What baroque/early music are you listening to?

[CallMePaul]

The Rosary Sonatas have been lucky on disc, with most baroque violinists seeming to want to tackle them, and new versions keep coming. I have Goebel and Manze but what are your top choices now that so many recordings are available ?

When I decided to but a version of these sonatas I was torn, after reading reviews, between Podger and Tur Bonet. I chose Podger as it won a Gramophone award (Baroque Non-vocal) and also it was easier to find (bought at Forsyth's in Manchester). While I have no regrets I will listen to Tur Bonet although I probably don't play the pieces often enough to justify a second purchase.

[Mandryka]

But only 10 of the 15 sonatas, is it not? QOBUS somehow manages to list the 9th twice, though with different timings.

Not sure what the thing on Qobuz is - this is what I meant and it has the whole shooting match, the full rosary monty.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Biber-Mystery-Sonatas-Mysterien-Sonaten/dp/B00009OKOU

[Bryn]

Not sure what the thing on Qobuz is - this is what I meant and it has the whole shooting match, the full rosary monty.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Biber-Myste.../dp/B00009OKOU

Here's the QOBUZ listing I was referring to. It looks like she has returned to record all 15 since. Though the listing in this link fails to mention Alice Piérot, if you have a QOBUZ subscription, she is listed after Elisabeth Geiger:

https://www.qobuz.com/gb-en/album/so.../cho3zsk2w0ipc

Looking again, it appears that the QOBUZ item comprises extracts from the recording you have, issued under the label name "ClassicalPirosDigital". It appears that QOBUZ do not have the Alpha release, which also seems to have been deleted from the CD catalogue, too.

[RichardB]

Looking again, it appears that the QOBUZ item comprises extracts from the recording you have, issued under the label name "ClassicalPirosDigital". It appears that QOBUZ do not have the Alpha release, which also seems to have been deleted from the CD catalogue, too.

Oh yes, I remember that one now, from when it came out about 20 years ago. What the recordings I prefer seem to have in common is that they've been made by violinists who have also recorded other music by Biber and his contemporaries, and thus put this set of sonatas in context, rather than treating them more as one of the unique masterpieces that baroque violinists have to test themselves against, in an echo of the way in which the Bach solo works would often be almost the only early 18th century music that "classical" violinists would play. It seems to me like an old-fashioned kind of approach to music like this. While Biber's fourteen or fifteen sonatas are indeed unique in being a "programmatic" cycle, many of the movements in them aren't really different in style from many of those in Biber's non-programmatic music, like his 1681 set of eight sonatas. I'm not quite sure how to articulate what I mean here. Listening to Pierot again I find the approach a bit precious. Lüthi in comparison sounds to be "at home" in this music and more freely imaginative with it. That might not be to everyone's taste of course.

[Pulcinella]

Having dug out my recording of the Mystery Sonatas I also took the next CD box off the shelf: a Double Decca release of Biber's Requiem and Trumpet Music (New London Consort/Philip Pickett), which is coupled with some sonatas by Johann Heinrich Schmelzer, a composer hitherto unknown to me. So I must remind myself of his music.

[RichardB]

Having dug out my recording of the Mystery Sonatas I also took the next CD box off the shelf: a Double Decca release of Biber's Requiem and Trumpet Music (New London Consort/Philip Pickett), which is coupled with some sonatas by Johann Heinrich Schmelzer, a composer hitherto unknown to me. So I must remind myself of his music.

There are some very interesting things on those CDs, although to a great extent they're following in the footsteps of recordings made by Harnoncourt et al in the 1960s. Schmelzer's violin writing is somewhat less showy than Biber's, but his sense of melody and texture is individual and attractive, and less removed from folk music. Biber's Requiem in F minor (there's another much more grand one in A major) recently received a very beautiful recording by Vox Luminis and the Freiburger Barockconsort.

[Mandryka]

If you want someone who’s recorded lots of music from this period RichardB I don’t think you can do better than Gunar Letzbor.

I certainly would be interested to know what other people make of his style, I get the impression from the way he plays that he’s a strong character, serious, curious and ready to experiment - possibly well informed about historical practice even. But baroque violin music is not something I’ve delved into much, so I could well be wrong.

[RichardB]

If you want someone who’s recorded lots of music from this period RichardB I don’t think you can do better than Gunar Letzbor.

Except that, as I mentioned, I'm not that keen on his playing. He has certainly explored regions of 17th century repertoire that few others have ventured into, particularly where church music is concerned, and there are plenty of his recordings I'm happy to listen to, even though his sound is sometimes a bit scratchy and overaccentuated for my taste.

[RichardB]

I hope I'll be excused for some further enthusing, but this is one of my favourite corners of the musical world, and, since I've already mentioned Meret Lüthi, I would like to draw attention also to her recording with her ensemble Les Passions de l'Âme of Biber's less well-known cycle Harmonia Artificiosa-Ariosa, which comprises seven partitas of between three and ten movements, most for two retuned violins while one is for violin and viola and one for 2 viole d'amore, all with continuo of course. Often both melody instruments are playing double stops, so that the musical textures are much more full than you'd expect from a typical "trio sonata" lineup. Actual four- and five-part string ensemble writing is to be found in the collection Fidicinium sacro-profanum, of which there's a beautiful recording on Accent by Harmonie Universelle.

[Mandryka]

Several of the recordings I know are convincing for quite different reasons. There's an irreplaceable sense of discovery (and of fantasy in some of the highly elaborate continuo realisations) in Eduard Melkus's pioneering 1967 recording which I still like to listen to now and again. It was eventually superseded for me by Reinhard Goebel, whose familiarity with the idiom of the music was obviously much greater. Holloway takes a more austere and reverent view, recording in a church acoustic; it's beautiful but I reckon this is very far from how the virtuoso Biber would have played the pieces himself. After a few more recordings came out in between, I was very taken by Lina Tur Bonet's of 2015 which combines flair and joy of playing with a consciousness of the spiritual dimension of the music (which isn't so obvious, to me at least, in Goebel's recording). But then just a few months ago came the new one by Meret Lüthi which maybe I will end up preferring for those same reasons. Alice Pierot's recording is somewhat ruled out for me by being incomplete, besides which it seems a little thin and colourless in comparison with Bonet or Lüthi, although of course one person's colourless might be another person's angelic.

Thanks for mentioning Melkus, Richard - which I listened to today for the first time. I’d never even heard of him before, though I can now see he was a pioneer with many recordings. Maybe it’s the power of suggestion, but I too felt that sense of discovery, joyful discovery - enjoyed it tremendously. I’ll dig out Lautenbacher later and see how it compares - I think her recording is from the same era.

[smittims]

I first heard Eduard Melkus around 1970 in a broadcast of Bach's C major unaccompanied sonata. His playing in the Regensburg choirs' Archiv recording of the Monteverdi Vespers is very fine.

From a different period of Baroque interpretetion, c.1959 I think, I've been enjoying some Handel overtures and dances from an old Oiseau-Lyre Lp. their first in stereo, SOL 60001 'Music of Handel' (nice sleeve too) . The Philomusica of London with Anthony Lewis and Thurston Dart

[MickyD]

Melkus made some interesting contributions with his ensemble to the big Archiv box set "Dance Music through the Ages", going from early baroque right up to the Biedermeier period. A very happy project - in the Rococo disc, Melkus included some dance music from Rameau's 'Zoroastre', the first time I had ever heard that music and I was captivated. The discs still sound good today.

[Lavish Absence]

I picked up a really cheap (just over $8 including shipping) CD of Rameau’s Pièces de clavecin in concerts with the Kuijken brothers and Robert Kohnen. I’ve read some horror stories about people buying from Momox on Amazon but I gotta say they came through with the goods! Arrived early and is in almost new condition. My Brüggen set is in the way too so I’m going to be in Rameau heaven for awhile! Thanks Micky D for the suggestion of the recording of Pièces de clavecin in concerts.

[smittims]

I still treasure an old oiseau-lyre recording with Desmond Dupre and Thurston Dart, recently reissued in Eloquence. In their day these were pioneer recordings of baroque (or , as they say in France, 'classique') instrumental music.

[Mandryka]

For some reason, possibly not an interesting one, I’m getting a much greater sense of the variety Muffat’s toccatas than I have done listening to other recordings. The counterpoint also seems more striking too. I’m also finding myself wanting to hear the whole thing, which is rare for me - I have a short attention span. I’d say this is a performance well worth a listen.

The organ is a biggie and it’s very well recorded, tight low notes and lots of character.