Avison
12 Concerti grossi, Op.9
6 Concerti grossi, Op.10
Avison Ensemble
Pavlo Beznosiuk (violin)
Recorded 8-11 October 2006 in The Jubilee Theatre, St Nicholas’ Hospital, Newcastle upon Tyne
Reviewed by: Antony Hodgson
Reviewed: August 2008
CD No: DIVINE ART
dda 21211 (2 CDs)
Duration: 2 hours 12 minutes
The nature of the recording influences the impression given by the music itself. The acoustic of the venue is very suitable, the string quality has attractive warmth and there is no undue highlighting of the leader. The eleven players sound full-bodied but after a while I became concerned about the narrow dynamic range, which seems to stay entirely between mezzo piano and mezzo forte; add to this the harpsichord being buried deeply within the texture and an element of sameness begins to develop. Harpsichord continuo should enrich bass harmonies but because the tone of this instrument is lacking in treble, apart from a very occasional improvisatory link, the ear picks up no more than a slight colouring of the main notes of the bass line.
I realise that nowadays engineers tend to play down the presence of the harpsichord (I look back nostalgically to the sparkling quality achieved by the Nonesuch engineers in the 1960s) and perhaps I am being ungrateful in view of the comfortable and beautiful recorded quality provided here, but I fear that in the context of Avison’s attractive but perhaps modest talent, it puts the works in danger of seeming too similar to one another.