CD and Other Review

Review: Music for the 100 Years’ War (The Binchois Consort)

As with previous recordings by The Binchois Consort – such as Music for Henry V and the House of Lancaster – Music for the 100 Years’ War places a cappella sacred music in its historical context through a judicious mix of scholarship and speculation. The motivation in this case was to celebrate the 600th anniversary of the Battle of Agincourt on October 25, 1415. But as the consort’s director Andrew Kirkman and Philip Weller write in their detailed booklet note, “In doing so [the programme] also casts its net wider, embracing other aspects and events” of the war of which Agincourt “formed but one part – albeit a heroic and iconic part.” Here, therefore, are carols, motets and sections of masses which might have been performed during Henry V’s campaign by members of “an enormous retinue”, which included a fully functioning liturgical and musical chapel. Such is the quality of the music and the performances that one can be left in no doubt that the creativity which grew out of the greater culture of the time and nourished it in turn can be equally inspiring today. This is music that sounds as fresh as though it were written just yesterday…

August 31, 2017
CD and Other Review

Review: Schumann: Einsamkeit Lieder (Matthias Goerne, Markus Hinterhauser)

The German bass baritone Matthias Goerne must spend most of his professional life in recording studios at the moment. Over the past two years, around a dozen of his albums have been released or reissued, including plenty of Schubert and Brahms, as well as music by Berio, a complete Bartók’s Bluebeard’s Castle and his ongoing Ring project with Jaap van Zweden and the Hong Kong Philharmonic. He has also returned to the songs of Schumann with this excellent Harmonia Mundi album Einsamkeit, which covers some of the same ground as his 2004 Decca release with pianist Erich Schneider. Goerne has matured into one of the most in-demand and compelling singers amongst an impressive field of bass and baritone Lieder specialists, his warm, full and dark timbre ideal for this thoughtful collection covering the full span of Schumann’s output, from Myrthen – his 1840 wedding gift to Clara – to Abenlied, written some 12 years later. Goerne is also making his recording debut with Italian-born Austrian pianist Markus Hinterhauser and their musical chemistry is immediately apparent from the seductive opening track Meine Rose. The duo made a huge impression when they performed Schubert’s Winterreise in last year’s Sydney Festival. Their partnership…

August 4, 2017
CD and Other Review

Review: MacMillan: Stabat Mater (The Sixteen, Britten Sinfonia/Harry Christophers)

The Stabat Mater Dolorosa first appeared in the second half of the 13th century as a lengthy poem set to music, generally attributed to Jacopone da Todi (d. 1306), an Umbrian Franciscan friar. It is one of the countless expressions of the affective piety that characterised Western late-medieval Christianity, encouraging intense and emotional identification (as fellow suffers) with Christ, his mother and other characters in the Christian story, often in minute detail. The Stabat Mater focuses closely on Mary’s abject sorrow as she stands at the foot of the cross, on which hangs the crucified body of her son. It has received many musical re-settings over the centuries, most famously by Palestrina in around 1590, and Pergolesi (1736), but also by Dvorˇák and Rossini, and in the 20th century, by Szymanowski (1926), Poulenc (1950) and Pärt (1985). James MacMillan (b. 1959) has a long history of writing in religious musical forms, and his 21st-century Stabat Mater is scored for choir and string orchestra. It was written with the particular strengths of Harry Christopher and The Sixteen in mind. It’s an intense, personal and captivating work, beautifully recorded in the Church of St Augustine’s in Kilburn, London. The interplay between voice…

August 4, 2017
CD and Other Review

Review: Bach: St John Passion (Les Musiciens du Louvre/Marc Minkowski)

Great respect has characterised Marc Minkowski’s decision to allow some 30 years of his career to pass before recording the St John. In choosing to use only eight singers he is at pains to create an intimate but intense reading of this most powerful work. This performance is based on the original 1724 version, but appends two arias from the revisions Bach made a year later, as well as employing later additions to the original orchestration (contrabassoon and theorbo) and a harpsichord in the continuo. Minkowski is intent on bringing out the radical musical drama that must have shocked, or at least perplexed, the good burghers of Leipzig that Good Friday afternoon in 1724. Eschewing the textural contrast between soloists and chorus, Minkowski differentiates between the various musical elements by adopting brisk tempos for choruses and deftly connecting them to recitatives, creating an almost frenetic telling of the story, in which Evangelist Lothar  Odinius plays an impressive role. The arias offer varied meditations on the action. Australian countertenor David Hansen delivers an impassioned account of the aria Von der Stricken. Fellow alto, Delphine Galou, sings the more famous Es ist vollbracht with great empathy. No one performance will ever have…

August 4, 2017