Songs for Courtiers and Cavaliers
Helen Watts (alto)
Philomusica of London/Thurston Dart
Thurston Dart (harpsichord, chamber organ), Desmond Dupré(viola da gamba), Bernard Richards (cello), Granville Jones (solo violin)
rec. 1957/57
No texts or translations.
ELOQUENCE 482 8578 [77:13 + 55:34]
I am old enough to have bought these recordings when they were initially issued on LP. Some readers not as ancient as me may need to be told that Thurston Dart, the guiding spirit behind these recordings, played an important role in the revival of interest in early music – especially that of the Baroque – in the 1950s and 1960s, both as a scholar and as a performer. Though most of the performances he directed were given on modern instruments, he was very alert to the need to take account of earlier performance practices – as evidenced in the one book he published (in addition to editions and articles), The Interpretation of Music (first published in 1954). On this double CD of reissues he can be heard directing the strings of the Philomusica of London, as well as working as accompanist at both chamber organ and harpsichord. We also get to hear the viola da gamba of Desmond Dupré, another significant figure in the same movement, both on this instrument and as a lutenist (often in collaboration with the pioneering counter-tenor, Alfred Deller). The singer we hear through this 2 CD set is the fine alto Helen Watts. While Dart, Dupré and, indeed, Deller all died in the 1970s, Watts was active until 1985 (she died in 2009).
An obvious initial question is, how do these recordings from the 1950s stand up when judged by ears and minds that are now attuned to different expectations of how such music should sound? The answer is that they are patchily successful. In the Italian songs by Caccini, Grandi et al. I find Watts’ delivery lacking in dramatic expressiveness, somewhat too ‘formal’, even a bit heavy for some of the material. One partial exception comes in a powerful and touching reading of Sigismondo d’India’s ‘Infelice Didone’. The more declamatory manner of this quasi-recitative brings out the best in Watts. In The Interpretation of Music Dart writes that “Lawes’s songs were somewhat influenced by the [Italian] monodists, and they require the kind of impassioned singing prescribed by Caccini”. Dart here has in mind the kind of ‘prescriptions’ Caccini and others made about the ‘new’ monodic songs, of which he writes in another passage in the same book: “Monody was intensely impressive … [it should be] capable of giving life to every nuance of the words… The phrases monodists used when writing about their music illustrate the point: ‘capable of moving the passions in a rare manner’, ‘apt to move the passions of the mind’”. If this is what Dart wanted from a singer of Lawes, then I don’t really think that Helen Watts can be said to have given it him. There’s actually a degree of restraint and even impersonality in her singing which has its own attractions, but which isn’t really expressively or emotionally moving. So, for all my ‘nostalgic’ memories of these recordings, there is something disappointing in the contents of the first disc.
Elsewhere, I find less need to qualify my praise. Above all, the performance of Bach’s Cantata 54 is entirely satisfying, the weight of Watts’ voice and the relative gravity of her manner being perfectly suited to the moral and emotional content of the work. Again, of course, this isn’t quite how most ‘authentic’ musicians would play or sing this cantata nowadays, but the strings of the Philomusica of London, directed by Dart, have the ‘right’ kind of weight and rhythm. Perhaps, too, one needs to acknowledge that the music of the truly great composers, such as Bach, can remain very satisfying and communicative in a number of different performance styles, in a way that that of an accomplished, but lesser figure, such as Antonio Cifre, or even Henry Lawes, cannot. ‘Erbarme Dich’ is very fine too, and the perhaps ‘pseudo’-Bach material of ‘Schlage doch, gewünschte Stunde’ and ‘Bekennen will ich seinen Namen’ also gets winningly persuasive treatment.
I find myself enjoying the Purcell songs almost as much as I remember doing in my now distant youth; Watts seems more comfortable here, identifying herself with the sung texts and their implied ‘character’ more completely (perhaps for this reason there is a greater range of vocal colour and variegation of phrasing); the accompaniment is attractively handled, too. I particularly enjoyed ‘Music for a While’ and ‘From Rosy Bowers’. Yet it must be admitted that this is unlikely to be the first disc I shall reach for when I next want to sit down and listen to some Purcell songs.
In the two cantatas by Alessandro Scarlatti, Watts sounds to be in particularly good voice. Indeed, the material which is clearly baroque rather than late Renaissance – i.e. that by Purcell, Scarlatti and Bach – is consistently more successful than the songs from CD1. Perhaps Watts simply found the later music more congenial?
The recorded sound across the two discs is, self-evidently, of its period – the whole of CD1 and the first two
tracks of CD2 are in mono, the rest in stereo – but is perfectly listenable.
The complete absence of texts and/or translations will doubtless limit the appeal of these discs. In any case, I imagine that they will largely be of interest to those, like me, one (but no longer!) possessed the original LPs, or are interested in the changing interpretation and presentation of ‘early music’.
Glyn Pursglove
CD 1
1 Giulio Romano CACCINI (1551-1618) Dolcissime sospiro [2:37]
2. Vincenzo CALESTANI (c.1589-c.1617) Damigella tutta bella [2:57]
3. Folgorate [1:50]
4. Antonio CIFRA (1584-1629) In quel gelato core [1:50]
5. Sigismondo d’INDIA (1582-1629) Infelice Didone [11:57]
6. Torna il sereno zeffiro [2:06]
7. Alessandro GRANDI (1575-1630) Vientene, o mia fedel [2:35]
8. Henry LAWES (1596-1662) A Complaint against Cupid [1:18]
9. No Constancy in Man [1:37]
10. An Eccho [3:10]
11. Tavola-In quel gelato core [2:00]
12. Parting [1:47]
13. Dissuasion from Presumption [0:50]
14. Suffrance [1:11]
15. Hymn to God the Father [2:54]
16. Hymn to God the Son [2:51]
17. Hymn to God the Holy Ghost [2:25]
18. Among Rosebuds [1:12]
19. A Lady to a young Courtier [1:24]
20. I prithee send me back my heart [0:53]
21. Henry PURCELL (1649-1695) Music for a While (Oedipus) [4:05]
22. On the Brow of Richmond Hill (Oedipus) [1:36]
23. From Rosy Bowers (Don Quixote) [6:59]
24. They tell us that your mighty powers (The Indian Queen) [1:51]
25. The Fatal Hour Comes on Apace [3:45]
26. Corinna [2:01]
27. If music be the food of love (1st setting) [2:17]
28. Purcell: If music be the food of love (2nd setting) [4:01]
CD 2
1. Alessandro SCARLATTI (1660-1725) Il Rossignuolo se scioglie il volo [10:14]
2. Clori vezzosa e bella [6:55]
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) Cantata BWV 54.Widerstehe doch der Sünde
3. Widerstehe doch der Sünde [12:14]
4. Die Art verruchter Sünden [1:46]
5. Wer Sünde tut, der ist vom Teufel [3:19]
6. St. Matthew Passion, BWV 244 / Pt. Two-No.39 Aria: ‘Erbarme dich’ [7:13]
Melchior HOFFMANN (1679-1715) Attributed to J.S. BACH
7. Schlage doch, gewünschte Stunde, Cantata BWV 53 [9:13]
Gottfried Heinrich STÖLZEL (1690-1749)
8. ‘Bekennen will ich seinen Namen’, Cantata BWV 200 [4:11]*
* Bach’s arrangement of the aria ‘Dein Kreuz, o Bräutgam meiner Seelen’ contained in Stölzel’s passion-oratorio Die leidende und am Kreuz sterbende Liebe.
