Topic: Recordings for lute and related instruments

[Mandryka]

I just find this enthralling. Fentross has two great Dowland recordings.

Back to this this morning, it is outstanding.

[milk]

Back to this this morning, it is outstanding.

your Lonardi recommendation is great too. Very different.

[Mandryka]

Listening to Axel Wolf's new Michelangelo Galilei recital right now. It is delightful, intricate music, as one would expect from someone whose brother was Galileo. The music takes lots of little twists and turns. There is an awful lot of performance noise, squeaks, finger sounds, etc., so potential buyers should be aware of that caveat.

Thanks, Brian, for pointing this CD out 2½ years ago, in a post which was promptly ignored but shouldn’t have been. Wolf’s CD is every bit as stimulating as Bailes’s much acclaimed recording of Michelangelo Galielei, though I should say that it’s not clear to me how much overlap between the to CDs there is. The recording quality and the lute and Wolf’s vigorous and bold approach are instantly appealing. Wolf seems to be  a baroque specialist, and I guess his experience with that sort of music has helped him to find an approach to Michelangelo Galilei which is rhetorical: the phrasing lays the structure of the music clear to hear.

[milk]

Thanks, Brian, for pointing this CD out 2½ years ago, in a post which was promptly ignored but shouldn’t have been. Wolf’s CD is every bit as stimulating as Bailes’s much acclaimed recording of Michelangelo Galielei, though I should say that it’s not clear to me how much overlap between the to CDs there is. The recording quality and the lute and Wolf’s vigorous and bold approach are instantly appealing. Wolf seems to be  a baroque specialist, and I guess his experience with that sort of music has helped him to find an approach to Michelangelo Galilei which is rhetorical: the phrasing lays the structure of the music clear to hear.

this sounds just great.

[Mandryka]

This one seems to me to be ruined by uninteresting and pointless continuo.

[Mandryka]

This is just lovely recording, by turns lyrical, by turns dancing; nuanced and warm.  How interesting the music is is for me a moot point. I think I’m more Vincenzo than Michelangelo.

[Mandryka]

Let us know your opinion later!

My first reaction is just to say that the theorbo is a beautiful instrument! The CD has some rarities - Belfonte Castaldi, for example, and Pietro Paolo Melii. Sakurada is very much in the style of his teacher Toyahiko Satoh because the music is spacious and airy. I like these lute players in the Satoh school.

[Mandryka]

The iki style in practice (iki is a concept in Japanese aesthetics) means space - impeccable judgement about how to let the phrases, and indeed the notes, respire. This is clearly quirky, I certainly had to give it time and approach it with a clean palate - but when it does catch me in the right frame of mind it totally satisfying and indeed effaces the memory of all other style of playing French music. This is peerless Ennemond Gaultier, Mouton etc. and IMO some of these composers (I’m thinking of Gaultier) are real hard to pull off. Recommended for the open minded by me. 

The bandcamp blurb says it’s Satoh’s “definitive” statement - a last recording from a master, THE grand master possibly.

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

My first reaction is just to say that the theorbo is a beautiful instrument! The CD has some rarities - Belfonte Castaldi, for example, and Pietro Paolo Melii. Sakurada is very much in the style of his teacher Toyahiko Satoh because the music is spacious and airy. I like these lute players in the Satoh school.

Ok, I will check the disc in question!

[(: premont :)]

The bandcamp blurb says it’s Satoh’s “definitive” statement - a last recording from a master, THE grand master possibly.

You may be right. He turned 78 this year-

[Mandryka]

You may be right. He turned 78 this year-

Except I just noticed this - released 2020. I can’t see how to hear it here in the UK - if anyone can help, please say.



https://chokalute.wordpress.com/2020/09/09/佐藤豊彦氏%E3%80%80リュート・ソロcd/

[Mandryka]

Ok, I will check the disc in question!

Thanks for your PM by the way - I was right to sense that the performances style in the iki recording is all about letting the music respire!

[vers la flamme]

The iki style in practice (iki is a concept in Japanese aesthetics) means space - impeccable judgement about how to let the phrases, and indeed the notes, respire. This is clearly quirky, I certainly had to give it time and approach it with a clean palate - but when it does catch me in the right frame of mind it totally satisfying and indeed effaces the memory of all other style of playing French music. This is peerless Ennemond Gaultier, Mouton etc. and IMO some of these composers (I’m thinking of Gaultier) are real hard to pull off. Recommended for the open minded by me. 

The bandcamp blurb says it’s Satoh’s “definitive” statement - a last recording from a master, THE grand master possibly.

Very fascinating. Need to hear this.

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

Except I just noticed this - released 2020. I can’t see how to hear it here in the UK - if anyone can help, please say.



https://chokalute.wordpress.com/2020/09/09/佐藤豊彦氏%E3%80%80リュート・ソロcd/

Oop now. Though I am not sure if you can order, there are some info on the sites below. Btw, it appears that his daughter is a lute player too.

https://www.hmv.co.jp/news/article/2007151022/

https://www.tokyo-m-plus.co.jp/products/nostalgia1901

[vers la flamme]

OK, this Iki is phenomenal. Definitely worth my 10 euros for a download... Thank you all for alerting me to the lute work of Toyohiko Satoh.

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

OK, this Iki is phenomenal. Definitely worth my 10 euros for a download... Thank you all for alerting me to the lute work of Toyohiko Satoh.

😍😍😍

[(: premont :)]

While we are at Satoh, I think I should recommend this:

https://www.amazon.de/Bach-Three-Solo-Suites-Satoh/dp/B0030UCXPC/ref=sr_1_1?__mk_de_DE=%C3%85M%C3%85%C5%BD%C3%95%C3%91&keywords=bach+satoh&qid=1638490920&sr=8-1

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

Just ordered this



He's a pupil of Toyohiko Satoh, a couple of things on general streaming.

I can’t find the album on streaming sites. Will look for the disc in Tokyo. Jfyi, his web site is below.

http://www.lutelute.com/blog/?page_id=8

While we are at Satoh, I think I should recommend this:

https://www.amazon.de/Bach-Three-Solo-Suites-Satoh/dp/B0030UCXPC/ref=sr_1_1?__mk_de_DE=%C3%85M%C3%85%C5%BD%C3%95%C3%91&keywords=bach+satoh&qid=1638490920&sr=8-1

Sato’s playing is unique with a lot of space and atmosphere. It often reminds me of Zen gardens.

[vers la flamme]

Satoh is amazing, can't stop listening to that Iki album. Are there any other recordings that are particular highlights? I'm interested in the stuff he's recorded for the Carpe Diem label.

[Mandryka]

The obvious answer is the De Visée and the Reusner. But for me, the most special has unexpectedly turned out to be the one called Viennese Lute Music - all composers I had never heard of before, for all I know unrecorded elsewhere, so a “revelation” in that sense, and the music and the performances are poetic.

If you search this thread for his Reusner and De Visée on Carpe Diem, I think I posted some nonsense about them. Both get played often at Mandryka Towers.

There’s also a disc of duets with his daughter which sounds good but it’s all composers which haven’t much caught my imagination so far - Weiss, Telemann. One day.