Featured Album November 2024: The Royal Wind Music "The Orpheus of Amsterdam"
This month sees the welcome return of the London International Festival of Early Music, and one of this year's headline performances comes from Amsterdam-based recorder consort The Royal Wind Music. Their new album, released last month on Pan Classics, focusses on the music of a Dutch Renaissance master, Sweelinck. We're delighted to present it as this month's Featured Album.
Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck:
The Orpheus of Amsterdam
The Royal Wind Music
OUR FEATURED ALBUM FOR NOVEMBER 2024
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From the artists' press release:
If there is one name in the history of music in the northern Netherlands that is etched in the collective memory, it is undoubtedly that of Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck - a composer of impressive vocal and instrumental works of exceptionally high quality.
He is celebrated as the "Orpheus of Amsterdam", as he was organist of the Oude Kerk between 1577 and 1621, and the Amsterdam city council knew how to patronise the popular musician in their city and help him to prosper. Sweelinck's vocal works were widely distributed thanks to the flourishing publishing industry, but his organ works also had a great influence on the North German organ school, right up to Johann Sebastian Bach.
The Royal Wind Music is a consort of Renaissance recorders of all pitches, from soprano down to sub-contrabass. The ensemble is often compared to a "walking organ" because of its even and polyphonic sound possibilities.
In their choice of four programme sections, the musicians contrast a vocal work and an organ work by Sweelinck with variation pieces by Sweelinck himself or two new compositions written especially for this programme and the ensemble. Orpheus' voice thus resounds in a wonderfully cohesive sound, sometimes interrupted by the echo of new soundscapes.
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Why The Early Music Shop loves "The Orpheus of Amsterdam":
Much has been written about The Royal Wind Music’s rich, resonant sound, but it bears repeating here – on their new album The Orpheus of Amsterdam, their organ-like sound is as impactful as ever, demonstrating exactly why their reputation within the early music world is so strong.
For the first time in their near 30-year recording career, the 11-piece recorder juggernaut focusses on the music of just one composer. Appropriate, therefore, that the composer in question, Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck (1562-1621), called Amsterdam home, much as The Royal Wind Music do themselves. Adorning the front cover of the album with their impressive renaissance-style instruments, the ensemble present this programme in a stylish CD package with insightful programme notes.
Renaissance polyphonic music of the highest order is performed here with style and substance. The phrasing and unity of the ensemble is typically impressive. Doubling parts in (at least) two octaves offers an expansive edge to the sound, but the whole performance is so tightly rehearsed that it could reasonably be believed that this music was being produced by only one instrument. A healthy mixture of Sweelinck’s motets, fantasies, chansons and sets of variations populate the album; there is much to enjoy at every turn, and the arrangements of vocal and keyboard works for recorders are as effortless as they are skilful.
Alongside the Sweelinck works, a few other pieces have been included on the album. This programme has been curated by ensemble member Hester Groenleer, who contributes both a tasteful solo encore in Van Eyck’s variations on Onder de linde geoene, and takes the helm for a group improvisation entitled Kettingreactie (‘Chain Reaction’). This piece is in the form of a musical imitation game, and takes inspiration from Sweelinck’s teaching techniques, where students added their own variations to their teacher’s themes. While sonically unlike anything else presented, once the accompanying notes have been digested you realise this performance is another example of the ensemble’s creativity in programming and versatility of technique.
The album’s only other contemporary work comes from Aspasia Nasopoulou whose Fantasy Dans voor Orpheus van Amsterdam cleverly echoes themes and ideas from Sweelinck’s music, and was commissioned by NPO Radio 4 / NTR Podium for the quatercentenary of his death. It features an unexpected, but delightful, appearance from soprano Irene Sorozábal Moreno.
Making their highly-anticipated return to the UK this month at the London International Festival of Early Music, today’s ensemble are part of a hugely significant legacy of recorder consort music, and they remain deservedly busy. This recording is further proof that The Royal Wind Music are a force to be reckoned with.
Sweelinck certainly knew how to write music, but in this genre, that’s only half the story: The Royal Wind Music know how to play it.
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The Orpheus of Amsterdam is available from The Early Music Shop online or in our Snape Maltings showroom.
Click here to order now!
Click below to watch The Royal Wind Music perform music from the album: