Les Arts Florissants / William Christie MONTEVERDI L'incoronazione di Poppea

                                                   L'INCORONAZIONE DI POPPEA

Capella de la Torre / Katharina Bäuml VINUM ET MUSICA

What you get on this release by veteran countertenor Dominique Visse and the Capella de la Torre is something less accessible than what is suggested by the Vinum et Musica title but more accessible than the pedantic subtitle "Songs & dances from Nuremberg sources (15th & 16th century)." The collection of pieces here is a sort of tour of the city of Nuremberg, an important German city in Renaissance times but not one that was home to its own compositional school. Indeed, its influence seems to have been reflected instead in the diverse musical tastes of its residents, who imported music from far and wide. Each of the four categories of the program --"The Emperor's Castle," "The Principal Churches," "The Feast," and "Humanism" -- contains not only German music but that from Italy, France, or the Low Countries. The last of these rests merely on the premise that the four works were part of a songbook compiled by a noted Nuremberg citizen with broadly humanist interests, and it doesn't quite wrap up the whole package. But as a whole the album shows in a unique way how Renaissance styles were refracted through different performance contexts. The Capella de la Torre, with multiple shawms, cornetts, dulcians, and recorders, plus sackbut and organ, can handle anything from the imposing anonymous Fanfare at the beginning to the folklike Ich spring an diesem Ringe (track 12) from the "Feast" section, a grab bag of several different styles. Sacred pieces were part of everyday life and appear in all four sections; mixing them so thoroughly with secular material is a rarity on recordings but probably corresponds closely to how they were actually used. Notable works include the L'homme armé setting by Robert Morton from the middle 15th century, perhaps the earliest written one in existence, and the Kaddish à 5 by Italian Jewish composer Salomone Rossi, present not because there was a synagogue in Nuremberg but because one was destroyed in a pogrom of 1352 and a church erected on the spot. Visse's voice is reedier than it once was, but in general this album is well situated to take the casual Renaissance listener deeper into the music. (James Manheim)

Céline Frisch JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH Variations Goldberg

Here is a package that satisfies intellectual curiosity and is musically delightful. This two-disc set begins with a precise, but still musical, harpsichord performance of Bach's Goldberg Variations by Céline Frisch. Her Aria is clean, with both the melody and the bass line countermelody clear and phrased so that everything comes together well. Her ornaments fit naturally into the melodies throughout the variations, without drawing attention away from the tune, and she always has a sense of direction and forward momentum. The second disc contains the 14 canons on the first eight notes of the bass of the Aria from the Goldberg Variations and the two songs that are contained in the quodlibet near the end of the Variations. The canons are rich and warm performed by Café Zimmermann, a string sextet that includes a double bass, with excellent contrasts in the feel of each canon. The song Cabbages and Turnips Have Driven Me Away is the highlight of the two discs. Period instruments accompany Dominique Visse as he sings about a hunter bringing a girl home to meet his mother. Visse switches from a jolly, idiomatic tenor voice for the hunter to a smooth alto for the girl, and a slightly grating alto for the mother, often in mid-verse. The humor he and the musicians put into the song will produce a smile, and perhaps actual laughter from those who follow the lyrics included in the notes. The second song, Ich bin so lang nicht bei dir gewest, is a dance that begins with a slow, improvisatory violin solo over a hurdy-gurdy drone. The Baroque guitar, cittern, flute, and percussion join in as the dance goes on and accelerates, in lively spirits, stopping before reaching a dizzying speed. Altogether, as well as being a good listen, the programming and the performances of this package give a little more insight into Bach's talent and what inspired him. (Patsy Morita)