Arias for Bass - Nahuel Di Pierro & Ensemble Diderot
This is not the first time Johannes Pramsohler and his Ensemble Diderot have devoted a disc to vocal music; however in this album featuring arias for bass, starring Nahuel Di Pierro, the forces of the ensemble have blossomed to a full-sized orchestra, including the requisite for winds, when called for, including recorders, oboes, and trumpets. The string ensemble, while larger, never for me took on a gargantuan sound in this recording, again for the ensemble, on their own label, Audax. Instead, things just sound right, inflated ever so much, from their usual chamber formation.
The composers represented is long, including M. Rossi, Monteverdi, Cavalli, Ziani, Bononcini, Handel, A. Scarlatti, and Vivaldi, not to mention Giannettini (he’s not a composer that easily comes to mind!). I’ll be honest, I’m drawn first, more often than not, to albums such as these when they feature sopranos and countertenors (first), then maybe tenors. This is totally personal in nature. While I am no expert in singing, I know enough about baroque musical history to know aesthetics behind vocal music and the varying opinions on the creation of one’s sound as as vocalist. Di Pierro has an affective voice and style, but he does exercise a healthy vibrato. His work seems to extend beyond period music, and any singer today educated for the stage as an operatic specialist will be taught how to sing with vibrato. The highlights of his style might be best captured in the 13th track of this album, a Handelian aria that exposes the bottom of his gamut with great effect.
The use of vibrato by singers in the late baroque (which of course is beyond the scope of music on this album) is today still a controversial affair, given differing opinions in the historical literature; however the continuous use of vibrato was probably not commonplace (at least in the earlier half of the period), despite being advocated by some writers. One could say the same about use of vibrato on the violin; its emergence in practice seems connected to offering an ornamental effect. This is not the first time that an HIPP ensemble has employed a vocalist(s) who do not always specialize in vocal practices of the time, using, most often, continuous vibrato. Probably the greatest example of a mismatch of performance styles belongs to the recordings made by Musica Antiqua of Cologne, whose former director’s violin is employed by our current director Mr. Pramsohler. (This was not uniform, across their long gamut of discography, but I recall albums featuring C. Schaeffer and Sofie Von Otter, as at least two examples, who excel in later baroque and classical repertoire, but again, applied a uniform style to earlier works. What I cannot honestly speak to is what control conductors have when working with singers, or if every conductor has expertise in vocal style. I use this example as simply one to illustrate this is not new.)
I feel I need to bring this issue to light because this is, in fact, not unlike a period group, using limited vibrato with gut-strung instruments and period winds to invite a soloist playing a fully contemporary instrument. Such a combination doesn’t make sense to me. To the point where some violinists want to join Club Baroque, they may at least play using a period bow, or gut strings, even if the instrument, by all other accounts, is the same one they’d play with steel strings and a contemporary bow, built longer and for a more sustained sound across the entire draw across the string.
All that said, I went through a number of HIPP albums featuring works by Monteverdi, from his opera L’Orfeo, to his more famous madrigals, and many of those using instruments feature vocalists who all employ vibrato. An album by Philippe Jaroussky, the countertenor, featuring Orfeo music was interesting in that his application of vibrato was far from continuous, yet somewhat generous. It was perhaps the best example I could find of vibrato being applied to enhance the individual notes, rather than applying it continuously. Alas, I cannot hold Di Pierro or Pramsohler too critically for a vocal style that is so commonplace. (For a recording that I think strikes a reasonable balance in vocal style, check out the 2021 release of L’Orfeo directed by Leonardo García Alarcón on Alpha.)
Instead of addressing vocal style in the liner notes, Mr. Pramsohler clearly views this album as a guide in helping us understand the role of the bass voice in Italian opera over the baroque period. Therefore, focusing on the writing over Di Pierro’s vocal style is what I feel we’re directed to do. As an orchestra, with a few numbers devoted to the instruments alone, Diderot sounds rich, especially in the bottom, with the lutenist Nicholas Achten sticking out more than once with aplomb. I can’t imagine the ensemble without this instrument, which however it was captured, is given its due and provides that extra bit of bass support. I’ll add that they play consistently well, from the earliest numbers such as Rossi’s Sinfonia from Erminia sul Giordano (1633) to the Handel of the 1730s. Balance favors Di Pierro across the album, but more often than not this balance seems natural.
The support provided by additional singers in the second track’s Monteverdi all matches style well. (Yes, they all adopt vibrato, but not to so would have been a mistake.)
The two tracks by Vivaldi (from operas Tito Manlio & Orlando) don’t for me showcase any special treatment he may have afforded the bass role; the two selections, however, are no doubt Vivaldian and are brilliant, despite their vocal writing, for the instrumental components. The use of crescendo effect wouldn’t have worked nearly as well with a small one-per-part orchestration. Despite Vivaldi’s writing, which in some ways is almost instrumental in construction, Di Pierro does well with the challenges. Sadly the quote from Orlando starts with recitative, which I could do without when listening to these pieces apart from the operatic story. But for illustrating the role of the bass voice, I assume some may like this included for seeing the range of Vivaldi’s writing outside the solitary structure of an aria.
I am always impressed with Alessandro Scarlatti’s writing; Diderot treats us to a sinfonia before a recitative and aria from La Gloria di primavera. Despite their difference in geography, it’s always clear to me that Scarlatti picked up the mantle of style from Corelli and ran with it, bringing to it some modernity and even surpassing Corelli’s affective powers. The singer takes on the role of Jupiter and speaks to his aim in creating the spring season, accompanied by at times almost a jocular but always positive mood.
The pieces by Ziani open with trumpets and timpani, and I give Diderot credit for the extra expense in including these instruments. The first quotation puts the bass in the role of a father, asking his brothers to go to arms to save his daughter. Ziani, in my eyes, is a far better writer for singers than was Vivaldi, at least given these examples for bass.
The aria written by Bononcini features solo violins is a beautiful piece not only for the formal structure that gives a role to the orchestra, voice, and violins separately, but for the power of an ostinato to use a composer’s painterly effects to bring to us the joy of virtuosity. The slower rhythm of the voice’s line over the exquisite violin writing makes the aria especially powerful. Bononcini’s writing for the bass showcases how to write something for a man’s lower register that matches some of the writing he composed for the highest voices. Among all the numbers on this album, I found track 12 to be among my favorites, not only for the writing for voice, but the showcase of the writing for the two solo violins.
Handel on the disc represents the freshest of the repertoire; for these numbers Di Pierro seems well prepared, especially for me, giving his music its Italian flavor. The final track from Rinaldo, and again uses the festive combination of trumpets and drums. For me the text is hard to marry to the rather merry nature of the music (a description of the hissing of Alecto’s serpents!). However one might see the word painting in the form of what the trumpets are asked to do in the background… But as I listened, I could have just have well heard this music (with a different text) used in a Handelian oratorio. That said, Di Pierro is as ever strong in his presentation.
Cavalli’s style is at more home for me; both he and Monteverdi were contemporaries, however Cavalli was somewhat younger than Monteverdi, but he clearly had embraced the seconda prattica in his own writing in the scene from Ercole amante. The direct declaration and the way the bass supports the declaration is sadly what’s missing, for me, in some of the music that comes later in this album. Hercules long presentation is heartfelt, under Di Pierro’s control.
In my own reflection upon this new album I think few can see it as anything more than a sampler, of sorts; and choosing music nearly a hundred years in context alone might not be the wisest approach, given a desire to move an audience with some similar theme, or material. Yet, as stated, the desire here was to showcase the bass voice and how composers used basses to convey fury, to convey a character’s age and wisdom, and how composers came to embrace a change in style over time that embraced lighter and happier contexts.
Di Pierro’s voice, for me, was fairly consistent across the album and the timespan of the pieces presented. There was more variety in the playing style exercised by Ensemble Diderot. The style between, say, the Cavalli track and those by Handel were clearly approached differently by the instrumentalists. I found Di Pierro’s voice to have extremes in both volume, dynamics, and its variety of affect; where I was less impressed was when I realized his consistent use of vocal style was applied across one hundred years worth of music. From my perspective as one interested in historical performance practice, I think I have to take this disappointment and instead view Di Pierro’s approach as one focused on something different, his consistent and affective vocal style. He had as an orchestral accompaniment a great and polished band.
Those finding delight in one or more tracks will want to seek out many of these pieces in their fuller format, and explore the varied and expressive world of Baroque opera. As an album, it serves to educate and get us better-aligned to the period’s style and evolution. Every musical selection presented here has artistic merit. I realize for many the variety of material and potentially unknown composers will present something of an historical exploration.
It’s clear that Di Pierro is willing to perform and embrace these baroque examples and in some regard, this recording aims to promote his ability in this repertoire. Nothing, honestly stood back from me clearly enjoying his artistic gifts and his rich voice.
Sticklers for historical performance practice may have wanted to see more versatility in how Di Pierro applied vibrato. Some variation, for sure, would have made this album even more enjoyable, however, as stated, it’s not what we are going to get. This article, I promise, not to keep beating this as one might due to a dead horse speaks to the complexities of vocal performance and how much contemporary preferences and also subjective preference comes to play into the matter. As I have illustrated, some ensembles are aligned to a vocal style full of energy and variation, without applying vibrato specifically throughout, however these are for me, sadly, not the norm.
The strongest aspect of this new album which will be released soon in November is, I think, the support Di Pierro was provided by an expanded version of Ensemble Diderot. Adding additional players to a close knit group of chamber musicians is not easy to do. Here props must be given to violinist and director Johannes Pramsohler for his direction across this album. For a junkie of listening to sopranos and male altos, this was a refreshing lesson with some honestly good tunes.
