MusicWeb International One of the most grown-up review sites around 2024
60,000 reviews
... and still writing ...

Search MusicWeb Here Acte Prealable Polish CDs
 

Presto Music CD retailer
 
Founder: Len Mullenger                                    Editor in Chief:John Quinn             


Some items
to consider

new MWI
Current reviews

old MWI
pre-2023 reviews

paid for
advertisements

Acte Prealable Polish recordings

Forgotten Recordings
Forgotten Recordings
All Forgotten Records Reviews

TROUBADISC
Troubadisc Weinberg- TROCD01450

All Troubadisc reviews


FOGHORN Classics

Alexandra-Quartet
Brahms String Quartets

All Foghorn Reviews


All HDTT reviews


Songs to Harp from
the Old and New World


all Nimbus reviews



all tudor reviews


Follow us on Twitter


Editorial Board
MusicWeb International
Founding Editor
   
Rob Barnett
Editor in Chief
John Quinn
Contributing Editor
Ralph Moore
Webmaster
   David Barker
Postmaster
Jonathan Woolf
MusicWeb Founder
   Len Mullenger


 
REVIEW


Advertising on
Musicweb


Donate and keep us afloat

 

New Releases

Naxos Classical
All Naxos reviews

Chandos recordings
All Chandos reviews

Hyperion recordings
All Hyperion reviews

Foghorn recordings
All Foghorn reviews

Troubadisc recordings
All Troubadisc reviews



all Bridge reviews


all cpo reviews

Divine Art recordings
Click to see New Releases
Get 10% off using code musicweb10
All Divine Art reviews


All Eloquence reviews

Lyrita recordings
All Lyrita Reviews

 

Wyastone New Releases
Obtain 10% discount

Subscribe to our free weekly review listing

 

 

alternatively
CD: AmazonUK AmazonUS
Download: Classicsonline


Batalha - Iberian Organ Music
Antonio Correa BRAGA Batalha de 6o tom [5:18]
Pablo BRUMA (1611-1679) Tiento sobre la letania de la virgen [6:33]
António CARREIRA (after 1520-before 1597) Cancao a quatro glosada [4:14]
Juan CABANILLES (?) Teinto lleno 2o tono [4:18]
Juan CABANILLES (1644-1712) Corrente Italiana [3:52]
ANONYMOUS Batalha famoza [9:37]
Manuel COELHO (c.1555-c.1635) 4 Susanas: no.1, or tentos upon Suzanne un jour [6:04]
‘CASTELLANA’ (Juan CABANILLES ?) Obra de 8o tom de dous tiples [6:40]
Carlos de SEIXAS (1704-1742) Sonata Dó maior [3:39]
Juan CABANILLES Ligaduras de 3o tono - para la elevación [5:06]
Francisco Correa de ARAUXO (1584-1654) Todo el mundo en general [4:21]
Pedro de ARAÚJO (fl.1662-1668) Consonâncias de 1o tom [3:44]
Luis COUNTINHO (17th century) Obra de 1o tom [7:21]
Pedro de ARAÚJO Batalha famosa [5:48]
Ton Koopman (organ)
rec. 2009 (?) Spanish organ of St Lambert, Woluwé-Saint-Lambert, Brussels, Belgium. DDD.
CHALLENGE CLASSICS CC72320 [76:43]

 

Experience Classicsonline

 
The title of this CD is something of a misnomer, since only three of its 14 tracks are battle-inspired. Otherwise, it will be pretty well self-recommending to lovers of baroque organ music and fans of Ton Koopman, two almost synonymous groups. As you might expect from Koopman, those three Batalhas come over really powerfully, so it’s perhaps not such a misnomer after all. One of these colourful pieces is anonymous; the other two might just as well be, since very little is known about their Portuguese composers, Antonio Braga, who seems to have been named after the city where he was based, and Pedro de Araújo, the latter not to be confused with his Spanish near-namesake who also features here, Francisco Correa de Arauxo.
 
The programme centres on one of these Batalhas and is book-ended by the others. Depictions of battles in music were by no means uncommon from the renaissance onwards. Later composers, of course, have written music descriptive of or suggested by battles, from Beethoven’s Wellington’s Victory to Britten’s War Requiem, but the genre is especially associated with the renaissance. Guerrero even composed a mass, Missa de la batalla escoutez, based on Jannequin’s piece la Bataille, so popular was it.
 
The Hyperion recording of Guerrero’s Mass has just been reissued on the budget price Helios label (CDH55340 – see review and my October, 2009, Download Roundup), a most recommendable recording, but it’s fair to say that the three battle pieces here are more immediately exciting. I had not come across any of them before and I’m grateful to Ton Koopman and his Challenge Classics label for introducing them to me. Indeed, very little of the music here is well known.
 
There are other exciting pieces, too, but there are also some quieter, more reflective items, such as Bruna’s Tiento sobre la letania de la Virgen, which follows the introductory Braga Batalha (tracks 1 and 2) and Coelho’s four tentos on the song Suzanne un jour, which immediately follows the central Batalha, on tracks 6 and 7. (Tiento and tento are Spanish and Portuguese respectively for a type of Iberian music related to the fantasia).
 
In fact, the programme is fairly evenly divided between the extrovert and the reflective. Both types of piece are well suited to the organ and both receive excellent performances from Koopman. It’s no surprise to anyone who has witnessed him in action that he belts out the battle pieces and the other brisk works with real gusto, but he is also more than capable of doing justice to the quieter pieces.
 
The organ of St Lambert in a suburb of Brussels is far from an ordinary Flemish instrument, as its name, the Spanish Organ, makes clear. Built by Patrick Collon in 1985, its design was largely inspired by Spanish organs of the 17th and 18th centuries with their distinctive trumpets and other wind stops. The specification of the single-manual St Lambert instrument is given in the booklet and it turns out to be a most appropriate vehicle for the music and in better tune than many Iberian instruments. The only thing missing is the registration for each piece, which it would have been good to have. It would have been good, too, to have been given the recording dates; if they are here, I couldn’t find them in the booklet or on the website.
 
With excellent recording, coping equally well with the extrovert pieces and the more reflective works, and informative notes by Ton Koopman, well translated, this CD provided me with 77 minutes of real enjoyment. Whether it will appeal quite as much to the general listener with less specialist interest in renaissance and baroque organ music is another matter; I should like to think that it would. Those who find themselves attracted to what they hear and wish to explore further should try the six concertos for two organs by Antonio Soler; will Decca or, better still, Eloquence, please restore the recording of these by Peter Hurford and Thomas Trotter in Salamanca Cathedral, last seen on 436 115-2, to the catalogue? Even the extract on The Art of Peter Hurford (475 6828) seems to have been deleted, though that 2-CD album remains available from passionato.com as an mp3 download.
 
Brian Wilson
 
 


EXPLORE MUSICWEB INTERNATIONAL

Making a Donation to MusicWeb

Writing CD reviews for MWI

About MWI
Who we are, where we have come from and how we do it.

Site Map

How to find a review

How to find articles on MusicWeb
Listed in date order

Review Indexes
   By Label
      Select a label and all reviews are listed in Catalogue order
   By Masterwork
            Links from composer names (eg Sibelius) are to resource pages with links to the review indexes for the individual works as well as other resources.

Themed Review pages

Jazz reviews

 

Discographies
   Composer
      Composer surveys
   National
      Unique to MusicWeb -
a comprehensive listing of all LP and CD recordings of given works
.
Prepared by Michael Herman

The Collector’s Guide to Gramophone Company Record Labels 1898 - 1925
Howard Friedman

Book Reviews

Complete Books
We have a number of out of print complete books on-line

Interviews
With Composers, Conductors, Singers, Instumentalists and others
Includes those on the Seen and Heard site

Nostalgia

Nostalgia CD reviews

Records Of The Year
Each reviewer is given the opportunity to select the best of the releases

Monthly Best Buys
Recordings of the Month and Bargains of the Month

Comment
Arthur Butterworth Writes

An occasional column

Phil Scowcroft's Garlands
British Light Music articles

Classical blogs
A listing of Classical Music Blogs external to MusicWeb International

Reviewers Logs
What they have been listening to for pleasure

Announcements

 

Community
Bulletin Board

Give your opinions or seek answers

Reviewers
Past and present

Helpers invited!

Resources
How Did I Miss That?

Currently suspended but there are a lot there with sound clips


Composer Resources

British Composers

British Light Music Composers

Other composers

Film Music (Archive)
Film Music on the Web (Closed in December 2006)

Programme Notes
For concert organizers

External sites
British Music Society
The BBC Proms
Orchestra Sites
Recording Companies & Retailers
Online Music
Agents & Marketing
Publishers
Other links
Newsgroups
Web News sites etc

PotPourri
A pot-pourri of articles

MW Listening Room
MW Office

Advice to Windows Vista users  
Questionnaire    
Site History  
What they say about us
What we say about us!
Where to get help on the Internet
CD orders By Special Request
Graphics archive
Currency Converter
Dictionary
Magazines
Newsfeed  
Web Ring
Translation Service

Rules for potential reviewers :-)
Do Not Go Here!
April Fools






Untitled Document


Reviews from previous months
Join the mailing list and receive a hyperlinked weekly update on the discs reviewed. details
We welcome feedback on our reviews. Please use the Bulletin Board
Please paste in the first line of your comments the URL of the review to which you refer.