MADDALENA AND THE PRINCE
Maddalena Del Gobbo
(baryton, vdg); Robert Bauerstatter (va); David Pennetzdorfer (vcl); Ewald
Donhoffer (hpd) DEUTSCHE GRAMMOPHON 481 8034 (73:39)
HAYDN Trios for Baryton, Viola, and Cello: in D, Hob.
XI:113; in D, Hob. XI:27; in D, Hob. XI:97.
LIDL Divertimento in G for Baryton,
Viola, and Cello. HAMMER Viola da Gamba Sonata No. 1 in A.
A. TOMASINI Trio in
C for Baryton, Viola, and Cello
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This CD charts a significant but little-documented episode in the
history of Western music, the decade-long obsession of Prince Nikolaus Esterházy
for the baryton. The instrument is a Baroque-era elaboration of the viola da
gamba, similar in shape and with seven gut playing strings, which are bowed and
stopped at frets. But the baryton also has 10 sympathetic strings, which run
under the fingerboard. A hole in the back of the neck allows the player to
pluck these strings with the thumb of the left hand, and in the Baroque era,
music for baryton often consisted of a bowed melody line accompanied by a
plucked thorough bass.
But all of this was rapidly becoming history by the time Prince Nikolaus
was introduced to the instrument in the mid-1760s. The excellent liner notes
for this release, written and eloquently translated from German by Christoph
Prendl, tell the story of the instrument at the Esterházy court: Travelling
baryton virtuosos were still to be found in the courts of Europe, and one, Carl
Franz, was also the first horn player in the Esterházy orchestra. Prince
Nikolaus began playing the instrument, and commissioned many works for his own
performance, most notably, but not exclusively, from Joseph Haydn. Haydn
composed 163 pieces for baryton, including solo works, concertos, cantatas, and
trios. Of these, only the trios survive (mostly, as here, for baryton, viola,
and cello), but in substantial quantity; all 126 of Haydn’s baryton trios
collected together in bound volumes at the Prince’s request.
Haydn learned to play the instrument himself, practicing secretly at
night in order to master the instrument’s eccentric demands. From a
compositional point of view, the most pressing of these was to find enough
variety. The instrument’s sympathetic strings are tuned to a scale of D Major,
limiting the instrument to that and neighboring keys. All three Haydn trios here
are in D Major, though we are told that he did venture as far as C Major, F
Major, A Minor, and B Minor, but didn’t employ the plucked sympathetic strings
for works in these keys.
By contrast, the three Haydn trios here appear to have been chosen to
demonstrate Haydn’s inventive use of the sympathetic strings. The combination
of baryton, viola, and cello is one of a Baroque solo instrument accompanied by
more modern, Classical-era descendants, and in the Minuetto of Trio No. 97, Haydn makes that contrast explicit
by giving the melody to the viola, accompanied, in the Baroque manner, by the
baryton’s plucked bass line. In the Adagio
of Trio No. 113, by contrast, the baryton’s bowed melody is accompanied
both by its own plucked sympathetic strings and by the other two instruments
also playing pizzicato.
Despite the unusual repertoire and instrumentarium, this CD is an
artist-focused release, as is the modus
operandi of DG. The artist in
question is the Italian but Vienna-based viola da gambist Maddalena Del Gobbo.
This is her second release on DG, the first an viola da gamba album (48145232) featuring works dedicated to another aristocratic player, Princess Anne
Henriette of France, daughter of Louis XV. That might explain why there is so
little information about Del Gobbo in the literature for this release, which focuses
almost exclusively on the repertoire. She is well photographed though, giving
multiple opportunities to also picture the baryton itself, an ornately
decorated instrument with an elegantly contoured body and a head carved onto
the scroll. The recording location gets due mention and illustration too, the
Haydn Hall at the Esterházy Castle in Eisenstadt, a fitting venue if ever there
was one.
Del Gobbo draws a warm tone from the baryton, rich, although not as
resonant as one might expect given the sympathetic strings, and with a
satisfyingly husky burr from the gut playing strings. The resonant acoustic
adds to the warmth, but without obscuring the detail—some audible breathing
suggests close-up miking, but the instrumental tone never suffers. Haydn’s
compositional skill is evident in his ability to make this reticent instrument,
its part written for an amateur, the focus of attention, even when accompanied
by two more modern and robust counterparts. Violist Robert Bauerstatter and
cellist David Pennetzdorfer prove amenable and graceful partners, and what a
surprise to hear Haydn passing the melody so often to the viola, something all
but unknown in the string quartets!
The program is filled out with works by three baryton
virtuosi-cum-composers, Andreas Lidl (unkown–c. 1789), Franz Xaver Hammer
(1741–1817), and Aloisio Luigi Tomasini (1741–1808), all associated with the Esterházy
court. The Hammer work is actually a sonata for standard viola da gamba,
accompanied here on a very modest-sounding harpsichord by Ewald Donhoffer. The
Lidl and Tomasini works are both trios for baryton, viola, and cello. Both
works are attractive enough, although in a conventional Classical-era style,
the Tommasini in particular very generic. Neither composer employs the plucked
strings here, surprisingly, given that we are told Lidl was master of this
technique. Fortunately, the players afford just as much interpretive conviction
to these lesser composers as they do to Haydn, performing their outer movements
with vibrant energy, and the middle movements with elegant lyricism.
It is Haydn who ends the program, and with a typically unexpected joke.
The Trio 97 was written for Prince Nikolaus’s birthday, occasioning an unusual
coda from the composer. Most of the trios are in three movements, and this one
is too, but Haydn then adds four very short additions, a Polonaise, Adagio, Menuet, and fugal Finale, each
less than two minutes long. But perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised, that on a
disc dedicated to an unusual instrument and its aristocratic patron, it is
Haydn, as so often, who gets the last laugh.
This review appears in Fanfare magazine issue 43:1.
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