Lute Music

[calyptorhynchus]

I know we have threads on Dowland and Weiss and other composers who wrote lute music, but wanted to start this thread just to recommend an album I have just listened to.



It's available from Bandcamp for the usual download price (though it is only 41 minutes long).

But what playing, so accomplished, so deft, and the music is so beautiful!

Some famous names, but quite a lot of Anon.

[Mandryka]

Whenever I see your name here, @calyptorhynchus I always think of my favourite word in English -- callipygian.

(Sorry, not the sort of reply you were hoping for . . .  I promise I will listen to this PDQ and hopefully redeem myself with a less puerile response!)

[AnotherSpin]

Whenever I see your name here, @calyptorhynchus I always think of my favourite word in English -- callipygian.

(Sorry, not the sort of reply you were hoping for . . .  I promise I will listen to this PDQ and hopefully redeem myself with a less puerile response!)

What was that poem, the one dedicated to Venus Callipygos?

[calyptorhynchus]

Beautiful buttocks versus hidden beak.

Hidden beak references the feathers around the base of the beak of the Black-Cockatoos of Australia (some of the world's largest parrots). I took that online persona because many years ago I was talking about fighting climate change denialists online and my wife said 'you're always squawking online'. Yellow-tailed Black-Cockatoos are reasonably common around Canberra (but have now had their scientific name changed to Zanda).

[calyptorhynchus]

This disc from Brilliant is well worth downloading. It seems to be three discs run into one (but can be had for the usual price of a single album download)*. The first disc is Oleg Timofeyev playing mainly English C16 and early C17 pieces, the third disc is Bernhard Hofstotter playing mainly German Baroque works for lute. Both lutenists are solid players and there are some old favourites here, but some interesting little-known pieces.

However the middle disc is by the Quartetto di Liuti da Milano, and its that rare thing, a recording of lute consort music, a timbre both robust and ethereal at the same time. The pieces are Renaissance Italian ones.

* I daresay you can get the individual discs separately, but this compilation is good value.