1. SON OF SAM 2. SOMEBODY THAT I USED TO KNOW 3. JUNK BOND TRADER 4. EVERYTHING REMINDS ME OF HER 5. EVERYTHING MEANS NOTHING TO ME 6. LA 7. IN THE LOST AND FOUND (HONKY BEACH) THE ROOST 8. STUPIDITY TRIES 9. EASY WAY OUT 10. WOULDN'T MAMA BE PRO
Welcome to the weird and wonderful world of Vivaldi's multiple-instrument concertos!The term 'con molti istromenti' (Vivaldi's own) refers not so much to the literal number of instruments involved as to their variety and unusual deployment. For an Italian concerto of the period to use wind instruments at all would be unusual; Vivaldi combines recorders, oboes, chalumeaux, horns and bassoons alongside a wide-ranging complement of strings, itself including viole all'inglese and the even more obscure violins 'in tromba marina'.The composer's opportunity to write such works arose largely from the talented pool of girls available at the Pietà orphanage in Venice. These expert musicians would turn their hands to whatever Vivaldi could possibly desire and the resultant scoring is colourful (sometimes outrageously so) and inexhaustibly inventive.Introduction EnglishFrançaisDeutschFive of the seven works featured on this recording belong to a kind of concerto that scholars of all nationalities tend to call, for want of a better alternative, the ‘concerto con molti istromenti’ (literally, ‘concerto with several instruments’). The description is Vivaldi’s own and appears as a heading in two of his manuscripts (one of them that of RV555). It corresponds exactly, in translation, to the expression ‘concerts avec plusieurs instruments’ used by Bach for his six Brandenburg Concertos. ‘Molti’ and ‘plusieurs’ refer less to the total number of instruments employed—one could, after all, perform conventional solo concertos with heavily doubled orchestral parts, so increasing the number of instruments without limit—than to their variety. Vivaldi, like Bach, revels in contrast, in the combination or juxtaposition of rare, or rarely associated, instruments.‘Concerti con molti istromenti’ were very unusual in Italy, much more common in Germany. The main reason for their rarity south of the Alps must have been the relative paucity of wind instruments (whose presence is normal in such concertos). Exceptionally among his Italian contemporaries, Vivaldi wrote them in considerable quantity: about thirty survive. The need to produce them probably occurred irregularly, in connection with special events. Most of the concertos can be associated with one of four venues or types of event.The largest and most interesting group belonged to the repertoire of the Ospedale della Pietà, the home for foundlings that was one of four such charitable institutions (known as ospedali grandi) found within Venice. All four systematically trained a section of their female population as musicians, both vocalists and instrumentalists. These musicians, who collectively made up the coro (literally, ‘choir’, but in this instance including the instrumentalists as well), performed regularly at services in the respective institution’s chapel. The prime purpose of these performances, viewed as remarkable throughout Europe on account of the musicians’ extraordinary proficiency (especially in relation to their gender), was to earn the favour of the local and visiting public, which would then, it was hoped, result in legacies or similar benefits. While all four ospedali boasted choirs capable of vying with one another, the Pietà (which, as the most populous, had the largest pool of talent on which to draw) was, in Vivaldi’s day, unrivalled in the sphere of instrumental music. A French connoisseur of music, Charles de Brosses, wrote in 1739: ‘Out of the four ospedali, the one that I visit most often, and where I enjoy myself most, is the Pietà; it is also the best for instrumental music. What disciplined playing! It is only there that one hears the impeccably coordinated attack [premier coup d’archet] on which the Paris Opéra so falsely prides itself.’ The Pietà assembled, over the years, a huge and diverse instrumentarium for the benefit of the girls and women of the coro. When Charles de Brosses enthuses, ‘[they] play the violin, the flute, the organ, the oboe, the cello, the bassoon; in short, there is no instrument large enough to scare them’, he is actually understating the case. Instruments rare enough anywhere—and virtually unknown in Italy—found their way into the Pietà. Among the stringed instruments were the viola d’amore, with its six fingered and six resonating strings, the viola all’inglese (a mysterious six-stringed instrument built in several sizes whose middle member Leopold Mozart referred to, a few decades later, as the ‘Englisches Violett’, or ‘English Viola’) and two violins specially modified in an unknown way to sound like trombe marine (these ‘trumpets marine’ were a kind of bowed monochord that produced a peculiar rattling sound on account of their freely vibrating bridge). Among the woodwind instruments were at least two sizes of chalumeau (elder cousin to the clarinet which, lacking a speaker key, played mostly in its fundamental register), the clarinet itself (whose presence in Vivaldi’s oratorio Juditha Triumphans of 1716 (recorded by the same artists on Hyperion CDA67281/2) marks its first datable appearance in an Italian score), the sopranino recorder and perhaps also the flageolet. Trumpets were also available, although the horn was not cultivated until 1747, after Vivaldi’s death. Many members of the coro played several instruments, including some of the more exotic ones. For instance, the famous violinist Anna Maria is lauded (in an anonymous poem dating from the middle of the 1730s) for her equal mastery of the harpsichord, cello, viola d’amore, lute, theorbo and mandolin.To accommodate this wealth of instruments and talented performers, the Pietà appended purely instrumental music to its services. After the finish of what was called the ‘ordinary’ music (at Vespers this would constitute the five Psalms and a Magnificat, to which, perhaps, a few motets for solo voice would be added), the instrumentalists treated the congregation to a feast of orchestral playing. As described by an anonymous German visitor in 1725: ‘When the singing is done, there customarily follows, at the Pietà, a splendid concert, which always deserves to be heard as much as a whole opera.’During such performances the female instrumentalists, who could number over twenty, were largely invisible to the congregation-cum-audience for reasons of decorum. In the galleries at the sides of the chapel their forms were obscured by grilles, over which black gauze was draped for added concealment. However, this invisibility gave them, and the composers who worked for them, the advantage of surprise. Players could exchange instruments out of public view, and intriguing new sounds could emerge without warning. And because the Pietà’s orchestra was an unusually subservient body (all its members—even the internationally famous ‘stars’—were in legal terms only wards of the institution), inequalities and inconsistencies in the use of solo instruments could be tolerated without ruffling any feathers. In a way, the Pietà’s players prefigured the ‘session’ musicians of today: competent, versatile and pliable in high degree.Vivaldi’s close links with the Pietà (at various times, as teacher of the violin and other stringed instruments, director of the orchestra and purveyor of musical compositions) during most of his working life require little comment. So far as the composition of concertos was concerned, his most productive period was that stretching from 1723 to 1729, during which time he supplied the Pietà by contract with two concertos every month, attaining a total of almost one hundred and fifty. Most of these were conventional solo concertos, but there was scope for several other kinds: with two or more soloists; with no soloists; with soloists but no orchestra; for divided ensemble.The second natural ‘home’ for concertos with several soloists was the opera house. Opera orchestras of Vivaldi’s day regularly included, in addition to the usual strings and continuo instruments, a pair of oboes (capable of doubling on other wind instruments), one or more bassoons and a pair of horns. Occasionally, unusual instruments such as the psaltery and the viola d’amore were added for special expressive effect in an aria, thereby becoming available for use also in the instrumental music heard before and during the opera. Later in the century the critic and biographer J A Hiller identified Vivaldi’s Concerto RV571, which has parts for two oboes, two horns and bassoon, as one performed at a Venetian opera house (evidently that of S. Angelo) in 1717. He may have been wrong over the precise identification (the surviving score in Dresden was not copied—in Venice, by the flautist J J Quantz—until 1726), but the type of concerto seems exactly right.Lavishly scored concertos could also be suited to church festivals for which especially large orchestras were recruited. For instance, the two fashionable Venetian convents of S. Lorenzo and S. Maria della Celestia went to enormous expense each year to obtain the services of the leading musicians, not merely of Venice but of the whole peninsula, for their respective patronal festivals.Finally, a few permanent orchestras, mainly outside Italy, were equipped to perform them. Vivaldi enjoyed especially close relations with the orchestra of the Saxon court based at Dresden ever since the visit to the Pietà of the electoral prince (later Frederick Augustus II) in 1712. In 1716 the leading violinist of the court orchestra (Hofkapelle), Johann Georg Pisendel, accompanied the same prince on a longer visit to Venice, becoming Vivaldi’s pupil, friend and (after his return) enthusiastic advocate. The Hofkapelle boasted numerous expert wind players who naturally required exposure in the form of solo parts. Two of Vivaldi’s ‘concerti con molti istromenti’—RV576 and 577—were expressly written by Vivaldi for this orchestra, and the very numerous concertos of this type preserved in the court musical archive (today held by the Sächsische Landesbibliothek) point to its importance as a destination for heavily scored works. Moreover, Pisendel, no mean composer himself, was in the habit of ‘customizing’ orchestral works taken into the repertoire of the Hofkapelle, of which he became director in 1729; in this way, not a few conventional concertos have been transformed, via his handiwork, into synthetic ‘concerti con molti istromenti’!When discussing the character of Vivaldi’s concertos of this type, one must be careful to distinguish between the form, which is, in Vivaldian terms, perfectly conventional, and the scoring, which is colourful (sometimes outrageously so) and inexhaustibly inventive. In ‘solo’ sections the multiple soloists appear variously in alternation and in combination with each other. The patterns that their interplay creates are deliberately kept unpredictable, subject to no routine. In ‘tutti’ sections, where in ordinary solo concertos the soloist merely doubles the appropriate orchestral line, Vivaldi adopts a surprisingly progressive approach that anticipates the symphonic practice of the second half of the eighteenth century. Here, the solo instruments frequently have independent, or semi-independent, parts. These are not necessarily prominent, but they give the orchestral texture an added warmth and richness.RV574, whose two instruments named as ‘tromboni da caccia’ are merely trompes de chasse, or horns, is almost certainly an ‘opera-house’ concerto. Its partly autograph score is headed, in Vivaldi’s hand, ‘Concerto per S.A.S.I.S.P.G.M.D.G.S.M.B.’. Many have tried their hand at interpreting this dedication, but a plausible solution arrived only in 1995, when Carlo Vitali completed the initials to read: ‘Sua Altezza Serenissima Il Signor Principe Giuseppe Maria De’ Gonzaga Signor Mio Benignissimo’ (‘His Most Serene Highness My Lord Prince Giuseppe Maria De’ Gonzaga, My Most Kind Master’). Gonzaga, the music-loving younger brother of the duke of the small territory of Guastalla (adjoining Mantua), was in fact Vivaldi’s choice of dedicatee for the printed libretto of an opera performed under his direction at S. Angelo in early 1714, so it would not be too fanciful to identify the concerto as entr’acte music for that very occasion.The evocative Concerto funebre, RV579, was probably written in the mid-1720s for performance at the funeral of a patron or governor of the Pietà. The highly original, indeed unique, combination of a muted oboe, a tenor chalumeau and a trio (two soprano instruments and one bass) of viole all’inglese, accompanied by muted strings, lends this work a suitably lugubrious tone, which is only lightened a little when the mutes come off for the fourth movement. The slow opening movement is an adaptation of a sinfonia for a solemn procession to an execution in Vivaldi’s opera Tito Manlio (1719), while the fourth movement borrows the material of the finale of the Concerto without soloist RV123.RV562—composed, according to its title, for the feast of St Lawrence—was copied out by Pisendel during his Venetian sojourn of 1716/7. It may therefore relate to the celebration of this martyr’s feast on 9/10 August 1716. Since, according to its liturgical calendar, the Pietà did not celebrate this feast with music (other than chant), it is very possible that Vivaldi composed the concerto for the Venetian convent dedicated to the saint, and that either he or Pisendel took the prominent solo violin part. The written-out cadenza for the third movement recycles material used earlier in that of the Concerto RV208. Such self-borrowing was facilitated by the fact that cadenzas acquired the habit of referring directly to the main material of the movement only much later in the century; being athematic, they possessed a ‘passe-partout’ quality.RV97 is a real oddity: a ‘chamber’ concerto without orchestral strings that in other respects adopts all the mannerisms of a ‘concerto con molti istromenti’ in F major, right down to the allusions to hunting calls (and, by extension, to the world of princely courts) associated with horns playing in this key. Vivaldi could well have written the viola d’amore part for himself to play (a recently discovered document records that on 25 April 1717, passing through the town of Cento, he played this instrument at Vespers in the Church of the Holy Name of God, which was ‘so packed with people that they struggled among themselves and spilled out half way into the street’). Another peculiarity is the presence of an introductory slow movement, a feature otherwise almost unknown among Vivaldi’s concertos without orchestra. It is certainly a mature (post-1720) work; I suspect that it was written for an intimate private concert held in honour of some nobleman.The Concerto RV781, formerly designated RV563 in Peter Ryom’s general catalogue of Vivaldi’s works, is technically only a ‘double’ concerto, since the third solo instrument, a violin, appears separately, and only in the central slow movement. It survives only in a contemporary copy in Vienna. The wind parts are nominally for oboe, but they observe the style, and the restricted choice of notes, of the natural trumpet. This has led several scholars to speculate whether, in fact, the intended instruments are not trumpets rather than oboes, a view to which the present recording subscribes. (Actually, the question is more complex than at first it seems, since the oboe was frequently used in the early eighteenth century as an ersatz trumpet; consider, for example, the use of the solo oboe as a partner to the solo trumpet in the opening movement of Vivaldi’s Gloria, RV589.) What is not in doubt is the very early date of the concerto; it may have been composed before 1710 when Vivaldi was still groping towards the style that finally blazed forth in L’estro armonico of 1711.RV555, the most extravagantly scored of all the concertos in this recording, poses a riddle—the identity of the pair of instruments that appear for the first time in the finale and are labelled ‘2 Trombe’. The problem with accepting this designation at face value is that these parts, while often fanfare-like in character and therefore related in a general sense to the trumpet style, contain too many notes in the octave above middle C that are unplayable on the natural instrument. There are other technical difficulties, and also problems of balance with the rest of the ensemble. Robert King’s novel solution, which I find fully convincing, is to interpret trombe as a shorthand form of violini in tromba marina (the recording employs ordinary violins played near the bridge and making maximum use of harmonics in an attempt to simulate the historical instruments). There is a precedent for this. For a similar concerto in C major, RV558 (specially written for a visit of Frederick Augustus’ son to the Pietà in 1740), Vivaldi’s copyist wrote ‘violini in tromba marina’ on the title-page but abbreviated this to ‘trombe’ or ‘trombe marine’ in the score itself. The relevant parts in RV555 possess exactly the same general characteristics as those in RV558. Similarly, the ‘violino in tromba’ required in the solo concertos RV221, 311 and 313 may in reality be, as argued by Cesare Fertonani in a recent book on Vivaldi’s instrumental music, a ‘violino in tromba marina’. The point is that, with Vivaldi, so many options remain open: what was yesterday’s heresy can so easily turn into today’s orthodoxy.RV566, probably also dating from the 1720s and written for the Pietà, features as its solo instruments pairs of recorders, oboes and violins. It is noteworthy how, in the outer movements, the solo episodes are almost entirely reserved for the violins (as in an orthodox concerto for two violins), although the wind instruments have plenty of ‘solo’ phrases to play during the tutti (ritornello) sections. As so often in his concertos, Vivaldi gives the central slow movement a chamber-music scoring, reserving it for a trio of recorders and bassoon.Michael Talbot © 1998
Tracklista:1. Down 8 Up 52. Culture of None3. A Fine Mess4. This May Get Ugly5. The Soul Goodbye6. That Was Then7. The New Normal
Tracklista: CD 1 1. Muscle Shoals Blues 2. Birmingham Blues 3. 'Taint Nobody's Bus'ness If I Do 4. You Got Ev'rything a Sweet Mama Needs But Me 5. Mama's Got the Blues 6. Last Go Round Blues 7. Stingaree Blues 8. You Can't Do What My Last Man Did 9. Sister Kate 10. You Can't Do What My Last Man Did 11. Trixie Blues 12. I'm Cert'ny Gonna See 'Bout That 13. Squabbling Blues 14. In Harlem's Araby 15. You Don't Know My Mind Blues 16. West Indies Blues 17. Maybe Someday 18. (I'm Gonna See You) When Your Troubles Are Just Like Mine 19. You Get Mad 20. What's the Matter Now? 21. Nobody Knows de Trouble I See 22. Couldn't Hear Nobody Pray 23. Ain't Got Nobody to Grind Ma Coffee 24. Mama's Losin' a Mighty Good Chance 25. The Henderson Stomp 26. The Chant CD 2 1. St Louis Blues 2. Lenox Avenue Blues 3. What Do You Know About That 4. Shut Your Mouth 5. Soothin' Syrup Stomp 6. Sloppy Water Blues 7. Loveless Love 8. Messin' Around with the Blues 9. The Rusty Pail 10. Stompin' the Bug 11. Hog-Maw Stomp 12. Blue Black Bottom Stomp 13. Whiteman Stomp 14. I'm Coming Virginia 15. Preach the Word 16. I'll Just Stand and Ring My Hands and Cry 17. True Friendship 18. The Christians' Trouble Is Ended 19. Sugar 20. Sugar 21. Beale Street Blues 22. Beale Street Blues 23. I'm Going to See My Ma 24. "Fats" Waller Stomp 25. Savannah Blues CD 3 1. Won't You Take Me Home 2. My Old Daddy's Got a Brand New Way to Love 3. Anything That Happens Just Pleases Me 4. I've Got the Joogie Blues 5. Florence 6. Gone But Not Forgotten 7. You Live on in Memory 8. Bye-Bye Florence 9. He's Gone Away 10. I Ain't Got Nobody 11. The Digah's Stomp 12. Red Hot Dan 13. Geechee 14. Please Take Me out of Jail 15. Back in Your Own Back Yard 16. Nobody Knows How Much I Love You 17. What's the Use of Being Alone? 18. Original Blues 19. Willow Tree 20. 'Sippi 21. Thou Swell 22. Persian Rug 23. Chicago Blues 24. Mournful Tho'ts CD 4 1. You Can't Do What My Last Man Did 2. Trixie Blues 3. St Louis Blues 4. What Do You Know About That 5. Shut Your Mouth 6. Soothin' Syrup Stomp 7. Sloppy Water 8. Messin' Around with the Blues 9. The Rusty Pail 10. Stompin' the Bug 11. Hog-Maw Stomp 12. "Fats" Waller Stomp 13. Savannah Blues 14. Won't You Take Me Home 15. My Old Daddy's Got a Brand New Way to Love 16. Anything That Happens Just Pleases Me 17. I've Got the Joogie Blues 18. He's Gone Away 19. The Digah's Stomp 20. Red Hot Dan 21. Geechee 22. Please Take Me out of Jail 23. Willow Tree 24. 'Sippi 25. Thou Swell
Tracklista: CD 1 1. Ring of Fire 2. Jolene 3. Take Me Home, Country Roads 4. I'll Be Your Baby Tonight 5. Only the Lonely (Know the Way I Feel) 6. Burning Love 7. On the Road Again 8. The Gambler 9. Help Me Make It Through the Night 10. Time's a Wastin' 11. Crazy 12. Don't It Make My Brown Eyes Blue 13. Kiss an Angel Good Mornin' 14. Like the Rain 15. Coal Miner's Daughter 16. Redneck Woman 17. Back in My Younger Days 18. Mama Tried 19. Vincent 20. Me and Bobby McGee CD 2 1. Islands in the Stream 2. Wichita Lineman 3. Delta Dawn 4. Jackson 5. Lovesick Blues 6. Ode to Billie Joe 7. Love Hurts 8. Sixteen Tons 9. The Devil Went Down to Georgia 10. Highwayman 11. Jacksonville Skyline 12. My Church 13. Master Pretender 14. Nashville Grey Skies 15. Carry You Home 16. Stay 17. Fancy 18. Before He Cheats 19. Your Man 20. Need You Now CD 3 1. That Don't Impress Me Much 2. All I Wanna Do 3. 9 to 5 4. Dance the Night Away 5. Achy Breaky Heart 6. Stand By Your Man 7. Follow Me 8. When You're in Love With a Beautiful Woman 9. It's Five O'clock Somewhere 10. He Stopped Loving Her Today 11. Good Hearted Woman 12. Sea of Heartbreak 13. El Paso 14. You Never Even Called Me By My Name 15. Rose Garden 16. The Most Beautiful Girl 17. Long Haired Country Boy 18. Meet in the Middle 19. Killin' Time 20. All My Ex's Live in Texas
Tracklista:1. Love Walked In2. I Was Doing All Right3. Love Is Here to Stay4. Dawn of a New Day5. Changing My Tune6. Aren't You Kind of Glad We Did?7. For You, for Me, for Evermore8. Summertime9. (a) Summertime & Crap Game; (b) A Woman Is A Sometime Thing10. My Man's Gone Now11. It Takes A Long Pull To Get There12. I Got Plenty O' Nuttin'13. The Buzzard Song14. Bess, You Is My Woman Now15. It Ain't Necessarily So16. Where Is My Bess?17. Looking for a Boy18. When Do We Dance?19. That Certain Feeling20. Sweet and Low Down21. Maybye22. Clap Yo' Hands23. Do, Do, Do24. Someone to Watch Over Me25. (a) 'S Wonderful; (b) Funny Face
Tracklista: 1. Sally Sue Brown2. The Girl That Radiates That Charm3. You Better Move On (Single Version)4. A Shot of Rhythm and Blues5. Where Have You Been?6. Soldier of Love7. Anna (Go to Him)8. I Hang My Head and Cry9. Go Home Girl10. You're the Reason11. Dream Girl12. I Wonder Where You Are Tonight13. Pretty Girls Everywhere14. Baby, Baby15. Where Did Sally Go16. Keep Her Guessin'17. You Better Move On (LP Version)18. Love Letters19. Hey! Baby20. Funny How Time Slips Away21. Young World22. A Thousand Stars23. A Hundred Pounds of Clay24. Lover Please25. Love Me Warm and Tender26. The Wanderer27. Don't Break the Heart That Loves You
1 Empty Sky 8:282 Val-Hala 4:123 Western Ford Gateway 3:164 Hymn 2000 4:295 Lady What's Tomorrow 3:106 Sails 3:457 The Scaffold 3:188 Skyline Pigeon 3:379 Gulliver/It's Hay Chewed/Reprise 6:5910 Lady Samantha Bonus Track 3:0211 All Across the Havens Bonus Track 2:5312 It's Me That You Need Bonus Track 4:0413 Just Like Strange Rain Bonus Track 3:43
Tracklista: LP 1 Side A 1. The Sunset Gate 2. Beyond They Dwell 3. The Restless Ones 4. They Cast Their Spell Side B 1. We Slept, We Dreamed 2. The Years Were Sped 3. Our Foe Revealed LP 2 Side C 1. Toward Home We Fled 2. As The Sun Dipped Low 3. The Wolf Gave Chase 4. We Fell At Last 5. In That Lonely Place Side D 1. Where Sorrows Died And Came No More Bonus Tracks: 2. Dancers In Twilight 3. And Then She Sighed 4. A Grain Of Sand
Tracklista:1. Two Cats4. Double Duty Lovin'6. Stuk On This Gal and Spin That Bottle7. Bow Legged Woman2. Cause of You3. I've Done Gone Hot Wild5. Movin' On8. If There's Any Justice