German Baroque

The rediscovery of music from the German-speaking parts of Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries has been accelerating in recent years, led mainly by the recording companies. Thus this present batch of CDs features a good deal of music that has yet to appear in a modern edition, mostly by composers who were hardly known even to specialists a generation ago. Not all of the music is worth repeated listening, though collectively it is eloquent testimony to the vitality of German musical life at the time.

The earliest music is on Schein&Scheidt: German consort music of the 17th century (Globe GLO5214, rec 2005, 66'), played by the Brisk Recorder Quartet of Amsterdam: it is taken mostly from Schein's Banchetto musicale (1617) and Scheidt's 1621 volume of Ludi musici, though there are also three sets of variations from Scheidt's keyboard Tablatura nova (1624), two of them arranged for ensemble. Most of the music is in five parts, so the four recorder players have to use viols or keyboard instruments to make up the numbers. When they use a low-pitched recorder consort this works reasonably well (though the instruments are rather lacking in drive in the lively dance music), but the use of one or two gambas to play lower parts with a high-pitched consort leaves a gap in the texture that just sounds wrong. Also, the free ensemble arrangements of the Tablatura nova variations are not at all convincing, and inadvertently make the point that Scheidt's florid keyboard writing is quite different from his consort idiom. Similarly, Scheidt's five-part Galliard battaglia sounds ludicrous partially played just with solo recorder and pizzicato gamba with the harpsichordist trying ineffectually to fill in for missing parts. In general, the CD would have been much more satisfactory had a full consort of recorders been used, and some of the pieces demand the attack and dynamic variety that can best be provided by a violin consort. But the playing is very good (apart from a few tuning problems caused by the continuo instruments), and the music is delightful throughout.

Two CDs, Das Partiturbuch: Instrumental music at the courts of 17th century Germany (Naxos 8.557679, rec 2002, 62') and Dresden 1652: music by Christoph Bernhard and Christian Herwich (NCA 60147-210, rec 2004, 64') draw on an important recently discovered score-book at Wolfenbüttel. It is dated 1662, includes instrumental ensemble music ranging from solo gamba and violin pieces to seven- and eight-part sonatas, and was copied by Jakob Ludwig (1623–98), a court musician at Wolfenbüttel and Gotha. Most of the research and editing seems to have been done by Michael Fuerst, who wrote the notes for the former disc and plays keyboard on the latter. The Naxos CD, performed by Ensemble Echo du Danube under Christian Zincke, consists entirely of music from the manuscript, and includes sonatas and ground-bass pieces mostly for one or two violins, gamba or fagotto and continuo by the Viennese composers Antonio Bertali and Johann Heinrich Schmelzer, the Stuttgart composers Johann Michael Nicolai and Samuel Capricornus, Adam Drese of Weimar and Nathaniel Schnittelbach of Lübeck. Much of the music is very good, and seems to be unique. I was particularly struck by the Bertali pieces, including the wonderful Ciaccona for violin and continuo (which does survive elsewhere), an excellent virtuoso sonata for violin, fagotto and continuo by Nicolai, and the concluding A major solo violin sonata by Schittelbach, based on the four descending notes of the Passacaglia. The performances are mostly lively and idiomatic, though they occasionally struck me as being insufficiently characterized, there are some tuning problems, and the continuo is sometimes 'orchestrated' in an annoying way. But no-one with an interest in this fascinating repertory should be without this budget CD.

The Dresden disc, from Hamburger Ratsmusik and Simone Eckert, concentrates on music by two composers who met in Dresden for a court wedding in 1652: the Weimar gamba player Christian Herwich and the Dresden singer Christoph Bernhard, a pupil of Schütz. To be honest, the connection between them is tenuous, and the concept behind...