The Illuminators

Oboe Concertos by Kerzelli, von Schacht and Pla

This new disc of Oboe Concertos from the Court of Thurn und Taxis has some of the most obscure repertoire I've ever come across. I had never heard of any of these three composers: Franz Xaver Kerzelli (c1730-c.1794), Theodor von Schacht (1748-1823) or Joan Baptista Pla (c1720-c1773). And I only knew two things about Thurn und Taxis: firstly, the Post Service for the Holy Roman Empire was run by the Princely House of Thurn und Taxis, beginning in 1450.   

Thurn-und-Taxis Post's 1859 15 Kreuzer stamp

And secondly, Rainer Maria Rilke lived as a guest of the Princes Thurn & Taxis at Duino Castle near Trieste. It was there that he wrote his Duino Elegies, between 1912 and 1922.

At an earlier version of a Thurn und Taxis castle, in the 18th century, a huge library of music was built up. We're indebted to the work of music librarians and scholars that have allowed some of this obscure music to make its way, slowly, onto recordings like this one.

I happened to be reading John Russell's 1968 book on Henry Moore when I first listened to this album. He speaks about Moore going to Paris for the first time in the great year of Modernism, 1922. Russell talks about how, in the midst of the great works of that time, by artists like Picasso, Braque, Brancusi, Kandinsky, T. S. Eliot and James Joyce, there was an "ever-widening gap between the work of living art which came off and the work of living art which didn't."

"There was a topmost level of achievement, as there had always been: below that level there was only chaos and confusion. The minor master or acceptable epigone, so common in earlier epochs, had been swept off the board altogether since the beginnings of analytical cubism.... Attempts at resuscitation have proved again and again that there just is not, any longer, a level of acceptable minor achievement, some way below but within hailing distance of the giants. These giants have kicked down the ladder, once and for all, and it has to be set up somewhere else."

I'm not sure how well Russell's analysis of High Modernism holds up today; it seems a bit like an "End of (Art) History" argument that has been overcome by subsequent events in art historical fashions. But if we look back at music in the period of this album, we're perhaps in a perfect epoch of "acceptable minor achievement", the era of the Galant schemas that instantly slots music within an International Style that spans all of Europe during the 18th Century. With these devices in their musical toolboxes, a huge cohort of composers could stay within hailing distance of the Giants of their time, from Bach and Handel to Haydn, Gluck and Mozart. And they were guided by the Enlightenment-consensus concepts of beauty, loftiness, ease, sprezzatura, lightness, spirit and inventiveness, and that vital special sauce of the time: taste.

On the evidence of the oboe concertos in this historically informed and expertly played disc, we have another trio to add to the crowded ecosystem of second- and third-raters of 18th century music. This is pleasant music, and even, at times, more than pleasant. There's enough variety that one never tires of the oboe and strings sound; it helps that the von Schacht piece is for three oboes. Certainly this is not especially original music; the shadow of Mozart, and especially Haydn, is always there. 

When Elaine de Kooning was asked if she was in her husband Bill's shadow, she replied, "I was working in his light, & a great many others were working in the same light. I found him an illuminator, hardly a caster of shadows." Haydn and Mozart were both illuminators in this sense, and their light helps Kerzelli, Pla and von Schacht shine as well.

One of the prime marketing strategies in the crowded Classical Music marketplace is to unearth unknown masterpieces. Occasionally a great gem is found - the recent discovery of the orchestral music of Florence Price is perhaps the best recent example. But even if not every discovery is precious, there can be great pleasure to be gained from semi-precious gems, and even rhinestones can be fun if you have a couple of glasses of wine. Enjoy!

 

Between sacred and profane

Heinrich Biber: Sonatae Tam Aris, quam Aulis servientes

The title of Heinrich Biber's sonatas from 1676 can be translated as "as much for the altar as for the table". The composer seemed to specialize in the overlap between the ecclesiastical and the courtly, religious and secular, sacred and profane. Blurring the lines between these spheres is evidence of Biber's own faith, but also a spirit of experimentation and innovation, and a firm belief that music is a central feature of life. A predilection towards theology turns to mysticism, coming to full flower in his Mystery Sonatas, also from 1676.

Biber was the Sir Paul McCartney of his day. In 1690 he was raised to nobility by Emperor Leopold I, with the title of Biber von Bibern. As with Elisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre and Louis XIV a few decades later, it's encouraging to see great composers receiving sincere praise from monarchs; so often we hear stories of geniuses unappreciated in their lifetimes, their careers blighted by Philistine taste-makers and powerful people.

The Sonatae Tam Aris, quam Aulis servientes are made up of a mixture of styles: French dance suite and Italian sonata, differing orchestration, a variety of moods, and an alternation between virtuosity and contemplation. Trumpet fanfares are inserted in this version, calls that evoke the majesty of both the Church and the Monarchy and Nobility. This is an entire world-view contained in about 80 minutes of music.

This music is especially well served on disc. I've sampled the versions by Ars Antiqua Austria, from 2015; Combattimento Consort Amsterdam, from 2007; and the Purcell Quartet, from 1996. But my go-to disc for this music is the 1998 recording from The Rare Fruits Council under Manfredo Kraemer. That's not supplanted by this new version from Harmonie Universelle, but it can be difficult to replace a well-loved recording more than twenty years old. I was certainly impressed with the virtuosity and violin sound of the two soloists, Florian Deuter and Monica Waisman, as well as the ensemble playing of the musicians of Harmonie Universelle. We're lucky to have such a wealth of Biber interpretations!

This album will be released on January 20, 2023.

Tender and mellow music from Vienna

Baroque Consolation: Sacred Arias at the Imperial Viennese Court

I took a great deal of consolation myself from this fine collection of sacred arias and organ works from the Habsburg Court in Vienna. The composers include Caldara, Fux, Pachelbel and Muffat, along with some more obscure names, such as Conti, two different Zianis, and the Emperor Joseph I (obscure, to be sure, as a composer, though less so as an Emperor). Sarah Van Mol is an effective communicator of tender and triumphant arias from cantatas and oratorios, while Bart Rodyns provides textural variety with organ works by Pachelbel, Froberger and Muffat. Wim Becu conducts the brass group Oltremontano, adding his own baroque trombone to the mix. The mellow brass gives this music a unique sound that places it in its own time and place.

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.

The spot-lit miracle

Das Neugeborne Kindelein: Christmas Cantatas by Buxtehude, Telemann and J. S. Bach

Although we are deeply indebted to the light, because by means of it we can find our way, ply our tasks, read, distinguish one another; and yet for all that the vision of the light itself is more excellent and more beautiful than all these various uses of it. The contemplation of things as they are, without error or confusion, without substitution or imposture, is in itself a nobler thing than a whole harvest of invention.

 - Francis Bacon *

Old Master paintings on the covers of classical music discs can be a bit of cliché, but occasionally an especially relevant one is chosen, and that's definitely the case with this new Accent disc of Christmas cantatas from Baroque Germany, performed by Sigiswald Kuijken and La Petite Bande. The Adoration of the Shepherds by Gerrit van Honthorst, painted in 1622, and now in the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum in Cologne, is an amazing presentation of the nativity. It's a Caravaggesque interpretation of John 1:9, "The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world." Sigiswald Kuijken has made that connection as well, in his excellent liner notes, which emphasize the  intimate atmosphere, but which, he says, "by no means excludes theatrical effects!" Of the beautiful Buxtehude In dulci jubilo he says:

... the fourth verse shines (as if under a halo) in a completely new glow, in that the two violins suddenly express the joy of the angels (“gaudia”) with their “ringing bells” in a frenzy of rapid movements.

Even in the early 18th century Christmas was a time to mix traditional music with newer, forward-looking sounds. I love Georg Philipp Telemann's archaic-sounding cantata Ein Kindelein so löbelich, TWV 9:5, from around 1720, but sounding at least a century older, at least until an Amen that sprouts Baroque curlicues around the more severe contrapuntal sounds of the stile antico. This is virtuoso composition that plays with styles in a kind of Enlightenment Post-Modernism. J. S. Bach's gorgeous cantata Ich freue mich in dir, BWV 133, from 1724, is a perfect example of how the great composer turned music into sounds of pure joy. Kuijken and La Petite Bande provide a joyful interpretation of the theatrical intimacy in this music, as apt an illustration of the show-stopping, spot-lit miracle that was the Nativity as the great painting of Gerrit van Honthorst.


* The quote from Francis Bacon, which is more or less contemporaneous to van Honthorst's painting and a century of more before the music on this disc, is from Temporis Masculus Partus, 'The Masculine Birth of Time', from 1605. It's well-known today, as you'll quickly see from a Google search, because the great photographer Dorothea Lange had the last sentence posted on her darkroom wall.

Dorothea Lange, Migrant Mother, Oklahoma, 1936

This disc will be released on October 19, 2018.

A theatrical, even cinematic Mozart Requiem

Mozart: Missa da Requiem

Arthur Schoonderwoerd has put together a Missa da Requiem based on the torso of the Requiem that remained when Mozart died in December of 1791, but fleshed out with additions by other composers, in the context of a full and well-researched contemporary liturgy. The Historically Informed Performance group Cristofori is completely at home in this repertoire, but the Gesualdo Consort is better known for Renaissance and early Baroque repertoire such as Gabrieli and Sweelinck. Schoonderwoerd uses contemporary Requiem Mass models and the fine points of what the plainchant-based recitative portions of the liturgy might have sounded like in late-18th century Vienna to create the kind of hypothetical performance that's very much in vogue among the HIP crowd lately.

I was suspicious at first of this scenario, since I believe the key to Mozart's Requiem is more likely to come by paying close attention to dramatic works like The Magic Flute and especially Don Giovanni, rather than a Requiem from the late 1770s by Michael Haydn. But when I heard this disc the very first time all my doubts were gone. This music has the dramatic blocking and theatrical shading that comes from the opera house rather than the cathedral, especially when compared with the standard version of the Requiem with its often jarring timpani and trumpet riffs added by Süßmayr. The chorus is especially nimble and alert to the nuances in the score. And there's a fascinating Libera me written around 1800 by Ritter Ignaz von Seyfried for a performance of the Mozart Requiem. It was performed after Beethoven's death as well, dedicated to the memory of both composers; this is its recording premiere.

More interesting is Arthur Schoonderwoerd's own Amen Double Fugue. I loved this chromatic Bachianas, whose jauntiness is reminiscent of Ward Swingle as much as Mozart. It's a vivid, almost cinematic interlude. It makes one think perhaps that this music might serve as the soundtrack of a future HIP remake of Miloš Forman's 1984 film Amadeus. I'd watch that!