Gamba

The idea for this CD developed during a recording of the Fantasy No. 7, and quickly established its own momentum. What began as a spontaneous thought experiment soon demanded fulfilment, and morphed swiftly into the desire to take part in the reawakening of this music. What followed was months of intensive dialogue with, and examination of, the 12 Fantasies by Telemann. Having first studied modern cello Renate Mundi discovered her passion for baroque music, and for the viola da gamba in particular. Her enthusiasm for the special characteristics of the instrument, as well as her interest in source studies, including the search for undiscovered scores, was fostered by Prof.

Páll Ísólfsson was the first director of the Reykjavík Music School, which opened in 1930. Like other musicians, he was forced by the lack of opportunity in Iceland to study abroad but, unlike others, he was able to return and work as the Organist at Reykjavík Cathedral to support his activities as a composer. His music for the early Ibsen play The Feast at Solhaug, performed in 1943 in Norwegian on Norway’s National day, was his theatrical début. This was followed in 1945 by the more ambitious score for Úr Myndabók Jónasar Hallgrímssonar.

Ruth Gipps (1921 – 1999) was born in the English seaside resort of Bexhill-on-Sea. Encouraged as a child by an ambitious pianist mother, she appeared locally as a prodigy pianist. She was accepted by the Royal College of Music in 1937, at the age of sixteen, having won the Caird Scholarship. She quickly matured, both as composer and pianist. She studied with Vaughan Williams and Gordon Jacob, and later the oboe with Leon Goossens. During the Second World War she gained a position as oboist with the City of Birmingham Orchestra and devoted a great deal of her time to composing. Three of the works on this album were composed during the war: the Oboe Concerto, the tone poem Death on the Pale Horse, and the overture Chanticleer (derived from an opera which, sadly, she never completed).

Over the years I have heard many recordings of music written for the Imperial court in Vienna. That’s no wonder: Vienna was a centre of music-making in Europe. During the 17th and 18th centuries some of the best musicians and composers were in the service of the Habsburg emperors. Most of the recordings concentrate on music for violins or voice. This disc is different in that it presents music for viol consort. That’s all the more interesting, as it is often thought that in the 17th century consort music was only written in France and England. It is quite surprising that this kind of music was also written in Austria. Most musicians in the service of the Imperial court were from Italy, where the viol consort had gone out of fashion since the first quarter of the 17th century. The fact that Italian composers wrote music for viol consort was due to the personal preferences of the emperors, Ferdinand III and Leopold I, who also wrote some music for this kind of ensemble themselves.

Kapellmeister at Magdeburg Cathedral for 43 years, all of Ruhe's compositions are lost except for these five gamba works. Probably written in the 1730s, they are lively, forward-looking pieces in three and four movements (the suite has eight) which anticipate early Classical style.

It is perhaps a truism that virtually all so-called great composers had a special preference for the viola as da braccio (on the arm, i.e. the modern instrument) or da gamba , a versatile instrument of the viol family that was a particular focus of Baroque composers. Indeed, the Sixth Brandenburg features pairs of both instruments, da braccio and da gamba, and what would the passions be without the solo work Bach includes for each? This may have been due to the fact that one of his employers, Duke Leopold of Saxony-Anhalt-Cöthen, liked to play it, but more likely Bach liked the instrument’s versatility and distinctive timbre.

From the middle of the nineteenth century there was a blossoming of nationalism within the creative arts – very notably in music – in Finland that reflected the political mood in the country. From an international perspective, the dominant stature of Sibelius can often overshadow the wide-ranging works of his peers – something that this album goes some way to redressing. Robert Kajanus was the leading figure in Finnish music before Sibelius became established. His Overtura sinfonica is a late work, from 1926, which epitomises his style.

The first thing to strike the listener about these 2006 Avie recordings of Bach's Sonata for viola da gamba and harpsichord will be how loud they are. While neither instrument is noted for its power to project, the instruments are recorded so closely here as to be gargantuan in these recordings by Jonathan Manson and Trevor Pinnock. After adjusting the volume, the second thing to strike the listener will be how brilliantly played they are.