Vandini - Complete Works

 Antonio Vandini, Complete Works, Francesco Galligioni, L'Arte dell'Arco (Dynamic)

That satisfying sound of a thump of a package landing as the charming post lady moves on down the street is always the more welcome when one has forgotten one has an order outstanding. What can it be. Delivery dates of over a week allow the item to fade from the memory. I spent some of yesterday with the first disc of Britten's War Requiem, which is challenging. Bought partly to augment the Maggi Hambling paintings as it is her favourite piece, it comes with a seriousness I'm not always equal to. The Schubert Trout and Death and the Maiden made for more unadulterated, or maybe less adulterated, enjoyment.

So these light, ornate chamber pieces offer that music which could be the food of love or any such joyousness. As well as adding to my composers that nobody's ever heard of. And as well as adding another Complete Works to my Buxtehude and Chopin. At 55 minutes, if it is as complete as it says, top marks to Vandini, five years younger than Bach and Handel, for not detaining us over long. Would that a few others delivered only a concentrated illustration of their modus operandi.

This morning I sketched out an introduction to Fulke Greville for the benefit of a future Portsmouth Poetry Society meeting and took the trouble of quoting Thom Gunn's somewhat classier and more thorough job on the same subject,

Nowadays the journalistic critical cliché about a young poet is to say that ‘he has found his own voice’, the emphasis being on differentness, on the uniqueness of his voice, on the fact that he sounds like nobody else. But the Elizabethans at their best as well as at their worst are always sounding like each other. They did not search much for uniqueness of voice:

It strikes me the same might be said of baroque composers. In fact, the diminishing of 'personality' and 'self' in art is fast emerging as dominant among my many recurrent themes. One doesn't form any opinion of Signor Vandini from these pieces beyond his competence and huge likeability as a composer. For the most part, I might be happy with the solo cello part, which is not to find fault with L'Arte dell'Arco and in places, like the cute harpsichord part in the final Allegro of the A minor Sonata, they do contribute more to Francesco Galligioni's fluent phrasing.

The pace and mood shift and vary as per the formal requirements of the three movements in these six sonatas and one concerto. I could live with such harmonious, stylish music for a long time. If I were still assessing my Best of the Year categories, Best Disc would be the most competitive heat in a year when events have been so few. This would be short-listed, certainly, but with Sophie Junker's utterly glorious Handel's Nightingale in opposition, not much else is realistically playing for more than place money.