Sadly, both these couplings
of the Purcell
Sonnatas of Three and Four Parts are
deleted in CD format, though one online dealer seems
still to have copies of CHAN8763. As with Chandos’s recording
of Rubbra’s
Medieval Lyrics, etc., which I recently
reviewed (CHAN9847 – see
review),
I might be amazed that these fine recordings have not
sold sufficiently well to remain in the catalogue, but
I am happy that, in accord with the Chandos policy of
keeping deleted recordings available as downloads, they
remain available in these two different couplings.
The Sonatas are available
on three rather short CDs, with miscellaneous items,
or with the Pavans alone on two well-filled CDs, as shown
below. The latter is obviously the more attractive prospect
for those who don’t mind losing some of the miscellaneous
items – you still get all the Sonatas, together with
some other pieces, including the
Chacony in g,
famous from Britten’s arrangement,
in that format.
I must say, however, that the Organ Voluntaries – available
only in the 3-disc format – are attractive pieces.
Both couplings are available
as mp3s for £6 per disc and in lossless format (wma,
wav or aiff) for £10. I applaud Chandos’s commitment
and very much hope that this review will encourage at
least some readers to purchase one or other of these
downloads. I downloaded most of the tracks in mp3 format
and, while these are not among Chandos’s newer 320kbps
versions, I found the sound (at 192kbps according to
Windows Explorer) more than adequate. I downloaded some
of the tracks as wma lossless files, then deliberately
forgot which tracks were which: I honestly cannot say
that I was sure which was which when listening.
Despite the antiquated
spelling – I do hope that it isn’t Chandos’s use of this
which has caused the apparent lack of sales – this is
very attractive music. You wouldn’t want to listen to
all three volumes one after the other, but I am surprised
that the music is not better known and not more often
performed. I suppose the problem lies in the excellence
of Purcell’s vocal music – and I certainly wouldn’t recommend
these Sonatas as the first Purcell to try.
Dido and Æneas must
surely take pride of place, followed by the Birthday
Odes, the Funeral Music for Queen Anne and some of the
church music. There are at least four excellent versions
of
Dido – I’d find it hard to choose from those
by Lewis, Christie, Bolton and Hickox – but only really
two choices for the other vocal works: a mid-price 2-CD
selection from Christ Church Choir under Simon Preston
or the complete Odes, Anthems and Services on Hyperion
from The King’s Consort (available singly or
en bloc.)
Despite the pre-eminence
of these vocal compositions – and
The Fairy Queen and
King
Arthur are also well worth hearing – the Sonatas
alone would surely have made a significant reputation
for the multi-talented but short-lived Purcell. As with
Mozart and Schubert, one marvels that so much could have
been achieved in such a short span. In his own lifetime
Purcell’s music was compared with that of Corelli and
Bassani; since neither of these was renowned for vocal
composition, the comparison applies only to his instrumental
works. Indeed, the 1683 publication specifically claims
that the music was written after the style of “the most
fam’d Italian masters”: Cazzati and Calista rather than
Corelli, though Corelli’s music was probably readily
available in London. That 1683 edition contained the
first twelve trio sonatas, an expensive volume handsomely
produced. The remaining ten sonatas were published by
Purcell’s widow in 1697 in a much cheaper and very slipshod
form.
If Purcell did know Corelli’s
first collection of 1681, he was no slavish imitator.
The freezing scene in
King Arthur sounds for all
the world like Vivaldi’s Winter concerto before Vivaldi
composed The Four Seasons. His music owes as much to
the earlier generation of English composers as to his
Italian contemporaries. He admired Orlando Gibbons’s
music sufficiently to transcribe some of it and his
Viol Fantazias hark
back to an earlier age when that family of instruments
was in vogue. If I say that even Purcell’s most cheerful
music is tinged with melancholy, I don’t mean that it
is morbid – rather, it is the sweet melancholy of his
Elizabethan and Jacobean predecessors.
If you want to sample
the quality of the music, try the first track of CHAN8763
(it’s track 9 of CD2 of the 2-disc set), singled out
in Purcell’s own lifetime as
The Golden Sonata,
or the
Chacony in g which ends both CHAN8663 and
the second CD of the 2-disc set. The brief extracts available
on the Chandos website will give you some idea of the
excellence of both the music and the performance. I guarantee
that, unless you are totally unsympathetic to this style
of music, you will be so impressed that you will want
to download one version or other. I cannot imagine this
music being better performed. In any case, Christopher
Hogwood’s accounts on Oiseau-Lyre have been deleted,
though the highly-regarded London Baroque recording on
Harmonia Mundi remains available as a 2-for-1 set, HMX290
1483.
The 2-CD set doesn’t come
with notes, but the three booklets from the separate
issues may be downloaded as Adobe .pdf documents and
printed out by all-comers. They are certainly well worth
having.
I have already indicated
that the recording is more than acceptable in either
format. In view of the price differential – greater than
usual with Chandos downloads – between mp3 and lossless
versions, you may well go for the former: I don’t think
you’ll be disappointed.
One word of warning about
all Chandos downloads. Half way through downloading the
tracks, the check mark against ‘assign automatic file
name’ on my download manager got unchecked, probably
as a result of my own carelessness. An appeal for help
to Chandos met with an immediate response, though, as
I had caused the problem, they were unable to explain
why the tracks were downloading without titles and with
a weird extension which Windows did not recognise. Downloads
from other websites without the filename box checked
did not cause the same problem. If you encounter the
same problem, make sure the relevant box is checked or,
if this does not solve the problem, type in your own
filename, making sure that it has the .wma extension
(or .wav, etc., whichever format you choose).
Full marks to Chandos,
however, for their prompt reply to this and other queries,
when another major supplier has resolutely ignored my
request to explain why the advertised filler to their
recording of the Brandenburg Concertos is not what it
claims to be but a repeat of Concerto No.2.
Brian Wilson
Risa Browder
(violin); Purcell Quartet 
CHAN8591 [50:55] 
