A Review of ‘The Piper and the Fairy Queen’ by Jonathan Lane
'The Piper and the Fairy Queen' contains some of the the best classical/folk crossover music I've come across for a good while. Recorded in 2018 by the celebrated uilleann pipe player David Power together with six-piece Camerata Kilkenny, an impressive Baroque ensemble playing period instruments, its title derives from the inclusion of ten short items from Purcell's suite of music for a 1692 production of Shakespeare's 'Midsummer Night's Dream', in an anonymous adaptation called 'The Fairy Queen'. This beautiful suite appears amongst several other well-chosen Baroque pieces by Telemann, Handel and LeClair, and these are all set within a fine selection of traditional instrumental Celtic music for David Power and the ensemble, as well as some superb solo pipe pieces. The arrangements of all the works on the disc, by members of the Camerata, sound very well under their fingers and combine the fire, freedom and and energy of folk music with a fresh, intelligent interpretation of the Baroque style.
The CD begins and ends with music by Turlough O'Carolan, the late 17th/early 18th century blind Irish harpist, well known in folk circles: to open we have the beautiful out and out folk tune 'Si Bheag Si Mhor', and it closes with 'Carolan's Concerto', written in the style of his Italian classical contemporaries. The informative sleeve notes tell that O'Carolan knew well the music of Vivaldi and the Italian school, and actually met Geminiani who lived in Ireland for several years and had great respect for O'Carolan's musicianship.
The classical music between these two O'Carolan pieces consists of two suites by Telemann, 'La Musette' (the French equivalent of the uilleann pipes) and the 'Gulliver' Suite (after Jonathan Swift) for two violins; a musette and two minuets from 'Scylla and Glaucus' by LeClair; Purcells 'Fairy Queen'; and a lollipop of Handel's 'Pifa' from 'Messiah'. All these pieces include music which alludes to folk pipes, but they also contain a wealth of cosmopolitan and theatrical threads, coloured appropriately in sound and style. All are played with poise, eloquence and verve and the Camerata's period Baroque instruments produce a sound which is far from the thin, sterile and senza vibrato landscape so often offered in the guise of authenticity: here we have warm, relaxed and expressive colours, and accurate intonation (which must be difficult against uilleann pipes), all applied with great musical sensitivity and polish. The prevailing folk overtones in all this music (and also political - the pieces include allusions to the Irish Rebellion, the fall of Paris to the British after Waterloo, and the caricatures from Jonathan Swift) are perfectly complemented by a sympathetic application of Baroque elegance rather than being dominated by it: the resulting 'playfulness under supervision' is a totally enjoyable success.
For me the icing on the cake is the inclusion of four outstanding solo pipe folk pieces from David Power. His mastery of the instrument is a given, and this serves the depth and strength of his musical expression. The two slow pieces, 'The Brown Thorn' (a love story) and 'The Fairy Child' (a lament for a lost changeling) brought me close to tears, and the others, 'The Fall of Paris' (a victory song following the taking of Paris by the British after Waterloo) and 'The Fox Chase' (a colourful, dramatic and exciting self contained narrative of the entire process) create contrasting moods: the last of these two is a showpiece exercise in technical skill and musical exuberance.
There is more than adequate explanation in this music, were it needed, for the crossover so carefully crafted and celebrated on this recording. The very particular and demanding sound and balance is served throughout by a wonderfully natural, honest, open and detailed recording, and extensive booklet sleeve notes complement the beautifully designed CD presentation. The original Baroque items are arranged perfectly and when they are set against David Power's musicality and technique in both ensemble and solo tracks, the whole CD makes refreshing and fulfilling listening for folk and classical enthusiasts alike.
I anticipate further pleasures exploring two subsequent releases from Camerata Kilkenny: firstly Bach's 'Musical Offering' and secondly another intriguing curated collection 'Bach Soprano Arias and Swedish Folk Chorales', with Maria Keohane.
Review of The Piper and the Fairy Queen from the Journal of Music in Ireland
Interweaving Lines
What is the common heritage between traditional Irish tunes and Baroque dances?
Adrian Scahill reviews a new recording on the RTÉ Lyric FM label.
This CD is a welcome addition to the canon of recordings and performances that have explored the interface between Irish traditional music and the music of the Baroque period. Delving back into the territory that was perhaps first quarried by Seán Ó Riada and Ceoltóirí Chualann on Ceol na nUasal, Camerata Kilkenny and David Power present a diverse programme which falls into three loose categories: music by Turlough Carolan and other traditional tunes arranged for pipes and ensemble; solo music for uilleann pipes; and works from the long Baroque period. Uilleann piper David Power is no stranger to the art of collaboration, having performed regularly with harpsichordist and organist Malcolm Proud, one of the members of Camerata Kilkenny, a long-established Baroque ensemble founded by Proud and violinist Maya Homburger.
The ‘newest’ pieces on the CD are the arrangements for pipes and ensemble. As with every performance of Carolan’s work, a certain amount of reworking or arranging is necessary due to the nature of how his music has come down to us – this was often in arrangements for keyboard instruments or as a simple melody. While Carolan composed his music for the wire-strung harp, the links between the traditional and the Baroque outlined in the notes solely focus on the harp and the fiddle, and strangely ignore the uilleann pipes, although we know from collections like O’Farrell’s Pocket Companion for the Irish or Union Pipes (1802) that Carolan’s music had already found its way into the piping repertoire at the end of the eighteenth century. The two pieces here, ‘Sí Bheag, Sí Mhór’ and ‘Carolan’s Concerto’, are arranged by Marja Gaynor and Malcolm Proud, and in their current form thus symbolise one of the narratives of the Baroque (and indeed the early classical) period in Ireland, which is that the pipes had essentially replaced the harp as the main instrument of artisan/professional musicians by the end of the nineteenth century.
Music of the nobles
‘Carolan’s Concerto’ is stately and dignified here, played on C-sharp pipes in a restrained reading by Power (especially compared to the extravagance of Paddy Moloney’s interpretation on Chieftains 3). Gaynor’s arrangement brings plenty of colour to the piece, with supple contrapuntal violin lines wheeling around Power’s melody, and pizzicato strings underneath the pipes on the initial repeat. It is an elegant performance, but I found that occasionally the descant violin lines were a little too overbearing. ‘Sí Bheag Sí Mór’ is also played in a solemn and almost regal manner, building up slowly from solo pipes to full ensemble, where the Baroque violins of Camerata Kilkenny adorn the melody with delicate trill-laden figurations. These are performances worthy of the epithet ‘Ceol na nUasal’ (music of the nobles), which Ó Riada used as a title for his 1968 album of harp and vocal music from the same period. The other tune arranged for pipes and ensemble, ‘The Downfall of Paris’, is a more unusual choice for this treatment, but works extremely well in its sympathetic mimesis of the pipes’ drones and unobtrusive harmonies.
Power’s solo work is exceptional throughout the CD, especially in the airs ‘An Droighneán Donn’ and Samuel Lover’s ‘An Leanbh Sidhe’. In the second air (which in truth is far from the Baroque period) he gives full vent to the pipe’s expressive qualities with some theatrical ‘sliding’ techniques. All of the piper’s armoury is on show in ‘The Fox Chase’, a programmatic piece reputed to be from the end of the eighteenth century. Power also appears on a number of the classical pieces, most to the fore in the Pifa from Messiah, where the imitations of the bagpipe make the uilleann pipes an entirely suitable addition to the texture. There is also an adaption of a similar pastoral interlude in the reworking of two French dances for musette (a French bellows-blown bagpipe of the period) and ensemble from a Jean-Marie Leclair opera, the combination of pipes and string drones here reminiscent at times of a hurdy-gurdy.
The musette also features in the first of the two suites by Telemann featured here, although only in name and as inspiration for some of the folk-inspired dances. There is some tremendously vigorous and energetic playing here, from the torrents of notes packed into the Harlequinade, to the rumbustious rhythms of the Mourky. The Gulliver Suite by Telemann for two violins is a programmatic piece of sorts, with its movements depicting the various inhabitants of the lands visited in the novel. Thus the delicate Chaconne of the Lilliputians is small in scale and written in the most unusual 3/32 time signature, whereas the Brobdingnagian gigue is heavy and ponderous.
Travelling tunes
The only question over these pieces is whether they made their way over to Ireland in this period, and whether they had any impact at all on the traditional music of the time. A quick consultation of Brian Boydell’s Dublin Musical Calendar reveals only a brief, tantalising reference to Telemann’s music being imported and sold by William Manwaring in the 1750s.
From an earlier stage of the Baroque, and more likely to have been heard in Ireland, Henry Purcell’s Suite from The Fairy Queen, which also appears on the recording, groups together the music composed for the masques that formed part of this adaptation of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
It’s difficult to fault any aspect of the excellent playing here, or indeed throughout the CD as a whole, which displays consummate musicianship and inspired and always engaging performances. My only reservation is that this doesn’t fully explore the common heritage of these traditions, but merely sets them side by side: the piper and the fairy queen for the most part remain in their separate domains.
Camerata Kilkenny: The Piper and the Fairy Queen: Exploring the common heritage of traditional Irish tunes and Baroque dances (RTÉ CD156) is available on the RTÉ Lyric FM label.
Review of Camerata Kilkenny - The Piper and the Fairy Queen
RTÉ lyric by Daniel Ross - Classic FM (4 June 2018)
My left-field choice for this week is an engaging album from the Irish original instrument band Camerata Kilkenny, which winningly combines traditional Irish music, especially featuring David Power, a virtuoso exponent of the Irish traditional uilleann pipes, with broader European baroque music like the Pifa from Handel’s Messiah, and a suite from Henry Purcell’s Fairy Queen.
The orchestra sounds really well, and sufficiently different, that if you like original instrument baroque bands, this really could be one for you.
I especially enjoyed two tracks from the blind 18th century Irish harpist Turlough O'Carolan, and I will be playing them on my 7pm show next Sunday.
J. S. Bach: Soprano Arias & Swedish folk chorales
Cover of Bach and Dala chorales CD
POSTED ON JANUARY 2, 2020
BY EMR2015
POSTED IN RECORDING
TAGGED BAROQUE, CHAMBER MUSIC, VOCAL MUSIC
Maria Keohane, Camerata Kilkenny
58:10
Maya Recordings MCD1901
In the booklet, Kate Hearne writes that ‘the idea of pairing Bach’s music with Dala Chorales is an idea that has been with me for a long time’.
Dala chorales come from a region in central Sweden where the first official psalm book in the Lutheran tradition was published in 1695, influenced as much by folk song as by the memories of what had been sung in the pre-Reformation masses. A number of these free chorale-like tunes are sung here by Maria Keohane, paired with seven Bach arias for soprano with obligato violin played by Maya Homburger, appearing here with Sarah McMahon and Malcolm Proud as Camerata Kilkenny.
The recording was made in the Propsteikirche Sankt Gerold in Austria, a small former Benedictine monastery. Details of the project, and how the performance was prepared are sketchy, but the booklet manages to convey the slightly folksy, Nordic, tree-spirit world that the Dalakorals conjure up.
The playing and singing is of a high standard as you would expect from the starry Swedish Maria Keohane and the Swiss violinist Maya Homburger. All the arias are just for soprano voice, violin and bc, and have all the elegance of chamber music, with perfectly matched and balanced partners listening to one another. This is how arias should be sung – not as if they were solos with an accompaniment in the background. Whether the pairing of the arias with the Dalakorals works for you I cannot predict, but you would not be sorry to have heard the Bach.
David Stancliffe
CAMERATA KILKENNY
CD & CONCERT PERFORMANCE REVIEWS OF THE MUSICAL OFFERING (selection)
BBC Radio 3 – CD Review - broadcast February 2011 (Andrew McGregor)
J. S. BACH/SONATA & CANON PERPETUUS BWV1079
…last 2 mvts of Sonata sopr’il Soggetto Reale,
Musical Offering
Camerata Kilkenny
Maya Recordings MCD1003 tracks 18-20
The Canon perpetuus, and before it the last two movements of the Sonata sopr’il Soggetto Reale, which end Bach’s ‘Musical Offering’ to his son’s employer in Potsdam, Frederick the Great of Prussia…lovely performances from Camerata Kilkenny – flautist Wilbert Hazelzet, violinist Maya Homburger, cellist Sarah McMahon and harpsichordist Malcolm Proud. It’s a while since I listened to a complete recording of the Musical Offering, and this one makes it a joy rather than an exercise in contrapuntal ingenuity and musical wit…although the excellent notes make the cleverness of Bach’s creation vivid enough. It’s new from Maya Recordings.
IRISH TIMES CD REVIEW – December 23 2010 (Michael Dervan)
Camerata Kilkenny, Maya Recordings MCD 1003 *****
The Musical Offering was the outcome of Bach’s encounter with the music-loving Frederick the Great, himself a flautist and composer. Bach played and improvised for Frederick, and later completed the Musical Offering on the “Royal Theme” he had worked with in Potsdam. The pieces that make up the “offering” – two Ricercars, a Trio Sonata, and a bundle of canons – have no particular playing order, and some have no instrumentation, leaving performers a freedom that’s been taken up in a multitude of ways. The five members of Camerata Kilkenny (Wilbert Hazelzet, flute; Maya Homburger, violin; Marja Gaynor, violin and viola; Sarah McMahon, cello; and Malcolm Proud, harpsichord) are lucid guides to Bach’s displays of contrapuntal wizardry, grasping the sensual in performance as well as the more rarefied aspects of Bach’s exceptional compositional achievements.
EARLY MUSIC REVIEW (U.K.)
J. S. Bach The Musical Offering Camerata Kilkenny
Maya Recordings MCD1003
As the name suggest, Camerata Kilkenny hail from Ireland. They were founded in 1999 by harpsichordist Malcolm Proud and violinist Maya Homburger and are joined on this recording by Marja Gaynor, violin/viola, Sarah McMahon, cello and Wilbert Hazelzet, flute, all giving excellent performances. The two Ricercars are played on solo harpsichord, the Canons on a variety of instruments, but always maintaining a single instrumentation for each piece. Stylistically there is a great deal to admire, although I would have preferred a more defined closure to the Ricercare a 6 than the gradual braking offered here, although it does impart a grandeur that anybody capable of playing this fiendish work on solo harpsichord fully deserves. The use of rather close microphone positions means that the harpsichord keyboard thumps and the flute tonguing is audible, although adjusting bass response helps with the former and the latter is an attractive addition. The liner notes had the added benefit of a poem based on The Musical Offering by Fergal Gaynor. Andrew Benson-Wilson
IRISH TIMES REVIEW
Camerata Kilkenny
ANDREW JOHNSTONE
Tue, Feb 23, 2010
St Ann’s Church, Dublin
J.S. Bach - The Musical Offering (Das Musikalisches Opfer)
All 10 seasons of the Orchestra of St Cecilia’s Bach cantata series have supplemented five choral-orchestral programmes with a concert or two of the supreme master’s chamber music.
During the inaugural season back in 2001, two of the unaccompanied sonatas and partitas were performed by baroque violinist Maya Homburger, and the Goldberg Variations by harpsichordist Malcolm Proud.
Both artists returned for the current, concluding season, along with three other members of their international ensemble Camerata Kilkenny, to present one of Bach’s most exalted contrapuntal testimonies, The Musical Offering.
Its chromatic theme, supplied by the musicianly King Frederick the Great of Prussia, acts as both seed and scaffolding for 16 movements: two of them ricercars (that is, researching fugues), four making up a trio sonata, and the remainder a miscellany of mind- bending canons.
The sonata calls for transverse flute (Wilbert Hazelzet), violin (Homburger) and continuo (Proud plus Sarah McMahon on baroque cello), while one canon is designated for two violins (Homburger plus Marja Gaynor). As regards the instrumentation of everything else, Bach gives the performers carte blanche.
Proud took the solo harpsichord option in volatile accounts of the two ricercars. Elsewhere, apart from some telling contributions to certain solutions of the two-part puzzle canon, his instrument was deployed as sparingly as possible.
This left room for a range of string and flute combinations, further varied by Gaynor’s switching to viola, in which one could take one’s fill of lively articulation, shrewd harmonic nuances and rich ornamentation – not to mention Hazelzet’s always- exquisite colourings.
Performances of this extra-special work can be sometimes illuminated, sometimes stultified, by an atmosphere of overpowering reverence.
Not so this one, in which the music’s artifices were subsumed in a world of rhetoric, decoration and dance.
© 2010 The Irish Times
Irish Times writers review a selection of recent events in Dublin
Wed, Dec 03, 2008
Hazelzet, Kilkenny Camerata
Hugh Lane Gallery, Dublin (MICHAEL DUNGAN)
Listeners foresaw this would be a great one and packed the Hugh Lane Gallery until, alas, no more could be admitted. Bach, period instruments, excellent players, free admission. And incredible music. Clearly present were fans of The Musical Offering , with its "Royal" theme provided by Prussia's King Frederick II and given a comprehensive going-over by Bach. His straightforward canons, like rounds, were readily spotted, but there was much else that was hard or impossible for the ear to detect or follow, such as canons where the second voice is the same as the first one, only upside down or backwards. And somehow it all just sounds like Baroque chamber music.
Bach had a point to prove. When he visited the royal palace, the king gave him his royal theme and challenged him to improvise a three-part fugue upon it. It was so easy for Bach that the King said: how about six? Bach declined but composed one upon his return to Leipzig, plus all the canons and a four-movement trio sonata, all part of the Offering , all derived from the royal theme.
The other players withdrew to seats as harpsichordist Malcolm Proud opened the concert with what is generally reckoned to be Bach's transcription of the improvised three-part fugue (or ricercare ), and then again when he later gave the fully composed six-part fugue. Even with music for two hands in six voices spread over six staves, Proud serenely executed with a delivery that took full account of every appearance of the theme, that shaped the accompanying figures, that was always leading somewhere.
Joining the Kilkenny Camerata on the line written for the king, an accomplished flautist, was Wilbert Hazelzet, first flautist in Ton Koopman's Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra. He combined strength with softness and conjured colour from the baroque flute's sweet but limited palette.
Camerata violinists Maya Homburger and Marja Gaynor turned the most mind-boggling canons into playful conversations, and cellist Sarah McMahon came into her own in the trio sonata. In all, a superb and free concert, for which much credit is due to the Arts Council and the councils of Dublin City and Kilkenny County and Borough.
REVIEW FROM THE IRISH EXAMINER (Declan Townsend)
Bach: The Musical Offering
CAMERATA KILKENNY
This CD came to me as a Christmas present and I want to share the pleasure it has given me with Irish Examiner readers. In February last, Cork music lovers had the privilege of hearing this brilliant group, centred around Kilkenny-based Malcolm Proud, performing Bach’s remarkable musical tour de force at Cork School of Music. Of the performance then of the work’s Trio Sonata, for flute, violin and continuo, I wrote ‘…….. (this) almost made me believe I had died and gone to heaven’. Listening to this recently released recording, made possible by Music Network/Arts Council, I can better understand its impact. Not only is the music sublime; so is the recorded performance.
In his ‘Musical Offering’ to King Frederic II of Prussia Bach is not so much displaying his technical/compositional virtuosity as having fun, taking delight in playing with the musical material of the theme that the king had provided! The king had demanded that Bach transform the royal theme into a 6-part fugue (the full story and details of all the compositional tricks that Bach got up to are in David Ledbetter’s excellent accompanying booklet) and he got more than he bargained for. While scholars stand in awe of Bach’s skill and imagination, ordinary listeners simply delight in the music’s joyful, ever-changing colours and instrumental combinations.
Joining internationally-renowned Early Music specialists, Wilbert Hazelzet (flute), Maya Homburger (violin), and Malcolm Proud (harpsichord) on the CD are Finnish virtuoso, Marja Gaynor (violin/viola) and Callino Quartet cellist, Sarah McMahon, in a superbly recorded performance of enormous charm and outstanding musicality
Review – La Scena Musicale Canada – March 2011
Bach: The Musical Offering
Camerata Kilkenny
Maya Recordings MCD 1003 (54 min 59 s)
*****
There is no one way to play the Musical Offering, a jewel of thematic manipulation. Apart from some obbligato instruments, the composer left many choices to his interpreters; even the order of the pieces can vary, since the work was not conceived for a performance - which remains nonetheless the best way to appreciate the extraordinary score. Camerata Kilkenny is quite traditional in its approach, with the inevitable flute, two violins (the second intelligently doubling the viola), and harpsichord (a Malcolm Proud in top form), plus an additional cello to complete the ensemble. The adopted sequence of pieces reflects the Schmieder edition of 1950, certainly the most enjoyable to listen to. The period instruments are well captured; the two-part canon Quaerendo invenietis passes from one duet to another with unique effectiveness; the whole is, in short, among the most faithful versions currently available. RB
Review - Classical - East Cork Early Music Festival
Irish Examiner - Wednesday, October 15, 2014
by Declan Townsend
Curtis Hall, Cork School of Music
**** Once again, this festival’s organisers have brightened up the musical landscape by inviting some of the finest practitioners in this exciting repertory to perform, and to share their enthusiasm and expertise with local players, students, and the ever-growing audience for the music of former times.
I sampled just three of the 11 festival events and, at each of them was astounded at the quality of the playing, the sense of involvement in the music by the performers, and the palpable sense of excitement and appreciation from the audiences.
Thursday night’s programme of music by JS Bach, performed by Camerata Kilkenny (directed by Maya Homburger) with soprano Anja Lipfert Poche, and Rachel Beckett (baroque flute) will long remain in my memory. Homburger’s enthusiasm, musicality, and skill obviously inspired her six colleagues and Lipfert’s beautiful interpretation of the Arias and Cantatas by Bach was a revelation.
Cantata No 82a, ‘Ich habe genug’ was, for me, the highlight of an astonishingly moving evening’s music making, that also included a wonderfully joyous, marvellously rhythmic performance of Bach’s 2nd orchestral Suite and a most moving ‘Aria, Wie lieblich’ from Cantata No 133.
'The Piper and the Fairy Queen' contains some of the the best classical/folk crossover music I've come across for a good while. Recorded in 2018 by the celebrated uilleann pipe player David Power together with six-piece Camerata Kilkenny, an impressive Baroque ensemble playing period instruments, its title derives from the inclusion of ten short items from Purcell's suite of music for a 1692 production of Shakespeare's 'Midsummer Night's Dream', in an anonymous adaptation called 'The Fairy Queen'. This beautiful suite appears amongst several other well-chosen Baroque pieces by Telemann, Handel and LeClair, and these are all set within a fine selection of traditional instrumental Celtic music for David Power and the ensemble, as well as some superb solo pipe pieces. The arrangements of all the works on the disc, by members of the Camerata, sound very well under their fingers and combine the fire, freedom and and energy of folk music with a fresh, intelligent interpretation of the Baroque style.
The CD begins and ends with music by Turlough O'Carolan, the late 17th/early 18th century blind Irish harpist, well known in folk circles: to open we have the beautiful out and out folk tune 'Si Bheag Si Mhor', and it closes with 'Carolan's Concerto', written in the style of his Italian classical contemporaries. The informative sleeve notes tell that O'Carolan knew well the music of Vivaldi and the Italian school, and actually met Geminiani who lived in Ireland for several years and had great respect for O'Carolan's musicianship.
The classical music between these two O'Carolan pieces consists of two suites by Telemann, 'La Musette' (the French equivalent of the uilleann pipes) and the 'Gulliver' Suite (after Jonathan Swift) for two violins; a musette and two minuets from 'Scylla and Glaucus' by LeClair; Purcells 'Fairy Queen'; and a lollipop of Handel's 'Pifa' from 'Messiah'. All these pieces include music which alludes to folk pipes, but they also contain a wealth of cosmopolitan and theatrical threads, coloured appropriately in sound and style. All are played with poise, eloquence and verve and the Camerata's period Baroque instruments produce a sound which is far from the thin, sterile and senza vibrato landscape so often offered in the guise of authenticity: here we have warm, relaxed and expressive colours, and accurate intonation (which must be difficult against uilleann pipes), all applied with great musical sensitivity and polish. The prevailing folk overtones in all this music (and also political - the pieces include allusions to the Irish Rebellion, the fall of Paris to the British after Waterloo, and the caricatures from Jonathan Swift) are perfectly complemented by a sympathetic application of Baroque elegance rather than being dominated by it: the resulting 'playfulness under supervision' is a totally enjoyable success.
For me the icing on the cake is the inclusion of four outstanding solo pipe folk pieces from David Power. His mastery of the instrument is a given, and this serves the depth and strength of his musical expression. The two slow pieces, 'The Brown Thorn' (a love story) and 'The Fairy Child' (a lament for a lost changeling) brought me close to tears, and the others, 'The Fall of Paris' (a victory song following the taking of Paris by the British after Waterloo) and 'The Fox Chase' (a colourful, dramatic and exciting self contained narrative of the entire process) create contrasting moods: the last of these two is a showpiece exercise in technical skill and musical exuberance.
There is more than adequate explanation in this music, were it needed, for the crossover so carefully crafted and celebrated on this recording. The very particular and demanding sound and balance is served throughout by a wonderfully natural, honest, open and detailed recording, and extensive booklet sleeve notes complement the beautifully designed CD presentation. The original Baroque items are arranged perfectly and when they are set against David Power's musicality and technique in both ensemble and solo tracks, the whole CD makes refreshing and fulfilling listening for folk and classical enthusiasts alike.
I anticipate further pleasures exploring two subsequent releases from Camerata Kilkenny: firstly Bach's 'Musical Offering' and secondly another intriguing curated collection 'Bach Soprano Arias and Swedish Folk Chorales', with Maria Keohane.
Review of The Piper and the Fairy Queen from the Journal of Music in Ireland
Interweaving Lines
What is the common heritage between traditional Irish tunes and Baroque dances?
Adrian Scahill reviews a new recording on the RTÉ Lyric FM label.
This CD is a welcome addition to the canon of recordings and performances that have explored the interface between Irish traditional music and the music of the Baroque period. Delving back into the territory that was perhaps first quarried by Seán Ó Riada and Ceoltóirí Chualann on Ceol na nUasal, Camerata Kilkenny and David Power present a diverse programme which falls into three loose categories: music by Turlough Carolan and other traditional tunes arranged for pipes and ensemble; solo music for uilleann pipes; and works from the long Baroque period. Uilleann piper David Power is no stranger to the art of collaboration, having performed regularly with harpsichordist and organist Malcolm Proud, one of the members of Camerata Kilkenny, a long-established Baroque ensemble founded by Proud and violinist Maya Homburger.
The ‘newest’ pieces on the CD are the arrangements for pipes and ensemble. As with every performance of Carolan’s work, a certain amount of reworking or arranging is necessary due to the nature of how his music has come down to us – this was often in arrangements for keyboard instruments or as a simple melody. While Carolan composed his music for the wire-strung harp, the links between the traditional and the Baroque outlined in the notes solely focus on the harp and the fiddle, and strangely ignore the uilleann pipes, although we know from collections like O’Farrell’s Pocket Companion for the Irish or Union Pipes (1802) that Carolan’s music had already found its way into the piping repertoire at the end of the eighteenth century. The two pieces here, ‘Sí Bheag, Sí Mhór’ and ‘Carolan’s Concerto’, are arranged by Marja Gaynor and Malcolm Proud, and in their current form thus symbolise one of the narratives of the Baroque (and indeed the early classical) period in Ireland, which is that the pipes had essentially replaced the harp as the main instrument of artisan/professional musicians by the end of the nineteenth century.
Music of the nobles
‘Carolan’s Concerto’ is stately and dignified here, played on C-sharp pipes in a restrained reading by Power (especially compared to the extravagance of Paddy Moloney’s interpretation on Chieftains 3). Gaynor’s arrangement brings plenty of colour to the piece, with supple contrapuntal violin lines wheeling around Power’s melody, and pizzicato strings underneath the pipes on the initial repeat. It is an elegant performance, but I found that occasionally the descant violin lines were a little too overbearing. ‘Sí Bheag Sí Mór’ is also played in a solemn and almost regal manner, building up slowly from solo pipes to full ensemble, where the Baroque violins of Camerata Kilkenny adorn the melody with delicate trill-laden figurations. These are performances worthy of the epithet ‘Ceol na nUasal’ (music of the nobles), which Ó Riada used as a title for his 1968 album of harp and vocal music from the same period. The other tune arranged for pipes and ensemble, ‘The Downfall of Paris’, is a more unusual choice for this treatment, but works extremely well in its sympathetic mimesis of the pipes’ drones and unobtrusive harmonies.
Power’s solo work is exceptional throughout the CD, especially in the airs ‘An Droighneán Donn’ and Samuel Lover’s ‘An Leanbh Sidhe’. In the second air (which in truth is far from the Baroque period) he gives full vent to the pipe’s expressive qualities with some theatrical ‘sliding’ techniques. All of the piper’s armoury is on show in ‘The Fox Chase’, a programmatic piece reputed to be from the end of the eighteenth century. Power also appears on a number of the classical pieces, most to the fore in the Pifa from Messiah, where the imitations of the bagpipe make the uilleann pipes an entirely suitable addition to the texture. There is also an adaption of a similar pastoral interlude in the reworking of two French dances for musette (a French bellows-blown bagpipe of the period) and ensemble from a Jean-Marie Leclair opera, the combination of pipes and string drones here reminiscent at times of a hurdy-gurdy.
The musette also features in the first of the two suites by Telemann featured here, although only in name and as inspiration for some of the folk-inspired dances. There is some tremendously vigorous and energetic playing here, from the torrents of notes packed into the Harlequinade, to the rumbustious rhythms of the Mourky. The Gulliver Suite by Telemann for two violins is a programmatic piece of sorts, with its movements depicting the various inhabitants of the lands visited in the novel. Thus the delicate Chaconne of the Lilliputians is small in scale and written in the most unusual 3/32 time signature, whereas the Brobdingnagian gigue is heavy and ponderous.
Travelling tunes
The only question over these pieces is whether they made their way over to Ireland in this period, and whether they had any impact at all on the traditional music of the time. A quick consultation of Brian Boydell’s Dublin Musical Calendar reveals only a brief, tantalising reference to Telemann’s music being imported and sold by William Manwaring in the 1750s.
From an earlier stage of the Baroque, and more likely to have been heard in Ireland, Henry Purcell’s Suite from The Fairy Queen, which also appears on the recording, groups together the music composed for the masques that formed part of this adaptation of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
It’s difficult to fault any aspect of the excellent playing here, or indeed throughout the CD as a whole, which displays consummate musicianship and inspired and always engaging performances. My only reservation is that this doesn’t fully explore the common heritage of these traditions, but merely sets them side by side: the piper and the fairy queen for the most part remain in their separate domains.
Camerata Kilkenny: The Piper and the Fairy Queen: Exploring the common heritage of traditional Irish tunes and Baroque dances (RTÉ CD156) is available on the RTÉ Lyric FM label.
Review of Camerata Kilkenny - The Piper and the Fairy Queen
RTÉ lyric by Daniel Ross - Classic FM (4 June 2018)
My left-field choice for this week is an engaging album from the Irish original instrument band Camerata Kilkenny, which winningly combines traditional Irish music, especially featuring David Power, a virtuoso exponent of the Irish traditional uilleann pipes, with broader European baroque music like the Pifa from Handel’s Messiah, and a suite from Henry Purcell’s Fairy Queen.
The orchestra sounds really well, and sufficiently different, that if you like original instrument baroque bands, this really could be one for you.
I especially enjoyed two tracks from the blind 18th century Irish harpist Turlough O'Carolan, and I will be playing them on my 7pm show next Sunday.
J. S. Bach: Soprano Arias & Swedish folk chorales
Cover of Bach and Dala chorales CD
POSTED ON JANUARY 2, 2020
BY EMR2015
POSTED IN RECORDING
TAGGED BAROQUE, CHAMBER MUSIC, VOCAL MUSIC
Maria Keohane, Camerata Kilkenny
58:10
Maya Recordings MCD1901
In the booklet, Kate Hearne writes that ‘the idea of pairing Bach’s music with Dala Chorales is an idea that has been with me for a long time’.
Dala chorales come from a region in central Sweden where the first official psalm book in the Lutheran tradition was published in 1695, influenced as much by folk song as by the memories of what had been sung in the pre-Reformation masses. A number of these free chorale-like tunes are sung here by Maria Keohane, paired with seven Bach arias for soprano with obligato violin played by Maya Homburger, appearing here with Sarah McMahon and Malcolm Proud as Camerata Kilkenny.
The recording was made in the Propsteikirche Sankt Gerold in Austria, a small former Benedictine monastery. Details of the project, and how the performance was prepared are sketchy, but the booklet manages to convey the slightly folksy, Nordic, tree-spirit world that the Dalakorals conjure up.
The playing and singing is of a high standard as you would expect from the starry Swedish Maria Keohane and the Swiss violinist Maya Homburger. All the arias are just for soprano voice, violin and bc, and have all the elegance of chamber music, with perfectly matched and balanced partners listening to one another. This is how arias should be sung – not as if they were solos with an accompaniment in the background. Whether the pairing of the arias with the Dalakorals works for you I cannot predict, but you would not be sorry to have heard the Bach.
David Stancliffe
CAMERATA KILKENNY
CD & CONCERT PERFORMANCE REVIEWS OF THE MUSICAL OFFERING (selection)
BBC Radio 3 – CD Review - broadcast February 2011 (Andrew McGregor)
J. S. BACH/SONATA & CANON PERPETUUS BWV1079
…last 2 mvts of Sonata sopr’il Soggetto Reale,
Musical Offering
Camerata Kilkenny
Maya Recordings MCD1003 tracks 18-20
The Canon perpetuus, and before it the last two movements of the Sonata sopr’il Soggetto Reale, which end Bach’s ‘Musical Offering’ to his son’s employer in Potsdam, Frederick the Great of Prussia…lovely performances from Camerata Kilkenny – flautist Wilbert Hazelzet, violinist Maya Homburger, cellist Sarah McMahon and harpsichordist Malcolm Proud. It’s a while since I listened to a complete recording of the Musical Offering, and this one makes it a joy rather than an exercise in contrapuntal ingenuity and musical wit…although the excellent notes make the cleverness of Bach’s creation vivid enough. It’s new from Maya Recordings.
IRISH TIMES CD REVIEW – December 23 2010 (Michael Dervan)
Camerata Kilkenny, Maya Recordings MCD 1003 *****
The Musical Offering was the outcome of Bach’s encounter with the music-loving Frederick the Great, himself a flautist and composer. Bach played and improvised for Frederick, and later completed the Musical Offering on the “Royal Theme” he had worked with in Potsdam. The pieces that make up the “offering” – two Ricercars, a Trio Sonata, and a bundle of canons – have no particular playing order, and some have no instrumentation, leaving performers a freedom that’s been taken up in a multitude of ways. The five members of Camerata Kilkenny (Wilbert Hazelzet, flute; Maya Homburger, violin; Marja Gaynor, violin and viola; Sarah McMahon, cello; and Malcolm Proud, harpsichord) are lucid guides to Bach’s displays of contrapuntal wizardry, grasping the sensual in performance as well as the more rarefied aspects of Bach’s exceptional compositional achievements.
EARLY MUSIC REVIEW (U.K.)
J. S. Bach The Musical Offering Camerata Kilkenny
Maya Recordings MCD1003
As the name suggest, Camerata Kilkenny hail from Ireland. They were founded in 1999 by harpsichordist Malcolm Proud and violinist Maya Homburger and are joined on this recording by Marja Gaynor, violin/viola, Sarah McMahon, cello and Wilbert Hazelzet, flute, all giving excellent performances. The two Ricercars are played on solo harpsichord, the Canons on a variety of instruments, but always maintaining a single instrumentation for each piece. Stylistically there is a great deal to admire, although I would have preferred a more defined closure to the Ricercare a 6 than the gradual braking offered here, although it does impart a grandeur that anybody capable of playing this fiendish work on solo harpsichord fully deserves. The use of rather close microphone positions means that the harpsichord keyboard thumps and the flute tonguing is audible, although adjusting bass response helps with the former and the latter is an attractive addition. The liner notes had the added benefit of a poem based on The Musical Offering by Fergal Gaynor. Andrew Benson-Wilson
IRISH TIMES REVIEW
Camerata Kilkenny
ANDREW JOHNSTONE
Tue, Feb 23, 2010
St Ann’s Church, Dublin
J.S. Bach - The Musical Offering (Das Musikalisches Opfer)
All 10 seasons of the Orchestra of St Cecilia’s Bach cantata series have supplemented five choral-orchestral programmes with a concert or two of the supreme master’s chamber music.
During the inaugural season back in 2001, two of the unaccompanied sonatas and partitas were performed by baroque violinist Maya Homburger, and the Goldberg Variations by harpsichordist Malcolm Proud.
Both artists returned for the current, concluding season, along with three other members of their international ensemble Camerata Kilkenny, to present one of Bach’s most exalted contrapuntal testimonies, The Musical Offering.
Its chromatic theme, supplied by the musicianly King Frederick the Great of Prussia, acts as both seed and scaffolding for 16 movements: two of them ricercars (that is, researching fugues), four making up a trio sonata, and the remainder a miscellany of mind- bending canons.
The sonata calls for transverse flute (Wilbert Hazelzet), violin (Homburger) and continuo (Proud plus Sarah McMahon on baroque cello), while one canon is designated for two violins (Homburger plus Marja Gaynor). As regards the instrumentation of everything else, Bach gives the performers carte blanche.
Proud took the solo harpsichord option in volatile accounts of the two ricercars. Elsewhere, apart from some telling contributions to certain solutions of the two-part puzzle canon, his instrument was deployed as sparingly as possible.
This left room for a range of string and flute combinations, further varied by Gaynor’s switching to viola, in which one could take one’s fill of lively articulation, shrewd harmonic nuances and rich ornamentation – not to mention Hazelzet’s always- exquisite colourings.
Performances of this extra-special work can be sometimes illuminated, sometimes stultified, by an atmosphere of overpowering reverence.
Not so this one, in which the music’s artifices were subsumed in a world of rhetoric, decoration and dance.
© 2010 The Irish Times
Irish Times writers review a selection of recent events in Dublin
Wed, Dec 03, 2008
Hazelzet, Kilkenny Camerata
Hugh Lane Gallery, Dublin (MICHAEL DUNGAN)
Listeners foresaw this would be a great one and packed the Hugh Lane Gallery until, alas, no more could be admitted. Bach, period instruments, excellent players, free admission. And incredible music. Clearly present were fans of The Musical Offering , with its "Royal" theme provided by Prussia's King Frederick II and given a comprehensive going-over by Bach. His straightforward canons, like rounds, were readily spotted, but there was much else that was hard or impossible for the ear to detect or follow, such as canons where the second voice is the same as the first one, only upside down or backwards. And somehow it all just sounds like Baroque chamber music.
Bach had a point to prove. When he visited the royal palace, the king gave him his royal theme and challenged him to improvise a three-part fugue upon it. It was so easy for Bach that the King said: how about six? Bach declined but composed one upon his return to Leipzig, plus all the canons and a four-movement trio sonata, all part of the Offering , all derived from the royal theme.
The other players withdrew to seats as harpsichordist Malcolm Proud opened the concert with what is generally reckoned to be Bach's transcription of the improvised three-part fugue (or ricercare ), and then again when he later gave the fully composed six-part fugue. Even with music for two hands in six voices spread over six staves, Proud serenely executed with a delivery that took full account of every appearance of the theme, that shaped the accompanying figures, that was always leading somewhere.
Joining the Kilkenny Camerata on the line written for the king, an accomplished flautist, was Wilbert Hazelzet, first flautist in Ton Koopman's Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra. He combined strength with softness and conjured colour from the baroque flute's sweet but limited palette.
Camerata violinists Maya Homburger and Marja Gaynor turned the most mind-boggling canons into playful conversations, and cellist Sarah McMahon came into her own in the trio sonata. In all, a superb and free concert, for which much credit is due to the Arts Council and the councils of Dublin City and Kilkenny County and Borough.
REVIEW FROM THE IRISH EXAMINER (Declan Townsend)
Bach: The Musical Offering
CAMERATA KILKENNY
This CD came to me as a Christmas present and I want to share the pleasure it has given me with Irish Examiner readers. In February last, Cork music lovers had the privilege of hearing this brilliant group, centred around Kilkenny-based Malcolm Proud, performing Bach’s remarkable musical tour de force at Cork School of Music. Of the performance then of the work’s Trio Sonata, for flute, violin and continuo, I wrote ‘…….. (this) almost made me believe I had died and gone to heaven’. Listening to this recently released recording, made possible by Music Network/Arts Council, I can better understand its impact. Not only is the music sublime; so is the recorded performance.
In his ‘Musical Offering’ to King Frederic II of Prussia Bach is not so much displaying his technical/compositional virtuosity as having fun, taking delight in playing with the musical material of the theme that the king had provided! The king had demanded that Bach transform the royal theme into a 6-part fugue (the full story and details of all the compositional tricks that Bach got up to are in David Ledbetter’s excellent accompanying booklet) and he got more than he bargained for. While scholars stand in awe of Bach’s skill and imagination, ordinary listeners simply delight in the music’s joyful, ever-changing colours and instrumental combinations.
Joining internationally-renowned Early Music specialists, Wilbert Hazelzet (flute), Maya Homburger (violin), and Malcolm Proud (harpsichord) on the CD are Finnish virtuoso, Marja Gaynor (violin/viola) and Callino Quartet cellist, Sarah McMahon, in a superbly recorded performance of enormous charm and outstanding musicality
Review – La Scena Musicale Canada – March 2011
Bach: The Musical Offering
Camerata Kilkenny
Maya Recordings MCD 1003 (54 min 59 s)
*****
There is no one way to play the Musical Offering, a jewel of thematic manipulation. Apart from some obbligato instruments, the composer left many choices to his interpreters; even the order of the pieces can vary, since the work was not conceived for a performance - which remains nonetheless the best way to appreciate the extraordinary score. Camerata Kilkenny is quite traditional in its approach, with the inevitable flute, two violins (the second intelligently doubling the viola), and harpsichord (a Malcolm Proud in top form), plus an additional cello to complete the ensemble. The adopted sequence of pieces reflects the Schmieder edition of 1950, certainly the most enjoyable to listen to. The period instruments are well captured; the two-part canon Quaerendo invenietis passes from one duet to another with unique effectiveness; the whole is, in short, among the most faithful versions currently available. RB
Review - Classical - East Cork Early Music Festival
Irish Examiner - Wednesday, October 15, 2014
by Declan Townsend
Curtis Hall, Cork School of Music
**** Once again, this festival’s organisers have brightened up the musical landscape by inviting some of the finest practitioners in this exciting repertory to perform, and to share their enthusiasm and expertise with local players, students, and the ever-growing audience for the music of former times.
I sampled just three of the 11 festival events and, at each of them was astounded at the quality of the playing, the sense of involvement in the music by the performers, and the palpable sense of excitement and appreciation from the audiences.
Thursday night’s programme of music by JS Bach, performed by Camerata Kilkenny (directed by Maya Homburger) with soprano Anja Lipfert Poche, and Rachel Beckett (baroque flute) will long remain in my memory. Homburger’s enthusiasm, musicality, and skill obviously inspired her six colleagues and Lipfert’s beautiful interpretation of the Arias and Cantatas by Bach was a revelation.
Cantata No 82a, ‘Ich habe genug’ was, for me, the highlight of an astonishingly moving evening’s music making, that also included a wonderfully joyous, marvellously rhythmic performance of Bach’s 2nd orchestral Suite and a most moving ‘Aria, Wie lieblich’ from Cantata No 133.
