The Virtuoso Recorder III - Concertos of
the English Baroque
Robert WOODCOCK (1690-1728)
Concerto No. 5 for two 6th flutes, strings and bc in D* [7:11]
John BASTON (c.1685-1740)
Concerto No. 3 for treble recorder, strings and bc in G [6:59]
William BABELL (1698-1723)
Concerto for 6th flute, strings and bc in e minor, op. 3,3 [11:20]
Robert WOODCOCK
Concerto No. 8 for transverse flute, strings and bc in D [6:09]
Concerto No. 4 for two 6th flutes, strings and bc in e minor* [5:45]
Charles DIEUPART (c.1667-1740)
Concerto for 5th flute, two oboes, strings and bc in a minor [4:26]
William BABELL
Concerto for 2 treble recorders, strings and bc in F, op. 3,6* [9:37]
Charles DIEUPART
Concerto for violin, oboe, strings and bc in A [2:52]
William BABELL
Concerto for 6th flute, strings and bc in D, op. 3,2 [8:19]
Robert WOODCOCK
Concerto No. 9 for transverse flute, strings and bc in e minor [6:01]
Concerto No. 6 for two 6th flutes, strings and bc in D: gavotte with 2
variations* [3:24]
Michael Schneider (recorder, transverse flute), Jung-Hyun Yu*
(recorder)
Capella Academica Frankfurt/Michael Schneider
rec. 2013, large hall, Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst,
Frankfurt/Main, Germany. DDD
CPO 777 885-2 [73:06]
Since the renaissance the recorder became one of the most popular
instruments in England, both among professional musicians and among
amateurs. It remained popular until the end of the 18th century. This
explains why many collections of recorder music were published in London,
including many by composers from the continent. These included the Italian
Francesco Mancini and members of the Loeillet family from the southern
Netherlands. There were also some home-grown composers of music for
recorder, and three of them are represented on the present disc.
Robert Woodcock was born and died in Chelsea, near London, and was
educated as a woodwind player. Whether he was a professional or a (good)
amateur is uncertain. It is known that he composed an Ode for St
Cecilia's Day which has been lost. His only extant compositions are
the
XII Concertos in Eight Parts published in London in 1727. It
was one of the first editions with concertos for wind instruments in Europe.
Three concertos are for one and three for two sixth flutes (recorders in D),
three for the transverse flute and three for the oboe.
William Babell has become especially known for his arrangements of
instrumental music and arias from Handel operas and of the violin sonatas
op. 5 by Corelli. A feature of his arrangements is their virtuosity as he
added a lot of notes to what the composers had originally written. His
efforts in this department were sharply criticised by Charles Burney:
"Mr Babel … at once gratifies idleness and vanity". We know little
original music from his own pen; an Ode for St Cecilia's Day has been
lost; a handful of keyboard pieces have been attributed to him. The main
collection of music is a set of six
Concertos in 7 Parts, op. 3
which were published posthumously around 1726. Four of them are for sixth
flute, one for two sixth flutes and one for two treble recorders.
It is not known where John Baston was born or where he died;
New
Grove doesn't give the years of his birth and death, but the
track-list for this CD has c.1685 and 1740 respectively, probably the result
of recent research. He was active as a player of the recorder and the cello.
He was a member of the orchestras of Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre and
later the Drury Lane Theatre. He played concertos - including his own -
during the intervals of opera performances; in this he followed
Handel's practice in playing his organ concertos. It is posssible
that this also goes for most other concertos on this disc.
Six Concertos
in Six Parts for Violins and Flutes, viz. a Fifth, Sixth and Consort
Flute, published in 1729, are the only extant compositions from his
pen. They are not judged favourably in
New Grove: "Years of
theatre experience showed Baston how to write lively, robust opening themes
by balancing short phrases; they are, however, melodically
undistinguished." This is confirmed by Michael Schneider who states
that Baston "lacks, by and large, the ability to put his musical
thoughts into meaningful order." He decided to include, "as a sort
of curiosity", the third concerto from this set "whose first and
last movements are not only identical but consist entirely (apart from a
non-modulating ritornello) of a series of sequencing melodic snippets
spliced together like an improvised cadenza".
It seems reasonable to include Baston in a disc which aims at giving a
picture of what was written for the recorder in England at the time, but
musically these examples are uninteresting. I would have preferred a
complete recording of Woodcock's
Concerto No. 6 from which
here only the gavotte with variations is performed. It is a most delightful
piece and confirms the positive impression of the other concertos from his
pen included here. Particularly good is the
Concerto No. 5 with its
nice dialogues between the two recorders. These twelve concertos seem well
worth being recorded complete. Let us hope that will happen some day.
Babell may have acquired a somewhat dubious reputation - the concertos
included in the programme are of fine quality. The
Concerto No. 2
includes an imitation of the nightingale in the third movement which follows
the previous movement
attacca and opens with a solo of the
recorder.
Rather curious are the two very short concertos by Charles Dieupart, a
composer of French birth who had settled in England and has become best
known for his set of suites for harpsichord, alternatively scored for flute
or violin and bc. In the
Concerto in a minor the recorder is joined
by two oboes but they are mostly to be heard in the tutti. The
Concerto
in A has solo parts for violin and oboe, but as the three movements are
very short there is little room for the soloists to shine.
It seems that few concertos for recorder were written in England at the
time. That could well have been due to the fact that composers focused on
amateurs rather than professionals. Publishers like Walsh printed
considerably more collections of sonatas than of concertos. Even so, the
concertos recorded here deserve to be performed and recorded. I can hardly
imagine a better performance than they get here. Michael Schneider
doesn't try to make too much of them, for instance by adding
excessive ornamentation. Jung-Hyun Yu is his equal partner in the double
concertos. The tutti are given fine performances by the Cappella Academica
Frankfurt. This is a worthy sequel to the previous discs devoted to
concertos from Germany and Italy respectively.
Johan van Veen
www.musica-dei-donum.org
twitter.com/johanvanveen
