Naïve reissues reviewed in BBC Music Magazine Nov 09

Andrew McGregor’s Reissues

Baroque Voices

Though Carlo Gesualdo is the headlined composer on O dolorosa gioia (OP 30486) the first madrigals aren’t by him; he’s been placed among his fellow travellers, as Rinaldo Alessandrini and Conerto Italiano offer us a new context for Gesualdo’s music. Yet his tortured chromaticism still leaps out at us with stark immediacy in such fluent performances. The notes point out that despite our modern reactions to Gesualdo’s sound, he wasn’t nearly as experimental as Monteverdi, already stretching his musical muscles in his Second Book of Madrigals (OP 30487). Alessandrini and his singers focus on the extraordinary expressive potential of the text, in readings of unusual subtlety and power. In one of his early contributions to what we now know as the Naïve Vivaldi Edition, Alessandrini chose pieces intended for the liturgical use (OP 30488); the Concerto funebre RV 579 is beautifully coloured with chalumeau and viola d’amore, matched by Sara Mingardo’s rich contralto in Vivaldi’s Stabat mater.
In a disc of three of Charpentier’s Historia sacra (E 8927), countertenor Gérard Lesne shows tremendous versatility in these vivid miniature oratorios. As the Witch of Endor in The Death of Saul and Jonathan, Lesne combines head and chest voice with nasal organ reeds to eerie effect, while Abraham’s aborted sacrifice of Isaac is dramatically coloured by the continuo of Il Seminario Musicale. Amour et Mascarade (AM 187) opens with a wild blast of recorder; the Furies from an English masque introducing Purcell among his Italian contemporaries – Frescobaldi and Mancini – and the Amaryllis Ensemble’s star is a young Patricia Petibon, duetting with tenor Jean-François Novelli in an imaginative account of Sound of the Trumpet.
Vespers at the Court of Charles VI in Vienna (AM 188) offers hitherto unrecorded works from the Austrian imperial chapel in the early 18th century, and psalm settings by the likes of Fux, Gletle and Reinhardt. A ‘Beatus vir’ by Giovanni Sances is a highlight, thanks to the continuo skills of Christina Pluhar and her French ensemble L’Arpeggiata. We’re perhaps on more familiar ground with three Bach Cantatas (E 8926) showcasing Christophe Coin’s piccolo cello, with the Limoges Baroque Ensemble, and alto Andreas Scholl in fine form in BWV 115, interesting for Bach’s use of cellos and gamba, and an historic Silbermann organ that impacts the performance. And then there’s Handel’s Opera seria (E 8928): an award-winning recital of operatic arias from Sandrine Piau, Les Talens Lyriques and Christophe Rousset – one of the most satisfying Handel recitals of recent years.