Comparison recording:
Monn, S12, Schneider, La Stagione cpo
999 391-2
Neither of these Monn
concertos is the one Schoenberg arranged
for cello and orchestra. The g minor
keyboard concerto appears on the Schneider
disk in the harpsichord version and
also in a version for cello.
Following the Monn,
the Wagenseil sounds at first like something
Schoenberg should have arranged instead.
It’s already cute and sparkly, but on
familiarity its virtues become more
apparent. In his time Wagenseil was
a popular and well known musician, his
style very influential. Here he produces
a beautiful andante of tragic
proportions, and Simpson’s ability to
ornament an eighteenth century melodic
line contributes a great deal.
The Monn Triple
Concerto is perhaps really a trio
sonata, but the concerto aesthetic is
unmistakable. This work can be compared
to Bach’s unaccompanied Two Harpsichord
Concerto in C, except that of course
the Monn work is very much in the Eighteenth
Century style. Unfortunately the synthesis
of solo violin leaves something to the
imagination and some may find this recording
unconvincing, even though the keyboard
and flute are rendered very well, and
the violin part is not musically "leading,"
and is tacit in the slow movement.
As with all synthesised music concerts,
some persons will find the sound intolerable,
and that’s a shame because they will
miss some fine music they’re not likely
to hear any other way. For most persons,
the sound quickly becomes familiar and
the musical rewards fully repay a little
patience. See William Zagorsky’s review
of these disks in Fanfare Magazine
V. 21 #3 and V. 27 #6 for some additional
comments on this issue.
Johann Christoph Mann
might be called the Franz Liszt of the
18th Century, and his music suffered
a similar fate. The same nineteenth
century musicologists who revived Bach
with loving collection and collation
had a contempt for two kinds of virtuosos:
1) arrangements of "popular"
airs to allow performance in piano recital
of orchestral and vocal works, and 2)
pieces designed to showcase the skill
of the performer. Victorian musicologists
solemnly pronounced that such music
had no divine inspiration in it as it
was written for unworthy purposes, therefore
it was beneath contempt and deserved
to perish. Liszt’s Transcendental
Etudes, Hungarian Rhapsodies
and opera transcriptions were consigned
to these yawning dustbins and would
have rotted away there had not 20th
century musicologists, encouraged by
Bela Bartók, decided to take
a second look.
After all, Bach wrote
a lot about God, therefore whatever
he wrote was "inspired", even
his transcriptions of popular airs and
his virtuoso showpieces. Travelling
virtuosos like Silvius Leopold Weiss,
Johann Christoph Mann, Nicolo Paganini,
and Franz Liszt not only were not obsessed
by writing about God. Worse, they associated
with show people, probably had sex,
perhaps even frequently, and were therefore
evil and ungodly, and their music would
corrupt any students with whom it might
come in contact. Liszt’s assumption
of holy orders was condemned as a posturing
hypocrisy, and his composition of religious
music was denounced as sacrilege, for
reality cannot be allowed to conflict
with theory. "The Devil must not
be believed even when he tells the truth."
Such a quaint and silly idea still casts
its huge shadow. The music of Liszt
was buried unheard for nearly fifty
years after his death. Only in the last
decades have the works of Weiss begin
to be revived, and only with the release
of Initium disks has the world heard
any of the works of J. C. Mann.
The Menuetto and
Trio presented here, only one of
many that exist in manuscript, is a
masterpiece and alone worth the price
of this disk. It contains bizarre touches
of seductive Spanish rhythm, capitalising
on the popularity of the then newly
published Scarlatti harpsichord sonatas,
but it doesn’t sound at all like Scarlatti,
instead it looks forward astonishingly
to Astor Piazzola. Performed here with
wit and grace, it is music to astonish
and delight. You may find yourself laughing
out loud at some of the twists and turns,
swoops and glides. Whether it was intentionally
satirical or not, it succeeds admirably
in this, and may even remind you a little
of Ravel’s La Valse. Mr. Simpson,
may we please have many more of these
Menuettos?
The Monn Sonata
for Organ is a bright and tuneful
work, one you’ll find yourself whistling;
you’ll be sure you’ve heard it before
somewhere, but, no this is the first
time. The music is so much fun that
Simpson imagines Monn playing it with
the percussion stops on the organ turned
on and offers us an alternate track
so recorded. This track alone will ensure
you never have another dull party.
Paul Shoemaker
Roderick E. Simpson, editor and synthesist, with
"I Suoni Assaggiati" 