RECORDINGreviews

64 Spring 2007 Early Music America

the rich stylistic variety and skill Scar-latti brought to the genre.

Giá lusingato appieno is in theolder style. No da capo arias here;instead, voice and violins compli-ment one another in an intenseoperatic-like scene. The serenataNotte ch’in carro d’ombre openswith a scene-setting sinfonia thatdepicts the still of night. The work

has twonoteworthyarias: thegorgeous“Largo epiano,” evok-ing sleep,and the fiery

“Si, che priva di contento,” wherean unhappy lover bewails the miseryof life.

Il Nerone is a megalomaniacmonologue by the Emperor Nero,with a particularly challenging aria,“Vuò che trema Giove ancora,” filledwith furious dotted rhythms thatpush the singer hard, and a sadisticreverie, “Veder chi pena,” set to atarantella in which Nero relates howhe enjoys watching his subjects suffer.

The largest-scale cantata is L’Orfeo, which features some strikingdramatic writing in the recitativesand expressive arias for Orfeo.

Scholl is a solid singer withsecure technique and a vocal tonalbeauty that is fetching, and ModoAntiquo provides solid accompani-ment. Yet for all the beauty theybring to the music, there is some-thing bland about the final results.The crazed Nerone doesn’t chill theblood, nor does the anguishedOrfeo sound particularly pained. Theprogram is polished and performedwith precision, but there is some-thing far too polite and safe here.—Craig Zeichner

COLLECTIONS

Calliope, Beautiful VoiceEmma Curtis, contralto, director; The Frolick (Andrew Maginley, lute,guitar, theorbo, director; MarkusMöllenbeck, cello; Muriel Bardon,Natia Gvilava, violin; Giovanna Pessi,harp; Annie Laflamme, flute; Martin Lynch, drum)Avie AV 2102156: 59 minutes (2CDs)

In 1739 Calliope, a collection of

English and Scottish songs, waspublished and found its way into thehomes of amateur musicians inBritain. The first volume of the bookcontained 200 songs by such well-known composers as Purcell, Han-del, and Arne, alongside a host oflesser-known and anonymous musi-cians. The collection features operat-ic music (Italian arias and instrumen-tal works set to English texts), the-ater songs (sung as part of the stageaction or between acts of plays),and Scottish songs.

More than just a collection ofrandom songs, Calliope presents afascinating look at the artistic andsocial milieu of 18th-century Eng-land. It’s almost like a Hogarthtableau set to music. Many of thesongs comment on the social scene,whether it’s a lamentation on thedeparture of the Italian singer Sen-esino (Italian opera is a constantsource of satire throughout), or a

stingingsongaboutcoquetrywith refer-ences tothe popu-lar choco-

late and coffee houses of London.Contralto Emma Curtis does a

marvelous job in this repertoire. Sheis adept as an actress and a singer(some of the songs make toughtechnical demands) and creates aunique sense of character in eachsong. Whether it’s a gin-soakeddrinking song like “My Jolly Com-panion” or a doleful lament, Curtis iscaptivating. High marks to The Frol-ick, the instrumental ensemble thatprovides superb support in eachsong. Andrew Maginley’s tenderlute accompaniment in “The Forsak-en Nymph” is one of the high pointsof the set, and the entire ensemblerollicks in the hunting song “TheEarly Horn.” —Craig Zeichner

Rosa das Rosas: Cantigas de Santa Maria and OtherSpiritual Songs for the VirginThe Rose Ensemble,Jordan Sramek, directorRose 0000770:15 minutes

“Pues que tú, Reyna del çielo” by Juan del Encina (1485-c.1530)opens this collection—a welcome

Cherubini’s Powerfully Expressive

Requiem in C MinorIs Centerpiece of New Recording by

Martin Pearlman and Boston Baroque

CD

-806

58

Visit www.telarc.com for the complete Boston Baroque catalog on Telarc.www.telarc.com for the complete Boston Baroque catalog on Telarc.

More Boston Baroque recordings from Telarc:Monteverdi Vespers of 1610 (CD-80453)

Mozart Requiem (CD-80410)Bach Mass in B Minor (CD-80517)

www.telarc.com

More Boston Baroque recordings from Telarc:Monteverdi Vespers of 1610 (CD-80453)

“If I were to write a Requiem, Cherubini’s would be my only model.”— Ludwig van Beethoven

Continued from page 23

Early Music America Spring 2007 65

Of course he’s upset about the poisoning....

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performance because it is a lovelywork that is seldom heard. Indeed,much of the allure of this attractiverecording is its inclusion of somecompositions that have sufferedneglect.

The Rose Ensemble has minedthe 13th-century Cantigas de Santa

Maria forsix of the16 piecescontainedhere.There arealso Ital-ian laude

and several Spanish Renaissanceworks. Much of the material is beau-tiful, such as the delicate blend offemale voices in Cantiga #252 andthe equally alluring contributionprovided by the men’s duet in thelauda “O Virginetta bella.” The inclu-sion of recited poetry on recordingssuch as these is seldom successful,but as performed here on Cantiga

#10, it works quite well, in largepart because of the lyrical refrain.

While generally a fine recording,some decisions regarding the pieceschosen and their performance give itan uneven quality. The spoken inter-jections in Cantiga #42, for exam-ple, are unconvincing and suggest acomic interpretation that is not sup-ported by the otherwise suave deliv-ery. Many of the cantigas are long,and although each offers variety asit unfolds, some should have beenshortened. More than half the col-lection consists of simple praisesongs, and therefore the decision to also include more elaborate poly -phony does not always work; in particular, the troped Kyrie by Anchi-eta (1462-1523), even though it isbeautifully done, seems out of place.

On the other hand, althoughEncina’s gorgeous romance “Unasañosa porfía” has little to do withthe Virgin and has often beenrecorded, the Rose Ensemble’s

rather dramatic interpretation is aprofound pleasure that utterly stealsthe show. —Deborah Lawrence

The Unknown Lover: Songs by Solage and MachautGothic Voices (Catherine King,mezzo-soprano; Steven Harrold,Julian Podger, Leigh Nixon, tenor;Stephen Charlesworth, baritone)Avie AV208971:21 minutes

This recording, the 22nd byGothic Voices and their first for theEnglish Avie record label, featuresthat most cutting edge of Medievalgenres, the chanson. The focus is on two of the leading exponents ofthe style, Guillaume de Machaut(c.1300-1377) and his successor, the little-known Solage (fl.1380s).

The Machaut songs on thisrecording offer examples of thethree popular song forms of theday: the virelai, rondeau, and bal-lade. The performances are stun-ners. The virelai “Mors sui, se je nevous voy” was originally written inmonophonic form, but the twovoice version on this recording issplendid. Tenors Julian Podger andSteven Harrold blend marvelously

and really communicate the song’sweird, almost pained effect. The bal-lade “Dame, se vous m’estes lon-teinne” is beautifully sung by mezzoCatherine King (her solo work isexemplary throughout) and movesthe listener with its simplicity andmelodic beauty.

In some ways the Solage worksare the real revelations of therecording. Little is known about the

composer,but thereare 10 songsattributed tohim in thefamousChantillycodex

(c.1400). What we have on thisrecording is fascinating, especially“S’aincy estoit” and “Corps femi-nin,” two twistingly complex songsthat push the singers to the limits ofvocal dexterity and expression.

For nearly 25 years, Gothic Voic-es have offered some of the finestperformances of Medieval reper-toire. This new recording finds themto be fresh of voice and full of strik-ing ideas about how to perform thisdifficult but ever-remarkable music.—Craig Zeichner

66 Spring 2007 Early Music America

RECORDINGreviewsContinued from page 64

Early Music America Spring 2007 67

SOUNDbytes

HARM NIAO making of the album was toair in late February.

Anonymous 4 also madeBillboard’s list in 2006 – theircomeback CD Gloryland spentnine weeks on the magazine’stop 10 list. The ensemble iscurrently touring in supportof the release.

ECM received the label ofthe year award at the 2007MIDEM classical awards cer-emony in January duringMIDEM, the internationalmusic trade show, which washeld in Cannes, France. ECMwill also release its 1,000threcording in 2007, and a newbook from Granta Books(London), Horizons Touched:The Music of ECM, is due outin March.

The Oriole Collection(www.oriolecollection.com) isa new online music seller thatfocuses on early music, 20th-century art music, contempo-rary art music, and experi-mental music.

REBEL’s new CD Biber: Har-monia Arioso-Ariosa has justbeen released on BridgeRecords.

SeasoningsHappy 30th anniversary

season to The Early Interval(Ron Cook, director) ofColumbus, OH. In early Janu-ary, the group presented its16th Twelfth Night celebra-tion at the Pontifical CollegeJoseph inum. This year’s con-certs featured the music ofMedie val, Renaissance, andBaroque Italy.

In February, the winterseason of the Aspen MusicFestival featured violinist Vik-toria Mullova in a programof Bach. Since 2000, Mullovahas devoted much of hertime to period-instrumentperformances of Baroquemusic. On this program, theTchaikovsky gold medal win-ner was joined by harpsi-chordist Geneviève Soly.

Early Music Vancouverlaunched its 2006-07 seasonin October and Novemberwith a mini-festival featuringthe three Canadian BaroqueOrchestras – TafelmusikBaroque Orchestra (Toronto),Arion Baroque Orchestra(Montreal), and PacificBaroque Orchestra (Vancou-ver). This is the first time thatCanadian audiences had theunique opportunity to hearthese three front-rank orches-tras side-by-side.

Music at Morris-Jumel, a

Bassoonist Michael McCraw,head of the Early Music Institute at Indiana University, joined theBay Area Baroque ensembleMusica Pacifica for a Januaryconcert presented by the Arizona Early Music Society.

Continued from page 15

Strings & Early Winds Modern / Baroque Strings

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68 Spring 2007 Early Music America

series of concerts taking placein the octagonal music roomof the 18th-century Morris-Jumel Mansion (NYC),opened its season in Octoberwith a concert by its residentensemble, Brooklyn Baroque(Andrew Bolotowsky, flute;David Bakamjian, cello;Rebecca Pechefsky, harpsi-chord), and guest violinistHeidi Powell. Other perform-ers appearing this seasoninclude soprano ElizabethBaber, tenor Philip Anderson,recorder player GregoryBynum, lutenist CharlesWeaver, violist da gamba Car-lene Stober, and fortepianistMaria Rose.

The fall 2007 season ofLincoln Center’s Great Per-formances series will includethe New York premiere ofthe rarely performed 17th-century opera Il Sant’Alessioby Stefano Landi. WilliamChristie will direct Les ArtsFlorissants in the Octoberperformances, featuringcountertenors PhilippeJaroussky as Saint Alexis andMax Emanuel Cencic as hiswife. In December, theOrchestra of the Age ofEnlightenment performsHandel’s Messiah, led by Lau-rence Cummings, head ofhistorical performance at theRoyal Academy of Music inLondon.

On the RadioWHYY presented

Philomel on “Sunday Show-case” in November. The two-hour broadcast includedPhilomel’s May 2004 concertof Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons”featuring Nancy Wilson (vio-lin), two Vivaldi recorder con-certos performed by ElissaBerardi, performances by

soprano Julianne Baird withPhilomel’s Baroque Orches-tra, and highlights from pastseasons. In December, VoxAma Deus made its firstappearance on the same pro-gram with a selection ofMozart works.

NewsLiber unUsualis signed

with Erika Esslinger Konz-ertagentur, who will representthe ensemble in Germany,Austria, and Switzerland. Thetrio keeps an active perform-ing schedule in both NorthAmerica and Europe, withrecent or forthcomingappearances in Latvia, Esto-nia, England, France, BritishColumbia, Belgium, Ger-many, and the United Stateson the San Francisco EarlyMusic Society series.

In October, KathySpencer and Suzanne Fergu-son, president of the Viola daGamba Society of America,attended what they believe tohave been the first interna-tional gathering of gambasocieties, sponsored by theFrench Société de Viole atVersailles, where the Centrede Musique Baroque de Ver-sailles was celebrating the350th birthday of MarinMarais with a festival of con-certs and symposia. Theyheard from several Europeansocieties and from theVdGSA-Japan about theirhistory and activities. Onecommon thread of discussionwas the need to encouragenew players of the viol.

The “International YoungArtist’s Presentation – Histor-ical Wind Instruments,” pre-sented by Musica (info@musica.be) in collaborationwith the Flanders Festival-

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Antwerp, will choose up toeight ensembles to receivecoaching from Pedro Mem -els dorff in August 2007. Thegroups will perform beforeearly music specialists andFestival attendees, and a win-ner will be chosen.

In MemoriamDaniel Pinkham, compos-

er, organist at King’s Chapel

in Boston, and a faculty mem-ber of the New EnglandConservatory, died in Decem-ber at the age of 83. As a key-board artist and teacher, Pink ham had an inestimableimpact on the early musiccommunity, having at onetime chaired NEC’s earlymusic department and conducted its collegiummusicum.

Like Playing theRecorder?

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MusicSourcesUpdated

Now celebrating its 20thanniversary as a center for theBay Area early music community,MusicSources was founded byLaurette Goldberg near theUC-Berkeley campus as a livingmuseum dedicated to early key-boards, a place where the oldand the new, the early and thepresent, could have a chance tocome together.

Dedicated to education and the dissemination of musical ideas, instru-ments, history, and text, MusicSources is a flourishing center for learningand experimentation. Although it caters to Baroque tastes and concerns,the museum attracts classically minded folk, the uninitiated, school chil-dren, retired people who want to take up the study of early music orbegin keyboard studies once again, adolescents who participate in theJunior Bach Festival, and established organizations like the Western EarlyKeyboard Association. There is a library upstairs that is often used forexamining facsimile and urtext editions.

MusicSources produces a world-class calendar of musical events everyyear. From the beginning, many of the best-known keyboard playershave performed there: Alan Curtis, Igor Kipnis, Davitt Moroney, and ear-lier on, Gustav Leonhardt and Ton Koopman. The setting is intimate andthe acoustics are marvelous, as are the instruments by Bay area localbuilders such as John Phillips and Kevin Fryer.

With the death of Laurette Goldberg, Gilbert Martinez has becomethe new director of the museum. Martinez remembers walking intoMusicSources 16 years ago with the intent of studying with Goldberg.His first impression was one of a pleasant chaos. “Aside from being overwhelmed by the beautiful collection of keyboards, there were about30 children at the museum on a tour. Laurette was in her element, andit was an eye-opener.” Last fall, when two classes of nine-year-old chil-dren came to MusicSources on a field trip, Martinez himself gave them atour of the museum, allowing them to touch and play the instruments.

In the year and a half that he has been there, Martinez has guided themuseum through a successful remodeling that has opened it up to morelight and refreshed the interior performance space. A lecture series wasstarted and movie nights were added to the schedule. Martinez has alsoinstituted a scholarship in Goldberg’s memory to support the debuteach year of a promising new young keyboard player—this year MahanEsfahani, a graduate of Stanford University.

To learn more, visit the web site (www.musicsources.org), call 510-528-1685 to request some brochures, or better yet, if you’re in the Bay Area,come and visit. —Sheli Nan

70 Spring 2007 Early Music America

La Scala and the Met.Similarly, the development of the vio-

lin family has been a quest for greateramplification; the acoustic limits to indi-vidual instruments were reached wellbefore the introduction of the micro-phone. The increase in size of perform-ing ensembles likewise was an attempt tocreate more sound and thus reach more(paying) listeners through the multiplica-tion and combination of instruments.The hallmark of the contemporary con-cert experience is the ability of just a fewperformers to achieve, by use of electri-cal amplification, the threshold of pain.

Thus our thought telescope revealsthat the most important distinctionbetween early music and modern is sim-

ply the difference between acousticmusic and music that is powered and/ormodified by electricity. It has been usefulfor us to distinguish ourselves from ourmodern colleagues, physically in termsof instruments and intellectually interms of assumptions and intents, butthe distinction that will count in thefuture will be the means of creating andpropagating music. That distinction,between plugged and unplugged, makesall the difference, in terms of the cre-ation, the distribution, and even the styleof the music. We and our moderninstrument colleagues are all in the sameboat, and it’s time we stop quibblingover our deck chairs – or our life preservers. Anthony Martin, a member of the NovelloQuartet, plays violin and viola with theOrchestra of the 18th Century, PhilharmoniaBaroque, American Bach Soloists, and numer-ous other period ensembles.

Are We Late Yet?Continued from page 72

Replicas - The Keyboard Builders’ Art in the 20th and 21st centuries... is the theme of the next annual meeting of the Midwestern Historical Keyboard Society slated for The Schubert Club, St. Paul, Minnesota, April 26-28, 2007.Listen to nationally known artists performing on harpsichords, fortepianos, organs and more!

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In a future history of music, the differences between thepurposes and practices ofPhilharmonia Baroque

and the Vienna Philharmonicmight not be worth the least footnote.

Early Music America Spring 2007 71

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Pieter Affourtit Bows ...................................................71Albuquerque Baroque Workshop.................................56American Bach Soloists ................................................19American Recorder Society ..........................................69Amherst Early Music ....................................................55Apollo’s Fire .................................................................25Ars Musica Chicago .....................................................51ARSIS Audio...................................................................21ARTEK ............................................................................63ATMA Classique .......................................................18, 23Bach Festival of Central Florida ....................................71Baerenreiter Verlag ......................................................26Baldwin-Wallace College ................................................9Baroque Dance ............................................................33Bloomington Early Music Festival.................................52Boston Clavichord Society............................................44Boston Early Music Festival ..........................................51Boulder Early Music Shop ............................................14Brandywine Baroque................................................5, 44Broude Brothers Limited ..............................................65Cambridge Early Music Summer School ......................54Case Western Reserve University ..................................24Chorworks ...................................................................54ClarNan Editions ..........................................................70Coog Instruments ........................................................71Divox..............................................................................4Early Music America .............................................. 48, 65Early Music Guild of Seattle .........................................52Early Music Now ..........................................................10Early Music Vancouver .................................................58East Cork Early Music Festival ......................................53Eastman School of Music.............................................52ECS Publishing .............................................................22Editions Fuzeau............................................................15Fanfare Consort ...........................................................20Festival Montreal Baroque .............................................6Fioritura .......................................................................20French American School ..............................................70Melinda Gardner..........................................................71H.F. Grabenstein Bowmaker .........................................25Harmonia .....................................................................67Harmonia Mundi .........................................................C2Harvard Choral Department.........................................26Hesperus ......................................................................61

Honeysuckle Music.......................................................71Indiana University, Jacobs School of Music ..................12Indiana University Press ...............................................38International Festival Wratislavia Cantans....................C3Kelischek Workshop .....................................................69Koch Vision ..................................................................13La Donna Musicale.......................................................19LaRiche & Co................................................................66Lazar’s Early Music.......................................................68Longy School of Music.................................................59Los Angeles Chamber Singers ......................................22Madison Early Music Festival .......................................56McGill University Early Music .......................................48McNulty Fortepianos....................................................11Midwest Early Keyboard Society ..................................70Musica Antica a Magnano ...........................................48Musica Dulce ...............................................................71Naxos...........................................................................C4Norfolk Chamber Music Festival/Yale ...........................51Oberlin Conservatory of Music...............................37, 56OMI..............................................................................71Parthenia......................................................................34Peregrine Productions ..................................................66Philharmonia Baroque .................................................33Piffaro, The Renaissance Band .....................................14Simon Polak, Early Flutes .............................................71Port Townsend Early Music Workshop .........................61Provincetown Bookshop ..............................................63Quill Classics ................................................................64R. J. Regier ...................................................................34Leslie Ross, Bassoons ...................................................68San Francisco Early Music Society ................................60Henry Skolnick (rep. Guntram Wolf) ............................71Sono Luminus ..............................................................21Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra......................................60Taylor & Boody, Organbuilders.......................................4Telarc............................................................................64Terra Nova....................................................................33Texas Toot ....................................................................51Trinity Wall Street.........................................................16VioLab..........................................................................44Vox Saeculorum ...........................................................25Von Huene Workshops.................................................15Jonathan Wentworth Associates..................................70Wildacres .....................................................................53Yale Institute of Sacred Music......................................34Dominik Zuchowicz......................................................71

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72 Spring 2007 Early Music America

INconclusion

WHY SHOULD PHYSICISTS have all thefun? Einstein gets to ride a beam

of light, Schrödiger and Maxwell playwith their cats and demons. Let musicol-ogists, both practical and theoretical,have their own thought experiments,too. Try this one: transpose yourself 250years into the future, a future as farremoved from now as we are from thelate Baroque, or as Bach and Handelwere from the Renaissance. Now let uslook back at our present as at a distantpast. There is much to be learned fromconsidering ourselves through the wrongend of the telescope, all the details ofour lives and art subject to the ravagesand deletions of time.

One of the things we might noticefrom that distance is that what we doand what our colleagues with their mod-ern instruments do is practically indistin-guishable. In a future history of music,the differences between the purposesand practices of Philharmonia Baroqueand the Vienna Philharmonic might notbe worth the least footnote. What theyhave in common far outweighs the dif-ferences of which we are so acutelyaware. Early is relative: “Call me firstthing, say, around 11,” he said. The viewfrom the future shows not only such rel-ativity in time, but in the repertoire andinstruments as well.

What repertoire can we claim if theboundaries continue to creep right intothe contemporary? Modern instrumen-talists continue to play early music, per-haps ever more stylishly, while my own

performances on period instrumentshave included Brahms’s Ein DeutschesRequiem, Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht,and Jake Heggie’s latest opera, premieredlast November. Increasingly, moderninstrumentalists play also on early instru-ments even as early musicians play mod-ern gigs. This is a healthy development,and it makes sense when we realize thatit’s all early music!

Of course, it’s not really all earlymusic, as the future telescope reveals. Anevent (actually a series of events, but ourview from the future does not bringevents into the close focus that we areafforded now) occurred in the ’20s thatmarks the watershed between early andmodern: the introduction of electricityinto the process of music making.Amplification and recording did existbefore the 1920s, but, with the exceptionof the organ, they were powered solelyby the musician. With the introductionof electrical recording in 1925, the styleof singing in every genre changed, seem-ingly overnight, from the chest singingof Billy Murray to the crooning of RudyVallee. For the past 80 years, the excep-tion has been operatic singing, but nowamplification invades even the stages of

If we look back at the earlymusic movement through the

wrong end of a telescope,things begin to look,

in Alice’s timeless words, “curiouser and curiouser”

AreWeLateYet?

Continued on page 70

By Anthony Martin