Early English Instrumental Music

Started by Mandryka, October 27, 2015, 01:42:21 AM

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JCBuckley

Quote from: Que on November 18, 2017, 03:55:55 AM
Wow, that's good news!  :)

Considering that the 1st volume was recorded 18 years ago, I'd given up on a sequel.....

Q

I've just dug out the last email I received from Peter, dated September. Quote: "Goldbergs and Art of Fugue still to go. John Bull is next. Volume 2 will contain the twelve In Nomine settings and the Hexachord Fantasias"

milk


Quite a good survey here. Interesting variety of instruments. Lively, intense performances. Almost psychedelic at times (maybe it's those meadow mushrooms)! I'm a fan of Sempe anyway.

Que

Quote from: JCBuckley on November 18, 2017, 05:55:12 AM
I've just dug out the last email I received from Peter, dated September. Quote: "Goldbergs and Art of Fugue still to go. John Bull is next. Volume 2 will contain the twelve In Nomine settings and the Hexachord Fantasias"

Absolutely great..... :) 

I guess in the past years Watchorn was distracted by his Bach project....

Q

Mandryka

#123
"Global" review of the Phantasm Tye (which I haven't heard) here, though it's a great shame that it doesn't take into account Spirit of Gambo's recording, which I like very much (in so much as I like Tye at all!)

http://wunderkammern.fr/2017/11/26/frettes-folles-la-musique-pour-consort-de-christopher-tye-par-phantasm/

I was particularly struck by the comment that

Quoterendent justice à l'inventivité d'aventure un peu folle de Tye mais offrent également un écho très convaincant de la personnalité à la fois défiante, un brin arrogante dans la conscience de son originalité tout en étant soucieuse de plaire qui semble avoir été la sienne.

though I fear that being "soucieux de plaire" could kill the music, especially with their "ton plus direct et une fluidité plus allante [compared with Jordi] sans pour autant presser excessivement le pas ou demeurer à la surface des œuvres." We'll see.

The criticism of Savall that his Tye is "d'une beauté parfois un rien trop hiératique." is interesting given the new Acheron Gibbons. Maybe viol music is religious after all, in some sense. In truth I have no idea what's idiomatic and what isn't in English music.
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

Que

#124
Quote from: Mandryka on November 26, 2017, 04:49:12 AM
"Global" review of the Phantasm Tye (which I haven't heard) here, though it's a great shame that it doesn't take into account Spirit of Gambo's recording, which I like very much (in so much as I like Tye at all!)

I like The Spirit of Gambo.
Thanks for pointing out their Tye album, I wasn't aware! :)

[asin]B00N3B8Y1A[/asin]

QuoteThe criticism of Savall that his Tye is "d'une beauté parfois un rien trop hiératique." is interesting given the new Archeron Gibbons. Maybe viol music is religious after all, in some sense. In truth I have no idea what's idiomatic and what isn't in English music.

Neither does Savall.....  8)

Q

milk

Interesting interview of Jeremy Denk by Leonard Lopate (of WNYC) during which Denk performs William Byrd and makes the case that rhythmic freedom was realized in early music and, to a certain extent, lost in succeeding periods. 
http://www.wnyc.org/story/pianist-jeremy-denk-plays-live/

milk

#126

I was about to begin this text with something like this: "True minimalists lived in the 16th – 17th centu- ries." And then I thought you might say: "Hmm, there he goes again talking about that minimalism." And it's true: the word is so unfit. Human language is very limited, and every time we attempt to express something important we discover that our language simply doesn't work.
How can we explain what this music sounds like? How can we explain that it is more contemporary than contemporary music?
How can we explain that in the sounds written 300 – 400 years ago one can hear the whole volume of all European music of several centuries, as well as everything we now call ethnic music, from bagpipes and Celtic fiddles to Indian sitars?
A refined scent of jazz, and a punk band playing in a club around the corner. A dramatism stronger than Beethoven's, and the larger-than-life boundless space of a rock ballad.
As for the compositional technique, it is pretty simple. Composers of that time used to write the same things over and over again: exercises of sorts, endless variations on a chord sequence. Not only does this never get boring, but the longer you listen, the less you want it to stop. Each variation opens a door in front of you, and you walk through this endless enfilade and realize that it is none other but a way home.
And this, you could say, is minimalism.
All compositions included in this album were written certainly not for piano. The works of William Byrd are for the virginal (a British modification of the harpsichord). The works of Johann Pachelbel are for organ (Chaconne), and for strings (Canon). I play them on a modern piano, and I treat the scores with a lot of freedom. I don't change even a single note but for some reason it sounds as if it was written this morning.
The recording was made on a 1959 Steinway B. Each composition has its own sonic atmosphere. The way this piano responds to different types of touch and different playing styles is amazing. I emphasized all the distinctions through studio processing. It would make no sense to describe them with words. Just listen. - Anton Batagov

Mandryka

#127
Robert Hill, Bull on a meantone tuned harpsichord with 19 notes in an octave

https://www.youtube.com/v/hpDkbRpxwKw

It's the sort of thing that makes me think that "normal" ways of playing 16th century music are still heavily tainted by 19th and 18th  century presuppositions about enharmonics and tuning. The situation may be like the way medieval music used to be sung before Michael Morrow etc. What Hill does makes the music sound as strange as . . . a song by Solage.
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

San Antone

Quote from: Que on November 26, 2017, 05:22:59 AM

QuoteThe criticism of Savall that his Tye is "d'une beauté parfois un rien trop hiératique." is interesting given the new Archeron Gibbons. Maybe viol music is religious after all, in some sense. In truth I have no idea what's idiomatic and what isn't in English music.

Neither does Savall.....  8)

Q

I don't think anyone really, truly, does, i.e., know what early music sounded like during those times.  Which is why Richard Taruskin wrote at least one book on how our realizations of early music are a quintessential example of modernism.  Taruskin argues that when we perform early music, we are playing the music according to our modern tastes, and not according to some sense of what is authentic (a word which isn't used much anymore among early music musicians); because we don't and cannot ever know what is really, truly, authentic for these periods.

So, more power to Savall, I say.   :)

premont

Quote from: San Antonio on December 13, 2017, 11:30:27 AM

I don't think anyone really, truly, does, i.e., know what early music sounded like during those times.  Which is why Richard Taruskin wrote at least one book on how our realizations of early music are a quintessential example of modernism.  Taruskin argues that when we perform early music, we are playing the music according to our modern tastes, and not according to some sense of what is authentic (a word which isn't used much anymore among early music musicians); because we don't and cannot ever know what is really, truly, authentic for these periods.

So, more power to Savall, I say.   :)

Well, we know something - even if only a little. When this we know is taken into account in performance we call the performance informed, The word authentic is more tricky, But we can say with certainty, that a performance of, say the AoF by a saxophone quartet is inauthentic as to important elements, and generally we know more about what is inauthentic than about what is authentic. But there is a tendency to justify all possible inauthentic interpretations with the claim, that we don't know anything at all about what is authentic.
γνῶθι σεαυτόν

San Antone

Quote from: (: premont :) on December 13, 2017, 08:25:38 PM
Well, we know something - even if only a little. When this we know is taken into account in performance we call the performance informed, The word authentic is more tricky, But we can say with certainty, that a performance of, say the AoF by a saxophone quartet is inauthentic as to important elements, and generally we know more about what is inauthentic than about what is authentic. But there is a tendency to justify all possible inauthentic interpretations with the claim, that we don't know anything at all about what is authentic.

Yes, but my general point was regarding the relative authenticity of Jordi Savall's performances.  He does not lead a saxophone quartet.

Mandryka



Quote from: Mandryka on February 21, 2018, 10:55:11 PM


I played the Pavans and Galiards on Charlston's Byrd CD last night, I like it, I especially like the sound of his harpsichord, the supple rhythms, the way he doesn't pound the pulse out.

The CD arrived today, I'd previously been listening on spotify, and the notes confirmed my suspicion that the instruments are tuned 1/4 comma meantone -- what a difference it makes! This is a very satisfying Byrd harpsichord recording.
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

Mandryka

#132


There's something a bit dated about this recording. Payne's unnuanced touch, with all that that means for lack variety in the colour and texture and attack of the music;  his tendency to move the music forward in big phrases. These are things which make me think more of people like Scott Ross and indeed Payne's teacher Wanda Landowska than the sophisticated sensitive playing we've come to expect from contemporary harpsichordists. Listening to it makes you realise how much harpsichord playing has come on - if someone played like this today no one would give them a contract or even a degree.

But there are some important positive things to be said this recording. First, the mere fact that Payne had the vision to collect together so many (all?) of Bull's Pavans and Galliards is in itself revealing, just as is Moroney's Harmonia Mundi Byrd. It reveals that Bull as much as Byrd made an interesting exploration of this form - one of the major keyboard forms. And second, I've found a way of enjoying the almost naive frankness and enthusiasm of Payne's music making, just as I  found a way of enjoying Tilney's Scarlatti. His style in fact seems to suit the harpsichord, which, although it avoids sounding crude, is certainly not an elegant or refined or delicate instrument. Let's say that it touches the crude, a dance hall harpsichord.

So while I sense that this music can be better played, I'm  not sure anyone has succeeded in doing more to make me aware of its importance than Joseph Payne. Indeed,, I'm not sure anyone has been more successful with it on record - Hantaï maybe recorded some of them, maybe Leonhardt recorded one or two, I'll have to check.
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

Que

I believe I shared my admiration before of this set by Peter Watchorn and Mahan Esfahani:

[asin]B001VM0LGE[/asin]

Stephen Midgley wrote on Amazon an interesting comparative review.

Q

Mandryka

The one I listen to most, que, is Bob van Asperen's, I forgot that he included a pavan and galliard, we're in a different world from Payne of course.

Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

Mandryka

Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

Mr. Minnow

Anyone heard this?



I assume it's a new recording and not a reissue of this:


Mandryka

#137



This is Richard Egarr's new recording dedicated to Byrd's music for keyboard, in the event he chooses to use a harpsichord for all of the pieces. A Dutch style harpsichord, "after" a Ruckers,  tuned 1/4 comma meantone.

Egarr's Byrd is dramatic and tense. Rhythmically Egarr uses constant ornamentation which serves to make the firm pulse of the music more fluid. The performances are very rich in diverse affects. Egarr brings something new to the game: he makes music which is challenging: complex, gnarly, grotesque and theatrical.

The recording is  listenable but slightly too reverberant, you sense that the engineering doesn't do justice to Egarr's subtle and nuanced tone and touch. The performances are a stimulating contribution to Byrd reception on record.
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

Mandryka

#138
Quote from: Mr. Minnow on May 17, 2018, 06:34:43 AM
Anyone heard this?


I assume it's a new recording and not a reissue

No not a reissue.
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

Mr. Minnow

Quote from: Mandryka on May 24, 2018, 11:02:23 PM
No not a reissue.

Thanks - just ordered it. Hopefully it's as good as his previous Byrd CD.