Barbara Bonney, Bernarda Fink, Musica Antiqua Köln, Reinhard Goebel - Johann Adolf Hasse: Salve Regina (1997) CD-Rip

“During this visit, these young ladies were so obliging as to sing me a Salve regina, lately set by their father, in duo. It is an exquisite composition, full of grace, taste and propriety.” What more could one ask of an antiphon than that which Charles Burney found in an impromptu performance by Hasse’s daughters during a visit to their father in Vienna in 1772? Hasse composed several settings of the Salve regina of which Reinhard Goebel has chosen two for his interesting programme of vocal and instrumental pieces by the composer. The one answering to Burney’s description is in E flat and was composed in 1767. The other is a much better known A major setting of the Marian antiphon which he wrote during the 1730s or even earlier for the Venetian orphanage of the Ospedale degli Incurabili. The remaining pieces in Goebel’s programme are two attractive sinfonias for wind and strings – one of them also functioning as the overture to Hasse’s opera Cleofide (1713), the other as the overture to a pastoral, Asteria (1737) – a motet for mezzo-soprano, and an expressively intense, vibrant Fugue in G minor of doubtful authenticity, but perhaps the work of the Mannheim composer, Franz Xaver Richter.

The greater part of the vocal music is for mezzo-soprano or contralto, in this instance Bernarda Fink. Soprano Barbara Bonney sings only in the E flat Salve regina. These are full-bodied performances, vocally and instrumentally; but, while I enjoyed both the aural luxuriance of Fink’s warm, rounded tone in the A major Salve regina, and the richness of the accompanying string textures, my preference in this music perhaps lies in the somewhat more modestly scaled approach of Jennifer Lane and Le Parlement de Musique. Lane’s performance is more intimate, and the strings more lightly articulated than Goebel’s ensemble, but the playing is considerably less accomplished, alas, making this new version unquestionably the more satisfying of the two. Both the motet, Chori angelici laetentes and the two-voice Salve regina were new to me. The Chori angelici, another A major piece, is a joyful, spirited and virtuoso composition with an accompaniment of strings and continuo. Fink is on superb form here, attentive to the words of the text and effortless in the delivery of her bravura passages. The motet is hugely appealing both for its warmth of sentiment and, as so often with Hasse, for its ravishing melodies. There is a discrepancy in its track listing, by the way, which consequently affects the two works on the disc which follow it.

The E flat Salve regina is no less captivating, with a pair of oboes and a bassoon added to the string texture. Bonney and Fink are evenly matched and blend together pleasingly in music which few readers, perhaps, will be able to resist. A delightful programme, thoughtfully put together and very well executed. -- Nicholas Anderson, Gramophone