Tage Alter Musik – Almanach 2019

Saturday 8 June Saturday’s concerts started with a concert of music for Pardessus de Viole given by the Canadian Mélisande Corriveau accompa- nied by Eric Milnes (USA), harpsichord, in the Ägidienkirche, one of the smallest of the festival venues. The Pardessus is the highest pitched of the viol family, smaller than the more usually heard treble viol. It came to the fore in the 18th century among French, gen- erally female, amateurs. For most of this concert, the pieces reflected that period and genre, with pieces published between 1736 and 1753 by Louis de Caix D’Hervelois, Bo- ismortier, and Charles Dolle, ending with a slightly incongruous arrangement of one of Bach’s Organ Sonatas. Playing a 1755 Pierre Le Pilleur viol instrument, Mélisande Cor- riveau produced some beautifully eloquent sounds, combining the delicate attack and quick decay of the sound with the mellow tone, particularly of the lower strings to lovely effect. Many of the pieces were based on dance forms, and Corriveau managed to elaborate on that mood, with some delicate ornaments and subtile finger vibrato. It should have been easy to imagine the inti- mate Parisian settings of this music were it not for one major factor. The harpsichord playing was some of the most unsympathetic and insensitive I have ever heard. Seemingly intent on dominating the principal soloist, we were bombarded with loud, thick chords, irritating and unmusical countermelodies, often sounding above the Pardessus and, no- tably in the Bach Sonata, an overly-man- nered style of playing that was completely out of keeping with the delicately sensitive playing of Mélisande Corriveau. She de- served better than this. The mid-afternoon concert in the spectacu- lar Baroque interior of the medieval Alten Kapelle was given by Höör Barock from Sweden. Their programme, Orchestral mu- sic of the Baroque , focussed on the Swedish composer Johan Roman (1694-1758) with two Suites made up from 16 of the 45 pieces in Golovin manuscript, composed by Ro- man for the Russian ambassador in Stock- holm, Count Golovin, for his celebrations of the coronation of Tsar Peter II. The pieces in the manuscript range from less than a minute to over six minutes long, and are not arranged in an order that suggests any sen- sible grouping into suites. These two Suites were concocted by Höör Barock, with eight pieces in each. Some pieces were rather cu- rious and even inconsequential, not surpris- ingly given the assumed background music intent of the commission. The most substan- tial was the six-minute ’Allegro’, the seventh in the manuscript, with its contrast between two violins and two recorders. Rather large gaps between the individual pieces led to a loss of cohesion and momentum within the two Suites, but the music was nonetheless fascinating, if not always musically outstand- ing. Emilie Roos was an excellent recorder soloist in many of the pieces, and Hannah Tibell led the orchestra well. The highlight of the concert came with Anna Paradiso’s excellent performance of Bach’s Harpsichord Concerto BWV 1057. Earlier Emilie Roos had been joined by guest Dan Laurin for Telemann’s approachable Con- certo for two Recorders and strings, TWV 52:a2. The concert ended with a curious ar- rangement of Corelli’s Concerto Grosso in DOp6/4 with added trumpets. That was fol- lowed by Dan Laurin announcing that he had been told by the festival organiser not to talk, although he continued to do just that with a plug for a CD and a rambling descrip- tion of an encore which might have been of interest to those in the front few rows who were able to actually hear it. Not impressed. An unfortunate change to the published pro- gramme saw the return of Hofkapelle Mu- nich heard earlier in the opening concert. Their programme of Bach Brandenburg Concertos 1, 3 and 5 and Orchestral Suites 2 and 3 was in the St. Emmeram Basilica, an acoustic not really suited to such chamber pieces unless the orchestra knows how to play in such an acoustic, which this one didn’t seem to. As with the previous concert, the highlight came from a harpsichord player, in this case, Olga Watts for her play- ing in Brandenburg 5 with its enormous first-movement flight-of-fancy harpsichord cadenza. Marcello Gatti, flute and Claire Sir- jacobs, oboe, also impressed. But generally speaking, speeds were excessive, given the acoustics of the space, and there were some rather mannered interpretations in some of the movements. There were however some good moments, one being the nicely timed link passage between the Adagio and Allegro of Brandenburg 1, and the simple treatment of the two-chord Adagio of Brandenburg 3, here played with a simple harpsichord flour- ish. But it wasn’t really a suitable replacement for the programmed Matthew Passion. The late night concert was in the Schot- tenkirche St. Jakob with its extraordinary medieval sculptured porch. It was given by the Belgian groups Utopia and InAlto the former with five singers, the latter with five instrumentalists (cornett and four trom- bones). Their programme Martin Luther – andrewbensonwilson.org 8 Höör Barock, Alte Kapelle