German Baroque

Author(s): Peter Holman

Source: Early Music , Feb., 2007, Vol. 35, No. 1 (Feb., 2007), pp. 148-150
Published by: Oxford University Press

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/4137291

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Peter Holman
German Baroque
The rediscovery of music from the German-speaking parts
of Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries has been acceler-
ating in recent years, led mainly by the recording compa-
nies. Thus this present batch of CDs features a good deal
of music that has yet to appear in a modern edition,
mostly by composers who were hardly known even to spe-
cialists a generation ago. Not all of the music is worth
repeated listening, though collectively it is eloquent testi-
mony to the vitality of German musical life at the time.
The earliest music is on Schein & Scheidt: German con-
sort music of the 17th century (Globe GLO5214, rec 2005,
66'), played by the Brisk Recorder Quartet of Amsterdam:
it is taken mostly from Schein's Banchetto musicale (1617)
and Scheidt's 1621 volume of Ludi musici, though there are
also three sets of variations from Scheidt's keyboard Tab-
latura nova (1624), two of them arranged for ensemble.
Most of the music is in five parts, so the four recorder
players have to use viols or keyboard instruments to make
up the numbers. When they use a low-pitched recorder
consort this works reasonably well (though the instru-
ments are rather lacking in drive in the lively dance music),
but the use of one or two gambas to play lower parts with
a high-pitched consort leaves a gap in the texture that just
sounds wrong. Also, the free ensemble arrangements of
the Tablatura nova variations are not at all convincing,
and inadvertently make the point that Scheidt's florid key-
board writing is quite different from his consort idiom.
Similarly, Scheidt's five-part Galliard battaglia sounds
ludicrous partially played just with solo recorder and piz-
zicato gamba with the harpsichordist trying ineffectually
to fill in for missing parts. In general, the CD would have
been much more satisfactory had a full consort of record-
ers been used, and some of the pieces demand the attack
and dynamic variety that can best be provided by a violin
consort. But the playing is very good (apart from a few
tuning problems caused by the continuo instruments),
and the music is delightful throughout.
Two CDs, Das Partiturbuch: Instrumental music at the
courts of 17th century Germany (Naxos 8.557679, rec
2002, 62') and Dresden 1652: music by Christoph Bern-
hard and Christian Herwich (NCA 60147-210, rec 2004,
64') draw on an important recently discovered score-
book at Wolfenbuttel. It is dated 1662, includes instru-
mental ensemble music ranging from solo gamba and
violin pieces to seven- and eight-part sonatas, and was
copied by Jakob Ludwig (1623-98), a court musician at
148 EARLY MUSIC FEBRUARY 2007
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Wolfenbfittel and Gotha. Most of the research and editing
seems to have been done by Michael Fuerst, who wrote
the notes for the former disc and plays keyboard on the
latter. The Naxos CD, performed by Ensemble Echo du
Danube under Christian Zincke, consists entirely of music
from the manuscript, and includes sonatas and ground-
bass pieces mostly for one or two violins, gamba or fag-
otto and continuo by the Viennese composers Antonio
Bertali and Johann Heinrich Schmelzer, the Stuttgart
composers Johann Michael Nicolai and Samuel Capricor-
nus, Adam Drese of Weimar and Nathaniel Schnittelbach
of Luibeck. Much of the music is very good, and seems to
be unique. I was particularly struck by the Bertali pieces,
including the wonderful Ciaccona for violin and continuo
(which does survive elsewhere), an excellent virtuoso
sonata for violin, fagotto and continuo by Nicolai, and
the concluding A major solo violin sonata by Schittel-
bach, based on the four descending notes of the Passaca-
glia. The performances are mostly lively and idiomatic,
though they occasionally struck me as being insufficiently
characterized, there are some tuning problems, and the
continuo is sometimes 'orchestrated' in an annoying way.
But no-one with an interest in this fascinating repertory
should be without this budget CD.
The Dresden disc, from Hamburger Ratsmusik and Sim-
one Eckert, concentrates on music by two composers who
met in Dresden for a court wedding in 1652: the Weimar
gamba player Christian Herwich and the Dresden singer
Christoph Bernhard, a pupil of Schfitz. To be honest, the
connection between them is tenuous, and the concept
behind the CD becomes even less convincing when one
realises that much of it is given up to 15 strophic sacred
songs that were published in Dresden in 1694, nearly half
a century after the wedding. Furthermore, their only con-
nection with Bernhard seems to be a note in the original
edition that states that the bass parts were altered accord-
ing to his intentions-which implies that they are not
actually his compositions. They are nicely sung by bass-
baritone Klaus Mertens, though the lack of texts and
translations will limit their appeal to English-speaking
listeners. There are four pieces from the Wolfenbittel
manuscript, including a suite for violin and gamba by
Bernhard (apparently his only surviving instrumental
composition) and a set of gamba divisions by Herwich on
the Ruggiero ground bass. There are also solo lute, gamba
and harpsichord pieces by Herwich. All this is pleasant
enough, and is well played, though Herwich only comes
across as a minor figure, and Bernhard (who is a major
composer) would have been better served by recordings
of some of his concerted sacred music.
I was much looking forward to Biber: Missa Christi
resurgentis (Harmonia Mundi HMU 907397, rec 200oo4,
78'), since a series of recordings over the last few years has
revealed how fine Biber's church music is; the Missa
Christi Resurgentis, apparently written for performance in
Salzburg Cathedral at Easter 1674, is the last of his surviv-
ing concerted mass settings to be recorded. I have to
report severe disappointment. I suspect that the mass,
scored for nine voices (including, remarkably, three
basses), two trumpets, two cornetts, three trombones,
five-part strings and continuo, is as good as the others,
though it is difficult to tell from this performance, by The
English Concert and the Choir of the English Concert
under Andrew Manze. The nine singers (Manze does the
work entirely with solo voices) do not have impossibly
large voices for Biber, yet they seem concerned with com-
peting with one another in the ensemble sections rather
than achieving a blend, most of them consistently use too
much vibrato, they seem largely unaware of the vital role
that the correct accentuation of the text plays in the shap-
ing of musical lines at this period (weak syllables are fre-
quently stressed in an unmusical fashion), and they make
no attempt to use German Latin. Manze's direction also
seems a throwback to the dark ages of the performance of
17th-century music. The ensemble in tutti passages is fre-
quently imprecise and lacking in rhythmic drive, many of
the tempos are painfully slow, there are excessive ritar-
dandos, and unwarranted changes of pace undermine the
sense-essential to music of the period-of a consistent
tactus underlying the performance.
The CD includes a number of instrumental pieces by
Biber (two trumpet duets from Sonatae tam aris quam
aulis servientes, five string sonatas from Fidicinium sacro-
profanum and the manuscript sonata for trumpet and
five-part strings) and one by Schmelzer (the seven-part
sonata from Sacro-profanus concentus musicus for trum-
pets, cornetts and trombones). They receive much more
convincing performances, and are generally very well
played (particularly the Schmelzer, which is outstand-
ing), though again one or two of the tempos are too slow
for my taste, and occasionally the strings use an overem-
phatic style of bowing that struck me as coming from a
later century. Also, while we may argue about what Biber
and his Austrian contemporaries meant by the word vio-
lone (specified for the bass line of the mass and the string
sonatas), it is highly unlikely to have been a violoncello
doubled at the octave by a 16' instrument, as is often the
case here. All in all, this CD is a missed opportunity.
Finger: Sonatae, Balletti scordati, aria et variationes
(Arta FI 01377, issued 2005, 51') is the first CD devoted
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entirely to Gottfried Finger's viola da gamba music. The
research was done by Robert Rawson, the author of a the-
sis on the composer, who also plays gamba continuo on
the CD. He was the first person to identify Finger's hand,
thus clarifying the authorship of a number of anonymous
pieces, and in the process revealing Finger as one of the
most important gamba composers of the late 17th cen-
tury. The pieces recorded here mostly come from auto-
graphs at Krom-fiz and the Bodleian Library in Oxford,
reflecting the fact that Finger came from Moravia and
worked in England for about 25 years. He seems to have
been a pupil or follower of Biber (who, like Finger, was a
gamba player), and this is reflected in his use of 'patch-
work' structures in sonatas and virtuoso techniques bor-
rowed from violin music, including gamba scordatura in
staff notation rather than tablature. Finger is an uneven
composer, but the works recorded here (six solo sonatas
or sonatinas, a set of variations, a scordatura suite and an
unaccompanied prelude) are first rate, and are played
with considerable conviction and panache by the Czech
gamba player Petr Wagner and his accompanying group
Ensemble Tourbillon-theorbo/guitar, harpsichord/
organ and gamba. The continuo parts for four of the
pieces do not survive, and have been convincingly recon-
structed by Wagner and his theorbo player, Jan Krej'a. A
revelation.
Don Quichotte in Hamburg (Raumklang RK 2502, rec
2005, 64') from the Elbipolis Barockorchester Hamburg,
brings together instrumental ensemble music supposedly
related to Don Quixote: Telemann's suite Burlesque de
Quixotte, Twv55:G10O, a suite from Francesco Conti's opera
Don Chisiotte in Sierra Morena (1719), a suite from Johann
Mattheson's opera Die geheimen Begebenheiten Henrico
IV (1711) and Telemann's suite La Querelleuse, Twv55:G8.
The concept behind the CD is as daft as that behind
'Dresden 1652' above: the notes imagine the Don and San-
cho Panza visiting Hamburg and meeting Telemann,
Mattheson and Conti (who also never visited the city). In
fact, only two of the four works are derived from Cer-
vantes, and, while the suites by Telemann and Mattheson
are full of delightful music, the Conti pieces long outstayed
their welcome; I would have preferred more Mattheson,
a much-underestimated and neglected composer. The
main problem, however, is the style of the performances.
Elbipolis Barockorchester is not a proper orchestra but a
bizarrely balanced group with single strings playing the
upper parts and no fewer than four instruments-cello,
double bass, harpsichord and theorbo/guitar-playing
the bass. Not only is this implausible historically, but it
means that the bass is privileged over the other parts in
EARLY MUSIC FEBRUARY 2007 149
an unpleasant way. Furthermore, there are unwarranted
reorchestrations (harpsichord and guitar solos, pizzicato
strings, added percussion, and so on), and the overall
approach is aggressive and relentlessly upbeat in a rather
modern and tiresome way. One to avoid unless you really
want a recording of these particular works.
Quantz: Six flute quartets (Hungaroton HCD 32286, rec
2003, 53') and Bodinus: Musicalische Divertissements
(CPO 999 945-2, rec 2003, 59') are both examples of a
genre much cultivated by German late Baroque com-
posers: the quartet for three equal melody instruments
and continuo. The set of six by Johann Joachim Quantz
were found by Mary Oleskiewicz in the Berlin Sing-
Akademie archives, rediscovered in Kiev in 200ool (see
EM, xxxi (200oo3), pp.484-505). They are spendidly vigor-
ous and inventive contrapuntal works, quite different in
style from Quantz's rather galant flute concertos, and
they deserve to become widely taken up by Baroque
groups; Oleskiewicz's edition was published by Steglein
Publishing in 2004. The performances, by Oleskiewicz
herself (flute), Elizabeth Field (violin), Daniel Elyar
(viola), Stephanie Vial (violoncello) and David Schulen-
berg (harpsichord), are idiomatic and accomplished,
and do the music justice without striving for effect. A
notable feature is the very low pitch (a'= 385), dictated
by the copy of one of Quantz's flutes, now in the Library
of Congress. Anyone who thinks Quantz was a mediocre
composer should listen to this important recording.
The five quartets by the Karlsruhe composer Sebastian
Bodinus (1700-1759) recorded by Camerata Koln on CPO
belong to the same genre, though they explore a variety
of scorings: flute, violin, viola and continuo; two flutes,
violin and continuo (though in one of the quartets a
voice flute replaces one of the transverse flutes); and,
most unusual, flute, violin, horn and continuo. There is
also a trio sonata for flute, violin and continuo. All are
taken from the fifth and sixth volumes of Bodinus's
Musikalische Divertissements, apparently published in the
late 1720s. They are very different in style from Quantz'sWebsites
quartets: they are much less contrapuntal, and some of
Arta www.arta.cz
used much too much in late Baroque music? Their routine
use in all sorts of chamber music of the period strikes me
as a solecism, as undesirable, say, as a mid-18th-century
harpsichord in early 17th-century music.
Goldberg: Harpsichord concertos (Verso vRS 2025, rec
2003, 66'), a collaboration between the Dutch harpsi-
chordist Jacques Ogg and the University of Salamanca
Baroque Orchestra, is devoted to Johann Gottlieb Gold-
berg's two surviving harpsichord concertos, in D minor
and Eb major. Goldberg is best known today for being a
pupil of J. S. Bach, for supposedly being the person for
whom Bach wrote the Goldberg Variations, and for
being the actual composer of the fine C major trio sonata
swvlo37, long attributed to Bach. These harpsichord
concertos are more modern in style than the sonata:
they are written in a post-Baroque idiom with fiery C. P.
E. Bach-like ritornellos in the outer movements and a
good deal of Domenico Scarlatti-influenced solo writ-
ing, often in triplets. The music of the concertos strikes
me as inventive and assured, but the works are much too
long: they both last more than half an hour (almost as
long as a Beethoven piano concerto!), and the only way
Goldberg can deploy his material on that scale is by an
enormous amount of repetition, often in seemingly end-
less sequences. I wanted to enjoy the recording, though
I found my attention wandering long before the end of
each movement. The performances are generally very
good: Ogg devours the formidable difficulties with
apparent ease, and the student orchestra copes very well,
with only occasional discomfort in high violin passages.
The balance between the Flemish-type harpsichord and
the 16-strong orchestra is good, though I find it difficult
to believe that it could be obtained in a live performance.
The harpsichord concerto with orchestral accompani-
ment is essentially a creation of the modern recording
industry; in the 18th century the normal accompaniment
would of necessity have been just single strings.

the movements are remarkably similar in style to Vivaldi's

CPO www.jpc.de/jpcng/cpo/home
chamber concertos-works that Bodinus is unlikely to Globe www.globerecords.nl
have come across. Nevertheless, they are accomplishedHarmonia Mundi www.harmoniamundi.com
and charming pieces, and deserve to be better known. TheHungaroton www.hungaroton.hu
performances, by a group of mostly Frankfurt-based musi-Naxos www.naxos.com
cians led by Michael Schneider (flute and recorder), areNCA www.membran.net
lively and mostly very enjoyable, though I wearied of theRaumklang www.raumklang.de
rather intrusive theorbo and guitar continuo-a feature ofVerso www.verso-producciones.com
several of the CDs in this batch. Am I alone in thinking
doi:10.1093/em/cal122
that hand-plucked continuo instruments are now being

150 EARLY MUSIC FEBRUARY 2007

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