Few music-lovers will be familiar with the name of Giovanni Battista
Costanzi. Some may know him as a cello concerto in D is attributed to Haydn
(H VIIb,4), but also to Costanzi. That piece dates from 1772, close to the
end of his life and career. The present disc includes a piece which he
composed in 1723, when he hadn't even turned 20. At that time he had
already entered the service of Cardinal Ottoboni in Rome. In 1729 his opera
Carlo Magno was performed, which was a huge success. As a result he
held some of the most prestigious positions in Roman music life in the next
decades. It seems that Luigi Boccherini was one of his pupils. The French
composer Grétry considered him one of Rome's most popular composers.
He was a prolific composer but the largest part of his oeuvre has been lost.
What remains is a handful of oratorios, a number of liturgical works,
including masses, the above-mentioned opera and arias from some other works
for the stage, a cantata and some instrumental works.
The
Cantata a tre voci Elpino, Tirsi, e Angelo con stromenti per la
notte di SS:mo Natale was written for a performance on Christmas Eve of
1723 in the Palazzo Apostolico. The libretto was from the pen of Filippo
Leers, a poet - possibly of Dutch origin - who was a prominent member of the
Accademia dell'Arcadia under the name of Siralgo Ninfasio. The
cantata is divided into two parts, and is not fundamentally different from
pieces which are known as oratorios. The two main human characters are the
shepherd Tirsi (tenor) and his son Elpino (soprano). In the first part we
meet them as they dwell in the fields near Bethlehem. They notice a sudden
brightness at midnight. An angel (alto) appears and brings them the message
of the birth of the Son of God. He urges them to pay homage to the new-born.
They meet the angel again near the hut where Joseph, Mary and Jesus are
living. They worry about what they shall give Jesus: Tirsi has only two
lambs and Elpino a dove; they both apologize with the words: "My
offering is small and honest, but do not look at the gift, look at the
thought behind it". They notice that the baby smiles, but then he
starts weeping. The shepherds ask the angel why. He points to a dark cloud
which is a foreshadowing of the treatment of Jesus by Jerusalem - a
reference to Jesus' Passion. But he comforts them by showing them the
new world which will be the final outcome of Jesus' life: "From
the treasure in his veins which the godless spill a better city will
arise".
One could argue that this cantata is a little conservative in style. The
arias in the first part are rather short, although they all have a dacapo.
In the second part we find some longer arias, but neither is especially
virtuosic, and they are certainly not comparable to the operatic arias which
we find in many oratorios of the time. That is probably partly due to the
time and place where the cantata was first performed. It reminds me of
Alessandro Scarlatti's pre-1700 oratorios. However, the instrumental
scoring is more modern: the strings are joined by two recorders, two
transverse flutes and two oboes, and even a psaltery. The latter only
appears in an obbligato role in Tirsi's aria
'L'innocenza che rendesti' in the second part. The wind
instruments also have only some parts to play in arias, but most of these
are accompanied by strings alone. Constanzo must have been a virtuosic
cellist; he had the nickname
Giovannino del Violoncello. This could
explain the obbligato cello part in the aria 'Innanzi al Re'
(Tirsi) in the first part. The cantata also includes a couple of accompanied
recitatives, another modern trait. There are some short entries of the
choir; one of them is in a duo of Tirsi and Elpino in the second part,
'Vago bambin': "Gentle child (...), you are the
sun". It has a siciliano rhythm, often used in music for Christmastide,
for instance in Corelli's famous 'Christmas concerto',
the pastorale of which is played here as the sinfonia to the second
part.
This is not a spectacular new discovery, but a quite nice piece which is a
welcome addition to the catalogue of music for Christmastide. It is well
written, the arias are fine, both vocally and instrumentally. I am not sure
whether this is a live recording, but if that is the case, you won't
notice, except probably one or two insecurities in the choral sections which
would have been corrected in a studio recording. The three soloists do a
good job: they have the right voices for the repertoire, sing stylishly,
avoid excessive vibrato and take the right amount of rhythmic freedom in the
recitatives. I have a slight reservation in regard to the obbligato part of
the psaltery in the aria 'L'innocenza che rendesti'. I
have the impression that Ulrike Knapp plays a cadenza here; at least that is
how it sounds. If that is the case it is probably too long, in proportion to
the length of the whole aria.
This is a recommendable production: nice music, interesting instrumental
scoring and good performances. The English translation is printed separately
which is a little uncomfortable. However, that is far better than no
translations at all which is the case in quite a number of productions,
especially by Italian labels.
Johan van Veen
www.musica-dei-donum.org
twitter.com/johanvanveen
