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Looking for Some Great Early Music (pre-1650) Gems

14K views 35 replies 14 participants last post by  Traverso 
G
#1 · (Edited)
Does anybody have some recommendations for some great early music-- albums that they really enjoy listening to, not merely music which is famous or historically significant.

I'm looking for pre-Baroque or early Baroque, say before 1650. I'm not fishing for Bach, Vivaldi, Telemann, Handel, etc, or their immediate predecessors with this query.

To make things even tougher, I'm not very fond of early vocal/choral music. So arguably I'm looking for mostly instrumental music from a period before most modern instruments were invented. Who says life is fair?

Thanks in advance for your input - I'm looking to broaden my horizons in this area.
 
#8 · (Edited)
Does anybody have some recommendations for some great early music-- albums that they really enjoy listening to, not merely music which is famous or historically significant...
To make things even tougher, I'm not very fond of early vocal/choral music. So arguably I'm looking for mostly instrumental music...
Unfortunately (for you) most of the music that survives pre-say, 1550 is sacred vocal music for the simple reason that composers were retained by religious establishments and they wrote the music required by their employer, which was music to be sung in church. Between 1550 roughly and 1650 roughly secular music survives, but much of this is in the form of madrigals and other vocal music plus, towards the end of that period, the first forays into opera.

So, I am going to ask you to be prepared to discover you're wrong that you're not very fond of vocal music and give it a whirl.

Surely one of the greatest composers who ever lived was Claudio Monteverdi and I suggest listening to some pieces of his enough times that you're familiar with the style. Inevitably, one of his masterpieces, Vespro della beata Vergine, usually known as the 1610 Vespers, pushes to the front of the pack.

My preferred performance is Andrew Parrott's on EMI (and I admit I have not heard them all), with John Eliot Gardiner (on Decca not DG) offering a modern instruments version which is imaginatively conceived.

This work offers a variety of styles - most of the pieces can legitimately be performed outside the context of the Vespers - there is none of the dreariness that envelopes rather too much C18 and C19 choral music. Instead you have vibrant music, often sung by soloists, full of tunes and beguiling harmonies that comes up as fresh as paint.
 
#13 · (Edited)
Does anybody have some recommendations for some great early music-- albums that they really enjoy listening to, not merely music which is famous or historically significant.

I'm looking for pre-Baroque or early Baroque, say before 1650. I'm not fishing for Bach, Vivaldi, Telemann, Handel, etc, or their immediate predecessors with this query.

To make things even tougher, I'm not very fond of early vocal/choral music. So arguably I'm looking for mostly instrumental music from a period before most modern instruments were invented. Who says life is fair?

Thanks in advance for your input - I'm looking to broaden my horizons in this area.
Frescoballdi's instrumental canzoni played by Il Teatro alla Moda (Bruno Ré) (Is this too late for you?)
Christopher Tye's consort music played by The Spirit of Gambo
Keyboard transcriptions by Pierre Attaingnant played by Pierre Gallon
Renaissance and early baroque dance music played by Ulsamer-Collegium
Selections from the Buxheimer Orgelbuch by Joseph Kelemen
The recording of 16th Century French Organ Music by André Isoir And Xavier Darasse, the contribution by Darasse (Titelouze hymns) has never been on CD but I can let you have the files by PM if you want.
The recording of Cabezon's intabulations for harp by Véronique Musson-Gonneaud
Keyboard music by Orlando Gibbons played by Richard Egarr
Keyboard music by Giles Farnaby played by Glen Wilson
Music by Andrea Gabrieli played by Christopher Stembridge
The CD called Elizabethan Songs and Dances by Colin Tilney
The selection of music by John Bull played by Bob van Asperen

Bloody hell -- I've just put in all that work and then realised that the OP is from 2011. I feel as though I've been talking to myself.
 
#14 ·
The OP can no longer see your recommendations(he fell), however...

Frescoballdi's instrumental canzoni played by Il Teatro alla Moda (Bruno Ré) (Is this too late for you?)
Christopher Tye's consort music played by The Spirit of Gambo
Keyboard transcriptions by Pierre Attaingnant played by Pierre Gallon
Renaissance and early baroque dance music played by Ulsamer-Collegium
Selections from the Buxheimer Orgelbuch by Joseph Kelemen
The recording of 16th Century French Organ Music by André Isoir And Xavier Darasse, the contribution by Darasse (Titelouze hymns) has never been on CD but I can let you have the files by PM if you want.
The recording of Cabezon's intabulations for harp by Véronique Musson-Gonneaud
Keyboard music by Orlando Gibbons played by Richard Egarr
Keyboard music by Giles Farnaby played by Glen Wilson
Music by Andrea Gabrieli played by Christopher Stembridge
The CD called Elizabethan Songs and Dances by Colin Tilney
The selection of music by John Bull played by Bob van Asperen

Bloody hell -- I've just put in all that work and then realised that the OP is from 2011. I feel as though I've been talking to myself.
I found this list helpful, though. Thank you!
 
#17 · (Edited)
Just looking at that list again, I'd make some changes.

First, I think the recordings by Tasto Solo are well worth hearing, everyone loves them, everyone loves Guillermo Pérez and his organetto.

Second it seems silly to say you should get Darasse's Titelouze when it's unobtainable. Try the Magnificats in Robert Bates's set. I thought the Isoir LP was on CD but it turns out that I was wrong.

Third, the Tilney recording is hard to find too. Recently I found a CD by Kenneth Weiss of music from the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book called "A Cleare Day" which seems to me to take early English keyboard music to a new place. That's one to hear.

I said get Frescobaldi's Canzoni for little ensembles. But really Frescobaldi's strength is in keyboard music. I have listened to a lot of Frescobaldi over the past few months, he has become a favourite composer, and I am now convinced that Sergio Vartolo's recordings are specially insightful and rewarding and imaginative, followed by Alessandrini's and Leonhardt's.

I don't know if this music is too late, but I've been knocked out by two early viol CDs. One of Stoeffkens by Jonathan Dunford (everything by him is good) and one of music by Tobias Hume by Susanne Heinrich.

Lute deserves a mention. Maybe a good place to start is with the recordings of duets by Francesco da Milano by Christopher Wilson.
 
#18 ·
I listen to quite a lot of Organ, keyboard, and Instrumental music of the Renaissance.

Let's start from the earliest: The Buxheimer organ book, and other early Rennaisance/Late Gothic Composers such as Hofhaimer, Paumann, Schlick etc.


Then, you get all this marvelous music from Italy, starting from Andrea Antico to greats such as Frescobaldi, Merula, Gabrieli Family, Monteverdi, Castello, Valentini, Bertali, de Macque (who worked with Gesualdo) et.al., along with their students such as Hassler, Kerll, Schmelzer, or Schütz.


Merula's Ciaconna played by Il Giardino Armonico (Warning - trippy photography with flashing lights)


Valentini's "Enharmonic" sonata in G played by ACRONYM

And then, meanwhile in the North, there are also English, Dutch, and German composers who merge the new, Italianate Baroque style with the traditional Renaissance style - these are Sweelinck, Byrd, Farnaby, Tomkins (and all the other English Virginalists), the Praetorius family, etc., and the many students of Sweelinck (The Amsterdam "Organist maker") such as Scheidt, Scheidemann, Duben, Schildt, along the people associated with these students such as Weckmann, van Noordt, Tunder, etc., eventually cumulating into Buxtehude, Bach, and Bruhns, the masters of this "Northern German school"


Tomkins' "Barafostus' Dreame" from the Fitzwilliam Virginal book played by Maestro Leonhardt on the 1640 "Ahaus" Ruckers harpsichord


Sweelinck's Mein junges Leben hat ein End variations played by J. Lee on the Scherer/Fritsche/Schnitger organ in Hamburg


Scheidt "Canzon super O Nachbar Roland" played by L'Acheron

Related to these people: the English Composers for Viol consorts, such as Lawes, Holborne, Jenkins, etc.


Lawes Sett in F a5 played by Phantasm viol Consort

Oh, and Dowland - and Morley - extraordinary English Lutenists!


Morley "Would you buy a fine dog" Davies & Dunford :lol:

A sort of "Outlier" with influences from England, the Netherlands, France, Italy, and Spain: Peeter Cornet

Verset du Tantum Ergo played by Van de Cauter on a French-style organ by Westenfelder

In France, there was a whole organ school started by Titelouze (who wrote in a conservative Renaissance style). Composers such as Chambonnières (a Harpsichord composer), Louis Couperin, and Froberger (a "Fat German" who traveled everywhere and thus had varied influences) introduced different styles to the school, until it's height at around 1700. L. Couperin and Froberger (Their lives "Spill over" into the 1660's) are probably some of the greatest composers for Harpsichord in the 17th century.


Something by Titelouze - you get the idea :)


L. Couperin Unmeasured Prelude in d played by Bob van Asperen on the earliest surviving French Harpsichord (from around 1630)


Froberger Suite #6 "Auff der Mayern" played by Bob van Asperen on a Couchet/Blanchet/Taskin harpsichord

At last, getting out of chronological order, the Spanish school.
Cabezón is probably the earliest (and the greatest) member of the Spanish school of composing, which was heavily influenced by the Italian Renaissance style (Cabezón himself made intabulations of works by Josquin and di Lasso)


Cabezón "Diferencias sobre la gallarda milanesa" played by de Rubia on a sweet little Renaissance Claviorganum (Harpsichord + Organ)

There are many other worthy Spanish Rennaisance composers, such as Pablo Bruna, de Heredia, de Arauxo, etc.


Bruna "Tiento de Falsas" played by Suarez on a 1650 organ in Tlacochahuaya, Mexico

Phew!
I apologize for being long-winded, and being very biased towards keyboard music!
 
#19 ·
For instrumental music before c. 1580 or so, I believe nothing can touch the lute/vihuela repertoire, at least for sheer variety. This music had it all, from the simplest dances (e.g. ) to contrapuntal pieces of varying complexity and intensity of expression (e.g. ), from far out rhapsodic flights of imagination (e.g. ), to incredibly attractive simple arpeggiated preludes (e.g. ). It's a whole separate world seldom visited by most listeners, and very rewarding to explore. You can buy pretty much anything by Hopkinson Smith and Paul O'Dette to get you started.
 
#34 · (Edited)
I believe that Koopman's Italian harpsichord of choice is a B. Stefanini copy by Kroesbergen (also Koopman's harpsichord-maker of choice).

In defense of him: I don't think that Koopman sacrifices Affekt for Effects - he just expresses it in a different way, and likes to put the pieces in a new light with his idiosyncratic interpretations and notoriously high tempos. They can work marvelously (His Wachet Auf, BWV 565, or BWV 564), not-so-marvelously (as in his Buxtehude; they're mighty fine but I often prefer Koito's or Piet Kee's statelier interpretations), or become hectic (His Bruhns "great" prelude). It really depends on your taste. (as everything does)

If I have a complaint of him, it is that he often sounds rather heavy-handed when on harpsichord. But his playing is so marvelous that I can ignore that. Still, I think he is a better Organist than harpsichordist.

And then there is his Forqueray, which is utterly unmatched whether in instrument, or playing.

Oh, and there's his crazy, organ-bellows-slaying Froberger Toccata II on his Kiedrich disk - as if that piece wasn't crazy enough!
 
#35 · (Edited)
I agree about Koopman's Forqueray! The way the recital moves from tempestuousness to tenderness is unforgettable. I am sure Louis XIV would have enjoyed it. Just maybe Mario Rasquin is similar in style, but Koopman is even more extreme and uncompromising. (but no, listening now again to Koopman play Jupiter and no one, not even Raskin, comes close!)

Traverso may not appreciate this but I love his WTC 2 - I haven't heard Bk 1. It's so healthy sounding, and naive and joyful and the ornaments are astonishing and I think, never intrusive.

I appreciate his Bach a lot, the organ complete set and the earlier recordings. There's a BWV 656 on Novalis which is out of this world, I think he has a special rapport with the Leipzig Chorales.
 
G
#36 ·
The Novalis recordings are also on Brilljant Classics and I am glad to say that I have the complete organ works by Ton Koopman as they are included in the massive Teldec 2000 complete Bach boxes.
I regret that I have not the Couperin Masses for organ.Ton Koopman made a very fine reording.Does anyone know if it is available on cd?



Koopman is here playing on a French organ that just was restored.it sounds great !
 
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