Deutsche Grammophon's Archiv Produktion al fresco series is designed both to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Archiv label and to revive some significant items in the Archiv catalog that have been out of print for some time.
Musica Antiqua Köln's
Reinhard Goebel has two issues in the al fresco series; a disc of concerti scored for four solo violins and this, his 1997 recording of Hasse's Salve Regina. While it was warmly reviewed in some quarters, this album didn't have a lot of takers the first time around, so its inclusion in the al fresco series is a particularly appropriate choice. The al fresco discs are light on packaging, and to retrieve one's liner notes, one must go to the Deutsche Grammophon website. Once there, the purchaser is told to sign in using the password supplied "at the end of the lyric booklet," though that is a problem, as neither lyrics, nor booklet, are included in the package. Careful eyes may locate the password in the CD tray, under the disc.
Johann Adolf Hasse was once a household name in Europe, he was Frederick the Great's personal favorite composer and the most popular figure, particularly as it pertained to opera, from the time of Bach until the rise of Mozart, whose ascent he lived to witness. Hasse's dominance in German-speaking lands came, to some extent, to the exclusion of other composers of worth, and conductor
Reinhard Goebel, in his notes for Archiv's Hasse: Salve Regina featuring his group
Musica Antiqua Köln, suggests that Hasse's current lack of renown may be a corrective of history, out of "a desire to see fair play." Nevertheless,
Goebel attempts here to make the best case for Hasse, utilizing works Hasse composed in Dresden in the 1730s that somehow escaped the flames, and indeed, there remain mountains of unpublished music by Hasse extant, though proper documentation awaits the better part of it.
The works here include sinfonias written for the operas Cleofide (1731) and Asteria (1737), two settings of the Salve Regina (1730, 1767 -- altogether he set this text some 13 times), the motet Chori angelici laetantes, and an orchestral Fuga e Grave in G minor, which even
Goebel admits might be the work of Franz Xaver Richter. With its sighing chromaticisms and turbulent rhythmic profile, it certainly sounds more like Richter, not to mention that its three-movement scheme more resembles a sinfonia, as it is titled in the source named for Richter, than a "Fuga e Grave." The rest of the music here, all rightly credited to Hasse alone, maintains a distinct and consistent profile throughout. The Cleofide sinfonia is bright, witty, ingratiating, and somehow deeply boring. The earlier of the two Salves was very popular in its time; it was available in print by 1736, and no less than 12 manuscript copies of the work scattered throughout Europe's libraries are attested to in Grove's. The vocal line is gracious and not too tough on alto
Bernarda Fink, who performs it splendidly well, and the orchestral writing is light and unobtrusive. To some extent
Musica Antiqua Köln's pristine performances of this music tends to heighten the sense of boredom; a sole descending figure in the second of the Salves is the only detail that really stands out -- the rest is like an undisturbed pool with no ripples on the surface.
Goebel clearly values this music, and
Musica Antiqua Köln's Hasse: Salve Regina is a noble attempt to restore Hasse's vaunted reputation, but on the "wow me" scale, it ranks somewhere below the bottom. It appears that the historical corrective concerning Hasse relates to more than his extraordinary success; his relative lack of concern about posterity and innate understanding of what the nobility expected in music have both contributed to his obscurity. That is not a "quirk" of history so much as history working as it should, and while this is beautifully performed and recorded, one feels compelled to say thanks, but no thanks.