Koncz/Preussens Hofmusik - Naudot, L. and F. Couperin, Boismortier, and Bernier, 7 January 2024

Apollosaal, Staatsoper Unter den Linden

Jacques-Christophe Naudot: Flute Concerto in G major, op.17 no.5
Louis Couperin: Pavanne in F-sharp minor
François Couperin: Concert Royal no.4 in E minor
Joseph Bodin de Boismortier: Suite no.4 in A major
Nicolas Bernier: Cantata: Le Caffé

Regina Koncz (soprano)

Thomas Meyer (flute)

Laura Volkwein, Jueyoung Yang (violins)

Otto Tolonen (viola da gamba)

Matthias Wilke (harpsichord/director)

  

Autumn’s Barocktage brought Charpentier’s Médée to the Staatsoper Unter den Linden, conducted by Simon Rattle and directed by Peter Sellars. I was alas in the end unable to go, but as a consolation prize heard this intelligently programmed concert of French Baroque music from soprano Regina Koncz and members of the Staatskapelle Berlin in their Preussens Hofmusik incarnation, directed from the harpsichord by Staatskapelle violist Matthias Wilke. 

Jacques-Christophe Naudot was represented by a flute concerto in G major, a fine introduction to the concert and performance as a whole both in instrumentation and in uniting elements of French and Italian styles. It also showed that, whilst Naudot was unquestionably a ‘flute composer’, he was far from only that. Outer movements, played as skilfully and comprehendingly by the one-to-a-part orchestra – the sole occasion on which we heard both violinists – as by flautist Thomas Meyer led us down a broadly Italianate path, albeit with strong elements of French ‘language’ in melody and harmony. Flute and violin duets delighted as if this were chamber music—which, at least on this occasion, indeed it was. A richly expressive central Adagio revealed Naudot still more to be possessed of an individual voice, with roots in Lully yet not to be reduced to any one particular influence.   

Louis Couperin and Naudot’s friend Joseph Bodin de Boismortier, another ‘flute composer’ though more than that, were both to be heard in works for solo harpsichord, played by Wilke. The grave beauty of the former’s F-sharp minor Pavanne was brought sympathetically to life in all its often surprising harmonic colour. The latter’s A major Suite offered four character pieces, ‘La Veloutée’, ‘L’Indéterminée’, ‘La Frénétique’, and ‘La Brunette’, whose vivid titles might have led the more Romantically inclined to expect greater contrast than was forthcoming. Wilke certainly attended to their particularities, but also lightly imparted a degree of unity to them, again straddling that line of ‘national style’. 

In between came Couperin le Grand: the fourth and final of his first set of Concert royaux, its series of dances broadly alternating the ‘French’ and the ‘Italian’, explicitly so in the third and fourth ‘Courante française’ for spirited harpsichord solo and ‘Courante à l’italienne’ (violin, harpsichord, and gamba, but no flute). The two ‘goûts’ would be reunited in his second set, the Nouveaux concerts, ou les goûts réunis, but here there was a spirit of light, civilised contrast, reminding us what a joy it was to hear eighteenth-century French music played in such enlightened fashion on a mixture of modern and ‘period’ instruments, equally well paced and shaped, without vibrato-Verbot, yet likewise without trace of crashing anachronism. The courtly phrasing of the opening ‘Prélude’, the grace of the ‘Sarabande’, and the infections invitation to the dance of the closing ‘Forlane’, intriguing episode for gamba and harpsichord included: these and more contributed to a suite greater, yet certainly not heavier, than the sum of its parts. 

Nicolas Bernier ‘reunited’ or, perhaps better, united the French and Italian tastes in ‘the other’ coffee cantata, Le Caffé by not dissimilar alternation or, as Jean-Paul C. Montagnier puts it in his New Grove article on the composer, ‘equilibrium’, ‘vigorous recitatives and da capo airs … follow each other freely, while the expressive melody, with few wide intervals or long melismas, is rooted more in the French tradition’. Here the Gallic grace of the instrumental ‘Prélude’ betrayed just a hint of a shadow, but by and large, the mood was (rightly) bright and clear, as was Regina Koncz’s brilliant, idiomatic, and yes, expressive singing. Her invocation of ‘Caffé’ in the second of her airs seemed, by one of those tricks of history that are mere coincidence, to pre-empt Bernier’s more celebrated Thuringian contemporary. And the shameless thrill of the third air’s melismata, all the more startling for their trespass against accustomed style, was as stylishly despatched and unfussily shaded as anything in this lovely concert. It was a fitting thought to repeat it as an encore.

Preussens Hofmusik/Wilke - Purcell, 7 November 2019

Apollosaal, Staatsoper Unter den Linden

Sonata in three parts, in G minor, Z 790

Fantazia upon one note in five parts, in F major, Z 745

Fantazias in three parts, Z 732-4

Fantazias in four parts, Z 736-7

In nomine in six parts, in G minor, Z 746

Fantazias in four parts, Z 738-43

In nomine in seven parts, in G minor, Z 747

Sonata in three parts, in A major, Z 799

Laura Volkwein, Ulricke Bassenge (violins)

Helene Wilke (viola)

Egbert Schimmelpfennig (cello)

Joachim Klier (violone)

Joachim Elser (trombone)

Matthias Wilke (director, viola, organ)

The Staatskapelle Berlin traces its history back to 1570, making next year its 450^th anniversary. (On New Year’s Eve, alongside the traditional Beethoven Ninth Symphony, Daniel Barenboim will also direct Mozart’s KV 450 from the piano.) Preussens Hofmusik, drawn from the orchestras’s ranks, takes the era of Frederick the Great as its centre of gravity. For this Apollosaal concert, part of the Staatsoper’s Barocktage, we heard music from somewhere in between. As a prelude or pendant – depending on when one sees it – to a new production of King Arthur we heard fantazias and sonatas by Purcell, directed from the viola or, in the case of the latter, the chamber organ, by Matthias Wilke.

First we heard the G minor Sonata in three parts, Z 790, here given with two violins, violone, and organ. It made for an excellent introduction, equally expressive in a refreshingly undemonstrative way of Purcellian melancholy and vigour, as aristocratic, learned, and courtly as it was ‘popular’. Dissonances told, yet so did its transmuted dance rhythms, never confusing genre for function. (The reader may grimly recall the absurdity of those fashion victims who claim Bach’s St Matthew Passion should dance, and so on.)

After a brief spoken introduction by Wilke, we then heard the Fantazia upon one Note, followed by the three works ‘in three parts’ (in the order 1, 3, and 2), the first three ‘in four parts’, and the G minor In nomine, in six. All pieces sounded as they are: small and perfectly formed, leaving one wishing for more. Although performed on modern instruments (more or less), there was no sense of anachronism, but rather of a reinvention of Purcell’s consort that went beyond the merely archaeological. Members of the consort, both personnel and instrument, changed for each piece, revealing a greater as well as subtler differentiation in instrumentation and texture than the cynic, or indeed the merely uninformed, might suspect. A couple of puzzling false starts suggested that it was not always entirely clear who would be playing what, but such human fallibility would upset only the sourest of audience members. Melody and counterpoint were kept in fine balance. Combinations such as violin, viola, and cello (for the G minor Fantazia, Z 734) matched relative darkness of timbre to mood, without so much as hinting at inappropriately (post)Romantic gloom. Indeed, that piece, like many others, quite rightly looked back more to the consort music of Purcell’s English predecessors – Lawes, Locke, Jenkins, et al. – as to the chamber music of the eighteenth century. That said, once one had come to the F major Fantazia, Z 737, it was difficult to resist the sense, however anachronistic, or at least unduly teleological, of losing oneself in counterpoint as one might with Bach. The closing In nomine – of this section, that is – gained, as did its G minor successor in the next section, from adding a trombone to voice gently the cantus firmus. Such creative archaism, if that be what it was, afforded clarity as well as variety.

Preceding that second In nomine, we heard the remaining Fantazias in four parts (Z 738-47), all but one in the minor mode. Far from precluding variety, that seemed to encourage one to listen all the more closely for difference and distinction, as of course did the ongoing plan of assigning different players and instruments to each piece. A courtly serenity to the C minor piece, Z 738, set us on a fascinating path culminating in an elegantly involved D minor Fantazia, Z 743, and the seven-part In nomine in which we finally heard all players together. The full sound of its close was relative, not in the slightest overblown, and all the more welcome for that. A further trio sonata, that in A major, Z 799, both returned us to close where we had begun and reminded us that the experience had rendered such return illusory. It offered a winning contrast of mood, infectious both of rhythm and broader style. Looking forward more overtly to the next century, there was perhaps a sense of greater security than had always been the case in the Fantazias. Perhaps those few off-moments had simply required a little more rehearsal. It was salutary, in any case, to be reminded that is far from easy music to perform.