Musica Dei Donum

22/09/2025

CD reviews:

- Albinoni: 12 Sonate a tre Op. III
L'Armonia delle Cetre/Matteo Saccà
- Albinoni: "Sonate a tre Op. 1 No. 4, 5, 6, 7" & Vivaldi: "Violin Sonatas RV 12, RV 26, RV 17A"
Insieme Strumentale di Roma/Giorgio Sasso

"Doux silence"
Julie Roset, Lucile Richardot, Les Musiciens de Saint-Julien/François Lazarevitch

Pádua Puzzi (de): Messa a quattro voci
Ensemble Bonne Corde/Diana Vinagre

From the archive:

"Les Maries du Rhin - Rhenisch Hymns of Praise to the Virgin from ca. 1500" - Ala Aurea, Ars Choralis Coeln/Maria Jonas (†)

see:

early music, cd reviews, concert reviews, news, opinions, links

19/09/2025

Op zaterdag 20 september is Zwerven door de romantiek (Concertzender, 11.00-12.00 uur) gewijd aan Johannes Brahms. Twee kamermuziekwerken zijn te horen: het pianokwartet op. 60, uitgevoerd door The Primrose Piano Quartet, en de sonate voor klarinet en pianoforte in Es, op. 120,2, in een uitvoering van Chen Halevi en Jan Schultsz.

Deze uitzending is gewijd aan kamermuziek van Johannes Brahms.

17/09/2025

Op donderdag 18 september zijn in Nuove Musiche (Concertzender, 19.00-20.00 uur) gedeelten uit twee recent verschenen CDs met muziek uit de tweede helft van de 18e eeuw te horen. Op de eerste speelt La Rêveuse muziek gecomponeerd in Londen rond 1760, op de tweede staan de twee concerten voor traverso en het concert voor traverso en harp van Mozart, uitgevoerd door Anna Besson, Clara Izambert en A Nocte Temporis onder leiding van Reinoud Van Mechelen.

Vandaag twee recent verschenen opnamen met muziek uit de tweede helft van de 18e eeuw.

15/09/2025

CD reviews:

- Cherubini: Sei Sonate per cimbalo
Chiara Cattani, harpsichord
- Mysliveček: "Complete Keyboard Works"
Marius Bartoccini, fortepiano

"Northern Light - Echos from 17th-century Scandinavia"
Lucile Richardot, Ensemble Correspondances/Sébastien Daucé

A Scarlatti: "Alessandro Scarlatti - Baroque Influencer"
Bruno de Sá, Helena Rasker, Ensemble 1700/Dorothee Oberlinger

From the archive:

Brescianello: "Concerti à 3, Vol. 1" - Der musikalische Garten

see:

early music, cd reviews, concert reviews, news, opinions, links

10/09/2025

Review Festival Oude Muziek Utrecht 2025

08/09/2025

The last concert on the second Saturday - for me the last concert at this Festival Oude Muziek Utrecht - was a performance a work that is rather well-known: the Missa pro defunctis by Tomás Luis de Victoria. It is regularly performed and there is no lack of recordings, but is seldom performed in the way it was by La Grande Chapelle, directed by Albert Recasens, at the Cathedral. Victoria's Requiem is part of the Officium defunctorum, which also includes plainchant. In most recordings, only the plainchant that is part of polyphony with an alternatim structure is performed. Here we also got a large part of the separate plainchant (the CD recording of 2020 comprises the complete Officium). For these chants, Recasens had secured the cooperation of the Schola Antiqua, which, as its name suggests, focuses on the study and performance of liturgical music from a historical perspective.

The intensive collaboration between both ensembles resulted in a perfect coordination of monophony and polyphony and a congenial approach to the musical material. In both the monophonic liturgical chants and the polyphony, the singers were supported by Benny Aghassi on dulcian. This added extra colour to the ensemble. The Gregorian chants were sung beautifully with great attention to the text, which was always clearly audible. La Grande Chapelle always includes excellent singers, and that was no exception here. It resulted in an impressive performance of Victoria's Officium and conveyed the emotion it embodies and may have been felt at the time it was first performed. It convinced me once again of the added value of a liturgical framework for Renaissance polyphony. This concert was one of the highlights of the festival and the best way to end it.

08/09/2025

Saturday's third concert at the Festival Oude Muziek Utrecht was not an event that made the headlines. The ensemble L'Apothéose, consisting of Laura Quesada (transverse flute), Victor Martínez (violin), María Martínez (cello), and Asís Márquez (harpsichord), played a programme of chamber music by Carl Stamitz, a composer who doesn't often appear on concert programmes and whose music isn't particularly well represented on CD either. Some of his music is written in the galant idiom, which doesn't have a very good reputation. Wrongly so: much of this music is far better than its reputation suggests. This became clear during this concert, in which four trios from the opus 14 were performed. Although the cello is part of the basso continuo, it sometimes comes forward with obbligato passages. This is the case, for example, in the Trio in G minor, which occupies a special position due to its minor key (the other five trios are in major keys), but also because it is a prime example of the style known as 'Sturm und Drang'. It is characterized by often unexpected dynamic contrasts and sudden pauses, which give this work a distinctly dramatic character.

It was no wonder that the ensemble performed this piece last. In it, the players were able to perfectly showcase their qualities, both individually and together. But they also delighted the audience in the earlier trios. These are indeed galant in tone, but well written and very entertaining. In order to have any impact, this kind of music requires excellent interpreters, and that is precisely what the four members of L'Apothéose are. The audience was rightly enthusiastic about their performances and was rewarded with a movement from a work by Telemann.

08/09/2025

With Saturday's second concert at the Festival Oude Muziek Utrecht we stayed in the French atmosphere. In the Jacobikerk, soprano Adèle Charvet and Le Poème Harmonique, directed by Vincent Dumestre, presented a programme of music in the Louvre. This was the residence of the French kings until the Palace of Versailles took over that role. Obviously, French music was played, but the second part of the programme was devoted to Italian repertoire. In his younger years, Louis XIV also appreciated this music (and continued to so do later, though not 'officially'). The concert started with music by Lully, Lalande, Charpentier, and Moulinié. This is primarily music intended for intimate performance, and the acoustics of the Jacobikerk were not very suitable for it. Adèle Charvet approached this music very theatrically, which seemed inappropriate to me. She undeniably possesses dramatic talent, which came in handy in the second part when she performed arias from operas by Cavalli. But here too, the acoustics were a nuisance: a theater usually has rather dry acoustics.

I have quite a few problems with the style of singing she demonstrated. Unfortunately, this is almost standard practice these days. This style relies too little on the intelligibility of the text and too much on a big sound, with too much vibrato. Therefore, I didn't wait for the inevitable encore. The most positive aspect of this concert were the instrumental pieces, but here too, the spacious acoustics played a negative role. All in all, this was a somewhat disappointing experience.

08/09/2025

Just like Thursday and Friday, the second Saturday at the Festival Oude Muziek Utrecht started at 11 AM with Louis Couperin. At Hertz, the chamber music hall of TivoliVredenburg, the Ricercar Consort, directed by Philippe Pierlot, along with harpsichordist Jean Rondeau and organist Julien Wolfs, performed a programme of consort music by Couperin. Besides being an organist and harpsichordist, Couperin also played the viola da gamba. It's therefore not surprising that he composed consort music. Unfortunately, information about the programme for this concert was missing. I'd like to know the relationship between the consort music and the keyboard works. I recognized several pieces as harpsichord works. Were these originally pieces for viols, or are they keyboard works played by the musicians on viols? According to New Grove, the number of pieces for an instrumental ensemble is small — the list is shorter than what was on the programme for this concert.

In any case, it was a particularly interesting and musically captivating addition to the Couperin project during the festival. The pieces I recognized as harpsichord works took on a new dimension here, especially because a viol consort can do something a harpsichord cannot: create dynamic contrasts. Moreover, their sound is particularly well-suited to express sadness or melancholy. This was the case here, for example, with the Tombeau de Monsieur de Blancrocher. It was the highlight of the concert, thanks to the depth of expression, which was fully realized in the performance. Besides Pierlot, we heard some of the finest viola da gamba players of the younger generation, such as Lucile Boulanger and Myriam Rignol. For me, this concert was one of the best of the festival.

08/09/2025

The name of Benedikt Anton Aufschnaiter (1665-1742) may have been unfamiliar to many listeners in the main hall of TivoliVredenburg during Friday's evening concert at the Festival Oude Muziek Utrecht. However, this wasn't the first time that Austrian conductor and violinist Gunar Letzbor performed his music at the festival. In 2015, he performed a selection from the composer's opus 5 in the same hall, just as he did now with his own ensemble Ars Antiqua Austria and the St. Florianer Sängerknaben, a choir with which he has collaborated for decades.

In this case, the ensemble was considerably larger than before, as the recently rediscovered Missa Laetemurine is scored for twelve voices. In addition to cornetts, trumpets, sackbuts and strings, the ensemble also included a lute consort. For several years, the ensemble's leader, Hubert Hoffmann, has been researching the role of lutes in the basso continuo of Austrian music from around 1700.

This mass by Aufschnaiter is an impressive work, especially in the tutti, where he demonstrates his mastery of counterpoint. Such music not only served a liturgical function but was also intended to impress. The work fully succeeded in this, not least thanks to the excellent performance. The solo parts in this work are also quite impressive, and the soloists knew how to handle them. There was deservedly loud applause for Valentin Werner, who took on the far from simple soprano part.

Other members of the St. Florianer Sängerknaben also showed their talents, especially in the second work on the programme, the Vesperae a 32 by Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber, which consists of Dixit Dominus and Magnificat. Stylistically, the two works complemented each other perfectly, and once again, the ensemble's wind section was admirable. Letzbor, as so often, delivered an impressive concert. He deserves to return more often, especially because he always has something unusual and unfamiliar to offer.

08/09/2025

In the third concert on Friday at the Festival Oude Muziek Utrecht was again devoted to the mass, but then from a slightly earlier time. The Huelgas Ensemble, directed by Paul Van Nevel, performed two masses in the Cathedral, one of which was from the Mechelen Choir Book, one of the themes of this festival. This book contains six masses by Pierre de La Rue. The only mass not by him, the Missa Fors seulement, is from the pen of Matthaeus Pipelare (c1450-c1515). It is based on a song that was popular at the time and appears in the oeuvres of many composers. Like many masses by composers of the Franco-Flemish school, it contains several two-part passages. These alternate with five-part passages, which are often homophonic. This mass was performed at the end. Van Nevel started with a mass by a contemporary: Franchinus Gaffurius (1451-1522), who worked in Milan for most of his life. The four-part Missa O clara luce is based on a 13th-century hymn, which is repeatedly quoted in the tenor. Whereas the theme is easily recognizable in the mass by De Rore performed in the previous concert, this was not the case here. It might have been useful to perform this hymn before the mass. Van Nevel writes in the programme that a characteristic of this mass is the liveliness of the voices, and this was clearly noticeable in the performance. This gives the impression that this mass is rather short, but that is not the case. I noted some striking dissonances in Credo and Agnus Dei. I'd like to hear more of Gaffurius' music.

Van Nevel always performs Renaissance polyphony with more than one singer per part. During the performance, the singers frequently change places. He must have reasons for this, but they are incomprehensible to the audience. Perhaps this is why the homogeneity and balance between the vocal groups are optimal in this ensemble. The differences between the two masses came off well. Was this the last time we heard this ensemble under Van Nevel's direction in Utrecht? In the coming years, he will hand over his tasks to Achim Schultz, one of the ensemble's tenors.

08/09/2025

The second concert on Friday at the Festival Oude Muziek Utrecht took me to the Pieterskerk. The Ca****la Mariana performed again, this time in collaboration with Capriccio Stravagante, Skip Sempé's ensemble. The centerpiece was the chanson Doulce Mémoire by Pierre Sandrin (c1490-after 1560), one of the most popular pieces in the 16th century. According to the programme, no fewer than 36 versions have survived from that period, vocal and instrumental, the latter often with diminutions. Six of these — unfortunately not specified in the programme - were performed during the concert, on harpsichord, and on recorder, viola da gamba and cornett respectively with basso continuo. The programme opened with Sandrin's original vocal version, beautifully sung by the Ca****la Mariana.

That ensemble was also responsible for the performance of a mass based on this chanson, the five-part Missa Doulce mémoire by Cipriano de Rore (1515/16-1565). Capriccio Stravagante's instruments were used to support the vocal parts. We are accustomed to the role of cornetts and sackbuts in sacred music, but recorder and viola gamba in a mass are somewhat unusual. It worked, however; they added extra colour to the vocal parts.

Sometimes it's difficult to recognize the work on which a mass is based. This was different. Rore has incorporated it very recognizably into his mass, and the chanson itself is a piece that easily sticks in the memory. This undoubtedly contributed to its popularity. The performance was excellent, and the collaboration between the two ensembles was ideal. In the instrumental versions we heard, besides Sempé, the recorder player Julien Martin, the gambist Josh Cheatham and cornettist Doron Sherwin, all masters of their instruments, as they demonstrated here once again.