The title of this album is a little misleading. In England as in France, there was resistance to the charms of Italian opera in the early eighteenth century; the phrase "foreign insult" comes from a screed bewailing the "Italian squalling tribe" and combining anti-Catholicism with misogyny as it goes on to condemn the "Popery in wit" and "unadorn'd Efffeminacy" of imported operas and plays. But there was little if any resistance to the hugely successful instrumental music penned by foreign composers,
Handel being the most famous, who followed the money to prosperous London. Other editorial errors are on view in the booklet; the deathdate of
Francesco Barsanti, for example, is given as 1722 rather than 1772.
No matter. Accurately titled or not, this is a superb recording of English Baroque music. It captures the crackling commercial energy that united the music of the Germans and Italians at work in the English capital. Most interesting of all are the four short selections from A Collection of Old Scots Tunes by
Barsanti. Preceding Moore's Irish songs and
Beethoven's and
Haydn's arrangements of Scots and Irish songs by nearly 100 years, these are very early examples of musical exoticism. (And "clout the cauldron" may be the most exotic sexual metaphor to appear on disc for quite some time.)
Barsanti's arrangements for flute and continuo emphasize the unusual nature of the material with unusual passages for flute alone. The Ground After the Scotch Humor for recorder, violin, and continuo of Nicola Matteis, from 1685, also marks a fascinating and sharp engagement on the part of its composer with the rhythmically distinct profile of Scottish music. Other immigrant composers represented include
Handel, Johann Christian Bach, Carl Friedrich Abel, and Gottfried Finger, who became Godfrey Finger in England and whose Sonata in C major for recorder, cello, and continuo, Op. 5/10, shows the market-driven quality of the English repertory in its unusual instrumental combination: Finger solves the problems created by using the murky cello as a solo instrument and setting it against the piercing recorder. Germany's
La Ricordanza historical-instrument ensemble plays all this music with consummate skill, appropriate warmth, and real enthusiasm. The usually superb sonics of the MDG label are a little off here; the recording environment of Saxony's Gifhorn Castle is a bit too big and chilly for music that would have originated in the well-appointed apartments that still line London's streets today. But the sound never detracts from the listener's enjoyment of some largely obscure and altogether worthwhile music.