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GRAMOPHONE AWARDS SHORTLIST 2018 short German Mass. Vox Luminis (here with organist Bart Jacobs) give themselves plenty a scope with the double-CD format, and fill both discs generously. Programmatic flair is backed up by performances and a sound recording to match. Vox Luminis have received their fair share of accollades (their Schütz Musikaliches Exequien was Gramophone Record of the Year across all categories in 2012) but in ambition certainly, perhaps even in execution, this may be finer still. Among the vocal selections, Scheidt’s polychoral Ascendo ad Patrem meum is exquisite. The Veni Sancte Spiritus by Thomas Selle that follows probably looks slight on paper but some memorably stratospheric sopranos impart a hair-raising intensity. The selections for organ include some gems, too: the Thomas organ of St Vincent Church, Ciboure, has some extraordinary registrations for the chorale line of Lass mich dein sein und bleiben and Praetorius’s monumental variations on Ein feste Burg (arguably the quintessential chorale) stand comparison with Sweelinck. And that’s just the first disc. The acoustic variety is such that I was surprised to find on second hearing that Vox Luminis achieve all this with just voices and organ. The accompanying long-format booklet is splendidly produced, the plentiful colour illustrations reinforcing the immediacy of the acoustic experience. The accompanying notes place the music usefully and legibly in its historical context. This must be a contender for my pick of the year come December. Fabrice Fitch (10/17) ‘The Other Vespers’ Castello Sonata in D minor Donati Dulcis amor Iesu! Frescobaldi Toccata terza G Gabrieli Magnificat a 14 Monteverdi Beatus vir I. Confitebor tibi, Domine II. Dixit Dominus II. Laudate Dominum I. Laudate pueri I. Salve, o regina. Ut queant laxis Palestrina/Bovicelli Ave verum corpus Usper Sonata a 8 Viadana Deus in adiutorium I Fagiolini; The 24; The English Cornett & Sackbut Ensemble / Robert Hollingworth Decca F 483 1654DH (80’ • DDD • T/t) There is only one eyewitness report of Monteverdi directing Vespers music after his permanent relocation to Venice: the Dutch tourist Constantijn Huygens attended a Vespers for the Feast of St John the Baptist on June 24, 1620 (probably at SS Giovanni e Paolo), and ‘heard the most perfect music I think I shall ever hear in my life’. This enigmatic occasion has prompted several speculative reconstructions of an alternative Monteverdi Vespers making use of music selected from his large Venetian anthology Selva morale e spirituale, published in 1641 but its content presumably written across many years; the collection is rich in multiple settings of psalms necessary for important male saints’ feasts (and much else), so Robert Hollingworth’s mischievously titled ‘The Other Vespers’ represents just one of a range of possible alternatives. Recorded during chilly November conditions at St George’s Church, Chesterton, there is plenty of warmth and animation in the superb music-making. I Fagiolini’s consort and solo singing are exemplary, and on a few occasions fuller choral moments are bolstered by eight talented students from The 24 (Hollingworth’s recently founded chamber choir at the University of York). Five psalms and a hymn from Selva morale are placed within a plausible liturgical context between plainchant antiphons (sung with unaffected simplicity) and plenty of music by Monteverdi’s contemporaries. Viadana’s response Domine ad adiuvandum (1612) is adorned with liberal embellishments from cornettist Andrea Inghisciano; Gawain Glenton’s seductive cornett floats sensitively above a fascinating sacred contrafactum of a Palestrina madrigal, its polyphony reworked by Giovanni Battista Bovicelli into a stylishly devised example of how to ornament (Ave verum corpus). Castello’s Sonata in D minor (1629) is played with conversational charm by violinist Bjarte Eike, and organist Catherine Pierron demonstrates a nimble touch in a Frescobaldi Toccata (1637). The English Cornett & Sackbut Ensemble displays its expertise in a solemn eight-part Sonata by Monteverdi’s Venetian colleague Francesco Usper (1619). The largest-scale music is a 14-part Magnificat by Giovanni Gabrieli (1615), which captures the perfect incongruity of polished gutsiness, whereas five solo voices sing with eloquent intimacy in Ignazio Donati’s motet Dulcis amor Iesu! (1616). Throughout proceedings the continuo realisations of theorbists Lynda Sayce and Eligio Quintiero are impeccable. In such sure hands (and throats) as these, Monteverdi’s psalm-settings reach their fullest capacity to enchant and astonish. Dixit Dominus (primo) achieves a thrilling synergy of articulate instrumental playing, fulsome choral ripienos and dexterous solo singing. Sonorous textures doubled by trombones and harmonic twists from the violins are balanced perfectly in the descending chromaticism that word-paints ‘misericordia’ in Laudate Dominum (primo). Hollingworth argues in his booklet note (and more extensively online at a microsite dedicated to the project) that Monteverdi’s triple-time signatures are commonly performed too quickly – in a nutshell, he reckons that a late-Baroque dance aesthetic has been misapplied to Monteverdi’s lateRenaissance practice. These scholarly ideas directly inform the shape and personality of these gorgeous reinterpretations. Seen afresh in this light, Confitebor tibi, Domine (secondo) lilts gently and with delightful translucence, its measured pace aligned to an affectionate tone of delivery from the superb solo trio Ciara Hendrick, Nicholas Mulroy and Jonathan Sells. Similarly, the evergreen Beatus vir (primo) springs a double surprise: the opening section (four beats in a bar, over a ground bass) is a notch quicker than is usually the case (its light flexibility of touch and articulate delivery of text means that the details are never in jeopardy of being blurred in a rush), but the ensuing dancelike, tripletime middle section adopts a slower and softer pulse than usual. This means that the violin ritornello has increased lyricism, the florid solo voice parts are more congruent (the duo singing of mezzosopranos Clare Wilkinson and Ciara Hendrick is lovely), and the singers are able to communicate the text with more effective clarity than is often the case at a quicker speed. What’s more, the wordsetting actually makes more sense when performed like this. Monteverdi’s smallscale setting of Salve, o regina (1624), sung mellifluously by Matthew Long, is a beautifully understated conclusion. In truth, the choice of Monteverdi psalm-settings has a fair bit of overlap with Gustav Leonhardt’s ‘Vespri di S Giovanni Battista’ (Philips, 4/89) and also Rinaldo Alessandrini’s award-winning ‘Vespri solenni per la Festa di San Marco’ (Naïve, A/14), but Hollingworth’s curiosity to ask difficult questions and put practical suggestions to the test within a contextual performance brings more to mind the philological instincts and musical qualities of Andrew Parrott (to whom this recording is dedicated as ‘a respectful hommage’). I Fagiolini were never going to offer anything mundane for the composer’s 450th birthday celebrations, and this ‘other Vespers’ contributes fresh ideas about how to interpret music about which plenty of matters are far from settled, in addition to being a fine advocacy of Monteverdi’s later Venetian-period sacred works. David Vickers (7/17) 10 GRAMOPHONE SHORTLIST 2018 Click on album covers to buy from gramophone.co.uk
page 11
Concerto GRAMOPHONE AWARDS SHORTLIST 2018 Bartók Violin Concertos – No 1, Sz36; No 2, Sz112 Christian Tetzlaff vn Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra / Hannu Lintu Ondine F ODE1317-2 (61’ • DDD) Ondine’s new Bartók CD is an out-and-out winner; but, having in the past praised numerous versions of these two works, I feel it only fair to open this review by placing Christian Tetzlaff and Hannu Lintu in a proper critical context. Viewed at a realistic perspective, when it comes to coupling Bartók’s two violin concertos on the same CD there are six principal digital contenders. James Ehnes stands apart in that he adds the Viola Concerto, a bonus that in musical terms is very much to be reckoned with. His performances are warmly communicative and much aided by vivid support from the BBC Philharmonic under Gianandrea Noseda. So if you want all three works very persuasively performed, and the three-tier concerto context appeals, then there’s no contest: it has to be Ehnes. Where Ehnes takes a sweetly romantic view of the First Concerto’s amatory first movement, Renaud Capuçon is more soulfully romantic, even doleful at times. But he also does well by both concertos. So too do Arabella Steinbacher and Marek Janowski: when reviewing their CD in these pages I commented how they ‘offer us Bartók in 3D, the three dimensions not only spatial but emotional as well. I can’t think of a version of the Second Concerto, past or present, where structure and content are more thoughtfully balanced, or where significant points in the score are more lovingly underlined.’ I stand by that assessment but, when it comes to structure and content being thoughtfully balanced, they now have a formidable rival in Tetzlaff and Lintu. That’s not forgetting Isabelle Faust and Daniel Harding, who provide a lean, lissom and sensitively phrased option, nor Thomas Zehetmair with Iván Fischer, who are probably closest in style to the current CD under review. And of course Patricia Kopatchinskaja’s Second Concerto (2013 Gramophone Recording of the Year, coupled with works by Eötvos and Ligeti) is chock-full of character – a real one-off. So what makes this new release so special? Bartók’s brilliantly scored Second Concerto in particular is a blend of earth and spirit, formal sophistication and phantasmagorical invention, folk-like themes and harmonic originality. These elements are securely focused by Tetzlaff and Lintu in the second movement especially, where, to call on a nature metaphor, the music suggests an exquisitely coloured hummingbird: such fragile beauty in the quieter episodes, sometimes reduced to a mere whisper (from 6’11” is pure filigree), Lintu always cueing a fine-spun accompaniment; though when the going gets tough (at 4’39” into the same movement), where wind and timps loudly protest against the carping soloist, the effect is dramatic. In the movement’s central scherzo episode, from 7’16”, with its tremulously dialoguing violin and percussion (fast whirring of wings?), you can almost feel the music’s physical impact. The outer movements are superb, Tetzlaff pressing forwards or cosseting the line according to the dictates of the moment. But always there’s that awareness of a master colourist in the forefront; nothing is ever showy just for the sake of it, yet at 7’15” into the first movement, after Tetzlaff has reduced his tone to something barely audible, he rudely breaks the mood with a virtuoso flourish. Between them Tetzlaff and Lintu command a compelling and comprehensive overview of this multifaceted masterpiece, its fierce rhythms and many moments of affecting repose, not to mention its very singular emotional climate. Incidentally, Bartók’s original, purely orchestral ending is used. I much prefer it. The First Concerto is equally fine, at the very least. Listen from 7’07” into the Allegro giocoso second movement, a dizzying sequence of repeated phrases from Christian Tetzlaff tailed by an exultant tutti where Lintu and his Finnish Radio players bound in like excited kids in a playground. It’s a wonderful, conspicuously Straussian moment which I often revisit on my old Isaac Stern/Eugene Ormandy recording – but Tetzlaff and Lintu are in a different league. The same is true of the whole concerto, in fact, Tetztlaff commanding a wider range of tonal colours for the opening section of the preceding Andante sostenuto than almost anyone else on disc. To call on another nature metaphor, this is flora and fauna translated in terms of sound; and as the movement progresses, so the emotional tension builds commensurately. I’ve said it before, but my favoured couplings for the Second Concerto are the two magnificent Rhapsodies (as played by Barnabás Kelemen under Zoltán Kocsis on Hungaroton, who also add variant versions). But Tetzlaff’s account of the First Concerto elevates this work to a whole new level of musical excellence, so much so that I’m inclined to place his expertly recorded CD of the two concertos ahead of all rival versions. It’s that good! Rob Cowan (5/18) Selected comparisons – coupled as above: Steinbacher, Suisse Romande Orch, Janowski (11/10) (PENT) PTC5186 350 Ehnes, BBC PO, Noseda (11/11) (CHAN) CHAN10690 Faust, Swedish RSO, Harding (A/13) (HARM) HMC90 2146 R Capuçon, LSO, Roth (4/18) (ERAT) 9029 57080-7 Zehetmair, Budapest Fest Orch, I Fischer (BRIL) 9436 Grieg Piano Concerto, Op 16a. Peer Gynt – Incidental Music, Op 23b b Lise Davidsen, bAnn-Helen Moen, bVictoria Nava sops bJohannes Weisser bar bHåkon Høgemo Hardanger fiddle aJean-Efflam Bavouzet pf Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra / Edward Gardner Chandos F Í CHSA5190 (83’ • DDD/DSD • T/t) What could be more authentic than the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra performing Grieg – a composer with whom they had a close relationship (he was even briefly their artistic director)? This is their first exploration of the composer with their current chief conductor Edward Gardner and though it’s an unusual coupling, it gramophone.co.uk Click on album covers to buy from GRAMOPHONE SHORTLIST 2018 11

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GRAMOPHONE AWARDS SHORTLIST 2018

short German Mass. Vox Luminis (here with organist Bart Jacobs) give themselves plenty a scope with the double-CD format, and fill both discs generously.

Programmatic flair is backed up by performances and a sound recording to match. Vox Luminis have received their fair share of accollades (their Schütz Musikaliches Exequien was Gramophone Record of the Year across all categories in 2012) but in ambition certainly, perhaps even in execution, this may be finer still. Among the vocal selections, Scheidt’s polychoral Ascendo ad Patrem meum is exquisite. The Veni Sancte Spiritus by Thomas Selle that follows probably looks slight on paper but some memorably stratospheric sopranos impart a hair-raising intensity. The selections for organ include some gems, too: the Thomas organ of St Vincent Church, Ciboure, has some extraordinary registrations for the chorale line of Lass mich dein sein und bleiben and Praetorius’s monumental variations on Ein feste Burg (arguably the quintessential chorale) stand comparison with Sweelinck. And that’s just the first disc. The acoustic variety is such that I was surprised to find on second hearing that Vox Luminis achieve all this with just voices and organ.

The accompanying long-format booklet is splendidly produced, the plentiful colour illustrations reinforcing the immediacy of the acoustic experience. The accompanying notes place the music usefully and legibly in its historical context. This must be a contender for my pick of the year come December. Fabrice Fitch (10/17)

‘The Other Vespers’ Castello Sonata in D minor Donati Dulcis amor Iesu! Frescobaldi Toccata terza G Gabrieli Magnificat a 14 Monteverdi Beatus vir I. Confitebor tibi, Domine II. Dixit Dominus II. Laudate Dominum I. Laudate pueri I. Salve, o regina. Ut queant laxis Palestrina/Bovicelli Ave verum corpus Usper Sonata a 8 Viadana Deus in adiutorium I Fagiolini; The 24; The English Cornett & Sackbut Ensemble / Robert Hollingworth Decca F 483 1654DH (80’ • DDD • T/t)

There is only one eyewitness report of Monteverdi directing Vespers music after his permanent relocation to Venice: the Dutch tourist Constantijn Huygens attended a Vespers for the Feast of St John the Baptist on June 24, 1620 (probably at SS Giovanni e Paolo), and ‘heard the most perfect music I think I shall ever hear in my life’. This enigmatic occasion has prompted several speculative reconstructions of an alternative Monteverdi Vespers making use of music selected from his large Venetian anthology Selva morale e spirituale, published in 1641 but its content presumably written across many years; the collection is rich in multiple settings of psalms necessary for important male saints’ feasts (and much else), so Robert Hollingworth’s mischievously titled ‘The Other Vespers’ represents just one of a range of possible alternatives.

Recorded during chilly November conditions at St George’s Church, Chesterton, there is plenty of warmth and animation in the superb music-making. I Fagiolini’s consort and solo singing are exemplary, and on a few occasions fuller choral moments are bolstered by eight talented students from The 24 (Hollingworth’s recently founded chamber choir at the University of York). Five psalms and a hymn from Selva morale are placed within a plausible liturgical context between plainchant antiphons (sung with unaffected simplicity) and plenty of music by Monteverdi’s contemporaries.

Viadana’s response Domine ad adiuvandum (1612) is adorned with liberal embellishments from cornettist Andrea Inghisciano; Gawain Glenton’s seductive cornett floats sensitively above a fascinating sacred contrafactum of a Palestrina madrigal, its polyphony reworked by Giovanni Battista Bovicelli into a stylishly devised example of how to ornament (Ave verum corpus). Castello’s Sonata in D minor (1629) is played with conversational charm by violinist Bjarte Eike, and organist Catherine Pierron demonstrates a nimble touch in a Frescobaldi Toccata (1637). The English Cornett & Sackbut Ensemble displays its expertise in a solemn eight-part Sonata by Monteverdi’s Venetian colleague Francesco Usper (1619). The largest-scale music is a 14-part Magnificat by Giovanni Gabrieli (1615), which captures the perfect incongruity of polished gutsiness, whereas five solo voices sing with eloquent intimacy in Ignazio Donati’s motet Dulcis amor Iesu! (1616). Throughout proceedings the continuo realisations of theorbists Lynda Sayce and Eligio Quintiero are impeccable.

In such sure hands (and throats) as these, Monteverdi’s psalm-settings reach their fullest capacity to enchant and astonish. Dixit Dominus (primo) achieves a thrilling synergy of articulate instrumental playing, fulsome choral ripienos and dexterous solo singing. Sonorous textures doubled by trombones and harmonic twists from the violins are balanced perfectly in the descending chromaticism that word-paints ‘misericordia’ in Laudate Dominum (primo). Hollingworth argues in his booklet note (and more extensively online at a microsite dedicated to the project) that Monteverdi’s triple-time signatures are commonly performed too quickly – in a nutshell, he reckons that a late-Baroque dance aesthetic has been misapplied to Monteverdi’s lateRenaissance practice. These scholarly ideas directly inform the shape and personality of these gorgeous reinterpretations. Seen afresh in this light, Confitebor tibi, Domine (secondo) lilts gently and with delightful translucence, its measured pace aligned to an affectionate tone of delivery from the superb solo trio Ciara Hendrick, Nicholas Mulroy and Jonathan Sells. Similarly, the evergreen Beatus vir (primo) springs a double surprise: the opening section (four beats in a bar, over a ground bass) is a notch quicker than is usually the case (its light flexibility of touch and articulate delivery of text means that the details are never in jeopardy of being blurred in a rush), but the ensuing dancelike, tripletime middle section adopts a slower and softer pulse than usual. This means that the violin ritornello has increased lyricism, the florid solo voice parts are more congruent (the duo singing of mezzosopranos Clare Wilkinson and Ciara Hendrick is lovely), and the singers are able to communicate the text with more effective clarity than is often the case at a quicker speed. What’s more, the wordsetting actually makes more sense when performed like this. Monteverdi’s smallscale setting of Salve, o regina (1624), sung mellifluously by Matthew Long, is a beautifully understated conclusion.

In truth, the choice of Monteverdi psalm-settings has a fair bit of overlap with Gustav Leonhardt’s ‘Vespri di S Giovanni Battista’ (Philips, 4/89) and also Rinaldo Alessandrini’s award-winning ‘Vespri solenni per la Festa di San Marco’ (Naïve, A/14), but Hollingworth’s curiosity to ask difficult questions and put practical suggestions to the test within a contextual performance brings more to mind the philological instincts and musical qualities of Andrew Parrott (to whom this recording is dedicated as ‘a respectful hommage’).

I Fagiolini were never going to offer anything mundane for the composer’s 450th birthday celebrations, and this ‘other Vespers’ contributes fresh ideas about how to interpret music about which plenty of matters are far from settled, in addition to being a fine advocacy of Monteverdi’s later Venetian-period sacred works. David Vickers (7/17)

10 GRAMOPHONE SHORTLIST 2018

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