Peeter Cornet’s biography
is shrouded in Flanders mist and almost
as precarious as his preserved manuscripts.
He was born circa 1560 and could conjecturally
be the Cornet mentioned as a singer
in Spain in the last quarter of the
sixteenth century. Certainly he reappeared
in Brussels as court organist in the
early 1600s and was also a colleague
of the exiled Englishman Peter Philips,
who acted as godfather to one of Cornet’s
children. He seems not to have written
any choral music though he shares with
Sweelinck a mastery of keyboard technique
and texture. He died in 1633 says James
Johnstone in his own notes to which
I’m indebted for this brief summary,
as does Grove, though the printers have
appended the date 1626 by mistake.
Cornet’s music exists
in three sources, though that in Krakow
is by far the most rich; there are two
pieces in Oxford but only one is performed
on this disc. Both the pieces in Berlin
are here. Recorded in a pleasingly close-up
perspective allows one to admire, once
again, Johnstone’s acute understanding
in this repertoire. He has shown similar
authority in his Gibbons and Pasquini
discs for ASV. It’s also sensible to
divide the harpsichord and the organ
performances into two blocks rather
than intersperse them throughout the
recital. It makes sense to start with
the driving Toccata Noni toni
(1) – the bracketed numbers refer to
the particular compositions – which
perfectly illustrates Cornet’s driving
flourish. His polythematic control can
be heard in Fantasia Primi toni
(2) with its intensity reinforced by
powerful lyric contour and a sure architectural
sense. Johnstone’s trills and left-hand
weight are acutely judged here. The
second Courante (12) is reminiscent
of English procedures – Cornet mixed
freely with English composers such as
Philips and conjecturally Bull and so
would have been familiar with the style
– and its textual sense of sophistication
is impressive, its build up of passacaglia-like
tension memorably conceived.
From the Fantasia
Octavi toni (6) onwards Johnstone
plays on the Severijn organ of Sint
Martinuskerk, Cuijk whereas before he’d
played earlier on a fine sounding Lodewyk
Theewes harpsichord (London, 1579).
He cultivates some rich registrations
in the concise but polythematically
rich Fantasia Octavi toni (7)
and lends impressive sweep to the extensive
Fantasia Noni toni (8); it bears
the unmistakeable power of intimate
grandeur. Whereas the final work, cannily
chosen, is the extrovert Fantasia
Quinti toni sopra Ut Re Mi Fa Sol La
(4), a fragment. We also have the contributions
of The Cardinall’s Musick directed by
Andrew Carwood in the Salve Regina,
a compact Marian antiphon. It’s performed
as it would have been for evening benediction.
This is a fine piece
of reclamation of a composer whose name
is more footnote than performed, more
tangential than solid. Perhaps that
will now change. Full notes are accompanied
by details of the two instruments. The
harpsichord is by a Dutch maker, a Protestant
who fled to England, whilst we have
full specifications of the organ.
Jonathan Woolf
James Johnstone (harpsichord and organ)
