This excellent
pair of CDs follows hard on the heels
of Divine Art’s release of the Avison
Ensemble’s recording of their eponymous
composer’s Opp. 9 and 10 Concertos (DDA
21211), which I so recently recommended
– see review.
If anything, this is finer music than
those concertos – hardly surprising
when the originals were sonatas by none
other than Domenico Scarlatti – and
the performances and recording are equally
fine.
The
London publication in 1739 of 42 Scarlatti
sonatas provided Avison’s inspiration
in arranging movements from several
of those as concerti grossi.
His excuse, if one were needed, was
the difficulty of performance of the
music in its keyboard original state,
but he couldn’t help also preening himself
on having "tak[en] off the Mask
which concealed their natural Beauty
and Expression". I beg leave not
to get into the thorny question of the
adequacy or otherwise of the originals
– performances of the calibre of those
of Richard Lester on his complete Nimbus
cycle would suggest that there was little
amiss – but the music certainly sounds
more varied and probably more amenable
to most modern ears in its orchestral
dress. More recently, Tommasini had
the same idea in his arrangement as
a ballet for Diaghilev of Scarlatti’s
music in The Good-humoured Ladies.
Avison
didn’t orchestrate whole concertos;
some, like No.1 are from just two sonatas
(Kk91a/d and Kk24), others from four
different originals, like No.2, from
KK 91c, 13, 4 and 2. The Divine Art
booklet makes the provenance of each
movement clear, also indicating with
an asterisk movements transposed to
a different key, with a dagger where
the movement has been shortened or altered,
and with two asterisks where the source
is unknown.
Most
of those unknowns, mainly slow movements,
were probably Avison’s own compositions
– sounding in no way out of place in
the company of the Scarlatti-derived
movements. Everything, original or not,
is very skilfully arranged – preferable
to the Sinfonie di Concerto Grosso
of the elder Scarlatti, Alessandro,
as least as performed, slightly heavily,
by I Musici on Philips 400 017 2 – one
of the first batch of CDs in 1983, but
no longer available. (For all my reservations,
this is worth reissuing, but there are
alternatives on Tactus TCC661906 and
661907 and CPO 999 8562.)
Hitherto
my benchmark recording has been that
of the Academy of St Martin under Neville
Marriner (Philips Duo 438 806-2, no
longer available). It was, indeed, from
the ASMF on a long-deleted Oiseau-Lyre
LP that I first came across the music
of Avison and his contemporary Boyce
and discovered thereby that English
music between Purcell and Elgar had
not been quite the desert that it had
been portrayed as.
This
new recording is ample compensation
for the deletion of the ASMF set. It
doesn’t exactly wipe the floor with
the earlier version, which is still
worth considering if you find it as
a remainder or second-hand at a reasonable
price. Surprisingly, some of the tempi
on the new set are slightly broader
than on the Philips. No.1/iv, for example,
takes 4:43 at Beznosiuk’s hands, 4:01
at Marriner’s. On CD2, No.7/iv now takes
4:17 against Marriner’s 3:33. I compared
the two versions of these movements
and found, as is often the case, that
both make perfect sense in their own
context. Perhaps I lean slightly to
Marriner in 7/iv – he stresses the allegro
part of the marking, Beznosiuk the affettuoso
part – but I don’t want to make a big
issue of it.
I shall
still want to hear the ASMF versions
– I couldn’t resist listening to the
two CDs straight through for comparison
– but the new versions are likely to
make for more frequent listening. It’s
a tribute to the music and to both performances
that I could listen to four well-filled
CDs in one session without becoming
sated.
The ASMF
version employs modern instruments,
though with cognisance of period practice;
the Avison Ensemble employ period instruments,
as itemised in the booklet. There is
a rival period-performance from the
Brandenburg Consort and Roy Goodman
on Hyperion Dyad CDD22060 (2 CDs for
the price of one). I haven’t heard this
version but it has been described in
some quarters as likely to sound a little
rough and ready to those not fully attuned
to early instruments. Mark Sealey certainly
didn’t in general share that opinion
in his review
of this set, and I find it a little
surprising in view of the excellence
of their performances of the Handel
Op.3 concertos which I have recommended
here on Musicweb.
You
certainly won’t find anything of the
sort about the playing of the Avison
Ensemble on the new set – this is early
music without the rough edges, by which
I don’t mean to imply that it’s dull
or over-polished: this isn’t the early-music
equivalent of the Berlin Phil under
Karajan. I’m still hard put to hear
the continuo, though, as I was with
the earlier Op.9/10 set – I don’t want
to hear a monster harpsichord clattering
away, but I’d like to hear a little
more of it. Otherwise, the recorded
sound is first-rate.
The Avison
Ensemble have already recorded the music
of their namesake for Naxos and Divine
Art. Their 2-CD recording of the Concerti
Grossi, Op. 6 on Naxos 8.557553-4 was
welcomed by Jonathan Woolf and Johan
van Veen as doing Avison proud – see
JW’s review
and JV’s review.
Robert Hugill was equally appreciative
of their later recording of Opp. 3 and
4 (8.557905-6 – see review).
I hope to include an appreciation of
the Naxos recording of the Op.6 works
in my November, 2008, Download Roundup:
this is Avison’s finest music with the
possible exception of the Scarlatti-based
concertos.
Having
switched to the Divine Art label, the
Ensemble recently recorded the newly-discovered
set of Concertos after Geminiani’s Op.1,
to the satisfaction of JV again, though
he had some reservations about the recorded
sound – (DDA21210, see review).
All these recordings are very worthy
of your consideration but the Naxos
Op.6 and the new Divine Art sets are
probably the best places to start. With
the new set offered at two-for-one,
it’s very little dearer than the Naxos,
so why not get both?
The
only black mark that I can place against
this whole enterprise is the failure
to provide Avison’s dates, which is
all the more surprising when Divine
Art include such a wealth of detail
about the provenance of each movement.
Brian
Wilson
The Avison Ensemble/Pavlo Beznosiuk
