Early Music America Winter 2013 - (Page 20)

recordingreviews Edited by Tom Moore Johann Sebastian Bach The Art of Fugue Les Voix Humaines ATMA Classique ACD22645 www.atmaclassique.com/en The Art of Fugue was conceived as a treatise to demonstrate fugal technique, not as a performance piece. (Pencil in hand as an undergraduate, I once scoured the massive tome to master the secrets of tonal counterpoint.) How fortunate it is, then, that The Art of Fugue is also a wonderful listening experience. Far from pedantic pedagogical plodding, this work of J.S. Bach (16851750) delightfully dances through every possible variation and permutation, creating a complete and entertaining musical performance. The challenge remains how to best perform the work. On the organ, as in Wolfgang Rübsam's recordings (Naxos 8.550703-4), or on two harpsichords, as done by Gavin Black and George Hazelrigg (www.pekc.org), are excellent choices; and there are credible mixed ensemble performances as well. The viol ensemble may be the best choice of all. The instrument may seem anachronistic, Bach's musical environment favoring the violin instead, but viol ensembles continued to exist through the late Baroque, and the choice has distinct advantages, particularly in voicing the individual contrapuntal lines. The common practice with keyboards is a non-legato performance, profiling each fugal entrance with a slight hesitation. Here Les Voix Humaines, a Montreal-based ensemble founded in 1985, has a great advantage: while still retaining a gentle homogeneous texture, each voice is individually accentuated through dynamics and articulation, achieving a sinuous dance-like rhythm. Aggressive bowing techniques, similar to string quartet performance, give individual lines clear articulation. The result is delightful and informative and captures the essence of Bach: technical superiori- 20 ty, rhythmic integrity, and exuberant, playful genius. This recording will be my listening choice from now on. -Lance Hulme Johann Sebastian Bach The Sonatas and Partitas; Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue Daniel Stepner, violin Centaur 3283/3284 (2 CDs) www.centaurrecords.com As any Bostonian music lover knows, Daniel Stepner has been a fundamental presence there since the mid-1970s-as a founding member of the Boston Museum Trio (named for the Museum of Fine Arts, long a major force for early music) with Laura Jeppesen (gamba) and John Gibbons (harpsichord); as concertmaster of area Baroque orchestras; and as the first violinist (succeeding Wilma Smith in 1987) of the Lydian String Quartet (in residence at Brandeis University). Stepner's musical activities are not restricted to a particular specialty, but range from historically informed performance to premieres and recordings of contemporary works by composers including John Harbison, Peter Child, and Lee Hyla. Many of his recordings of Baroque chamber repertoire with the Boston Museum Trio (which concluded its activities in 2012, after 35 years) are available on CD, but his recordings of solo repertoire are relatively few. Stepner's contribution to the library of interpretations of Bach's masterpieces for unaccompanied violin (in contrast to Bach's keyboard works, there are possibly more recordings of these pieces by violinists with a modern perspective than by those using period instruments) reflects recordings made over a span of 23 years (1989-2012), in four different venues, with three different violins (Kloz, Amati, and Stradivari), in both analog and digital recording formats. The sonatas and partitas are susceptible to a variety of interpretations, and Stepner's readings are Winter 2013 Early Music America particularly to my taste; they are inclined to be contemplative, emphasizing the musical shapes rather than the technical difficulties of the work. One of my favorites in the set, Sonata III in C Major (BWV 1005), is also one of the oldest recordings in the set, done at the French Gallery of the Museum of Fine Arts (before the most recent addition was built, the Museum had "Gallery Gigs," so that listeners were seated among the works of art, rather than in a generic auditorium). The acoustic is ideally resonant, and Stepner's tempi are serenely calm. His tone is lovely, with very little vibrato, and the intonation pellucid (unfortunately, the reel-to-reel tape for the final movement did not survive to 2012, so Stepner rerecorded it). This is wonderful music-making. An interesting lagniappe is Stepner's arrangement for solo violin of the Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue, BWV 903 (Kodály did one for solo viola, but Stepner observes in his excellent and informative notes that Kodály's spacing of the chords was not particularly idiomatic for a solo string instrument). Stepner is entirely convincing in moving this strong and expressive piece to his own medium. -Tom Moore Firminus Caron Masses & Chansons The Sound and the Fury Fra Bernardo FB1207302 (3 CDs) www.classicsonline.com/Fra_Bernardo The latest release from the excellent Anglo-German vocal ensemble The Sound and the Fury is a threedisc set celebrating the works of lesser-known composer Firminus Caron (fl.1460-1475). In 2009, The Sound and the Fury released two of Caron's masses (L 'homme armé, Accueilly m'a la belle) to wide acclaim; here, the ensemble has rerecorded those two masses according to new performing editions by Jaap van Benthem and has added the other three extant masses and a smattering of chansons. The ensemble's main focus is on the underdogs of 15th-century polyphony; Caron, though not a household name today, was consid- ered one of the best composers of his day by famed theorist Johannes Tinctoris. Unfortunately, many of his works were lost, and what remains is not in the best shape. The liner notes of this release explain the difficulties Van Benthem and others have faced when trying to reconstruct these works-in some cases, music is missing, and in others, the text; sometimes the extant music works better with a different text; sometimes a voice is garbled beyond recognition or has been lost entirely. Given the nature of the extant sources, and the fact that the group is re-doing works they only just recorded a few years ago, it's wonderful that the (new) scores and lyrics are included digitally on the first disc. I would have loved to see the source material for each of these masses provided in the same way. On the whole, though, the recordings aren't quite up to the superb standard that the group has set for itself in previous releases. For reasons I'm unable to discern, there are a number of places across all three discs where the pitch drifts or a voice is insecure, which I haven't noticed in their prior recordings. If this were a live recording from a concert, these moments of insecurity would be much more understandable. Even so, they only take away a small bit from the recordings, which are otherwise excellent. I love that two versions of the chanson "Accueilly m'a la belle" with different contratenor parts are included, although I would have preferred it if they were placed backto-back on the same disc for comparison's sake, as was done with one version of the chanson and the mass based on it. It's also wonderful to have the complete masses of Caron accessible in one place, and with scores. I do wonder, though, why only these chansons were selected, and I hope the ensemble decides to record the rest of them at some point and complete the collected works of Caron on record. http://www.atmaclassique.com/en http://www.centaurrecords.com http://www.pekc.org http://www.classicsonline.com/Fra_Bernardo

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

Editor's Note
Reader Forum
Sound Bytes
Musings: Time Traveling with Instruments
Profile: Pure Gold: Beiliang Zhu
Recording Reviews
Let's put on a... Zarzuela!
A Banquet of Music 40 Years in the Serving
Honoring Krebs
Book Reviews
Ad Index
In Conclusion: Dido and Aeneas Reconsidered

Early Music America Winter 2013