Nicholas Ward - Symphonies - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

The next-to-last album in our complete recording of Johann Kuhnau's cantatas once again presents outstanding examples of German Lutheran church music. InchThey reinforce the positive impression created by the previous volumes. The singers very much know their way around Kuhnau, and this knowledge is rendered audible. The instrumental parts are perfectly executedInch (musicweb international of Vol. 6). Kuhnau's magnificent cantata InchWie schön leuchtet der MorgensternInch for five-part choir, two corni grandi, two recorders, five-part strings (with divided violas), and basso continuo is certainly an outstanding composition within his oeuvre and a special highlight on Vol. 7. This work has been transmitted in a copy made by the renowned Weimar city organist and lexicographer Johann Gottfried Walther, who is known to have engaged in personal dialogue with Kuhnau. The cantata is framed by Philipp Nicolai's sacred hymn of the same name and traces it's origins to an anonymous poet, and in it Kuhnau lives up in every way to the outstanding reputation that he enjoyed among his contemporaries as a vocal composer in the devotional church style. The opening chorus clothes the chorale in a musical fabric of great sonority consisting of imitations, in anticipation, in repetition, and of motet character, such as only a few composers of his generation could have committed to paper.

Nicholas Ward - Symphonies 20 [COMPACT DISCS] date 06/01/1999

Symphonies Nos. 23 and 24 were written in 1764 for performance before Prince Nikolaus at Eisenstadt, where the Esteráhzy palace boasted a reception hall that could have held some four hundred people, although such numbers would not have been present at w hat was a purely domestic entertainment for the Prince, members of his family and entourage, and his guests. These symphonies form part of a group of eight symphonies written in 1764 and 1765. Symphony No. 23 in G major opens with a triple time Allegro, a lively and cheerful movement. It is followed by a slow movement scored for strings. To this the use of suspensions adds an element of poignancy, as the momentary discords are resolved. The Menuet is a canon between upper and lower parts, with a Trio that has motivic connections with the Menuet that frames it. The last movement makes use of dynamic contrasts, ending with a reduction of volume, instead of the expected emphatic conclusion. In Symphony No.24 in D major Haydn shows once more his ability to produce, even at this early stage of his career as a composer, music of infinite variety and invention, within existing formal limitations. The opening Allegro makes initial use of the wind and string timbres available in a sonata-allegro movement that has it's moments of stronger feeling in the central development. The slow movement makes use of the flute in apart apparently written for the Esterházy flautist Franz Sigl, for whom Haydn also wrote a flute concerto, now lost. Here he exploits the abilities of the player, allowing him a brief cadenza. The following Menuet is repeated after a Trio in which the flute again has apart to play. The two oboes of the orchestra return for a final movement of dramatic contrasts. Symphony No. 61 in D major belongs to a slightly later period of Haydn's life. It was written in 1776, at a time when Prince Nikolaus Esterházy's interest