Alessandro POGLIETTI (? - 1683)
Rossignolo
Joyce Lindorff (harpsichord)
rec. 4-6 April 1994, Bradley Hills Presbyterian Church, Bethesda, MD, USA.
DDD
PALADINO MUSIC PMR0048 [56:30]
Alessandro Poglietti is almost exclusively known for a couple
of large keyboard works, among them the one which is the subject of the present
disc. According to New Grove his oeuvre includes many suites, canzonas,
capriccios and short preludes and fugues, but these are seldom played. The
work with the title Rossignolo has been recorded several times. In
2014 I heard the Aria Allemagna performing this work in a recital
during the Utrecht Festival Early Music.
The festival was devoted to music written and performed in the Habsburg empire.
That explains the inclusion of music by Poglietti, because in 1661 he entered
the service of Emperor Leopold I in Vienna as chamber organist in his chapel.
He was widely admired and had a wide circle of pupils. He also had close contacts
with people from the highest echelons of society. He even joined them as the
emperor raised him to the ranks of the aristocracy and the Pope made him a
Knight of the Golden Spur. His life came to a tragic end when he was killed
by the Turks during the siege of Vienna in 1683.
Suggestion through imitation was a major topic in the baroque era. The wish
to illustrate people, characters, animals and natural phenomena in music had
its roots in the Middle Ages when it was called imitatio naturae
(imitation of nature). In the renaissance composers used the forms of chanson
and madrigal to depict all sorts of phenomena. Especially famous are the chansons
by Clément Janequin, such as La Guerre (the war) and Le caquet
des femmes (the chatter of women). The early 17th century saw the emergence
of instrumental virtuosity, and that found its way into imitations by the
Italian-born Carlo Farina and later some of the main representatives of the
German-Austrian violin school, Johann Jakob Walther and Heinrich Ignaz Franz
von Biber. Farina is best-known for his Capriccio stravagante in
which instruments and animals are imitated. During the last years of his life
he was in the service of Empress Leonora I in Vienna.
It was for that same Empress that Poglietti composed his Rossignolo,
on the occasion of her marriage to Emperor Leopold I in 1677. The choice of
the nightingale as the title of this work was very appropriate as this bird
was considered a symbol of love a connection that has existed since ancient
times. Many baroque cantatas of the early 18th century - usually about the
trials and tribulations of love - make reference to the nightingale. That
doesn't mean that the singing of the bird is imitated in every piece.
It doesn't figure as prominently here as in pieces imitating the cuckoo,
which produces a less sophisticated sound.
Poglietti was of Italian birth and influenced by Frescobaldi. However, he
was well aware of other traditions, especially the French keyboard idiom.
He mingles the various styles in this long work. It opens with a symbol of
the Italian keyboard style, the toccata. This is followed by a canzona
which starts with a fugal episode, and a sequence of dances, each with a double
- a clear reference to the French style: allemande, courente, sarabande and
gigue. The second part of this work comprises a series of 20 variations on
a traditional song from Germany, the homeland of the Empress. Among the variations
are imitations of bagpipes, the fifes of soldiers, Hungarian fiddlers and
Austrian mechanical organs. How these imitations are to be explained is not
totally clear. Some think that Poglietti wanted to portray people in different
parts of the Habsburg empire. Others believe that Poglietti was referring
to the habit of people dressing themselves up during carnival at the Imperial
court.
It is interesting that Poglietti refers to the age of the Empress. Scholars
have puzzled about the number of twenty variations as the empress was 22 years
old when she married Leopold. This probably could be solved by considering
the first section - toccata, canzona and the sequence of dances - as the 21st
part, and the closing section as the 22nd. The latter comprises five pieces
in which the nightingale pops up once again. We hear some of the main forms
of keyboard music of the time: a ricercar, followed by its syncopation,
a capriccio, an aria bizzara and an imitatione.
The kind of keyboard Poglietti had in mind gives performers some trouble.
There are several long-held bass notes which cannot be given their full length
on a harpsichord; they suggest use of the organ. On the other hand, Poglietti
specifically refers to the harpsichord, and the score includes notes which
were not available on Austrian organs of that time. As I have not listened
to this disc with the score at hand I don't know how Joyce Lindorff
solves every single problem, but in the opening bar of the toccata she plays
the bass note only once. That means that it doesn't reeive its full
duration. Ms Lindorff plays a copy of a French harpsichord (Dumont, 1707)
which is a beautiful instrument, but probably not the most suitable for this
repertoire. There are French influences in Poglietti's music, but he
uses them from an Italian angle. Historically an Italian instrument would
seem more plausible.
The performance is alright, but Ms Lindorff is too restrained for my taste.
Sometimes I find her playing a bit stiff, even awkward. This music needs a
more extroverted approach. I prefer the recording by Jörg-Andreas Bötticher
(Harmonia mundi, 1997). His programme also includes another programmatic piece,
Toccatina sopra la Ribellione di Ungheria. Whether one wants to listen
to this music on a regular basis is a matter of taste. I would be interested
to know his other keyboard works. It would be nice if some keyboard player
would look beyond Poglietti's programmatic pieces and explore the rest
of his oeuvre.
Johan van Veen
www.musica-dei-donum.org
twitter.com/johanvanveen
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