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


Support us financially by purchasing this from

Martin Christian SCHULTZE (18th Century)
Trattamento dell’Harmonia per Sinfonie da Camera a quatro istromenti
Sinfonia I in D [9:04]
Sinfonia II in G [11:45]
Sinfonia III in D [13:08]
Sinfonia IV in F [11:25]
Sinfonia V in G [16:08]
Sinfonia VI in c minor [8:51]
Ensemble Klingekunst
First recordings
rec. Kapelle des Kollegium Kalksburg, Vienna. 4-8 February 2018. DDD.
CPO 555225-2 [70:34]

Martin Christian Schultze is something of a mystery man: we don’t even know his dates, but the 1773 Paris edition of the Trattamento gives his initials as MC and adds DB, which indicates that he came from Berlin. These six sinfonias, for flute, violin, viola da gamba or cello and harpsichord, are performed here on period instruments. Though apparently intended primarily for instruction, treatises on the Italian style, this first recording shows them to be anything but dry as dust.

Not only does this appear to be the only recording of these works, I can’t find any other generally available recordings entirely devoted to this Schultze. He’s not to be confused with Johann Christoph Schultze (c.1733-1813), who may have been a relative, and of whose music there are one or two recordings.

Our Schultze’s music is as elegant as the fine lady depicted on the cover, very easy on the ear and occasionally a little more than that, especially for the many ways in which it shows the influence of some of the greater composers of the period. It’s not a matter of slavish imitation, but the combination of instruments echoes Telemann’s Paris Quartets (1730 and 1736).

The flute part, here played on a wooden copy of an eighteenth century instrument, is comparatively simple, but the violin part, with copious amounts of double stopping, and that for the gamba are much more complex. If the music rises for the most part above the commonplace, that’s as much thanks to these performers, never content simply to let the music lull the listener, as to the composer. I haven’t heard this ensemble before, but they have recorded once previously for CPO (Flute Concertos from Vienna, 55076-2). We seem to have missed that, but I sampled it from Naxos Music Library and enjoyed it. Sieglinde Größinger, who plays the fairly simple flute part on the new recording, shows herself an adept soloist in the more demanding music there by Wagenseil, Bonno, Gassmann and Monn. Appropriately, it’s Empress Maria Theresa, no less, in lacey regal finery (Spitzenkleid) who features on the cover of that CD.

Returning to the new CD, where the cover depicts Princess Maria Leszczyńska, the third sinfonia of the Trattamento is especially attractive; the booklet refers to it as effectively Schultze’s Pastoral Symphony. Like No.5, it opens with a siciliano largo which would not have been out of place in one of the Christmas Concertos that several Italian composers of the late seventeenth century composed, while birdsong and other sounds of the country are easy to imagine in the other movements. The notes in the booklet compare the finale with Vivaldi and, while I wouldn’t go so far as to place the music in the same league as most of the Italian master’s music, it does round off in style the highlight of the set of six.

On the other hand, it’s Telemann who comes to mind in the folksy Polonnoiza of No.5; despite the name, I don’t think it sounds as Polish as several of Telemann’s finales – my favourite has to be the e minor concerto for recorder and flute, TWV52.e1 – but it does have a rustic feel to it.

The recording is suitably intimate, though not lacking in punch; while the flute part is clear and prominent, the other parts are also well detailed. The notes, appropriately for a composer who was completely new to me, even as a name, are comprehensive and analytic in a way which should appeal both to the musically learned and the uninitiated – I guess I’m somewhere in the middle of that spectrum, along with most of the readers of this review.

I can’t work up real excitement for this Schultze recording, but I did enjoy hearing it, and CPO are to be congratulated on their usual skill in bringing the neglected to light in persuasive performances, recording and presentation. I’d like to hear Ensemble Klingekunst now in some more challenging repertoire.

Brian Wilson


 

 



Advertising on
Musicweb


Donate and keep us afloat

 

New Releases

Naxos Classical
All Naxos 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