Baroque Giants on the Lute

Author(s): Christopher Goodwin

Source: Early Music , Nov., 2008, Vol. 36, No. 4 (Nov., 2008), pp. 647-650
Published by: Oxford University Press

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/27655274

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about which the booklet notes are deliberately vague (for
the text, see www.luminarium.org/editions/lordsmask.
htm). What we get are pieces representing various ani
mals (camel, bear, bee, swan, etc.) alternating with harp
'extemporizations' from Constance Allanic, the whole
seemingly culled from various pieces of art and folk music
of the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods. Quite how this
is supposed to work without the songs is unclear, and it
really is not acceptable to include this type of melange as
'Campion' without explanation, justification or giving
sources. The remainder of the disc comprises a seven
movement suite by Brade, and pieces by Byrd, Tye, Bevin
and Aston; the tonal changes are rung by the inclusion
of three viola da gambas and harp (incidentally, Peter
Holman was slightly vexed by this combination of 4' and
8' instruments in his review of the last Brisk CD, of Schein
and Scheidt?see Early Music, xxxv/i (2006), p.148, and
the same caveat applies here). However, the performances
are musically admirable throughout. There is a surprising
bonus in the form of a DVD, which includes animations
illustrating the masque, made by four students from the
Utrecht School of the Arts. These are competent but only
variously successful; the best is a charming depiction of
Gibbons's The silver swan in origami.
While much of the British 'consort' repertory, tradi
tionally thought to be for viols, has sufficiently limited
compasses to make one suspect other instrumentations
are also possible, by the early 17th century viols do appear
to be the principal option. However, this does not mean
that recorder consort versions are impossible, and the
Flanders Recorder Quartet provides the complete Locke:
Consorts of four parts (Aeolus AE-10106, rec 2003, 60')
on one SACD, transposing three of the six 'suites' to
make them fit. The performances are very expert, and in
their way as convincing as the 1993 Savall recording on
viols; only the higher pitch becomes wearing after a
while.
Bach proves irresistible in the end even to specialist
Renaissance ensembles, and we have had in the past few
years excellent Bach discs on viols, recorders and cornetts
and sackbutts. The Flanders Recorder Quartet adds to the
pile with a varied disc of concertos, fugues and chorales
entitled simply Bach (Aeolus AE-10136, rec 2004, 64'). Pre
dictably, the organ works provide the most successful hunt
ing ground, and high points include two of the Vivaldi/Bach
concertos, in A minor BWV596 and D minor BWV593 and
the monumental organ Passacaglia (here in G minor). Like
the Amsterdam Loeki Stardust Quartet, the Flanders group
also excels at that sonorous 'chamber organ' sound, where
the players sound like one instrument. Bart Spanhove, Han
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Toi, Joris Van Goethem and Paul Van Loey are equal to any
technical challenge or ensemble demands, and these
sprightly, well characterized performances are a delight.
Websites
Aeolus www.aeolus-music.com
Ars Harmonica www.lamadeguido.com/arscd.html
Globe www.globerecords.nl
Cavalli www.cavalli-records.com
Lindoro www.lindoro.com
Pandore no website
doi:10.1093/em/can099
Christopher Goodwin
Baroque giants on the lute
To make arrangements of Bach's music for instruments
other than those for which it was originally conceived is
a long and honourable tradition, going back to the master
himself, of course, and in recent years many performers
(including Nigel North, Hopkinson Smith and Andrew
Maginley) have arranged and recorded solo instrumental
works, notably the cello suites, for Baroque lute. Others,
meanwhile, have transcribed them for allied instruments,
such as the theorbo or the Baroque guitar. So it is a sort
of homecoming to hear two recent discs consisting mainly
of music selected from those solo works actually either
directed by Bach to be played on the lute, or intabulated
for lute in his own lifetime?a repertory of just seven
pieces in all: BWV995-1000 and 1006a. Andreas Martin, in
Bach: Lute works (Harmonia Mundi Ib?rica hmi 987051,
rec 2004, 47'), presents four out of these seven works, the
six-movement suite in G minor, BWV995, and the four
movement suite in C minor, bwv997, the ever-lovely
Prelude in C minor (famous in a 19th-century piano arrange
ment), BWV999, and the equally beautiful Fugue in G
minor, bwviooo. Paul O'Dette, on Bach: Lute works,
vol.i (Harmonia Mundi hmu 907438, rec 2006, 6y')?his
first foray into Baroque lute recording, eagerly awaited by
the many fans of his Renaissance lute playing?also
includes BWV995, plus the six-movement Partita in E
major, Bwvioo?a, and the four-movement Sonata in G
minor, bwviooi.
Respectful towards the composer's broad intentions as
these discs are, neither is an exercise in pedantry. Martin
plays on a single-strung theorbo; one wonders if these
works would ever have been heard on such an instrument,
NOVEMBER 2008 EARLY MUSIC 647
as opposed to the 13-course Baroque lute which O'Dette
plays. The latter performer meanwhile transposes the G
minor suite into A minor (making it playable on a normal
13-course lute) and puts the E major Partita into F major
for similar reasons; whilst the Sonata bwviooi is his own
arrangement of a violin partita. O'Dette's own erudite
and concise booklet essay sketches the philosophical and
historical background to Bach lute transcriptions. Bach
owned a lute, and praised the lute-playing skills of one of
his students, yet his 'lute works' are in staff notation, not
tablature, and in places need editing to make them phys
ically playable on the lute. He himself probably played
them on the lautenwerk?just as, according to Reichardt,
he played his violin partitas on the clavichord 'adding
whatever harmonies he found necessary'?a practice
illustrated in BWvioo6a, Bach's own transcription (prob
ably for lautenwerk) of a violin partita.
Before proceeding to praise these recordings, both of
which are really first class, just a minor quibble with each.
Now, I know that music professors teach their students to
breathe in time with the ebb and flow of the music in
order to participate with their whole body in the tension
and-release of the phrasing. Can I here put in an appeal
to put a stop to this, or at least to tell the students to
breathe with their mouths slightly open, inaudibly?
Andreas Martin's very audible nasal breathing really is
most off-putting on his disc?it is only the excellence of
the music which, fortunately, keeps drawing one back.
O'Dette's disc too has, for me, just one flaw. The photo
graph on the front confirms what the ears suspect, that he
has strung his lute mostly in Nylgut, a bright white syn
thetic textured nylon string, which has proved very popu
lar since its invention a few years ago?though to my
ears, alas, it can be a little dry and thin in sound. It is
understandable that amateurs, and professionals who do
not want to irritate audiences with frequent retuning,
should opt for synthetic stringing, but for such a land
mark recording project as this, why not go the whole hog
and use gut stringing, as Jakob Lindberg has done to such
superb effect on his 2006 Weiss recording on BIS?
Cavils aside, these are both excellent recordings by
players who are the masters of their respective instru
ments, and they perform this truly great music with tech
nical assurance and wonderful musicianship. But how do
they compare as Bach interpreters? Andreas Martin's
playing is earnest and impassioned throughout, in the
great Bach tradition, well suited to the high seriousness of
the C minor suite (which is based on cantata themes
relating to Christ's Passion); I find myself listening to the
C minor Prelude again and again. What is striking in
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O'Dette's playing, by contrast, is the variety of colour he
gives to each movement. He plays the Courante from the
G minor suite with lots of French in?galit?; and the fol
lowing Sarabande very slowly, with an unearthly spa
ciousness. In the Prelude to the E major partita we are
really flying, while the Gavotte en Rondeaux is full of
humour and varied moods?the most entertaining inter
pretation I have heard. Two excellent discs then, and sig
nificant additions to Bach's vast discography.
Vivaldi wrote even fewer pieces for the lute than Bach;
no solo music, and for ensemble, just four pieces: two
trios for lute, violin and bass (rv82 and 85) and a concerto
for two violins, lute and bass (RV93), probably written
during a stay in Prague around 1730; also a concerto for
lute, viola d'amore and continuo (RV540) written for the
famous foundling hospital girls' orchestra in Venice. (Of
course, archlute or theorbo were still widely used con
tinuo instruments in Italy in his day, and could be exten
sively used in his ensemble works.) Consequently lute
players who want to play Vivaldi have visited and revis
ited these four works. They were recorded, for instance,
by the young Jakob Lindberg with the Drottningholm
Ensemble in 1985 on BIS, and more recently by Massimo
Lonardi, with Ernest Braucher on viola d'amore and
Marino Lagomarsino on violin, and the ensemble Con
serto Vago, on Vivaldi: Concerti e Trii per liuto e archi
(Stradivarius STR33771, rec 2002, 60'). More recently still
they have been recorded by Rolf Lislevand and his ensem
ble on Vivaldi: M?sica per mandolino e liuto (Naive op
30429, rec 2006, 59'). The four pieces alone were enough
to fill up Lindberg's vinyl LP, but a CD invites a little
more music, and so Lonardi and his band also perform
two solo violin sonatas, RV22 and 24, with the lute supply
ing continuo, alone in some of the slow movements, most
effectively, and with harpsichord and two theorbos in the
faster ones. Lislevand, meanwhile, fielding Baroque gui
tar, theorbo and chitarra batiente in his continuo section,
complements the core repertory of lute ensemble works
with two concertos, one for mandolin, RV425, and one for
two mandolins RV532. The liner notes do not mention
who plays the second mandolin part; one suspects it is
multi-tracked by Lislevand himself.
Both are charming recordings?when is Vivaldi less
than charming? All the playing is of a very high technical
and musical standard. The main difference in interpreta
tion is Lislevand's tendency to push the boundaries for
dramatic effect; in nearly every case he takes the fast
movements faster and the slow movements more slowly
than Lonardi. Lislevand's bowed strings also use extremes
of rhythmic emphasis, and play with a rougher, rawer
 sound, which you may or may not prefer. Curiously,
Lislevand simply omits the violin in some sections of the
trios where lute and violin double. The differences in the
cover artwork say it all: a tasteful detail of a Canaletto on
Lonardi's disc; a slightly saucy picture of a pretty girl on
the cover of Lislevand's.
A third giant of the Baroque, at least in the eyes of his
contemporaries, was Johann Adolf Hasse. Born in Ham
burg he travelled to Naples, where he married the opera
singer Faustina Bordoni; returning to Germany he
became, from 1733, court composer at Dresden, where he
wrote a series of spectacularly staged operas. He was the
favourite composer of Farinelli, who sang his arias to help
dispel King Felipe V of Spain's melancholy. Lutenist Axel
Wolf has recorded Opera for lute (Oehms oc 710, rec
2007, 76'), consisting often extended lute transcriptions
of arias from Hasse operas performed at the Dresden
court between 1747 and 1755, from a contemporary manu
script, plus a three-movement harpsichord sonata tran
scribed for lute in the same original hand.
The title 'Opera for lute' seems like a contradiction in
terms, and I fear that it is. Opera aria transcriptions are
fairly common in Baroque lute sources, but I for one
never know quite what to make of them. The sound of a
Baroque opera orchestra going full steam ahead evokes
emotions of glory, grandeur and majesty, and in musical
terms, unstoppable forward movement?not things
which it is really fair to look for in the lute. Moreover
Hasse's music was written as a vehicle for the richest and
most extraordinary operatic voices of his day; again, not
something which we can expect a lute transcription to do
justice to. As the liner essay notes, these arrangements
'were written to preserve the "hits" from spectacular
musical events ... and relive them through one's own
performance'?very much a derivative musical form,
then. You just had to be there. The anonymous transcrip
tions have their moments and capture something of the
lyrical nature of Hasse's great arias, but on the whole they
seem somehow underpowered; one is left wishing a really
great lutenist like Weiss had simply taken some of Hasse's
themes and made something quite new out of them. Axel
Wolf is very good player (as he has shown on his Piccinini
disc on Raum Klang, which I would recommend to any
body), but I think here he is straying into the territory of
the 'curiosity' or 'antiquarian' recording, which simply
serves (to quote the liner notes again) to 'give insights
into the domestic musical arts of the 18th century', with
arrangements of works by a composer whose music pos
terity may have had its reasons for leaving by the wayside.
Hasse fans will enjoy it though, no doubt.
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One last Baroque master whose discography continues
to expand is the lutenist Sylvius Leopold Weiss, whom
Hasse would have known and worked with at Dresden.
Ten years ago the late Karl Ernst Schroeder reconstructed
four of his duet sonatas from their single extant parts and
recorded his reconstructions with Robert Barto, to produce
what Weiss scholar Tim Crawford described as 'one of the
must-have lute CDs of the decade', 'Weiss: Sonate per 2
Liuti' (Symphonia s y 98159). Now, almost miraculously,
two new Weiss manuscripts have resurfaced; these were
formerly in Count Harrach's library, in Rohrau, Austria.
They include an intact four-movement concerto, in C
major, recorded by Bernard Hofstoetter and Dolores Cos
toyas, on Weiss: Concerto for Two Lutes, Suites (Atma
ACD2 2538, rec 2007, 73'). The concerto is utterly lovely, and
the CD is worth buying for this alone; or for the six-movement
F major suite, also a completely new discovery, which opens
with a beautiful arpeggiated caprice and includes a tender
and lyrical sarabande. Many pieces in the Harrach manu
scripts are already known in the Weiss catalogue, but suites
appear here with different movements substituted for the
familiar ones, reflecting the flexible and liberated approach
of working musicians in the 18th century. Three solo suites,
two in D minor and one in B major, and four individual
pieces are also recorded here, as they appear in the Harrach
manuscripts. Bernard Hofstoetter, who plays the solo
pieces, gives excellent performances throughout, assured
and engaging, with an attractive tone.
In his universally acclaimed and magisterial Weiss
series, Robert Barto has now reached Weiss: Lute Sona
tas, vols.8,9 (Naxos 8.570109, 8.570551 rec 2005, 2007, 63',
65')?one is beginning to exhaust the lexicon of praise.
Weiss fans will be collecting each volume as it appears,
which is not an unduly expensive undertaking at Naxos
prices. As ever, the playing is confident, full-blooded and
musical throughout. Two good things about the series
(besides the quality of the music and the way it is played)
are Tim Crawford's erudite but accessible liner notes, and
the fact that each disc presents suites from different peri
ods in Weiss's career, initiating the listener into the sub
tleties of Weiss's stylistic development. Vol.8 sets Sonata
36, a late work (with a magnificent five-minute courante),
alongside Sonata 19, a much earlier work, with a jolly
bourr?e and a rollicking gigue, and sonata 34, a piece
suitable for a student player, then and now. Volume 9
presents the magnificent Sonata 52 in C minor, another
late work of Weiss's full maturity, pushing at the formal
limits of the Baroque dance suite, a full half-hour in
length, which opens with a French style overture and a
gently rolling courante, followed by an 'art-music'
NOVEMBER 2008 EARLY MUSIC 649
bourr?e?very different from the 'country dance' style
bourr?e of the much earlier Sonata 19. Sonata 32 seems
like an early work, while Sonata 94 (from the Moscow
Weiss manuscript, the only extant Russian lute manu
script), Tim Crawford suggests, shows the influence of
Hasse. Two more instalments in a fine set of recordings,
then, to engage the mind as well as the ear, as lute music
should.
Websites
Atma www.atmaclassique.com
Harmonia Mundi www.harmoniamundi.com
Naxos www.naxos.com
Oehms www.oehmsclassics.de
Stradivarius www.stradivarius.it
doi:10.1093/em/canl07
Elizabeth Roche
Italian Baroque sacred music
Taken together, this group of seven recordings of Italian
sacred music composed between 1614 and the early 1730s
provides a salutary reminder that our knowledge of this
particular field is surprisingly patchy, and too largely
dominated by works written by a few prominent compos
ers, and/or for the use of a handful of important institu
tions. As a series of snapshots of different kinds of musical
activity in different sacred settings, they combine, quite
fortuitously, both to extend listeners' horizons and add
fascinating extra detail to the overall historical picture,
while also, one would hope, encouraging scholars to delve
more deeply into the mass of music whose lack of celeb
rity associations has given it in an unwarrantedly low
profile.
There could be no better example of this than M?sica
Secreta's Grandi: Motetti a cinque voci (Divine Art dda
25062, rec 2007, 79')' This 1614 collection of pieces,
intended primarily for churches whose modest musical
establishments would not necessarily include singers
capable of taking extended elaborate solos, is a world
away from the splendours of St Mark's, Venice, and
affords a glimpse of the music ordinary churchgoers
might have expected to hear on Sundays and feast-days.
In fact Alessandro Grandi did spend much of his later
career at St Mark's, ultimately as Monteverdi's deputy,
but at the time when these motets were written he was
65O EARLY MUSIC NOVEMBER 2008
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still working for two confraternities in Ferrara. Each piece
exploits the five-part texture in different ways, mixing
short solos, duets and trios with tutti passages which
nicely blend elements of both prima and seconda prattica.
Grandi's fine melodic gift is in evidence throughout, as is
his imaginatively responsive word-setting, especially in
the many Marian pieces. Anima mea liquefacta est exudes
an atmosphere of devotional ecstasy, especially in the cli
mactic piling up of voluptuous dissonances, extra fer
vency is given to the supplications of Exaudi Deus by the
tossing from voice to voice of the 'intende mihi' motif,
and a simply chordal triple-time refrain gives O dulcis et
o pia an entirely appropriate gentle tenderness. The best
pieces have an almost Monteverdian quality; Versa est in
luctum is a strikingly fervent and intense expression of
deep mourning, and Quomodo dilexi legem tuam displays
a luxuriantly laid-back response to an amorous Song of
Songs text which is strongly reminiscent of the older
composer. This and other similar items are especially well
served by the fact that M?sica Secreta is an all-female
group; adapting mixed-voice pieces in this way was com
mon 17th-century practice, usually for the use of nuns'
choirs, and it is particularly appropriate for these motets
since their dedicatee, Duke Alfonso II's widow Margher
ita Gonzaga d'Est?, herself entered a convent. The group's
deliciously mellifluous sound brings an extra level of
exquisite intensity to expressive dissonances, and the clar
ity of their individual voices keeps concertato textures
beautifully transparent. Cascades of 'follow-my-leader'
ornamentation are really delightful, and there are very
few moments where the ear is disturbed by the absence of
lower voices. A complete recording of one of Grandi's
motet books is a very great treat; it must be said that the
project originated as the soundtrack to the film Fallen,
about a 17th-century Gonzaga girl's entry to a Ferrarese
convent (bonus tracks contain other items from the film
including motets by Josquin), but let us still hope that it
heralds more additions to the discography of an excep
tionally talented composer who has for far too long
laboured under Monteverdi's shadow.
If Monteverdi can be seen as the presiding genius of
sacred music in Venice during the earlier decades of the
17th century, then Carissimi could be said to have occu
pied a similar position in mid-century Rome. He was,
however, more preoccupied with oratorio than with
liturgical pieces, and a fine performance of the Historia
jephte is the centrepiece of the set Carissimi: Music in
Rome circa 1640 (Passacaille 940, rec 2006, 99'). Gra
ham O'Reilly and the Ensemble Europ?en William Byrd
not only give full value to all Carissimi's dramatic