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Interesting Historical Figures

2012; Oxford University Press; Volume: 40; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1093/em/cas125

1741-7260

Mary Talbot,

Diverse Musicological Studies

Where would the early music movement be without its constantly replenished stock of Interesting Historical Figures (to revive Tovey’s belittling but at least not wholly unfriendly term)? Simultaneously ‘old’ and ‘new’, their music challenges our expectations and critical faculties. In the final analysis much, if not most, of this music deserves to remain on the shelf (as is equally true of much music of the present day following its first performance), but one would not wish it never to be trialled, just in case it reveals unsuspected beauties or—and here the musicologist rather than the musician or listener speaks—sheds extra light on some particular composer, work or repertory of greater worth. Each of the CDs reviewed in this batch foregrounds the music of one or more Interesting Historical Figures, and with hardly an exception reveals the benefit of having done so. Top of my list comes an ingeniously conceived and expertly performed double act of sacred chamber duets and partimenti, performed by Echo du Danube, Giovanni Alberto Ristori: Divoti affetti alla Passione di Nostro Signore; Esercizi per l’Accompagnamento (Accent acc24209, rec 2009, 64′). Ristori (1692–1753) was a colleague of Heinichen, Zelenka and Hasse at the Dresden court (although he also spent much time in Poland and, later, Italy); his music, mainly vocal, has been the object of considerable recent interest, although recordings are few. The duets, very similar in form and style to the chamber duets of Handel and Clari notwithstanding their Latin and sacred texts, are quite exquisite, but the real surprise comes in the Esercizi. These are in essence simply figured bass lines designed as practice material for keyboard accompanists, but the strong melodic profile and logical thematic development of Ristori’s basses produces a result more akin to a solo sonata movement than to a mere figured bass exercise—in fact, one three-movement sequence is actually described as a sonata. As performed on the CD, these pieces are more accurately viewed as artful elaborations than as quasi-improvised realizations, but what the arranger, Alexander Weimann, has achieved—distributing the accompaniment in myriad ingenious ways among harp, psaltery, lute, harpsichord, organ and bass viol—is little short of miraculous, in the process demonstrating a purity and elegance of part-writing that Bach would have admired. This recording is also a striking testimony to the riches of the SLUB (the former Sächsische Landesbibliothek in Dresden), from which so much remarkable music has emerged in recent decades.