Koopman Volume 17: General Considerations

Luke Hubbard wrote (January 18, 2005):
After listening this last Koopman's recording I can't help having mixed feelings about it. I was looking forward for this album, because the only recordings I've got regarding the pieces involved came from Harnoncourt/Leonhardt, already famous for their disturbing oddities.

First of all, I can't understand why Koopman used such an uneven casting. He has three sopranos, of which one, Johannette Zomer, is clearly better than others. Both Sibylla Rubens and Sandrine Piau have small unconvincing voices and in my oppinion, they appear not to really believe what they are singing. This is, with very few exceptions, a general problem among HIP sopranos.

He uses two altos, both of them female. I thoroughly object to female altos in Bach music. Not only that I find this un-historical, but the timbre of their voices severely distorts the texts. Throughout his cantata projects, Koopman used very good altos: Kai Wessel, Bernard Landauer, not to mention Andreas Scholl. Koopman doesn't seem to aggree with me, or it might very well be a budget problem.

He uses three tenors, Paul Agnew, Jörg Dürmüller, Christoph Prégardien, of which the last makes the others one dimensional. Dürmüller has a very small unconvincing voice, while Agnew has intonation problems and many times goes flat. Prégardien is good, but when seing older performances of him, I can't help but notice his voice is on the receding trend.

The basso, Klaus Mertens, has always been the steady attractive element in all of Koopman volumes. His voice, although small, is not only beautiful but also well controlled, always able to explore the subtleties of this wonderful music.

Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra is also no longer what it used to be. Older volumes had Marcel Ponseele playing the oboe. Now it's Alfredo Bernardini, which albeit his unquestionable valor is on a lower level compared to the former.

Last but not least, as a conductor, Koopman has many flaws. First of all, he doesn't seem to be capable to modulate his style according to each piece. Secondly, his choice of tempi (always fast, that is) are extremely dubious and degrade an otherwise capable crew performance. Thirdly, he fills the continuo with unsuitable organ ornamentations and has the bad habit to employ lutes where they clearly do not belong (unless expressly specified by the composer, which is almost never the case).