MusicWeb International One of the most grown-up review sites around 2024
60,000 reviews
... and still writing ...

Search MusicWeb Here Acte Prealable Polish CDs
 

Presto Music CD retailer
 
Founder: Len Mullenger                                    Editor in Chief:John Quinn             


CD REVIEW

Some items
to consider

new MWI
Current reviews

old MWI
pre-2023 reviews

paid for
advertisements

Acte Prealable Polish recordings

Forgotten Recordings
Forgotten Recordings
All Forgotten Records Reviews

TROUBADISC
Troubadisc Weinberg- TROCD01450

All Troubadisc reviews


FOGHORN Classics

Alexandra-Quartet
Brahms String Quartets

All Foghorn Reviews


All HDTT reviews


Songs to Harp from
the Old and New World


all Nimbus reviews



all tudor reviews


Follow us on Twitter


Editorial Board
MusicWeb International
Founding Editor
   
Rob Barnett
Editor in Chief
John Quinn
Contributing Editor
Ralph Moore
Webmaster
   David Barker
Postmaster
Jonathan Woolf
MusicWeb Founder
   Len Mullenger

alternatively
Crotchet


Claudio MONTEVERDI (1567–1643)
Vespro della Beata Vergine (1610) [94.50]
Margaret Marshall (soprano)
Felicity Palmer (mezzo)
Philip Langridge (tenor)
Kurt Equiluz (tenor)
Thomas Hampson (baritone)
Arthur Korn (bass)
Tolzer Knabenchor
Choralschola der Wiener Hofburgkapelle
Arnold Schoenberg Choir
Concentus Musicus Wien/Nikolaus Harnoncourt
rec. live 8-9 July 1986, Graz Cathedral
DAS ALTE WERK 2564694648 [45.47 + 49.03]
Experience Classicsonline


This disc was recorded some two or three years after the ground-breaking recording by Andrew Parrott, but it could not be more different. Like Parrott, Harnoncourt has recorded the Vespers in the context of a religious service, with the relevant antiphons to the Psalms and to the Magnificat. Harnoncourt’s recording was made live, in Graz Cathedral, and uses all of the associated spatial possibilities. The reading is derived from his examination of the surviving part-books and how the various instrumental parts are notated there; for example for different movements the cornett parts are notated in different part-books. Though Harnoncourt provides an interesting essay in the CD booklet discussing these issues, he does not make any comments about how he decided on the size of his forces.

This is where Harnoncourt starts to differ from Parrott. Parrott uses a small vocal ensemble, whose singers double as soloists, with most movements done one to a part. Whereas the choral forces used here include the Tolz Boys Choir, the Choralschola der Wiener Hofburgkapelle and the Arnold Schoenberg Choir. Add to this a sextet of soloists: Margaret Marshall, Felicity Palmer, Philip Langridge, Kurt Equiluz, Thomas Hampson and Arthur Korn. These are joined by an instrumental group of some three dozen musicians. This means that Harnoncourt and his forces produce a large-scale sound in the bigger pieces. The soloists are all mainstream oratorio/operatic soloists whose repertoire included an element of early performance, rather than the period performance specialists used by Parrott.

At this point we must move towards discarding the Parrott version as a comparison. The two are just too different and their aims too dissimilar. Instead we will have to ask ourselves whether Harnoncourt succeeds on his own terms. Before we completely discard Parrott’s account, we should note that Harnoncourt ignores Parrott’s scholarship and performs the Magnificat and Lauda Sion using high pitch.

Performing with relatively large forces in the apparently resonant acoustic of Graz Cathedral seems to have encouraged Harnoncourt to be relatively sedate with his tempos. Granted, the instrumental interludes have the sort of fizz and bounce that one would expect. But for much of the time the massed choral sections sound positively stolid, without any of the rhythmic impetus that I would have expected. It does not help that the slower speeds and the acoustic tempt Harnoncourt into some positively romantic tempo fluctuations.

This sogginess fatally affects the whole performance. Different movements are recorded in different parts of the cathedral, thus giving us a variety of acoustic effects. Fatally, the antiphons are highly recessed; they seem to be recorded at a far greater distance from the microphone than the rest of the disc. Time and again Harnoncourt’s direction allows the music to rest and pause when we want it to move on swiftly. The whole piece has a stop/go feel which means produces an effect where it seems to add up to less than the sum of its parts.

The CD booklet fails to make it clear who sings what, but the boy’s choir definitely sings the soprano part in the Sonata sopra “Sancta Maria”. Harnoncourt encourages them to belt out the vocal line, singing the notes with an attack and separation that would seem more suitable in Stravinsky than Monteverdi. You lose any sense of the vocal part being a cantus firmus around which the sonata is constructed.

In the other movements where there are vocal lines surrounding a cantus firmus, the cantus firmus is sung by the choir and the other vocal lines are taken by soloists. These soloists are distinctly spot-lit, in a manner more suitable to a later period, with the cantus firmus sung quietly in the background.

In some of these movements, you get the distinct impression that some of Harnoncourt’s speeds were decided by the speed at which the soloists could sing the faster sections of the music. Both tenors have very distinctive vibratos which seem entirely out of keeping in this music. Langridge and Equiluz acquit themselves well, but both have moments when their faster passage-work is obscured by their vibrato. This is not so much a problem for Margaret Marshall and Felicity Palmer, though neither approaches the delicacy that some other later singers have brought to the parts. Thomas Hampson and Arthur Korn have the disadvantage of having to sing the Magnficat in its high key, so we should perhaps not complain too much that the result sounds rather operatic.

If you are looking for a large-scale period performance of the Vespers, then frankly I don’t think this is the version for you. If you really must have that sort of version, you would do well to investigate John Eliot Gardiner’s second recording, made in 1991. It bears little resemblance to anything that Monteverdi might have heard. Taken on its own terms it works far better than Harnoncourt. This disc, with its unstrung tempos and slack pacing entirely fails to convince.

Robert Hugill


 


Advertising on
Musicweb


Donate and keep us afloat

 

New Releases

Naxos Classical
All Naxos reviews

Chandos recordings
All Chandos reviews

Hyperion recordings
All Hyperion reviews

Foghorn recordings
All Foghorn reviews

Troubadisc recordings
All Troubadisc reviews



all Bridge reviews


all cpo reviews

Divine Art recordings
Click to see New Releases
Get 10% off using code musicweb10
All Divine Art reviews


All Eloquence reviews

Lyrita recordings
All Lyrita Reviews

 

Wyastone New Releases
Obtain 10% discount

Subscribe to our free weekly review listing

 

 


EXPLORE MUSICWEB INTERNATIONAL

Making a Donation to MusicWeb

Writing CD reviews for MWI

About MWI
Who we are, where we have come from and how we do it.

Site Map

How to find a review

How to find articles on MusicWeb
Listed in date order

Review Indexes
   By Label
      Select a label and all reviews are listed in Catalogue order
   By Masterwork
            Links from composer names (eg Sibelius) are to resource pages with links to the review indexes for the individual works as well as other resources.

Themed Review pages

Jazz reviews

 

Discographies
   Composer
      Composer surveys
   National
      Unique to MusicWeb -
a comprehensive listing of all LP and CD recordings of given works
.
Prepared by Michael Herman

The Collector’s Guide to Gramophone Company Record Labels 1898 - 1925
Howard Friedman

Book Reviews

Complete Books
We have a number of out of print complete books on-line

Interviews
With Composers, Conductors, Singers, Instumentalists and others
Includes those on the Seen and Heard site

Nostalgia

Nostalgia CD reviews

Records Of The Year
Each reviewer is given the opportunity to select the best of the releases

Monthly Best Buys
Recordings of the Month and Bargains of the Month

Comment
Arthur Butterworth Writes

An occasional column

Phil Scowcroft's Garlands
British Light Music articles

Classical blogs
A listing of Classical Music Blogs external to MusicWeb International

Reviewers Logs
What they have been listening to for pleasure

Announcements

 

Community
Bulletin Board

Give your opinions or seek answers

Reviewers
Past and present

Helpers invited!

Resources
How Did I Miss That?

Currently suspended but there are a lot there with sound clips


Composer Resources

British Composers

British Light Music Composers

Other composers

Film Music (Archive)
Film Music on the Web (Closed in December 2006)

Programme Notes
For concert organizers

External sites
British Music Society
The BBC Proms
Orchestra Sites
Recording Companies & Retailers
Online Music
Agents & Marketing
Publishers
Other links
Newsgroups
Web News sites etc

PotPourri
A pot-pourri of articles

MW Listening Room
MW Office

Advice to Windows Vista users  
Questionnaire    
Site History  
What they say about us
What we say about us!
Where to get help on the Internet
CD orders By Special Request
Graphics archive
Currency Converter
Dictionary
Magazines
Newsfeed  
Web Ring
Translation Service

Rules for potential reviewers :-)
Do Not Go Here!
April Fools




Return to Review Index

Untitled Document


Reviews from previous months
Join the mailing list and receive a hyperlinked weekly update on the discs reviewed. details
We welcome feedback on our reviews. Please use the Bulletin Board
Please paste in the first line of your comments the URL of the review to which you refer.