Arcangelo Corelli (1653-1713)
Concerto Grossi Op.6, No.1-6
Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin/Mayumi Hirasaki, Georg Kallweit
rec. 2024, Teldex Studio, Berlin, Germany
Pentatone PTC5187234 [64]
The Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin have already recorded Handel’s Opus 6 Concerti Grossi (review), and his hotchpotch Opus 3 set. It makes sense for them to turn their attention to Corelli’s Opus 6. This seminal collection of twelve Concerti Grossi influenced many other such sets in the course of the 18th century, following their publication in 1714 just after the composer’s death. Any instrumental ensemble that specialises in Baroque repertoire will surely want to add this cycle to their discography.
Just as the Akademie’s recording of Handel’s set, this disc offers a stimulatingly fresh approach to the first half of these admired and well-worn Concertos. The players do not overlay it with any rhetorical grandeur in deference to the Concertos’ hallowed position in musical history. Their performances are invigorated with the liveliness of new discovery – as they must have struck audiences when first played, probably as early as the 1680s. The music’s neatly sculpted phrases and sequences are imbued with, by turns, a lilting elegance and a fizzing energy which blend quite naturally, without etching sharp, jolting contrasts.
That is possible because the ensemble is not large, only 6.4.3.2.1 strings. In effect, the distinction between the ripieno (orchestral) and concertino (soloist) groups is subtle, as they lightly toss textures back and forth. That also helps preserve a sense of structural cohesion in the movements with more than one section of different tempo, which could otherwise seem rather broken up. The Allegro second movement of No.2 is a fine example. There is a palpable ebb and flow between the sections; they rise and fall like arches, subsumed under the overall arc of the whole movement.
Nonetheless, there is a well-drawn contrast between separated slower and faster movements. The former are often lilting, or sonorous when more solemnity needs to be imparted. That makes a notable impression in the slow openings, which mark all but one of these six Concertos, in the da chiesa format. But even in the midst of No.4, its second Adagio is arrestingly interpreted. The quavers are articulated with a chilling shake, as though in homage to the icy atmosphere which Vivaldi conjured in his ‘Winter’ Concerto.
The fast movements are brisk but characterful, without motorical speed for its own sake. The sequences of semiquavers are often despatched with a Vivaldian energy, but they remain lithe and elegant, and so avoid a pounding fury. Sometimes they are even like wispy, frilly lines of candyfloss, as in the will-o’-the-wisp finale of No.5. Although explicit dance forms are reserved for the Concertos in the second half of Opus 6, the meters of some movements, as articulated here, are clearly informed by the rhythms of the gigue (finale of No.3) or the minuet (No.4’s Vivace). More contrapuntal textures also wear a generally luminous demeanour, for example the glistening lines of No.1’s penultimate movement, or those of No.5’s second Allegro, overlaid with the sonority of the continuo organ.
The violin soloists Mayumi Hirasaki and Georg Kallweit make discreet and tasteful contributions. They are always in an organic dialogue with the ripieno, rather than in contest with it. Embellishments are tidy and limited, never excessive. Those which decorate the antiphonal crotchets of No.4’s Allegro tellingly soften the confrontational bandying of those chords between the two instrumental sides, rather than emphasising their opposition.
I look forward to the Akademie’s other half of the set.
Curtis Rogers
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