Recording reviews
Naomi Joy Barker
Frescobaldi, Froberger and the art
of fantasy
The art of playing in a freely expressive style is a com-
mon link in a trio of new recordings of harpsichord
music by Frescobaldi, his pupil Froberger and his influ-
ential Spanish predecessors.
Cesare Atticciati's 'new musicological edition' of
the mixed programme on Girolamo Frescobaldi:
Harpsichord works (Bongiovanni GB 5527-2, rec 1992)
is presented as something of a challenge to existing re-
cordings of this repertory. In his liner notes, self-
consciously constructed in the form of a Renaissance-
style dialogue, Atticciati outlines the musicological
basis of his interpretations. (This 'dialogue' summa-
rizes an article in Rivista italiana di musicologia, xxv
(1990), pp.61-99, in which his ideas are more fully ex-
plained.)
Atticciati's primary concern is the interpretation of
embellishments. He claims that the notation of trills
may be reduced to three formulae that are schematic
representations of trills which in later publications
(notably Michelangelo Rossi's Toccate of c.1650) are in-
dicated by the sign 't' or 'tr'. Atticciati argues that the
schematic nature of the notation allows the performer
freer interpretation than the literal reading convention-
ally accorded them.
Although the hypothesis of schematic representation
of embellishment is extremely likely, there are prob-
lems in Atticciati's argument. For example, he makes
no distinction between compositions printed in in-
tavolatura and in partitura formats, or between print-
ing from type or engraving: both issues are important
to the shaping of style at this period. He also ignores the
embellishments used by Frescobaldi's predecessors and
instead makes deductions from compositions and a
single treatise all of which post-date Frescobaldi's toc-
catas by a considerable period.
Musicological misgivings aside, the recording is
thought-provoking, and in many respects the perfor-
mances are satisfying. The programme is well con-
structed, consisting of three groups of pieces each con-
taining a toccata followed by a contrapuntal work and
finishing with a set of variations. The final piece is the
intabulation of Arcadelt's madrigal Ancidetemipur.
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Ironically it is in the compositions that are least
complicated by the musicological issues that Atticciati's
playing is heard at its best. The Partite sopra I'Aria di
Follia and the Aria detta Balletto are played with a clar-
ity of articulation and sense of rhythmic and harmonic
direction that imparts vitality and charm to the for-
mulaic structures of the music. These performances are
delightful—spirited, buoyant and totally convincing.
The three toccatas are less successful. Atticciati's
views of the embellishments do impart a spirit of free-
dom to the performances that is highly desirable, and
indeed there are places, especially in Toccata nona
(book 2) and Toccata ottava (book 1), that are refresh-
ingly different yet musically convincing. In contrast, his
concern with the minutiae of embellishment at times
seems to obscure the sense of structure that is in part
created by the motivic function of certain of the trills.
The result is that the desired freedom falls into aimless
wandering. This is particularly true of the first item of
the programme, Toccata prima from book 1, and it also
mars an interesting and challenging interpretation of
the well known Toccata nona.
While the musicological aura surrounding this
recording is open to considerable argument, the re-
cording itself is a brave attempt at breaking through the
barriers of conventional modern interpretations of
Frescobaldi. As such it should be welcomed, not as a
definitive view, but as a challenge to performers to
think more closely about the received perceptions of
authentic performance.
A collection of works by Frescobaldi's pupil
Froberger are given a well deserved airing in a stylish
new recording by Shirley Matthews on Johann Jacob
Froberger: Stylus phantasticus (Gasparo GSCD-299,
issued 1994). In the performances of the six suites
featured on this disc, Matthews successfully negotiates
the fine line between the imaginative fantasy and styl-
ization characteristic of Froberger's dance movements.
The playing is articulate and refined, with a clear sense
EARLY MUSIC NOVEMBER 1994 691
of the dance structures underlying the expressive
melodic-harmonic idiom. Her reading of the moving
Lamento from the C major suite sticks in the memory,
although Suites 29 (Et major) and 13 (D minor) are
equally satisfying. My only reservation is that in some
of the allemandes and in the four single-movement
compositions that are interspersed with the suites (two
toccatas, the 'Lamentation for Ferdinand III' and the
Tombeau sur la mort de M. Blancrocher) the rhetorical
affects of the stylus phantasticus are not deliberate
enough and could use more expressive silent 'breathing
spaces'. But this is only a quibble. The beauty of
Froberger's music is excuse enough to buy this disc.
The last of this trio of recordings, Spanish and
Portuguese harpsichord (Chandos CHAN 0560, rec
1993), is a compendium of Iberian works from the 16th
and early 17th centuries played with solid conviction by
Sophie Yates. This disc, featuring diferencias on various
melodies by Antonio de Cabez6n, alongside tientos and
glosadas by Coehlo, Cabanilles, Carreira and Hernando
de Cabez6n, might be described as illustrative of Santa
Maria's Arte de taher fantasia, and as such would be a
useful addition to any library.
Flanders Festival Bruges - Belgium
32nd Early Music Festival
29th July - 12th August 1995
Harpsichord and Fortepiano Competitions
Jury : A. Abreu - J. Christensen - J. Huys -
G. Lancaster - G. Leonhardt - D. Moroney -
G. Murray - L. Remy
Interpretation classes, lectures, recitals
Exhibition, Halls of the Belfry (1-5.8)
harpsichords, fortepianos, clavichords, editions,
recordings
Lunchtime and Evening Concerts
Harpsichord & Fortepiano - J.S. Bach and
contemporaries - H. Purcell and the Restoration
Competition leaflet - full programme
further information :
Tourist Office, Burg 11, B-8000 Bruges
Tel. (50) 44 86 86 - Fax (50) 44 86 00
Festival Office, C. Mansionsrraat 30, B-8000 Bruges
Tel. (50) 33 22 83 - Fax (50) 34 52 04
692 EARLY MUSIC NOVEMBER 1994
Graham Sadler
Fatal ambition: Lully's Phaeton
rides again
It is no surprise that Lully, the most upwardly mobile
composer in the history of music, should have based an
opera on the subject of ambition. From penniless im-
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migrant to multi-millionaire by today's standards, and
from miller's son to ennobled conseiller and secretary
to Europe's most powerful monarch, his own rise was
spectacular—an outstanding if not entirely edifying
example of what moderate compositional talent allied
to a single-minded, ruthless quest for power can
achieve.
What may be more surprising is that the opera in
question, Phaeton (1683), is a study in ambition
thwarted. The eponymous Phaethon sets his sights on
the Egyptian throne and, to gain it, is prepared to pull
whatever strings are necessary and to jettison the
woman he professes to love. When a rival casts doubts
on his Lineage (his father is, in fact, the Sun), he sets out
to provide incontrovertible proof. He traps his reluc-
tant parent into letting him drive the Chariot of the Sun
across the firmament in his stead. The result is cata-
strophic: Phaethon loses control, and Jupiter, in an at-
tempt to avert ecological disaster, intervenes: he strikes
down the chariot, and Phaethon plunges to his death.
To examine such subject matter for the light it might
throw on Lully's personality is, of course, anachronis-
tic. Opera at the court of Louis XIV was, like so much
else, conceived as a vehicle for royal propaganda. The
message of Phaeton could not be clearer: don't mix it
with the Sun King. Although attempts to identify a spe-
cific usurper and presumed target of that warning have
so far proved unconvincing, Phaeton—like all Lully's
tragidies en musique—remains what one might call an
opira a clef.
Still, as Pascail Paul-Hareng points out in an essay
accompanying the first-ever recording of the work, it is
easy to stress the political dimension at the expense of
the more original aspects of Quinault's libretto. For
once, the 'hero' cannot in any sense be taken as a sym-
bol for the king. Furthermore, Phaeton is far less con-
cerned with conventional romantic love than with
parental concern for a difficult offspring: the separate
reactions of Phaethon's mother and father to their