Baroque Music Montana: I Melt Like Snow in the Sun of Your Beauty
Black Bear Records

The sophomore album from Baroque Music Montana (BaMM) follows its superb 2023 debut Sonata Tramontana, which holds the distinction of being the first period instrument album to have been recorded in the state. Whereas that set features solo and duo performances by Baroque violinist Carrie Krause, the Bozeman-based company's visionary founder (in 2015) and Artistic Director, and theorbist John Lenti, I Melt Like Snow in the Sun of Your Beauty augments them with Portland-based soprano Arwen Myers and dulcian player Nate Helgeson to complete the period instrument quartet. The smaller scale of the debut in no way diminished the impact of the project; however, in featuring four players the sequel presents a more accurate reflection of the chamber ensemble concept that's at the heart of BaMM.

Krause is the company's lodestar. A graduate of Carnegie Mellon University, Cleveland Institute of Music, and Juilliard, she lists concertmaster of the Bozeman Symphony as one of many accomplishments. Her deep knowledge of Baroque music repertoire has been integral to BaMM's programming and informs the selections on this latest collection in featuring material by Johann Hermann Schein, Johann Rosenmüller, Giovanni Palestrina, Giovanni Battista Bovicelli, Biagio Marini, Tarquinio Merula, Bartolomé de Selma y Salaverde, Paolo Cima, Biagio Marini, Johann Michael Nicolai, and Claudio Monteverdi (Lenti also played a key role in choosing repertoire for the album). The fourteen selections are consistent with the company's focus on music composed between 1600 and 1750.

During the sixty-eight-minute release, recorded at the Tippet Rise Art Center in Fishtail, Montana and produced with care by Ingrid Matthews and Jeremiah Slovarp, Myers delivers sacred and profane love songs, while the instrumental treatments match hers for passion. Lenti and Helgeson distinguish themselves on theorbo and dulcian (the precursor to the bassoon), respectively, and Krause dazzles throughout. It takes no more than a second for the music to entice the listener into its singular world when Myers emotes gloriously through Schein's Herr, wenn ich nur dich habe. The others follow her lead, gracefully ornamenting and commenting on her gestures and bolstering the dance feel of the song. With the soprano sitting out, Helgeson and Krause engage in elevating to-and-fro during Rosenmüller's multi-part Sonata Terza á due. As formally elegant as such a piece is, it's also teeming with emotion, a quality the violinist in particular exploits to the fullest possible degree—though Helgeson's not far behind in that department.

Credited jointly to Palestrina and Bovicelli is Io son ferito ahi lasso, presented as a captivating duet between Myers and Lenti and marked by spellcasting melismas from the soprano. Time slows in the best way for the full measure of their commanding seven-minute performance. After a series of instrumental settings, Myers returns for a four-piece set of material by Marini, each part elevated by her lustrous presence. While all are beautifully executed, Madre d'ombre e di timori is particularly affecting for its lamenting tone and the sympathetic contributions by Krause and Lenti. The soprano's final appearance comes at album's end with a dynamic contribution to Monteverdi's Ed è pur dunque vero.

Marini's Sonata quarta features a haunting, showstopping turn from Krause with Lenti again the accompanist. Stretching across nine minutes, the expanded duration allows the violinist to emote spectacularly and explore multiple shadings, some tender and others ecstatic. Executed with agility and authority, the performance is inarguably a peak album moment. With the theorbist his able partner, Helgeson also solos powerfully through Selma y Salaverde's Fantasia per fagotto solo. Sunlight streams in when Merula's La Pighetta appears, Helgeson and Krause singing radiantly and a Spanish feel surfacing midway through as the frontliners solo and Lenti strums. Dulcian and violin later declaim as memorably during Nicolai's Sonata á due.

March 2026