Ouverture a 4, No. VI
1- I. Grave-Allegro-Grave [5:14]
2- II. Aria [1:27]
3- III. Menuet [0:50]
4- IV. Gavotte [0:44]
5- V. Sarabande [1:40]
6- VI. Guique, en Rondeau [1:02]
7- VII. Finale [1:19]

Canzon a 3
8- I. Tempo giusto/ Canzona- Larghetto- Tempo giusto/ Canzona [4:21]
9- II. Aria/ Presto [1:25]
10- III. Menuet- Duetto- Menuet [2:29]
11- IV. Il Libertino [0:36]
12- V. Gigue alla Siciliana [1:19]

Parthia Trio
13- I. Capriccio/Presto- Grave- Capriccio/Presto [4:59]
14- II. Vivace [1:43]
15- III. Menuet- Trio- Menuet [2:33]
16- IV. Finale [0:58]

Partita a 3
17- I. Sonata/Andante [2:36]
18- II. Allegro-Adagio [2:06]
19- III. Sarabande [2:51]
20- IV. Passacaglia [2:58]

Synfonia a 3
21- I. Turcaria [2:02]
22- II. Passacaglia/Andante [1:48]
23- III. Janitschara [1:28]
24- IV. Posta turcica [1:36]

Ouverture a 4, No. III
25- I. Grave-Allegro-Grave [4:30]
26- II. Aire [1:19]
27- III. Menuet [1:11]
28- IV. Follie/Allegro [0:48]
29- V. Bouree [1:22]
30- VI. Guique/Prestissimo [0:55]

Clemencic Consort
René Clemencic – Harpsichord

The name of Johann Joseph Fux struck fear into the hearts of generations of music students, who attached his name to the vexing task of learning to write Palestrinian counterpoint. He is best known for his masses, which reflect his contrapuntal skills, but as a Viennese court composer around 1700 he also wrote a good deal of lighter instrumental music. The venerable René Clemencic and his Clemencic Consort historical-instrument ensemble have done a real service by bringing some of it to renewed attention with this disc. The variously designated suites on this album were written around 1700. They reflect influences from across Europe and beyond -- there are French dances, movements marked with Italian tempo indications, and movements with specific titles (one wonders exactly why the 36 seconds of "Il Libertino," track 11, connoted a playboy). Most fascinating of all is the Synfonia à 3, K. 331 (track 21-24), which marks an unusually early example of Western engagement with Turkish music. All four movements reflect the sound of the Janissary bands, but of particular interest is the "Janitschara" (track 23), in which the cello goes into full slapping mode to evoke the sound of Turkish drums. The more conventional suites have an appealing way of playing off Fux's characteristically dense counterpoint with limpid dances like the Bourée of the Ouverture à 4 (track 29). Several of them open with a fairly large, multi-sectional movement with a contrapuntal Allegro middle section, and then reel off attractive foot-tappers that are a minute long or less. Clemencic, as usual, offers dry readings that highlight unusual details. In the booklet he is quoted as saying: "I try to introduce into my works sound and tonal complexes as acoustic emblems and values representing cosmic structures....I am not so concerned with the production of an opus, an artifact in the usual sense, but rather with the unveiling of certain hidden semantics in what is audibly perceived." Got that? The abstract approach, however, works well in the case of the learned Fux, who let himself loose on the playground of contemporary styles in these delightful works but didn't totally relinquish his intellectual qualities. The music is beautifully recorded by Oehms, and in all this is one of the finds of the year for lovers of Baroque music. ---James Manheim, AllMusic Review

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1 	Sonata A Tre Ex D Per Due Violini K 342 (Violoncello & Basso Continuo)
 Allegro – Grave – Presto – Grave – Presto 	4:38
2 	Ciaccona Per Organo K 403/2 	4:52
3 	Grave From Sonata A Tre Ex D K 342 (2 Trombones, Organ, Violone) 	1:02
4 	Media Vita In Morte Sumus (Chorale, After A Version Of
 The "Gross Catholisch Gesangbuch" Of David Gregor Corner, Nuremberg 1625) 	1:18
5 	De Profundis K 130, Motet 	4:05
6 	Adagio Per Organo K 400 From Sonata Terza 	1:57

7 	Requiem Aeternam "Kaiserrequiem" K 51 - 53: Kyrie Eleison 	8:39
8 	Requiem Aeternam "Kaiserrequiem" K 51 - 53: Dies Irae 	13:21
9 	Libera Me, Domino K 54, Motet 	3:42
10 	Largo From Canon A Due E 66 (2 Trombones, Organ, Violone) 	1:00
11 	Requiem Aeternam "Kaiserrequiem" K 51 - 53: Domine Jesu Christe 	4:40
12 	Requiem Aeternam "Kaiserrequiem" K 51 - 53: Sanctus 	2:48
13 	Adagio K 400 From Sonata Terza (2 Trombones, Organ, Violone) 	1:07
14 	Requiem Aeternam "Kaiserrequiem" K 51 - 53: Agnus Dei /
 Lux Aeterna / Requiem Aeternam 	5:15

Alto Vocals – Stephanie Prewitt
Baritone Vocals – Jörg-Steffen Duit, Thomas Schaller 
Bass Vocals – John Winbigler
Cello – Dorothea Kukelka
Organ [Positive] – Peter Widensky
Soprano Vocals – Elizabeth Dobie, Pamela Mildenhall
Tenor Vocals – James Curry
Trombone – Ernst Hoffmann, Werner Hackl
Viol [Violone] – Ulrich Fussenegger
Viola – Herbert Lindsberger
Violin [1st] – Hiro Kurosaki
Violin [2nd] – Andrea Bischof

Clemencic Consort
René Clemencic - Conductor

The so-called Emperor's requiem (K 51 - 53) was composed by the Emperor's court Kapellmeister Fux on the occasion of the funeral rites of the Emperor's widow (the widow of Emperor Leopold I) which took place on 5th March 1720 in Vienna: Eleonore Magdalena (06/01/1655 in Dusseldorf - 19/01/1720 in Vienna), Empress, third wife of Emperor Leopold I.

Fux employes in this requiem an instrumentation in the contemporary term "stylus mixtus"- a group of instruments which excludes trumpets and timpani and the ceremonial aura they bring; he adapts his compositional style to the solemn occasion by limiting the orchestral writing and excluding lengthy orchestral passages. From the remarks on the cover of the instrumental parts to this requiem (which are in the possession of the Viennes Hofmusikkapelle) it can be seen that the work was further heard on 28th april 1729 at the requiem mass for Leopold Joseph of Lotheringen, the father of the later Emperor Franz I, on 12th July 1736 for Prince Eugen of Savoyen (a sign of the especial esteem in which the Prince was held) and on 16th November 1740 for Emperor Karl VI. According to the tradition in those days it was possible to offer on less important occasions not a complete performance of a requiem but a compilation of individual movements from varied works. The Emperor's requiem was for instance further performed in full on All Saint's Day in 1731, 1735, 1737, 1739, but in 1736 only in part. The first two movements were played on 10th October 1741 by the court orchestra to commemorate the death of Emperor Karl VI. The final performance noted on the cover inexplicably also in part took place for reasons still unknown on 13th August 1743. ---Thomas Hochradner, requiemsurvey.org

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Sonata A 4 K346 In A Minor
Sonata A 3 K379 In D Minor
Sonata A 3 K381 In G Minor
Sinfonia A 4 From 'Le Deposizione Dalla Croce Di Gesu Cristo' K346
Sonata A 3 K365 In A Minor
Sinfonia A 4 From 'La Cena del Signore' K298                play
Sonata A 3 K385 In G Major
Sonata A 3 K370 In G Minor
Sonata A 4 K344 In B Flat Major
Sonata Pastorale A 3 K396 In A Major
Sonata A 3 K366 In F Sharp Minor
Sinfonia A 4 From 'La Donna Forte Nella Madre De Sette Maccabei' K292        play
Sonata A 3 K375 In A Minor - Adagio
29. Sonata A 3 K375 In A Minor
Sinfonia A 4 From 'Cristo Nell Orto' K296
Sonata A 3 K377 In G Minor
Sinfonia A 4 K349 In D Major

Capella Agostino Steffani
Lajos Rovátkay – director

Johann Joseph Fux (1660-1741) is remembered less for his music than for his famous textbook on counterpoint, the Gradus ad Parnassum, Yet his music is well worth remembering for its own sake; it was not for nothing that the Emperor Leopold I made Fux his court-composer and music-director.

But to begin at the beginning; Fux was born of peasant stock at Hirtenfeld in Eastern Styria, Austria, about 1660. Little is known of his youth, except that he became a student at Graz University when he was about twenty. Again he disappears into obscurity, perhaps to study in Italy. When next heard of, he is the organist of the famous Scottish Church in Vienna, and on the highroad to imperial preferment. In 1696 he got married, and two years later was appointed Court Composer by the Emperor, an appointment usually reserved for Italian musicians. The Emperor evidently realized that Fux was a man of exceptional talent, to give him precedence over the all-conquering Italians.

Further high appointments were in store; in 1701 Fux became Capellmeister at St. Stephen's Cathedral, and ten years later, in 1711, Music Director at the Imperial Court itself - the highest musical position in Europe. Fux filled the post with distinction, composing and directing many operas and oratorios, as well as dozens of smaller pieces. His most famous stage work was the festival opera Costanza e Fortezza, performed in the most sumptuous and spectacular manner in Prague Castle in 1723 when the Emperor Charles VI was crowned King of Bohemia.

In 1725 Fux published his famous Gradus ad Parnassum, a textbook from which most of the composers of the next generation learnt their counterpoint - indeed Bach himself had a copy in his library. Some six years after the publication of the Gradus, Fux's wife died, and from then on he seems to have devoted himself more to sacred music. He himself died in 1741, at the age of 81.

As a secular composer, he was soon neglected, but his sacred works continued to be performed for many years, and his book maintained its hold over several generations of composers. Then, in the middle of the nineteenth century, Ludwig Ritter von Köchel, Mozart's cataloguer, became interested in Fux, and produced a biography and catalogue of works. This reawakened interest to some extent in the old court composer, and eventually some of his works were reprinted in the Austrian Denkmaler series; Fux began to emerge from the shadows as a fine composer in his own right, and not a mere pedagogue. He was indeed the greatest master of the Austrian Baroque, in music. ---baroquemusic.org

Johann Joseph Fux (ur. 1660 w Hirtenfeld, zm. 13 lutego 1741 w Wiedniu) – austriacki kompozytor, teoretyk muzyki i pedagog, przedstawiciel stylu późnego baroku .Skomponował wiele mszy, oratoriów, oper i psalmów jednak najbardziej jest znany jako teoretyk muzyki i nauczyciel innych kompozytorów a także jako autor podręcznika kompozycji-rozprawy o kontrapunktcie z 1725 roku: Gradus ad Parnassum, w którym dokładnie omówił kontrapunkt w technice renesansowego mistrza Palestriny i innych kompozytorów wcześniejszych.

Johann Joseph Fux (1660 – 13 February 1741) was an Austrian composer, music theorist and pedagogue of the late Baroque era. He is most famous as the author of Gradus ad Parnassum, a treatise on counterpoint, which has become the single most influential book on the Palestrina style of Renaissance polyphony. Almost all modern courses on Renaissance counterpoint, a mainstay of college music curricula, are indebted in some degree to this work by Fux.

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Pietro BALDASSARI (before 1672 -after 1747)
1.Il giudizio di Paride: Il Goder un bel sembiante (1707) [5:30]

Attilio ARIOSTI (1666-1726)
2.Marte placato: Sa il crudel (1727) [5:22]
3.Marte placato: Sinfonia (1727) [2:56]
4.La Placidia: Tal vicina a Giglio (1709) [3:18]
5.La profezie d’Eliseo: Prole tenera (1705) [5:35]

Giovanni Battista BONONCINI (1670-1747)
6.Il ritorno di Giulio Cesare: E pur le mie rovine (1704) [4:46]
7.Il fiore delle eroine: Amante ozioso (1704) [4:02]

Johann Joseph FUX (c. 1660-1741)
8.La decima fatica d’Ercole: Sento nel core (1710) [7:45]
9.Il Fonte della Salute aperto: So’che piace (1716) [7:15]
10.Il mese di Marzo: Non sdegnar (1709) [5:11]
11.Dafne un Lauro: Lascio d’esser Ninfa [5:33]

Hana Blažíková [soprano]
Ensemble Tourbillon
Petr Wagner [direction]

The young Czech soprano Hana Blažíkóva is one of the most exciting voices in the baroque scene. Conductors such as Philippe Herreweghe, Masaaki Suzuki and Vaclav Luks frequently invite her for CD recordings, concerts and tours. She regularly appears at renowned festivals including Prague Spring, Festival Oude Muziek Utrecht, Resonances in Vienna and the Early Music Days in Regensburg.

The title 'Vienna 1709' is representative of those arias from operas and oratorios that were composed during the first two decades of the 18th century in Vienna especially for the birthday or namedays of members of the imperial family. This selection presents arias of Fux, Ariosti and Bononcini in which the solo voice enters into a dialogue with one of several violas da gamba. Ensemble Tourbillon, under the direction of the Prague gambist Petr Wagner, supports Hana Blažíkóva and her clear, angelic soprano voice - capable of both virtuosity and delicate sensitivity. --- ukstore.harmoniamundi.com

Czech soprano Hana Blažíková is an increasingly valued performer of older music, and I’ve admired her singing for several years. Here she joins compatriots from Ensemble Tourbillon, directed by viol player Petr Wagner, who play on copies patterned after a variety of original instruments – many French, but examples are here by modern makers patterned after Italian, German and English originals. There is one exception to this rule: Wagner employs both a 2012 Claus Derenbach viol, patterned after a Romain Cheron of 1685 but he also plays on an original 1697 instrument made by Tielke in Hamburg. I stress this because the disc title, ‘Vienna 1709’, references the fact that these operatic arias, mostly little-known, are notable for their viol accompaniment. This is certainly true up to a point, but the arias by Fux, Ariosti, and Bononcini also contain a second viol accompaniment as well as, variously, harpsichord, theorbo, baroque guitar, baroque oboe and chalumeau.

Vienna’s power and prestige was such that the city could afford to employ a distinguished raft of composers and instrumentalists in the early eighteenth century, and many were Italian. The Emperors of the time frequently played the viola da gamba, and the court was awash with musicians. Though not all the music was composed precisely in the year 1709 it serves as a conveniently precise date for a recital that embraces the years 1704 to around 1716. Baldassari’s Il Goder un bel sembiante sees the viola da gamba employed for its expressive commentary to Blažíková’s pure, focused soprano. It sets the pattern for the rest of the disc where the viol takes either an obbligato or a more central role in the arias. Paired viols add a different richer texture and feature prominently in the recital though as the music comes from a variety of sources – serenata, oratorio pastoral opera – the function of the viol accompaniment is subtly different. It’s as well to note here that the disc title, which proclaims these to be opera arias, is immediately contradicted by the music which, as noted, derives from a wider variety than the merely operatic. It has the advantage, however, for the record collector, of being rare.

Whilst Fux may be the best-known of the quartet now, Bononcini was then an eminent presence in European music-making of his time. The music reflects his standing, and is wide-ranging in its demands, technical and expressive. Fux is also represented by a later work, So’che piace from the oratorio Il Fonte della Salute aperto, a fine example of his more quietly reflective, even ascetic late style. Non sdegnar is also modest and fluent. The Chalumeau provides obbligato here, the music being an ingenious Austro-Italian compound, though never veering to the showy. There is an Ariosti Sinfonia, all instrumental, with two piping oboes to the fore. It shows the timbral variety to be heard in a disc that could be seen to hide its light under a bushel in focusing on merely the viol contribution.

The booklet is helpful but a bit skewed in favour of the viol-only concept, if I can phrase it that way. The church acoustic is pretty good, catching the instrumental and vocal strands without fuzziness.

The instrumental playing is on a high level and Hana Blažiková sings with precision and focus. Petr Wagner, solo viol player, directs with a sure hand for texture and tempo. Much here is very rare on disc, an added incentive for specialists. ---Jonathan Woolf, musicweb-international.com

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