The Jingle Cats: Meowy Christmas

Cheese Puff, Max, Sprocket, Binky, Clara, Cueball, Graymer, Twizzler, and Petunia perform twenty favorites of the Christmas season

This strange album, produced in 1993 and intended, perhaps, as a warning of the dangers of sampling (or simply another unintentional argument why people in Los Angeles should not be allowed to use the multimedia functions of computers), turns the vocalizations of nine cats into something like feline handbells – as if someone were pulling each tail when the melody requires that cat’s pitch – in studied, formulaic arrangements of everyone’s favorite Christmas froth. The formula (instrumental vamp followed by the addition of animal vocalists) is a bit cloying when taken song after song after song but it can be very effective as part of a holiday shuffle, in which a single number catches people unawares by showing up aleatorically amid Burl Ives, Mannheim Steamroller, and Taylor Swift.

The Jingle Cats “Meowy Christmas” 107MB – no password

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Lucas Ruiz de Ribayaz: selections from Luz y norte (1677)

The Harp Consort
Paul O’Dette, lute
Andrew Lawrence-King, director

Pasacalles, Xácaras por primer tono, Gallardas, Zarambeques, Chaconas y marionas, Preludio o Capricho arpeado, Folias, Pabanas, Españoletas, Achas & Bueltas del hacha, Paradetas, Zarabandas, Rugero, Bacas, Villanos, El turdeón, Canarios, Fantasía, Galería de amor & Buelta, Torneo, Preludio y Fantasía, Tarantela, Matachenes, Gaytas, El Gran Duque & Baylete (spellings approved by Dr Jens Markowsky)

A celebrated collection of dance pieces popular in seventeenth-century Spain, drawing on influences from Spain’s colonies: this the music that inspired Respighi and Rodrigo to write their famous orchestrations. Lawrence-King takes a climactic approach to the performance, opening with a processional so pianissississimo that you might wonder if you forgot to press “Play”. Seventy minutes of music and interesting, detailed program notes.


Spanish dances collected by Ruiz de Ribayaz
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Lord Herbert of Cherbury’s Lute Book (1640)

Paul O’Dette, lute

Works by Jacques Gaultier, Luc Despond, Daniel Bacheler, Robert Johnson, Lorenzini di Roma, Diomedes Cato, Cuthbert Hely, Jacob Polonais, Julien Perrichon, and the Lord Herbert of Cherbury himself.

Edward, Lord Herbert of Cherbury, spent many years as the ambassador to France for James I. He was a self-taught lutenist and this his personal collection of pieces for the ten-coursed Renaissance lute. Seventy-six minutes of music; program notes by O’Dette in English, French, and German.


Lord Herbert of Cherbury's Lute Book
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Morton Feldman: The Viola in My Life #4 (1971)

Heiichiro Ohyama, viola
Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra
Michael Tilson-Thomas, conductor

Feldman wrote a series of pieces by this name in honor of his wife, Barbara Monk. This performance was billed somewhat pretentiously as the “Los Angeles première”. It was recorded live on 21 November 1982 at Royce Hall on the UCLA campus.

aircheck 20 February 1983, 1305–1325h, KUSC-FM Los Angeles
(Por si la palabra «aircheck» no se traduce bien, sabed que significa una grabación sacada de la radio, a veces de un evento difundido en vivo, más comúnmente de un evento grabado en vivo para emitirse otro día. De costumbre los airchecks se identifican por las siglas de la radiodifusora y la fecha de emisión.)


The Viola in My Life #4
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Rhapsodie Espagnole (compilation of five Impressionist works)

Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov: Capriccio espagnol, op. 34
Maurice Ravel: Rhapsodie espagnole
Emmanuel Chabrier: España
Claude Debussy: Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune
Paul Dukas: L’Apprenti-Sorcier

Budapest Symphony Orchestra
György Lehel, conductor

for the Chabrier:
Plovdiv Philharmonic Orchestra
Rouslan Raichev, conductor

Some of the greatest values in orchestral recordings during the 1970s and ’80s came out of Eastern Europe, which had yet to be contaminated by Madison Avenue. Every city in the Communist Bloc had an orchestra of first-rate musicians and their conductors spent more time in rehearsal than they did with publicity agents. Their performances, as a result, tended to be polished and tasteful even while their Free World counterparts were at pains to see just how quirky and individualistic they could make theirs after a bare minimum of rehearsals.

Because the Eastern European orchestras did not use advertising departments, their reputations did not travel very far and they did not command high performance fees. The most cost-conscious marketers in Los Angeles and New York City would buy the rights to Eastern European recordings very cheaply and sell them in the United States usually without liner notes or other amenities.

How this particular compilation came to be is a mystery. It includes four pieces recorded in Hungary and one in Bulgaria. The sound and ensemble are excellent throughout; the program of apparently disparate pieces is unified by the similarity of their instrumental textures.


Rhapsodie Espagnole and four other pieces
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Alfred Schnittke: Requiem

Requiem, music to Schiller's drama “Don Carlos” for soloists, mixed chorus, and instrumental ensemble In fourteen movements, op. 101 (1975)

Helga Therme and Gisela Burghardt, sopranos
Heidi Riess, mezzo-soprano
Albrecht Lepetit, tenor
Hermann Christian Polster, bass
Dresden Kreuzchor and Dresden Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir
Martin Flämig, conductor

live performance 26 May 1982 in the Dresden Kreuzkirche
Dresden Festival 1982

Toward the end of his life, Schnittke was lionized by the West, partly because his style was more Western than Soviet.

aircheck 29 January 1983, 2000–2037h, KUSC-FM Los Angeles
(Por si la palabra «aircheck» no se traduce bien, sabed que significa una grabación sacada de la radio, a veces de un evento difundido en vivo, más comúnmente de un evento grabado en vivo para emitirse otro día. De costumbre los airchecks se identifican por las siglas de la radiodifusora y la fecha de emisión.)


Schnittke Requiem
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Brahms-Schoenberg: Piano Quartet

Johannes Brahms: Piano Quartet in g, op. 25, as orchestrated by Arnold Schoenberg
Allegro
Intermezzo: Allegro ma non troppo
Andante con moto
Rondo all’Zingarese: Presto

Los Angeles Philharmonic
Simon Rattle, conductor

Schoenberg’s orchestration of Brahms’s chamber work exaggerates the inherent romanticism, filling the piece with denser harmonies and stranger timbres. Rattle manages not only to keep the piece from becoming slapstick but also brings out melodies hidden among the many instruments.

aircheck 27 February 1983, 1300–1400h, KUSC-FM Los Angeles
(Por si la palabra «aircheck» no se traduce bien, sabed que significa una grabación sacada de la radio, a veces de un evento difundido en vivo, más comúnmente de un evento grabado en vivo para emitirse otro día. De costumbre los airchecks se identifican por las siglas de la radiodifusora y la fecha de emisión.)


Rattle conducts the Brahms-Schoenberg
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Richard Wagner: Dawn and Siegfried’s Rhine Journey (Götterdämmerung)

Minnesota Orchestra
Neville Marriner, conductor

This performace dates from when Marriner, as the music director of the Minnesota Orchestra, began venturing deeply into Romantic repertoire. The precision and moderation that made his reputation with Baroque and Classical pieces work surprisingly well with Wagner.

aircheck 20 February 1983, 1330–1400h, KUSC-FM Los Angeles
(Por si la palabra «aircheck» no se traduce bien, sabed que significa una grabación sacada de la radio, a veces de un evento difundido en vivo, más comúnmente de un evento grabado en vivo para emitirse otro día. De costumbre los airchecks se identifican por las siglas de la radiodifusora y la fecha de emisión.)


Wagner by Marriner
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Nicolet plays Devienne

Aurèle Nicolet, flute
Christiane Nicolet, second flute
Netherlands Chamber Orchestra
Antoni Ros-Marbá, condutor

François Devienne: Symphonie Concertante in G for two flutes, op. 76
Devienne: Flute Concerto No. 7 in e minor

Back when Jean-Pierre Rampal was breaking all known speed records, Aurèle Nicolet was calmly setting the standard for musicianship. His performances were never less than perfect. Here he gives us a couple of works by France’s most celebrated flute virtuoso of the latter eighteenth century.


Nicolet plays Devienne
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Oboe concerti performed by Heinz Holliger

Heinz Holliger, oboe
Christiane Jaccottet, harpsichord
Camerata Bern
Alexander van Wijnkoop, concertmaster

Johann Gottlieb Graun: Concerto in g minor for oboe
Graun: Concerto in c minor for oboe
Johann Ludwig Krebs: Concerto in b minor for harpsichord and oboe

Holliger was the top oboist of his day (later to be joined by Alan Vogel), equally at home in the Baroque and the late twentieth century. Jaccottet was known for her precise and stylish Bach. The Camerata Bern was the breeding ground for early music in Switzerland. Recorded in Berne, Switzerland, by Polydor Archiv in 1978.


Holliger plays Graun and Krebs
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Steve Reich: Tehillim (orchestral version)

Julianne Baird, Cheryl Bensman, Jane Bryden, sopranos
Kimball Wheeler, mezzo-soprano
New York Philharmonic Orchestra
Zubin Mehta, conductor

The name of the work is Hebrew for “psalms” or “praises”. Its lyrics are drawn from Psalms 19, 34, 18, and 150. One of Reich’s more lyrical works; he manages to achieve his signature beat-frequency effects by playing five similar voices off one another.

world première performance of the orchestral version
recorded live 16 September 1982
Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center, New York City

aircheck 12 February 1983 1230–1300h, KUSC-FM Los Angeles
(Por si la palabra «aircheck» no se traduce bien, sabed que significa una grabación sacada de la radio, a veces de un evento difundido en vivo, más comúnmente de un evento grabado en vivo para emitirse otro día. De costumbre los airchecks se identifican por las siglas de la radiodifusora y la fecha de emisión.)


Reich Tehillim orchestral première
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The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, live 1982

The Emerson Quartet
Walter Trampler, second viola

Wolfgang Mozart: String Quintet in g, K. 516
Ludwig van Beethoven: String Quartet in C, op. 59/3, “Rasumovsky”
George Crumb: Vox balaenae (Voice of the Whale)

For many decades now, the CMSLC has been a somewhat fluid group of musicians, originally all members of the New York Philharmonic, that the Lincoln Center draws from each season to perform chamber works involving a wide range of instruments. This evening, most likely from the 1982 season, assembled five strings, a flute, and a piano to present one piece each from the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries, all surprisingly well suited to each other.

aircheck 27 April 1983 2100h KUSC-FM, Los Angeles
(Por si la palabra «aircheck» no se traduce bien, sabed que significa una grabación sacada de la radio, a veces de un evento difundido en vivo, más comúnmente de un evento grabado en vivo para emitirse otro día. De costumbre los airchecks se identifican por las siglas de la radiodifusora y la fecha de emisión.)


Emerson Quartet at Lincoln Center
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Antonio Vivaldi: sacred music for countertenor, strings, and continuo

Gérard Lesne, countertenor
Ensemble Il Seminario musicale

Motetto «Vestro Principi Divino», RV 633
Stabat Mater, RV 621
Introduzione al Miserere «Filiae Maestae Jerusalem», RV 638
Salmo 126, «Nisi Dominus», RV 608

Vivaldi wrote a small number of religious pieces for solo contralto voice with chamber accompaniment. This CD contains about half of them. French digital production from 1988.


Vivaldi sacred music for countertenor
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Joseph Haydn: The Seven Last Words of Christ on the Cross

The Kuijken String Quartet live 31 March 1994

Sigiswald Kuijken, violin
François Fernández, violin
Marleen Thiers, viola
Wieland Kuijken, cello

Introduzione
Sonata I: Pater, dimitte illis, quia nesciunt quid faciunt.
Sonata II: Hodie mecum eris in Paradiso.
Sonata III: Mulier, ecce filius tuus.
Sonata IV: Deus meus, Deus meus, ut quid dereliquisti me?
Sonata V: Sitio.
Sonata VI: Consummatum est.
Sonata VII: In manus tuas, Domine, commendo Spiritum meum.
Il terremoto

The Kuijkens have always had an unerring sense of repertoire. This unusual piece, seventy-eight minutes long, is more than some overgrown string quartet and more than sacred program music; true to its subject, the work is both somber and mystical. A brilliant performance at the Dorking Halls in Dorking, Surrey. Recorded by the BBC.


Haydn: The Seven Last Words
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The Kuijken Trio live 15 November 1993

Wieland Kuijken, viola da gamba
Barthold Kuijken, flauto traverso
Robert Kohnen, harpsichord

Jean-Marie Leclair: Trio Sonata in D (Deuxième Livre)
François Couperin: Concert Royal nº 1
Jean-Philippe Rameau: Premier concert (Pièces de clavecin en concert)
Georg Philipp Telemann: Fantasias nº 7 in D major and nº 3 in b minor
Johann Sebastian Bach: Sonata in g for viola da gamba and continuo
Johann Gottfried Müthel: Sonata in D
unidentified encore

Live digital recording of their performance at the First Methodist Church of Seattle, Washington. This was recorded for National Public Radio but appears not to have been edited for broadcast.

If anyone can identify the encore, please leave a comment here.


The Kuijken Trio, 15 November 1993
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The Kuijken Quartet live 11 November 1990

Barthold Kuijken, flute
Sigiswald Kuijken, violin
Wieland Kuijken, viola da gamba
Robert Kohnen, harpsichord

Marin Marais: Suite en trio in e minor
Jean-Philippe Rameau: Cinquième Concert (Pièces de clavecin en concert)
Dietrich Buxtehude: Trio Sonata in B-flat
J. S. Bach: Trio Sonata in c minor (A Musical Offering)

The Ks in their essential configuration playing works from their essential repertoire. Recorded live at East Hill Baptist Church, Tallahassee, Florida, for WFSU/WFSQ-FM.


Kuijken Quartet, 11 November 1990
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Wieland Kuijken and Robert Kohnen in recital 27 February 1977

Wieland Kuijken, viola da gamba
Robert Kohnen, harpsichord

Diego Ortiz: Three recercadas
Christopher Simpson: Divisions on a ground in e minor
J. S. Bach: Sonata #2 in D
Marin Marais: Couplets on “Les Folies d’Espagne” (Pièces de viole, 1681)
Marin Marais: [unidentified encore]

The Kuijken Quartet’s booking in Los Angeles obligated them contractually not to perform any other concert in the area, so this performance forty-seven miles east of Los Angeles was presented as a “lecture/recital” in which Wieland would offer a chronological overview of viola da gamba repertoire. He spoke for about twenty minutes between pieces but, since he refused his microphone, the recording of the lecture portion was not preserved when the original analogue recordings were digitized. Recorded surreptitiously in Mabel Shaw Bridges Hall of Music, Claremont, California.

If anyone can identify the encore, please leave a comment here.


Kuijken-Kohnen recital 27 February 1977
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Georg Philipp Telemann: Tafelmusik, Book III

Ensemble “Il Fondamento”
Paul Dombrecht, conductor

Concerto in E-flat for two horns, strings, and continuo
Trio in D for two transverse flutes and continuo
Solo in g for oboe and continuo
Conclusion in B for two oboes, strings, and continuo
Overture in B for two oboes, strings, and continuo
Quartet in e for transverse flute, violin, violoncello, and continuo

Il Fondamento did not record the other two books of Tafelmusik, but then Telemann never intended the works to be performed as a group. In spite of its Italianate name, this ensemble was based in Belgium. Dombrecht was its cynosure and he championed both period instruments and musicological underpinnings for their performance practice. Robert Kohnen was their harpsichordist. Recorded in Ghent during September 1986 and in Brussels during December 1987.


Telemann: Tafelmusik Book 3
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Works for cello by Boccherini, Sammartini, degli Antoni, and Gabrieli

Anner Bylsma, violoncello
Dijck Koster, second violoncello
Concerto Amsterdam
Gustav Leonhardt, harpsichord

Boccherini: Concerto in G for violoncello and string orchestra
Sammartini: Sonata III in a for two violoncelli
Boccherini: Sonata No. 7 in B-flat
degli Antoni: Ricercata VIII for violoncello solo
Domenico Gabrieli: Canon for two violoncelli

Although marketed as a Boccherini album, these recordings of 1968–69 are in fact much more interesting because they document the earliest violoncello repertoire and highlight the masterful work of Bylsma.


Bylsma plays early works for cello
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William Croft: songs and incidental music

The Parley of Instruments
David Thomas, bass

How charming is beauty
With Noise of Cannon (from Musicus apparatus academicus)
The Wanton Celia
Ayres in the Comedy call’d The Funeral
Ayres in the Comedy of Courtship Alamode
Ah how sweet
Cantata: Lost is my love

The real-life Lord Croft (who knows nothing of raiding tombs) aided in the preparation of this recording of the work of a kinsman from England’s Restoration period. William Croft (1678–1727) was a contemporary of Jeremiah Clarke (with whom he shared duties as organist for the Chapel Royal) and a student of John Blow and Henry Purcell. These songs and the incidental music to two plays bear strong resemblance to the work of Croft’s teachers. The Parley of Instruments was a group that specialized in early British music.


Works by William Croft
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Handel: trios, sonatas, and concerti for diverse instruments

The Aulos Ensemble plays
Concerto a quattro in d
Trio Sonata #5 in G
Sonata in G, op 1/5
Sonata in g, op 1/6
Sonata in C
Trio Sonata #2 in d
Concerto a quattro in D
Trio Sonata in e, op 5/3

The Aulos Ensemble took the original-instrument movement to the next logical step: what with original instruments being so scarce and generally in poor condition, they found that modern copies of the originals – “period instruments” – were not only more affordable but often better-sounding and still just as difficult to play. In this recording from 1982, a broad selection of Handel’s chamber music shows off the sound of half a dozen such instruments, all played very well indeed.


The Aulos Ensemble plays Handel
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Bernard Rands: Canti del Sole

Canti del Sole for tenor and chamber ensemble (1983)

Paul Sperry, tenor
Los Angeles Philharmonic New Music Group
William Kraft, conductor

KUSC identified this as the première performance of the chamber version of Canti del Sole, recorded live at the Japan America Theater on 13 February 1984. Rands’ own chronology shows that he conducted the first performance with Paul Sperry and UCSD’s modernist chamber ensemble “SONOR” at some point in 1983.

Bernard Rands (accent on his first syllable) was the composer in residence at the University of California, San Diego, at the time of this performance. He is British and his compositional style owes much to Benjamin Britten. He received a Pulitzer Prize for the orchestral version of this work … it bears mentioning, however, that people often nominate themselves for Pulitzers.

Recorded from a broadcast by KUSC-FM Los Angeles on 30 December 1984.


Rands Canti del Sole chamber version
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Gluck: Orfeo ed Eurdice

Orfeo: René Jacobs
Euridice: Marjanne Kweksilber
Amore: Magdalena Falewicz
National Opera of Belgium
Sigiswald Kuijken, conductor

Kuijken recorded this original version (Vienna 1762) with La Petite Bande and the same soloists in 1982. Here he is conducting his country’s national opera orchestra after first instructing its musicians in eighteenth-century techniques. (For an idea of how that was done, listen to the interview with Frans Brüggen from his concert of 1 May 1985.) This live performance was recorded from a broadcast on KUSC-FM Los Angeles in 1984.


Glück Orfeo ed Euridice by S. Kuijken
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Vivaldi: concerti for recorder, strings, and continuo, op. 10

Concerto #1 in F, “La tempesta di mare”
Concerto #2 in g, “La notte”
Concerto #3 in D, “Il gardellino”
Concerto #4 in G
Concerto #5 in F
Concerto #6 in G

Michala Petri, recorders
Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields
Iona Brown, director


Vivaldi opus 10
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Haydn: Symphonies 26, 52, and 53

Symphony #26 in d, “Lamentatione”
Symphony #52 in c
Symphony #53 in D, “Imperial”

La Petite Bande
Sigiswald Kuijken, director

Period instruments, authentic performance-practice, and Saint Sigi: Haydn at his finest. Recorded at the Doopsgezinde Semeentekerk, Haarlem, March 1988.


Haydn Symphonies 26, 52, 53
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Stabat Mater: Music from the Eton Choirbook

Richard Davy: Stabat mater dolorosa
John Browne: Stabat iuxta Christi crucem
John Browne: Stabat mater dolorosa
William Cornyshe: Gaude virgo mater Christi

The Sixteen
Harry Christophers, director

Four-, five-, and six-voice Marian antiphons of the late fifteenth century taken from the collection at Eton College, Berkshire, and transcribed by Christophers. Recorded at the Church of St Anne and St Agnes, London, January 1982.


antiphons from the Eton Choirbook

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Girolamo Frescobaldi: harpsichord works

Bob van Asperen, harpsichord

Toccata decima
Cento partite sopra passacagli
Canzona terza
Toccata nona
Capriccio sopra la Bassa Fiamenga
Toccata nona
Canzon terza detta La Crivelli
Partite 14 sopra l’Aria della Romanesca


Frescobaldi by van Asperen
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Frans Brüggen: works for recorder

Jacques-Martin Hotteterre: Suite for two recorders
Diogenio Bigaglia: Sonata in a minor for recorder
Andrew Parcham: Solo in G for recorder and basso continuo
Jacob Jan van Eyck: Engels Nachtegaeltje for recorder solo
Johann Christoph Pepusch: Sonata #4 in F for alto recorder and basso continuo
François Couperin: L’espangnole from Les nations
Georg Philip Telemann: Suite in F for solo violin, strings, two flutes, two oboes, two horns, kettledrums and basso continuo

with
Kees Boeke, recorder
Anner Bylsma, violoncello
Gustav Leonhardt, harpsichord
Nikolaus Harnoncourt, viola da gamba
Quadro Amsterdam
Concerto Amsterdam
Jaap Schröder, violin

By 1975, when Telefunken released this two-disc set, Brüggen had already made a name for himself as a hot young recorder soloist. Here he showed his abilities in musicology and ensemble-playing by offering rare and unusual repertoire and performances with some of the best musicians in northern Europe. The recording was rereleased as cassettes in 1985, from which this archive was ripped.


Brüggen double album 1975
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Giovanni Picchi: harpsichord works

Ton Koopman, harpsichord
(copy of Stephanini 17th c.)

Toccata
Ballo detto il Picchi
Ballo ongaro
Padoana ditta la Ongara
Pass’e mezzo antico de sei parti
Saltarello del ditto Pass’e mezzo
Todesca
Ballo ditto il Stefanin
Ballo alla polacha

Picchi was so influential in the development of Renaissance keyboard music that he even appears in the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book. The recording is a scant thirty minutes long but the pieces are sprightly and the playing is classic Koopman.


Picchi by Koopman
41.0 MB – no password

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Antoine Forqueray père: pièces de viole

Suite nº 1 in d minor
Suite nº 2 in G major

Jordi Savall, bass viola da gamba (1697)
Christopher Coin, bass viola da gamba
Ton Koopman, harpsichord (1729)

Forqueray (1672–1745) was the gamba soloist of his day. His two suites, written for the court of the Duke of Orléans, are performed here on instruments that are contemporary with the music.


Forqueray viola da gamba
70.7 MB - no password

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Herbert Tachezi: Renaissance organ music from Spain, Italy, and Germany

Tomás de Santa María: Ocho fantasías por los ocho tonos
Enríquez de Valderrábano: Fantasía primero grado
Antonio de Cabezón: Diferences sobre el canto llano del caballero
Luis de Milán: Pavana y galiarda
Claudio Merulo: Toccata
Vincenzo Pellegrini: Canzona per organo (francese) «La Serpentina»
Michael Praetorius: O lux beata trinitas
Paul Hofhaimer: Recordare
Johannes Kotter: Salve regina
Christian Erbach: Ricercar secundi toni

Tachezi had an encyclopedic understanding of Renaissance keyboard music. Here he offers a broad, well-chosen program to show off the wide range of the Ebert organ in Innsbruch, Austria, an unusual instrument in that it handles both Spanish and German registrations effectively.


Tachezi Renaissance organ
78.9 MB – no password

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Greek Easter on Mount Athos

An ethnomusicological field recording of the climactic night before Resurrection as celebrated in 1978 by Abbot Alexios and the community of the Xenophontos Monastery on Greece’s holy mountain. Because this culminates the mystery of sacrifice and redemption and ends the Lenten fast, the celebration of Holy Saturday is arguably the most significant point of the entire Orthodox calendar. Its ritual and musical structure are discussed in detailed notes.

Not the sort of thing you want to have blaring out of your urban assault vehicle while you’re waiting for the traffic light to change, but an extraordinarily rare and invaluable recording if you would understand the origins of plainchant, fauxbourdon, or the early Christian church. Share and enjoy!


Easter on Mount Athos
78.1 MB – no password

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Frans Brüggen and the Minnesota Orchestra, 1 May 1985

Rameau: Suite from Dardanus (arranged by Brüggen)
J. S. Bach: Concerto for recorder and orchestra (arranged by Brüggen)
C.P.E. Bach: Symphony in D
Haydn: Symphony #88 in G

Live aircheck of a performance in St. Paul, Minnesota, during which Brüggen got a modern orchestra to sound like an eighteenth-century one. (Two weeks after this performance, he was in Sydney, Australia, getting their orchestra to do the same thing.) An interesting concert on many levels, not the least of which being Brüggen’s own transcriptions. The concerto here is an arrangement of a harpsichord concerto in which Brüggen served as both soloist and conductor. A twelve-minute interview with Brüggen discussing the motive behind these concerts, which originally aired during the intermission, is included at the end of this archive.

image:
link:
Brüggen in concert 1 May 1985
124.1 MB – no password

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Toru Takemitsu: selected works

Requiem for string orchestra (1957)
Quatrain for Tashi and orchestra (1975)
Sacrifice for alto flute, lute, and vibraphone (1962)
Arc for piano and orchestra
Eucalypts II for flute, oboe, and harp (1970)
For Away for piano (1973)
Water Ways for Tashi, two harps, and two vibraphones (1978)
Masque for two flutes (1959)
Undisturbed Rest for piano (1952)
Green [November Steps II] for orchestra (1967)

Takemitsu (1930–1996) was arguably the finest composer of the second half of the twentieth century and certainly one of the very few able to have made a living purely as a composer beyond the coddling walls of academia. He wrote even for movies and television in a post-Romantic, post-Impressionist style that was luminous, modern, cosmopolitan, and extraordinarily thoughtful. The real Zen, a musical garden.

Nationalistic schools of composition criticize him for his lack of shakuhachi and koto … but nationalism was so nineteenth-century, so non-Zen. The rest of us will figure this out soon enough. Sensei Toru saw the future of artistic expression as an all-embracing universality cannot be achieved by jumbling various styles together the way that hip-hop hamsters try to sell us silly Korean cars. (The reference is to commercials for the Kia Soul aired on U.S. television in 2011.)

This archive is a compilation from seven LPs and one live performance.


Takemitsu
127.9 MB – no password

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François du Fault: lute works

Suite in c minor
Suite in a minor
Suite in g minor
Suite in C major
Pavane in e minor

Hopkinson Smith, one of the movers and shakers of the original-instrument movement, performing on a Venetian lute made in 1644. Little is known about the composer, who was a contemporary of the lute in this recording, yet his writing is sophisticated and idiomatic.


François du Fault lute 73.6 MB – no password

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Brahms: Double Concerto, Tragic Overture

Concerto for Violin, Cello, and Orchestra in a minor, op. 102
Wolfgang Schneiderhan, violin
Janos Starker, cello
Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra
Ferec Fricsay, conductor

Tragic Overture, op. 81
Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra
Loren Maazel, conductor

These are older recordings reissued by Deutsche Grammophon primarily because of the work of Starker and Fricsay (1962) and Maazel (1959) although every musician was outstanding throughout both performances. The only shortcoming is the work of the recording engineers because they placed the orchestra's microphones too far away in fear of saturating their tapes. Starker's microphone is especially intimate and both soloists deliver an extraordinarily subtle performance.

Because of the wussy recording levels, here is an instance where the derivative MP3s are better than the commercial cassette. The Golden Records program normally rips cassettes with its input gate at -12dB but in this case the gate was set wide open in order to hear the orchestra better. The conductors, orchestras, and soloists are smiling down on NCH Software for their help in this venture. Crank your volume up and you'll smile, too.


Brahms Double Concerto
67.1 MB - no password

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Canto Antiguo

Music from the Spanish Middle Ages and Renaissance

Sacred and secular music from the codeces from the Composela pilgrimage, the Cántigas de Santa María, and the cancioneros of the great palaces. Canto Antiguo included a former member of Noah Greenberg's New York Pro Musica and a music professor from Cal State Fullerton.

When this recording came out, in 1977, its musicians (from the cultural wastelands of southern California) were overshadowed by much glitzier European performers, such as the Early Music Consort of London and Studio für Alte Musik, and its improvisatory sound was not well-received by scholars. Time has since vindicated this interesting recording: today's performers of early Spanish music not only insist on true improvisation, they also embrace the Sephardic and Mozarabic musical influences that audiences in the 1970s did not appreciate.

The bright sound of this recording is surprisingly modern because the microphones were placed in an experimentally close X-Y pattern. The only anomaly was the group's countertenor, who projected toward each microphone alternatively just as he did to live audiences.

Canto Antiguo
78.7 MB - no password

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Rossini: Petite Messe Solennelle

Kari Lövass, sorano
Brigitte Fassbaender, alto
Peter Schreier, tenor
Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, baritone
Munich Vocal Ensemble
Wolfgang Sawallisch & Hans Ludwig Hirsch, piano
Reinhard Raffalt, harmonium
Wolfgang Sawallisch, conductor

Strange things can happen when opera composers decide to write a mass. This one was performed almost a cappella by a small complement of first-class singers and recorded live in the Church of the Baumburg Cloister in 1978.

Rossini Petite Messe
118.8 MB - no password

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Joseph Haydn: baryton trios

Trios for baryton, viola, and violoncello, Hob. XI
#61 in D, #52 in d, #101 in C, #96 in b, #44 in D
Münchner Baryton-Trio

Haydn wrote a great deal of music for the baryton, a large viola da gamba with sympathetic strings, because it was the favorite instrument of his patron, Prince Nicolaus Esterházy. In that body of work are 125 trios or divertimenti, many of which include a cadenza to allow the prince to show off. Polydor Archiv, 1978.


Haydn baryton trios
88.3 MB - no password

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Antonio Soler: Los Villancicos

Escolanía de la Abadía de Santa Cruz del Valle de los Caídos
Ensemble Baroque Pygmalion
Jean-Michel Hasler, conductor
15th International Festival of Sacred Music, Sylvanès Abbey, August 1992

Padre Antonio is known more for his brilliant keyboard music, but here he is developing the villancico, originally a troubdour song, into its Baroque form as a Christmas carol for orchestra and chorus. The one characteristic that Soler preserved from the poetical form of the troubadours is its alternation of estribillo and copla, a characteristic that has since permeated Spanish music throughout the world.

The audiocassette is a Mexican release of a French production featuring a children's choir from Roncesvalles, Spain, and an instrumental group from Aveyron, France.


Soler villancicos
88.1 MB - no password

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Brahms-Schoenberg: Piano Quartet for orchestra

Arnold Schoenberg's orchestrations of:
Brahms: Piano Quartet in g, op. 25
Bach Chorale Preludes:
"Schmücke dich, o liebe Seele", BWV 654
"Komm, Gott Schöpfer, Heiliger Geist, BWV 631

Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra
Michael Tilson Thomas, conductor

Schoenberg is usually thought of as impossibly dissonant but he was secretly the very last gasp of German Romanticism. With his orchestration of the piano quintet one is tempted to imagine Brahms on pschedelics while Schoenberg's Bach out-Stokovskies Stokowski. Analogue audiocassette of a digital master, 1986.

Schoenberg-Brahms
68.0 MB - no password

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Schubert: Symphony #9 Sawallisch

Schubert: Symphony #9 in C, "The Great"
Staatskapelle Dresden
Wolfgang Sawallisch, conductor

Sawallisch was a prolific conductor of both symphonies and operas whose career was cut short by orthostatic hypotension. He spent ten years as music director of the Philadelphia Symphony, but was more appreciated by European audiences. His solid, balanced musicianship was well-matched to Schubert's solidest symphony.


Schubert's Ninth with Sawallisch
84.6 MB - no password

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Mozart String Quartets #18 and #19

The Guarneri Quartet

Quartet for Strings #18 in A (K. 464)
Quartet for Strings #19 in C, "Dissonant" (K. 465)

Six Quartets dedicated to Haydn, vol. 3
RCA Red Seal, 1975

Formed in 1964, the Guarneri was such an institution in its day that they often didn't bother to list their individual names (Arnold Steinhardt and John Dalley, violins; Michael Tree, viola; David Soyer, cello). The quartet is still in residence at the University of Maryland even though Mr Soyer retired in 2001 and died in 2010. These Mozart quartets were recorded while the Guarneri was at its apogee.


Mozart String Quartets 18 & 19
85.0 MB - no password

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Mozart pianoforte Badura-Skoda

With his unusual combination of musicology, museology, and performance, Paul Badura-Skoda kicked the original-instruments movement into overdrive so fast that his competitors felt it necessary to disparage his playing. There is nothing wrong with his playing in this recording, in which we hear rare pieces he found performed on a period instrument he owns.


Badura-Skoda plays Mozart
75.5 MB - no password

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Cartesian Reunion Memorial Orchestra

D. Hein, amplified and electric guitars
M. Bayer, amplified violoncello
J. Glenn, electrical bass
W. Houston, keyboards
F. Riddick, keyboards
S. Moshier, vibraharp
Ll. Rodgers, saxophone, clarinet, organ

This was an experimental group based around Lloyd Rodgers, a professor of music at California State University, Fullerton, and a few of his students. CRMO described itself as "a post-modernist electrical chamber ensemble in the grand style"; stylistically it bore some affinity to Peter Schickele's Open Window and to Alex Kline's Quartet Music while philosophically it criticized the ambient culture of self-satisfaction, violence, and conformity.


CRMO
52.4 MB - no password

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Moondog instrumental works circa 1978

One of the truly great eccentrics of the twentieth century, Louis T. Hardin (1916-1999), who became blind at the age of seventeen, spent most of his life impersonating the Norse god Odin as a busker on the streets of New York City. He retired to Germany in 1974. Hardin gave himself his nickname in honor of a pet dog that liked to howl at the moon.

His compositional style was decidedly atavistic, holding to very strict canons in preference to fugues, and yet was an acknoweldged formative influence on Philip Glass's minimalism. His first recordings were released on 78s; the present recording was probably his last, made by Gema in Germany. It includes harpsichord works that sound very Baroque, organ works that remind one of Reger, and works for string quartet that might be a bit Hindemithy.

Moondog, 1978
68.0 MB - no password

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Fantasias: Colin Tilney, clavichord

J. S. Bach: Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue in d
C.P.E. Bach: Fantasia in c, Fantasia in C
W. F. Bach: Fantasia in d
C.P.E. Bach: Fantasia in C
Mozart: Fantasia in d

Tilney took Ralph Kirkpatrick's advocacy for obsolete instruments one step further by promoting the use of original instruments. This recording, from 1976, was performed on a clavichord from 1742 in the collection of the Museum für Hamburgische Geschichte. The program is interesting in that it gives representative examples of a loose compositional form from its inception in the Baroque to the Classical.

Fantasias for clavichord
72.2 MB - no password

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