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JazzDigger Home > G - Jazz Artists > Basso & Guido Man Gianni > Item 14
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Scherzi Musicali
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by Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber, Johann Caspar Ferdinand Fischer, Johann Joseph Fux, Marin Marais, and Johann Heinrich Schmelzer
Sales Rank: 505616
Price:$18.10
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Listener Reviews & Comments
This CD is a hoot! It opens with Johann Fischer's (1646-1716) "Musical Composition on the world-famous Lüneburrg Salt Refinery", a plodding piece depicting the toiling of salt and brine makers. Next in line is Georg Phillip Telemann's "Gulliver" Suite from "Der getreue Music-Meister" which was written upon the appearance of the German translation of "Gulliver's Travels". There are movements for the Lilliputians, Brobdingnagians, Laputans, Houyhnbnms, and the boorish Yahoos. Johann Joseph Fux's Synfonia, K. 331 (the same Köchel of Mozart fame) has no subtitle, but its individual movements describe the occupants of foreign lands including the Turks, the Gauls, and the Janissaries. A piece for viola da gamba and basso continuo from Marin Maris musically outlines the procedure for removing a gaul stone or kidney stone with screeching narration in French. The highlight of this whole disc, however, is Johann Heinrich Schmelzer's sonata "On the day of the fart", in which two violins and two violas construct a very elegant baroque consort sonata with the added commentary of a very raucous and pungent bassoon part. The sonata begins in a stately enough fashion with Schmelzer laying out each musical idea and repeating it in typical consort music fashion. After a couple of these ideas, the bassoon, as a dinner guest with an overly active digestive tract, interrupts the proceedings by breaking wind in no uncertain terms. This raucous basson farting just had my wife and I laughing our heads off. As Mozart purportedly said, "Everyone understands how to play a splendid arse basson." Needless to say, the bassoon gets to end the sonata with a final flatulent blast. The Compagney then gives a rousing performance of Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber's Sonata Representativa for solo violin with its tweeting and chirping bird calls. To end the program, Schmelzer gets a chance at redemption with the well-mannered sonata "The Fencing School" for two violins, viola, and basso continuo. After Schmelzer's gastro-intestinal endeavors, the thrusting and parrying of the fencers is reminiscent of more dignified aspects of court life in 17th Germany. Anyway, this CD is well worth having for Schmelzer's farting sonata, the Fux symphony, and Fischer's tribute to the salt workers alone. The rest of the program is equally well played. Berliner Barock Compagney performs on period instruments, which is especially important, because there's no way a modern instrument could produce the sounds needed to pull off the antics of the bassoon player in Schmelzer's farting sonata. FYI, the CD cover lists the performing time as 50 minutes, but the inside notes state 67 minutes, which is correct. All in all, the is a well filled, nicely played CD of some of the more creative output from German baroque composers who flourished in the late 17th and early 18th centuries.
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Scherzi Musicali
by Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber, Johann Caspar Ferdinand Fischer, Johann Joseph Fux, Marin Marais, and Johann Heinrich Schmelzer
Price:$18.10
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|
|
