Three Early 17th Century Recordings

Program: #23-29   Air Date: Jul 17, 2023

I. Pulchra es (Il Ricercar Continuo Ensemble). Arcana CD A118. 

From MusicWeb International:  The changes in the musical aesthetic which took place in the early decades of the 17th century were fundamental and influenced the writing of instrumental and vocal music. The repertoire is popular in today's early music scene, and the number of recordings is large. The present disc is just one of many that have been released in recent years. The composers who figure in the programme regularly appear in recordings and concert programmes of 17th-century Italian music. The difference with most discs is that here two instruments take central stage that are not so often featured in this kind of repertoire: the recorder and the dulcian.

The recorder was very common in the 16th century. If we have to believe David Lasocki in the article on the recorder in New Grove, the recorder did not play a prominent role during the 17th century in Italy. He mentions only a few examples of composers who specifically required a recorder in instrumental works, such as sonatas and canzonas. The reason could well be that music for solo instruments became increasingly virtuosic, and that the recorder was not quite up to the task. That does not mean that the recorder cannot be used. In the booklet, the composer Massimiliano Neri is quoted, who in the foreword to his Opus 2 sonatas from 1651 stated: "My friend the reader, please be advised that, while in the above score the instruments are indicated for each sonata, it is nevertheless up to whoever so chooses to change them in proportion according to his own taste, and in relation to convenience".

The dulcian is an early form of what was to become the bassoon. Its origin is not quite clear, but in the 16th century it was used for the enforcement of the lower end of ensembles of wind instruments. After 1600, in some sonatas a bass instrument was given parts that were hardly less virtuosic than parts for, for instance, the cornett or the violin. Often, it was left to the performer to choose the instrument. Dario Castello was one of the composers who specifically required the dulcian - or fagotto - in his two collections of sonatas which he published under the title of Sonate concertate.

The titles of most pieces in the programme don't specifically indicate which instruments should be used. The disc opens with a sonata by Castello, which does specify the required instruments: sopran e trombon overo violeta. The word sopran refers to any treble instrument, and that includes the recorder. The other part is intended for a low instrument. The trombon (or sackbut) was a very common instrument at the time, and a fixed part of ensembles of cornetts and sackbuts. It was increasingly given virtuosic solo parts, for instance by Castello in his two collections of Sonate concertate (1621 and 1629). Here the performers have chosen the second option: the word violeta could refer to several string instruments, including the cello. Giuseppe Colombi uses the general word basso, which justifies several options. As he was a violinist, a string bass seems to be the most obvious one (that is the choice of the performers), but a dulcian seems legitimate as well. Rognoni Teaggio mentions simply soprano overo tenore, which gives the performers a large amount of freedom. Giulia Genini could have chosen the recorder, but opted for the tenor dulcian instead.

The fact that composers mostly left it to the performers to choose the instruments does not mean that every line-up is logical or leads to a satisfying performance. Bartolomeo de Selma y Salaverde, for instance, was a bassoon player himself, and from that angle the choice of a cello for the performance of his diminutions of Palestrina's madrigal Vestiva i colli is not the most obvious. His Canzon a 2 bassi may well be intended for two bassoons; here the second part is played on the cello. Marco Uccellini was a violinist; he was the first composer to publish a collection of sonatas exclusively intended for the violin. His music is clearly violinistic in character, and the performance of his Sonata VIIon the alto dulcian is not the most satisfying part of this disc. Even less convincing is the performance of Pandolfi Mealli's Sonata IV on the recorder. It is part of a collection of violin sonatas, and the nature of these sonatas almost exclude any other instrument. Giulia Genini has to go to the upper end of the tessitura to play some notes; it does not sound very nice. I have heard some of these sonatas on the recorder before, and never this option has satisfied me.

I have also some doubts about the use of a cello in this repertoire. Alessandro Palmeri plays an anonymous Italian instrument from the 18th century. However, it is very unlikely that this kind of cello existed for most of the 17th century. It was rather the viola da gamba or the bass violin (often called violone) that was used as string bass. The latter is also mentioned in Vitali's collection of Partite sopra diverse sonate per il violone of around 1680.

There is nothing wrong with the playing of these three artists as such. Genini, Palmeri and Michele Pasotti (archlute and theorbo) deliver fine performances, and the programme offers much variety. Moreover, it does not happen that often that a dulcian can be heard in a solo role. It is just that in some pieces the choice of instruments is not entirely satisfying. This prevents me from unequivocally recommending this disc.

Lastly, a word of caution about the booklet. It lists the instruments as well as the sources from which the pieces are taken. That is nice, but unfortunately the list of sources has been mixed up from (06) onwards.

Johan van Veen

II. Johann Rosemüller: German Sacred Concertos (Johann Rosenmüller Ensemble/Arno Paduch). Christophorus CD CHE 0221-2.

From MusicWeb International: Many German composers of the 17th century were strongly influenced by the Italian style. One of the most prominent was Johann Rosenmüller. A large part of his career he spent in Italy, but even before that he was writing in a dramatic style which showed his preference for Italian music. 

Rosenmüller matriculated in the theological faculty of Leipzig University in 1640 and very likely became a pupil of Tobias Michael, who was Thomaskantor at the time. Rosenmüller was the most likely successor of Michael, but his career came to an abrupt end when he was arrested for paedophilia. He fled to Italy, where he became trombonist of the San Marco. He also acted as composer of the Ospedale della Pietà from 1678 to 1682. His ties with Germany remained intact: several German musicians studied with him, and he sent some of his compositions to his native country. Towards the end of his life he returned to Germany, where he held the position of Kapellmeister at the court of Wolffenbüttel. 

A book from 1728 tells us about Rosenmüller's old age: "I spoke to this Rosenmüller after he had left Italy and returned to Wolffenbüttel, where he was working as Kapellmeister, and still found him to be a hot-tempered and, because of his age, morose man whom nobody could please and who was forever sorely at odds with his assistants". 

The very fact that he was specifically mentioned in a book from 1728 - more than 40 year after his death - is an indication that his music was still known. That is confirmed by Telemann's autobiography of 1740 who states that Rosenmüller belonged to the composers who had inspired him in his sacred and instrumental music. Rosenmüller's works were widespread in Germany, but most of them were never printed. Because of that it is mostly impossible to put a date on them. Of his sacred music only the two volumes of the Kern-Sprüche were published, before his escape to Italy. 

The two pieces which open and close the programme on this disc are from the first volume, which appeared in 1648. They are examples of the concertante style which was modelled by Heinrich Schütz. These are pieces for voices and instruments, in which rhythmic contrasts are used to discern the various episodes. In Daran ist erschienen die Liebe Gottes Rosenmüller also juxtaposes various voices and voice groups to create a contrast between phrases, like "not that we loved God" versus "but that he loved us". 

The two most Italianate pieces are the dialogues which are reminiscent of the oratorios of, for instance, Carissimi. Vater, ich habe gesündiget is a setting of the parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15), in which the various roles are given to an alto, two tenors and a bass. In most of the piece the voices are supported by the basso continuo alone, but when the father says "Let us feast and be merry", the strings enter in a vivid rhythm, illustrating the joy that greets the son's return. The dialogue ends with a conclusion for the four voices and the instruments: "Likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner who repents". 

Another parable is set in Was stehet ihr hie. This time it is about the labourers in the vineyard (Matthew 20). Rosenmüller has omitted several verses, and in order to point out the gap in time he includes an instrumental interlude. The owner of the vineyard is sung by a bass, the labourers by the other voices. There are two striking examples of text illustration. When the vinedresser says: "Steward, call the labourers and give them their hire, beginning from the last unto the first", the last part is set to a rising figure. The labourers who have come last get the same as those who came first, and the latter complain: "Thou hast made them equal to us, who have borne the burden and heat of the day". This is illustrated by a slow descending figure depicting their hard labour. The piece again ends with the tutti on the words: "So the last shall be first and the first last". 

Entsetze dich Natur is an unusually long work on a text by Rosenmüller's friend Caspar Ziegler. It begins with the words: "Be shaken, Nature, thou must change, for God himself is made a man, the Creator come to earth". It is known that this sacred concerto was first performed on Christmas Day in 1649. It is a strophic piece in which the stanzas are interspersed with ritornellos. 

Ach Herr, strafe mich nicht is a setting of Psalm 6, for soprano and instruments. It contains plenty of text illustration, like pauses after "schwach" (weak) or "erschrocken" ([my bones are] vexed). Words like "seufzen" (sigh) and "Tränen" (tears) get a special treatment in that the first syllables are interrupted by short pauses, as if the singer is breathless with emotion. In these phrases the voice is echoed by the violin. Here again the various contrasting episodes are marked by instrumental passages. 

O Jesu süß, wer dein gedenket is a setting of the first verses from a German version of a hymn by Bernard of Clairvaux. It is scored for tenor, two violins and bc. Although the vocal part contains some ornamentation it is especially the violins which are given elaborate and virtuosic parts. 

Ich weiß, daß mein Erlöser lebt is written on the well-known text from Job: "I know that my Redeemer liveth". It is set for bass with instruments and bc, and contains some eloquent coloratura. At the end the opening words return. The programme is completed with an instrumental sonata which is not much different from the vocal pieces. Two allegros embrace an adagio which has the character of a recitative. 

The performances are generally pretty good, in particular the larger-scale pieces. Here the splendour of Rosenmüller's compositions comes off really well. But the performances of the dialogues and the solo pieces show some flaws. The booklet doesn't tell who is singing which piece, but I am pretty sure that Ach Herr, strafe mich nicht is sung by Irena Troupova. She gives an expressive performance, but I regret the slight tremolo in her voice. Her German pronunciation is also not perfect. Most disappointing is the bass Martin Backhaus, whose voice lacks presence, and almost sounds a bit amateurish. In particular some passages in Was stehet ihr hie are unsatisfying. In Vater, ich habe gesündiget his part seems too high for his voice. Ich weiß, daß mein Erlöser lebt is sung well, though. The alto and the two tenors are really good: they have beautiful voices and their singing is crisp and clear. The tenor who sings O Jesu süß delivers a really fine performance. The instrumentalists are without exception excellent. 

The booklet is disappointing. The programme notes are rather short, and the German lyrics (which are also translated into English) contain a number of errors. This must be the oldest recording ever made, by the way: the booklet gives November of the year 1000 as the recording date ... 

Johan van Veen

III. Music to Hear: Alfonso Ferrabosco Music for lyra viol from 1609 (Richard Boothby with Asako Morikawa). Signum CD SIGCD757.

From MusicWeb International:  Lovers of the viol – and especially of English music for the instrument – already have many reasons to be grateful to Richard Boothby, whether they know his work from concerts and/or recordings. As a founder member of the Purcell Quartet, he was an important presence on recordings such as (to cite just a couple of examples) Corelli: La Folia & other works (Hyperion CDH 55240) and Buxtehude: Seven Trio Sonatas, Op. 2 (Chandos CHAN 0784); with Fretwork, outstanding recordings include John Jenkins: Complete Four-Part Consort Music (Signum Classics SIGCD 528) and William Lawes: For Ye Violls (Virgin Classics VC 91187-2).

He has also made a number of excellent recordings of music for solo viol, including Telemann: Solo Fantasias (Signum Classics SIGCD 544) and William Lawes: Complete Music for Solo Lyra Viol (Harmonia Mundi HM 907625).

Now we have a very impressive disc on which Boothby performs (in partnership with Asako Morikawa in two pieces) 23 of the 101 pieces contained in Alfonso Ferrabosco’s 1609 publication Lessons for 1, 2 & 3e Viols. Alfonso Ferrabosco II (as he is sometimes referred to), composer of these ‘Lessons’, was the illegitimate son of a musician from Bologna, also called Alfonso Ferrabosco (1543-1588) who arrived in England early in the 1560s, after working in Rome. He based himself in London, working for Queen Elizabeth until 1578, though making return visits to Italy in 1564 and again c. 1568-1571. His illegitimate son (whose mother is thought to have been a woman called Susanna Symons, who became the wife of Alfonso senior in May 1578), was left behind in London when his parents moved to Italy in 1578; he was placed in the care of Gommar van Oosterwijk, another musician at the court of Elizabeth.

Following van Oosterwijk’s death in 1592, Alfonso Junior was granted an annuity as “musitian of the violles”. He remained a court musician when James VI of Scotland succeeded Elizabeth; James granted him a pension and an annuity in 1605 and he was given the titles of Composer of Music in Ordinary and Composer of Music to the King. He was also made an “extraordinary groom of the privy chamber” – one of his duties being to instruct Prince Henry in “the art of music”. In the next few years Ferrabosco worked alongside Ben Jonson and Inigo Jones in the preparation of several court masques. He wrote the music for a masques, including The Masque of Blackness (1605), Hymenaei (1606), Lord Haddington’s Masque (1608), The Masque of Beauty (1608) and The Masque of Queenes (1609). 1609 saw the publication of both the book of Lessons from which the music on this disc is taken and a book of Ayres, which contains Ferrabosco’s settings of lyrics from Jonson’s masques, and of the song ‘Come, Celia’ from Jonson’s play Volpone (acted 1606), as well as poems by Thomas Campion (“Young and simple though I am”) and John Donne (‘The Expiration’: “So, so, breake off this last lamenting kisse”; this seems to have been the very first occasion on which a poem by Donne was printed. Ben Jonson wrote prefatory poems for both the Lessons and the Ayres. In the first he addresses the composer as “my loved Alphonso”. Campion also wrote a poem to go before the Ayres, in which he calls Ferrabosco “Musicks maister”.

Jonson had earlier praised Ferrabosco fulsomely in the first publication (in 1606) of Hymenaei, writing “I do for honor’s sake and the pledge of our friendship name Master Alfonso Ferrabosco, a man … mastering all the spirits of music; to whose judicial care and as absolute performance were committed all those difficulties of song and otherwise. Wherein what his merit made to the soul of our invention would ask to be expressed in tunes no less ravishing than his”. The last adjective (“ravishing”) in this passage from Jonson is one that I would readily apply to Ferrabosco’s setting of Donne’s ‘The Expiration’, mentioned above. Perhaps Nicholas Anderson had this particular air in mind when he wrote (Baroque Music, London, 1994, p.120) that the Ayres show Ferrabosco to be “an expressive melodist”. Richard Boothby certainly discovers that same quality in some of the Lessons.

In 1617 Ferrabosco obtained an additional post and an increase in salary (though he seems to have been constantly in debt), when he was appointed head of a group of 17 musicians (including Thomas Lupo and Orlando Gibbons) attached to the household of Prince Charles. Around this time, he seems to have written most of his 50 or so works for viol consort – including fantasias, in nomines and pavans in 4–6 parts. Many of these are works of considerable complexity and beauty.

Ferrabosco’s skill as a violist, especially as a player of the lyra-viol, was widely recognised. Leaving aside the praises of English poets such as Jonson and Campion (who would both have known Ferrabosco in person) and the fact that his music for viols survives in a substantial number of English manuscripts, we have the testimony of the French gambist and diplomat André Maugars. He was at the court of Charles I (in the entourage of Henrietta Maria) between 1625 and 1627. This, presumably, was when he heard Alfonso Ferrabosco play. If so, his favourable impression certainly endured. When in Italy late in the 1630s, he wrote a ‘report’ on Italian music, Response faite à un curieux sur le sentiment de la musique en Italie [ecrit à Rome le 1er Octobre 1639] (first published in 1672). In it Maugars declares that although the viol was widely played in Italy, he did not hear there a violist who “could be compared with the great ‘Farabosco d’Angleterre’.”

The works in Ferrabosco’s Lessons were written for the lyra-viol, a smaller form of the bass viol. Music for the lyra-viol typically makes more use of chords than that for viol consorts. The lyra-viol had six strings which lay close to the fingerboard and a flatter bridge than other viols. Such differences made it easier to play double- and triple-stops and arpeggiated chords, thus allowing (if the player was sufficiently gifted) the production of contrapuntal textures akin to those possible on the lute. The compositions in Ferrabosco’s Lessons are presented in French lute tablature, rather than conventional musical notation. On the question of tuning, the best discussion I know can be found in an article by Frank Traficante, ‘“All Ways Have Been Tried to Do it”’, Acta Musicologica, 42:3-4, 1970, pp. 183-205, & 256.

Reading Donna J. Fournier’s MA Thesis (West Chester University of Pennsylvania, 1968), Alfonso Ferrabosco the Younger (ca. 1575-1628) and His Unpublished Works for Lyra Viols, I came across (on page 21) some sentences by Willi Appel which I remember copying into a notebook (long lost), around 1970, and which I am happy to quote here: “The lyra viol, probably developed as a hybrid between the lira da gamba and the bass viol; it borrowed its notation (tablature) from the lute, its technique and form from the viol, and its tessitura from the tenor viol. Like its probable inventor, Alfonso Ferrabosco, it seems to have been conceived in England of Italian parentage”. (Though I am not sure quite what Appel means when he calls Ferrabosco its “probable inventor”, his assertion of the lyra-viol’s hybridity is so well expressed that I could not resist quotation of it).

For a classicist like Jonson, the fact that Ferrabosco played the lyra viol would have been significant. The very name conjured up associations with the lyre of the Ancient Greeks – the lyre of Apollo, of Orpheus and Orion and the lyre of the epic poets. Jonson’s poems frequently invoke the classical ‘lyre’ as a symbol of poetic activity. The origin of the word ‘lyric’ to mean a kind of short poem was central to Jonson’s ideas about poetry. He would also have known – perhaps via Ferrabosco? – that the ‘new’ genre of opera was grounded in the belief that Greek tragedy was sung to the accompaniment of a lyre. Some of these ‘connections’ we now know to be spurious, but that did not stop them being powerful influences on poets such as Jonson or his friend, and translator of Homer, George Chapman.

Boothby’s interpretation of this selection from Ferrabosco’s Lessons is uniformly sensitive and perceptive and, at many points, wonderfully expressive. This is true of the two brief ‘Preludes’ played on this disc, which have the exploratory, quasi- improvisational quality one associates with, for example, some of the keyboard toccatas or fantasias of Frescobaldi. This is music in which one senses, intimately and almost uncannily, the very thought processes of the composer. Elsewhere, there is a lighter kind of expressiveness, as in the several Almaines on this disc. In his book Musick’s Monument (London 1676), Thomas Mace observes (p.129) that the Almaine is “very Ayrey, and Lively”. The words might almost have been intended as an evocation of Ferrabosco’s Almaines, as interpreted by Boothby – never hurried or heavy, but alive with emotional suggestions.

It is one of Boothby’s strengths that, without exaggerations, he makes clear the distinctions between the kinds of dances Ferrabosco includes in his Lessons. His playing of the several corantos included in his programme is an utter delight. Boothby articulates, to something like perfection, the similarities and differences, where Ferrabosco’s Almaines and Corantos are concerned. Both are dances in duple time, so they naturally have something in common, but the corantos have a greater simplicity of texture, and are decidedly less grave or solemn. None of the above is intended to suggest that these pieces for unaccompanied lyra-viol were ever intended to be danced to; rather they were surely intended as ‘idealisations’ of dance music, intended for attentive listening. In the Lessons, the dance movements are arranged in pairs – see the contents list at the close of this review; the multi-movement suite of ‘dances’ still lay in the future.

I really cannot praise Richard Boothby’s performances too highly. He captures the structural clarity of Ferrabosco’s music alongside its poetry, and gives voice to its melancholy as well as its moments of joy. These may be ‘Lessons’, but Boothby shows that there is much more than the merely didactic in this music.

Jonson and Ferrabosco seem genuinely to have been friends. Certainly, there is no evidence that the kind of jealous dispute which arose between Jonson and Inigo Jones ever disrupted the relationship between Jonson and Ferrabosco. I like to imagine that Jonson (a poet I much admire) might have had ‘private’ recitals of Ferrabosco’s music for the lyra-viol. In the prefatory poem Jonson wrote for Ferrabosco’s book Ayres, there are lines in which he rehearses some of the Renaissance’s High Commonplaces about music, but the closing praise carries (it seems to me) genuine personal conviction and application:

To urge, my loved Alphonso, that bold fame
Of building towns, and making wild beasts tame,
Which music had; or speak her known effects,
That she removeth cares, sadness ejects,
Declineth anger, persuades clemency,
Doth sweeten mirth, and heighten piety,
And is t’ a body, often, ill inclined.
No less a sovereign cure, than to the mind;
…
To say, indeed, she were the soul of heaven,
That the eight spheres, no less, than planets seven,
Moved by her order, and the ninth more high,
Including all, were thence called harmony:
I, yet, had uttered nothing on thy part,
When these were but the praises of the art.
But when I have said, the proofs of all these be
Shed in thy songs; ’tis true: but short of thee.

Perhaps the notoriously argumentative Jonson had found his anger ‘declined’ (diminished, decreased) by Ferrabosco’s music and his mirth (of which he was also notoriously fond) ‘sweetened’?

Even after the recent decades in which ‘early music’ has found a new appreciation, music for the viol(s) is sometimes still regarded as arcane and obscure. Just how beautiful and subtle such music can be is evidenced perfectly on this disc. Indeed, my only minor dissatisfaction with it is that I would have enjoyed it yet more, could room have been found for a larger selection of the pieces in Ferrabosco’s Lessons. But this, no doubt, is musical greed on my part.

Glyn Pursglove

Composer Info

Dario CASTELLO (1602-1631), Giovanni Antonio BERTOLI (1598-after 1645), Giuseppe COLOMBI (1635-1694), Francesco ROGNONI TAEGGIO (c1585-after 1626), Giovanni Battista FONTANA (1589?-1630?), Andrea FALCONIERI (1585/6-1656), Giovanni Girolamo KAPSPERGER (1580?-1645), Giovanni Battista VITALI (1632-1692), Giovanni Antonio PANDOLFI MEALLI (1624-1687?), Marco UCCELLINI (1603?-1680), Bartolomeo DE SELMA Y SALAVERDE (1595?-after 1638), Johann Rosenmüller, Alfonso Ferrabosco (1543-1588)

CD Info

Arcana CD A118, Christophorus CD CHE 0221-2, Signum CD SIGCD757.