Niccolò JOMMELLI (1714-1774)
Cantatas
Giusti Numi (Didone Abbandonata) [14:21]
Partir conviene! Addio [23:17]
Perdono amata nice (Gelosia) [16:23]
E quando sara mai che alle mie pene [12:03]
Barbara Kusa (soprano), Lenka Torgersen & Cecilie Valter (violins), Andreas Torgersen (viola), Ilze Grudule (cello), Alena Hönigová (harpsichord & director)
rec. February 2012, St. Pantaleon, Switzerland
Full Italian text and translations in English and German
KORAMANT RECORDS KR14002 [66:06]
Jommelli’s reputation remains somewhat in the shadow
of other of his contemporaries such as Glück, Pergolesi, and C.P.E. Bach in
that period of transition between the Baroque and Classical eras. Jommelli
has been to some extent rehabilitated through the revivals of some of his
operas in performance and on disc. This release also demonstrates his accomplishments
in the development of vocal music on the smaller scale of the secular cantata,
although this group of four has been committed to disc before (review).
Barbara Kusa brings ravishing clarity and purity here in the unflagging vitality
of Jommelli’s melodies. The resonance of the recorded acoustic also
gives her performances an attractive bloom but not too much, and that is matched
by her restrained use of vibrato, only bringing that to bear for greater dramatic
effect when necessary. She tends to draw a sensible distinction in her musical
interpretations between the rhetorical tone for the recitatives, and variously
more lyrical or radiant tone for the arias. But in the latter she is alert
to the emotions expressed by the text, such as love in the two numbers of
Partir conviene! Addio where the phrases ebb and flow into each other
like an elegant sigh. Her singing is also beautifully buoyant in the second
aria of E quando sera mai che alle mie pene, floating over the silken
strings. The one drawback of Kusa’s singing is that her tone can be
somewhat thin above a high G.
Four string players, and Alena Hönigová directing from the harpsichord, alone
provide the personable accompaniment. Sometimes the first violinist and cellist
seem more prominent than the second violinist and violist. Otherwise their
playing fills in the character and drama of the cantatas, for example in the
way that the scales and arpeggios are virtually thrown across the strings
in one section of the cantata which relates the fate of Dido. This disc helps
to fill in our knowledge of the development of Italianate vocalism in the
period immediately before Mozart and his contemporaries on the operatic scene
at the end of the 18th century. It does so enjoyably and not as
an academic exercise. It is a small disappointment that Hönigová does not
talk about the compositions more in her liner notes, and their context within
Jommelli’s output.
Curtis Rogers
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