Sacred Songs of Sorrow
Sacred Songs from Protestant Germany

Charivari Agréable Simfonie

Susanne Heinrich - viols
Lynda Sayce - theorbo
Kah-Ming Ng - keyboards

with

Susanna Pell - bass viol
Reiko Ichise - bass viol
Sarah Groser - violone
Clare Salaman - baroque violin

and

Rodrigo del Pozo - tenor

Best CD of the Year 2000
International Record Review

A lot of music by great composers has come my way in the first months of International Record Review's existence – Tallis, Byrd and William Lawes among the English, Dufay, Josquin and Lassus among the continentals – and some of it in more than competent performances. But at the risk of sounding precious (heavens, perhaps even elitist!), I'm going to plump for a disc devoted to a bunch of virtually unknown Germans of the mid-seventeenth century. In spite of its rather forbidding title, 'Sacred Songs of Sorrow', performed by Charivari Agreable Simfonie with the Chilean-born tenor as their sensitive and mellifluous soloist, was a revelation that I would like to share with as many people as possible. The music itself is surprisingly varied; Baroque composers such as Erasmus Kindermann, Christian Geist and Bach's cousin (once removed), Johann Christoph, were open to many different stylistic winds. What is consistent here is a kind of impassioned intimacy that I found – and still find on re-hearing – very attractive indeed, and not in the least glum.

Jeremy Noble

International Record Review - July 2000

What a pleasure, when a disc whose composers and performers (mea culpa) are almost completely unfamiliar, turns out to contain a whole string of delights. Composers first. All but one belongs to the German generations between Schütz and J.S.Bach, which makes them contemporaries of Froberger and Buxtehude. The surprising thing is to find that some at least are as fine as those two great but undervalued talents. Not that they all come out of the same stylistic stable. The prolific J.E.Kindermann, for instance, studied in Italy before settling in Nuremberg, and there are strong reminiscences of Monteverdi in the Latin elegy recorded here.

Johann Fischer, on the other hand (not the same as the better-known J.C.F.Fischer or the rather earlier Prussian composer Johannes Fischer), served as one of Lully's copyists in Paris before returning to Germany and eventually seeking his fortune in Scandinavia and Poland. For me, the most rewarding discovery of all was Christian Geist, who apparently worked in Stockholm between 1675 and 1685. His two well-contrasted pieces on this disc (both of them published in Volume 48 of the Erbe deutscher Musik series) are gems, particularly the meditation on St.John's account of the burial of Christ, with its haunting chromatic refrain.

The general character of this music is rich and sombre, as one might expect from the disc's collective title, and this is emphasised by the make-up of the oddly named Charivari Agréable Simfonie. This Oxford-based group has a nucleus of violone, theorbo and keyboards, the latter played by its director, Kah-Ming Ng. On this disc they are supplemented by three more low strings and occasionally a Baroque violin. Blend and intonation are impeccable and the variety of the music itself prevents monotony.

The one composer here who doesn't belong to the German Baroque tradition is Joseph-Hector Fiocco, one of a family of Italian musicians who had settled in Brussels before he was born in 1703. Like Francois Couperin, whose music he certainly knew, he composed a set of Lamentations (Leçons de ténèbres) for the three days that end Holy Week; unlike Couperin's they survive complete. What we have here is the first of the three lessons for the second day (liturgically specified for Good Friday, but sung at this time on the preceding day). Here, as throughout the whole record, the Chilean-born tenor Rodrigo del Pozo sings with mellifluous tone and great sensitivity to the words. All the same I rather wish this particular item had been given to a soprano, as I'm sure Fiocco intended: it would have helped to point up the very real difference between this and all the rest of the music on the record. No matter. It's still a disc that I can recommend wholeheartedly to anyone with a taste for Baroque music and a willingness to explore its byways.

Jeremy Noble

Gramophone - May 2000

An imaginative programme of sacred settings with particularly colourful use of viols in the accompaniments … The Charivari Agréable group from Oxford plays all this music with considerable intensity and expressive warmth, with Rodrigo del pozo, a high tenor (high enough to pop up quite often well into treble regions), who is soft in timbre, clear in diction and both unassuming and eloquent in manner. The result is a disc decidedly out of the ordinary.

Stanley Sadie

BBC Radio 3, CD Review

Weeping, wailing and gnashing of chromatic teeth from J.C. Bach’s ‘Ach, dass ich Wassers’ sung by Rodrigo del Pozo with Charivari Agréable Simfonie. That’s new this month from Signum on a CD called ‘Sacred Songs of Sorrow’ … you’ll be shedding tears by the end of it; there are also some things of great beauty hidden away here.

Andrew McGregor

BBC Music Magazine - June 2000

Chilean-born tenor Rodrigo del Pozo has chosen a selection mainly of mid-Baroque German sacred songs for his programme. These are interspersed with instrumental pieces for varying combinations of strings (violins, viols, keyboards and theorbo) played by the Oxford-based ensemble Charivari Agréable Simfonie. It is not difficult to sense in the spirit of these sorrowful texts the aftermath of the Thirty Years War, during which Germany experienced not only savagery but also disease. Basso continuo, concertato techniques and monody, imported from Italy provided 17th-century composers such as Kindermann, who is well represented here, with a wealth of means by which to express the Lutheran faith. A single exception is afforded by a Tenebrae Lesson from a set which Belgian Catholic composer Fiocco composed in 1733. He is, furthermore, the only 18th-century composer to feature here. The best-known piece in this affecting programme is Johann Christoph Bach's lament 'Ach, dass ich Wassers g'nug hätte'. Full of bold and heart-rending harmonies by the most expressively gifted of J.S.Bach's forebears, it never fails to touch my innermost sensibilities. Del Pozo discloses many subtle nuances in his singing, while the instrumental playing - the gamba part is wonderfully rich - is full of rhetorical gesture, imaginative and sonorous. This is, for me at least, the highpoint in a fascinating, emotionally satisfying programme, several of whose songs were quite new to me. A rewarding release.

Nicholas Anderson 

Lute News (the Newsletter of the Lute Society) - June 2000

This CD presents sacred laments by composers of 17th and early 18th century Europe, setting Latin or German texts, and employing as accompanying instruments the lower members of the viol family; a practice encouraged by the migration of bass viol virtuosi from England into Germany and the Low Countries. Harpsichord, organ and Lynda Sayce's warm-voiced theorbo take turns to add colour and definition to the instrumental backdrop, which proves the perfect complement to the high tenor voice of Rodrigo del Pozo: a true counter-tenor if ever there was one, who joins tenor and alto ranges with admirable smoothness and expressiveness. Schütz and Monteverdi lurk in the shadows of much of this music, the latter especially in the opening 'Dum tot carminibus' by Joseph Kindermann. Two other pieces grabbed me particularly. First 'Es war aber an der Statte' by Christian Geist. The opening recitative, setting a passage from St John's gospel is followed by eight verses, all employing the same chromatically falling phrases, lamenting the death of Christ; the effect is mesmerising, and in spite of eight repetitions, increasingly affecting. Then 'Ach, dass ich Wassers g'nug hatte' by J.C.Bach, is a startling outpouring of grief at the personal realisation of sin. It is a searing oil-painting of a piece, in which a deathly tension in the viols at the beginning rises and bursts into heart-rending sights; the use of sequences to express increasing grief is masterly an academic device turned to gold. The vivid word and phrase painting (with sighs echoed by the baroque violin) remind one of Purcell; the vicious pounding towards the end which suggests flagellation seems close to Verdi, while the key change as the viols enter for the repeat at the end of the singer's long diminuendo on the word 'zorns' is pure Schubert. The magnificence of the material is matched by the performances.

Jilly Spencer

Early Music News - April 2000

Here, nicely in time for Holy Week, is another seasonal offering. But where Trinity Baroque's 'Rites of Spring' (reviewed in February) is joyous in conception, 'Sacred Songs of Sorrow' is pervaded by the melancholy tones of the bass viol.

Johannes Erasmus Kindermann (1616-1655) spent most of his life in his native Nuremberg. However, when he was eighteen an enlightened city council provided him with funds to study music in Italy. He may have gone to Venice, where he could hardly have avoided meeting Monteverdi and Cavalli. Dum tot carminibus, a short piece for tenor and continuo 'in stylo recitativo', is here given in an arrangement for four viols: rather a surprise, but beautifully done, with its suggestion (as the notes point out) of Schütz's Resurrection Story. Another Kindermann piece is a triple fugue for organ on three chorale melodies, over almost before it has begun. It comes from Harmonia Organica (1645), a collection that includes early examples of writing for obbligato pedals (but not, I think, here).

The longest of the vocal pieces is from Fiocco's Leçons des ténèbres. Joseph-Hector Fiocco (1803 - 1741) was born in Brussels (but was not 'Belgian-born'!), where he was employed at the royal chapel before moving to Antwerp Cathedral. The imitative introduction to the Lamentatio Prima du Jeudi Saint leads into 'De lamentatione Jeremiae prophetae', which is missing from the booklet. The section following the Hebrew letter 'Teth' seems rather inappropriately jolly, the viols dancing along in thirds; but the mood soon darkens, before a fine rhetorical finish at 'Jerusalem, convertere ad Dominum, Deum tuum'.

Christoph Geist's Es war aber an der Stätte, at twelve minutes nearly as long, is not so engaging. Geist (c.1640-1711) was a German who worked in Stockholm and Copenhagen. This piece begins with an expressive description of the burial of Jesus, but the strophic verses of commentary do pall after five or so.

Ach, dass ich Wassers g'nug hätte, by Johann Christoph Bach is notable for a haunting phrase featuring a diminished fourth, and for the telling use of sequence. Other pieces are by David Schedlich and Johann Fischer, and the disc ends with a Sonata a tre viol da gamba by Johann Michael Nicolai (1629-1685), which itself ends with a peaceful chaconne over a descending four-note figure.

Rodrigo del Pozo is a tenor with a free, effortless upper register. His voice is rather like a less reedy Helmut Krebs (whose wonderful recording of Buxtehude cantatas with Fischer-Dieskau on DG Archiv has still not been issued on CD). He sings musically and expressively, and the viols (leavened once or twice by a baroque violin) are fully his equal. None of the composers represented here is a household name: all credit to charivari agréable and Signum Records (supported by Abjad Ltd.) for their enterprise.

Richard Lawrence

Cathedral Music - Autumn 2000

There is a saying that one can be happy in one's misery. I was certainly thrilled to wallow in the mournful music presented in this disc. These works are mainly by German composers of the generation between Schütz and J.S.Bach, and they both exhibit the influence of the earlier master and foreshadow the style of the later one. The Chilean-born tenor Rodrigo del Pozo's singing is simply gorgeous, with an emotional fervour and luminosity of tone highly reminiscent of the counter-tenor René Jacobs. The ensemble Charivari Agréable Simfonie, produce a deeply sonorous timbre superior to the thin sound of many other early music groups, and their elegant phrasing makes their instruments sing. The highlight of the disc is J.C.Bach's spectacular Ach, dass ich Wassers g'nug hätte ('Oh, that I had tears enough!"), whose dramatic intensity and surprising turns of phrase are well matched by the dynamic control and timing of del Pozo and the ensemble. The material on this disc might appeal more to the connoisseur than the general music-lover. Nonetheless, this is a recording of the highest calibre and, in spite of its title, delivers exquisite pleasure.

Tristan Jones

Viola da Gamba Mitteilungen No. 42 (Switzerland)

Unfortunately this CD recommendation comes a little late for Easter, but this intimate and sensitive music can be enjoyed all year round. This remarkable and recommendable record, played by the young Oxford ensemble Charivari Agréable, shows sacred funeral music from the late 16th- and early 17th-century. And what other instrument than the gamba could be more suitable for this kind of melancholic music ?

The compilation of pieces for this CD follows the Easter story, starting with 2 funeral pieces...followed by Jeremiah's lamentations from the old testament by JH Fiocco … and then the telling of the story of the crucifixion and burial of Christ by Chr. Geist, and at the end an Alleluja. In between pieces by Schedlich, the better known Lament Ach, dass ich Wassers gnug hätte by J CHr Bach, and a fugue for harpsichord, and a Lament by J. Fischer.

The ensemble produces a very integrated and well-balanced sound, beautifully nuanced and articulated, which gives this sensitive music the right expression. Nevertheless, the musicians play very expressively, with regard to dynamics, phrasing and melodic line. In this way they lay a aural foundation on which Rodrigo del Pozo can stand without neglecting the the dialogue between voice and instruments.

The singer could have done more to focus on this dialogue. Despite his very beautiful tenor voice, he relies too heavily on a manner of singing (especially in the first piece) which is a little too affected focuses on beauty of the sound, with a little too much vibrato for my taste. One also notices his lack of articulating consonants clearly in the German pieces, unlike the instruments.

And especially in the piece Ach dass ich Wassers gnug hätte, one has to compare here with the harmonia mundi CD with A. Scholl and the ensemble Concerte di Viole. I personally prefer the simpler version of Scholl to the dramatic interpretation of del Pozo. Also the clear integration of the violin into the viol sound is in my opinion not so ideal.

Despite these few minus points most pieces on this CD work extremely well, and are played most successfully and stirringly. This version of Fiocso's Lamento (originally for Soprano and 2 celli, played here on viols) is especially enjoyable, as is Nicolai's Sonata a tre viol da gamb: The sonorous and homogenous sound of the viols, who are also able to articulate in technically more demanding places, creates, together with the organ and the theorbo the perfect ensemble sound. A beautiful ending to a truly recommendable recording.

Musica (Italy) - September 2000

La lettura del gruppo Charivari Agréable (che agisce sotto la direzione di Kah-Ming Ng) è di prim’ordine. Sofisticata ed elegantissima la resa d’insieme grazie soprattutto ad un fraseggio dettagliato e omogeneo nel respiro del gesto musicale. I perfetti equilibri sonori delle viole da gamba, spesso sostenute dal continuo di tiorba e organo, reescono ad essere al contempo stimolanti per cuore ed intelletto.

Su questo impianto strumentale, nei pezzi vocali, emerge per peculiarità timbrica la voce del cileno Rodrigo del Pozo. Invano, nell’esaustivo booklet che correda il disco, l’ascoltatore cercherà una definizione precisa della vocalità singolare di questo interprete dale doti di raffinatissima elega.

Memory Hit - May 2003

Rating: 5 - A rare pleasure

Add to the growing list of admirable recent recordings of seventeenth century German vocal music, this offering by the instrumental ensemble Charivari Agreable with tenor Rodrigo del Pozo. Consisting primarily of works by lesser known composers, this recording would deserve a place in the collection of lovers of this art regardless of the performances. Happily, these are first rate. Rodrigo del Pozo is new to me, and his voice is certainly hard to categorize. Never mind. He is a wonderfully senstive musician with great feeling for the texts and the style. The prominace of viols in the ensemble lends a generally dark tembre which is appropriate to the settings and which complements del Pozo's plaintive tone.

Rating: 5 - The best solo recital in years

This is the first solo recital from the young Chilean tenor Rodrigo del Pozo. It really deserves your attention. The program is very well chosen. These are songs by some of the "lesser" German composers - hence they are not frequently recorded. The relative obscurity of these songs is reason number one to buy this CD. Reason number two: the singer. Rodrigo del Pozo started his early music career as a lutenist. It so happened, however, that in 1990 he won a scholarship to study voice with the celebrated British tenor Nigel Rogers, and so, luckily for all of us, Rodrigo switched to singing. Among tenors, Rodrigo's voice is one of the most beautiful and easily the most unusual. Not only is his voice meltingly sweet and luminous, but it also boasts an unusually wide range, spanning two adjacent registers - alto and tenor - with no register break. The pieces on this disc (some of which are in the low alto range) show Rodrigo's amazing vocal versatility. All of the pieces here are sung with elegant graces and, even more importantly, with keen attention to the meaning of the text. The most effective piece - by any measure - is Johann Christoph Bach's Ach daß ich Wassers g'nug hätte, exploring the full amplitude of human sorrow and hope, from the brooding beginning ("Oh, if only I had enough tears to lament my failings), to the emphatically pounding syllables on "denn der Herr hat mich voll Jammers gemacht," to the slowly dying note on "Am Tage seines grimmigen Zorns," to the lyrically floating repetition of the first stanza. The result is haunting. I can practically guarantee you that this piece will be etched in your memory for ever.

gggimpy@yahoo.com