Baroque Music

[A Lark Ascending]

An area I've only dabbled in over the last 40 years but I've finally got a feel for.

I know the definition of what is/is not Baroque is as contentious as any musical boundary marking but lets think 1600-1750.

I have (varying, often superficial) experience of Monteverdi, Lully, Purcell, Vivaldi, Handel, Bach, Scarlatti, Rameau.

Interested in recommendations of pieces that you have really taken to.

If you can focus on the pieces of music rather than versions please (I'm sure you are used to my prejudices there! And there are lots of threads about versions.).

Genuinely interested in going down some trails I'm not familiar with.

Edited January 17, 2014 by A Lark Ascending

[mjzee]

Vivaldi is my favorite. I've been luxuriating in this box for awhile now:

And these two downloads, taken from the Vanguard archives, are excellent values. Volume II is currently 99 cents on Amazon, and Volume I is $2.99 (not sure how much they are by you, though).

Edited January 17, 2014 by mjzee

[A Lark Ascending]

Sorry if this sounds picky but I'm thinking more specific pieces (I'm currently obsessed by Rameau's 'Les Indes Galantes' and have a long time infatuation with the Monteverdi Vespers).

I tend to find these giant boxes indigestible unless I'm zeroing in on a particular composer.

I like to get excited by a particular piece and then explore further piece by piece.

[Not knocking Vivaldi, by the way. I really like the Mandolin Concerto (and the other 'plucked' concertos that generally accompany it). I first heard it about 20 years back in the background of a Morse episode with Lewis (I think) whizzing through the Italian countryside. I think it was the first Vivaldi record I bought]

Edited January 18, 2014 by A Lark Ascending

[Larry Kart]

Biber: Mystery Sonatas

Carissimi: "Jephte"

Charpentier: Te Deum

Corelli: Concerti grossi op. 6

Weiss: Lute Suites

Vivaldi: Bassoon Concerti

[David Ayers]

A really good question, from my point of view. I understand the baroque well enough as to what it is, but as for favorite pieces outside some of the well-known and most recorded classics (some of which have been mentioned), I don't know what it means to really get into baroque. No need to discuss Bach, obviously, but even though I love to listen to Handel and Vivaldi singing, it is not that I really live with any of those works, outside Messiah and some classic Handel arias. I do think performance matters, though, for many of these works, outside Bach, as a disc of arias is a wholly different proposition from the operas which constitute the 'work', as so many works exist in only one recorded version, and as there are so many different ways of realizing the scores.

[A Lark Ascending]

I take your point about performance here. Scores can be fragmentary and the original performances could change with different music being substituted for later ones.

I suppose what makes it hard is the sheer volume of music, written with an intent very different to our Classical/Romantic expectations.

Biber (mentioned above) caught my attention last year with a chance radio hearing of the Sonata Representativa. Full of deliberate discords and odd moments. Sounded quite contemporary in places. I have a recording of the Mystery Sonatas but have only listened in a perfunctory way so far. One to give more time to.

Edited January 18, 2014 by A Lark Ascending

[Д.Д.]

Sorry, can't separate the works from performances, if only because the memories of a horrendous performance of Biber's Missa Sancti Henrici by Collegium Aureum I listened to some time ago still haunt me.

Johann Fux's Requiem. I plan to get more of Fux's works. I have the performance (together with other works by Fux) by Clemencic Consort on Arte Nova, and I like it a lot. Spotify link: https://play.spotify.com/album/36Aa7ZbKDDNXwDxAcklOsv

Dietrich Buxtehude's organ works. Fantastic stuff, at least when performed by Harald Vogel: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Vogel-H-Buxtehude/dp/B000MGB0FG/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1390039691&sr=1-1&keywords=buxtehude+vogel

Heinrich Schütz: Die sieben Worte by Ensemble Clement Janequin on Harmonia Mundi: http://www.harmoniamundi.com/#/albums?view=playlists&id=67

Marin Marais: trio works from this excellent disc on Hyperion: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Marais-Folia-other-music-violins/dp/B000TF3TR2/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1390039553&sr=1-1&keywords=marais+folia

Edited January 18, 2014 by Д.Д.

[Larry Kart]

I agree with David Ayers and A.A. about specific performances often mattering a good deal in the Baroque realm but won't weigh in that way unless A Lark Ascending wants me to. Well, just one -- for the Vivaldi Bassoon Concerti (remarkable works) try one of the several volumes by Sergio Azzolini and L'aura Soave Cremona on Naive.

Also, for the Biber Mystery Sonatas:

http://www.amazon.com/Heinrich-Ignaz-Franz-Biber-Rosenkranzes/dp/B00005B674

[A Lark Ascending]

Far be it for me to say what people can or can't post.

All I'm requesting is that the overall focus is on the piece. I appreciate that in this area in particular there are often enormous differences in versions and it might be hard to express excitement at a particular piece without also referring to a particular edition.

Thanks for the recommendations so far.

Edited January 18, 2014 by A Lark Ascending

[paul secor]

I'm not the original poster, but I've already gotten a few ideas from this thread. Hope there'll be more. Thanks.

Edited January 18, 2014 by paul secor

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

And it's a thank you from me, too. Never heard of Marais before so, intrigued, I checked him out on the Hyperion site and bought it.

Just started listening now and I'm very pleased.

(Also got the Faure, Debussy & Ravel trios I'd saved up a few months ago )

MG

[A Lark Ascending]

And it's a thank you from me, too. Never heard of Marais before so, intrigued, I checked him out on the Hyperion site and bought it.

Just started listening now and I'm very pleased.

Have you seen this French film?

About Marais - some marvellous music throughout (and not as much bonking as the sleeve image might suggest). Helped set me off on the French Baroque a couple of years back.

Edited January 18, 2014 by A Lark Ascending

[Peter Friedman]

Here is some Baroque music that I enjoy, and has not been mentioned.

William Boyce - Overtures 1-9

Johann David Heinichen - Dresden Concerti

Thomas Arne - The Six Organ Concerti

Francesco Geminiani - 6 Concerti Grossi Op.2 & 6 Conceri Grossi Op.3

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

And it's a thank you from me, too. Never heard of Marais before so, intrigued, I checked him out on the Hyperion site and bought it.

Just started listening now and I'm very pleased.

Have you seen this French film?

About Marais - some marvellous music throughout (and not as much bonking as the sleeve image might suggest). Helped set me off on the French Baroque a couple of years back.

Never heard of it. Pity about the comparative lack of bonking, though

MG

[A Lark Ascending]

The piece I can't get enough of at present is Rameau's opera 'Les Indes Galantes'.

A series of tableaux depicting fairly stereotypical (and to a later age, racist) tales of Turkey, Peru and Native American North America. Wonderfully exuberant music. There's not much in the way of non-European exoticism in the score but an awful lot of influences from French folk music - even some nice bagpipes at one point. What really lifts it is the tremendous dance music throughout - William Christie in the programme added to the DVD recording refers to Rameau as the most important dance composer before Stravinsky (I can see a few 19thC Russians taking umbrage).

What's nice is you can listen to it in a CD set; but there are plenty of recordings of extracts and even a transcription for harpsichord alone. Extracts also turn up on a fair number of singer based French Baroque recordings.

Though the thing that really put this piece into the centre of my heart was the above mentioned Christie DVD - just seeing the extraordinary spectacle had a tremendous effect. You read about the extravagant court pageant at Versailles - even though the performance on the DVD is not any attempt to reconstruct a mid-18thC presentation you get a real sense of how exciting these must have been for the privileged few who could see them.

Edited January 18, 2014 by A Lark Ascending

[David Ayers]

No argument on some of those catchy tunes from Les Indes galantes

[Д.Д.]

Les Indes Galantes is wonderful, although I have only heard the suite version, no singing (Orchestra of the 18th Century, Frans Brüggen conducting, on Decca). In general, Rameau is an excellent composer, his solo harpsichord works are among my favorites (as played by Blandine Rannou on Zig Zag releases: https://play.spotify.com/album/3XkblzycqTXtAn95DBQr2X).

Another somewhat obscure baroque composer is Alessandro Marcello. I enjoy his concertos for oboe (for one and for two), as presented on this Arts Music disc: http://artsmusic.de/Concerto_in_D_minor_-_Unpublished_Concertos_and_Cantatas/topic/redline/shop_art_id/166/tpl/artsmusic_article_detail

Marcello's style is similar to Vivaldi's although I prefer Marcello. He sounds less show-offish for me.

Edited January 19, 2014 by Д.Д.

[Д.Д.]

Another obvious recommendation - Telemann's Tafelmusik. Very clever, inventive and light (if somewhat cheesy sometimes) music, running the whole spectrum from solo to trios to quartet to full orchestra concert. Apparently, publishing Tafelmusic (or Musique de Table, as it was titled), was a substantial commercial success for Telemann, the most popular and respected German composer at the time. There were 206 copies pre-ordered through subscription (with customer names listed in the first published edition), all from continental Europe, with just one order from England, from one Dr. Hendel of London .

I can highly recommend the Musica Antique Köln version of Archiv: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Telemann-Tafelmusik-Musica-Antiqua-K%C3%B6ln/dp/B003W16TAE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1390224932&sr=8-1&keywords=telemann+tafelmusik

Edited January 20, 2014 by Д.Д.

[David Ayers]

Spending a little time with Christie's version of Hippolyte et Aricie - the one Rameau opera with which I can say I am familiar. Sguud.

[MomsMobley]

[king ubu]

Wow, those two are gorgeous!

Can't seem find the mandolin concerto on a disc right now ... but I see there's both a Virgin and a naïve set by Biondi - are they recommended? There's so much Vivaldi around, it's really hard to make a choice!

[A Lark Ascending]

Another obvious recommendation - Telemann's Tafelmusik.

Thanks for that reminder. Don't know him at all well but I've picked up a few discs in the last couple of years. Always enjoy them without having yet got a sense of his particular 'voice' (I can hear that in Handel, Bach, Purcell and, I think, Rameau now). That says more about my perception or experience than about his music.

Have my copy of 'Tafelmusik' ready to roll.

Did enjoy the alternative 'Water Music' today. Ideal exam marking music.

Edited January 21, 2014 by A Lark Ascending

[Larry Kart]

Another obvious recommendation - Telemann's Tafelmusik.

Thanks for that reminder. Don't know him at all well but I've picked up a few discs in the last couple of years. Always enjoy them without having yet got a sense of his particular 'voice' (I can hear that in Handel, Bach, Purcell and, I think, Rameau now). That says more about my perception or experience than about his music.

Have my copy of 'Tafelmusik' ready to roll.

Did enjoy the alternative 'Water Music' today. Ideal exam marking music.

No -- it says a lot about Telemann's music, which is one of more different stylistic "voices" than perhaps any other composer of arguably high rank.

[MomsMobley]

Ubu, the first Vivaldi is Cafe Zimmermann on Alpha, disc for disc the greatest living baroque ensemble--

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00D8DVF78/

This should be on the deals page but I see the mixed Celine Frisch, Cafe Zimmermann D'Anglebert 2-cd set is v. inexpensive (in the states)--

http://www.amazon.com/DAnglebert-Pieces-clavecin-harpsichord-Zimmermann/dp/B0009JXN7O

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlEZ8DsX5S8

[Д.Д.]

This Cafe Zimmerman Vivaldi is indeed excellent (with a lot of gusto!), perhaps the best I've heard, but still he is sort of samey, isn't he? The mandolin stuff does not work for me, mainly due to mandolin having too shallow of a sound for a solo instrument in a concerto, IMO. I assume these baroque mandolin shredders had some sort of amplification, didn't they?

Regarding Teleman, yes, the poly-stylistic ability was considered his trademark. I seem to remember (lazy to check now), JS Bach sent CPE Bach to study with him.

Edited January 21, 2014 by Д.Д.