Palestrina, Volume 4, The Sixteen, Harry Christophers

I tend to associate cold weather with early vocal music, the baroque especially. Of course there is no one season for it, but it warms my insides this time of year. So as I play the disk up for review this morning I feel a little more warm. You can do little better than Palestrina, that incredibly deft master of counterpoint. The Sixteen give his music loving care as they give is their Volume 4 (CORO 16114) of his music for unaccompanied choir.

As usual the Sixteen under Harry Christophers are an ideal ensemble for the music. They sing with haunting period luminescence. Anybody who at one time ended up with some of the lesser quality Palestrina devoted LPs of the earlier days knows how much the music virtually stands or falls on a passionate, period-oriented vocal ensemble. Early music performances on disk have progressed, thankfully, so that you meet up with clinkers less, but the Sixteen are as near perfect as you can get, virtually speaking.

The program of Vol. 4 is at a high level, with some relative obscurities, like "Missa O Magnum Mysterium", and some others better known, like "Song of Songs", Nos, 7, 8 & 12, but all are quite beautiful. There's a Gregorian Chant arranged for polyphony in the idiomatic Palestrinian style, written to be sung on Christmas morning.

It's all transportingly lovely. Those old cathedrals must have been very drafty back in the day, but the music had to have warmed them up. It does that to me. Palestrina well sung transcends season and time, but listening right now seems especially fine.

Another winner from the Sixteen!

Freiburger BarockConsort: Schmelzer, Baroque World Theatre

When a group such as the Freiburger BarockConsort performs music from the 17th century, you hear the sound of the music as it would have been heard in a typical performance of the period. This they do on a new album covering the music of Johann Heinrich Schmelzer, an Austrian composer very active at the Habsburg court. His sonatas and dance suites became well known throughout Central Europe. Freiberger's BarockConsort gives us an insightful/delightful earful of a good selection of his instrumental works on Baroque World Theatre (Harmonia Mundi 902087).

The presence of lute, harpshichord and viola da gamba, and what sound like period instruments and bows in the violins and etc., transforms the usual modern-day performance into something much sweeter and more resonant. The imitative echoing of motives, the continuo in its original timbral richness and the general string sound bring out the parts. The blend of instruments is distinguished by a greater variety of sound colors than we might hear today and so each part stands out more strikingly. And in the process Schmelzer's music becomes quite comprehensible and rather lovely indeed. And you can hear the influence he had on Biber, for example, in the elaborate and characteristic variations around repeating figured bass patterns. This was something Biber quite apparently studied closely.

It's a very attractive performance of works well worth hearing and enjoying. Any fan of early music will love this. Those who may not have heard music of the early baroque performed in the period style with period instruments are in for a good surprise. Some of the dances really get rolling as well!

The CD is available April 10th, but you can preorder it at Amazon. Copy this URL into your browser window to go directly to the appropriate page: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Harmonia+Mundi+902087