Musica Barocca

Founded in 1985 in Milan, Il Giardino Armonico was one of Italy's earliest period instrument groups. Directed by Giovanni Antonini, who also acts as solo flutist, it consists of about 30 players, all highly accomplished and, to judge from their photograph, appropriately taken in what looks like the garden of a country house, all young. Many of them take solo turns, most prominently the concertmaster, the wind players, and the lutist. Their style is very "baroque," with lower pitch, speedy tempos, especially in fast movements, clipped articulation, lots of swells as well as sudden contrasts, and lavish, imaginative ornamentation.

The program, except for improvised variations on "Greensleeves" for solo lute, is all-Baroque and a bit strange. It opens with Bach's Suite No. 3 in a brilliant, exuberant performance, enhanced by a Trumpet Consort from Innsbruck, and then alternates complete concertos for various single and multiple solo instruments with short works, including separate movements. This produces variety but also frustration: the playing is so good that one wants to hear the rest of the piece. Apart from the Bach, Purcell's G-minor Chaconne and the Pachelbel Canon are most familiar. A Vivaldi Concerto for flautino (a sort of piccolo recorder) is a bravura showpiece, but the instrument sounds like a mechanical bird. Also notable are a somber, dramatic Oboe Concerto by Marcello, and several lovely slow movements, including one by Telemann and three by Albinoni. Surprisingly, the saddest and most dissonant of these brings the program to a very mournful close. --Edith Eisler

Piano Music

“Sensational. Unique. In a realm all their own. Now words are really apt here...The most obvious feature of the playing here is the artist's unfettered imagination - a currently unfashionable commodity. In the end though, this is the least of it. Pletnev simply sees in the score essentials which most musicians miss.” --BBC Musi Magazine, January 2014

“The long line is Pletnev's starting point. However undulant he feels it need be, however delicate or powerful he feels it need be, it is always an integral part of the form and rhythm of a piece...the kind of musicianship that makes the odd foible irrelevant, even meaningless.” --Gamophone, January 2014

A treat for fans of Pletnev the pianist and piano enthusiasts. Recorded in single takes in between sessions for other recordings but with the red light left on, these performances capture one the great pianists of our time simply playing for himself. Never before released, the performances and recordings have been approved by Mikhail Pletnev for release.

The Beethoven sonata is a work he has not recorded before, and the Bach/Busoni Chaconne recording pre-dates his famous ‘Live from Carnegie Hall’ album. The Schubert Impromptus were recorded at Rachmaninov’s villa in Switzerland on the composer’s own Steinway. This CD allows us to eavesdrop on a great artist playing for pleasure – for himself whilst the recording technicians busied themselves with the ‘official’ recording. The spontaneous nature of the playing is captivating and, as always with Pletnev, exciting.

Bach: Cello Sonatas

Bach wrote these sonatas, some of whose music presents a reworking of earlier trio compositions, for a partnership of viola da gamba and harpsichord. The G major and D major works adopt the four-movement sonata da chiesa scheme, whilst the G minor, organized more along the lines of a concerto, is in three movements. The harpsichord is treated as a concertante instrument almost throughout, whilst the viola da gamba writing reflects the virtuoso position which the instrument had reached in late-baroque German music. These are absorbingly interesting and emotionally satisfying works which reach their high-water mark in the expansive and very beautiful Sonata in G minor, BWV1029.

Most of the recordings on the market are performances on the instruments which Bach specifically asked for, but intelligent and expressive readings recently came from Yo-Yo Ma and Kenneth Cooper on CBS. Here is another which takes us a step, but a big step further from Bach's own sound-picture. Let me say at once that the playing of both artists is highly accomplished and is a true partnership throughout. The DG engineers have been careful not to give either instrument undue prominence over the other and that ensures both textural clarity and musical sense. Mischa Maisky is a fine a technician with an unerring ear for intonation and a good sense of phrase. Martha Argerich's Bach playing probably needs little in the way of introduction from me—her recording of the C minor Partita, BWV826, is one of the finest by a pianist that I am acquainted with (DG 2531 088, 3/80—nla).

In this new release there is a comparable stylistic assurance, clarity in articulation and liveliness of temperament though I find the result less satisfying and less convincing. The fault is not entirely hers for my chief reservation rests with the character of the piano itself. It's too plummy for my ear and that quality is emphasized by a somewhat hollow acoustic too far removed from a chamber ambience; but I found, also, that chords are apt to sound heavy in the slow movements and that the way they are broken up at cadences is stylistically unconvincing. My feeling is that, in the end, these sonatas do not work well on a piano but there will be many, perhaps, who disagree and they will not be disappointed by the Maisky/Argerich partnership.

As I said earlier, there is some splendid music-making here, but I hope prospective investors hitherto unacquainted with these pieces will not be deterred from hearing them played on the instruments for which Bach wrote them. There is a world of difference between the end results of two such disparate sonorities.'

--Gramophone Magazine. Date: 1/1986

Bach: Secular Cantatas IV

“Bach Collegium Japan's trumpets and horns mount a thrilling assault to play without modern drilled holes to fix their intonation to the expectations of modern ears...The outstanding moment is Gratitude's 'Ätzet dieses Angedenken', in which Robin Blaze's gentle singing is accompanied by a lyrical pair of flutes.” --Gramophone Magazine, Awards Issue 2014

The two works on this disc perfectly illustrate a particular type of secular cantata, the so-called ‘dramma per musica’. In such works the libretto is constructed dramatically, and the singers embody various roles, such as gods and other characters from antiquity, and allegorical figures. The parallel with opera is apparent, although the ‘drammi per musica’ do without any scenic element. Bach primarily used the form in works intended for princely tributes or academic festivities: educated audiences could be expected to recognize the characters and literary traditions involved.

Both cantatas recorded here are ‘academic’ cantatas, composed in honour of eminent members of the faculty at the University of Leipzig. BWV 205 celebrates the name day of Dr August Friedrich Müller (3rd August 1725), and takes us to Aeolia, where Aeolus, the King of the Winds, holds the mighty autumn storms captive until it is time to let them loose on the world. To prevent any disruption of the celebrations for Dr Müller, the goddess Pallas, among others, entreats Aeolus to keep the storms in check for a while longer. Grudgingly he concedes to her wish, but only after singing an aria full of splendid bluster (Wie will ich lustig lachen…).

One year later, Bach composed the cantata BWV 207 for the appointment of Dr Gottlieb Kortte as ‘professor extraordinarius’. The young jurist enjoyed particular popularity among the young academics, who probably were the commissioners of the cantata. In this work it is virtues such as Diligence and Honour which take musical shape, singing the praise of the eminent academic. The cantata closes with a chorus, Kortte lebe, Kortte blühe!, wishing the new professor a long and flourishing life – unfortunately to little avail, as Dr Kortte died only five years later, at the age of 33.

Bach, J S: Brandenburg Concertos Nos. 1-6 BWV1046-1051 (complete)

“The excitement is palpable, reflected in smiling glances between the players, bodies swaying through musical suspensions, a sense of uninhibited joy… The playing is stylish throughout: ornaments are apt, all the more telling for their restraint; trills are paced to match mood, languid in slow movements, sparkling in allegros.” --BBC Music Magazine, April 2009

Gramophone Awards 2011 Shortlisted - Baroque Instrumental

“Here Claudio Abbado is gambolling among the Brandenburg Concertos in this straightforward TV-style concert film, recorded in the classic 19th-century opera house at Reggio Emilia during an Italian tour in spring 2007. The orchestra is at first glance a curious gathering, mixing 'Baroque' players such as violinist Giuliano Carmignola and harpsichordist Ottavio Dantone with 'modern' names such as trumpeter Reinhold Friedrich and 'un-Baroque' recorder-player Michala Petri. Furthermore, a look round the instruments reveals mostly modern models, some hybrids (for instance Jacques Zoon's wooden, multi-keyed flute) and a sprinkling of Baroque bows. Mind you, most younger players these days are well versed in Baroque style whatever they play on, and the tenor of these performances is firmly consistent with current ideas of what Baroque music ought to sound like.” --Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“This new recording of the Brandenburg Concertos exhibits all the virtues that one associates with Claudio Abbado: clarity, lucidity, balance, a sense of proportion, and, above all, an indefinable yet audible 'oneness' with the music. Dionysus is present in these performances, but he subsumed within their underlying Apollonian quality.” --International Record Review, April 2011
 

“Does the world need another set of Brandenburgs? Yes, when they are as freshly minted and as adventurously sonorous as this marvellous set...Abbado leads supple, imaginative readings; a great deal of the strong character is provided by his leader, violinist Giuliano Carmignola, and there is a brilliant harpsichord solo from Ottavio Dantone in the fifth concerto.” --The Observer, 13th March 2011

“the audio-only experience draws out a super-contented gestural world which had only intermittently communicated itself before...The hallmark of this set is the ambition to create lithe, beautiful and elegant statements in which witty, sophisticated dialogues are carried off within a heady textural landscape...The Fifth spins like a happy top...These are life-affirming live performances...which glide effortlessly on to the high table.” --Gramophone Magazine, June 2011

“Conducting J. S. Bach isn’t Abbado’s usual activity. But he buckles to it with joy, humanity and an Italianate slant that turns these cornerstone suites into outpourings of instrumental song. The players are the all-star Orchestra Mozart, with Giuliano Carmignola the demon lead fiddler, caught live in 2007.” --The Times, 12th March 2011 ****

J S Bach: Keyboard Concertos Nos. 1-7 BWV1052-1058

“Lifschitz's fleet-fingered articulation serves the fast music handsomely...A mixed bag perhaps, but still worth unpacking.” --BBC Music Magazine, June 2012 ****

“his Bach-playing is infused with a truly recognisable and fascinating personality and, at best, a remarkable sustainability of line...Lifschitz harnesses himself to Bach's supreme voice-leading to guide his keen perception of dynamic possibility, texture and touch and, most of all, melodic intensity.” --Gramophone Magazine, June 2012

Konstantin Lifschitz has long since established himself as an outstanding exponent of the works of Johann Sebastian Bach. He has already recorded the ‘Musical Offering’ and the ‘Art of Fugue’ for ORFEO and now turns his attention to the composer’s seven keyboard concertos. He is partnered by the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra, an ensemble that enjoys an equally distinguished reputation for its Bach interpretations. With only three of these seven concertos has it been possible to identify specific originals with different solo instruments, while the other four have been ascribed to various other instruments by experts in the field; attributions that none the less continue to be hotly debated. Lifschitz has at his command exactly the sort of touch and playful cunning needed to free the piano from its function as a continuo instrument and turns the whole experience into something intensely vital.

The fact that he plays these works on a modern concert grand is wholly convincing, not least because in Bach’s day instruments were evolving all the time and Bach himself was fond of experimentation in this, as in so many other areas. The cyclical overview provided by Konstantin Lifschitz and the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra in the case of the present recordings allows us to appreciate the old and the new in a clear and compelling way.