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This completes Naxos’s recordings devoted to the Op.5 sonatas of Corelli. The earlier performances were by Lucy van Dael and Bob van Asperen [Naxos.8.557165]. Pitch here is A’= 400 Hz which is to say about a whole tone below modern pitch but there’s quite sufficient astringency to François Fernandez’s Guarneri to ensure that the music emerges with vibrancy and attack.

These are in short highly accomplished and convincing traversals. Questions of ornamentation are addressed in the notes by harpsichordist Glen Wilson, as is the matter of the realization of the figured bass part – which is here given over entirely to the harpsichord, a Ruckers copy. Such matters, in themselves hardly academic, may tempt readers one way or another, given that others performers – let’s take Elizabeth Wallfisch and the Locatelli Trio (now on a Hyperion Double Dyad CDD22047) as a front-running example - make different choices and utilise different solutions.

I mentioned that Fernandez hardly lacks for attack; in fact his tone is sometimes astringent, reminding one perhaps of a baroque Kremer, or an off-day Szigeti in its tonal qualities.  His performances however are thoroughly convincing on their own terms and he’s fortunate that Wilson plays so adroitly, never self consciously (well, not often) and is a forthright collaborator. In this respect too the recording engineers have taken care to balance the two instruments with great precision in relation to each other.

A few examples of the laudable qualities of the playing should convince one of the sheer musicianship evinced by both men. The repeated figures of the Sarabande of the Eighth Sonata are varied with care, dynamics being finely scaled. The Giga of the D minor [No.7] is deftly articulated; diminuendi are crafted with assurance and above these matters there’s a convincing sense of melodic sweep. There’s no sense of hurry or excessive dynamism, though the performances are by no means slow – in fact they’re well textured and relatively fast. The flying decoration in the Preludio of the E minor is excellently realised; the Giga of the A major – heard here in the edition with Geminiani’s ornaments - is robust and full of stature.

If one has reservations maybe they concern the occasionally nasal tonal qualities that Fernandez promotes; maybe also Wilson is too combative a presence in, say, the second movement Allegro of the E major [No.11]. Nevertheless I rather admired the daring metrical stretching of some parts of La Folia where we find Fernandez unafraid to bring a Manze-like personalisation to the melodic line (Manze and Egarr’s set can be found on HMU90 7298.99 and characteristically these two make more expressively extreme statements than other duos). But if one perhaps draws back from wholly endorsing some of Fernandez and Wilson’s ideas I think one can fairly note that their taste and good sense really don’t desert them.

Taken on its own terms, with appropriate questions of instrument, pitch and ornamentation taken into account, this is a first class addition to the Corelli discography.

Jonathan Woolf

See also Review by Brian Wilson

 

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