislodge Janet Baker, who not only managed the French accent in her classic recording, but also contributed that special timbre of voice that identified her immediately, no matter which note was being sung. And someone looking for a real wallow should turn to Renée Fleming, still in fresh and lush timbre, whose sensuality, flirtatiousness, and feeling for her own charisma play beautifully into Ravel’s hands. (Steven Kruger)