GEORGE MUFFAT: Seven Concertos from “Selected Instrumental Music” – Holland Baroque Society/ Matthew Halls, harpsichord, leader – Channel Classics Multichannel SACD CCS SA 27408, 64:26 ***** [Distr. by Harmonia mundi]:
Georg Muffat (1653-1704) is a Savoyard with Scots ancestry who was able to study with Lully in Paris at a very early age. He migrated to Alsace to engage the study of law, traveled for musical study to Vienna and Prague, and finally was taken on as an organist by the Archbishop of Salzburg. Biber was brought to the court also, and his influence must have been considerable. But it was on a trip to Rome (fully-paid study at that) where Muffat first writes his important Armonico tributo, of which the concertos on this disc are a later reworking from his early dissatisfaction, about 20 year later.
Corelli was the big name at the time, and Muffat studied his work intensely, able to try out his own examples for the composer himself, and get invaluable comments. Stylistically Muffat was trying to bring both French and Italian styles together for presentation in Germany, and later to invoke the French Overture into the German Suite. He was a true hybrid (which might explain why his music ultimately failed to catch on in a wider audience), but his efforts were justly remarkable—five-voiced French music imparted to a German Suite with Italian nuances certainly makes for some wonderfully complex and compelling music, and this one time ecumenist certainly deserves a more prominent place in the work of Baroque music today. As an additional bit of trivia, his concertos all have Latin titles, like “Saeculum” (century), “Dulce somnium” (Sweet slumber), and “Quis hic?” (Who goes there?) to add to the mystery of exactly what the composer was trying to portray. Perhaps what we have here are not only early and important examples of the ever-evolving concerto grosso style, but early tone poems as well?
The Holland Baroque Society along with its “guest” leader Matthew Hall turns in delightfully vivacious readings of great spirit and obvious devotion. Add to the mix some excellently captured surround sound, and you have a baroque issue of no little importance and enthusiastically urged on all prospective buyers.
— Steven Ritter
