September 28, 2016

  • Baroque-an Love Stories

     Mi Palpita il Cor: Barque Passions
    Dominique Labelle, soprano. Musica Pacifica
    Navona Records 6056
    Total Time:  76:13
    Recording:   ****/****
    Performance: ****/****

    Musica Pacifica’s new release features a selection of vocal and instrumental music whose theme is “love”.  The well-chosen program allows listeners to hear some “regional” musical style from Germany, Italy, France, and England.  More interestingly, it lets us explore the way composers used particular musical gestures, or “affections”, to create certain emotional connections to their music.  While this is often easier to discern in vocal music, the ideas transferred into instrumental work and the present recording is organized such that the listener can begin to appreciate this aspect of Baroque music.  There are three cantatas with 2 instrumental works making for a very excellent program.  The ensemble performs on period instruments, or recreations that lend an equally fine sound with a well-matched period performance style.

    Soprano Dominique Labelle is featured in the three cantatas.  She has a gorgeous, full voice that is quite captivating in each of the works here.  The Rameau feels just a tad too close in the sound picture, but that is really a minor quibble.  As noted, each of the pieces relates to love and the first cantata explores Cupid’s meddling.

    Agostino Steffani (1654-1728) was Venetian born, but traveled first to Munich and eventually to Hanover where he would be an important opera composer and diplomat.  His Guardati O Core comes from sometime in the 1680s.  The writing here incorporates some wonderful word painting, hinting back to the Renaissance madrigal.  His music is a bit of a bridge between this style and that of Telemann and Handel.  The latter’s Mi Palpita il Core (ca. 1715) is, like many of Handel’s works, a potential rewrite of an earlier work.  In this case, it was an early cantata for alto voice.   It is suggested that this may have been a teaching piece (for composition and keyboard playing) with the need for the performer to realize the figured bass.  The text here is a bit more direct than Steffani’s with the soloist themselves being the one directly impacted by love and its effects.  The final work on the album is Rameau’s Orphee (ca. 1715-1720).   Here we get a rather delicious couple of recitatives set apart by some beautiful arias in a short exploration of the Orpheus legend.  The music here is really quite compelling, made more so by Labelle’s interpretation and beautiful voice.

    There are two instrumental pieces on the album which are included to help listeners hear how composers used similar affects to create an emotional core to non-vocal music.  The first of these is by Giuseppe Sammartini (1695-1750), a Sonata in b, Op. 1, no. 6 (1736).  Sammartini is most noted for his orchestral music, some of the earliest sinfonias in particular.  He settled in London in the 1720s and was most noted in his day as an oboist, playing in many of Handel’s operas in the period—many of those solos were actually written for him.  The sonata is a four movement work with an almost French overture start in the first movement.  Most interesting here are the two stylish dances that have their counterparts in Handel (the third movement’s sarabande) and Telemann (a final bouree).  Telemann’s music is one of those great discoveries that people come to often by chance because his work tends to be less popular than Bach’s.  Those who discover his music though often are delighted by the sheer amount that they will be able to explore.  Musica Pacifica has chosen a G-Major “quartet” from his 1738 collection Nouveaux Quators.  The pieces here, issued by LeClere at the time, were written after his visit to Paris the previous autumn.  The titles of the movements are the first of the clues as to Telemann’s exploration of French style, blended with Italian form and energy (suggesting a bit of Vivaldi).  Inspired by style galant, the movements have a stylized dance feel exploring popular court dances (bouree, menuet, and gigue).  There is even a polonaise.  The final movement is a fascinating hybrid of slow music exploring more French harmonic approaches and fast sections with Italian energy German counterpoint.  Lest we wonder about the importance of this collection, the excellent notes here point out that a “Mr. Bach” from Leipzig ordered a copy of this set of pieces.

    Baroque Passions is really a stellar effort all around.  Excellent accompanying notes will help even the most casual listener an opportunity to think more about European styles and approaches to composition.  This is actually a great disc to have handy for students learning about the Baroque as it has a good exploration of dance styles, instrumental music, and vocal writing across the period.  The performances are all quite excellent making this yet another of the many fine recordings from this ensemble.  Highly recommended!