Document

  1994
    February 1994
        Chamber
                Marais Chamber Works.

Marais La gamme et autres morceaux de simphonies—La gamme en forme d'un petit opera; Sonate a la mariesienne; La Sonnerie de Saint-Genevieve du Mont. Boston Museum Trio (Daniel Stepner, vn; Laura Jeppesen, va da gamba; John Gibbons, hpd).

Centaur (Full price) (CD) CRC2129 (55 minutes: DDD).

Marais Pieces de Violes. Marianne Muller, Sylvia Abramowicz (bass viols); Eugene Ferre (gtr); Pascal Monteilhet (theorbo).

Ades (Full price) (CD) 20235-2 (60 minutes: DDD).

Premiere livre—Suite in D minor. Deuxieme livre—Tombeau pour M. de Lulli. Troisieme livre—Suite in G. Quatrieme livre—Caprice ou Sonate. Cinquieme livre—Caprice in A minor.

Le Tombeau de M. de Sainte-Colombe Philippe Pierlot, ^a Sophie Watillon, ^b Rainer Zipperling (vas da gamba); ^a Rolf Lislevand (theorbo).

Ricercar (Full price) (CD) RIC118100 (52 minutes: DDD).

Marais: Tombeau pour M. de Sainte-Colombe^a. Du Buisson III: Troisieme Suite in A minor. Machy: Pieces de viole—Suite in G; Suite in D minor. Sainte-Colombe le fils: Tombeau pour M. de Sainte-Colombe le pere. Fantaisie en Rondeau. Sainte-Colombe: Tombeau les regrets^b.

Marais La gamme—Sonnerie de Saint-Genevieve du Mont. Pieces de Viole—Premiere Livre—Prelude; Deuxieme Livre—Tombeau pour M. de Sainte-Colombe; Troisieme Livre—Prelude; Double; Allemande; Gigue; Quatrieme Livre—Le labyrinthe; L'arabesque; La reveuse; Le badinage. Sainte-Colombe Concerts a deux violes esgales—Le retour; Tombeau les regrets. Spectre de la Rose (Marie Knight, baroque vn; Alison Crum, Elizabeth Liddle, Susanna Pell, vas da gamba; David Miller, theorbo/baroque gtr; Timothy Roberts, hpd).

Naxos (Super budget price) (CD) 8 550750 (68 minutes: DDD).

A new generation of viol players are recording the music of Sainte-Colombe and Marin Marais, inspired by the success of the film Tous les matins du monde. In Sainte-Colombe's and Marais's day it was rare to find a French player not touched by their styles of playing; today most young players will have been influenced by the teaching and recordings of Wieland Kuijken and Jordi Savall. Savall's poised and compelling performances on the film soundtrack (reproduced and augmented on the Auvidis CD) have for many become the standard interpretations of such works as Saint-Colombe's Le retour (in which he is eloquently joined by Christophe Coin) and Marais's Le badinage and La reveuse. Many will find it remarkable that, in the face of these powerful icons, uncanny nationalistic elements nevertheless emerge in these latest recordings.

Making its recording debut, the English ensemble Spectre de la Rose (on Naxos) bring a strong, clear yet sweet sound to this music. The miking is close (the clicking of the harpsichord action and the thud of strings hitting fingerboards are occasionally distracting), conveying at once a sense of intimacy and timbral brilliance. Tempos here are slower than those of continental performers (slower than those of the highly polished Boston Museum Trio as well) but enable Marie Knight, Alison Crum and Timothy Roberts to infuse their performance of Marais's Sonnerie de Saint-Genevieve du Mont (so appallingly done in the lesson at the beginning of the film, though well enough played on the CD) with a deeper level of coherence than it is usually accorded.

Alison Crum (one presumes, as the Naxos programme does not say otherwise) plays the solos beautifully in the English style: lean and understated. I would like to have heard her make more of the harmonic tensions and dramatic possibilities for silence, especially in Marais's Tombeau pour M. de Sainte-Colombe. She might also take more pleasure in the subtlety of the ornamentation. I rather missed a touch of humour in Le badinage (with its ubiquitous rondeau theme) and even more, a touch of rhetoric at the climax of Le labyrinthe; while taking their cue from Savall in the effective use of theorbo (and a second viol) for the accompaniment and in other matters, these performances lack his panache.

The Boston Museum Trio celebrates its twentieth anniversary this year with the issue of a recording of Marais's 1723 collection of three large-scale trios for violin, bass viol and continuo, which includes La Sonnerie, the best known of the three. Daniel Stepner, Laura Jeppesen (a pupil of Kuijken) and John Gibbons are excellent technicians and widely admired, especially in the United States. Stepner produces a bright, energetic sound, particularly in the Sonate a la mariesienne. Jeppesen imitates his bow strokes and sound to perfection, while elsewhere, especially in La gamme and La Sonnerie, projecting her own musical individuality.

Nationality is not always the determining factor. The routine performances by Marianne Muller and her Paris-based colleagues of a selection from Marais's five books of pieces de violes on Ades suffer for being shackled to the pulse. Muller (another Kuijken pupil) robustly attacks the chords and otherwise favours a sustained, treacly bow stroke, producing a gruff, heavy-handed effect in the lower range and a penetrating sound in the upper (betraying, perhaps, her musical origins as a recorder player). The fact that the lute and guitar accompaniment often sounds as if under water may mean the circumstances of the recording were in some way to blame for the overall impression.

Nevertheless, among the most pleasurable of the recordings surveyed here are the performances by the Frenchman, Philippe Pierlot, of viol music from the era of Sainte-Colombe. Already known for his disc of sonatas by C. P. E. Bach, Graun and Schaffrath ((CD) RIC047025), Pierlot in this recording proves himself an important interpreter of the French style. His sound, as reproduced here, does take a bit of getting used to, because it is smaller and grainier than that of a Savall or even a Crum. However, it is ultimately very satisfying, for these are intimate performances, with all the delicacy and contemplativeness one imagines might have embodied Marais's performances before Louis XIV. By seeming to play softly Pierlot compels you to listen to his sublime musical discourse in Marais's Tombeau pour M. de Sainte-Colombe. So at ease with time is he that your heartbeat slows. While including such popular works as the Tombeau and Sainte-Colombe's Les regrets (which fades away at the end of the CD rather like a pop music track), he also introduces CD listeners to the solo viol music of Du Buisson III and Sainte-Colombe le fils, whose existence was ignored in the film, and whose own extended and tortuous Tombeau pour M. de Sainte-Colombe le pere, with its strikingly reminiscent dialogue section two-thirds of the way through and its virtuoso figuration, deserves to be better known.

JAS



		A new generation of viol players are recording the music of Sainte-Colombe and Marin Marais, inspired by the success of the film Tous les matins du monde. In Sainte-Colombe's and Marais's day it was rare to find a French player not touched by their styles of playing; today most young players will have been influenced by the teaching and recordings of Wieland Kuijken and Jordi Savall. Savall's poised and compelling performances on the film soundtrack (reproduced and augmented on the Auvidis CD) have for many become the standard interpretations of such works as Saint-Colombe's Le retour (in which he is eloquently joined by Christophe Coin) and Marais's Le badinage and La reveuse. Many will find it remarkable that, in the face of these powerful icons, uncanny nationalistic elements nevertheless emerge in these latest recordings.



		Making its recording debut, the English ensemble Spectre de la Rose (on Naxos) bring a strong, clear yet sweet sound to this music. The miking is close (the clicking of the harpsichord action and the thud of strings hitting fingerboards are occasionally distracting), conveying at once a sense of intimacy and timbral brilliance. Tempos here are slower than those of continental performers (slower than those of the highly polished Boston Museum Trio as well) but enable Marie Knight, Alison Crum and Timothy Roberts to infuse their performance of Marais's Sonnerie de Saint-Genevieve du Mont (so appallingly done in the lesson at the beginning of the film, though well enough played on the CD) with a deeper level of coherence than it is usually accorded.



		Alison Crum (one presumes, as the Naxos programme does not say otherwise) plays the solos beautifully in the English style: lean and understated. I would like to have heard her make more of the harmonic tensions and dramatic possibilities for silence, especially in Marais's Tombeau pour M. de Sainte-Colombe. She might also take more pleasure in the subtlety of the ornamentation. I rather missed a touch of humour in Le badinage (with its ubiquitous rondeau theme) and even more, a touch of rhetoric at the climax of Le labyrinthe; while taking their cue from Savall in the effective use of theorbo (and a second viol) for the accompaniment and in other matters, these performances lack his panache.



		The Boston Museum Trio celebrates its twentieth anniversary this year with the issue of a recording of Marais's 1723 collection of three large-scale trios for violin, bass viol and continuo, which includes La Sonnerie, the best known of the three. Daniel Stepner, Laura Jeppesen (a pupil of Kuijken) and John Gibbons are excellent technicians and widely admired, especially in the United States. Stepner produces a bright, energetic sound, particularly in the Sonate a la mariesienne. Jeppesen imitates his bow strokes and sound to perfection, while elsewhere, especially in La gamme and La Sonnerie, projecting her own musical individuality.



		Nationality is not always the determining factor. The routine performances by Marianne Muller and her Paris-based colleagues of a selection from Marais's five books of pieces de violes on Ades suffer for being shackled to the pulse. Muller (another Kuijken pupil) robustly attacks the chords and otherwise favours a sustained, treacly bow stroke, producing a gruff, heavy-handed effect in the lower range and a penetrating sound in the upper (betraying, perhaps, her musical origins as a recorder player). The fact that the lute and guitar accompaniment often sounds as if under water may mean the circumstances of the recording were in some way to blame for the overall impression.



		Nevertheless, among the most pleasurable of the recordings surveyed here are the performances by the Frenchman, Philippe Pierlot, of viol music from the era of Sainte-Colombe. Already known for his disc of sonatas by C. P. E. Bach, Graun and Schaffrath ((CD) RIC047025), Pierlot in this recording proves himself an important interpreter of the French style. His sound, as reproduced here, does take a bit of getting used to, because it is smaller and grainier than that of a Savall or even a Crum. However, it is ultimately very satisfying, for these are intimate performances, with all the delicacy and contemplativeness one imagines might have embodied Marais's performances before Louis XIV. By seeming to play softly Pierlot compels you to listen to his sublime musical discourse in Marais's Tombeau pour M. de Sainte-Colombe. So at ease with time is he that your heartbeat slows. While including such popular works as the Tombeau and Sainte-Colombe's Les regrets (which fades away at the end of the CD rather like a pop music track), he also introduces CD listeners to the solo viol music of Du Buisson III and Sainte-Colombe le fils, whose existence was ignored in the film, and whose own extended and tortuous Tombeau pour M. de Sainte-Colombe le pere, with its strikingly reminiscent dialogue section two-thirds of the way through and its virtuoso figuration, deserves to be better known.