Endimione is a serenata or azione drammatica; J C Bach composed it in 1772 for concert performance at the King's Theatre, the main London opera house, when the part of Diana was sung by his future wife, Cecilia Grassi; it was revived the following year at Mannheim, when the cast included the Wendling sisters-in-law, Dorothea and Elisabeth, and Anton Raaff, soon to be the principals in Mozart's Idomeneo.
Not a single note of Bach's dramatic music in Italian, shamefully, is in the current CD catalogue: so Endimione is especially welcome. It is a setting of a libretto by Metastasio, telling the tale of Diana's jealousy and her love for Endymion, through Cupid's triumph over the scruples of the chaste huntress and the dedicated hunter. The booklet puts forward some interesting, if not very plausible, thoughts about the choice of topic - George III's new Royal Marriage Act (or the events that provoked it), or (still less likely) Bach's amorous interest in the daughter of J B Wendling, the Mannheim flautist who was in London at the time (and presumably responsible for the Mannheim performance and Bach's invitation there).
Whatever may have given rise to it, Endimione is a wholly delightful work. The score moves at a fairly leisurely pace; there are some half-dozen lyrical numbers in each act, separated by recitative (a good deal of it orchestrally accompanied) ; and some arias have ritornellos long enough to make Mozart's to 'Martern aller Arten' seem almost epigrammatic. The music shows Bach at his best - melodically graceful, texturally rich, spacious but always clear in design. Burney famously commented on his 'new and happy use ... of wind instruments': here Wendling's flute is several times favoured, notably in the obbligato of the very first aria, and later there is a joint obbligato for oboe and horn; flute, oboes and bassoons enrich Diana's lovely cavatina that opens the second act. Endymion has a sleep song, softened by a pair of flutes. There is a great deal of interplay between voices and instruments, and indeed between the voices in the single duet, ending Act 1, and there is an almost Gluckian flavour to the chorus central to Act 2. If dramatic vitality is not especially abundant, that is partly because this text hardly calls for it; but in one of the arias, where Cupid sings of the 'fire of love', there is duly fiery and energetic music to support it.
The performance starts a shade unpromisingly, with an over-vigorous account of the first movement of the overture (which is familiar as the double orchestra symphony, Op 18 No 3), and an Andante too speedy to catch the music's expressive character. Thereafter all is well. Ann Monoyios, the singer of Nice, one of Diana's nymphs and her rival for Endymion's hand, shows a light, clearly defined soprano, well fitted to the high-lying music, and shows some nice touches of wit and timing. The Diana herself, Vasiljka Jezovsek, is also quite light of voice for this role, but it is a full and warm sound, and there is sensitive phrasing and precision in the decorative music of her final aria - which incidentally is preceded by the finest of the several accompanied recitatives, an impassioned and intense piece, when she believes Endymion to be dying. Jorg Waschinski does well in the two big arias assigned to Cupid (or Amore), and produces some polished and brilliant singing, especially in the top register.
I thought the Endymion, Jorg Hering, although even in voice and sure in style, a little less interesting, and sometimes constricted in tone and giving the impression that he might flatten. In all, however, this is an impressive account of a truly beguiling score; I am sure that many listeners will be charmed by its grace and beauty.'