title: a good introduction to the music of Shchedrin

text:
In the mid-to-late 1990s BMG engaged a lamentably short-lived collaboration with Melodiya, and one of the outcomes was the release of this "authorized Shchedrin" edition, apparently masterminded by the composer himself, who wrote the liner notes and seems to have chosen the repertoire of each disc. The program on this instalment presents no great coherence that I can perceive (three numbers though make use or elaborate from the Russian "chastushka" or limerick - but not the Frescoes of Dyonisos) but offers a satisfactory cut-through into the composer's oeuvre and can serve as a good introduction. The two first pieces are both conducted by Kiril Kondrashin, and were paired together on the original LP.

"Not Love Alone" was Shchedrin's first and youthful opera, after "a narrative" by the contemporary Russian writer Sergei Antonov, "Aunt Kusha". It was premiered in 1961 at the Bolshoi (Shchedrin wasn't yet thirty). It is on Kondrachin's own suggestion, in order to complete an LP with the short "Naughty Limericks", that the composer drew a 30-minute orchestral-suite from the opera. Stylistically, it veers between Prokofiev (some moments are strikingly reminiscent of Romeo & Juliet), Shostakovich (the final movement) and a more contemporary and agitated language, one that you can find in the early works of, say, William Schuman, and that is colorful, atmospheric (track 2, "Rain", with its sinuous bass flute, evoking a rain in Mowgli's tropical forest) and sometimes quite dramatic (track 4). Track 5 is Varvara's Song and Chastushki and is sung by the great Russian mezzo Irina Arkhipova.

In the invaluable liner notes that he wrote (there is also a general presentation of the composer by someone else) the composer explains what a "chastushka" is - the word translated in English by Limerick: "a comparatively contemporary form of Russian vocal improvisation found in villages at the beginning of the 20th century (...), very often (...) biting satires about political leaders and the existing order".

Shchedrin's "Naughty Limericks" from 1963 are subtitled "First Concerto for Orchestra" because of the virtuosic demands it sets on the players, but its short length - 7:44 here - makes it more a brilliant concert-overture. Stylistically, it is to Shostakovich's most sardonic style what Lutoslawski's Concerto for Orchestra is to Bartok's - meaning that again the language is brilliant and colorful, but not particularly advanced.

Frescoes of Dionysios for 9 instruments is a much later piece (1981) and much more advanced in its language, very subtle in its instrumentation and sonorities (woodwinds, viola, cello, celesta and a "chromatic crowd" say the notes, which sent me on a frantic search on the famous people-processed online encyclopedia. So, folks, the crowd, originally known as the crwth, also known in Medieval Latin as the chorus or crotta, is an archaic stringed musical instrument, associated particularly with Welsh music, although once played widely in Europe). The Dionysios refered to in the title is not the Greek God, but the famous late Medieval Russian icon-painter.

I'm not sure what exactly is the piece for mezzo and piano, "Stradaniya", which concludes the disc. The booklet information claims that it is "Varvara's Song from the Opera `Not Love alone'", leading you to think that it is the un-orchestrated version of the same songs which makes up the 5th movement of the orchestral suite, "Varvara's Song and Chastushki". But not so. Onno van Rijen's catalog of works (available online) says that it is the "Song and Ditties of Varvara" from the Opera "Not Love Alone" opus 23, arranged for mezzo and piano. But I am wondering if it is not instead Shchedrin's opus 33, "Laments", for voice and piano, written in 1965 and premiered on 31 January 1966 by Arkhipova again and the composer at the piano - the same performers as on this recording (indicated by the booklet to date from 1976). Shchedrin's liner notes are not informative here (they are silent about the piece but mention only that there were also  "lyrical chastushki", about love, sadness and pain, called "Stradanija" or "sufferings") but that and the booklet seem to confirm my assumption: according to van Rijnen, "Laments" are written on "Traditional words by V. Bokov", and, indeed, the booklet indicates that "these popular texts have been compiled by Viktor Bokov". And I wonder if it is not the Russian word Stradaniya/"sufferings" that van Rijen's catalog translates into "laments".

Whatever the case, the sparseness of the piano writing helping (if orchestrated they would be the pizzicatos of a double bass perhaps, with some cymbal crashes), the music has a terse, sarcastic and tongue-in-cheek atmosphere.

TT 61:14.


title: a delightful ancestor of opera comique - but make sure you get the edition with English libretto

text:
Jean-Joseph Mouret's Les Amours de Ragonde, written in 1714, 30 years before Rameau's Platée, was a seminal work in the development of opera comique in France, although its influence was felt only decades after its creation. It was written for one of the famous nocturnal parties, the Grandes Nuits, staged every fortnight between April 1714 and May 1715 by the Duchesse du Maine in her castle of Sceaux , a few kilometers south of Paris and a few kilometers east of Versailles. They were so successful that the Versailles authorities, stultified by the atmosphere of religious bigotry brought forth by Madame de Maintenon, the secret wife of Louis 14, took umbrage - and anyway, in September 1715, Louis 14 died, and that was it with the fêtes. Things didn't finish too well for Mouret, either. After a very successful career at the Théâtre des Italiens, the Concerts Spirituels and the Opera, he died in utter dejection in the mental asylum of Charenton. He should have tried writing Tragedies instead.

Despite its success with the select audience gathered at Château de Sceaux, the score seems not to have been played again, until the Royal Academy of Music (the Paris Opera as it was called then) revived it in 1742, three years after Mouret's death, to great success, and the opera was kept in the repertory until 1773.

It is, "technically", a fully-fledged opera rather than an opera comique, in that there is no spoken text: it is all sung. The book, by poet Néricault Destouches, is the customary fare of opera comique, depicting a group of villagers, the old widow Ragonde (sung by a man) having views over the young peasant Colin, himself enamoured wih Ragonde's daughter Colette who's in love with the peasant Lucas, and everything is occasion and pretext to dance.

The original manuscript is lost and what Minkowski plays here is a reconstruction based on the 1742 printed score, whose accompaniment is limited to two parts, treble and bass with no further indication, and thus gives only very scanty indications of the original orchestration, complemented by a performance manuscript kept at the Library of the Paris Opera. As the character of Colette sung no aria in the printed score, two of another character were reattributed to her, to flesh out the part. The orchestration seeks to reproduce the one that COULD have been played in 1714. In other words, this is not the score as played in 1714, no more than it is the piece as it was ever performed at the Paris opera. It is an approximation of what it might have been in 1714, but wasn't exactly.

Not that it matters. As satisfying as it is to be able to think that we are listening to the "authentic" thing as the Sceaux audience heard it three centuries ago, we listen to music for pleasure rather than for historical accuracy, so this is close enough. The music is great, lively and exciting, full of uplifting dance music, the singers are, as they should, full of character rather than elegance, and Minkowski conducts with his customary drive, enthusiasm and muscularity.

The big problem, and one that is likely to hamper enjoyment, is that my copy comes not only with the liner notes in French only , but with no libretto, just a short synopsis. And given that, in addition to the mock peasant lingo that is used in the lyrics, the performers were coached by a specialist of 18th century French pronunciation in "historical" pronunciation (apparently the same person who sings the part of Ragonde, "docteur" Michel Verschaeve) - which, in principle, is great -, it means that, even for a fluent French speaker, the text is at times hardly comprehensible.

This, however, may be a problem with my copy. Reading the review in The Gramophone issue of December 1992, I see that it did come with a booklet with text in French, English and German which the reviewer praises as "all one could wish for". I think some of the original Musifrance issues came with the jewel case slipped in a cardboard container which also held the booklet. One positive thing: between 1992 and today they invented the Internet, and now the libretto can be found online, but that won't be of much help to the non-fluent-French listener, so, if your case, make sure you get a complete copy. TT 55:45, excellent liner notes.


title: from grandiose and imposing perorations to solemn and brooding meditations, but little that truly engaged my attention

text:
Nicolas de Grigny was a talented musician at the end of the reign of Louis 14, who might have had a much more prominent position among French composers of the era, if it hadn't been for a haplessly short life: he died in 1703, aged 31. In his short life he was much more productive in offsprings - seven children in the course of eight years of marriage: hapless madame de Grigny - than in scores: his reputation rests on his sole First Organ Book from 1699, consisting of a Mass and five Hymns. Based on that single opus and on the taste for and mastery of fugue and counterpoint that it displays, De Grigny is considered as one of the great masters of French organ and the peer of his contemporaries Louis Marchand and François Couperin. Bach held it in great esteem and even  copied it, integral with its complex and intricate ornamentation.

The recording was made by Sylvain Ciaravolo on the historical organ of the Saint Pierre des Chartreux Church in Toulouse in September 1990. The instrument underwent many vicissitudes in the 19th Century and 20th century but was fully restored in the early 1980s and inaugurated as such by Gaston Litaize in 1983. I'm no great connoisseur of 17th and 18th Century organ, so my opinion is not a very informed one. The organ sounds great, with rich timbral colors. I'm not so bowled over with Grigny's oeuvre. It goes from grandiose and imposing perorations to solemn and brooding meditations, but I found both mostly drab and boring. Only a few moments truly engaged my attention, the animated Fugue contained in the Gloria's last Dialogue (CD 1 track 14), the ensuing Offertoire on the great stops, fugal again and powerful (track 15), the playful and colorful Duo of Cromorne (Krummhorn) and Cornet (track 22) and Recit of Trumpet or Cromorne Basso in the Hymn Verbum Supernum (CD 2 track 12), the lively and dancing Duo and Dialogue in triple time in the first Hymn Veni Creator (CD 2 track 3 - and the response on the Small Stops, the central section of the Dialogue on the Great Stops, track 5, is much the same), and the powerful and imposing concluding "Point d'Orgue" on the great stops with its obsessive pedal on E then A. The dreamy dialogue of Flutes for the Elevation (e.g. the ritual raising of the consecrated elements of bread and wine during the celebration of the Eucharist) in the Mass, CD 1 track 22, might have been a very poetic moment, but the impression remained of solemnity and slight boredom, and that very much summarizes the general impression with Grigny's work, at the hands of Ciaravolo.

De Grigny's oeuve has been oft-recorded but, in the absence of any alternative version in my own collection, I can't tell how much of the impression is due to the composer and how much to performer and particularly his choice of tempi. The score of the 1711 reprint is available on IMSLP, bless them, and Ciaravolo seems fine, although there are times, comparing what I see to what I hear, where I find that the right-hand parts are covered by the powerful left-hand.

Excellent liner notes, TT 55 + 45:45.

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title: A very uneven cycle  - but you'll find it cheaper elsewhere. Sellers good luck

text:
See my review under the European issue of the same cycle, which sells VERY MUCH cheaper at the time of writing: [[ASIN:B0000CE7FR Honegger: Symphonies #1-5, Pacific 231; Michel Plasson; Orchestre du Capitole du Toulouse]]. Sellers good luck, but I don't see who could be interested in paying more when they can have the same for much less.

Plasson's cycle is an uneven one, with great Symphonies No. 1 and 2 and a fine "Liturgique" (No. 3), but badly flawed 4 & 5. See my review for the details. There is no perfect complete cycle by a single conductor (with the proviso that I haven't heard the most recent one by Roman Brogli-Sacher, recorded in various individual instalments with pairings of works by other composers, and only recently regrouped in a single Honegger set, not yet listed here), Dutoit isn't bad (especially for the price) but suffers a mediocre Symphony No. 2, elegant rather than dramatic, and generally a lack of bite, rawness, even brutality in his brass to fully convey the anger and rage of the music ([[ASIN:B00000J7ON Honegger: Symphonies 1-5 / Pacific 231 / Rugby]]). Baudo is overall very good but there are sonic problems in the transfers of the first Symphony ([[ASIN:B000025R6S Honegger: Symphonies]]). The best complete cycle is the one you will assemble for yourself from the best individual performances, at the cost (?) of some duplication, starting with Munch Orchestre de Paris in Symphony No. 2 ([[ASIN:B00005NW08 Ravel: Bolero; Rapsodie Espagnole; Daphnis et Chloé Suite No. 2/Honegger: Symphony No. 2]], Karajan in 2 & 3 ([[ASIN:B000001GQN Honegger: Symphony No. 2 for String Orchestra and Trumpet; Symphony No. 3 "Liturgique" / Stravinsky: Concerto in D for String Orchestra]]), Järvi in 3 & 5 ([[ASIN:B000000AS2 Honegger: Symphony No. 5; Symphony No. 3; Pacific 231]]), Jansons in 2 & 3 ([[ASIN:B00000DNTD Honegger: Symphonies Nos. 2 & 3, Liturgique, Pacific 231]]), Mravinsky in 3 ([[ASIN:B000001HCC Yevgeny Mravinsky conducts Paul Hindemith & Arthur Honegger (Mravinsky Edition, Volume 6) (Melodiya)]]), Hogwood in 4 ([[ASIN:B0007PLKSY Klassizistische Moderne 1]]) and Plasson for the individual CD with [[ASIN:B000005GPX Symphonies 1-3]].


title: Not always convincing, but nonetheless imaginative interpretations that stand out

text:
Good idea of Turovsky and Chandos to have complemented the Symphony for Strings and Concerto da Camera for Flute, English Horn and Strings with "Prelude, Arioso and Fughetta on BACH", although they would have needed to add the short "Largo", and the early "Hymne" for ten strings, to have all of Honegger's works for string orchestra on the CD. With a TT of 51:47, there was plenty of space left, and Largo in particular would have been an appropriate complement to the 2nd Symphony, since it is the first and discarded sketch for the slow intro to its first movement. But in 1986, when this program was recorded, it was still unpublished, and it got its premiere on disc only in 1992, through the auspices of the great Honegger critic and biographer Harry Halbreich ([[ASIN:B0009N5L5W Honegger: Semiramis - Unpublished Orchestral Pieces]]). The premiere recording of "Hymne" was in 1990, on Cybelia CY 882, [[ASIN:B004A3QLW4 Arthur Honegger: Le Dit Des Jeux Du Monde (1918) / Hymne (1920) / Prelude, Arioso Et Fughette Sur B.A.C.H. (1932)]], with the premiere complete recording of Honegger's fascinating incidental music for the stage play "Les Dits des Jeux du Monde" (1918) under Didier Bouture.

As for the string version of "Prelude, Arioso and Fughetta", in fact it isn't by Honegger, it is an arrangement by his friend and longtime collaborator Arthur Hoérée, of one of Honegger's best piano pieces. I don't find it as effective in the arrangement, it looses its flint-like trenchant, although the feeling may be due only to excessive familiarity with the piano version and lack of it with the string version. But Hoérée's arrangement does sentimentalize the middle Arioso, when he attributes the right-hand melody to a plangent cello playing in the upper registers, and later to violin. As Bartok, Ravel, Stravinsky or Hindemith, Honegger's music should be intense, never sentimental. But to be fair, it is not just Hoérée: it is also Turovsky. His outer movements (Prelude and Fughetta) have a drive and intensity that the competing versions of Jesus Lopez-Cobos with the Lausanne Chamber Orchestra ([[ASIN:B00004VG0W Symphonies 2 & 4 " Delicial Basilienses "]]) and Tamas Vasary with the Bournemouth Sinfonietta ([[ASIN:B000000AO0 Symphony 4]]) don't come close to emulating, but through his slow tempo and throbbing phrasings of his soloists, he sentimentalizes the Arioso. Lopez-Cobos shows the benefit of taking the Arioso movement at a tempo that is almost twice as fast as Turovsky's, but Vasary conducts it even slower than Turovsky, almost to a standstill, but still manages, through the leaner textures of his strings, to make it plangent, but not sentimental.

But the bulk of Turovsky's program are the two other pieces. He offers an original take on the Concerto da Camera, a late work (1948) and Honegger's most "pastorale" composition. Turovsky's version stands out less for the resonant sonic pickup (made in the Church of St. Madeleine, Montreal) than for the languor of approach, less, in the first movement,  the "allegretto amabile" indicated by Honegger than a "moderato languide" evoking a hot summer day, or Honegger seen through the eyes of Debussy's Faun. I don't think it is entirely in character, although I can accept it as an alternative view. I am more enthusiastic with the somber, burdened, mourning atmosphere of the slow movement, taken adagio rather than Honegger's "andante", pulling it in the direction of those quasi-Funeral marches so typical of the composer. The Finale is more "in the norm", not at the most vivacious end of Honegger's "Vivace" but not, as Jean Fournet, turned into another pedestrian moderato ([[ASIN:B000066IL9 HONEGGER:ORCHESTRA WORKS]]). But Turovsky offers here two nice touches of interpretive imagination: between 1:23 and 1:33 a sul ponticello from the violins heard better than on any other recording, and the final violin glissando, almost whistle-like.

Turovsky's Symphony for Strings is almost a great one. It starts with a beautiful, slow, mourning introduction, an original touch being the incisive way Turovsky phrases the accent on the violin accompaniment figure starting at 2:02, making it sound like sobs. The textures in the Allegro proper have a touch of thickness and the phrasings lacks perhaps some staccato bite, but Turovsky there is reasonably urgent, and suitably vigorous and vehement, and the sonics enable you to hear clearly the various strands of Honegger's string orchestra. And again, among Turovsky's touches that belong only to him, note how he swells from piano to forte the violin "cries" in the climax at 7:09. Another one is his true pianissimo (as the composer instructs) in the final coda at 11:03.

Among numerous details of phrasing that are too complex to describe in words here and that belong uniquely to Turovsky (and which I find always appropriate), highlights in the slow movement are the plangent but intense solo cello at 1:01 and the great intensity of the double basses at 5:13. Turovsky's tempo is expansive, though far from extreme. I'm not so happy with his Finale though, because of his election of a tempo that is at the lower end of the spectrum (and no kidding, among the 20 versions I've heard, the only one to take longer by a few seconds is the one by commissioner and dedicatee Paul Sacher, recorded in 1986, more than forty years after he premiered the piece. The recording was first published by Erato in a Paul Sacher 3-LP set, then on a Japanese CD, not even listed in Japan, paired with Bartok's Divertimento and Stravinsky's Concerto in D, two other Sacher commissions), giving an impression of sluggishness and preventing the coda, when the trumpet finally erupts as the sun through a dark sky of menacing clouds, from sounding as triumphant as it should.

Not perfect versions then, but valid especially for their numerous personal interpretive touches. Note that this here is the "legitimate" entry for this CD, based on its barcode, but there is another one, which is hard to find because, for some obscure reason and although the entry seems perfectly labeled and indexed, it doesn't show up when you research on the obvious criteria, Honegger and Turovsky (but they have the label name wrong, "Alliance" rather than "Chandos") - in fact, it doesn't even show up if you research on its ASIN, B00004U3TD, or EAN code, 0095115863220, which is incomprehensible to me and the first time I've encountered the problem: [[ASIN:B00004U3TD Honegger: Symphony No. 2/Concerto Da Camera/Prelude, Arioso & Fughetta]].


title: lovely recital, atmospheric, sweet, gentle, pretty (double-tongued compliment)

text:
A recital of Spanish or Spanish-inspired music for flute and guitar, and one of Colins Classics earliest releases, from 1989, offering a mixture of transcriptions (Ibert, Ravel, Granados, Villa Lobos' Cantilena from Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5) and pieces written for the combination (Sor, Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Rodrigo, Villa Lobos' Distribution of Flowers, the pieces of Benoît Schlosberg - a French composer and guitarist, born in 1954 -, Piazzola and Len Williams - the father of guitarist John Williams). Walker's Flute Flight is a combination of both: he wrote a flute part to go with Villa Lobos' popular Etude No. 1 for guitar. The most Spanish-sounding isn't always the music written by the Spaniards - the Sor Romanesca and Castelnuovo-Tedesco's Sonatina don't sound particularly Spanish in fact.

The music is always atmospheric, sweet, gentle, pretty - and that, I feel, is its limitation too. Spanish music isn't - or shouldn't be - all uniformly that: it is also rough, raucous, savage. None of that here. Flamenco proves that the guitar can be rough, raucous and savage, but here, in these compositions written by classical music composers, it is its gentle strains that are exploited. As for the flute, except in avant-garde 20th century music, it must be the most pastoral, gentle and dreamy of all instruments. Unlike mathematics were minus times minus equals plus, here it equals minus square. Even Schlosberg's three Esquisses are content to remain in the same mood, with only the last one a little more Brazilian and using guitar techniques that are slightly more advanced. The two pieces of Piazzola are a little more daring also in their occasional use of more advanced flute and guitar techniques, and they are tango-atmospheric, but it remains gentle tango playfulness in one and gentle tango nostalgia in the second rather than tango heat. All this is perfect as background music and casual listening - double-tongued compliment. Those that stand out are Villa Lobos' Distribution of Flowers, sweet, gentle, pretty, but particularly atmospheric, and Walker's Flute Flight, slightly more agitated.

I guess a little atmospheric background music one in a while can do no harm, but it remains background music.


title: The Revolution betrayed by the Red Army and Paris Opera choruses

text:
Revolutions and ideological concerns rarely produce good music - or maybe it is just because it is badly played. This Adda CD bears no copyright year, the recording must have been made on the occasion of the concert mentioned in the liner notes on July 2, 1989, and the CD was reviewed in the French Diapason issue of May 1991, which points to a belated release by Adda. It uses the combined forces of the Paris Opera and the Red Army Choruses (and remember, the latter were still Soviet back then - the former probably still are today), and the Wind Band of the City of Le Havre. It offers a selection of military marches, overtures and symphonies for Wind Band and of revolutionary hymns - three by Gossec, "Chant du 14 Juillet", composed for the first anniversary of Bastille Day, "Peuple, Eveille-toi !" (People, Awake!) written for the translation of the remains of Voltaire to the Pantheon Church on 11 July 1791, and what is announced as his orchestration of the Marseillaise, and Méhul's "Chant du depart", composed in July 1794 for the celebration of the decisive victory of the Republican army at the battle of Fleurus. With only four numbers for chorus, the disc's title, "Revolution in the Choir", is something of a misnomer. The minimal liner notes just give short biographical info on the Le Havre band and two choruses, but say absolutely nothing of the works, and don't even give the first names of the composers, just initials. But after all we are not dealing with W.A. Mozart or L.v. Beethoven. How many music lovers will know off-the-cuff that C.S. Catel is Charles-Simon, F.J. Gossec François-Joseph, E.N. Méhul Etienne-Nicolas, L.E. Jadin Louis-Etienne (not to be confused with his brother Hyacinthe), and add the even more obscure Michel-Joseph Gebauer and Frédéric Duvernoy?

Likewise, the credits show that all these pieces are played in modern orchestrations, but nothing is said of their nature. Most are credited to Désiré Dondeyne, the longtime conductor of the Wind Band of the Paris Police. Sometimes he is credited as arranger, sometimes as orchestrator, and sometimes even both (Gossec's "Chant du 14 juillet"), and in the case of the "Pas de Manoeuvre" (Marching Drill) of Duvernoy and Gebauer and the Military March and Symphony of Catel tracks 2-4 and 6, he appears both as arranger and under the cryptic designation of "reconstitution", but we are not told what exactly was reconstituted. Two of the arrangements, of Louis Jadin's Symphony (track 5) and Gossec's Symphony (track 10), are by a J. Molenaar. And in the case of Chant du Départ and Marseillaise, conductor Philippe Langlet added his own layer of cream by further adapting Dondeyne's arrangements for Mixed and Men's Chorus.

No information being given about them, I wondered where these symphonies and overtures came from, and what those modern orchestrations were about. Had they set for wind band works originally written for full symphony orchestra? Did the overtures come from operas, and in which case, which ones? Likewise, I wondered about Gossec's Marseillaise. Gossec is often referred to for his orchestration of Rouget de Lisle's song, the most famous one before Berlioz'. But I wondered why the Adda CD played Dondeyne's orchestration of Gossec's orchestration of Rouget's song, and not Gossec's. It is also the case with another CD with a very similar program, [[ASIN:B000009IGC Les Grands Hymnes Revolutionnaires (Erato)]], the compilation of 19 revolutionary hymns and military marches with the Wind Band of the Paris Police (Orchestre d'Harmonie des Gardiens de la Paix de Paris) under Claude Pichaureau, published by Erato in 1989, which shares the four choral pieces that are on Adda, as well as the two Pas de Manoeuvre of Duvernoy and Gebauer. But, researching on that, I had been puzzled not to find any trace of a publication, recent or not, of Gossec's original score. So what exactly was Dondeyne's orchestration in relation to Gossec's original?

These might seem to be very petty details, and they are if you just want to hear the music for what it offers, without any concern about sources and authenticity. But sometimes you start pulling on a minuscule thread of wool that's sticking out and sweater shirt and pants start unraveling in your hands.

I'll refer the reader interested in those matters to the review - rather, a lengthy essay on the sources of the Marseillaise and other revolutionary songs - that I published under the Erato CD. But to make this long story short(er), it turns out that what Dondeyne did was simply to orchestrate a piano reduction of Gossec's score, made by an archivist of the Paris Conservatoire, Constant Pierre, at the end of the 19th Century. This admirable man spent years locating all the original sources of all the revolutionary hymns and band music played at the official ceremonies in the 1790 decade, researching in the various libraries of France, even pushing his investigations to the British Library and Royal Library in Berlin. Most of this sheet music remained in the form of scores for voice only or voice and keyboard, some of them as instrumental parts, a few in the composer's original autograph or manuscript scores. Pierre published the scores in 1899, but, for reasons of practicality, with piano reductions of the orchestral or band accompaniment (when scores or parts existed). In a complementary volume published in 1904 he listed all the locations of the original material.

So Dondeyne could have gone to Bibliothèque nationale or the Library of the Conservatoire to consult the original sources (in which case his "orchestration" would have been limited to rescoring for modern tuba the instrument then known as the "serpent", whose role was to double and reinforce the bassoons and that was replaced by the Ophicléide in the 1820s - this will ring a bell with fans of Berlioz played on period instruments - before the invention of the tuba in the mid-1830s). But evidently, he didn't, and this is clearly shown by his orchestration of precisely The Marseillaise.

When Rouget de Lisle wrote his song, then known as the "War Song for the Army of the Rhine", in April 1792, its success was so blazing that within a few weeks it shot to Marseilles, and from there to Paris, now called indifferently the Song, Air, Hymn or March of the Marseillais, and where everybody sung it and wanted to hear it. As was the custom back then, Gossec turned it, with a few other revolutionary songs, into a lyric scene called first "Hymne à la liberté" then "Offrande à la liberté", and first played at the Paris Opera on 2 October 1792. THAT is Gossec's original orchestration, and it is NOT for wind band but for symphony orchestra.

A year later, for the Celebration of the first anniversary of the King's emprisonment on 10 August 1793 (they sure did have a sense of the occasion in those days), Gossec wrote a second orchestration of Rouget's song, now for wind band and for outdoor performance. Curiously, it was set to other words than Rouget's original stanzas, written for the occasion by a "citizen Varon" whose first name seems to have been lost by History. That orchestration (with Rouget's original words) became the official version of the song (made to the national anthem of France in 1795), the one that was played at the official ceremonies, and would be as "authentic" as the first one, even with the stanzas of Rouget reattributed to it.

Then in 1798, another Gossec version was printed, an arrangement for wind band of the 1792 operatic version, limited to three out of Rouget's six stanzas. The original parts, apparently once in the possession of Constant Pierre, are now kept at the Music and Theatre Library of Sweden. But Constant Pierre having published a piano reduction, THAT apparently is what Dondeyne re-orchestrated, using an instrumentation way more lavish and abundant than Gossec’s.

Most listeners will probably have little interest for these arcane matters of "authenticity", and will only want to know if the compositions, whatever the authenticity of their orchestration, and Langlet's interpretations of them, are enjoyable. Not always.

The worst is Méhul's "Chant du départ". Whatever Dondeyne's orchestration, Langlet's arrangement of it gives a badly corrupt and distorted idea of the original work and the composer's intent. Chant du départ was an important revolutionary hymn, as successful if not more than Rouget's Marseillaise, and it almost made it as France's national anthem. The original hymn has 7 stanzas all followed by the refrain sung by chorus, but the interesting point is that each stanza and ensuing chorus is ascribed to a specific and different character: "a representative of the people" and chorus of warriors, a mother and chorus of mothers, two elderly men and chorus, a child and chorus, a wife-chorus, maiden, and three warriors followed by general chorus. So, evidently, Méhul intended each stanza and refrain to be sung by different soloists and sections of the chorus, including children.

But Langlet doesn't do that. The song duly starts with the tenor, Leonid Pchenitchni, but, presumably because he needed to employ his two choirs, Russian and French, Langlet attributes the solo lines before the refrain to the Russians, and the refrain to mixed chorus (but the women are so overpowered by the men that they are hardly audible anyway). Then he has the verse of the mother sung not by a female solo but by full woman's chorus, the last line before refrain again by the Russians and again the refrain by mixed chorus. Then, instead of seguing directly into the next stanza, he repeats the long orchestral intro, and tenor Pchenitchni sings again a last verse, but in truth I can't say which one, because he's singing it... in Russian! I guess you can call it a hymn to people's fraternity, but what a hopeless jumble. If you want even an approximation of Méhul's original conception for Chant du départ, Pichaureau is better but still unsatisfactory, as he cuts three of the stanzas and divides the rest between only male and female soloist, the latter suitably matronly for the wive but much too much for the child. It is Plasson, despite using a modern orchestration for full romantic symphony orchestra, who gives you a much more faithful idea ([[ASIN:B00000DQY2 Revolution Francaise / Music of The French Revolution / Michel Plasson (EMI)]]).

And to that, add the interpretation. That the orchestra and chorus should be so grandiloquent, OK, I can accept it, it is not entirely out-of-sync with the meaning of the words and music. But tenor Pchenitchni! He's awful. Suitably stentorian and somewhat nasal, and I'm sure his Russian accent is perfect, but his French accent is comical. He should have sung it all in Russian.

The Marseillaise is not much better. Well, at least, we don't have to suffer Pchenitchni, since Langlet has it all sung by the chorus, which is a permissible option (Gossec's 1793 version for wind band, to the words of citizen Varon, was scored for three-part men's chorus, and even the 1792 version left the option of having the solo line sung by unissono chorus), although a much less appealing one than with solo verse and chorus refrain. But Langlet's version (reduced, as all the 1798 Gossec version and Dondeyne-derived versions that I've heard, to three stanzas) wouldn't have been as offensive had his choral forces not been so bad. The liner notes rhetorically ask "how do you squeeze two hundred and seventy musicians into a rehearsal hall in Le Havre"? Well, not very effectively I am afraid. The choruses are loud, tonally unrefined, poor in ensemble, thick and lacking transparency, making the words often incomprehensible (and the Soviets are given the first stanza of the Marseillaise, and they sing it with Russian accents), and the women sound tremulous and old, the worst of the French choral tradition. Sure, in a revolutionaly and war context, that's exactly what you expect and want a chorus to be: guts and brawn, not elegance and refinement. But again, as a purely musical experience, this is very unrewarding.

In "Chant du 14 juillet" Langlet and his forces sing only three verses out of the hymn's six - and thank God, because the 7:44 minutes it takes them, at Langlet's funeral tempo, are already way too long. In the Marseillaise and Chant du 14 juillet, Pichaureau on Erato is much preferable. Strangely, it is the other way around in "Peuple, éveille-toi", because there it is Pichaureau who takes it at an impossibly funeral tempo (it isn't a funeral march, it is a call to revolt!) and Langlet who, despite his choruses' untidiness, is true to the song's enthusiastic and martial accents. That said, I defy anybody to understand what they are singing, except for a few words here and there ("liberté!" comes out clearly, so you get the gist of it). No texts are provided.

Ultimately, if the hymns are your main interest, this is not the place where to stop. Pichaureau offers much more and, with the exception of "Peuple...", much better played. Langlet makes the music sound terribly grandiloquent, more than it needs to be. His program of overtures, marches and symphonies for winds is slightly better, if only because we are now rid of the impossible singers, and also because it offers the opportunity to hear rarely played works from that era. It turns out that all those symphonies and overtures were indeed origially scored for wind band. As the hymns, they were written for the official ceremonies and were published with them in regular collections, documented by Constant Pierre who also provides the scores with piano reductions. What the track listing simply calls Gossec's "Symphonie" is in fact his "Symphonie militaire", in three movements. Despite their title, those of Catel and Jadin are no more than Overtures. It's not great music - the two "Pas de manoeuvre" and the "Military March" are exactly suited to their purpose, music to whip up the troups and get them marching in time - but some of it is fun. In fact, other than the brassy orchestration, some don't even sound specifically military. Catel's Symphony and Overture in C are especially felicitous, and wouldn't be out of place in a Rossini opera. They are all the more valuable as very little of Catel is represented on CD.

That said, Langlet can be taken only as a stopgap. In the Marches, he is acceptable. Duvernoy's Marching Drill is slightly more lively with Pichaureau than with him but not decisively so, and Gebauer's is played more playfully by Pichaureau (music for an equestrian parade of prancing horses by the Republican Guard), more militarily by Langlet, and both approaches are legitimate. But that's the smaller fare. Without any competition it is always harder to judge an interpretation, but I am in no doubt that there is space for far more animation than Langlet brings to Catel's indication "très animé" at the top of his Sympony, and more vivacity in the "allegro vivace" of the Overture. By the same token, I didn't need to go the the competing version of Gossec's Military Symphony by John Wallace ([[ASIN:B0000037CU Berlioz: Grande symphonie funèbre et triomphale]]) to detect that Langlet's "larghetto" seemed terribly slumbering - surely a "larghetto" at the end of the 18th century shouldn't be played as a largo - and that he played the finale as a moderato parading march, which doesn't sound totally absurd but is certainly contradictory with Gossec's "Allegro" indication. Wallace resoundingly confirmed the impression, and proved how much more lively and exciting Gossec sounds played at the right tempi. I can accept that Langlet's very solemn tempo in the first movement conforms better to Gossec's "Allegro maestoso" than Wallace's vivacious and lightfooted one, but the music sounds so much better with Wallace, and his less brassy, more woodwindy orchestration (not by Dondeyne) is also far more characterful.

So I'll be keeping this disc in my collection mainly for the Catel Overture and Symphony and the Jadin Symphony. That's about 18 minutes of music out of the CD's none-too-generous 58.


title: Magnificent recital of English Madrigals from 1961 by the Deller Consort

text:
Another beautiful recital of English a cappella madrigals/partsongs from the late 16th/early 17th Century by Alfred Deller and his Deller Consort. This one was recorded in 1961 and then the Consort was comprised (other than Deller) of April Cantelo and Eileen McLoughlin sopranos, Wilfred Brown tenor and Maurice Bevan baritone. It was first published on Vanguard's subsidiary label The Bach Guild BG-624 - in mono only, a dumbfounding as it may seem given the vintage. This is the CD reissue from European Vanguard, 08 5038 71. I have its US counterpart, OVC 8103, from 1996, [[ASIN:B0000023G3 Silver Swan]], and it is in stereo (claiming to be a first). Wonder why it took them so long. From my experience with other such US/European Vanguard reissues, the transfers are the same. They offer great clarity and naturalness, fine but not exaggerated stereo spread, and only a moderate background of tape hiss which I do not find intrusive.

The madrigals alternate between the melancholy and the merry. Most are love songs, but Orlando Gibbons' "What Is Our Life", track 4, stands out both for its philosophical text (comparing our life to a comedy, with "Heaven the Judicious sharp spectator" and `our graves that hide us from the searching Sun / are like drawn curtains when the play is done" - could be Shakespeare) and dense vocal textures. Not only the music, but also the choice of poetry is always beautiful - authors of texts unfortunately not provided.

Here is the complete info about track listing:

1. Orlando Gibbons: The silver swan from First Set of Madrigals and Motets of 5 Parts (1612)

2. Francis Pilkington: Rest, sweet nymphs from The First Book of Songs or Ayres of 4 Parts (1605)

3. Pilkington: Diaphenia like the daffdowndilly from same source

4. Orlando Gibbons: What is our life from First Set of Madrigals and Motets of 5 Parts (1612)

5. William Byrd: Though Amaryllis dance from Psalmes, Sonets, & Songs of Sadness and Pietie (1588)

6. Orlando Gibbons: Ah! Dear heart from First Set of Madrigals and Motets of 5 Parts (1612)

7. William Byrd: This sweet and merry month from Psalmes, Songs and Sonnets (1611)

8. Orlando Gibbons: Dainty, fine bird from First Set of Madrigals and Motets of 5 Parts (1612)

9. Francis Pilkington: Have I found her from First Set of Madrigals and Pastorals (1613)

10. Francis Pilkington: O softly singing lute from Second Set of Madrigals and Pastorals (1624)

11. Francis Pilkington: Amyntas with his Phyllis fair from First Set of Madrigals and Pastorals (1613)

12-14. John Ward: Retire, my troubled soul, Upon a bank with roses, Out from the vale from First Set of English Madrigals (1613).

One of my favorite axes to grind is the matter of poetic diction. So far as I know, the rhyme in 16th-17th century English poetry was for the ear, not for the eye: no matter the spelling, what counted was that the end of the two rhyming verse sounded alike - but, whatever the spelling, they HAD to sound alike, or what was the point? I've rarely met singers who cared (supposing that they even knew anything about the rules of 16th and 17th century English poetry), and Deller and his consort are no different. Not that it is important and hampers enjoyment, but just for the fun of getting a glimpse into English pronunciation from centuries ago

Pilkington Rest Sweet Nymphs track 2:
eyes/sympathies
lullaby/sweetly
ye/lie
groves/loves

Gibbons What Is Our Life track 4:
is/amiss

Gibbons Ah Dear Heart track 6:
die/infancy

Gibbons Dainty Fine Bird track 8:
There/are.

One negative about the CD is that TT is a short, LP-tailored 42:51 minutes. With such beautiful music, you want 25 more. But more is on [[ASIN:B0000023C5 English Madrigal School]], a much more generous offering.


title: this may not conform to the dictates of modern-day Machaut musicology, but it is great music nonetheless

text:
There's a remarkably informed and informative article on French Wikipedia about Machaut's Messe de Notre Dame (not translated in English alas). Reading it, you fully realize that when you listen to Machaut's Mass, you don't just listen to Machaut's Mass, sit back and enjoy the music, and, if you have an interest for such things, try to assess the comparative interpretive merits of the performers, as you would with, say, Bach's Mass in B or a Beethoven Symphony. You also get enmeshed into the evolutions of and controversies around Medieval performance practice. Not every and any performance of the score is musicologically "catholic".

The Mass is the oldest surviving example of a four-part polyphonic mass composed on the complete six parts of the Ordinary (Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Benedictus and Agnus Dei - followed by a concluding "Ite missa est") by a sole and identified composer. It is thought that the Mass was composed around 1360-1365 although the circumstances of its composition remain undetermined, and the dedication to "Nostre Dame" (the Virgin Mary) appears only in one of the five extant manuscripts (it was long thought, based on no evidence, that it had been composed for the coronation of King Charles V in 1364, but strong arguments were given in the 20th Century against that thesis) and, with those aeons of time separating us and it, much remains open to conjecture. One of those is to decide if the four parts should be sung by solo voices or chorus - both options seem admitted by modern musicology. The other is to decide if the Mass should be sung only by male voices or mixed - apparently in Medieval French churches only men sung. And then another one is to decide if the vocal parts should be doubled by instruments.

The first transcriptions of the complete Mass in modern notation to make it performable were published only as late as 1948, one by Jacques Chailley and the other by Armand Machabey. They were followed by many others - the last ones being those of Denis Stevens (1973), Daniel Leech-Wilkison (1990, recorded on Naxos, [[ASIN:B0000014AN Machaut: La Messe De Nostre Dame; Songs from Le Voir Dit]]) and Lucy Cross (1998). But Chailley strongly influenced musicology and performance practice up until the early 1980s. He was of the firm opinion - he even claimed that "no doubt can remain" - that the Mass wasn't sung a cappella, but that the lower parts of tenor ("teneur") and contratenor ("contreteneur" - the latter in fact corresponding to the modern day basso or baritone) were to be doubled by organ, vielle or cornet.

The earliest recorded performances of the Mass - four movements by Guillaume de Van in 1936 for the label "Anthologie sonore" 31/32 (he published his own edition in 1949), the Kyrie by Chailley in 1939, and the first complete performance by the Dessof Chorus and the New York Brass Ensemble under Paul Boepple for Concert Hall Society in 1951 - had the Mass sung by mixed chorus underpinned by a sizeable instrumental ensemble comprised mainly of brass (with the notion that it was a Coronation mass). The research of Armand Machabey, Leo Schrade and Safford Cape (the latter published a groundbreaking article in The Score in 1959, "The Machaut Mass and its Performance") brought forth a new musicological and performing approach, favoring solo voices and instrumental ensemble comprised of vielles and lute. Cape recorded his own version in 1956 for Archiv (APM 14063), and the recording had a strong influence on the subsequent recordings, those of Deller and of the Basel Schola Cantorum under August Wenzinger in 1969 (again on Archiv, 2533 054). So far as I know the two Archiv recordings have not been reissued to CD. The Schrade edition is available on the International Music Scores Library Project (a thousand blessings to them) and it is the one that Deller seems to perform - I hear no discrepancy between what I hear and what I see. The year of publication of the Schrade edition, 1956, makes it very compatible with the Deller recording, made in 1961.

It was on the occasion of the sexcentenary (yeah yeah, that's the official term, see the Wikipedia entry on "Anniversary") of Machaut's death in 1977 that Andrew Parrott gave, at the York Festival of Ancient Music, a performance of the Mass that stirred considerable interest and was to have considerable influence on the subsequent interpretive approaches. It was sung in its liturgical context, e.g. with Machaut's movements alternating with sung prayers from the Gregorian "proper" ("The proper, Latin proprium, is a part of the Christian liturgy that varies according to the date, either representing an observance within the liturgical year, or of a particular saint or significant event" - thanks again Wikipedia free source of universal knowledge two clicks away) - not the first time this had been done, The London Ambrosian Singers and Les Menestrels de Vienne under John McCarthy had already recorded it that way in 1966 for Belvédère/Centrocord ELY 04-30, with the Gregorian proper for the feast of Mary's Assumption. But Parrott used solo voices, a very low pitch, and consequently, did without countertenor for the the higher part, but employed two tenors and two bassos. But, mainly, it was sung entirely A Cappella, and since then, the performances of the Mass have been sung without instruments. Parrott recorded the Mass in 1984, [[ASIN:B00BF3U4VG Guillaume De Machaut: Messe De Noster Dame - Taverner Consort, Andrew Parrott (Reflexe)]].

So, long story to explain that one doesn't just listen innocently to Deller's Machaut Mass, sit back and enjoy. It is representative of a certain historical moment of Machaut's musicology and performance practice. It may have been cutting edge when it was recorded in 1961, but no more. Singing Machaut's Mass with accompanying instruments is anathema to present day Machaut musicology. It's archeology has become itself archeological, as much as Heinrich Schliemann's digging of the remnants of Troy in 1865.

Well, with all that said and done and all due genuflections made to present-day musicology: one MAY just listen innocently to Deller's Machaut Mass, sit back and enjoy. It may not conform to the dictates of modern Machaut musicology, but who cares: as it is, it is great, and pity the learned ignorants who in the name of present-day musicology would begrudge its beauties and appeal. Whatever the realization, the music remains great, with its incredible vocal virtuosity, the vowels of key words taken as excuses for those long and angular melismata (in the Credo, track 3, the vocalize on the A of "Amen" goes on for 1:15 minute), the angular rhythms and  hocketing effects (Machaut has a predilection for the eighth-note / quarter note / eighth-note beat in fast tempo), the clashing syncopations of the Sanctus (track 4), and all those typical "medieval" harmonies with many grating semitones. I find the music almost threatening in its stark and forbidding grandeur. It is probably my imagination more than the music itself, but listening to it I can picture something of the "dark" and troubled ages of plagues and famines, widespread violence and hundred years wars, religious zeal and heresies. It is music for Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal. The doubling of the lower parts by instruments does have the disadvantage of covering some voices - in fact, I must admit to being often incapable of locating the voice of baritone Maurice Bevan, so present is the doubling trombone. But I find that the instruments, with their piercing and buzzing tones, add a layer of starkness and savagery to the music's own.

The two Graduals of Perotin, "Sederunt principies" (track 7) and "Viderunt omnes" (track 10) and the Alleluia Nativitas (track 12), also leave my mouth gaping. "Sederunt principies" opens with 2:40 minutes of vocalize on the vowel e of "sederunt", on a very limited melodic ambit and on a rocking ternary rhythm whose sheer obsessiveness confines to madness, and it and its two companions go on in the same manner for more than 10 and 6 (Alleluia) minutes. No wonder Reich and the American minimalists loved the music of Perotin. Deller's version is certainly less refined and elegiac than the Hilliard Ensemble's on ECM (sung a cappella, [[ASIN:B000025ZXO Perotin]]), but again its greater roughness and even savagery as well as of jubilation suits well a certain image one can have of Medieval times.

Deller's Machaut Mass and Perotin's Gradual Sederunt were recorded in 1961 and first published on Vanguard's subsidiary label The Bach Guild, BG 622 (mono) / BGS 5045 (stereo) under the title "Notre Dame Mass & works of Perotin", together with Perotin's other Gradual Viderunt, recorded the year before. The recordings were also licensed to Harmonia Mundi in Europe, which, in its various issues, published the Mass with the same or other couplings... or with no coupling, on 10-inch LPs. On Vanguard the instrumental ensemble was dubbed, in the original release, The Renaissance Chamber Ensemble and on later reissues (as Vanguard HM 1 SD), "The Medieval Chamber Ensemble". Harmonia Mundi put things right: they were the members of Collegium Aureum, including Franz-Joseph Maier at the fiddle and Hans-Martin Linde at the flute (names that amateurs of period-instrument playing will easily recognize).

In the CD era Vanguard USA (twice), Deutsche Harmonia Mundi when a label of EMI (once), BMG (three times) or Sony (once) reissued The Machaut and two Perotin Graduals, complemented with excerpts from another Vanguard/Deller LP of French Medieval music, The Bach Guild BG 656 (mono)/BGS 70 656 (stereo), "Music of Medieval France - Sacred & Secular". That LP, published in 1964, began with four tracks of sacred music, including Perotin's Alleluia Nativitas, which were leftovers from the 1960 and 1961 recording sessions that yielded the Machaut and Perotin Graduals, and it was great to have it all finally reunited together (they are on tracks 8, 9, 11 and 12). Those reissues are:

Vanguard OVC 8107 [[ASIN:B0000023G7 Machaut: Notre Dame Mass, Master Perotin: Gradales (Vanguard)]]
Vanguard SVC 36 [[ASIN:B000009L9K Musique De Notre Dame]]

This one, Deutsche Harmonia mundi "Editio Classica" (EMI) CDM 7 69 479-2 (1988), barcode zero77776947921 [I've had to cheat on that one to prevent Amazon from changing it into a Skype phone number, Jeez!]

Deutsche Harmonia mundi "Editio Clasica" (BMG) GD 77064 (1990), [[ASIN:B000001TWQ Guillaume de Machaut: Messe Nostre Dame]] (don't trust the cover photo there, it's the one for the next edition hereunder. The entry's barcode tells the truth, not the photo). There's another edition of the same with a different barcode, not listed here, EAN doublezero35627706424, ASIN B00004SKBC on the European sister companies

Deutsche Harmonia mundi "Baroque Esprit" (BMG) zero5472 77 416 (1995), [[ASIN:B00002587H Machaut: Messe Nostre Dame]]

Deutsche Harmonia mundi "Splendeurs" (BMG) 82876 68 362-2 (1998), [[ASIN:B0007XT4O8 Machaut:  Messe a Notre Dame]]

Deutsche Harmonia Mundi (Sony) 82876 70035 2 (2005) [[ASIN:B000B7G0RO Machaut: Perotin: Musique a La Cathedrale]]

I have both Vanguard SVC-36 and the Deutsche HM "Baroque Esprit" release from 1995. The latter was a budget issue and it is a cheap one too, with neither the singers from the Deller Consort nor the instrumentalists from Collegium Aureum individually listed. I had to retrieve that info (and much more) from the great Deller discography of Pierre-F. Roberge hosted by Medieval dot org. Since I don't know how precise the credits were on this DHM-EMI "Editio Classical" were, here they are:

The Deller Consort
Alfred Deller (counter-tenor)
Wilfred Brown (tenor)
Gerald English (tenor)
Maurice Bevan (baritone)
Alfred Deller, dir.

Collegium Aureum:

in Machaut: Helmut Hucke (soprano bombardon), Heinrich Göldner (tenor bomardon), Hans-Martin Linde (recorder), Helmut Schmitt (trombone), Franzjosef Maier (fiddle), Johannes Koch (regal)

in tracks 7-9 Helmut Hucke (soprano bombardon), Albrecht Renz (cornett), Hans-Martin Linde (recorder), Johannes Koch (regal)

in tracks 10-12 Helmut Hucke (soprano bombardon), Albrecht Renz (cornett), Ilse Brix-Meinert (fiddle), Johannes Koch (recorder), Rudolf Ewerhart (regal)

All the remasters used in those DHM releases are those of the 1988 reissue. I don't hear any clear superiority of the transfer used on Vanguard SVC-36; there is slightly more tape hiss on DHM but also slightly more clarity, sometimes to the point of producing, on comparison, a certain harshness of the sound, that never becomes disagreable though and that I find entirely suited to the music. I have anoter edition of the four complements to the Machaut Mass, on a European Vanguard CD ressue, 08 5058 71, [[ASIN:B000026367 Music of Medieval France 1200-1400]], and it's interesting to note that it's NOT The same transfer as on Vanguard SVC-36 or DHM, but it sounds closer to DHM's than to SVC-36 (e.g. louder). Anyway, whatever the differences, I'd be happy with any. The voices sound as if recorded in a church - with a certain distance and some resonance - which is exactly the case. The tape hiss is very limited. So I'd advise to go for the cheapest you find.


title: no "inferior material"

text:
First, an element of peripheral context. In 1985, the founders (in the early 1950s) of Vanguard records, the Solomon brothers Seymour and Maynard, sold their catalog to a Welk music group, and Welk launched a first program of CD reissues, but was more interested apparently by the pop catalog than by the classical. In 1990 Seymour, through his company Omega Records, was able to repurchase the classical music catalog from Welk, in conjunction with a Dutch company called Arcade, which retained the distribution rights in Europe. In the 1990s, Solomon/Omega in the US and Arcade in Europe brought back to the market, in great remasterings and superb sonics, a large chunk of the truly historical catalog of Vanguard and of its subsidiary label The Bach Guild, magnificent recordings of Brendel, Earl Wild, Deller in his best period (the late 1950s and early 1960s), early recordings of Leonhardt and Harnoncourt made before anybody had heard of them, Handel oratorios by Johannes Somary, the Mahlers, Sibeliuses, Brahmses and many others of Abravanel and the Utah Symphony, a few invaluable Stokowskis, and much, much more. Between Omega/US and Arcade/Europe the label numbering was different (Omega using the prefixes SVC and OVC followed by four digits, and Arcade an 8-digit logic, 08 XXXX 7X with the last X representing the number of CDs), the presentation was sometimes the same (on the series reproducing the presentation of The Bach Guild collection), sometimes slightly different, sometimes entirely different. For some reason, some recordings were released on one side of the Atlantic but not the other - either way, and not always the one that would seem logical, as with Leroy J. Robertson's Oratorio from the Book of Mormon recorded in 1961 by Abravanel and the Utah forces, for which you'd think the interest today would be limited to Salt Lake City and its vicinity, but which got no release by Omega and no less than two in Europe (see either of my reviews of [[ASIN:B0000254I8 Oratorio from The Book of Mormon]] and [[ASIN:B003XRN6K8 Oratorio from The Book of Mormon]]).

But the two partners soon fell out, and by the end of 1996 Solomon filed a lawsuit against Arcade, accusing them, among other things, of squandering the reputation and brand name of Vanguard by releasing under the label their own and "inferior material".

Indeed Arcade had a series in which they published their own productions, using the Vanguard Classics label but with an entirely different logic of catalog numbering, 99XXX, and it is true that many of those Dutch productions seemed of very limited interest, music "from the Dutch for the Dutch", with things like the Flute Concertos of Carl Philip Emmanuel Bach by Machiko Takahashi and the Concertgebouw Kammerorchestr under Roland Kieft, Romantic Violin Encores for violin and piano by Christian Bor and Kyoko Hashimoto, Mahler's 2nd Symphony by the Residentie Orchestra of The Hague under Hans Vonk, Gregorian Chant by the Gregorian Koor Utrecht under Jan Boogaarts - and much else of the same ilk.

But to be fair, there were some pearls in the mud, and even before I was aware of any difference between Vanguard US and Vanguard Europe, I had happily purchased some of the Dutch productions. They released some of the first recordings of super Russian piano virtuoso Nikolai Lugansky - recitals of Schumann, Chopin, Rachmaninoff - and of violinist Isabelle van Keulen (the violin-piano AND viola-piano Sonatas of Shostakovich), they had a few good ensembles playing on period instruments, like Musica ad Rhenum and its flautist/conductor Jed Wentz (you wouldn't know reading his name but he is in fact "from the US for the Dutch"), or Paul Dombrecht's Il Fondamento, they recorded Bach's Mass, Passions and Christmas Oratorio conducted by the famed choral director Eric Ericson, the had recordings of Kreisler, Korngold, Schoenberg, Webern, Zemlinsky by the Brodsky Quartet, and the same joined by Anne-Sophie von Otter in Respighi's Il Tramonto and string quartets and Quartets of Peter Sculthorpe - among other interesting and valuable things. The Dutch after all HAVE produced some fine musicians, and without even going back to Willem Mengelberg and Bernard Haitink, the present Historically-Informed Performance and Period-Instruments movement would not be the same without musicians like Gustav Leonhardt, the Kuijken brothers or Anner Bylsma. And while, in the LP era, Vanguard US had built its reputation in early music on some performers and ensembles that were, back then, considered to be at the cutting edge of performance practice, it was time they moved beyond Antonio Janigro and I Solisti di Zagreb or Bach and Haydn conducted by Felix Prohaska or Vivaldi played by the Vienna State Opera Orchestra under Mario Rossi or Vladimir Golschmann. I haven't been able to find any info about the outcome of the lawsuit, but in 2002 Solomon died (and in the meanwhile Arcade and its rights of European distribution of the Vanguard catalog had been sold once or twice), and the catalog was sold again, to an Artemis company, which itself folded two years later.

All this to say that this issue, four Boccherini Sonatas for Cello and continuo performed by cellists Lucia Swarts and Richte van der Meer and American Stephen Stubbs playing guitar and theorbo, belongs to those very excellent productions from Dutch Vanguard.

The works, while anchored more in the pre-classical style than in the truly classical style of Haydn and Mozart (as illustrated by the fact that they are not sonatas for cello and keyboard, but for cello and continuo), are charming and, in some of the slow movements, even attain some profundity. Swarts and her partners play excellently, with great verve and a great sense of period style and practice. The extended, unwritten cadenzas played by Swarts on the fermatas at the end of the slow movements are a special bonus. Anner Bylsma also recorded a choice of Boccherini sonatas ([[ASIN:B0000028YZ Boccherini: Cello Sonatas; Fugues for 2 Cellos]]) and, in the one shared (G10), Swarts and partners play with more rhythmic precision and more vigor and enthusiasm than he and partner (Kenneth Slowik at the continuo cello) do. One difference with Bylsma is in the presence, with Swarts, of the lute or guitar reinforcing the continuo cello. It isn't absolutely necessary, and the sonatas stand up perfectly, and perhaps even better, as sonatas for two cellos (and indeed, they are works written by the young Boccherini for himself and his father to perform), but then the lute or baroque guitar of Stubbs remains always very discreet and un-intrusive - it is even not used in the slow movements of G5 and G13.

I'm not so happy with Swarts' decision to change, apparently, the ordering of the movements in G5 and G10 (and Bylsma does too in the latter), playing the slow movement in the customary 2nd position - customary for the classical and romantic eras, that is. But when the sonatas were published in London by F. Bland (fac-simile on the International Music Scores Library Project, gratitude to them), the ordering was in fact with the slow movement first, which may not fit our conceptions of classical architecture - but that's precisely the point: Boccherini's Sonatas may not belong to the classical style and traditions. In truth, there are, it seems, so many versions, editions, manuscripts, of the sonatas, scattered around the libraries of Europe, maybe Swarts and Bylsma base their decision on some authority. But other than saying that "the movement order is another area in which it is necessary to hack through musical and musicologiical knots", the liner notes are silent about which they might be. But of course, with the CD, it is easy to revert to the "non classical" ordering.

Cellists and amateurs of the cello, fans of 18th-century music, would do well to investigate this and/or the Bylsma CD. TT 55:30, excellent sound (fuller than Bylsma's), excellent liner notes (much better than Bylsma's).


title: Manitas, Arles, October 1963. Not true Flamenco? Who cares. This is fabulous music and music-making

text:
This twofer from European Vanguard, 08 9158 72, released in 1994, collates two programs released individually by Vanguard USA on OVC 8018 [[ASIN:B0000023EP Gypsy Flamenco]] and OVC 8068 [[ASIN:B0000023FG Ole!]]. The two originally came out, in 1965 I think, on respectively Vanguard VSD 79203, under the title "Guitarra Flamenco", and VSD-79224 ("Olé!") - see uploaded photos of the original LP covers. Where I've had the opportunity to check, European Vanguard (marketed by a Dutch "Arcade" company) used the same transfers as the US Vanguards (distributed by Vanguard's founder Seymour Solomon through his company Omega Records), and they always sound great (despite, here, one or two bizarre changes of stereo perspective in some tracks of "Gypsy Flamenco", where the balance moves from one channel to the next), present, natural, and with very limited tape hiss.

The liner notes deserve mention. They are reproduced from the two original LPs and "Guitarra Flamenco" offered the recollections by the producer of these recordings, E. Alan Silver. They are slightly at odds with the accounts that one can find on public websites, especially Manitas de Plata's entries on Wikipedia. Since they come here from the source, I am inclined to believe them. Checking them against an online photo of the back cover of the LP "Guitarra Flamenco" reveals that a few unfortunate cuts in the CD notes alter the intent and meaning of the writer, so I have reinstated the original wording (with a few small cuts of my own that don't alter anything).

"I first heard of Manitas de Plata in 1955. My friend and colleague, Marc Aubort [a famous sound engineer], had just returned from his vacation in southern France. He had attended the Gypsy Festival of Les Saintes Maries de la Mer and with a springwound tape recorder had recorded highlights of the affair. Among them were performances of a young Gypsy guitarist, Manitas de Plata, whose playing had so fascinated Marc that he had spent the rest of his vacation getting acquainted with the guitarist and recording more of his art.

Marc decided to write Manitas for permission to release a record of some of the material he had taped. Letter after letter went out addressed to "Mr Manitas de Plata, Les Saintes Maries de la Mer, France" [if known at all by the French Post Office in Les Saintes Maries, where he didn't reside, Manitas would have been known under his real name, Ricardo Baliardo]. All were unanswered. Since he was unable to get in touch with the artist, the matter was dropped.

In the fall of 1961, Time magazine reported that Manitas had become the rage of the Riviera, but that he steadfastly refused to record. My interest was again aroused - and then came an astonishing coincidence!

Several weeks after the Time Magazine article appeared, I attended an exhibition at New York's Museum of Modern Art, and saw some outstanding photographs of Gypsies, bullfighting and water-scene abstractions by a French photographer, Lucien Clergue. I heard someone remark in a pleasantly French-accented voice that he had been "so close to the bull that the blood spattered my shirt." I approached the gentleman and inquired if he was the photographer. He was, and I blurted out that I would like to buy some of his photographs. At the same time I asked him if he had ever come across the Gypsy guitarist, Matinas de Plata. Clergue was visibly startled. He told me that Manitas was a close personal friend and asked me if I, too, knew him. No, I said, but I had heard tapes of his playing. (...) "What were the chances of recording this amazing artist?"

Up to now, Clergue told me, all recording offers - and there had been many - had been refused by Manitas, who feared that he might be cheated. Clergue said he was weary of that excuse and would be willing personally to vouch for a recording contract with the Connoisseur Society, Inc. He felt it was overwhelmingly important to expose this man's art to the world. In the end, Manitas agreed.

We thought it would be best to bring Manitas to New York to record. The guitarist's response was rather frustrating. He was willing to come if he did not have to travel by boat or plane! In other words, if we wanted to record Manitas de Plata we would have to take our three-quarers of a ton of recording equipment to southern France.

We arrived in the city of Arles (...), a short distance from Montpellier, where Manitas lives during the winter. We found that a medieval chapel, adjoining the Jules Cesar Hotel, was available, with acoustics about as perfect as one could wish. The recording began at 8 P.M. one evening and, except for a brief break to eat, lasted until 4 A.M. Realizing the need for musical communication between artist and responsive listener, we had invited a number of Gypsies and some friends of Clergue's. (...)

Although we now had enough material, Manitas thought he had more to offer us and we agreed to record again the next night. As before, the session started at 8 P.M. and the inspiration appeared to be limitless. But by 12.30, everyone seemed a bit tired and we asked Manitas if there was anything else he cared to play before we took down the equipment. After a moment of silence Manitas motioned to me to sit in front of him and said he would play one more number, a levantes; It would contain everything he knew about flamenco. It was perhaps the finest performance of the two nights. Indeed, we were all too moved even to greet it with the usual shouts. Then Clergue suggested a saeta by the singer José Reyes. He had saved the suggestion till the end of the session because the saeta is so demanding emotionally. Any singer who  puts his entire heart and soul into a saeta is incapable of singing anything else the same night. Reyes sang, and with that unforgettable saeta the sessions ended".

Running 10 minutes, the Levantes is the most extended piece in the recital, track 7. Note that track 10, a Tarantas or miner's song, was apparently not on the original LP, nor on its companion disc. It's not immediately clear which one on either recital is the Saeta mentioned by Silver (originally, a mournful prayer), since none of the tracks bear that title and description. In fact, from what I've been able to understand following further investigation, it seems that Silver licensed to Vanguard only part of the huge material he had accumulated from those two nights (the chronology in Silver's account is not entirely clear, all the online sources come up with October 1963 for the two nights of recording in Arles), and issued the rest on four LPs on his own label, Connoisseur Society: CS 263 "Manitas de Plata Flamenco Guitar" in 1963 or 1964 ([[ASIN:B003FKCCOE The First Recordings of the World's Greatest Living Flamenco Guitarist, Manitas De Plata]]), CS 965 "Manitas de Plata Flamenco Guitar vol. 2" in 1966 ([[ASIN:B0018FJN6S Manitas de Plata -Flamenco Guitar with Jose Reyes and Manero Ballardo, singers]]), CS 2003 "Juerga!" in 1967 ([[ASIN:B003EHHZUE Manitas de Plata Juerga - Flamenco Guitar LP]] - some sources including Wikipedia claim that this one had an earlier release, on French Philips, in 1963, but judging from the label number I don't think this is the case, 1963 must be the year of Connoisseur's copyright year but not the year of release) - and CS 2006 "Manitas de Plata in Recital" in 1968, [[ASIN:B007P79X8G in recital LP]]. All those albums were also licensed to Philips for Europe, and were issued and reissued under numberous different label numbers - and sometimes inept titles, like as "Manitas de Plata aux Saintes-Maries de la Mer" (the French Philips version of CS 965) - which is 40 kilometers away from Arles where he was recorded. Anyway, a 4-minute Saeta concludes Juerga!, which I suppose is the one mentioned by Silver. Those four LPs were all ressiued to CD, long long time ago, in the early days of the CD era  (no barcode),  on the Connoisseur Society label.

Although he'd seem to have all the necessary credentials - being a Gypsy, and born in a trailer, in the city of Sète in southern France - except being born on the right side of the French-Spanish border, Flamenco purists contend that Manitas de Plata doesn't play "authentic" Flamenco, only a bastardization of it, among other reasons because he doesn't have the characteristic "beat" of Flamenco. This may be true, I'm not a specialist, but even if so, and so what? Picasso, Dali thought it good enough for them. Again I am not a specialist or even a connoisseur of Flamenco, but I doubt that it is a set of closed and straight-jacketing rules established in some Tables of the Law. Rather, it is a living and open tradition, enriched by each successive generation and each individual artist. What I've heard of later-day Paco de Lucia, a recognized grand master of Flamenco playing, seemed to me to go into Flamenco-jazz-rock fusion way beyond anything heard here. Maybe it's not "authentic" Flamenco and maybe it's not Flamenco at all, but, whatever its name, it is still fabulous music and music-making - and although the focus is on the guitarist, don't neglect the singers, Manitas' cousin the great José Reyes and his son Manero Baliardo. Flamenco, so far as I can tell, is an art of raucous singing as much as of wild guitar playing, and this may not be genuine Flamenco, but it sure is raucous and wild.

Outstanding liner notes on my European issue, with a general survey of Flamenco, its roots and development, and short presentations of each piece, with artists' bios. TT 50:21. By the way, Manitas de Plata is still alive, going on 93, having survived both his cousin and his son, and he's recently published a call for help in the French press, having recently suffered a heart-attack and claiming to be ill and broke, having earned much in his life and given even more in typical Gypsy fashion, and claiming not to know what he's done with all those paintings that Picasso and Dali gave him, if he lost them or if they were stolen, because he "never considered Art as a commercial value". It's always startling to meet the real life behind the legends. France has Brigitte Bardot, once the contender with Marylin Monroe for the title of sexiest woman in the world, now going on 80. Imagine Marylin today, she'd be going on 86. And James Dean at 83? Icons are better off dying at a young age, that's what makes them icons. I'll help Manitas, in gratitude for this great recital.


title: An exquisite recital of Spanish guitar and a generous offering by Vanguard Europe

text:
This here, Vanguard 08 9194 72 is the generous compilation, made by Vanguard Europe, of almost three CDs issued on this side of the Atlantic by Vanguard US/Omega Records, the company of Vanguard's founder Seymour Solomon, which held the distribution rights of the Vanguard catalog for the North-American market in the 1990s: OVC 5006 [[ASIN:B0000023AO Four Centuries of Spanish Guitar]], OVC 5004 [[ASIN:B0000023AM Masterpieces of the Spanish Guitar]], and OVC 8069 [[ASIN:B0000023A0 Virtuoso Guitar]], with only the Guitar Concerto of the obscure Kohaut from the latter disc left out, and fort a TT of nearly 2 hours 25.

The CDs scanty product info doesn't give the recording dates, but from the Schwann catalogs in my possession and various other online sources I could establish that "Masterpieces" was  released in April 1963 on Vanguard VRS-1084, "Four Centuries" in January 1966 on Vanguard VRS-1135 (mono)/VSD-71135 (stereo) under the title "Four Centuries of Music for the Classic Spanish Guitar", and the concertos on Vanguard VRS 1152 /VSD 71152 also in 1966, an LP titled "The virtuoso guitar (Vol.2)". Entries on Worldcat have provided the recordings dates of the two latter: Apr. 1965 in Judson Hall, New York and June 1965 in the Grossesaal, Musikverein, Vienna. And if you wonder, as I did, what might have been Vanguard's "The virtuoso guitar (vol. 1)", it was on Vanguard Stereolab / The Bach Guild BGS 5043 with guitarist Karl Scheit and The Wiener Solisten under Wilfried Böttcher, with Concertos of Vivaldi, Torelli and Carulli and two Galliards of Dowland, recorded (thanks again Worldcat) on January 12, 13, 18, and June 23, 1961 at the Baumgartner Kasino, Vienna. It too has been reissued to CD, but strangely, not under the label Vanguard, but directly on Seymour Solomon's Omega label, OCD 1020, [[ASIN:B0000023BY Virtuoso Guitar 2]], now, ironically, adorned with the suffix "vol. 2".

Back to this Alirio Diaz set, here's the track listing (I've complemented the CD's scanty information with the more detailed data provided by the website Allmusic - gratitude to them):

CD 1
(Four Centuries)

1. Alfonso de Mudarra Fantasia No. 5 for vihuela
2. Luys de Narváez Diferencias (7) for guitar on "Guárdame las vacas"
3. Llobot Cancion popular Catalan (says my CD, Allmusic credits "Anonymous La Filla del marxant". Llobot is the arranger)
4. Gaspar Sanz Folías, for guitar (from Instrucción de música sobre la guitarra española, Book 2)
5. Domenico Scarlatti Sonata in G minor
6. Domenico Scarlatti Sonata in G major
7. Domenico Scarlatti Sonata in E minor
8. Fernando Sor Etude for guitar in B minor (Segovia Edition No. 5), Op. 35/22
9. Fernando Sor Etude for guitar in A major (Segovia Edition No. 12), Op. 6/6
10. Francisco Tárrega Danza Mora for guitar
11. Federico Moreno Torroba Nocturno for guitar in A minor
12. Regino Sainz de la Maza Zapateado for guitar
13. Enriqué Granados Spanish Dance No. 5 from 12 Spanish Dances for piano Op. 37
14. Heitor Villa-Lobos Estudio, for guitar No. 11 in E minor, A. 235/11
15. Eduardo Sainz de la Maza Bolero
16. Manuel de Falla Farruca from The Tri-Cornered Hat
Three Venezuelan traditional tunes:
17. Estrella del mar
18. Cántico
19. Quirpa Guatireña
20. Joaquín Rodrigo En los trigales, for guitar (Por los campos de España No. 1)
21. Isaac Albéniz Asturias, Leyenda, No. 5 from Suite española No. 1, for piano, Op. 47

(Masterpieces)
22. Albeniz (transcr. Lozano) Torre Bermeja from 12 Piezas caracteristicas for piano Op. 92
23. Albeniz/Segovia Granada from Suite española for piano Op. 47
24. Albeniz/Azpiazuk Sevilla from Suite española for piano Op. 47
25. Albeniz/Segovia Zambra granadina from 12 Piezas caracteristicas for piano Op. 92

TT 70:55

CD 2
1. Granados La maja de Goya from Tonadillas al estilo antiguo, 10 songs for voice and piano
2. Falla Homenajes for guitar, pour le tombeau de Claude Debussy
3. Joaquin Malats/Segovia Serenata española for piano in F major
4. Segovia Remembranza for guitar
5. Turina Fandanguillo Op. 36 for guitar
6. Federico Moreno Torroba Sonatina for guitar in A major
Eduardo Sainz de la Maza 4 Spanish Pieces for guitar
7. Campanas del Alba
8. El Vita
9. Habanera
10. Boceto Andaluz

(Virtuoso Guitar)
11-13 Vivaldi Guitar Concerto in A Major (after the Trio Sonata in C for lute, violin, continuo RV 82)
14-16 Vivaldi Guitar Concerto in C major (originally concerto for mandolin, strings & continuo R. 425)
17-19 Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco Guitar Concerto No. 1  in D major op. 99

TT 73:44

As with about all the Vanguard CD reissues that I've heard, the sonics are great, clear, present, vivid, natural. I don't think Vanguard enjoys the same audiophile aura as contemporary labels from the LP era like Everest or Mercury, but on the basis of what I hear on those CD reissues, they should have, and should still. There is  a difference of sonic perspective between "Four Centuries" and "Masterpieces" and tracks 21 and 22, which points to the different recording dates and circumstances: the latter was, apparently, recorded in mono, which for 1963 seems pretty amazing, but then a guitar doesn't necessarily need stereo spread. All I can say is that my CD transfer doesn't not sound at all mono. Yes, there's an extra environing fullness to the sound of "Four Centuries", but I wouldn't even say that it is significantly "better" than the sound of "Masterpieces", the ear adjusts in a second. If "Masterpieces" is in mono, who needs stereo, and who needs digital.

Vanguard US later CD-reissued the two solo recitals on their more uppity series, "Ultra Analog 20 bit digital", SVC 48 [[ASIN:B0000023BG Masterpieces of the Spanish Guitar]] and SVC 49 [[ASIN:B0000023BH Four Centuries of Spanish Guitar]]. I don't know if they were remastered and sound significantly better. As it is on this twofer, frankly, I wish for nothing more.

And now that these petty details are sorted out, comes the essential consideration: the music and music-making. They are lovely. The dual program of solo pieces is well-chosen, with compositions that are essentially gentle and non-aggressive, but with all the color, atmosphere and wistfulness of Spanish music - and Falla's brooding Homenajes, written to the memory of Debussy, is even more than that. I'm not a great connoisseur of guitar music and guitar technique, so my judgment is worth what it is worth: I find that Venezuelan Alirio Diaz plays exquisitely, and I particularly appreciate that I hear only very little of that "metallic scratching on the strings" when the guitarist's fingers "wipe" from one note to the other, which many don't seem to care about, but which I find particularly obtrusive (as much as the sound of Claudio Arrau's fingernails hitting on the piano keys), and not part of the music written by the composer.

The Vivaldi Concertos show more their age, stylistically. The transcription of the Trio-Sonata sounds a bit thick, stately, proper and polite - Vivaldi from the 1960s - and the guitar is certainly no "authentic" substitute for the lute. But the C-major, with its explosive orchestral pizzicati in the first movement, still sounds great and highly pleasurable, independent of any consideration of style and "authenticity": the Vivaldi we love. The Concerto of Castelnuovo-Tedesco is pleasurable and inconsequential, fluffy, colorful, pretty and undemanding, veering between the insouciant music of "Les Six" and the sunny lyricism of Rodrigo, and with a vigorous and boisterous Finale, sounding very much like a possible soundtrack for "Zorro". But anyway, the three concertos are pure bonus. The two solo programs alone warrant the purchase of this set, if you can find it at an affordable price.


title: the versatility of Alfred Deller

text:
One thing that amazes me with Alfred Deller - other, of course, than the beauty, power, firmness of the voice and the consummate art of English diction - is the sheer versatility of his artistic choices. Of course Deller is most associated with the English 16th-to-early-18th Century, the lute songs and other vocal works of Dowland-and-contemporaries-to-Purcell, and extend that to Handel. But Deller also recorded the music of Gabrieli, Gesualdo and Monterverdi and other Italian songs, Bach of course, he also recorded Couperin and Lully and De Lalande - and down to Britten, who wrote for him the part of Oberon in The Midsummer Night's Dream.

But he also went the other way chronologically, and this is a case in point: "Music of Medieval France 1200-1400", originally published on Vanguard's subsidiary label The Bach Guild, BG 656 (mono), BGS 70 656 (stereo). It was released, according to the great Deller discography of the late Pierre-F. Roberge hosted on Medieval dot org, in 1964, but the first four tracks - the "Sacred Music" part - had been recorded in 1961, and involved an entirely different cast of singers and accompanists (see below). For some reason, the LP was CD-reissued only in Europe (in the 1990s the distribution rights there were held by a Dutch "Arcade" company), not in the US, although Vanguard originated there and the distribution rights were detained by Vanguard's very founder, Seymour Solomon, through his company Omega Records, and I believe the digital remasterings were supervised by him. But this is not the only case I encounter of Vanguard recordings CD-reissued in Europe only and not in the US (and I've seen the opposite as well). A number of other Deller recordings are concerned - which, to an extent, I can understand, maybe Deller was more popular in France, the UK and Germany and it was thought there was more of a market there. But the most puzzling case is Leroy J. Robertson's Oratorio from the Book of the Mormon conducted by Maurice Abravanel and the Utah Choruses and Orchestra, whose public you'd think would be limited to the vicinity of Salt Lake City, but which had no less than two different CD issues in Europe, and none in the US.

There's also a riddle to this Vanguard Europe's release of Deller's Medieval France. I have the CD, 08 5058 71, and it has only the short program from the LP, totaling 45:06. But Roberge lists the same disc as including De Lalande's De Profundis, a 1962 recording of Deller and his consort with the Chamber Orchestra of the Vienna State Opera, first published on LP on The Bach Guild BG-640 / BGS-5052, and this one duly CD-reissued in the US by Solomon's Omega Records on OVC 8108, paired with Deller's recording of Blow's Ode on the Death of Mr Purcell, [[ASIN:B0000023G8 De Profundis / Ode on Death of Henry Purcell]]. On Roberge's listing the Medieval program is also shorn of its first four tracks, the Sacred Music part (circa 19 minutes of music), adding up to a TT of 60:18 minutes (the Lalande runs, according to Roberge, almost 35).

I first thought of an error of Roberge, until I saw the cover photo of the present entry: sure enough, De Lalande is featured. Not on my copy! (see upload). I've also found other websites confirming Roberge's listing, with the added De Lalande and the four missing Medieval tracks (which makes it particularly absurd to have kept the subtitle "Sacred & Secular", since the Sacred is gone - maybe they wanted to say something about our present times). So, apparently, Arcade/Vanguard Europe published, under the same label number and, I suppose, barcode, two different programs. Very bizarre.

Well, I much prefer my shorter but way more coherent offering, and I can always buy the US reissue of the De Lalande paired with Blow's Ode. Here's the complete track listing and list of performers (complementing the CD's info with the one provided by Roberge):

Sacred Music
1. Anon. (now attr. to Philippe le Chancelier), France, ca 1200 : Conductus: "Die Christi veritas"
2. Perotin: Allelujah Nativitas for the Feast of the Birth of Mary
3. Anon., France, ca 1200: Conductus: "Pater noster commiserans"
4. Anon., France, ca 1200: Alleluja Christus resurgens for the fourth Sunday after Easter (with clausula "Mors")

Performers:
The Deller Consort: Alfred Deller (counter-tenor), Wilfred Brown (tenor), Gerald English (tenor), Maurice Bevan (baritone),
Renaissance Chamber Ensemble (aka: Members of the Collegium Aureum): Helmut Hucke (soprano bombardon): [1]-[4], Albrecht Renz (cornett): [3]-[4], Hans-Martin Linde (recorder): [3]-[4], Ilse Brix-Meinert (fiddle): [1]-[2], Johannes Koch (regal): [1]-[4], Rudolf Ewerhart (regal): [1]-[2]
Recorded at the Stiftskirche, Fröndenberg, Germany, 1961

Secular Music
5. Anon., ca 1280: Hoquetus: In seculum
6. Anon., ca 1280: Amor potest conqueri
7. Anon., ca 1300: In seculum d'Amiens longum
8. Anon., 13th c.: El mois de mai
9. Anon., 14th c.: La Manfredina
10: Jehan Vaillant: Par maintes foys
11. Solage: Pluseurs gens voy
12. Matheus de Perusio: Ne me chant
13. Guillaume de Machaut: S'il estoit
14 Guillaume de Machaut: Comment qu'a moy
15. Matheus de Perusio: Andray soulet
16: Anon. (says the CD, Roberge credits here Matheus de Perusio): Or sus vous dormez trop
17. Solage: Helas je voy
18. Grimace: Alarme, Alarme

Performers:
The Deller Consort
Alfred Deller (counter-tenor): [8], [11], [13]-[14], [18], Mary Thomas (soprano): [6], [10], [16], Robert Tear (tenor): [8], [13], [18]
 Concentus Musicus, Wien: Alice Harnoncourt (pardessus de viole): [5]-[11], [13]-[18], Nikolaus Harnoncourt (tenorfiedel): [5]-[8], [10]-[11], [13], [15]-[18], Hermann Hobart (bassfiedel): [7]-[8], [11], [18], Jürg Schaeftlein (recorder): [5]-[7], [9]-[18], Kurt Theiner (portable organ): [5]-[7], [10]-[11], [13], [15]-[18], Hans Pöttler (trombone): [10]-[13], [16]-[18], Leopold Stasny (recorder, tambourine, triangle, drum): [5]-[18], Ernst Knava (tambourine, triangle, drum): [5]-[18]
Nikolaus Harnoncourt, dir.
Date and place of recording unknown, 1964 or before

I've found the program immensely entertaining. I'm no connoisseur of Medieval music, and while I suppose, given the accompanying ensembles, that this was early 1960s cutting-edge musicology, I don't know if it is still "musicologically correct" today, e.g. if it fits the notions that present-day musicology has of how Medieval music was played. But, whether or not this is how music actually sounded in the 13th and 14th centuries (and I guess we won't know for sure until we invent the time machine), it certainly fits our clichés of how Medieval Music sounds. In other words, it sounds Medieval enough to me. The music and interpretation aren't "polished", but they have unique gumption. The vocal melismatas are sometimes wild and show great enthusiasm. There's a reedy, nasal and "kazoo-ish" tone to the accompanying instruments that is immensely fun (Roberge credits regals, fiddle and soprano bombardon in track 1, but this can't be: it is sung a cappella). No wonder Peter Maxwell Davies was fascinated with that kind of music - it doesn't sound so far removed form the music that Peter Maxwell Davies... derived from it, to the point that it's hard to say if Maxwell Davies' music sounds like Medieval Music or if Medieval Music sounds like the music of PMD. Mary Thomas in track 6 sings with an affecting child's voice. While Deller's Medieval French diction isn't always comprehensible, Mary Thomas' in the marvelous song of Vaillant, track 10, is excellent. The song is a witty tour de force, a play on onomatopoeia, deciphering the language of the birds, and track 16, the anonymous "Or sus vous dormez trop", again sung by Mary Thomas, follows the same principle. For French speakers the recital offers an extra fascination: Medieval French is so far removed from modern French that it is well-nigh incomprehensible, and the English translation is most welcome.

Fans of Opera are accustomed to hearing ensemble singing, which is really "organized cacophony", since two or more singers sing simultaneously, in a manner that, if entertained at a social gathering, would make any conversation incomprehensible. But Track 8, the anonymous El mois de Mai, is an extraordinary tour de force, a song in counterpoint, here sung by Deller and Tear, on texts that not only have very scanty relation, or only ironically and by inuendo (a lover pledging eternal love, and a preach against bigamists), but they are even sung in two different languages, French and Latin. Track 13, Machaut's S'il estoit, develops the same principle, although both texts are here sung in French and do broach upon the same subject (the value for a lover of waiting: "if every lover enjoyed his love at once, its worth would shrink"). But the two monologues that run parallel and never meet push the principle of textual counterpoint to an extreme that I have rarely if ever met in music of the next centuries.

The first four tracks, those of Sacred Music recorded in 1961, sound as if recorded from a distance in a very resonant but empty church - and in fact, as far as concerns the church, they were. It brings a special atmosphere, very "medieval" indeed, but it deprives the music of some clarity. The sonics for the rest of the program are, as with all the other Vanguard CD-transfers that I've heard, simply stupendous, with a presence, vividness, naturalness, and quasi-absence of tape-hiss (but they are so clear that you can hear street rumble at a distance) that entirely belie their age. Texts and translations are provided in the booklet.

The one frustration that remains is the shortness of the program, and the awareness that Vanguard COULD have done things right, by pairing this program of Medieval music NOT with music of De Lalande composed four centuries and some later, which is akin to grafting a lion's head to a dolphin's body, but with the contents of another Vanguard LP published at the same time, BG-622/BGS-5045, which was truly the companion of this one: it had Machaut's Notre Dame Mass and a Graduale of Perotin recorded at the very same session as the Sacred Music tracks, and another Perotin Graduale recorded earlier. That program was reissued by both US Vanguard/Omega (two different editions, SVC 36 [[ASIN:B000009L9K Musique De Notre Dame]] and OVC 8107 [[ASIN:B0000023G7 Machaut: Notre Dame Mass, Master Perotin: Gradales (Vanguard)]]), and by Deutsche Harmonia Mundi ([[ASIN:B000001TWQ Guillaume de Machaut: Messe Nostre Dame]], [[ASIN:B00002587H Machaut: Messe Nostre Dame]] or [[ASIN:B0007XT4O8 Machaut:  Messe a Notre Dame]]) both complemented with the four tracks of Sacred Music also on my copy of this one.

Not that this consideration needs to deter anybody. Short timing and all, this is a very enjoyable disc.