Search - Johann Adolf Hasse, Reinhard Goebel, Musica Antiqua Köln :: Hasse: Salve Regina

Not Convincing

Giordano Bruno | Wherever I am, I am. | 06/25/2008

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Reinhard Goebel, the great Baroque violinist and leader of Musica Antiqua Köln, argues that the neglect of Johann Hasse's music, even during the vibrant revival of the Baroque in our times, is due to competition among regions of Germany and to the predominance of Protestant musicologists in the early decades of the 20th Century. It's certainly true that Hasse (1699-1783) was enormously successful and widely known in his lifetime. He was the favored composer of Augustus the Strong, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, and royal patronage continued after Augustus's death even though the new rulers were indifferent to music. Hasse was so privileged, in fact, that he wasn't required to live in Dresden or Warsaw, but rather spent most of his years in Italy, especially in sunny Naples, composing roughly a zillion operas, many of them lost now but extremely popular until being eclipsed by Gluck. Hasse wrote two zillion flute concerti, apparently for the pleasure of Frederick the Great, and three blastillion other sonatas, cantatas, regattas, and forgottas, the majority of which haven't even been catalogued.



The selections on this CD, frankly, make less than a convincing case for Hasse's greatness in comparison to contemporaries like Scarlatti, Handel, Telemann, and Bach. The three instrumental compositions are elegant and sonorous, but not especially distinctive. Hasse chose to write in the galante homophonic style popular in his era rather than in the more difficult and profound old-fashioned manner of Bach. The three vocal compositions - two Salve Reginas and Chori angelici laetantes - are more impressive. The second Salve Regina in E flat major, in fact, is a glorious and emotive piece, good enough to earn my four-star rating for this overall three-star CD. Soprano Barbara Bonney sings it triumphantly.



Naturally the instrumental performance is flawless; that goes without saying on any MAC recording. However, the singing of mezzo-soprano Barbara Fink on the two solo vocal pieces weakens the case for Hasse's grandeur. Her rapid passages are smudgy, her tuning is not impeccable, and she overworks her wobbly vibrato in curiously irrelevant fashion.



Hasse was primarily an opera composer by choice. Any re-assessment of his stature will have to await artful stagings of his operas by first-rank companies. Meanwhile, a much better case for him can be heard on the recording of his cantata "I Pellegrini al Sepolero" by Il Seminario Musicale, and his opera "Cleofide" on CD by William Christie and friends."