Recordings for lute and related instruments

Started by Que, March 29, 2008, 02:19:19 AM

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Mandryka

#440
Quote from: Florestan on December 12, 2014, 12:15:20 AM
Don´t know if this has been mentioned, but it´s oustanding in every possible way.






I think I prefer the music by his dad, Hans. Bart Roose plays in a totally charming way too. Not that O'Dette is bad . . . for me in my current mood he's a bit too . . . plain Jane.

(Hans Neusilder makes me think of Bakfark for some reason. They both create a similar room ambience!

Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

Mandryka



This is so much fun! Clean sounding lute, he plays in a way which is refined -- there's no pounding out the pulse at all, even in dances. And what's more it's revealing because it makes the music sound quite complex and interesting from a rhythmic point of view.
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

Mandryka

#442
Quote from: Mandryka on October 16, 2018, 02:48:08 AM
Listening to this again for the first time since April, I feel exactly the same, so I guess that's not a bad sign.

And listening again to the Hans Neusilder part of this, I feel exactly the same so I have, it seems, a consistent response to Toru Sakurada's playing here! Toyohiko Satoh wrote a forward for the booklet so I guess he must rate his pupil hightly!
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

Mandryka

#443
Quote from: Mandryka on March 18, 2019, 11:35:34 AM
Alberto de Mantua is best known as Albert de Rippe, the Frenchified name he adopted when he was active  in the court of Francois 1er, bringing Italian music to the king who was a well known lover of all things Italian. He stood to Francois 1er as Lully stood to Louis XIV.

Despite his stature, as far as I know there are only two recordings which are dedicated to him, these

 

I find myself very much enjoying the one by Peter Söderberg, who has a gift for finding the logic in the fantasias: Peter Söderberg makes me think that although de Rippe may not be as interesting as his contemporary Francesco Milano, he is well worth exploring nevertheless. In a way I think what Söderberg has done with de Rippe's music is revealing because it shows that French music from the early C16 wasn't all naive, it had a sophisticated side.

I've yet to get my head around Hopkinson Smith's recording.

It's strange to reread this post of a few months ago, having now spent more time with de Rippe's music.

This latest assault started off while listeninh to this most attractive compilation by Charles-Edouard Fantin, which contains pieces by the usual suspects including Milano, Morley, d'Aquilla etc



and then, as it was generally burbling along in a renaissance way, most pleasant, it's like some magical thing played, like the music had suddenly reached a new level of imaginative polyphonic inspiration. It was a piece by Albert de Rippe.

So I went back to Söderberg and Hopkinson Smith. The former seemed too dry and the latter's instruments are challenging. And casting around for other examples of de Rippe on record I stumbled across this fabulous one, by Gabriele Palomba,  full of the flights of fancy that I felt was lacking in Södeberg. Maybe here we have some performances of a large body of his work which really do him justice.


Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

Mandryka

Quote from: Mandryka on November 02, 2017, 10:11:11 AM


In Toyohiko Satoh's imaginative booklet essay, towards the end of his life, Robert de Visée reacted against the flamboyant, extrovert style which had come to dominate Versailles, and he fled to his native Portugal, to find a more reflective, slower, quieter, deeper way of life. And there, in his final years, he composed these  pieces  for lute, while listening to the birds singing and the river burbling. The way Satoh presents the music it sounds . . . reflective, slow, quiet, deep.

I have no idea if Satoh's postulates are true. I know that this music is rather good though - more contrapuntally interesting than I'd recalled from other performances of de Visée. And Satoh brings an attractive Zen feel - I mean reflective, slow, quiet, deep.


He's playing an authentic instrument (Laurentius Greiff in 1610) It would be seriously misleading  to say it sounds like a banjo, but it sounds a little bit more like a banjo than what people may expect to hear in French 17th century music. Love it.

I revisited this today, and felt exactly the same, apart from the silly and embarrassing comment about banjos. This style of high French baroque, classisism, is not really for me most of the time, not many performances get me to engage with the music, but Satoh does here.
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

HIPster

Quote from: Mandryka on June 27, 2019, 09:00:04 AM
I revisited this today, and felt exactly the same, apart from the silly and embarrassing comment about banjos. This style of high French baroque, classisism, is not really for me most of the time, not many performances get me to engage with the music, but Satoh does here.

You needn't be embarrassed by that banjo comment.  These ancient lutes have a folk quality to them.  One that I find very appealing.  In fact, what you wrote about the Satoh, inspired me to play this one, from Hubert Hoffmann:

[asin]B01LZAT0GF[/asin]

Have you heard it?

I like this recording a lot.
Wise words from Que:

Never waste a good reason for a purchase....  ;)

Mandryka

#446
Quote from: HIPster on June 27, 2019, 11:29:10 PM
You needn't be embarrassed by that banjo comment.  These ancient lutes have a folk quality to them.  One that I find very appealing.  In fact, what you wrote about the Satoh, inspired me to play this one, from Hubert Hoffmann:

[asin]B01LZAT0GF[/asin]

Have you heard it?

I like this recording a lot.

Not only have I heard it, and like the sound, the interpretation and the music, but also it inspired me to seek out this, which is equally satisfying



Both these recordings exemplify what attracts me most to music in performance: cutting edge research put into practice by an imaginative musician and engineering team who pay meticulous attention to instruments and sound.

All played back through a Krell , , , in the sunshine , , , with a glass of wine . . .
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

Mandryka

#447


Listening to this recording from start to end, which struck me is how perfect and rich Mouton's counterpoint is. Hopkinson Smith plays with unusual sobriety and accuracy, and paradoxically that seems to enhance the expressiveness of the music. I'm reminded of some of  Leonhardt's Bach, where there can be a similar effect. Is this greatest recording of music by the greatest French baroque lute composer? Quite possibly. 
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

Mandryka

#448


In Lukas Henning's  essay for this recording, we learn that the piece Tocha Tocha la canella is associated with this  poem in the second edition of Marco del'Aquila's lute music

QuotePosami questa gamba in su la spalla,
et levami dal cazzo anco la mano,
e quando vuoi ch'io spinga forte o piano,
piano o forte col cul sul letto balla.

E s'in cul dalla potta il cazzo falla,
dì ch'io sia un forfante e un villano,
perch'io conosco dalla vulva l'ano,
come un caval conosce una cavalla.

- La man dal cazzo no levarò io,
non io, che non vo' far questa pazzia,
e se non vuoi così, vatti con Dio.

Ch'el piacer dietro tutto tuo saria,
ma dinanzi il piacer è tuo e mio,
sicché, fotti a buon modo, o vanne via.

- Io non me n'anderia
signora cara, da così dolce ciancia,
s'io ben credess campari il Re di Francia.



Can someone translate it for me? And apparently there's an engraving illustrating the poem too - can anyone find it?
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

milk

Quote from: Mandryka on July 08, 2019, 09:37:29 AM


In Lukas Henning's  essay for this recording, we learn that the piece Tocha Tocha la canella is associated with this  poem in the second edition of Marco del'Aquila's lute music


Can someone translate it for me? And apparently there's an engraving illustrating the poem too - can anyone find it?
Brilliant sounding instrument and I'm really enjoying Henning. dall'Aquila is so inventive and engaging.

Mandryka

#450
Quote from: milk on July 08, 2019, 11:52:30 PM
Brilliant sounding instrument and I'm really enjoying Henning. dall'Aquila is so inventive and engaging.

Yes, each string with its own timbre, which makes the counterpoint come out. The music is very fine and indeed subtle and complex. Lukas Henning, who was a student of Hopkinson Smith, has some good friends - in the booklet he thanks Bjorn Schmelzer. Any friend of Bjorn's is a friend of mine.

By the way, if you look carefully at the back cover you'll see that some of the music is by Lukas Henning, I'm not sure what's going on here, as far as I can see the booklet doesn't explain.

The Stradivarius label is up to some good things - be sure to check the recording of music by Albert de Rippe that Gabriele Palomba made for them.
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

Mandryka

#451
Quote from: milk on January 27, 2018, 11:38:19 PM

I've been on a tear lately with buying lute/theorbo/vihuela/baroque guitar music. This one is a winner: very sensitive and soporific (in a good way). de Bethune is definitely a relaxant. I did not know him.   

I like the Béthune a lot, oneiric rather than soporific I think. The music's so simple, and what Jose Miguel Moreno makes  of it is so beautiful, really a case of the performer transcending the composition.

But it's only half the recording. The rest is by Visée mostly, and to me, though it's perfectly listenable and it uses an unusual instrument, just isn't as inspired performance wise as the Béthune. A nice recording though. 

This one he made, which is dedicated to de Visée, also doesn't inspire my imagination. I know Visée isn't a contrapuntal composer but this puts the emphasis too much on melody for me, more so than Hopkinson Smith does or Toyohiko Satoh. And someone Moreno's style of plucking the strings gets boring for me quickly, there's not enough variety of attack.

Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

Mandryka

#452


Outstanding 16th century Italian Music CD here from Joachim Held: impressive  intonation (in the sense of the construction of phrases with relief, highs and lows), the way he manages silences feels natural, everything sounds simple without falling into naivety. Attractive coherent instrument well recorded.
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

Mandryka

Quote from: Mandryka on December 20, 2018, 12:40:44 AM
In fact there's a third Rooley lute CD apart from what's in the Dowland box, this, which I got in the post yesterday



First impressions - introspective, soft and gentle.

Over the past month or so I've become quite addicted to this recording, especially the music by Michelangelo Galilei. At first the extreme introspective approach made it hard to appreciate because it doesn't impose itself, and in a world full of distractions that can mean that it gets ignored. It's a case of a recording which has for me very much repaid repeated listening.
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

Mandryka

Quote from: Mandryka on February 10, 2018, 10:31:40 PM


I like this Luys de Narváez recording by José Akel on Laúd very much, lively and imaginative and very contrapuntal and passionate. Can anyone help me to find a decent transfer, a lossless download or CD? I have it through spotify only, which I know is not a good thing.

Going back to this has proved a great pleasure. I still don't have a CD, I found a 320kbps download through Google Play which is better than spotify -- a more lively sound. Very fine music for a hot and sunny day in London.
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

Mandryka

#455
Quote from: XB-70 Valkyrie on July 31, 2016, 04:28:00 PM
To my ears, the modern guitar sounds tonally/harmonically very dry and uninteresting compared to these instruments. Does this have something to do with construction or is it a matter of tuning? Or both?

Any thoughts on Jonas Nordberg?



I like this performance a great deal:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qeUcGD4rRRc

The only mention of Jonas Nordberg I can find on GMG. He has a new Kapsberger recording, with an outstanding little essay by Anne Marie Drogsatis, emphasising the proximity of Frescobaldi to Kapsberger.



His theorbo ("after M. Tieffenbrucker") is rather uniform in timbre, a rather beautiful timbre it is too; his style of playing is really special because it's so easy going and laid back! He really does give the impression of someone just relaxing and amusing themselves. Anyway a disc like this is always a good excuse to reawaken interest in Kapsberger, who has been off my radar for a few months at least.
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

Moonfish

*cross-posting with New Releases*
(since it seems relevant in this thread)

A new compilation release from Note1Music

I'm very fond of Weiss. His compositions have been a delight via Barto's recordings on the Naxos label.

[asin] B07Y9BH6T3[/asin]

"Every time you spend money you are casting a vote for the kind of world you want...."
Anna Lappé

Mandryka




A performance remarkable for its clarity of the voices and its sureness of the rhythms. The mood of the music is an agreeable blend of melodiousness and seriousness. The guitar is warm and in terms of timbre, it is very uniform in all the registers. The music by Domenico Rainer, which dates from the late c17, has only recently been unearthed in a manuscript by Lex Eisenhardt. Outstanding sound engineering.
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

Alek Hidell

Quote from: Mandryka on November 23, 2019, 09:49:51 PM


The fellow seen here strumming the guitar seems pretty vexed about something - anyone know the painting (of which, I'm sure, this is only a part)?
"When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why they are poor, they call me a communist." - Hélder Pessoa Câmara

North Star

Quote from: Alek Hidell on December 14, 2019, 07:25:16 PM
Quote from: Mandryka on November 23, 2019, 09:49:51 PM


A performance remarkable for its clarity of the voices and its sureness of the rhythms. The mood of the music is an agreeable blend of melodiousness and seriousness. The guitar is warm and in terms of timbre, it is very uniform in all the registers. The music by Domenico Rainer, which dates from the late c17, has only recently been unearthed in a manuscript by Lex Eisenhardt. Outstanding sound engineering.
The fellow seen here strumming the guitar seems pretty vexed about something - anyone know the painting (of which, I'm sure, this is only a part)?
The bass player can't keep a steady beat to save his life, clearly.
"Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it." - Confucius

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