concerti curiosi

CONCERTI CURIOSI
Pietro Domenico Paradies (1707–1791)
A favourite concerto for the organ or harpsichord
1 Vivace e staccato—Allegretto
2 Adagio
3Allegretto
[7.33]
[2.00]
[3.04]
Anton Reichenauer (1694–1730)
Concerto à 5 for oboe
4 Allegro
5Adagio
6Allegro
[3.50]
[3.14]
[3.16]
Johan Daniel Berlin (1714–1787)
Sinfonia à 5 for cornett
7 Allegro
8 Largo
9Allegro
[3.32]
[3.32]
[2.07]
Johann Christoph Pepusch (1667–1752)
Concerto for four violins
0Allegro
qLargo
w Vivace
e
r
t
Johann Wilhelm Hertel (1727–1789)
Concerto no. 3 for trumpet
Allegro ma non troppo
Largo
Vivace
[3.23]
[4.19]
[2.54]
y
u
i
William Croft (1678–1727)
Sonata for four violins and continuo [PG, BS, OS, HH, IA]
Allegro
Adagio
Allegro
[1.11]
[1.19]
[1.47]
o
p
a
Pietro Baldassari (c.1683–after 1768)
Sonata for cornett and strings
Allegro
Grave
Allegro
[2.20]
[2.35]
[2.05]
Total timings: [62.23]
CHARIVARI AGRÉABLE directed by Kah-Ming Ng
[2.48]
[1.46]
[3.45]
Violin: Persephone Gibbs (leader; PG), Oliver Sändig (OS),
Holly Harman (HH), Benjamin Sansom (BS),
Colin Coleman, Richard Wade
Viola: Rachel Stott, Joanne Miller
Viola da gamba: Ibi Aziz (IA)
Violoncello: Jennifer Bullock
Doublebass: Elizabeth Harré
Oboe: Geoffrey Coates
Bassoon: Michael Brain
Cornett: Jamie Savan
Natural trumpet: Simon Desbruslais
Harpsichord & chamber organ: Kah-Ming Ng
www.signumrecords.com
This curious conglomeration of concertos is a
celebration of contrasts. It is Charivari Agréable’s
20th CD, and thus represents a milestone for a young
ensemble. In keeping with its contrarian ethos,
it seems apposite to devise a recital that
embraces two seemingly opposing concepts.
They are ‘individualism’ (i.e. independence from
the conformity of a collective) and ‘playing in
concert’ [from the Latin concertare, meaning ‘to
work together’].
charitable institutions (ospedali) and academies,
and (as entr’actes) in operas.
The first solo concertos were putatively codified in
1711 by Antonio Vivaldi, although their genesis
can be traced to a generation before. Published
in Amsterdam as his opus 3, the L’estro armonico
concertos spread across Europe with the
ferocity of a pandemic, simultaneously serving as
blueprints for the writing of (solo and multiple)
concertos and re-defining the already-fashionable
Italian style. Vivaldi’s models soon became
the sine qua non for channelling the virtuosic
aspirations of the performer-composer. He led
by example, occasioning in 1715 a nobleman
on his Grand Tour Johann Friedrich Armand von
Uffenbach (later to be mayor of Frankfurt) to
be ‘astonished … at a cadenza that really
frightened me … although I cannot say that it
delighted me, for it was more skilfully executed
than it was pleasant to hear’.
The nascent concerto was also called sinfonia
(differentiated perhaps by a stronger contrapuntal
flavour) or sonata (especially the Bolognese
trumpet sonata), and some – such as the
concerto grosso and the ripieno concerto – were
quite egalitarian. But inevitably some parts
became more equal than others. This procedure
involves the elevation of one – traditionally
violin – part via exuberant displays of
prodigious prowess. These episodes of
domination are then interspersed and framed
by a recurring motto (or ritornello) played
by the rest. With the right resources the
concerto could be adapted for a multitude of
purposes, from the personal and pedagogic
to those of publication and patronage. Avenues
for performance abounded at court, in church
(during mass), in the musically ambitious
Italy was a net exporter of violin virtuosos –
and violins, for that matter – who exhibited
untrammelled impulsiveness in their performance.
They were enthusiastically welcomed like
gladiatorial heroes, especially by Europe’s
burgeoning merchant class, as concerts
gravitated away from the court to the public
-4-
arena of subscription concerts. Their success is
sourly noted by Johann Mattheson, who, perhaps
betraying a smidgen of xenophobia, enjoined
his countrymen in 1713 to do better than the
Italians who otherwise would ‘make all the
money and return home’. Indeed many were not
enamoured of the southerners’ hot-blooded
musical excesses. The French essayist Jean
Laurent Le Cerf de la Viéville criticized composers
who were ‘ardent imitators of the Italian manner’
for seeking ‘bizarre effects’. Weaned on the
sobriety of the Corellian style, England’s reverse
snobbery is best voiced by the musical historian
Roger North c.1726, who sniffed at the ‘many
persons that doe not well distinguish between
real good and evill, but are hurryed away by
caprice, as in a whirlewind, and in naming
Vivaldi (tho’ he hath his fellows) I have instanced
enough’. Many observers were particularly
exercised by the combination of tasteless
flashiness and the vapid depiction of nature.
Fuelling the rancour was the composer Charles
Avison, for whom those ‘of the lowest class
are Vivaldi, Tessarini, Alberti and Locatelli,
whose Compositions, being equally defective in
various Harmony and true Invention, are only a
fit Amusement for Children’.
Happily none of the concertos in this disc fits
that description. They are not of the ilk of, say,
Pietro Antonio Locatelli’s fiendish concerto op.
3/12 from his seminal L’arte del violino (1733),
subtitled Il Labirinto Armonico: facilis aditus,
difficilis exitus. Rather, they are facilis auditus,
difficilis exsecutus. As a collection, they arouse
curiosity, not just in the usual sense of ‘exciting
attention’. By ‘curious’ we mean to invoke the
alternative definitions by Nathaniel Bailey in his
Dictionarium Britannicum (rev. edn 1736), in
which is enumerated such adjectives as rare,
excellent, fine, and neat (meaning clever). Indeed
the easy charm of the works on this disc belies
both the consummate writing and the technical
demands required to execute them.
Nonetheless, the debt they owe to Vivaldi
is writ large upon their scores. This is evident
in Reichenauer’s oboe concerto, which, with the
descending scales in the opening motif, recalls
the one in the eighth concerto from Vivaldi’s
L’estro Armonico. Unsurprisingly Reichenauer
was in the employ of the Bohemian count and
imperial chamberlain Wenzel [Václav] von
Morzin, who was the dedicatee of Vivaldi’s opus
8 concertos entitled Il cimento dell’armonia e
dell’inventione. This set of twelve, beginning with
the now-ubiquitous Four Seasons, contains two
-5-
concertos suited for performance on the oboe.
When they were published in 1725 Reichenauer
had stepped into the shoes of the previous
Kapellmeister Johann Friedrich Fasch in one of
Europe’s most celebrated court ensembles. This
Virtuosissima Orchestra had earned the highest
praise from Vivaldi, the count’s maestro di musica
in Italia, which title is a sinecure for furnishing
the court with music on a mail-order basis.
instruments and basso continuo by Gottfried
Finger and Johann Gottfried Keller, both of
whom were active in London around the turn of
the century. This genre of writing remained in
vogue for generations, as is evinced in Pepusch’s
six concerts [sic] for two pairs of trebles op. 8
(c.1717–18).
Croft was awarded the doctoral degree of
DMus from Oxford University in 1713 along
with Pepusch, whom, despite his limited
contribution, posterity has unfairly shackled to
John Gay’s satire The Beggar’s Opera. Adding
insult to injury his reputation was posthumously
sullied by the historian Sir John Hawkins in his
General History of the Science and Practice of
Music (1776) with the wholly unjustified
observation of Pepusch to have been ‘a learned
but dry composer, apparently deficient in the
powers of invention’. Even before his elevation as
an academic heavyweight, Pepusch had enjoyed
a reputation not just as a theatre musician
and a published composer of many instrumental
sets but also as a sought-after performer in and
an impresario of public and private concerts.
When in 1712 Johann Friedrich Armand von
Uffenbach went to Strasbourg to study, he
took along a few of Pepusch’s ‘especially strong
pieces’ [besonders starke Stücke].
Ingratiating his way up the ladder of patronage,
Vivaldi dedicated his next opus to von Morzin’s
sovereign, the Habsburg Holy Roman Emperor
Charles VI. The imaginatively titled La Cetra was
published in 1727, the year in which Vivaldi’s
exact contemporary Croft died. He was buried in
Westminster Abbey close to fellow organist Henry
Purcell, on whose music he modelled much of his
choral works. Croft’s overtly Italianate composition
on this disc calls to mind Giuseppe Torelli’s sonata
for four violins, which was performed orchestrally
in 1710 in Edinburgh. This might have been the
impetus behind Croft’s work for four violins, hot
on the heels of Vivaldi’s concertos for four violins
from the L’estro armonico of 1711. There is a
difference though: Croft’s sonata belongs to
the genre of the 2x2+b.c. sonata. Instrumental
collections published in 1698 and 1699 contain
numerous sonatas for two pairs of melody
-6-
The arrival in London in 1714 of the two
Francescos – Veracini and Geminiani – may
have prompted Pepusch to try his hand at the
fashionable genre of the concerto. Veracini, cast
as a solo performer between the acts of operas,
was an audience-puller at the Queen’s Theatre
in the Haymarket (re-named the King’s Theatre
in that year on the accession of George I).
Geminiani was rumoured to have left Naples
under a cloud; apparently he had been demoted
from violin to viola for not being able to play
in time (thereby possibly initiating the
institution of the viola joke). But by asserting
his pedigree as Corelli’s pupil, Geminiani would
have been poised to cash in on England’s
Corelli obsession and lack of good indigenous
violinists. Pepusch’s own musical language
had been honed by immersion in Italian
opera, and thus was perfectly suited to the
writing of concertos. But his nominally entitled
‘Concerto for four violins’ is no such thing. It is a
solo concerto outright.
we owe the preservation of the Fitzwilliam
Virginal Book. He enjoyed great longevity, dying
in his mid-eighties, and was eulogized ‘for his
learning as well as fine composition and skill
in musick’.
Another octogenarian who received considerable
acclaim in England was Paradies [anglicized
from Paradisi]. But unlike Pepusch, Paradies’
repeated attempts at writing for the stage,
firstly in Venice, then in London (where he
emigrated in 1746), were all poorly received.
Charles Burney in his General History of Music
(1776–89) derided Paradies’ arias as ‘ill-phrased’
and wanting ‘estro or grace’. It was, however,
as a harpsichord composer and a teacher of
composition that he ultimately triumphed.
The publication in 1754 of his dozen Sonate di
gravicembalo brought him international plaudits.
This collection was reprinted several times in
London, Paris, and Amsterdam, and its widespread
popularity exalted Paradies to the pantheon
of living keyboard divinities. Leopold Mozart,
whilst on tour with Wolfgang Amadeus, wrote
home to Salzburg in December 1774 instructing
that ‘Nannerl should practise the Clavier most
diligently, especially the sonatas of Paradisi
and Bach’.
His undeserved neglect notwithstanding,
Pepusch’s importance lies in his founding of
the Academy of Ancient Musick and remaining
as the guiding spirit of this concert club,
and, post-retirement from composition c.1729,
being a musical bibliophile. It is to him that
-7-
The delicate expertise displayed in the crafting
of Paradies’ sonatas also comes through in his
harpsichord concerto. Its joyous, yet restrained,
virtuosity is evocative of the more graceful
aspects of the keyboard idiom of Domenico
Scarlatti, the maverick harpsichordist from his
hometown of Naples. Paradies’ epithet ‘favourite’
hints at prior public popularity. His publishing it
in 1768, so late in his career, must surely
represent a last-ditch attempt at milking his
reputation. Two years later he left for Venice to
spend his remaining two decades.
Little of Baldassari’s oeuvre remains extant.
Most of it would have been sacred music
written during his protracted tenure of over
half a century as maestro di cappella of the
Oratorio di San Filippo Neri in Brescia. What
little that has survived shows some stylistic
affinity with the strict adherence to polyphony
as championed by the prestigious Accademia
Filarmonica of Bologna. The papal state’s ‘second
city’ (after Rome), with its magnificent basilica
of San Petronio, is one of the cradles of
the concerto.
Resting on his laurels was all that his
contemporary and fellow Neapolitan, the castrato
Farinelli, could do, when bundled off after
the death of his patron King Ferdinand VI of
Spain. Ensconced in his villa in Bologna
surrounded by the trappings of international
success, including collections of art, music and
musical instruments, Farinelli lapped up the
homage of nobility and musicians. Among these
was one Baldassari, who in 1768 revealed his
intention to dedicate 12 psalms to Farinelli.
These would have been his swan song, much like
the Paradies concerto of the same year, for,
Baldassari – yet another octogenarian – was
then in his dotage.
Bologna is also home to the Concerto Palatino
della Signoria, Italy’s most famous wind band,
which evolved from the civic use of municipal
wind players in the thirteenth century, and which
lasted until 1779. For festal occasions, members
of the Concerto Palatino – players of the
cornett, trumpet and sackbut – were roped in to
bolster the ranks of San Petronio’s cappella
musicale. Through this symbiosis, the cappella’s
directors and musicians realized the potential
for the combination of trumpet with strings.
These trumpet sonatas became seminal to the
development of the baroque concerto. It is
perhaps with this tradition in mind, rather
than through any antiquarian aberration, that
Baldassari was inspired to write for the cornett.
-8-
The same cannot be said of the Prussian
Berlin’s curious choice of an instrument which
by the mid-eighteenth century was hanging on
to dear life in the shadow of its heyday. His
other two sinfonias, perfectly regular and also in
the key of D major, employ clarinets and flutes
typical of rococo or early-classical symphonies.
Given that cornett and sackbut ensembles
remained active in Germany into the 19th
century, it might have been a visiting fellow
countryman cornettist who kindled such
eccentricity in Berlin. This was the same
sentiment that drove him to write a concerto
for the cembalo da gamba verticale. Such whims
often overtake composers: Pepusch composed
a concerto for the flageolet, an instrument
which, in England, inexplicably enjoyed
popularity disproportionate to its feasibility.
of string and wind instruments, including the
cornett. His repeated exhortations not to play
with puffed cheeks – for reasons technical and
superficial, viz. appearing ‘unsightly and
unseemly’ – would have applied equally to the
surprisingly absent chapters on the trumpet
or the horn. Thankfully these two brass
instruments are catered for in a Norwegian
music textbook by Lorents Nicolaj Berg, an
‘instrumentalist in royal service in Christiansand’
who died in the same year as Berlin. There is,
unexpectedly, a chapter on the cornett, an
instrument ‘not well-known except among
musicians’. Berg wrote that he had only ever
heard one good cornettist in person. This was
a musician-journeyman, who, like Berg, was
then working with Copenhagen’s city musicians.
But by 1782, when his Første Prøve for
Begyndere udi Instrumental-Kunsten was
published, Berg had quite given up on the
cornett, for ‘only rarely does a music lover
find pleasure in bothering himself with this
chest-bursting crooked horn on which one
plays nothing else but psalms, chorales, and
other slow pieces’.
Berlin’s connection with the cornett, however,
goes deeper than might be expected. At the age
of sixteen he went to Copenhagen to serve the
customary seven-year apprenticeship with
Andreas Berg, who, as the city’s Stadtpfeifer
[town wait, or wind musician], would have been
familiar with the cornett. In 1744 Berlin
published his Musikalske elementer, the first
Danish-Norwegian musical primer. It contains
rudiments on music notation and the playing
Evidently possessed of exceptional gifts and an
enquiring mind, Berlin carved out in Trondheim
a distinguished career that surpassed the
-9-
imaginings and abilities of mere mortals.
Besides being the city’s cathedral organist, he
developed a Klavier with a pedal (thus pre-dating
the music theorist Friedrich Wilhelm Marpurg’s
date of 1756 for its invention), built the
previously-mentioned ‘keyboard viola da gamba’,
and published books and papers on subjects
ranging from music theory to meteorology and
astronomy. He was a founder-member of the
Royal Norwegian Scientific Association, worked
as an architect and cartographer, headed the
city’s fire-service, and led the inspection of the
city waterworks. He claimed to be the proud
recipient of a book by the polymath musician
Johann Mattheson, who gave it to him directly:
it takes one to know one. For such a busy life, it
is perhaps understandable that Berlin can be
credited with only thirty musical compositions,
most of which are lost. But more’s the pity that
he should pay scant regard to documenting
his eventful existence.
In contrast three (editions of) autobiographies
number among Hertel’s vast output, albeit
mostly unpublished, which is bookended by
literary works: his earliest writings, penned in
his twenties, were on thoroughbass realization
and music theory. Hertel boasts an impressive
musical lineage: his grandfather Jacob
- 10 -
Sources
Christian was Kapellmeister in Oettingen and
later Merseburg; his father Johann Christian was
one of the best viola da gamba players of his
time, touring with the Eisenach court orchestra,
of which he later became, as violinist, the concert
master and musical director. As harpsichordist
Johann Wilhelm accompanied his father on
concert tours, and followed him to work at the
Strelitz court. When his father’s eyesight began
to fail in the autumn of 1750, Wilhelm
assumed the old man’s responsibilities as
orchestra leader. This stint lasted barely two
years, for the Mecklenburg-Strelitz Hofkapelle
was soon dissolved after the death of duke
Adolf Friedrich III (whose niece Sophie Charlotte
was later to become the queen of George III of
Great Britain). And when Wilhelm’s father died
two years after that, it was time to move on.
The late duke’s sister in Schwerin Gustave
Caroline, wife of duke Christian Ludwig II from
the senior branch of the Mecklenburg house,
gladly welcomed Hertel; the Schwerin ducal
household had many keen amateur musicians.
(mainly sacred, but also secular). They bear
the influence of the musicians at the court of
King Frederick the Great, and, like Paradies’ and
Berlin’s music, are primarily in the galant
style that straddles the baroque and classical
periods. These works were mostly intended for
the Schwerin court, which orchestra had on its
payroll the famous trumpet virtuoso Johann
Georg Hoese. There Hertel first served as
keyboardist, then as court and chapel composer,
with the duties of a Kapellmeister in all but
name. His lifelong dedication to the house of
Mecklenburg was rewarded with a promotion
to the privy council of Christian Ludwig’s
daughter, princess Ulrike Sophie, a dedicated
patroness of the arts. But his highest reward
was the high esteem in which he was held by
his contemporaries. The music lexicographer
Ernst Ludwig Gerber described Hertel in his
indispensable Historisch-biographisches Lexicon
der Tonkünstler (1790) as ‘most tasteful’
[geschmackvollesten] – a portrayal which, it is
hoped, also encompasses our celebratory recording.
Straight cornett in three sections by Henri Gohin (Boissy
l’Aillerie, France, 2010) after 18th-century originals, pitch
in Chorton (ie. A=466Hz).
In no time Hertel attained distinction in his
own right, first as a violinist, then as a composer
of some 50 instrumental concertos, over 40
symphonies, 30-odd harpsichord sonatas, and,
above all, copious amounts of vocal music
© Kah-Ming Ng 2011
Violin by Jacob Stainer (attrib., c.1650); bow by René
Groppe after anon. French model (c.1720).
Baldassari: Vienna, National Bibliothek E.M.97a (not
the Kunsthistorisches Museum as stated in New Grove
II), performing edition prepared by Jamie Savan from
original source
Berlin: Trondheim, Det Kongelige Norske Videnskabers
Selkab, Biblioteket XM 23, performing edition
prepared by Jamie Savan from original source
Pepusch: Bodleian Library, Oxford University, MS
Tenbury 1131, performing edition prepared by Kah-Ming
Ng from original manuscript
Reichenauer: performing edition prepared by Kah-Ming Ng
Solo Instruments
Harpsichord by Andrew Garlick after Joannes Ruckers
(1638), ravalé.
Oboe by Marcel Ponseele (Belgium) after Thomas Stanesby
Jr (London, early 18th century).
Natural trumpet by Stephen Keavy after Johann Wilhelm
Haas (Nuremberg, c.1710–1720).
- 11 -
BIOGRAPHIES
KAH-MING NG
GEOFFREY COATES
Kah-Ming Ng studied at Monash University,
Melbourne (B.E., civil engineering), the Frankfurt
State Academy of Music (as a DAAD scholar),
and the London Guildhall School of Music (as
an FCO scholar). He then went to Oxford University
(as a British Council Chevening scholar), to
read for a performance M.Phil. at St Anne’s
College, and later a D.Phil. at Keble College,
where he wrote a doctoral thesis on continuo
accompaniment in its social and artistic context.
He is a winner of the Guildhall School’s Early
Music Competition and a Fellow (in Harpsichord)
of the Trinity College of Music London. Kah-Ming
has lectured at Oxford University as well as other
institutions; he wrote the entries on English and
French baroque ornamentation in the New Grove
Dictionary of Music & Musicians.
Geoffrey Coates’s career began at the age of
19 when he first went on stage with Florilegium.
Since then he has performed frequently with
leading orchestras in all of London’s major
concert halls, broadcast on BBC and worldwide
radio stations and appeared on television
with the English Baroque Soloists under John
Eliot Gardiner. He enjoys a growing profile as
a soloist, having toured in Europe with The
Hanover Band and performed concertos in venues
such as Barbican Hall and St-Martin-in-theFields. An accomplished performer on modern and
historical oboes, his teachers included Frank de
Bruine, Gail Hennessy and Richard Simpson.
- 12 -
JAMIE SAVAN
Jamie Savan played his first-ever professional
concert with Charivari Agréable as an
undergraduate at St Anne’s College, Oxford
University, back in 1997, in which year he also
founded the Gonzaga Band. Since then he has
developed an enviable international reputation
as a cornett soloist and chamber musician. He
joined the renowned wind ensemble His Majestys
Sagbutts & Cornetts in 2005, completing a PhD in
Performance Practice at Birmingham University
in the same year. In 2010 he was appointed
Lecturer in Music and Head of Performance at
Newcastle University, where he is able to combine
his love of performance, teaching and research
in Early Music.
PERSEPHONE GIBBS
Hailed by Time Out as a ‘rising star of
the baroque violin’, American-born violinist
Persephone Gibbs studied with Dorothy DeLay
and gained degrees in English and law before
studying with David Takeno and Rachel Podger
at the Guildhall School of Music. Persephone
leads the Temple Players and the Brandenburg
Baroque Soloists and is a frequent guest leader
for the Festive Orchestra of London and Opera
- 13 -
Theatre Company. Persephone is a founder of
baroque chamber group Gut Instinct and the
period instrument Constanze Quartet. She
performs and records with many orchestras,
including the Academy of Ancient Music and
the Gabrieli Consort.
SIMON DESBRUSLAIS
Simon Desbruslais was educated at King’s
College London, the Royal College of Music and
Christ Church College, Oxford University. In 2008
he was awarded a Joan Conway Scholarship
allowing him to take trumpet instruction with
Eric Aubier in the Conservatoire de Musique à
Rueil Malmaison, igniting an interest in the
performance of twentieth- and twenty-first century
trumpet music. He has a particular commitment
to the commissioning and performance of this
expanding repertoire, and has worked as a
soloist in collaboration with many of the UK’s
leading composers. He enjoys an equally busy
and varied career as a performer of the
natural trumpet.
CHARIVARI AGRÉABLE
‘One of the classiest baroque bands’ (Sunday
Observer), whose ‘musical intuitions are always
captivating’ (Goldberg), Charivari Agréable is
‘one of the most versatile early music groups
around at the moment, which, under its benign
director, Kah-Ming Ng, appears to be infinitely
adaptable, finding musicians who can fit into
any of its many and varied programmes’
(International Record Review). The group has
been hailed for its ‘thinking musicians who
treat music of the past more creatively’ via their
arrangements of music, ‘based on a greater
knowledge of the historical and social contexts
for the music’ (Gramophone).
Charivari Agréable (trans. ‘pleasant tumult’,
from Saint-Lambert’s 1707 treatise on
accompaniment) was formed at the University
of Oxford in 1993, and within the year became
a prize-winner of the Early Music Network
Competition, made its debut at the Wigmore
Hall, and recorded the first of many subsequent
live concerts for the BBC, including Radio
3’s ‘In tune’, ‘Music Restor’d’, and ‘The Early
Music Show’. Charivari Agréable has since
recorded for New York’s WNYC, and many other
European radio stations, including the European
- 14 -
Broadcasting Union. Their discography of 20 discs
have garnered such accolades as the Diapason
d’Or, Gramophone Editor’s Choice, International
Record Review’s ‘Best CD of the Year’, Classic
FM’s Christmas Choice, BBC Music Magazine’s
‘Outstanding CD’, and Music-Web International’s
‘Recording of the Year’.
The ensemble is sought after for all manner of
private or corporate functions, even performing
at a New Year black-tie candlelit dinner for
Duran Duran! Apart from hosting an annual
summer festival of early music in Oxford, the
ensemble regularly expands into Oxford’s resident
period-instrument orchestra, Charivari Agréable
Simfonie. The orchestra has on-going collaborations
with over forty vocal groups – choral societies
and professional choirs alike – all over the UK,
and has been conducted by many musicians of
renown, including Sir Charles Mackerras and
Edward Higginbottom. The ensemble has
appeared at all prominent London venues, even
in Buckingham Palace; recent and forthcoming
engagements include major festivals in the
UK, and tours to Austria, Belgium, the Czech
Republic, Finland, Germany, Hungary, The
Netherlands, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, South
East Asia, Turkey, and the USA. For more
information, please visit www.charivari.co.uk.
Acknowledgements
Many thanks to Bruce Clark (The Economist), for sorting out the syntax and mangled metaphors,
and to John Erskine, for shedding light on the Latin.
Dedication
To YAB Tan Sri Abdul Khalid Ibrahim, who kicked it all off, and to Justin Majzub, who kept it rolling.
Recorded in St Andrew’s Church, Toddington, Gloucestershire, 11–13 August 2010
Producer, Engineer and Editor – Adrian Hunter
Pitch A=415Hz, keyboards tuned by Kah-Ming Ng to 1/6-comma circular temperament
Cover Image - Shutterstock
Design and Artwork - Woven Design
www.wovendesign.co.uk
P 2011 The copyright in this recording is owned by Signum Records Ltd.
© 2011 The copyright in this CD booklet, notes and design is owned by Signum Records Ltd.
Any unauthorised broadcasting, public performance, copying or re-recording of Signum Compact Discs constitutes an infringement of copyright and will render the infringer liable
to an action by law. Licences for public performances or broadcasting may be obtained from Phonographic Performance Ltd. All rights reserved. No part of this booklet may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission from Signum Records Ltd.
SignumClassics, Signum Records Ltd., Suite 14, 21 Wadsworth Road, Perivale, Middx UB6 7JD, UK.
+44 (0) 20 8997 4000 E-mail: info@signumrecords.com
www.signumrecords.com
- 15 -
ALSO FROM CHARIVARI AgRÉable on signumclassics
SIGCD009
The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book
SIGCD018
Sacred Songs of Sorrow
SIGCD020
The Queen’s Goodnight
SIGCD026
Music for Gainsborough
SIGCD032
The Sultan and the Phoenix
SIGCD041
Modus Phantasticus
SIGCD049
Harmonia Caelestis
SIGCD069
Esperar Sentir Morir
SIGCD086
The Virtuoso Godfather
SIGCD093
The Oxford Psalms
SIGCD157
The Original Brandenburg Concertos
SIGCD198
Pachelbel Vespers with
The King’s Singers
Available through most record stores and at www.signumrecords.com For more information call +44 (0) 20 8997 4000