Vivaldi: The Four Seasons; Concerto for Cello and Strings, RV 403; Sonata in D minor, Op. 1, No. 12 (“La Follia”). La Petite Bande conducted by Sigiswald Kuijken. Accent. $11.99.
Franz Xaver Mozart: Piano Quartet, Op. 1; Violin Sonatas, Opp. 7 and 15. Hansjacob Staemmler, pianoforte; Muriel Cantoreggi, violin; Johannes Erkes, viola; Juris Teichmanis, cello. CPO. $18.99.
There is room for new approaches even in music as hyper-familiar as the first four concertos in Vivaldi’s Op. 8, Il cimento dell’armonia e dell’inventione – that is, The Four Seasons. A re-release on Accent of the exceptional performances of these works by Sigiswald Kuijken and the six members (including Kuijken himself) of La Petite Bande shows anew just how innovative an interpretation can be – while not only being true to historical performance practices but also being more cognizant of them than are other historically informed recordings. The La Petite Bande versions of The Four Seasons not only employ appropriate tuning and technique but also alter the sound world of the concertos in two significant ways: by assigning only one instrument to each part, so the concertos sound as chamber music rather than solo-against-ensemble pieces; and by using a violoncello da spalla instead of a Baroque or, worse, modern cello. Although the exact uses of the violoncello da spalla – which is held against the shoulder like a viola, not between the legs like a more-modern cello – are not entirely clear, it was certainly in use in Baroque times and undoubtedly had specific purposes within certain kinds of music, such as pieces designed to be played by musicians as they marched into and out of a performance space. Coupled with the one-instrument-to-a-part approach of this recording, the use of the violoncello da spalla gives Vivaldi’s concertos an intimacy and clarity beyond what they normally display, and makes them into true chamber music: it is easy to imagine them being performed, with Vivaldi himself as solo violinist, in an intimate setting. The recording is also very clever in using different soloists for each concerto: La Petite Bande includes four violins, and each gets to be front-and-center (while clearly emerging from within the entirety and not in any way being competitive with the larger group) in a different concerto – Sigiswald Kuijken in Winter, Sara Kuijken in Spring, Luis Otavio Santos in Summer, and Dmitry Badiarov in Autumn. In addition, Badiarov plays the violoncello da spalla in Winter, and this is itself an interesting sidelight on historical practice, since the point of the “shoulder cello” was that violinists could easily switch to it when necessary – something they could not do with the between-the-legs cello, whose playing form and style differ significantly from those of the violin. This recording cleverly introduces the entire concept of the violoncello da spalla before the start of The Four Seasons by opening with Vivaldi’s Concerto for Cello and Strings, RV 403, in which Sigiswald Kuijken is the cellist – so even before Winter, the violin-and-cello-playing combination is clear. And the recording concludes with Sigiswald Kuijken as violin soloist in the D minor “La Follia” concerto, which both complements and contrasts well with The Four Seasons. Of course, none of the explorations of historical instrumentation and performance practice, both unfamiliar and familiar (the latter including tuning to 415 Hz for the A above middle C), would be meaningful if these interpretations, which date to 2006, were not convincing on their own. But they most certainly are, and it is a measure of their quality that they are clear, clean, and in some ways revelatory entirely without regard to the details of which instruments and instrumental complements they include. The result of the thoughtfulness and skill underlying this recording is a CD that is exemplary throughout.
The reconsideration is of the composer himself rather than any specific piece of music on a new CPO disc featuring works by Franz Xaver Mozart (1791-1844), the sixth of Wolfgang’s children and one of only two to survive infancy. Interestingly, there is a touch of period tuning practice here as well, with the piano tuned to 430 Hz – below the current 440 Hz standard but above the Baroque 415 Hz (which, however, was by no means standardized; indeed, the whole question of concert pitch is fraught with longstanding complexity). It is fitting existentially that this very fine recording is pitched in a transition zone, because that is where F.X. Mozart himself ended up: protecting and trying to extend his father’s legacy while metaphorically dipping his compositional toes into early Romanticism. This is quite noticeable in the first work on this CD, the Piano Quartet, Op. 1, which is in G minor – the key so famously used by Wolfgang in his Symphony No. 40 (and before that in No. 25). F.X. Mozart’s quartet, written when the composer was no more than 13 years old, is certainly not as stormy or intense as his father’s late symphony, but it is emotionally engaging, with the first and longest movement, in particular, mixing intensity and lyricism in a thoroughly winning way that places this music on the cusp of a new era – it is worth remembering that 1804 was the year in which Beethoven finished his “Eroica” symphony. The performers on this disc, although not formally organized as a named quartet, play together with sure-handed skill and great sensitivity to each other as well as to the music. The Adagio, ma non troppo central movement of the quartet, which begins in a pastoral mood but soon delves considerably deeper, is especially effective, and the theme-and-variations finale is thoroughly charming. That F.X. Mozart deserves to be rethought as more than just Wolfgang’s son is clear from this very early work, and becomes more apparent from the composer’s two violin sonatas. F.X. Mozart was far from prolific – indeed, the three pieces on this disc represent all his chamber music with piano except for his Cello Sonata, Op. 19, and a brief E minor rondo for flute and piano. So Opp. 7 and 15 are the only extant demonstrations of his abilities in the violin-and-piano form. The three-movement Op. 7, in B-flat, finds F.X. Mozart looking back toward his father’s time in its poise and balance. At the same time, it is a work that decidedly favors the piano, the younger Mozart’s own preferred instrument and the one for which he wrote most often (including two concertos and a number of solo salon-like pieces with distinctly Romantic touches). The slow movement bears the same tempo designation as does that of Op. 1, but here there is more gentle flow to the music and much less of an attempt at emotional connection: the movement is a well-made pleasantry, which indeed is a good description of the sonata as a whole. Op. 15, in F, is actually a shorter work, but it is in four movements and more closely balances the piano and violin parts. The music flows well, and the exchanges between the instruments are handled adeptly. The slow movement is neither very slow (Andante) nor very long (under two minutes), and the sonata as a whole makes no claim to profundity. It does, however, offer considerable charm throughout, with a pleasantly bouncy third-movement Polonaise and a lively concluding Rondo that gives the violinist more opportunities for display than elsewhere in the work. Hansjacob Staemmler and Muriel Cantoreggi play the violin-and-piano sonatas with sensitivity and fine style, and without trying to make them seem to be any more than well-made but rather superficial pieces. Modest and self-effacing, F.X. Mozart wrote only about 40 works (only 30 have opus numbers), and nothing on this CD argues that he was more than a minor composer, his provenance notwithstanding. However, the whole disc does suggest that he and his music are worth something of a reconsideration, without reference to Wolfgang’s overarching shadow, for the enjoyment they provide on their own terms.
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