Comparison recordings:
Purcell Z811; Ciompi, Torkanowski, Koutzen,
Chessid, Period LP (OP)
Recently in a review
of another disk I said: "It is
a tremendous pleasure to be able just
to relax and enjoy while the performers
and engineers do everything right."
That lavish praise might apply to the
recordings on this disk as much as to
the other, but the other disk was of
music universally loved and appreciated,
and performed with considerably more
theatricality.
Something else is wrong,
too. What could have possessed them
to choose a double bass and chamber
organ as continuo instruments during
the first pieces? The result is that
the music has a plodding, monotonous,
growling quality. All one has to do
is imagine this music being played with
a viola da gamba and harpsichord
as continuo instruments and a great
deal more life would appear in it. When
they start using harpsichord on track
13 the result is much more satisfactory,
and the Matthew Locke comes off as the
best music on the disk up to then. Do
they mean to tell us the harpsichord
wasn’t invented until 1650? If it was
their intention to present the Gibbons
and Lawes as solemn religious music,
they would need to project a more mystical,
spiritually expressive style. No matter
how you solve the equations, dullness
in music is never authentic.
I have several times
written in praise of performances that
deliberately understate certain qualities
in the music, but here I think I may
have to eat my own words. If I imagine
these works as played by the semi-romantic
instrumental ensembles of the 1960s,
or even by "original instrument"
ensembles of the 1980s, again, things
would come to life. Here figurations
are dampened, slowed down; contrasts
are muddled, phrases are flattened out.
Why?
The notes read: "This
CD is the first of a projected series
of eight discs dedicated to tracing
the development and establishment of
the trio sonata as the central form
of the baroque era — and at the same
time presenting a kind of ‘best of’
anthology." No way. I can’t believe
this is the best Lawes or the best Gibbons,
and I know absolutely it’s not the best
Purcell. Have they chosen lesser works
by the greater composers to achieve
a uniformity of quality to accent differences
in style? If so, was that wise?
The surprise hit of
the disk is the Blow Ground in g.
However as soon as the Purcell begins
the musical temperature goes up sharply
and we move up one circle of Heaven
from where we’ve been listening before,
even though this is hardly the best
Purcell. The Blow and the Purcell are
the best performances on the disk, but
not quite up to some other "bests"
I can think of. I think scholarship
has defeated the performers in their
stated goals. The result is a sweet,
mostly ‘growly’ disk, a graduate thesis
of a disk, but its resulting low entertainment
value puts it in the background music
category.
The "Sonata XX"
by Purcell is also known as Sonata #10
from the 1697 "Sonatas of Four
Parts" and Zimmerman No.811. The
first 12 sonatas for the identical combination
of instruments were published in 1683
as "Sonatas of Three Parts,"
all of which goes to show how indebted
we are to Prof Zimmerman for all his
good work.
Paul Shoemaker
London Baroque: Ingrid Siefert, Richard Gwilt,
vv; Charles Medlam, bass viol; Terence Charlston,
harpsichord, organ 