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GRAMOPHONE (11 /2013)
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Reviewer: Duncan
Druce
Willens plays the Zani concerto set discovered by Jill Ward
Andrea Zani (1696-1757) was active in his native northern Italy but his
career included an extended period in Vienna in the 1730s, where he enjoyed
the patronage of Count von Schönborn. These 12 cello concertos survive in
manuscript parts in the Schönborn archive and have been rediscovered by
Zani’s biographer, the New Zealand musicologist Jill Ward. They make a
notable addition to the 18th-century cello repertoire; the idiom is quite
Vivaldian but tending towards the decorative elegance characteristic of the
middle of the 1700s and demonstrating a distinctive, pleasing melodic
quality.
The concertos
appear to have been designed as a set: the first eight alternate the major and
minor tonalities of the cello’s open strings (A, D, G, C; this recording
presents them in a different order). The writing for cello and strings is
varied, its contrasts nicely underlined here by the continuo group’s switching
between harpsichord and organ, theorbo and guitar. Throughout, the playing of
the Kölner Akademie is admirably light and airy. Occasionally I felt that a
gentler, more spacious approach would have given greater emphasis to the music’s
cantabile qualities. This is particularly the case at the start of Concerto No
1. Martin Rummel’s cello has a modern set-up; his bowing technique results in
some passagework sounding too forceful. But he’s a splendidly agile player and
in the slow movements he phrases most expressively, though he does show a
strange partiality for short grace notes, introducing them at many places where
the context suggests a long appoggiatura.
A fascinating issue,
nonetheless.
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