Arcangelo CORELLI (1653–1713)
Twelve Concerti grossi, Op. 6
Genesis Baroque/Lucinda Moon (violin), Sophie Gent (violin)
rec. Iwaki Auditorium, Australian Broadcasting Corporation Southbank Centre, Melbourne, December 2019
ABC CLASSICS 481 9282 [65:57 + 65:51]
I get the impression that Melbourne in particular has a thriving Baroque scene, and certainly some of the recordings of eighteenth-century music that have emanated from Australia in recent years are of the highest quality. I am thinking for example of Paul Dyer and the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra’s scintillating account of that other great set of Op. 6 Concerti Grossi, Handel’s, which appeared about a decade ago and quite blew me away with its freshness and élan (ABC Classics 476 3436).
So when coming to this new Corelli set by the recently formed (2017) group Genesis Baroque, my expectations may have been unrealistically high. Whether they were or not, to be honest I didn’t enjoy these discs as much as I had hoped. A few examples of dodgy intonation apart, the playing is good, without being outstanding; and occasional movements really take wing, such as the largo of Concerto no. 1 and the adagio largo of no. 2. I found these to be exceptions rather than the rule, however: there is quite a bit of music-making here that comes across as insufficiently varied, and heavy-handed almost to the point of doggedness. Faster movements tend to chug rather than catch fire, and slower ones (with some exceptions such as the ones mentioned) can be on the fast side and fail really to sing as they should. The great pastorale of the ‘Christmas’ Concerto, no. 8, is a case in point. The sense of a certain levelling-off of light and shade is not helped either by a recording that is clear, but rather closed-miked and – on my equipment – a tad light in the bass.
Of course, like many other collectors I have been spoilt over the years by Trevor Pinnock’s marvellous set of Corelli’s Op. 6, thirty years old now but just reissued on a Presto CD. Recent MWI re-reviews by Colin Clarke (link) and Brian Wilson (link) serve only to confirm my view that these have a strong claim to be regarded as the much-recorded Pinnock’s finest ever discs. They contain, as Clarke puts it, “Baroque playing of the very highest order” and are “a paragon of invention married to elegance”. Moreover they are recorded in a warm, inviting acoustic, and their sound is perfectly balanced by the DG engineers.
Unfairly perhaps, I directly compared Pinnock and Genesis Baroque in a few concertos, and concluded that (this time!) my memory wasn’t playing tricks. Pinnock really does have an expressive, tonal and dynamic range that his new competitors seldom approach, and his performances are palpably informed by an acute sense of the music’s finely balanced rhetorical structures. To give a very obvious example, with him you never forget that, like so many other particularly Italian Baroque concertos, Corelli’s thrive on the contrast and juxtaposition between thrillingly exciting fast movements and songful, reposeful slow ones – and that if these contrasts are narrowed or played down, as Genesis Baroque are rather apt to do, something of central importance can be lost.
All in all, then, there can be no doubt that, of the two new or old/new releases, the Pinnock is the one to have. Neither of these versions is particularly cheap; but as Brian Wilson reminds us, the Hyperion recording by Roy Goodman and the Hanover Band (CDD 22011) is also very good, and costs about half as much.
Nigel Harris
