The
Mr Charles the Hungarian
named in the title of this Linn release was probably
Charles
or
Carlo Vernsberg
, a hornist active in England from the 1730s onward. He must have had some connection to Hungary, but biographical details of his early years are scant.
Mr Charles
mounted a concert in Dublin in 1742, just as
Handel
was in town to perform
Messiah
. It is not at all clear that
was "
's rival in Dublin," as he is here proclaimed to be. The
Irish Baroque Orchestra
and conductor
Peter Whelan
here offer a hypothetical loose reconstruction of
' concert. Both this program and the original, insofar as it is known, include a lot of
, including excerpts from the ubiquitous
Water Music
;
ruled the roost, and it is doubtful whether
was much of a rival. Reconstruction is made difficult by the fact that almost all of
' own music has been lost; the Chasse movement here, an excerpt from a
suite
, is one of the few surviving pieces.
Whelan
compensates with some virtuoso solo pieces: a
wind trio
by
Hasse
, a
concerto grosso
with a lovely flute part, and a
cello concerto
by the obscure
Lorenzo Bocchi
. The idea of reconstructing a concert of
's day is a valuable one, and the performances here are uniformly strong. Even the well-trodden
is distinctive, with a blistering Bouree.
aficionados and Baroque fans, in general, will welcome this release. ~ James Manheim