Ballard - Premier livre de luth 1611 - Kolb

Rating: 4/5

Review:
Very enjoyable

This is a very enjoyable disc of Late Renaissance/Early Baroque lute music.

Robert Ballard is a new composer to me. The music is rewarding; it doesn’t have the emotional intensity of Dowland, say, nor the inventiveness of Kapsberger, but it has an elegant charm which makes it well worth listening to. Robert Kalb (also new to me) is plainly a fine lutenist who handles some pretty virtuosic passages with no hint of strain and gives the music a refined grace which suits it very well.

The recorded sound is very good and I can recommend this disc warmly.

Arcadlt - Estote fortes in bello - Josquin Capella/Bruser

Rating: 3/5

Review:
Lovely sound, but...

This recording has good things about it but it has its faults, too.

There is a good selection of Arcadelt’s work, including his Missa Ave regina caelorum and Lamentations. The singers are good, with a nice blend and the lower pitch and very resonant acoustic makes of a very pleasing overall sound. However, there is little in the way of engagement with the text which, combined with the somewhat muddy texture, does get rather samey and in the end, slightly dull.

It’s not a bad recording by any means, but rather more attention to detail rather than just basking in a lovely sound would have improved it considerably. A qualified recommendation only.

de la Rue - Missa Nunca fue pena mayor etc - Ars Aniqua de Paris

Rating: 2/5

Review:
A poor recording

I’m afraid I don’t like this recording at all. I have tried both this and Ars Antiqua de Paris’s recording of de la Rue’s Missa Puer natus est nobis and my response to both has been very similar.

To put it bluntly, the singers aren’t very good, and nor is the direction. There is almost nothing in the way of blend or, more importantly, balance so the impression is of a group of people doing their own thing with little reference to anyone else – which entirely negates much of the point of polyphony. The singers themselves sound tentative to the point of being scared much of the time, intonation is occasionally dodgy, there is some intrusive vibrato...it just sounds pretty grim to me.

I don’t like to be so critical, but I really think this is a poor recording which does no justice to the music. De la Rue was a wonderful composer and there are some excellent recordings of his work; this isn’t one of them. My advice is to try some of the fine recordings by The Clerk’s Group, Henry’s Eight, Amarcord, Gothic Voices and others and to leave this one well alone.

de la Rue - Missa Puer natus est nobis etc. - Ars Antiqua de Paris

Rating: 2/5

Review:
A poor recording

I’m afraid I don’t like this recording at all. Pierre de la Rue was a wonderful composer and there are some excellent recordings of his work; this isn’t one of them.

To put it bluntly, the singers aren’t very good, and nor is the direction. There is almost nothing in the way of blend or, more importantly, balance so the impression is of a group of people doing their own thing with little reference to anyone else – which entirely negates much of the point of polyphony. The singers themselves sound tentative to the point of being scared much of the time, intonation is occasionally dodgy, there is some intrusive vibrato...it just sounds pretty grim to me.

I don’t like to be so critical, but I really think this is a poor recording which does no justice to de la Rue’s music. My advice is to try some of the fine recordings by The Clerk’s Group, Henry’s Eight, Amarcord, Gothic Voices and others and to leave this one well alone.

Bach - The Well-Tempered Consort - Phantasm

Rating: 5/5

Review:
Another beauty from Phantasm

This is yet another terrific disc from Phantasm. They have made transcriptions of some of Bach’s keyboard music (largely drawn from The Well-Tempered Clavier and the Clavier-Übung III, it’s an interesting and very beautiful collection. The music, of course, is simply wonderful, Phantasm’s playing gives it depth and meaning and their overall sound is magnificent, as always – rich, clear and quite thrilling to my ears.

I love this disc. It’s beautifully recorded by Linn and the notes and presentation are excellent. Very warmly recommended.

Josquin - Missa Da pacem etc - The Tallis Scholars/Phillips

Rating: 5/5

Review:
Fabulous

This is another wonderful entry in The Tallis Scholars’ cycle of Josquin’s masses, now nearing completion. The two masses here have had a chequered history of attribution; currently the Missa Mater patris is thought to be by Josquin and the Missa Da pacem by Bauldeweyn. Peter Phillips, in his typically scholarly and readable notes, makes a good case for at least some of Missa Da pacem to be by Josquin and includes it in this cycle on that basis. Whoever wrote it, it forms part of a lovely and very rewarding disc.

I ran out of superlatives for The Tallis Scholars many years ago, but they are all deserved here. Their trademark purity of sound, blend, fluency of line and engagement with the text are all fully in evidence and the effect is, as so often, fabulous. The overall sound is beautiful and the depth and spirituality of the music comes through so that the whole disc is a monumental pleasure. Phillips’s notes give some fascinating technical detail about the music’s structure, too, which in itself is very rewarding.

It is probably enough to say that this is well up to the stellar standard of The Tallis Scholars’ best recordings. Very warmly recommended.

Bach - Cello Suites - Bertrand

Rating: 5/5

Review:
An excellent recording

I am very impressed by this recording. Perhaps to my shame, I had not heard Emmanuelle Bertrand before so I approached this with a little dubiety because there are now so many recordings of the Bach Cello Suites and I wasn’t sure we needed yet another. I was wrong.

Bertrand is plainly a wonderful cellist. Her technique is impeccable, so she makes light of the technical challenges in these wonderful works and makes them sing and dance delightfully. She also plainly “gets” Bach, because his dancing rhythms and his fabulous emotional expressiveness all shine through here. Her tempi are generally on the brisk side but never inappropriately rushed and she uses rubato with restraint, thought and care to phrase and give meaning to the music while never disrupting Bach’s essential pulse. Her approach reminds me slightly of Paul Tortelier (a very good thing) but she’s her own woman who puts Bach first but invests the music with her own sense.

There is real emotional depth here in movements like the Sarabande from the Fifth Suite, joyous beauty in the Prelude to the Third Suite, delightful vigour in the closing Gigues, and so on. Bertrand’s cello sounds fabulous throughout (although the acoustic is slightly over-resonant in places for my taste). The whole thing is a real pleasure which I suspect will take its place among my best-loved recordings of the Cello Suites. Very warmly recommended.