
This Cd is the apotheosis of a technique which Pandolfo has been developing for years -- he touches the strings lightly with the bow, the result is a bit like short motifs of music are chasing each other in a game of cat and mouse -- fragile, murmuring, and above all in motion. He uses these chasing motifs to create a pulse -- it's a completely new way of marking a rhythm. It makes the music sound mysterious, elusive and shimmering with life.
The music is made up of C16 pieces for little ensembles including viols, the music is all inspired by madrigals -- the madrigals are sung, like in those recordings of Orgelbuchlein where they sing the chorales.
Is the viol music interesting? It's beautiful, in a renaissance way, that's to say it's simple and it's sweet and sane. And it's virtuoso. Harmonically, the madrigals sound quite interesting presumably because of enharmonic and microtonal adjustments that the singers are making. The viol pieces are often viol and some sort of accompaniment so there aren't a whole of of opportunities for harmonic juiciness unfortunately.
Pandolfo's style of playing makes it more interesting that that sounds, because it gives it nervous energy and life.
One fascinating moment is in Vincenzo Bonizzi's music based on Pierre Sandrin's
Douce Memoir, where the nervous cat and mouse style is effectively contrasted with brief and memorable lyrical moments. Bonizzi also comes up trumps in a long piece based on Willaert's song
Jouissance vous donnerai -- he's defo a composer I want to explore more.
Another high point, for similar reasons, is Bassani's music based on
Susanna un jour. And how lovely here, the combination of viol and lute.
If this was a concert we'd be on our feet at the end shouting bravo and be we'd talking about how wonderful it was in the bar afterwards; we'd be totally enraptured by the music making, which would make us forget all other music; we'd feel honoured and fortunate to have borne the costs, and taken the time and trouble to go -- in these days of streaming, what more can anyone want from a recording than that?