Reviews and occasional notes on classical music

Reviews and occasional notes on classical music

"Music, both vocall and instrumental, so good, so delectable, so rare, so admirable, so super excellent, that it did even ravish and stupifie all those strangers that never heard the like." - Thomas Coryat, after hearing 3 hours of music at the Scuola di San Rocco in Venice, 1608.

Tuesday, October 23, 2018

On the path to the symphony


Christoph Graupner: Ouverture Suite in A minor, Concerto for two oboes, Concerto for two trumpets, Ouverture Suite in G minor

L'arpa festante and conductor & harpsichordist Rien Voskuilen present here an interesting program of music by Christoph Graupner, a near contemporary of Bach and Handel and a close colleague of Telemann. In works called Concertos and Ouverture Suites, modelled after the Corellian concerto and the Lullyan suite, we see Graupner bending and remolding the music into different forms in a kind of musical laboratory. The Ouvertures take on concertante textures, while the Concertos sometimes use suite-like dance movements. Galante touches alternate with more archaic, erudite, contrapuntal passages; the keynote is change and transition. In the end one can see an early movement towards a a real classical style, with true symphonic touches on the horizon. The musicians of this venerable German ensemble play with taste and authenticity, and prove to be excellent advocates for the music of a composer who is beginning to take his rightful place alongside the better-known Telemann. Highly recommended.

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