 Le label Brillant classics met à notre disposition ici, une petite anthologie de l'oeuvre pour orgue d'un compositeur presque oublié du début du XVIIIème siècle, Johann Speth. Celui-ci fit sa carrière à Augsburg comme organiste de la cathédrale, poste qu'il obtint en 1692. Les deux CD de cet enregistrement réunissent dix Toccatas (une dans chacun des tons ecclésiastiques et deux autres en « tons modernes »), trois Partite ou variations sur des airs de chansons populaires et dans le deuxième CD, huit Magnificat (toujours un par ton d'église) dont les versets alternent avec avec le chant grégorien de l'hymne. Les influences italiennes sont nettement perceptibles ainsi que celles de compositeurs de l'Allemagne du sud tels que Georg Muffat ou J. C. F. Fischer. Toutes ces oeuvres, courtes, obéissent à formes simples (toccata-fugato-toccata ou prélude, cinq versets et finale pour les Magnificat). L'univers musical utilisé est totalement étranger aux puissantes architectures des organistes de l'Allemagne du nord ou du centre et à leur éloquente rhétorique, il est celui de moments de méditation ou de contemplation qui se donnent dans une certaine simplicité, souvent apaisante. Chiara Minali, organiste et claveciniste a été titulaire de plusieurs instruments à Vérone. Sa vie musicale alterne concerts, enregistrements et enseignement. Son jeu souple et élégant est dépourvue d'affectation. Pour l'interprétation des Magnificat, Letizia Butterin, elle aussi organiste à Vérone, chante les versets grégoriens. C'est le bel orgue de l'église Santa Maria Assunta de Cavalese, reconstruit en 2011 selon les éléments de l'instrument originaire de 1732 dû au facteur Joseph Balthasar of Merano que Chiara Minali a choisi pour jouer ces pièces. De taille modeste (21 jeux répartis sur deux claviers et pédalier) il fait entendre des timbres attachants, clairs, dotés d'une vraie personnalité et contribue largement à la réussite de ces retrouvailles avec Johann Speth. (Alain Letrun) The music of Johann Speth (1664-1719) has featured here and there on many compilations of instrumental music from mid-17th century Germany. However, until now there has never been a complete recording of the sole collection which carries his name down to us today. Published in 1693, this volume of keyboard toccatas, partitas and Magnificats takes its title from an influential treatise on the science and aesthetics of music from 1650 by the Jesuit scholar Athanasius Kircher. Kircher attempted to show how the balance of dissonance with consonance in harmony mirrored the presence of good and evil in the universe. There is in turn something attractively compendious about Speth’s musical response, which Speth appears to have produced as a bona fide for his successful application to become organist of the cathedral in Augsburg. Very little is known of his life until that point in 1692, and not much after, save that in 1719 he was still living and active in the city which at the time was politically significant and prosperous as a seat of the Hapsburgs. Ars Magna Consoni et Dissoni opens with a sequence of 10 toccatas, quite brief and owing something to the influence of contemporary southern German composers such as Georg Muffat and Johann Caspar Ferdinand Fischer. There follows the more Italianate strains of three ‘partitas’ – not dance suites but elaborations and variations on popular vocal melodies from the other side of the Alps. The remainder of Speth’s collection synthesizes Italian and German styles in eight Magnficats. These are composed in the alternatim genre, with a line of plainchant answered by a composed response to the following line and so on. Each of the Magnificats takes its tonal base – the equivalent of its key signature – from a different musical mode, each starting on their own note. The collection as a whole adds up to a colourful snapshot of the invention and variety of German keyboard music beyond Bach, and as a notable predecessor to the compendious ambitions of The Well-Tempered Clavier. Speth’s collection is played here on a modern reconstruction of a 1732 organ in the parish church of Santa Maria Assunta in the small northern Italian town of Cavalese. Chiara Minali’s musicianship has already been appreciated on several previous releases from Brilliant Classics, likewise focused on lesser-known names from the 17th and 18th centuries, including solo collections by Grazioli (95935) and Spergher (95834).
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