In her booklet notes for this CD Julie Andrijeski asserts that
the phrase “sonatarum selectissimarum” (choicest/select/best sonatas)
in the title of the 1672 publication Prothimia suavissime sive
sonatarum selectissimarum (probably published in Frankfurt)
should not be understood as “a mere marketing tool”. I would beg
to differ; it surely belongs amongst the seventeenth-century forerunners
of modern titles such as The Best Classical Album in the World
... Ever, The Very Best of Beethoven or The Best
of Maxim Vengerov. Seventeenth century publishers were as
eager to sell their wares as their successors amongst twenty-first
century publishers and CD companies. ‘Sonatorum selectissimarum’
should surely be understood to mean something like “these sonatas
are better than average, amongst the best around”, rather than
“these are categorically the best sonatas in existence”. Taken
in the first of these senses, one has no problems with the claims
of the anonymous publisher: there is much good, interesting music
here, of a particular kind. Essentially that ‘kind’ involves a
meeting between German and Italian traditions in the middle of
the seventeenth century.
There are twenty-four
sonatas in the collection; identifying their composers is not
easy, since the partbooks carry only the initials “J.S.A.B.”.
It was Niels Martin Jensen, in the 1990s, who suggested that
these initials might stand for Johan [Heinrich] Schmelzer and
Antonio Bertali. Later research has found versions of some of
the twenty four sonatas from Prothimia suavissima in
other manuscript collections attributed to Schmelzer and Bertali.
Others can, with reasonable confidence be attributed to David
Pohle. For quite a number of others, no composer has yet been
identified with any plausibility.
Much of the music
is pleasant and intriguing. The sonata printed as No.2 in Book
I of Prothimia suavissima is full of inventive writing,
unexpected changes of tempo and mood; Bertali at something like
his instrumental best. Schmelzer’s sonata, printed as Book I
No.4, is a rather more sedate affair, but satisfying in its
interplay of instrumental lines. In two sonatas (I.3 and I.8)
– perhaps the work of Bertali? – the trombone shares the limelight
with the two violins to interesting effect. In one of the ‘anonymous’
sonatas (II.10) there are some striking harmonies and lots of
attractive imitative writing. Indeed the level is generally
high. Even if we needn’t regard these as ‘The Best of the Sonata’,
the materials here are certainly very ‘select’, in the sense
defined in the Oxford English Dictionary: “of special value
or excellence”.
Chatham baroque and
their guests play with assured idiomatic grasp and considerable
flair. The variety of instrumental combinations makes for constantly
changing colours (without any inappropriate gaudiness, I need
hardly add) and the continuo work is agile and pleasantly varied.
It all makes for attractive and engaging listening. If not quite
a candidate for the ‘Best of the Baroque’, this is a CD which
will give pleasure to all with an interest in the music of this
period. It is only a shame that it we aren’t offered a complete
recording of all the twenty four ‘very select’ sonatas.
Glyn Pursglove
Chris Verrette
(baroque violin), J. Tracy Mortimore (G violone), Dominic Teresi
(dulcian), Greg Ingles (alto trombone, tenor trombone), Webb Wiggins
(chamber organ), Chatham Baroque: Julie Andrijeski (baroque violin),
Patricia Halverson (viola da gamba), Scott Pauley (theorbo, baroque
guitar). 
