Gottlieb MUFFAT (1690-1770)
Parthie in D minor, MC B.2 [14:36]
Componimenti Musicali no.7 MC A.19 [9:53]
Parthie Parisien in A minor, MC B.19 [20:16]
Componimenti Musicali no.1 (Parthie in C) MC A.13 [20:20]
Naoko Akutagawa (harpsichord)
rec. Schüttbau, Rügheim, Germany, 13-15 March 2012. DDD
NAXOS 8.572610 [65:05]
Gottlieb Muffat was the youngest son of the more celebrated Georg (1653-1704),
and spent most of his long life employed by the imperial court of Vienna.
Though perhaps not quite the genius his father was, the opening few seconds
of Japanese harpsichordist Naoko Akutagawa's recital are all that
is required to establish that Muffat junior was still a composer of some
originality. These four works, an ear-catching conspectus of his extant
corpus, are packed with enough keyboard hex and heterogeneity to leave the
listener hoping more lost manuscripts may yet turn up. The dark-edged drama
of the Parthie Parisien is especially arresting - that Handel cribbed a
number of Muffat's ideas is no surprise. Nevertheless, he was no
outright trailblazer, and his harmonically bold, sumptuously ornamented
music belongs firmly under the banner of high Baroque - Haydn's Vienna
was a parallel one.
The most impressive competition for this Naxos release is a recording of
all seven Componimenti Musicali by Mitzi Meyerson on Glossa in 2009 (GCD
921804). That clearly has the edge when it comes to completion, but as a
double-disc at more than twice the price of a Naxos single, exists in a
different price orbit. There are also older recordings of five or six of
the suites by Joseph Payne on Centaur (CRC 2502) and Borbala Dobozy on Hungaroton
(HCD 31309-10).
This is Naoko Akutagawa's fifth disc for Naxos, the latest in a cosmopolitan
series of complete or selected harpsichord works by Frenchman Gaspard Le
Roux (8.557884), German Johann Graupner (8.570459) and Italian Bernardo
Storace (8.572209), with a more recent complement of violin sonatas by Franz
Benda, accompanying Hans-Joachim Berg (8.572307). Critical assessment of
her playing has always been positive, and rightly so: here too she is reassuringly
confident and expressive, as well as galvanically virtuosic.
Sound quality is very good too. The period reproduction harpsichord has
a quiet mechanism and an earthy masculine tone which, in Akutagawa's
poetic hands, even seems amenable to a range of dynamic shadings. Alison
Dunlop's interesting booklet notes go into some detail regarding
the travels of Muffat manuscripts and the concomitant travails of Muffat
musicologists.
Byzantion
Collected reviews and contact at artmusicreviews.co.uk
Reassuringly confident and expressive, as well as galvanically virtuosic.
|
Support us financially
by purchasing this disc from
|
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|