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Reviewer: Robert
Maxham
Violinist Ingrid Matthews,
harpsichord player Byron Schenkman, and gambist Margriet Tindemans presented
a program of the music of Élisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre on Wildboar 9601,
which I recommended for special collections in
Fanfare
20:4. Their program overlapped that of La Rêveuse in the inclusion of the
Sonata I in D Minor and the Sonata III in F, but I considered the most
striking feature of those earlier performances to be “their uncompromisingly
aggressive sonorities.” Le Rêveuse has now recorded three of the sonatas, as
well as two others, both in A Minor, with two works for viola da gamba by
Jacques Morel and with a transcription for theorbo of a brief harpsichord
work by François Couperin.
In the Suonata secunda,
Stéphan Dudamel, playing a 2004 Amati-pattern violin by David Ayache,
produces a tone that, like those of violinists such as Simon Standage and
Fabio Biondi, synthesizes elements of what once passed as authentic period
sound with a more modern one. In the six movements of this work, ranging in
tempo and Affekt
from the solemn opening
Grave
to the tangy final
Presto, Dudamel and the
ensemble play with a lush relaxation (notable in the third movement, an
Aria, Affetuoso)
that’s only faintly reminiscent of the pinched timbres and edgy manner of
many earlier period performances. The composer designated these sonatas for
solo violin with viola
obligée and either
organ, specifically (Suonata
prima and
Suonata secunda)
or continuo, generally (it’s easy to understand why movements like the final
Presto would appeal to the group’s co-founder, gambist Florence Bolton).
Sonata I, also cast in six movements, opens with a movement with no tempo
indication that makes a stately impression similar to that of the opening
Grave of the Suonata
secunda. As did that
work, this one alternates fast and slow movements, with the fast ones, like
the second- or the fourth-movement
prestos
(with the ensemble providing crunchy underpinning to the
solo part), bubbling with ebullient energy and the slower ones marked by
noble expressivity. The sequential melodic lines, reminiscent of Corelli’s,
may be, as Catherine Cessac’s notes suggest, relieved by an admixture of
French elements, but those elements seem to spice an essentially Italian
entrée. Like its counterpart in the
Suonata secunda,
the smoothly flowing Aria makes a particularly genial impression in these
performances.
Bolton takes a turn as soloist in two pieces from Morel’s
1er Livre de Pièces de Viole
from Paris in 1710, the first a somewhat serious Prelude and the second a
dance-like but almost equally serious Rondeau, “Le Folet.” The
Suonata prima,
with only four movements, seems much slighter than its fellow work in A
Minor; the Sonata III, the first sonata in the collection in a major key,
returns to the multimovement format with five movements, the second, a
multisectional one (Presto and Adagio). The fourth-movement Aria, again a
striking piece in its own right, features a dialogue-like game of catch with
jaunty motives; the sonata concludes with an Adagio. The ensemble’s
co-founder and theorbo player, Benjamin Perrot, appears as soloist in Robert
de Visée’s transcription for theorbo of
Les Sylvains,
a sensitive—and sensitively explored—miniature by François Couperin, before
Jacquet de La Guerre’s Sonata IV (also in a major key) brings the program to
a joyous close. Since three of the sonata’s four movements boast more than
one section, the entire work seems like an alternation of brief, contrasting
sections.
While Matthews’ set offered all the sonatas from the 1707 collection, La
Rêveuse’s includes only four of them. But the differences lie deeper than
the simple choice of repertoire. Matthews and her ensemble played the works
with a greater liveliness overall, although also with somewhat pinched,
nasal timbres. So, Mirare’s collection affords a fresh look at a rarely
encountered composer: a somewhat different program in a somewhat different
manner. Recommended, like Matthews’, for special collections; those who have
already acquired Wildboar’s anthology should find enough that’s new in this
one to justify its addition to their libraries. |
