Postscript: à Amsterdam
TRPTK

Close your eyes as you listen to à Amsterdam and you might find yourself imagining you're in a Netherlands church in the 1700s swooning to an enrapturing Baroque quartet. Upon opening them, you'll remember that it is, in fact, 2023 but also realize that otherwise much else is as it was centuries ago. That's because the early music ensemble Postscript recorded the Amsterdam-written Baroque material at the city's Waalse Kerk in June 2022. Of course the pristine sound quality indicates that à Amsterdam is an album that was captured using state-of-the-art technology. In every other way, however, these are performances that could have taken place long ago. Like the group's first TRPTK CD, Introductio, à Amsterdam was captured live in front of an appreciative audience, though you'd never know it until applause appears at recording's end.

The idea to focus on the city where the prize-winning Postscript was formed and where its members met (the Conservatory of Amsterdam) crystallized during the pandemic, when the quartet's usual touring dates were put on hold and members Aysha Wills, David Westcombe (traversos), Octavie Dostaler-Lalonde (cello), and Artem Belogurov (harpsichord) were isolating at their Amsterdam residences. Spending more time walking the city during that period also made it seem natural to fashion the group's next album with the city in mind. In selecting composers associated with it whose work deserves to be better known, they were also shining a strong light on the richness of the city's baroque music history. Even the instruments the four play were built in Amsterdam.

Works by nine composers appear, and with thirty-seven tracks packed into a seventy-one-minute total, the scenery rapidly changes. Most of the tracks are in the one- to two-minute range, with only a handful nudging into the three, four, and five zones. Arrangements change too, with most works featuring four members but duets and a solo performance appearing too. The album begins with Carl Rosier's Sonata I, from his 1691-published Pièces choisies, a la manière Italienne, Postscript's resplendent ensemble sound immediately on display and the “Più alegro” and concluding “Presto” expressing the work's spirited tone and radiant quality. Sequenced next is a suite of pieces Postscript fashioned from Servaas de Konink's Suites & Trio Sonatas, Op. 1 & 4, the dance-like character of the “Ouverture” and “Menuet” rousing and the first “Air” and “Marche” vivacious. The pace is not always so feverish, however, as shown by the contemplative “Plainte” and second “Air.” In this performance and elsewhere the contrast in timbres between the instruments adds to the listening pleasure, with the bright flutes always clearly distinct from the sparkle of the harpsichord and the string textures of the cello.

Scored for traverso and harpischord, Sybrand van Noordt's Sonata 1 is the only piece of the one-time Oude Kerk organist to have survived. At four minutes, the three movements come and go quickly but have abundant charm nevertheless. Also an organist at Oude Kerk (from his Amsterdam arrival in 1743 until his death in 1765), Conrad Friedrich Hurlebusch, a native of Germany, is represented by Fuga IV, a keyboard piece from his Compositioni Musicali per il Cembalo. Interestingly, the six-minute rumination is performed by Belogurov on a harpsichord made by a fellow German expatriate living in Amsterdam, Carl Friederich Laescke.

With Westcombe having partnered with Belogurov on Noordt's Sonata I , it's now Wills's turn to duet with the harpsichordist, which she does on Johann Christian Schickhardt's Sonata IV and which progresses from the plaintive “Adagio” and sunny “Allemanda allegro” to the breathless “Gavotta presto.” Things take a somewhat Bach-like turn with the advent of Jakob Klein's Sonata I, the three-part setting now coupling Belogurov with Dostaler-Lalonde and executed beautifully by the duo, the central adagio expressions particularly strong. One final pairing follows, this one featuring the traverso players performing five duets by violinist and composer Willem de Fesch. Once again separation between the instruments is clear when one often plays in a lower register and assumes the role traditionally handled by a bass instrument.

December 2023