A New Venetian Coronation 1595
Track listing at end of review
Mark Chambers (falsetto); David Allsopp (falsetto); Richard Butler (tenor);
Eamonn Dougan (baritone); William Gaunt (bass); Greg Skidmore (baritone);
Jan Waterfield (organ); William Whitehead (organ)
Gabrieli Consort and Players/Paul McCreesh
rec. 28-29 February, 1 March, 2012, Douai Abbey, Berkshire, England. DDD
SIGNUM SIGCD287 [73:55]
In 1990 the Gabrieli Consort and Players released a spectacular - and spectacularly
successful - CD. It recreated a sequence of music as it might have been heard
on the occasion of the coronation of Doge Marino Grimani at the end of the
sixteenth century. A Venetian Coronation 1595 originally appeared on Virgin
Veritas 91110. That recording - which won the Gramophone early music award
for that year - is currently available on Virgin Classics Special Import 59006.
In many people's eyes it gave a good overall introduction to the consort music
of uncle and nephew Andrea and Giovanni Gabrieli, who both served as organists
at St. Marks in Venice.
This year (2012) Paul McCreesh, the Gabrieli Consort and Players' conductor,
felt it useful to repeat yet update the experience. To quote from their website
it is time to 'look at the historical and instrumental developments since
the original recording'. In the first place, it's hard to believe that that
first 'Venetian Coronation' CD was McCreesh and the Consort and Players' actual
first CD; they're now so well established and respected. As a concept - the
historically-informed recreation - and execution (brass, keyboards and single
violin) it was a significant achievement. It’s probably still a favourite
in the CD collection of many an ('early') music lover.
For 'A New Venetian Coronation 1595' McCreesh celebrates the advances made
since 1990 in scholarship and performance practice. One has to suppose, furthermore,
that such a reprise is more likely almost 25 years on to be taken up and celebrated
without fuss by enthusiasts: they're now more demanding in and of such repertoire.
'A New Venetian Coronation 1595' represents an excellent hour and ten minutes'
worth of delightful music played with great style. It's also sufficiently
distinct from the earlier CD to be worth buying in its own right.
Sources have been revisited and their understanding deepened by McCreesh and
co. Technology - in use and restoration of instruments and in recording and
editing - has played a large part too in producing a collection of two and
a half dozen or so beautifully-played works. This time their innate power
to move and inspire has taken precedence over effect and impact. The intricacies
of Giovanni Gabrieli's lovely Canzona a 10 [tr.24], for instance, are gentler
in tone and articulation than anything on the earlier collection. The works
to be heard are not identical on each CD. McCreesh seems to have less to prove.
We are more used to this music now. McCreesh is offering it to us with no
less seriousness and sense of occasion. Surely we hear it now more nearly
as it would have been heard by those celebrating the coronation in 1595.
The two CDs last about the same time, though this later one has more actual
pieces. You will be struck immediately by the wider expressiveness, greater
closeness with the spirit of the music. Listen to the melancholy - even the
Doge is mortal? - harmonies of the poignant Canzona a 15 [tr.19] also by Giovanni.
Each phrase is lovingly conjured up from the lagoon and left to dissipate
there once it's been heard. It's one of the longer pieces at four and a half
minutes. The integrity and familiarity which McCreesh brings to the enterprise
ensures that this no disjointed experience. This is accomplished even though
choral works, plainchant, instrumental and ensemble pieces come in sequence.
The splendour and glory of the climax, starting with the dignity of Andrea
Gabrieli's Communion: O sacrum convivium a 5 [tr.23], through Gussago's Sonata
La Leona [tr.26] and Giovanni Gabrieli's Omnes Gentes [tr.27] are stunning
and uplifting. This is achieved without being empty or over rhetorical.
Nicholas Perry, cornett, sackbut and serpent player for the Gabrielis, uses
the same treble cornett that he used in the original recording. He had stopped
using it between 1990 and now; it had begun to rot. Yet he has re-varnished
it and got it back into playable condition again. A group of Italian instruments
which played well despite continuing apparent inconsistencies in design was
copied and used for this recording.
Indeed, McCreesh describes advances in mouthpieces made with the advantage
that they produce a sound closer to that of a true cornett and less like a
'bad tenor trombone'. It's obvious that McCreesh and his forces have had the
luxury of being able to experiment more than perhaps they did nearly a quarter
of a century ago. An example can be heard in the use of the tenor cornett
as a substitute for the alto sackbut.
Trumpet fanfares and toccatas were researched by Peter Downey with Paul McCreesh.
A second copy of Cesare Bendinelli's 'Trumpet Method' at the Austrian National
Library in Vienna reinforces our appreciation of just how influential Bendinelli
was. It's also been possible to cross-check manuscripts. Sources previously
thought destroyed during World War II now explain how trumpets and drums were
played during their introduction into music for the forty years after the
date of the coronation. This is another example of authenticity augmented.
At the same time more persuasive and pleasing colours and textures emerge.
Collectors of music by these composers will not want to add 'A New Venetian
Coronation' for the sake of filling out their shelves. Those who are curious
about such events in Venetian history, who maintain even a passing interest
in almost any area of 'early' music, and certainly who bought and/or enjoyed
the original CD should not hesitate to get this later disc. This is music-making
of the highest order.
The acoustic is good, clear and resonant. Though it's not that of San Marco,
which is a pity. In the first track or so, to the bells and music are added
'atmospheric' ambient sounds. A simple yet nicely-produced booklet is bound
into the hardback and embossed container which carries the CD. It holds a
mass of useful background on the actual ducal event, its significance and
the musicians' approach to this - and the earlier - recreation. It's hard
to imagine anyone remaining unmoved or not uplifted by this music.
Mark Sealey
see also review by Johan
van Veen
A highly engaging significantly updated reprise of the landmark recording
in 1990; hard to imagine anyone remaining unmoved.
Track listing
[The Procession]
Bells/
Hans-Leo HASSLER (1564-1612)
Intrada tertia/sexta/septima (1601)/
Cesare BENDINELLI (?-1617)
Trumpet Sonata No. 333 (1614) [8:20]
[The Mass]
Giovanni GABRIELI (1554/57-1612)
Toccata 2. tono (1593) [2:02]
[Introit]
plainchant
Benedicta sit sancta Trinitas [4:24]
[Arrival of the Doge]
Cesare BENDINELLI
Toccata 26 (1614) [1:01]
Giovanni GABRIELI
Intonazione 1. tono (1593) [0:30]
Andrea GABRIELI (1532/33-1585)
Kyrie à 5 (1587) [1:59]
Christe à 8 (1587) [2:13]
Kyrie à 12 (1587) [3:29]
Gloria à 16 (1587) [5:02]
[Collect] [1:23]
[Epistle] [1:05]
[Gradual]
Giovanni GABRIELI
Canzona XIII à 12 (1597) [2:48]
[Gospel] [2:03]
Andrea GABRIELI
Intonazione 7. tono (1593) [1:14]
[Offertory]
Giovanni GABRIELI
Deus qui beatum Marcum à 10 (1597) [2:51]
[Preface] [3:06]
Andrea GABRIELI
Sanctus and Benedictus à 12 (1587) [3:40]
[Elevation]
Cesare BENDINELLI
Sarasinetta 2 (1614) [1:01]
Giovanni GABRIELI
Canzona XVI à 15 (1597) [4:34]
plainchant
Pater noster [2:02]
Agnus Dei [1:25]
Giovanni GABRIELI
Intonazione 5. tono alla quarta bassa (1593) [0:42]
[Communion]
Andrea GABRIELI
O sacrum convivium à 5 (1565) [3:59]
Giovanni GABRIELI
Canzona IX à 10 (1597) [4:23]
[Post Communon Prayer] [1:58]
Cesario GUSSAGO (fl c1599-1612)
Sonata La Leona (1608) [2:15]
Giovanni GABRIELI
Omnes gentes à 16 (1597) [4:26]