Early Music America Spring 2013 - (Page 16)

Santa Barbara Historical Dance Workshops Weekend June 28-30 Tuition $150 Weekend Plus thru July 2 Tuition $300 Multi-era workshop for dancers and musicians with Faculty: Sarah Edgar, Sandra Noll Hammond, Richard Powers, James Richman and Catherine Turocy Scholarships Available see our website at www.nybaroquedance.org Sponsored by The New York Baroque Dance Company. U nique… Makers of historical flutes and recorders of the highest quality. musings By Thomas Forrest Kelly Best of the Year I WRITE in the closing days of that they are splendid performances of December, The New York Times is beautiful music. How can anybody running a series of the year’s favorites— resist? And with the exception of John books, recipes, films, that sort of thing. Eliot Gardiner’s Bach motets, they are Today, December 21, we mark the not re-recordings of well-known Baroque solstice with favorite classical recordings repertory. of the year from five music critics. Each But the period instrument recordings critic, explains James Oestreich, are mostly Baroque. Bach, Vivaldi, Vivalpicks five recordings, di. One is Brahms, one is duplicates are weeded Mozart (La finta giarAs I see it, there’s out, and results are diniera), one is Praetorius good news in that listed. dance music. From the early music is Six of the 22 items very late Renaissance to being recorded, listed are what we would Brahms is a pretty broad call period-instrument performed beautifully, sweep, but, as often haprecordings, including two pens, it leaves out the and noticed. Vivaldi operas (!) and the Middle Ages and two cenBrahms serenades by turies of Renaissance Philharmonia Baroque. Four more are music. Were there no stunning Medieval recordings of early music repertory recordings this year? No Josquin? What (including Bach’s Well Tempered Clavier about Jesse Rodin’s wonderful CDs of and the St. Matthew Passion), sometimes Josquin and Marbriano de Orto? with an admixture of modern elements There are no solo performances on (Bach and Beyond by Jennifer Koh, the list (among the period instruments, Baroque Conversations by David Greilthat is—Koh and Greilsamer are modern samer); and one, a Don Giovanni, has a soloists), even though the early music world boasts virtuosi of the first caliber. place in both our world and the larger It is not wise to try to read too much musical universe. into this; the sample is small, and I am So, 11 of 22 have at least some conno statistician. As I see it, there’s good nection with early music. That is half of news in that early music is being recordthe CDs chosen. Half! Oestreich also points out that the recording business is ed, performed beautifully, and noticed. If there’s bad news, it’s that early music is shrinking, that many labels are very small; so if early music is a large slice of moving into the future and leaving the really early music behind; and also, perthe pie, it’s worth remembering that haps, that the total number of recordings there’s not much pie to start with. is dwindling at the same time that the One wonders whether the high proportion of early music increases. I’m proportion of early music could be not quite sure which is winning that explained by a special fondness on the race, but these energetic and talented part of one or more of the regular Times early music performers have come to the critics. As it happens, four of the five picked at least one early music CD; two attention of the world, and we wish of them picked two each (Oestreich and them, and all their colleagues, continued Vivien Schweitzer); and only Anthony success! Tommasini picked none (send him some CDs, somebody!). Thomas Forrest Kelly is a professor of music at Harvard University and a board member I have no doubt that part of the reason that these recordings were chosen is and past president of Early Music America. A S I www.wennerfloeten.de 16 Spring 2013 Early Music America http://www.nybaroquedance.org http://www.wennerfloeten.de

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Early Music America Spring 2013

Editor's Note
Reader Forum
Sound Bytes
Profile: Peter Nothnagle Early Music Engineer
Musings: Best of the Year
Recording Reviews
"Skillful Singing" and the Prelude in Renaissance Italy
Almira: Handel's Fountain of Youth?
Tempesta di Mare: Making a Splash with Fasch
2013 Guide: Workshops & Festivals
What I Did at Summer Camp
Book Reviews
Ad Index
In Conclusion: Teaching Recitative in Mexico

Early Music America Spring 2013