Early Music articles from November 1996

Early Music archives from November 1996

Bach's chorus: a 'brief yet highly necessary' reappraisal.(Johann Sebastian Bach)
November 1, 1996... Exasperated and humiliated by `unmerited affronts' from a town council `little interested in music',(1) Bach sat down in August 1730 to pen a lengthy memorandum, painstakingly explaining the structure and workings of the musical institution...

From Weimar to Leipzig: concertists and ripienists in Bach's 'Ich hatte viel Bekummernis.'(Johann Sebastian Bach)
November 1, 1996... Ich hatte viel Bekummernis, BWV21, holds a special place among Bach's cantatas--and not solely for its musical qualities: its expansive proportions, stylistic variety and richness of expressive gesture. Paul Brainard, who edited the piece...

Recording Bach's early cantatas.(Johann Sebastian Bach)
November 1, 1996... As a student I sometimes participated in the recording sessions of Telefunken's complete cycle of Bach's church cantatas directed by Gustav Leonhardt. Being a great admirer of Bach's masterpieces, I wondered at the time why the cantatas were...

Yet more ornaments for Corelli's violin sonatas, op.5.(Arcangelo Corelli)
November 1, 1996... Corelli's op.5 has long been regarded as the classic set of 18th-century violin sonatas, and the embellished versions of the slow movements in sonatas 1-6 published by Estienne Roger in 1710--and said by him to have been provided by the...

Corelli's op.5: text, act ... and reaction.(Arcangelo Corelli)(response to Neal Zaslaw, Robert Seletsky and Peter Walls in Early Music, Feb 1996)
November 1, 1996... The articles on Corelli's op.5 by Neal Zaslaw:, Robert Seletsky and Peter Walls in the February 1996 issue of Early music(1) appeared at a particularly apposite time for me and my colleagues in Trio Veracini (David Watkin and Lars Ulrik...

Corelli's op.5 sonatas: 'Violino e violone o cimbalo'?(Arcangelo Corelli)(response to Neal Zaslaw, Robert Seletsky and Peter Walls in Early Music, Feb 1996)
November 1, 1996... Nowadays we question the relevance of the essays of C. P. E. Bach and Quantz to music other than that written for the galant Berlin court.(1) However, C. P. E. Bach's recommendation for continuo accompaniment--a keyboard instrument and cello...

'Unerringly tasteful'?: harpsichord continuo in Corelli's op.5 sonatas.(Arcangelo Corelli)(response to Neal Zaslaw, Robert Seletsky and Peter Walls in Early Music, Feb 1996)
November 1, 1996... In 1949 the American musicologist William J. Mitchell wrote: `The extemporaneous realization of a figured bass is a dead art. We have left behind us the period of the basso continuo and with it all the unwritten law, the axioms, the things that...

A re-examination of the evidence on absolute tempo before 1700.(part 2)
November 1, 1996... Part 1 of this article appered in the May 1996 issue. We are wise to treat evidence that is contrary to expectations with caution since it is often not what it seems. Judgement based on wider experience is usually closer to the truth. Only...

Records of English Court Music, vols. 8-9.
November 1, 1996... Andrew Ashbee, Records of English court music (Aldershot: Scolar Press), vol.8 (1995), 35 [pounds sterling]; vol.9 (1996), 40 [pounds sterling] A decade after the publication of the first volume of Andrew Ashbee's Records of English court...

English Choral Practice: 1400-1650.
November 1, 1996... English choral practice, 1400-1650, ed. John Morehen (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 40 [pounds sterling]/$59.95 A decade after the publication of the first volume of Andrew Ashbee's Records of English court music the...

Music in the English Courtly Masque: 1604-1640.
November 1, 1996... Peter Walls, Music in the English courtly masque, 1604-1640 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996), 40 [pounds sterling] The English courtly masque was the ultimate in `insubstantiall pageantry'. Enormous in terms of preparation, personnel and...

Performing the Music of Henry Purcell.
November 1, 1996... Performing the music of Henry Purcell, ed. Michael Burden (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996), 48 [pounds sterling] The latest of the Festschriften to have emerged from the Purcell tercentenary, this anthology had its origins in a conference held...

Music, Print and Culture in Early Sixteenth-Century Italy.
November 1, 1996... Iain Fenlon, Music, print and culture in early sixteenth-century Italy, The Panizzi Lectures, 1994 (London, British Library, 1995), 16 [pounds sterling] The annual lecture series at the British Library commemorating the achievements of the...

Utopia triumphans.
November 1, 1996... The selling power of recordings of `Renaissance choral masterpieces' of some sort or another seems never to diminish. In recent years, however, the presentation of such discs has begun to vary, and three very different recordings are under...

Miserere.
November 1, 1996... The selling power of recordings of `Renaissance choral masterpieces' of some sort or another seems never to diminish. In recent years, however, the presentation of such discs has begun to vary, and three very different recordings are under...

The Golden Age, vol. 1, Europe.
November 1, 1996... The selling power of recordings of `Renaissance choral masterpieces' of some sort or another seems never to diminish. In recent years, however, the presentation of such discs has begun to vary, and three very different recordings are under...

Canciones, Romances, Sonetos ... from Juan del Encina to Lope de Vega.
November 1, 1996... The impetus created by `Columbus year' for the production of recordings of early Iberian music has been quite extraordinary. On the one hand, groups from northern Europe and America--and, perhaps more tellingly, their recording companies--have...

El canconer del Duc de Calabria, 1526-1554.
November 1, 1996... The impetus created by `Columbus year' for the production of recordings of early Iberian music has been quite extraordinary. On the one hand, groups from northern Europe and America--and, perhaps more tellingly, their recording companies--have...

El delfin de musica: obras de Luys de Narvaez.
November 1, 1996... The impetus created by `Columbus year' for the production of recordings of early Iberian music has been quite extraordinary. On the one hand, groups from northern Europe and America--and, perhaps more tellingly, their recording companies--have...

The Echo of Orpheus: Viheula Music of Renaissance Spain.
November 1, 1996... The impetus created by `Columbus year' for the production of recordings of early Iberian music has been quite extraordinary. On the one hand, groups from northern Europe and America--and, perhaps more tellingly, their recording companies--have...

Monteverdi: Vespers of the Blessed Virgin. (The Scholars Baroque Ensemble, David Van Asch)
November 1, 1996... Two new recordings of Monteverdi's 1610 `Vespers of the Blessed Virgin' are concert performances--that is, they present the Vespers as a straightforward portfolio of Monteverdi's compositions rather than engaging with the problems of fitting...

Monteverdi: Vespro della Beata Vergine. (Cantus Colln, Concerto Palatino, Konrad Junghanel)
November 1, 1996... Two new recordings of Monteverdi's 1610 `Vespers of the Blessed Virgin' are concert performances--that is, they present the Vespers as a straightforward portfolio of Monteverdi's compositions rather than engaging with the problems of fitting...

Vesperae in Nativitate Sti. Joannis Baptistae.
November 1, 1996... Two new recordings of Monteverdi's 1610 `Vespers of the Blessed Virgin' are concert performances--that is, they present the Vespers as a straightforward portfolio of Monteverdi's compositions rather than engaging with the problems of fitting...

Kuhnau: The Biblical Sonatas.
November 1, 1996... John Butt's important new recording Johann Kuhnau: the Biblical Sonatas (Harmonia Mundi HMU 907133, rec 1995) offers lively interpretations of these celebrated programmatic pieces. Kuhnau appears to have been a man of wide interests and...

Deutsche Clavichord-Musik.
November 1, 1996... John Butt's important new recording Johann Kuhnau: the Biblical Sonatas (Harmonia Mundi HMU 907133, rec 1995) offers lively interpretations of these celebrated programmatic pieces. Kuhnau appears to have been a man of wide interests and...

Scarlatti High and Low.
November 1, 1996... John Butt's important new recording Johann Kuhnau: the Biblical Sonatas (Harmonia Mundi HMU 907133, rec 1995) offers lively interpretations of these celebrated programmatic pieces. Kuhnau appears to have been a man of wide interests and...

Soler: Sonatas completas, vol. 1. (Patrick Cohen)
November 1, 1996... John Butt's important new recording Johann Kuhnau: the Biblical Sonatas (Harmonia Mundi HMU 907133, rec 1995) offers lively interpretations of these celebrated programmatic pieces. Kuhnau appears to have been a man of wide interests and...

Bach: Matthau Passion. (Rheinische Kantorei, Das Kleine Konzert, Hermann Max)
November 1, 1996... Hermann Max's recording of J. S. Bach: Matthaus Passion (Capriccio 60 046-2, rec 1995) with the Rheinische Kantorei and Das Kleine Konzert embodies current orthodoxy in most respects: two choirs of 16 voices each are partnered by two orchestras...

Handel: La Resurrezione. (Les Musiciens du Louvre, Marc Minkowski, Annick Massis)
November 1, 1996... Hermann Max's recording of J. S. Bach: Matthaus Passion (Capriccio 60 046-2, rec 1995) with the Rheinische Kantorei and Das Kleine Konzert embodies current orthodoxy in most respects: two choirs of 16 voices each are partnered by two orchestras...

Nebra: Viento es la dicha de amor. (Ensemble Baroque de Limoges, Christophe Coin)
November 1, 1996... The release of a new recording of music from little-known and virtually unexplored territories offers all the elements of a pioneering journey of discovery, bringing the pleasure and excitement of rediscovering interesting works, together with...