Recordings for lute and related instruments

[milk]

Koch plays a program with Vihuela and baroque guitar. The vihuela playing didn't grab me (and it's recorded with a lot of reverb and distance) but the baroque guitar stuff on this album by Koch is stunning. He has a very soft smooth touch which some may not like but I find beautiful.
There's this Vihuela recording as well:
The sound is really good on this one - much better than the Vihuela tracks on the Koch - and Bonavita has a jazzy style in playing early Spanish music. He makes it sound very modern. I'm wasn't sure what I though about that at first, but it's won me over a bit. Bonavita is very expressive/demonstrative and liberal with agogics if that's the right way to put it.

[milk]

   

I've gone back and fourth on this one but, listening to this today, this is quite a good portrayal of Milan's book in linear order.

[milk]

I'm impressed with this one. I'm always eager to find something I haven't heard, and something a little different. This is early French and Italian music on the chitarra rinascimentale, something like an Italian vihuela? Anyway, there's lots of Adrian Le Roy on here which I think is quality early composition.


I got this one a while back and find it's full of engaging music. This is a very reverberant recording but I find it works well with Wilson's style and program.

[San Antone]

I assume this composer (and recording, too) have been mentioned before, but this morning I was listening to it for the first time.  The coincidence of the composer's name being the same as the famous Delta blues man caught my fancy.



"Playing a golden-toned 10-course lute and using original manuscript sources or his own sensitive reconstructions, British lutenist Nigel North presents a delightful recital of dances by Robert Johnson, a contemporary of Shakespeare for whose plays he wrote songs and incidental music. Although they use the old forms of pavan, galliard, almain and fantasie, Johnson's exquisite works tend towards the more expansive, lyrical style that would later flourish in the Baroque period."

[milk]

I assume this composer (and recording, too) have been mentioned before, but this morning I was listening to it for the first time.  The coincidence of the composer's name being the same as the famous Delta blues man caught my fancy.



"Playing a golden-toned 10-course lute and using original manuscript sources or his own sensitive reconstructions, British lutenist Nigel North presents a delightful recital of dances by Robert Johnson, a contemporary of Shakespeare for whose plays he wrote songs and incidental music. Although they use the old forms of pavan, galliard, almain and fantasie, Johnson's exquisite works tend towards the more expansive, lyrical style that would later flourish in the Baroque period."

I have to fill myself in on this Johnson

I'm listening to this at the moment. I do believe Francisco Guerau has written lovely and very melodic baroque guitar music.

[milk]

Toyohiko Satoh is, IMO, the greatest of lutenist.

This is the earlier de Visee release by Satoh. I'm starting to realize why you regard him so highly.

[milk]

I think William Carter is the best there is in this genre. He's got something special. He really understands this music deeply. I have to say that the sound quality on his recordings are the best I've heard for solo baroque guitar. This is from Corbetta's last book and the music is charming. I think this and Carter's de Murcia are must have recordings for any collector of early guitar music. 

[Mandryka]

The Sabionari guitar is by Stradivari, it sounds unbelievably refined and delicate, astonishing really. Angelo Michele Bartolotti's Bk 2 is rather fenchified music and not at all unattractive or uninteresting. Krishnasol Jimenez Moreno can drive a guitar - he plays in an attractive nonchalant way.

Moreno also recorded some Visée on the same guitar for Brilliant, but I find it totally unbearable because they've added a whole lot of reverberation, making this gossamer light masterpiece of an instrument sound like a théorbe on steroids.

I notice that Moreno chose an audiophile label for his Bartolotti - a case of once bitten twice shy maybe.

[milk]

The Sabionari guitar is by Stradivari, it sounds unbelievably refined and delicate, astonishing really. Angelo Michele Bartolotti's Bk 2 is rather fenchified music and not at all unattractive or uninteresting. Krishnasol Jimenez Moreno can drive a guitar - he plays in an attractive nonchalant way.

Moreno also recorded some Visée on the same guitar for Brilliant, but I find it totally unbearable because they've added a whole lot of reverberation, making this gossamer light masterpiece of an instrument sound like a théorbe on steroids.

I notice that Moreno chose an audiophile label for his Bartolotti - a case of once bitten twice shy maybe.

Excellent! I'm loving this! ETA: question: what do they string this with? Some kind of specially-made gut strings?

[San Antone]

The Sabionari guitar is by Stradivari, it sounds unbelievably refined and delicate ...

Very nice, this CD is on Amazon Music and you're right the guitar sounds really nice.  The music is also enjoyable from a composer I've not heard of before now.

[Mandryka]

I'm very impressed by Bartolotti's music, it's interesting contrapuntally as well as melodically I think. There's another recording by Lex Eisenhardt which is less accessible than Jamenez Moreno's - but I have an intuition that it's worth persevering with.

Such a shame that the Visée recording on Brilliant using the Stradivari was cocked up by the sound engineers.

[milk]

I'm very impressed by Bartolotti's music, it's interesting contrapuntally as well as melodically I think. There's another recording by Lex Eisenhardt which is less accessible than Jamenez Moreno's - but I have an intuition that it's worth persevering with.

Such a shame that the Visée recording on Brilliant using the Stradivari was cocked up by the sound engineers.

The newer Moreno recording is the most natural, driest, sounding recording of guitar that I own. I think it's good in this case because you can hear everything about the instrument. It's really right in the room.
Have you seen this:

https://www.youtube.com/v/yGKan6eX5ug
?
I mentioned this before but I really recommend people have a listen to Bonavita's standout style. I'm curious what others will think of it. I've come to love it but he can be a bit flashy.

[milk]

Something interesting:

French baroque music. Seems like high quality compositions so far. Some intricate fugues. He plays an original guitar attributed to Matteo Sellas (1599-1654). Somehow the sound is lute-like, even though it's still got the guitar twang. Or maybe it's just the music. 

[Mandryka]

Very good essay on Luys Milan by Massimo Lonardi here, taken from his recording of "El Maestro" on Agaora Music. I particularly enjoyed the biographical information, which helps set the context of the music rather well - he was a jew by birth, a christian by faith, a poet, a composer, a virtuoso performer, someone who aspired to affect the airs of a nobleman. In short, he was a renaissance man! All this needs to come out in the performance.

In sixteenth-century Spain the term vihuela was used generically for various plucked or bowed string instruments; the different types were then distinguished by names indicating the manner in which they were played: thus vihuela de mono for instruments whose strings were plucked with the fingers, vihuela de petola (or de pica) for plectrum instruments and vihuela de arca (de gamba or de brat) for bowed string instruments.

Various books of tablature, containing compositions of great artistic value, show us that the Spanish musicians of the "Siglo de ore" found an ideal means of expression in the polyphonic and timbric capacities of the vihuelo.

The instrument, with its flat back and figure-of-eight shape like that of the guitar, has six courses of strings (the first and highest is generally single whilst the others are doubled at unison) tuned using the some intervals as the lute: fourth-fourth-third-fourth-fourth. The pitch of the sounds was determined by the dimensions of the instrument and the quality of the strings available.

Information about the origin and development of the vihuela is somewhat scarce, but one interesting fact is that the Spaniards, and only they in Europe, preferred it to the lute which, perhaps an account of its Arabian origins, was always considered a foreign instrument in the Iberian peninsula - the instrument of the "Moorish" invaders who had been definitely defeated with the fall of Granada in 1492.

Yet the vihuela had a rather short life; little more than half a century separates the publication of "El Maestro" (the first tablature published in Spain) from the disappearance of the instrument.

Here is the complete list in chronological order of the composers and works for the vihuela that have survived to our day:

• Lays Milon: "Libro de musica de vihuela de mono. Intitulado El Maestro". (Valencia, 1535-1536).
• Luys de Narydez: "Los seys libros del Delphin de musica de cities pare tarter Vihuela". (Valladolid, 1538).
• Alonzo Madam: "Tres libros de musica en «has pare vihuela". (Sevilla, 1546).
• Enriquez de ValderrObano: "Libra de musics de vihuela, intitulado silvo de sirenos". (Valladolid, 1547).
• Diego Pisador: "Libro de musica de vihuela". (Salamanca, 1552).
• Miguel de FuenIllana: "Libro de musica pore Vihuela, intitulado Orphenica lyre". (Sevilla, 1554).
• Juan Bermuda: "Declaration de instrumentos musicales". (Ossuna, 1555). • Luys Venegas de Henestrosa: "Libra de cifra nueva para tecla, harps y vihuela". (Alcalb, 1557). • Thomas de Sancta Maria: "Libra llamado Me de toter Fantasia". (Valladolid, 1565).
• Esteban Daza: "Libra de musica en &as para Vihuela, intitulado el Parnasso". (Valladolid, 1576).
• Antonio de Cabezon: "Obras de musica para tecla arpa y vihuela. (Madrid, 1578).
• Various authors: "Ramillete de Flares, manuscript work, 1593 (Biblioteca Nacional de Madrid Mss. 6001).

As the "Viola de mono", or simply "Viola", the Vihuela was also widely known in Italy, especially in the south of the country. (The iconography does not reveal any substantial differences between the Spanish instrument and the model used in Italy.) The "Intavolatura de viola o vero !auto" by Francesco da Milano was published in Naples in 1536; since the complex polyphony of the great lutanist cannot be performed by a single string instrument, "da gamba" or "da bra«io", the "viola de mono" represents the only viable alter-native to the lute.

There may be various reasons for the disappearance of the vihuela, both in Spain and in Italy; the most likely explanation would seem to lie in the growing popularity of the five-course guitar towards the end of the sixteenth century. The older "chitarrino" with four courses was quite similar to the vihuela; indeed, in his "Orphenica lyre of 1554, Miguel de Fuenllana defines it as "vihuela de quatro ordenez que dizen guitarra" [vihuela with four courses that they call guitar]. The new five-course instrument, on the other hand, known as the "Spanish guitar" on account of its popular character and manner of playing called "toner rasqueado" (consisting in rhythmically repeated chords), soon replaced the aristocratic vihuela.

In order to understand the spirit that fires the music of the vihuelists we should remember that in the space of a few centuries the history of Spain had seen peoples of different religions: Christians, Jews, Muslims, and that despite the wars, tensions and tragedies that we know all too well the traditions and cultures of these peoples contributed, with the further addition of Italian and French influences, to creating the identity of the world in which these musicians worked.

In his splendid study "Luys Milan on Sixteenth-Century Perfor-mance Practice" (Indiana University Press, Bloomington 8, Indianapolis 1996), Luis Gasser suggests that Milan was a "Converso" - a new Christian of Jewish origin. The title of "Don" which stands proudly before his name and the research carried out by Roberto Leonardi in "La vihuela in Espana y su pasaje al territorio ame-ricano" (doctoral thesis, academic year 1995-96, University Ca' Foscari of Venice) indicate the noble status, albeit through illegitimate descent of our composer Don Luys Milan, who apart from being a virtuoso player of the vihuela and excellent composer was also a poet and a man of letters.

We do not know his dates of birth and death but do know the dates of publication of his three books, only the first of which concerns his musical activity: "Libro de musica de vihuela de mono" (Valencia, 1535-36), "Libro de motes de darns y caballeros, intitulado el juego de mandar" (Valencia, 1535) and the "Libro intitulado El Cortesano" (Valencia, 1561) a work inspired by the "Libro del Cortigiano" (1528) by Baldesar Castiglione. A number of his poems,  moreover, are included in "Las Obras de Don Joan Fernandez de Heredia" (Valencia, 1562). These dates lead us to suppose that Milan was born towards the end of the fifteenth century or at the beginning of the sixteenth, and that he died after 1561. As yet no documents have been found regarding his studies and musical education, but in the prologue to "El Maestro" we find the following significant statement: "... siempre he sido tan inclinado a la musica que puedo afirmar i dezir: que nunca tuve otro maestro sino a elle misma." I"... I have always been so inclined to music that I may state and say: never did I have any master save music itself."] This proud knowledge of being one of the finest musicians of Iris day is reaffirmed in the verses set in the margin of a print portraying Orpheus playing the vihuela: "El grande Orpheo, primero inventor / Por quien la vihuela paresce en el mundo / Si el fue primero, no fue sin secundo." [Great Orpheus, first inventor / Through whom the vihuela appeared in the world / was the first but was not without a second."]

Milan lived mainly in Valencia and was in the service of the Viceroy Hernando de Aragon and his wife Germaine de Foix, queen of Aragon and of Naples. Milan appears to have spent a period of his youth in Portugal, for John III, the king of Portugal, admired him so much as to grant him a stipend of 7000 cruzados. Milan's gratitude towards the generous sovereign is witnessed by the dedication of "El Maestro" and by six beautiful villancicos on Portuguese texts.

A number of scholars have also suggested that Milan may have spent some time in Italy. This hypothesis is supported by the presence of vihuela compositions based on Italian vocal pieces (for example, the Pavana V, composed on the aria "Qua In belle Franceschina") of sonnets for song and vihuela on Italian texts and the use of Venetian characters in the printing of "El Maestro". Milan's musical and poetical talents were highly appreciated and generously recompensed at the court of Valencia, theatre of splendid celebrations and receptions, until the death of the duke and the appointment of Bernardino de Gardenas as viceroy brought an end to the court's splendours in 1550. Only a few years later, in 1557, the death of the king of Portugal deprived Milan of his stipend. After the publication of "El Cortesano" and of a number of poems in Fernandez de Heredia's book no further trace can be found of Milan.

"El Maestro" was the first book of tablatures to be published in Spain. The date on the frontispiece, 1535, conflicts with the date of 1536 found at the end of the book, in the colophon of the publisher Francisco Diaz Romano. The earlier date probably corresponds to the date of the manuscript; the printer did not finish his work until the following year and did not think to correct the date of the frontispiece which had probably already been prepared for printing.

The complete translation of the title is as follows: "Book of music for hand vihuela. Entitled "El Maestro", which proceeds with the same style and order as a teacher would use with a beginner: showing him in an orderly manner from the beginning all those things that he might not know to understand the present work. Composed by don Luys Milan. Dedicated to the most eminent, authoritative and admired prince Don Juhan: by the grace of God King of Portugal and the islands, etc. Anna MDXXXV. By Royal privilege."

The book opens with a long dedication to King John III of Portugal, followed by an explanatory section (declaracion) concerning the tuning of the instrument, the quality and gauge of the strings, the system used in tablature and the mariner of playing. In this preface Milan states his intention to create a "vihuela musician" who should be both a virtuoso performer and an expert composer for the instrument. The volume, which is divided into two parts (libros), contains 40 fantasias, 6 pavanes and four tentos for solo vihuela; six villancicos in Spanish, six villancicos in Portuguese, four romances in Spanish and six sonnets in Italian for voice and vihuela. Each piece is preceded by an explanation (declaracion or regla) indicating its speed expressed with the following recurrent terms:

"Compas apressurado o batido" = quick movement

"Compas a espacio" = slow movement "Compas algo apressurado" = fairly quick movement
"Algun tanto apriessa" = a little quick
"Ni muy a espacio ni muy apriessa" = neither very slow nor very quick

At the end of the second part we find the "Intelligencia y declaration de los tonos que en la musica de canto figurado se usan" (Knowledge and declaration of the notes used in the music for figured song) which contains the rules for identifying the modes in which the pieces are composed. The book, "A honor de Dios, todo podero-so", closes with the colophon of the publisher and the "Correcion de Auctor en lo herrores de In Emprenta" (Author's correction of the printing mistakes). The term "Fantasia" was used for the first time and in the same year both in "El Maestro" and in the anthology of lute compositions by Francesco da Milano, Petro Paulo Borrono, Jacopo Albutio, Alberto do Mantua and Marco do laquila, published in Milan by Casteliono ("Intabolatura de leuto de diversi autori", 1536).

The Fantasias included in "El Maestro" may be subdivided into three types: contrapuntal compositions in which the initial subject, imitated by the various voices, is followed by other subjects punctuated with free sections; Fantasias based on free harmonic and melodic successions, interspersed with brief imitative passages; and "Fantasias de consonancias y redobles". The composer provides performance indications for the latter type, the most interesting and original: the chordal or contrapuntal sections (consonancias) are to be played slowly (espacio) and the monodic passages, made up of embellishments or diminutions of varying length (redobles), quickly (apriessa). Milan further points out that to ploy these pieces the performer needs "mos respecto a toner de gala que no a servar compas" (more consideration for the elegance of performance than for observance of tempo).

This style, which hails back to the practice of improvisation, has quite ancient origins traces of which may be found in the first tablatures published in Venice by the printer Ottaviano Petrucci, in some of the "Recercari" contained in the "Libro primo" and in the "Libro secondo" by Francesco Spinacino (1507) and especially in some of the "Tastar de corde" of the "Libro quarto" by Joan Ambrosio Dalza (1508), characterised by the alternation of slow and chordal sections and more fluid phrases with rapid monodic embellishments.

For the composition of his Pavans MilOn claims to have been inspired "a las mesmas pavanas que en Ytalia se tonen" (by the some Pavans as ore played in Italy). In reality his compositions have quite different rhythmic and melodic features compared to those of the coeval Italian dances (we need only think of the Pavans by Petro Paulo Borrono, published in Milan in 1536) which are characterised by slow rhythm and duple time; Mildn's idealised dances constantly indicated a fairly quick rhythm (algo apressurado) and one of them, nc6, is in triple time. The inspiration for these compositions is probably to be sought in vocal pieces of popular origin like the "Villotte alio Padoana"; MilOn himself declared the vocal origin of the theme of the Pavane n°5 and also provided the first phrase of the text: "Qua la bella Franceschina".

Although our recording is devoted entirely to compositions for solo vihuela, I have chosen to quote at least one of Mildn's Villancicos originally written for voice and vihuela (Agora viniesse un viento), offering a version for vihuela solo and elaborating the repetitions with embellishments, as indeed I have done in a number of the Pavans and Fantasias, in accordance with a usage that is well documented in various treatises of the time.

Since Milan's book contains neither transcriptions of polyphonic works nor "Diferencias" (variations) on well-known tunes of dance basses, I have added to this work a few pieces taken from "Los seys libros del Delphin" (Valladolid, 1538), which was the second vihuela tablature to be published in Spain. Its author, Luys de Narvaez, was probably born in Granada at the beginning of the sixteenth century.
10 
He was in the service of Francisco de los Covos "Comendator mayor de Leon", to whom he dedicated his vihuela book, and of Prince Felipe (later King Felipe II) whom he accompanied on various journeys to Flanders, Italy and Germany. In his book "Comienca el libro Ilamado DeclaraciOn de Instrumentos musicales" (Osuna, 1555), Juan Bermuda includes Narvaez amongst the finest vihuela players of the time.

The "Cancion I, del Emperador" is based on the famous four-part song "Mille regretz" by the French-Flemish composer Josquin Despres. Narvaez transcribed the polyphonic composition, elaborating it with embellishments (glosas) of unequalled beauty and expressive force. The "Cuatro diferencias sobre GuOrdame las vacas" and the "Otras tres diferencias hechas par otro parte" belong to the genre of compositions in which a theme, probably of popular origin, or a dance bass, is embellished, developed and elaborated in various ways. The "Ban de contrapunto - El canto lino Ileva el tiple" is a fanciful translation into Spanish style of the "Basse-dance". Lastly I have also chosen to quote at least one of Narvaez's original compositions for voice and vihuela (Paseabase el Rey morn - Romance II) in a version for solo vihuela.

Massimo Lonardi (Translation: Tim Shaw)

[Mandryka]

An well thought out definition of style brisé here

The quickly fading sound of the lute did not lend itself to polyphonic voice leading and called for specific techniques that compensated for the limitations of the instrument. The "broken style" of lute music, a most ingenious and consistent application of such a technique, may be called a glorification of the simplest lute figure: the arpeggio, That broken style is characterised by rapidly alternating notes in different registers that supply, in turn, melody and harmony. Seemingly distributed in arbitrary fashion in different registers, the notes produced, in their composite rhythm, a continuous strand of sound. The lute composer was able to articulate the even flow by means of double and triple stops which suggested the rhythmic patterns, essential to the dance. The texture of lute music was necessarily free voiced since no voice could be carried through and since notes that hinted at one voice at the beginning of the measure dropped out as soon as they had appeared.

It's interesting to compare Anthony Bailes and Louis Pernot in the light of this analysis, though unfortunately none of Apollon Orateur is on youtube, and neither is any Denis Gaultier by Pernot. But you'll see the issues I think.

https://www.youtube.com/v/o0y2Ug_j_ck

https://www.youtube.com/v/0z8GS-76YZY

[Vinbrulé]

I don't know that one, but let me take the liberty of mentioning an English banjo  lute CD which I like very much



Rooley is like the young Egarr in my opinion, the Egarr of Froberger - a sort of unaffected commitment, flat but beguiling, he just seems to lead you gently and firmly  through the music with no shenanigans or monkey business. Once I start listening to this one I can't stop!

Many thanks, Mandryka !  I didn't know Rooley had registered a solo lute album, I've found it on Amazon, ordered it out of curiosity ...... really magnificent, and the sound seems to me much more natural than in more modern, digital DDD, recordings,  simple music drops decorating the silence    Pity the playing time is so short ....and pity Rooley have not made other albums.  The ideal Cd for helping me to recover from the very heavy 'influenza' that rages Italy in these weeks 

[Mandryka]

Glad you like it, and I hope you get through the flu soon, flu is a nasty disease!

Rooley recorded a CD of Renaissance duets for L'oiseau Lyre, and he also recorded some Dowland in the Complete Dowland. I've been quite enjoying the Dowland recently, but it's not as well done as the Cozens Lute Book!

There is another Rooley recording I know which has a wonderful warm and natural sound, but it's not lute - it's his recording of consort music by Anthony Holborne.  And  Musicke of sundrie kinds  has this quality I think.

These are really life enhancing recordings!

[milk]

I'm giving this a listen again to see what I can make of it. I do like the sound of this instrument and the dry acoustics. It's pleasing. I'm just trying to see if I can enjoy this music. The interjected strumming, a quirk of the composition, is a little annoying but let's see if I can get past it. I'm kind of obsessed with finding more baroque guitar recordings but I feel I'm running out of examples of the genre.

[Omicron9]

All,

This is such a great thread.  I thank you; my wallet does not.  I keep an amazon tab open while reading this thread.  Thank you all for contributing, and please do continue.

Regards,
-09

[milk]

All,

This is such a great thread.  I thank you; my wallet does not.  I keep an amazon tab open while reading this thread.  Thank you all for contributing, and please do continue.

Regards,
-09

There's fantastic stuff here.