Crossing Borders
Tabea Debus (recorder), Katy Birch (transverse flute)
La Serenissima/Adrian Chandler (violin, viola d’amore)
rec. 2023, Cedars Hall, Wells Cathedral School, UK 
Reviewed as a download
Signum Classics SIGCD918 [81]

Crossing Borders is the appropriate title of a disc which includes both Italian music and music written in the Italian style. The programme brings together works written in Italy and in Germany, with Antonio Vivaldi and Georg Philipp Telemann as the two main representatives of the two countries. The latter’s presence may be the surprise, as Telemann is known as an admirer of the French style, and for being rather critical of what came from Italy. However, in his concertos – and even some of his orchestral suites – he included elements of the Italian style.

His most popular work performed here is undoubtedly the Concerto in E minor for transverse flute and recorder. Adrian Chandler, in his liner-notes, mentions that this was a very unlikely combination. He refers to one other piece in Telemann’s oeuvre. It would be hard to check how much music has been written in which these instruments play together; Johann Joachim Quantz for one wrote a trio sonata for flute and recorder (QV 2,2). In the case of Telemann, it is no surprise: he loved unusual combinations of instruments, also if they represented different stylistic eras, so to speak, like the ‘old-fashioned’ viola da gamba and the ‘modern’ transverse flute. The Concerto in E minor closes, as so often, with a bow to the traditional music from Poland which Telemann so much admired.

More ‘conventional’ is his Concerto in D for transverse flute, where the influence of the Italian style manifests itself quite clearly. It is a favourite of modern flautists; its opening – a polonaise en rondeau – is a typical specimen of the ‘mixed taste’ of which Telemann was a prominent representative. In the first movement, the solo part may imitate birdsong. The most surprising item from his oeuvre is the Trio in D for transverse flute, viola d’amore and basso continuo. I have checked in my collection, which includes quite a lot of music by Telemann, and I could not find a single recording. It has been recorded before, but it is a little-known piece, which is hard to understand, given its quality. It is always nice to hear the viola d’amore, and the combination is very interesting and musically compelling. This piece is one of many we owe to the copying activities of Johann Georg Pisendel, for many years leader of the Dresden court orchestra, and a great admirer of the Italian style, especially Vivaldi.

The latter is represented with one of his best-known works, the Concerto in F for recorder. Its popularity among recorder players, resulting in a substantial number of recordings, is easy to understand, not only because of its musical quality but also the relatively small number of recorder concertos from the first half of the 18th century. What is interesting here is that the programme closes with an alternative slow movement. Apparently Vivaldi started but then abandoned it. It is in binary form, and the A section is complete, but the B section breaks off after the third bar. For this recording it was completed by Chandler.

With Ignazio Sieber, we stay in Italy. He was born as Ignaz Sieber, which indicates that he was from a German-speaking region. Originally he was active as an oboe player. The oboe had been developed in France, and had disseminated across the German-speaking world in the last quarter of the 17th century. It entered Italy around 1700, and the first oboe players in Italy were from above the Alps. From 1713 to 1716 Sieber acted as maestro di oboe at the Ospedale della Pietà in Venice, and from 1728 to 1757 as maestro di traversiè at the same institution. “That Sieber’s reappearance in Venice in 1727 occurred around the same time as Vivaldi’s opera Orlando furioso (RV 728), the only known opera to contain a flute obligato (and the hardest flute part that he ever penned) is a tempting coincidence for musicologists to stress” (booklet). His Sonata VIII in g minor is a lovely piece, which is indeed – as Chandler observes – very Vivaldian. I advise searching for recordings of Sieber’s sonatas; if the sonata performed here is anything to go by, that will be well worth the effort.

Chandler has delved into the oeuvre of Giuseppe Antonio Brescianello with several previous recordings. Here we get another piece: a Concerto in E flat that is only a concerto in name, as it is in fact a trio sonata. It is in the tradition of the Corellian sonata da chiesa, with four movements, the second of which is fugal. The remaining item is a movement for violin and basso continuo attributed to Francesco Durante, a Neapolitan composer who is best-known for his sacred music. His instrumental output is small; the best-known pieces are nine Concerti a quattro.

When I reviewed the previous recordings I was happy with the interpretation, which showed how far La Serenissima has moved away from the way British ensembles once used to perform Italian music. Again, these performances do ample justice to the Italian style, whether in the music by Italian composers or the Italian elements in Telemann’s works. In all the pieces the ornamentation is stylish and well-judged, as are the tempi: in Vivaldi’s Concerto in F, for instance, the opening movement – marked allegro ma non troppo – is rightly taken in a moderate tempo, whereas the closing movement is played very fast, but never in a way to show off. Sieber’s sonata receives an excellent performance; the sarabanda is expressive, and the closing allemanda a true Kehraus. Cellist Vladimir Waltham is on fire here. Tabea Debus once again proves to be a world-class recorder player. Katy Birch is her perfect partner in Telemann’s Concerto in E minor. It is often played, but they still manage to make one listen attentively. This is a high-class performance. Katy Birch is then at her very best in Telemann’s concerto and in the trio sonata, which is one of the highlights of this disc, also thanks to the excellent playing by Birch and Chandler.

This is a most enjoyable disc, which offers a nice mixture of familiar and little-known pieces in top-class performances. Don’t miss it.

Johan van Veen
www.musica-dei-donum.org
twitter.com/johanvanveen
https://bsky.app/profile/musicadeidonum.bsky.social

Contents
Georg Philipp Telemann (1681-1767)
Concerto for transverse flute, strings and bc in D (TWV 51,D2)
Ignazio Sieber (c1680-1761)
Sonata VIII for recorder and bc in G minor
Francesco Durante (1684-1755)
Giga for violin and bc in C minor
Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741)
Concerto for recorder, strings and bc in F (RV 442)
Georg Philipp Telemann
Trio for transverse flute, viola d’amore and bc in D (TWV 42,D15)
Giuseppe Antonio Brescianello (c1690-1758)
Concerto I for two violins and bc in E flat
Georg Philipp Telemann
Concerto for recorder, transverse flute, strings and bc in E minor (TWV 52,e1)
Antonio Vivaldi
Concerto for recorder, strings and bc in F (RV 442):
largo e cantabile [alternative movement] (ed. Adrian Chandler)

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