Salzburg Barock

Album review

The archbishopric of Salzburg supported a splendid musical establishment during much of the Baroque era and even up to the time of its most famous product, Mozart. For decades the music of this crucial city remained all but unknown until the discovery of the wildly experimental violin music of Salzburg kapellmeister Heinrich Ignaz von Biber. This release, featuring plenty of never-before-recorded music, broadens the listener's understanding of the period and includes some modest gems. There are several solo cantatas, a Magnificat, and a Nisi Dominus featuring veteran British soprano Emma Kirkby, by the time this album was recorded well into her seventh decade. Although there have been a few missteps, Kirkby has done admirably at finding repertoire that fits her voice as it ages, and the music here works very well for her. Although Biber is represented, there's nothing of the imposing style of his choral music on the program; the music is of an intimate scale, and much of it has an almost folkish aspect. The highlights are not the works by the "name" composers Biber and Georg Muffat but a pair of anonymous pieces, a vocal "concerto," Ach kommet vom Himmel, ihr göttliche Flammen, and a solo motet, Ad pulpitum. Sample the peppy 6/8 Allegro aria of the former piece (track 13) for an idea of the tone of the whole; Kirkby's effectiveness in this material is undiminished. Vocal pieces alternate with instrumental works rendered smoothly by the historical-instrument group Bell'arte Salzburg and violinist/viola d'amore player/leader Annegret Siedel. Several of the composers will be new to all but specialists: Andreas Hofer, Abraham Megerle, Steffano Bernardi, Matthias Sigismund Beichteler, and Carl Heinrich Biber. It's not mentioned, but he was one of Heinrich Ignaz's sons; his little Concerto a quattro per la chiesa features the unusual violino piccolo. An above-average Baroque program of mixed vocal and instrumental music.

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