Review: [untitled] Author(s): John Milsom Source: Early Music, Vol. 10, No. 2 (Apr., 1982), pp.

270+273 Published by: Oxford University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3126909 . Accessed: 31/05/2011 13:38
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=oup. . Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Oxford University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Early Music.

http://www.jstor.org

August 1-10, 1982

Smcrina1

In the medieval Italian hill-town of Amelia

Coursesin ear/v music with masterclassesoil the miusicof (;eorge FrederickI andel 0 Patrizio Barbieri, temrperments

CarolineBoersma, cello Paolo C(apirci, recorder&" Annabcrta Conti, harpsichord

Claudio Cornoldi, violin Sonya Monosoff, ziolin, music Miles Morgan, enisemble van de Pol, orga;i Wijnand Ingy Nicolai, romanticlieder music Emilio Riboli, cIhaimber
AssocaziIonc 'Aicria Umbra'

til/lin/ig

flute transv.erse

For further details:

\'ia dclla\'allc, 2 05022 Amelia(IR) Italy 0744-97405 telephone:

BOOKS ( STRINGS LUTES

PYRAMID

Doppa Currys Music

POST OFFICE BOX 194 22112 W. MONTE VISTA DRIVE, TOPANGA CALIFORNIA 90290

and in the proper playing styles. His instrumentsare a six-course lute strung in octaves for the lower three courses, and a small, four-course guitartuned a 4th higher than the top four strings of a modern guitar. His sound is always wonderfully clean and bright, his playingstrongand confident.Too often, however, the microphone picks up the extraneous sounds of the stringsclanking against the frets. One also becomes a bit weary of Smith's penchant for spread, or rapidly arpeggiated,chords. In his elaboration of the first few bars of the repeated first section of 0 passi sparsi,Smithshows a greatfeeling and sensitivity for Ripa's intabulation of Festa's passionate madrigal. He elaborates the equivalent section of Douce memoire as well, though the elaborated version comes first and the plain version second, causing one to wonder if the tape editor might have transposed the two takes by mistake. Smith also plays two intabulations from Sermisy and Morales. In the two galliards ('l'amirale'and no.5), Smithdisplays a degree of rhythmic waywardnessinappropriateto this dance form, but creates some marvellous divisions in the repeated sections. Of the fantasias played here (two for guitar,and nos. 13, 16, 18, 22 and 25 for lute), no.22 is highly unusual in its harmonic movement; it is an extraordinary piece, and one cannot help suspecting that some of the audacious harmonies are possibly uncorrected printing errors (in tablature b.25, for example). Both sound and playing are masterful in the two guitar fantasias. Unlike several of the lute fantasias, which are often very thick, the ones for guitarare primarily in two voices, making it much easier to sustain the 'singing' quality of Ripa'spolyphonic writing. All in all, I would highly recommend this disc to anyone interested in the for plucked instrumentsfrom repertoire this early date, for it presents some fine examples of the work of a composer of obvious originality,recorded by a performer who plays them with passion,
intelligence and sensitivity.

Virtuose um Verzierungskunst
1600 (Virtuosoornamentation around 1600)
Schola CantorumBasiliensis MundiIC 165-99 895-6 Harmonia

Accordingto the insert notes, this pair of records belongs to a series 'intended to document the activities of the SCB [Schola CantorumBasiliensis] in both the fields of performanceand research and to make them accessible to a wider public'. Intended, that is, to instruct as well as to entertain. Whether or not it succeeds in doing both is open to question. Thereis no denyingthatthese records contain some remarkable performances: from Montserrat Figueras and Rene Jacobs, both in fine voice; in the extraordinary cornett playing of Bruce Dickey; from Jordi Savall and Michel Piguet, both on excellent form. (The only disappointment is the bass, Kurt Widmer, whose singing lacks sparkle and conviction.) Add to these a distinguished line-up of supportingartistsAline Parker,Anthony Bailes and Hopkinson Smith, as well as a good viol consort-and the field seems set for some lively sport. But there is a catch. For what these players performso superbly is nothing morethan fully written-outembellished versions of chansons, madrigals and motets of the mid-16th century, extracted from the instruction books of Bassano, Bovicelli, Ortiz and others. Now as Alfred Einstein pointed out in The Italian Madrigal (i, p.227), it is unlikely that these extravagantexamples were intended to illustrate the art of embellishment as it should actually be done; instead, their excesses can be explained by the need to compress a large amount of didactic information into a small space. Moreover, ornamentation is essentially spontaneous invention made within conventional limits; and that is certainlynot what we hear in these performances, which in generalfollow the printedsources down to the last detail. In other words, as they simply translate the written note JAMES TYLER into sound, do they provide us with any

270

EARLY MUSIC APRIL 1982

more information than the theoretical treatises themselves? And as all the ornamented lines have now been reprintedin a modernedition (Italienische ed. R. Erig(Zurich,1979); Diminutionen, vol.1 in the series Prattica Musicale, were recordings published by the SCB), really necessary? Another point: however popular the vocal models on which these embellishments are made may have been around 1600,how manywill be familiarto most listeners today? There is at present no recording available in Britainof either Crecquillon's Ung gay bergieror (astonishingly) Lassus's Susanne un jour, both of which appear on these records in three different ornamentedversions. How manylisteners will recognize what is the composer's original line and what embellishment? Surely the unornamented lines should have been provided in the sleeve notes? Different performersadopt different attitudes to the sources: Dickey tends to follow the notation slavishly; Jacobs adds ficta, graces and one cadenza, adapts underlay, but otherwise tries to fit everything in (and in Rore's Io canterei even managesto conflate d'amor two independent embellished lines, one by Bassano, the other by dalla Casa);Figuerasalso attemptsall, adding a great deal of her own inimitable charm into the bargain, though not without the occasional gasp for breath; Widmer merely sounds mechanical. There are of course some wonderful pyrotechnics; but is it likely that the natural rhetoric of the original chansons and madrigals would really have been so completely lost among these effettimeravigliosi? not all the performances Fortunately, come from text-book sources. Two items are taken from Cabezon's Obras (though I doubt whether Spanish keyboard tablature would ever have been transliteratedfor a viol consort, as it is here, without some changes in ornamentation), one from Coelho (in this case, actuallyplayed on a harpsichord!) and three from Luzzaschi. The last of these is representedbyready-ornamented solos from the Madrigali...a 1,2 &3

sopraniof 1601,which have the virtueof being real pieces of music, coming from a worldof expressivityfarremovedfrom that of Bassano and Bovicelli.Also lying outside the generalscope of the records is a set of wonderful divisions on the coda of Susanneby Bartolomeode Selma e Salaverde(fromthe Canzonifantasie et correnti of 1638), superbly played here by Jordi Savall. This issue could have been improved in so many ways: by presenting the worksin some rational-if not chronological-order (wouldthe threeversions of Unggay bergier not have illustrated their point more clearlyby being placed together rather than scattered over three sides?);by supplying translations of the sung texts;above all, by providing more examplesof bona fidespontaneous ornamentation. However, it should be said that most of these performances, as demonstrations of technique and virtuosity, are quite brilliant, and in themselves well worth the price of the
records.
JOHN MILSOM

ACADEMIE INTERNATIONALE D'ETE DE WALLONIE SAINT - HUBERT (Belgique) MUSICAL WORKSHOPS 1982 JULY
July 5-17, 1982 RECORDER WORKSHOP Alain KERUZORE (Paris) and assistants 1 research into the interpretation of: - Renaissance music - Baroque music and study of the Rococo repertoire with the Baroque transverse flute - Contemporary music 2 technical work 3 chamber music and ensemble music accompanied by harpsichord and viola da gamba July 19-31, 1982 EARLY MUSICWORKSHOP CLEMENCIC (Vienna) Rened Rene ZOSSO(Geneva) MikisMICHAELIDES (Cyprus) 'GUILLAUME DE MACHAULT AND FRENCH MUSIC OF THE MIDDLE AGES' - notation, style, practice of vocal and instrumental interpretation, diminution, etc... - dances, hymns and popular songs of the period - manuscript of the 'Messe de Nostre Dame' by Machault for vocalists and instrumentalists of all levels. INFORMATION: AIEW-rue de l'Eglise 15 - B6930 GRUPONT (Belgium) Phone: 084/213834 EARLY MUSIC APRIL 1982 273

English Ayres and Duets

Camerataof London A66003 Hyperion When Shakespeare wrote, it was possible to dilate a pilgrimage;in Pepys's day a merchant could vaunthis goods. We know that 17th-centurywordshave a life of their own. It is a delight to make adjustments to our understanding; what could be more gross than to confuse the language of these authors with the one that lazes in our talk each day? When we turn from sense to sound the situation is not the same. Who seriously considers that reading Shakespeare in modern pronunciation is analogous to playing Dowland on a guitar?The Camerataof London have attempted to overcome this prejudice with a record of songs by Dowland, Campionand others 'sung in authentic Elizabethan pronunciation'. Theirperformances have revitalizedmy appetite for the poetry in the songs in a most refreshing way. We simply cannot confuse our word defywith Campion's