Giovanni Benedetto PLATTI (1697 - 1763)
Ricercata for violin and cello No. 1 in D major [12:13]
Sonata for solo cello and continuo No 4 in C minor (1725) [9:06]
Ricercata for violin and cello No. 2 in A major [9:26]
Ricercata for violin and cello No. 3 in E minor [8:48]
Sonata for solo cello and continuo No 3 in A major (1725) [12:46]
Ricercata for violin and cello No. 4 in G major [11:29]
Neumeyer Consort; Barbara Mauch-Heinke (baroque violin), Felix Koch (baroque
cello), Harald Hoeren (harpsichord), Markus Stein (organ)
rec. 4-5 January and 15 July 2008, Kleiner Saal, Hochschule für Musik und
Darstellende Kunst, Frankfurt
Notes in German, English and French
CHRISTOPHORUS CHR 77310 [63:57]
Giovanni Benedetto Platti was born in Padua or its immediate environs. His
musical life was intimately bound up with the aristocratic Catholic family
of the Schönborn - there is an account of the family’s rise in Sylvia Schraut’s
Das Haus Schönborn. Ein familienbiographie, 2005 - of whom generation
after generation occupied significant and enriching posts in the hierarchy
of the church. It was in 1722 that Platti made his way north to Würzburg along
with Fortunato Chelleri, Raphaele Signorini, Girolamo Bassani and others.
Platti was initially employed as an oboist by Johann Philipp Franz von Schönborn,
who had become Prince-Archbishop of Bamberg and Würzburg in 1718. Marrying
a court soprano, Maria Theresia Lambrucke, in 1723, Platti remained in Würzburg
or in the nearby establishments of other members of the family for the rest
of his life; Johann Philipp Franz, his first Schönborn patron, died in 1724.
Appropriately enough the cover illustration for this disc is of baroque sculpture
in the garden of the Würzburg Residence. This was built during Platti’s years
there; Tiepolo decorated part of the building with frescoes, one of which
contains a portrait of Platti playing the cello. Platti served the family
in many musical capacities – as a singer and teacher of singing, as oboist,
violinist, harpsichordist and flautist and, presumably, a cellist. And as
a composer.
Rudolf Franz Erwein, Count of Schönbron (1677-1754), one of the brothers of
Platti’s first Würzburg patron, was a cellist of some ability. Rudolph Franz
Erwein Platti wrote a good number of cello concertos, two books of cello sonatas
and much else – including all the material to be heard on this present disc,
all preserved in manuscript at Wiesensteid, where Rudolf Franze Erwein had
his castle.
Platti’s early grounding in the Venetian baroque - his father worked at San
Marco - especially the example of Vivaldi, is naturally evident in his music.
Nor could he escape the all-pervading influence of Corelli. One suspects that
he had listened to some of the music of Pergolesi too and, indeed, to the
new galant style emerging amongst contemporary German composers. The result,
for all these eclectic influences, is music of fair individuality, music which
occupies that liminal territory between the baroque and the classical, a territory
which modern performers are doing so much to rediscover.
The four Ricercate - all that remains of a putative set of six - are fascinating
in the way they deploy the combination of high and low instruments, treated
as voices of equal importance, each given opportunities to lead and required
to accompany elsewhere. Three of the Ricercate are in four movements, in the
Sonata da Chiesa disposition of slow-fast-slow-fast; No. III has just three
movements (allegro-siziliana-allegro). Platti’s slow movements are elegant
and nuanced, but also adventurous, and more than one of them might be designated
arioso; one is reminded of Platti’s experience as a singer and a teacher of
singing. The faster movements are exuberant and rhythmically forceful. Platti’s
ear for harmony is quite sophisticated and there are some very pleasing textures.
The two sonatas for cello also follow the pattern of the Sonata da Chiesa
as regards the disposition of the movements. But they are rather different
listening experiences. In the Ricercate the full range of the cello is deployed,
with particular emphasis on the top of that range. In the sonatas the emphasis
is much more on the lower end, and the top of the instrument’s compass is
eschewed. The continuo is also given a rather different role. It is given
a greater role in the decoration of the cello’s melodic statements and in
sustaining the harmonic fabric of the whole. In the continuo writing, too,
there is naturally a greater stress here upon weight and gravity of sound.
Both the Ricarcate and the Sonatas, in their different ways, make for fascinating
listening, especially when played and recorded as well as they are here. The
Neumeyer Consort have found a thoroughly persuasive and convincingly idiomatic
manner for this music, a manner which recognises both the ‘historical’ baroque
and the ‘anticipatory’ galant, proto-classical, elements in its make
up. The results make for delightful, emotion-involving, thought-provoking
listening.
Glyn Pursglove
Fine music from the era of transition from the baroque to the classical.