Tanzmusik von der Renaissance bis zum Biedermeier / Dance Music Through The Ages. Ulsamer-Collegium, Ensemble Eduard Melkus. 4 Archiv Produktion 439 964-2 (1994) barcode 028943996426
Not just for the musicology: for pleasure
Originally posted on Amazon.com, 25 February 2015
This 4 CD-set offers a significant compendium and cross-cut of “peasant, bourgeois and courtly” (as the set’s subtitle has it) dance music from the Renaissance to the Biedermeier – the latter being the period in Austria that went from the fall of Napoleon in 1815 to the Revolutions of 1848. It collates the full contents of no less than 6 LPs, recorded between 1971 and 1975, by two different ensembles, Ulsamer Collegium under Josef Ulsamer (CDs 1 & 2) and Eduard Melkus Ensemble under Eduard Melkus (CDs 3 & 4):
CD 1 tracks 1-27 are from “Tanzmusik der Renaissance” (Dance music of the Renaissance), 2533 111 (1972, recorded in November 1971; link will open new tab to listing on Discogs.com), covering the 15th to late 16th centuries (the latest dances by date of publication – if not composition – are those of Jacques/Jacob Paix’s 1583 collection of organ tablature-book, CD 1 tracks 22 & 23).
CD 1 tracks 28-42 and CD 2 tracks 1-15 from “Tanzmusik des Frühbarock”, Dance music of the early baroque, Archiv 2533 150 (recorded in February 1973), covering the period from about 1570 to 1620.
CD 2 tracks 16-51 from “Tanzmusik des Hochbarock”, Dance Music from the High Baroque, Archiv 2533 172 (recorded in February and April 1974), covering the 2nd half of the 17th Century and first half of the 18th.
CD 3 tracks 1-25 from “Tanzmusik des Rokoko”, Rococo Dance Music, Archiv 2533 303 (1975), 2nd half of the 18th century, reigns of Louis 15 in France and Frederick the Great and Maria Theresa in Austria, with works of Carl Philipp Emmanuel Bach, Rameau, Josef Starzer (1726-1787)
CD 3 tracks 26-31 and CD 4 tracks 1-4, from “Tanzmusik Der Wiener Klassik”, Dance Music from the Viennese Classical Era, Archiv 2533 182 (1975), covering the late 18th century and the rise of the Ländler and Contredanse (a Frenchification of the English “country danse”), with works of Gluck, Haydn, Mozart, Salieri, Paul/Pavel Wranitzky, Beethoven and a composer hitherto unknown to me, Joseph Eybler (1764-1846).
CD 4 tracks 5-11 from “Wiener Tänze des Biedermeier”, Viennese Dances from the Biedermeier Period, Archiv 2533 134 (1972), with dances composed between 1812 and circa 1835 by Beethoven, Michael Pamer whose dates make him fit perfectly between Beethoven and Schubert (1782-1827), Moscheles, Schubert and down to Joseph Lanner the last track and, appropriately, the only one in the group to be born in the 19th century (1801).
Some of this material can be found scattered on other budget collections from DG/Universal (see below), but this set is the one that is the most satisfactory, not only because it gives the full contents of these six LPs, but also because it is the most serious in terms of information and musicology. Where many of the others on budget series have only track listings and name of ensembles but no liner notes and no details, the booklet of this one, besides its extended liner notes reprised from the original LPs (and part of their lavish icononography) gives the complete information about works, sources (many still in manuscript form), dates of publication, instrumentation used, individual performers (featuring lutenist/guitarist Konrad Ragossnig in the Ulsamer Collegium programs). The only two things missing are the first names of the composers and/or original compilers in the Renaissance program (you’ve got to do some online research to find out that “J. Paix” is Jacques or Jacob, “F. de la Torre”, Francisco, etc), and dates and places of recordings (I’ve found online those for the Ulsamer Collegium programs). At first look it seemed that the English translation of the instruments used is not provided, and especially with those of the Renaissance and early Baroque one may not be entirely familiar with the “Schalmei” or “Pommer” – but it turns out that these translations are indeed given, but with the complete list of performers.
But the set is valuable not only for its musicology: the music is hugely entertaining, vigorous and invigorating, with welcome interludes of more peaceful atmospheres. A special highlight and treat is the variety, from track to track, of instrumentations – many of the scores from the renaissance and baroque eras do not specify any instrumentation, leaving the choice to the performers – together with the vast array of period instruments used (or copies thereof) and, especially with Ulsamer Collegium, their ear-arousing timbral ruggedness and pungency. I don’t know how much of that great variety of instrumentation is “authentic” – some musicological sources tend to conclude that these works were played in the Renaissance and Baroque eras with much simpler lineups, but I have no complaint on this ground: I listen to music first for entertainment and pleasure, not for historical reconstruction in itself. If this is not “authentic”, in the sense that some of those pieces were never heard at the time played in these specific instrumentations (although all these instruments existed), then change the past. On the other hand the instrumentations of the Eduard Melkus Ensemble are definitely “authentic”, using a small lineup of strings and winds as they may have been heard in Vienna in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, and not the modern-day symphonic approach.
Listening in a row to 4 times 70+ minutes of dances may be too much of a good thing, but one doesn’t HAVE to. I personally have more fascination for the Ulsamer Collegium part of the program, because the dance music from the late 18th and early 19th centuries, as illustrated by Gluck, Haydn, Mozart, Salieri, Wranicky, Beethoven, Schubert, is much more familiar territory, and arguably a minor side of these composers’ output: when you listen to Beethoven, it is not usually for his contredanses or Mödling danses. Still, it remains fascinating to hear the musical styles evolve into these things more famililar to our ears and more present to our culture. It is also amusing to hear that Mozart’s first Contredance, CD 4 track 1, is based on the theme from the “non più andrai” aria in Nozze di Figaro (the contredance is in fact a late work of Mozart), and one of Beethoven’s own contredances, on a theme from the Finale of the Eroica (track 2 at 4:23); one of Wranitzky’s dances in his Quodlibet, track 4, is also the Fandango from Nozze. Gluck’s Ballet music for Orfeo, with its flutes over string pizzicati, and Don Juan (string pizzicatti) is lovely (both on CD 3 track 29). Wranicky’s 10 German Dances (CD 3 track 31) are immensely entertaining, with their use of folk instruments (in the liner notes Melkus explains that he had to go to specialists of old Viennese folk instruments to puzzle out what “bellows”, “coffee-grinder”, “tin of nails” were exactly), Pan flute, portable organ, chime of bells, metal rods, psaltery, hurdy-gurdy, conjuring wonderful echoes of Papageno. With the Viennese classical era the instrumental ensembles also become audibly larger, familiar instruments appear – the horns in the works of Josef Starzer (CD 3 tracsk 13-21, especially noticeable in 14 and 21) and CPE Bach (tracks 23-25), resounding trumpets in the last dance from Wranicky’s Quodlibet (CD 4 track 4), clarinet in Beethoven’s Mödling Dances (CD 4 track 6). And in 1818, the Waltz of the obscure Michael Pamer sounds already like a genuine Straus Waltz; one is not surprised to read in the liner notes that, a successful tavern violinist, he was “active in teaching and encouraging the younger generation, to which Joseph Lanner and Johann Strauss (the elder) belonged”. There is some anticipation of the Strauss waltzes also in Moschelès’ German Dances (CD 4 track 7), and Lanner’s concluding Hungarian Galop is full stops out, a mixture of Strauss’ or Offenbach’s dizzying romps and Berlioz’ Hungarian March.
For those for whom over than 280 minutes of dance music would be too much of a good thing, there are other alternatives:
On a single CD, “Terpsichore: Renaissance and Early Baroque Dance Music”, Archiv 415 294-2 , published some 10 years before the Tanzmusik compilation (link to my review), gathers roughly half of the content of Ulsamer Collegium’s 1972 Renaissance Dances (13 tracks, corresponding to CD 1 tracks 1, 2, 5, 10-15, 24-27) and the complete 42 minutes from their 1973 Early Baroque Dances. I am not aware of another CD gathering the rest of the Ulsamer Collegium programs.
“Bauernhochzeit-Tanzmusik Der Wiener Klassik”, on DG’s budget series Eloquence, 469 742-2 barcode 028946974223 (link to listing on Discogs) has, together with two symphonies of Leopold Mozart, a sundry selection of 13 from the Eduard Melkus Ensemble programs including the near-complete Classical era part (save Wranicky’s Quodlibet), but in haphazard chronological order, starting with the contents of CD 3 tracks 27-31 (Classical era: Haydn, Gluck, Mozart’s Landlerische, Wranicky’s 10 German Dances), then moving back to Rococo’s CD 3 tracks 15, 19, 20 (Starzer), forward to Classical CD 4 tracks 1-3 (Mozart and Beethoven’s Contredanses, Salieri’s Menuetto), back to Classical CD 3-26 (Eybler), forward to Biedermeier’s CD 4-5 (Pamer) & 9 (Schubert).
In turn, the 10 Dances of Starzer, CD 3 tracsk 13-22, served as a complement to Melkus’ complete recording of Leopold Mozart’s works on an earlier Archiv CD (adding, to the two symphonies above, his Musical Sleigh-ride), in their “Galleria” mid-price series, 427 122-2 barcode 028942712225 (link to Discogs). I’m not aware of another CD gathering other parts of Melkus’ recordings.
Sundry excerpts of the Ulsamer Collegium programs were also used as complements in various collections centered around another great program of Renaissance dance music, this one originally recorded in 1960 by Collegium Terpsichore conducted by Fritz Neumeyer on Archiv 14 166 APM (mono), 198 166 SAPM (stereo), “Hochrenaissance” (High Renaissance, link to entry on Discogs). See my review of “Dances of the Renaissance”, twofer DG “Panorama” 469 244-2 for more details about that and links to my reviews of various other editions.
But, for the recordings of Ulsamer Collegium, this set is the one to get for completeness, for musicology, and for pleasure.