IBO & Peter Whelan - Welcome home, Mr Dubourg - MusicWeb International [JV]

Today performance practice focuses on the big names, such as Bach and Handel. Most of their lesser known colleagues, whom musicologists love to call ‘minor’ composers, are doomed to remain in their shadows. With a bit of luck, they appear as a footnote in the biographies of the masters. Matthew Dubourg has at least the honour of being the subject of an anecdote, which gave this disc its title. When he played a cadenza, in which he moved through different keys and more or less lost his way, Handel greeted his return to the home key with a loud exclamation: “You are welcome home, Mr Dubourg!” Handel very much appreciated his colleague, and included him in his will.

He was a virtuosic violinist, who has been almost exclusively known as a performer. This disc is a musical portrait, which shows him in this capacity, but also as a composer. Sadly, little of his output has been preserved, and large parts of what has come down to us, are incomplete. The Violin Concerto in D is written in the Italian style, but Dubourg prefers the ‘old’ four-movement structure to the new Vivaldian model. It is known that he himself played Vivaldi, which is documented through the latter’s Concerto for two violins in A. Dubourg was also one of several composers and performers who added their ornaments to Corelli’s Violin sonatas Op. 5. Charles Burney accompanied him in one of them, and here the Sonata No. 9 is included as an example. The vocal items pay tribute to his activities as a composer from 1728 onwards, when he was appointed Master and Composer of State Music in Ireland. In this position he was responsible for the composition and performance of Birthday Odes. One of them has been reconstructed for this recording, and from others we get extracts. Lastly, the programme includes several traditional tunes, as Dubourg was one of the first to perform this kind of music in public concerts.

Twice I have had the pleasure of reviewing a disc of the Irish Baroque Orchestra, the last time in an unconventional programme of ‘Concerti Bizarri’ – review. That is also a good description of the present disc. It rightly puts a brilliant musician in the spotlight, who made quite an impression in his time. It is just sad that so little of his music has been preserved, and one has to hope that more will come to the surface and that some of his compositions can be restored for performance. The interpreters do him justice here. The playing of the orchestra is excellent, and Sophie Gent deserves praise for her solos. The singers also do well, but I regret that the two ladies use quite a bit of vibrato, which I find hard to swallow. That said, this disc fully deserves any music lover’s attention.