Two apologies are
due, first to Avison himself and
then to his eponymous ensemble.
When I first encountered his music,
on an early Academy of St Martin’s
recording of an anthology of eighteenth-century
music on Oiseau-Lyre, later reissued
on Decca Ace of Diamonds, I thought
he was French: try pronouncing it
as if it were a French name – it
works. I knew that he had worked
in Newcastle and Durham but, with
the typical arrogance of one who
escaped from the North to study
at Oxford and then to live in London,
I assumed that no good thing could
come out of eighteenth-century England,
das Land ohne Musik, let
alone Newcastle. Sincere apologies
to all those in the North East;
I soon discovered my error.
Secondly, though
I have heard the Avison Ensemble
on BBC Radio 3, I hadn’t realised
what an accomplished and professional
group they are – I’d thought of
them as very talented amateurs.
The Avison Ensemble
have already recorded the music
of their namesake for Naxos and
Divine Art. Their 2-CD recording
of the Concerti Grossi, Op. 6 on
Naxos 8.557553-4 was welcomed by
Jonathan Woolf and Johan van Veen
as doing Avison proud – see JW’s
review
and JV’s review.
Robert Hugill was equally appreciative
of their later recording of Opp.
3 and 4 (8.557905-6 – see review).
Having switched
to the Divine Art label, the Ensemble
recently recorded the newly-discovered
set of Concertos after Geminiani’s
Op.1, not to be confused with his
re-workings of Scarlatti, to the
satisfaction of JV again, though
he had some reservations about the
recorded sound – (DDA21210, see
review).
Divine Art already
have a recording of some of the
Op.9 concertos in their catalogue,
performed in the alternative scaled-down
versions by The Georgian Ensemble
(24108), performances which David
Wright thought a little lacking
in spirit in the faster music –
see review.
I think DW would have found what
he was looking for in these Avison
Ensemble recordings of the complete
Op.9 and Op.10.
Let me get one
grumble out of the way first. I
thought I was the only person to
notice the growing tendency of recording
engineers to hide the continuo,
even on opera DVDs where the conductor
is clearly seated at the harpsichord,
sometimes with a second harpsichordist
and theorbo player to boot. Only
with the advent of the larger classical
orchestra did the harpsichord become
inaudible – hence Haydn’s joke in
giving it a prominent little part
of its own at the end of Symphony
No.98. we should be able to hear
it, though not too prominently,
in baroque music, especially when
someone has gone to the trouble
of writing out the continuo in Op.10
which Avison left incomplete.
Now I note that
another review of these Avison Ensemble
recordings has queried the comparative
inaudibility of the harpsichord
– and Divine Art have had the honesty
to post the whole review on their
web-page, not just the complimentary
part. Thank goodness that I’m now
not the only person to draw attention
to the Emperor’s new clothes. In
fact, the continuo is intermittently
audible on these recordings, but
you have to listen hard for it and
it’s really no more prominent than
on the ASMF modern-instrument recording
of the Avison-Scarlatti concerti
which I mention below.
Otherwise these
concerti, though coming late in
Avison’s composing career, show
little diminution of inventiveness
from his Op.6 set and the Scarlatti
and Geminiani adaptations. By the
time that he wrote these works,
their form would have sounded decidedly
old-fashioned, in that they still
evidently hark back to the music
of Geminiani, who probably tutored
Avison in London, and Geminiani’s
own model Corelli. There is just
the occasional hint of the galant
style but those who had heard the
music of J C Bach, who was established
in London seven years before the
first of these concerti were published,
must have thought this more like
the music of JC’s father. Avison
was equally puzzled by the new-fangled;
he wrote in the Newcastle Literary
Register in 1769 that he wondered
"where the powers of music
are fled, not to harmonize the passions
of men." What would he have
thought if he had lived to hear
Beethoven’s late quartets?
We must not, however,
berate him as stick-in-the-mud –
I’m afraid you could call me that
in respect of much music post-Schoenberg
– but appreciate what he has to
offer, which is a great deal indeed.
As JV points out in his review of
the Avison-Geminiani concertos,
he was no mere clone of Geminiani
or anyone else. The least that can
be said of this music is that it
is exceedingly well-crafted and
often memorable. The notes in the
booklet rather imply that Avison
had gone off the boil a little by
1769, when he was 60. I didn’t find
it so – I think I’d passed my sell-by
date at 60 far more than Avison.
These are excellent
performances, preferably to be dipped
into rather than heard complete:
like JV, I found myself suffering
from an excess of good things after
listening to both CDs – and these
two discs are more generously filled
than the two which he heard. Those
with an aversion to period instruments
need have no fear: there are no
raw or rough edges to the playing
– if anything, I might have liked
a little more of a feeling that
the players weren’t so adept as
to make it all sound easy; I’m sure
it isn’t. With tasteful ornamentation
where appropriate and a willingness
to give the music a bit of a lift,
these are excellent performances,
just a little brighter than the
ASMF on that Ace of Diamonds recording
or on the Philips Duo listed below.
Apart from the
near-inaudibility of the continuo,
the recording is excellent. I found
a slight reduction from my normal
listening volume to be beneficial,
otherwise the Ensemble sounds a
little larger than the modest proportions
listed in the booklet.
The notes by Simon
Fleming are helpful and informative.
The members of the Ensemble are
individually named and details given
of the period instruments or copies
which they play. I wish all record
companies were as forthcoming as
this: I recently found it difficult
to be sure that a particular orchestra
played modern instruments, albeit
with a sense of period style, when
their label, Dynamic, failed to
make this clear.
If these performances
lead you to wish to explore Avison
further, you could do much worse
than the other Divine Art recording
which I have mentioned – and their
web-site announces that they are
planning to offer his complete works
by the end of 2009. Several Divine
Art recordings should be available
to download from Chandos’s theclassicalshop.net,
but the links there lead to the
‘unavailable’ page. The Avison-Geminiani
concertos are available from eMusic
but, with a total of 43 tracks,
they would make a very large hole
in any monthly allocation and cost
almost as much as buying the CDs
direct from Divine Art. The iTunes
price is even more expensive than
buying the CDs, when Divine Art
currently offer this set as a two-for-one
bargain.
Otherwise, try
the Naxos Op.6 recording first.
Alternatively, since Avison was
such a master of arranging the sonatas
of Italian composers as concerti
grossi, as the Geminiani set shows,
you may wish to see what he made
of twelve of Domenico Scarlatti’s
sonatas. Mark Sealey confidently
recommended the Hyperion reissue
of the performances by The Brandenburg
Consort on the two-for-one Dyad
label (CDD22060 – see review.)
The Philips Duo version of these
appears to have been deleted, very
serviceable performances from ASMF/Neville
Marriner – remainders would be well
worth looking out for (438 806-2)
or perhaps Australian Eloquence
will oblige with a reissue. Those
who prefer modern instruments will
find the ASMF almost as lively and
stylish in this music as their period-instrument
competitors – just a little too
rounded and ‘comfortable’.
Don’t forget the
music of Avison’s contemporary,
William Boyce, which I also got
to know first from that Neville
Marriner Ace of Diamonds LP. You
could do much worse than start with
the Aradia Ensemble under Kevin
Mallon on Naxos 8.557278, though
I note that Jonathan Woolf thought
this second-best to the mid-price
AAM/Hogwood recording (473 081 2)
– see review.
And if you want
to hear the music of the next generation,
try the Chichester Concert, whose
Olympia recording of five symphonies
by John Marsh, written in the 1770s,
has just been reissued at super-budget
price by Alto. These are accomplished
performances on copies of period
instruments – I shall certainly
be buying the Alto reissue of their
recording (ALC1017), since my copy
of the Olympia has developed an
unfortunate repeating groove.
I understand that
these two well-filled Divine Art
CDs are being offered for the price
of one – an additional incentive,
if one were required, to obtain
them. That would make them eligible
for nomination as Bargain of the
Month, but I have another candidate
in mind as a possible for that title.
Brian Wilson
"I'm pleased to add that I've
been informed by Divine Art that
the Avison/Scarlatti Concertos will
be released in November on another
2-for-1 set. If the performances
are anything like as good as the
Op.9/Op/10 set, they should prove
an excellent replacement for the
ASMF versions.
I'm sorry to have gone on at length
about these concertos but I still
think they're Avison's masterpiece.
If I don't get the review copies
of the new recordings, I hereby
promise to buy the CDs or download
them.
Since reviewing these recordings
of Avison, I've been listening to
the Divine Art set of John Garth's
Cello Concertos (DDA25059, another
2-for-1 set); I'm very impressed
indeed. Now what about recording
Richard Tunnicliffe with the Avison
Ensemble in the Haydn Cello Concertos?"
Please convey my apologies to Mr
Sutton for having gone on at length
about the Avison/Scarlatti concertos
and thank him for his very polite
rebuke.
Best wishes,
Brian Wilson
The Avison Ensemble/Pavlo Beznosiuk 
