Georg Wagenseil is one of those myriad composers who lurk at
the peripheries of the 18th century repertoire. One or other
work of his - usually the Alto Trombone Concerto in E flat or
the Harp Concerto in G - pops up here and there on various recordings,
whereas monographs like this new Accent release are few and
far between. Half a dozen years ago CPO committed a mini-series
of two volumes to some of his Symphonies, and one or two other
labels have recorded clusters of Concertos, including indeed
Accent: ACC 24186 featured Wagenseil's imaginative Concerto
for oboe, bassoon, winds, strings and continuo in E flat.
There seems to be one other CD of Organ Concertos, issued by
the German label EBS (6089) in the 1990s, still available over
the internet and despite the numbering system used, all different
works to those in the present recording. This is in fact a re-release,
having originally been issued on the Italian Symphonia label
a decade ago (SY 01194).
Wagenseil's relative neglect - or reputation for mediocrity
- is something of a puzzle, because he was not only a renowned
keyboard virtuoso and pedagogue, but his music was held in considerable
esteem in his lifetime - by the likes of Charles Burney, Haydn
and Mozart. Undoubtedly, his prolific production played a role
in later critical hubris: unless going by the name of Haydn,
anyone who writes nearly a hundred Symphonies, the same number
again of Concertos, liturgical works, keyboard pieces and more,
must surely be writing by numbers to some degree. There is also
the consideration that Wagenseil's mature music is almost quintessentially
galant in style - for some critics a musical Buridan's Ass conservatively
static between the Baroque and the Classical.
Yet in fairness to Wagenseil, he was a teacher and there is
understandably an element of didacticism in his numerous keyboard
Concertos. The 'orchestra' is thus usually a chamber ensemble
- Piccolo Concerto Wien employs seven players for this recording
- that plays a fairly subsidiary role to the soloist, who provides
flourishes of figurations over chiefly pedagogic rhythms and
harmonies. Wagenseil's keyboard Concertos include at least two
sets of six that might be performed on the organ. The present
set are taken from the 'Six Concertos for the Harpsichord or
Organ with Accompanyments for Two Violins and a Bass', published
in London around 1765 by John Walsh, who also published Handel's
Organ Concertos, with which Wagenseil's are loosely contemporaneous.
The four works heard here, splendidly performed on period instruments
by the hugely experienced Austrian organist Elisabeth Ullmann
and 18th-century specialists Piccolo Concerto Wien, are structurally
and harmonically similar to each other - an upbeat major key
mood, three movements, a fast opener and minuet finale sandwiching
a longer andante, even dynamics etc. Yet for all their undoubted
textbook straightforwardness, they are utterly winsome, with
an appealing stylistic tisane of the German/Austrian, Italian
and French piling the foot-tapping rhythms and catchy melodies
high.
The music is lovingly recorded in an intimate acoustic. The
well-written booklet notes are in English, French and German
and offer a decent biographical summary of the composer. Rather
surprisingly there is no information on Ullmann or Piccolo Concerto
Wien.
Byzantion
Collected reviews and contact at artmusicreviews.co.uk
Elisabeth Ullmann (organ)
