Italy versus France Bach Players HYPHEN PRESS MUSIC 004[JV]: Classical Music Reviews

The competition of the Italian and the French style was one of the main subjects of the 17th and 18th centuries. Much has been written about it, and many recordings have paid attention to it, in one way or another. From that perspective the theme of this disc can hardly be called original. That doesn't mean that it couldn't make sense to juxtapose the two styles and show the differences, as well as how they were mixed in the early 18th century in the so-called goÛts réunis. Unfortunately this subject isn't worked out very well in the liner-notes, and the choice of repertoire isn't particularly imaginative.

A large part of the music which The Bach Players perform has been recorded before. That is certainly the case with the Apothéose de Corelli by François Couperin. The Tombeau de M. de Lully by Jean-Féry Rebel, the Sonata II by Muffat and Corelli's Trio sonata Op. 2 No. 12 are also very well-known and often performed. This disc would have been considerably more interesting if the musicians would have selected some lesser-known pieces suited to demonstrating the difference between the two styles. That leads to another minus of this project. Most pieces are written in the mixed style which became fashionable in the early 18th century, when French composers started to include Italian influences in their compositions, and composers outside France aimed at merging the two main styles of Europe. All pieces by Muffat, Couperin and Rebel are specimens of the mixed style. In comparison the programme contains only a handful of - rather short - pieces which reflect the pure French (Lully, d'Anglebert) or the pure Italian (Corelli, Pasquini) styles. The liner-notes tell us little about exactly what the French objections to the Italian style were, nor how the Italians assessed French music.

The performances also offer little elucidation. The playing of The Bach Players is largely the same in French and Italian music. On the whole I am not very impressed. Technically there is nothing wrong: all the music is given nice and polished performances. But there is very little contrast between the various items and a general blandness prevails which makes it sometimes hard to keep concentration. The programme starts with two instrumental movements from the music which Lully composed for Molière's famous play Le bourgeois gentilhomme. This choice is rather unfortunate: the music was originally played by the 24 Violons du Roy of which Lully himself was a member. A performance with five strings cannot do justice to the character of the score. Rebel's Tombeau may have been written as a tribute to Lully, who was one of the main representatives of the pure French style, but the composer was clearly influenced by Italian music. The Tombeau is part of a collection of twelve solo and trio sonatas which follow the model of the Italian sonata da chiesa. The performance is dynamically too flat and the playing as a whole not very colourful. The second section - 'vif' - is rather slow. The lack of dynamic shading also damages the performance of Corelli's sonata, which consists of just one movement, a ciaccona.

The two compositions by Muffat are examples of his attempts to merge the Italian and French streams. Although the titles of many movements are French, some of the characteristics of the dances have gone, for instance their rhythmic peculiarities. That is no excuse for the lack of rhythmic profile in some movements, though. Of all the pieces Couperin's Apothéose comes off best, although I have heard interpretations which have made a more lasting impression. The two harpsichord solos are alright, but nothing more. Jakob Lindberg provides nice performances of the two pieces for theorbo by Robert de Visée.

On balance I find it hard to welcome this disc. The subject is dealt with often enough, the choice of repertoire is unimaginative and the playing leaves something to be desired.

Johan van Veen
http://www.musica-dei-donum.org
https://twitter.com/johanvanveen

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