Sylvius Leopold Weiss (1686-1750)

[MusicTurner]

This composer has been one of the few, real discoveries for me in recent times. Have been able to expand a very modest lute- and guitar collection a good deal, due to some inexpensive purchases of CD piles, and the expressiveness and range of his many lute works is really surprising, making one appreciate the lute genre more. He's now a favourite lute composer, replacing Dowland (which was based on even more limited knowledge). I may have been lucky as regards the recordings bumped into (Barto, the sonatas vol.1-7/naxos; Hopkinson Smith, 2 suites-sonatas, tombeau etc./emi reflexe, and a bit more), but I can see myself collecting further CDs, when finding some interesting stuff, including maybe the Brilliant box of the London Manuscript with Cardin, if found on offer.

BTW, there's a Chandos disc with concertante works too, not yet in my collection, where the performances apparently tend to be charming, but perhaps-perhaps also less varied and substantial, than they could be: https://www.chandos.net/products/catalogue/CHAN%200707

Besides Weiss and, further down the list, Dowland, Joachim Bernhard Hagen, Robert Johnson and Kapsberger are also among the most appealing lute composers, IMHO.

(...)

Does anybody know what is going on with Robert Barto? He was recording a series for Naxos and the last volume was issued in 2012 (volume 11).  Has he simply stopped recording? I cannot find anything linked to him more recent than 2012.

I checked Robert Barto and he's surely still active, but I don't think vol.11 has been supplemented with further releases; it's not a complete recorded set of the sonatas, since there are about 100 of them.
https://lutesocietyofamerica.org/events/lute-fest-2022/lutefest-2022-faculty/

Some general Weiss info:
https://www.slweiss.de/index.php?lang=eng

An attempted discography there:
https://www.slweiss.de/index.php?id=4&type=liste&lang=eng

[Klaze]

-snip-

I have the Cardin box on Brilliant (it is really very nice as some older posts mentioned, so I would definitely try to acquire it) and Lindberg discs on BIS. Fully agree with your assessment of Weiss, though I can only listen to this stuff in limited doses, but that goes for all lute and guitar music.  And I say this as someone who plays the classical guitar on a daily basis and (in my own amateurish ways) play some Weiss transcriptions for the modern guitar... In fact, I probably play more Weiss than listen to him. For example this popular passacaglia is very satisfying to play on the guitar (sorry for the sound and shirt but I like this version quite a bit): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Syx96LraAlQ

Never looked into ensemble/concertante works so I'm curious about that Chandos disc you mentioned

[calyptorhynchus]

With Weiss the lower numbered sonatas are the ones that have been known for a long time, eg The London MS which is what Cardin has recorded. The higher numbered sonatas are ones that have only been published recently in scholarly editions (from various MS sources) and so have had less time to be discovered and played by recitalists.

[calyptorhynchus]

Talking of Cardin's recording of the London MS, I was going through it today and realised that the numbers 1-26 don't correspond to the SW numbers. So I made this little concordance which might be helpful:

Cardin London MS recording numbers/SW numbers   
   
1   1
2   2
3   3
4   33
5   5
6   10
7   11
8   12
9   13
10   15
11   16
12   17
13   18
14   19
15   21
16   22
17   23
18   24
19   25
20   26
21   27
22   28
23   29
24   30
25   31
26   32
   
Lute/Flute Duos   
1   6
2   8
3   9
4   14
5   20

[calyptorhynchus]

Sorry to keep posting but I'm on a Weiss roll at the moment.

I came across this very nice disk:


Beautifully played, well-recorded, and the first recordings of Sonatas 88, 89 and 91. 

[calyptorhynchus]

Still on my Weiss roll.

I came across a recording of Weiss sonatas played by Michael Freimuth on Youtube. Unfortunately when I try to link to it it says 'Video unavailable' here, but it is there. Search 'Weiss Michael Freimuth' and all 24 tracks are there and there is a playlist.

It was a 2008 disk that is now OOP, but beautifully played and the only recording (AFAIK) of Sonatas 82, 76, 75 and 87.

I've been through all the disks of Weiss's music listed on Discogs and I reckon that 77/109 of Weiss's Sonatas have been recorded, about 70%. This is not bad for a composer that basically almost no one has ever heard of, and I think it underlines how much the lute-playing community values his works. As I said before I find his music of a quality that that is only encountered amongst the greatest composers, and even amongst them his music holds up. He can evoke more easily than any other composer I can think of a state of being outside of time... you begin listening and everything else stops.

[Brian]

I've been through all the disks of Weiss's music listed on Discogs and I reckon that 77/109 of Weiss's Sonatas have been recorded, about 70%. This is not bad for a composer that basically almost no one has ever heard of, and I think it underlines how much the lute-playing community values his works. As I said before I find his music of a quality that that is only encountered amongst the greatest composers, and even amongst them his music holds up. He can evoke more easily than any other composer I can think of a state of being outside of time... you begin listening and everything else stops.

Agreed about that view. His music captures the very best ethereal, delicate, timeless qualities of the lute itself. I often wonder what happened to the Robert Barto series on Naxos, which has not been updated with a new album since 2012.