Tage Alter Musik – Almanach 2019

andrewbensonwilson.org 12 Monday 10 June The Monday series of concerts started in the enormous Gothic Minoritenkirche (now part of the history museum) with Ensemble Céladon from France and their programme of Occitan Nights: 12th/13th century Songs of the Troubadours . The most southern re- gion of France (much larger than the current Region of Occitan) saw the flourishing of poet and musician troubadours, singing of courtly love. The well-planned programme moved from dusk to dawn with pieces by Marcabru, Raimon Jordan, Bernart de Ven- tadorn, Raimon de Miravel, ’Cadenet’ and Berenguier de Palazol, all born between about 1110 and 1165. Soprano Clara Coutouly and countertenor Paulin Bündgen were accompanied by recorder, lute, fidel, re- bab and percussion. We have little idea of how this music was performed, and the use of percussion is always a tricky issue. On this occasion, I felt that the percussion moved rather too often into a rather generic ’new- age’ mode. Apart from that quibble, the sound world was attractive and apt, with particularly effective playing fromNolwenn Le Guern on fidel and rebab. This would have made a delightful late-night concert, but its subtile soundworld was also appreci- ated by those had already sat through 11 concerts and had another four to go. The early afternoon concert was back in the heat of the Reichssaal and was given by the French ensemble Le Caravansérail with so- prano Rachel Redmond . Their programme, A Fancy – Fantasy on English Airs & Tunes was a generous acknowledgement of the mu- sical achievements of England, their historic enemies, during the 17th-century. The mid- 17th century Restoration period in England saw a revival of English music and theatre af- ter the Puritan Commonwealth, with a French influence that came from the period of Royal exile in France. Their extremely well-planned and well-presented concert segued groups of pieces by Purcell, Locke, Draghi, Hart, Grabu, and Akeroyde into a coherent whole. Given the history between England and France, it was perhaps appro- priate that they had a Scottish soprano, re- flecting the historic Auld Alliance between Scotland and France. Rachel Redmond’s singing was the highlight of the concert, no- tably with Purcell’s See, even Night herself is here from The Fairy Queen. Her impressive clarity and focused voice was ideal for the repertoire. She is also one of the rare singers who can do a proper trill. Much of the music of the period is related to theatrical works and is often difficult to pro- gramme successfully as a whole. This ap- proach of combining selections worked very well, not least in revealing the wealth of mu- sic from this period. Purcell was represented by extracts from the music to The Virtous Wife, The Fairy Queen, The Theatre of Mu- sic, Abdelazar, The Mock Marriage, The His- tory of Timon of Athens, and King Arther. The key instrumentalists were Stéphan Du- dermel, violin, Marine Sablonnière, recorder, Isabelle Saint Yves viola da gamba, and di- rector Bertrand Cuiller, harpsichord & or- gan, the latter producing a wonderfully bouncy organ part in Purcell’s Curtain Tune from The History of Timon of Athens. Their CD of this programme but with a larger orchestra is A Fancy: Fantasy on En- glish Airs & Tune (Harmonia Mundi. HMM 902296), will be reviewed separately in due course, and will then be found here . The penultimate concert of the festival was in St Oswald Church where the Canadian group L’Harmonie des Saisons gave their programme Las Ciudades de Oro – Music of the Golden Cities . Charting similar terri- tory to the previous evening’s concert by Chœur de Chambre de Namur & Cappella Mediterranea, they started with the same Hanacpachap cussicuinin, on this occasion starting with a recorder solo followed by a lone soprano walking down the central aisle towards the exit, an innovative approach to a processional song. She walked back in again with a processional with the rest of the Ensemble Céladon (Clara Coutouly und Paulin Bündgen) in der Minoritenkirche