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             


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


REVIEW


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

 

 

alternatively
Crotchet


Ave Maria – 19th Century Romantic Sacred Music from Menorca
Josep M. Pons MELIÀ (1882-1960)
Ave Maria [3:45]
Jaume Alaquer REYES (1785-1823)
Ingemisco [3:31]
Ramon CARNICER (1789-1855)
Sonata [5:12]
Benet Andreu PONS (1803-1881)
Docebo iniquos vias tuas [4:42]
Preludio [1:35]
Ego sum panis vivus [4:36]
Villancico [2:50]
Sacrificium Deo [3:14]
Joan Fuxà GELABERT (1819-1890)
Ave Verum [4:39]
Damià Andreu STIGES (1851-1935)
Bone Pastor [3:12]
Quoniam iniquitatem [4:42]
Panis Angelicus [2:16]
Gradual [2:50]
Lluís Sintes (baritone); Tomé Olives (organ)
rec. Church of Santa Maria de Maó, Menorca, 10 January 2008
COLUMNA MÚSICA 1CM0218
[47:02]
 

 

Experience Classicsonline


Not being an expert on 19th Century sacred music from Menorca I console myself with the fact that probably I am not alone in that particular failing.  This disc helps rectify this gap in my knowledge and is a record of a live concert given in the Church of Santa Maria de Maó on Menorca in 2008.  Greater documentary significance is added in that this is the church and indeed organ on which most of the composers represented worked and played. 

Sad to report, there are no lost masterpieces here.  Jaume Carbonell I Guberna in his succinct but informative liner-notes emphasises the influence of Italian operatic writing and this is undoubtedly true.  But even that goes little beyond the occasional Rossiniesque flourish or Bellini-ism.  I had to do a double-take over the range of the composer’s dates.  The earliest was born in 1785 and the latest died in 1960 but there is no possible way one could have surmised this from the sound of the music which all feels rooted around the early romantic period.  All is pleasant in rather nondescript manner.  One feels that rules of harmony and melody are being observed in a way to please the most reactionary of composition professors as well as a Church trying to distance itself from the secular excesses of a Verdian style requiem.  The main problem is that there is not a single moment in any of these compositions where one’s ears prick up with a memorable melodic phrase or apt word setting.  Without wishing to sound at all dismissive it is rather parochial. 

Clearly the audience enjoyed themselves.  They respond very warmly to the performances here which are given with great gusto by baritone Lluís Sintes and organist Tomé Olives.  Olives is following in the footsteps of the composers here by being the current incumbent organist of Santa Maria.  Achieving any kind of lifelike balance between a solo voice and a large organ is a thankless task but the engineers do pretty well.  Certainly Olives does not opt for registrations that gently enfold the voice – he has a marked preference for dramatic statements (try the very opening of the disc – no gently pleading Ave Maria this) but Sintes’ powerfully – albeit not always beautifully – projected baritone is able to ride the wave of sound. 

The liner-notes draw attention to the organ; “…[when it was built it was] an exceptional milestone in terms of dimension and quality……[and] is considered to be one of the finest in Europe and, indeed, the world”.  Quite a bold statement.  This has to be one of the most bizarre organs I have ever heard.  Olives seems to struggle with the action. Certainly the relative lack of responsiveness inhibits his ability to play some of the passage work as he might wish.  But it is the actual sounds it makes which stopped me in my tracks.  Listen to the passage 1:26 into track 2 – Ingemisco – it really does sound like the left hand and right hands are playing in different keys.  But that is nothing compared to the moment in track 3 Sonata when the carillon of bells appear.  The descent to the fairground is complete.  In the best tradition of such carillons they seem to have been tuned with no relation to the notes they nominally accompany.  I can only assume that the registration of these pieces calls for the bells here and that the composers wrote specifically for that stop on this particular organ.  If that is the case then the historical precedent is clear – it is just a shame it does not make for a more pleasurable listening experience.  The final track finished me off in every sense.  Stiges’ Gradual seems to have been written for some kind of trompette militaire stop.  Perhaps age has withered this particular part of the organ but now for all the world it sounds like a massed phalanx of outsized kazoos.  I suspect the aim was for something along the lines of Gigout’s Grand Choeur Dialogue – sadly this is not achieved.  Additionally, adjacent notes from this stop spring from opposite sides of the stereo picture adding another degree of manic absurdity to proceedings.  Yet, precisely because of the location and relevance of this instrument to the music being played it is hard to utterly dismiss it.  I suspect a major restoration is required.  

So, a disc of modest music, running to a miserly forty seven minutes, enthusiastically performed in idiomatic surroundings on the strangest church organ you might ever hear – make your own mind up, I really do not know! 

Nick Barnard


 
 


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.