Topic: Recordings for lute and related instruments

[Mandryka]

Milk will like this one, Bach's Cappriccio on the departure of his dearly beloved brother arranged for "backside-guitar" by Simon Steen Anderson -- one of the better modern Bach transcriptions. The guitar is played like a keyboard!

<a href="https://www.youtube.com/v/KwtXFOw0XWo&amp;ab_channel=FrancescoPalmieri" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="bbc_link bbc_flash_disabled new_win">https://www.youtube.com/v/KwtXFOw0XWo&amp;ab_channel=FrancescoPalmieri</a>

[milk]

Milk will like this one, Bach's Cappriccio on the departure of his dearly beloved brother arrangered for "backside-guitar" by Simon Steen Anderson -- one of the better modern Bach transcriptions. The guitar is played like a keyboard!

<a href="https://www.youtube.com/v/KwtXFOw0XWo&amp;ab_channel=FrancescoPalmieri" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="bbc_link bbc_flash_disabled new_win">https://www.youtube.com/v/KwtXFOw0XWo&amp;ab_channel=FrancescoPalmieri</a>

That's pretty awesome.

[milk]

I’m not quite sure where this goes. And it’s hard to place this sound. It’s not quite like anything but I’m not sure yet either.
ETA: this is a beautiful album. If you’re a fan of William Waters’ De Murcia, you’ll like this. I’m not sure it goes here. Maybe yes but also for the guitar forum.

[milk]

this is very rewarding. It’s an attractive sounding-instrument and some very fine music.

[Que]

Crossposting this from the Listening thread:

Piccinini, Alessandro (1566-ca. 1638) - Intabulations for lute & chitarrone, Bks. I and II w/ Luciano Contini and Francesca Torelli (licensed from Tactus) - love those lute/guitar related instruments from this period, such as the chitarrone (looks like the theorbo), archlute, etc. - much more HERE from where the second pic below was located (click to enlarge).  Dave

 

Wonderful recordings!

And I like to point out that Luciano Contini made another solo recording with music by Baroque composer Giovanni Zamboni, originally issued on Symphonia but now available on Glossa:



A must for lute aficionados IMO! 

[Mandryka]

Hopkinson Smith shows us a de Rippe whose music goes far beyond the spirit of the brasnle -- I mean the jaunty naive tuneful style that I associate with a show for tourists in a medieval festival in a market place in the south of France. Instead most of the music is full of subtle and organic changes in tempo and rhythm, rich in expressive variety  and interesting, far from straightforward polyphony, yielding surprising textures. He does all this without losing a sense of direction or of inevitable flow or coherence in the transitions. He's wonderful in the fantasias, which seem to be brimming over with inventive surprises. 

Two tangy instruments, a lute and a guitar, well recorded. This is one of those recordings which I can't stop listening to once I start.

Just to reiterate this, since I’m returning to the recording for the first time in a long time. What I’d forgotten is how interesting Albert de Rippe’s music is contrapuntally. This is an excellent CD, as in 2019, once I start I can’t stop.

[Mandryka]

And somehow I missed this when it was released in 2019. Listening to the first half dozen tracks for the first time with Hopkinson Smith still in my head, as it were, I can say it is more soft and lyrical, more dreamy.  Listening with another approach in mind is never a good idea, so I’ll come back to it in a couple of weeks.

[SonicMan46]

 

And somehow I missed this when it was released in 2019. Listening to the first half dozen tracks for the first time with Hopkinson Smith still in my head, as it were, I can say it is more soft and lyrical, more dreamy.  Listening with another approach in mind is never a good idea, so I’ll come back to it in a couple of weeks.

Hi Mandryka - thanks for the Albert de Rippe recommendations above; just checked Amazon USA and recordings are not available or overpriced (assume OOP) - so decided to setup a Hopkinson Smith playlist on Spotify, mainly JS Bach but w/ the de Rippe recording - listening now to the Bach but the other will come up soon!  Dave

[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.

Returning to this this morning confirms all that I wrote 18 months or so ago, this is well balanced music: not too simple, not too complex. Eisenhardt is a fabulous musician here IMO.

[Mandryka]

This bargain 4CD-set by Nigel North, with transcriptions of the cello suites and sonatas & partitas for violin is mighty impressive as well.

Q

Yes the cello suites certainly are impressive.

[Mandryka]

The internet tells me this was released in 2017 but I’ve only just found it, perhaps it has more recently become easily available out of Japan. Mouton, Visé, Gaultier, all the usual suspects. There’s a lot of chaconnes! It’s very very good, brilliant sound, a sense of space and respiration, zen - control and sound and silence.

[Mandryka]

I’m not sure what to say about this one. When it came out last year my notes say I thought it was wonderful. Returning to it this week I was underwhelmed, I thought the performances were so reflective it was hard to grasp any structure.  But today, it feels wonderful again. Not a consistent response then. One reason is possibly that Otzbrugger’s style depends very much on the resonances of his instrument, and so to get what he’s about you need to listen on a system which can let you hear all the partials properly. I’m using huge electrostatics today, earlier this week little monitors. More likely it’s just a question of my mood.

[aligreto]

The Golden Age of English Lute Music [Julian Bream]





Tracklist

A1 Two Almaines Written-By – Robert Johnson
A2 Fantasia Written-By – John Johnson
A3 Walsingham Written-By – Francis Cutting
A4 Mignarda (Galliard) Written-By – John Dowland
A5 Almaine Written-By – Francis Cutting
A6 Galliard Written-By – Philip Rosseter
A7 Greensleeves Written-By – Francis Cutting

B1 Galliard: Upon A Galliard Of Daniel Batchelar Written-By – John Dowland
B2 Pavan Written-By – Thomas Morley
B3 Carman's Whistle Written-By – Robert Johnson
B4 Pavan Written-By – Bulman
B5 Mounsiers Almaine Written-By – Daniel Batchelar
B6 Pavan Written-By – Anthony Holborne
B7 Batell Galliard Written-By – John Dowland
B8 Galliard Written-By – Anthony Holborne

[vers la flamme]

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.

This sounds great. I want to get the CD.

[Mandryka]

This sounds great. I want to get the CD.

Yes I just listened to some of it and I feel the same way as I did in 2019

[SonicMan46]

This sounds great. I want to get the CD.

After listening to the Domenico Rainer recording on Spotify performed by Lex Eisenhardt on Baroque guitar, I made the playlist below of that and three other of his recordings - listening now.  Attached are the Brilliant notes on the Rainer recording for those interested (written by Eisenhardt).

I was always curious about the cover art, a painting of an 'ugly, mad, angry' performer - looked Flemish or Italian to me but from the booklet notes "Cover image: The Guitar Player, an anonymous copy of an original painting probably by Simon Vouet (1590–1649). Courtesy of the Royal Concertgebouw, Amsterdam."  So, I looked up Simon Vouet, French painter w/ Italian training - there are MANY images of his paintings on the web but not the 'Mad Guitar Player', however, there was a much more attractive lady guitarist he painted, inserted below -    Dave

   

[Mandryka]

The nice thing about the Rainer Cd is that the music was completely unknown until Eisenhardt found it, and I think that sense of joy in discovery, of being a pioneer, helps him to make something special in the performances. There’s a very similar backstory about Hubert Hoffmann’s discovery of Ferdinand Fischer’s music, and his subsequent recording of it. Strongly recommended

[Mandryka]

Fluid, delicate, sweet, relaxed, Massimo Lonardi manages to find the dreamy side of Dowland without completely losing sight of the dance - dances of the soul, not the feet, in Lonardi’s hands. The sound is is a bit distant and diffused, but one adjusts.

[milk]

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

[Mandryka]

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

I agree, a lovely balance of lyricism and declamation, some great timbres.