CORELLI: Concerto Grosso in G Minor, Op. 6, No. 8 “Christmas”; PACHELBEL: Kanon in D; RICCIOTTI: Concertino No. 2; GLUCK: Chaconne – Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra/Karl Munchinger
HDTT HDCD171, 39:28 *** (CD-R or 96K DVD-R available, www.highdeftapetransfers.com/):
Vintage recordings from Baroque master Karl Munchinger (1915-1990), processed from a 1961 Decca London 4-track tape makes for formidable listening. Munchinger, one of the vanguard conductors of the neo-Baroque movement, eschewed original instruments–excepting the harpsichord continuo: here Germaine Voucher-Clare–instead relying on the force and intensity of his modern instruments to carry the drive and intimacy of his chosen repertory. The Pachelbel Kanon receives one of its earliest 1960s incarnations, a seamless reading, likely for many the performance that set the mold for imitation or emulation. Neither sentimental nor dragging, the music moves with inner direction and focus, passionate and clear-headed.
Munchinger’s Corelli has all the requisite energy and tonal warmth we require of this Concerto of the Nativity, including a fondly devotional Pastorale in 6/8, in which shepherds and all of Nature do homage to the Infant Jesus. The interior movements display wonderfully agile ensemble from violins Werner Keltsch and Johann Rainer Koelble. We can only await the HDTT re-issue of Munchinger’s complete Bach Brandenburgs in the sound they richly deserve.
The Ricciotti, new to me, consists of four pietistic movements, a Largo Da Capella, a Non presto, and a brisk Allegro. A clear acolyte of Corelli, Ricciotti maintains a heavy tread in the bass of the first movements, over which an ardent string line flourishes an evolving, trilled cantabile of sweet serenity. If this is a march to Golgotha, it is from the Book of Luke or John, assumed with thorough assurance of the Life to come. The Non presto bounces with joyful figures high and low, sailing and richly enamored of the multiple string lines it sings and dances. The Allegro elicits a gentle resignation, rife with singing trills and turns, a plaintive melodic line that, like Corelli, becomes a pastorale. Solo cello Siegfried Barchet makes his thoughtful presence known. The last movement–uncredited on the liner notes and cover–is a brisk Presto in concertante style, a biting, virile movement in happy affects, strictly secular humanism at its best.
Gluck’s Chaconne posits a ground bass (Moderato con grazia) and evolves a series of plangent, inventively lyrical motifs over it, some of which exude the same melodic felicity we associate with his contemporary Mozart. Long caesuras between the various sections clearly delineate a change in affect, sometimes resulting in a sustained stretto of determined power. Gluck has subsumed the Venetian style and made it his own. Ensues the delicate Gavotte we know from the Brahms piano transcription, the very model for the Boccherini style. Taken at a rather hearty tempo, we find that unsentimental accuracy on which Munchinger prided himself, poignant without bathos. The last page enjoy the power of sonata di chiesa, a church-sonata of grim if spectacularly felicitous energy.
— Gary Lemco
