Rating: 5/5
Review:
A beauty
This is a lovely disc of 17th-Century lute music
from France and
England. I'm a fan of the lute, but apart from Pierre
Gaultier none of these composers were familiar to me so I approached this with
a degree of scepticism: obscure composers are sometimes obscure for a very good
reason. In fact this turns out to be a
disc of very fine music, beautifully played.
This is Baroque music and builds on the foundations laid by
Kapsberger and others. There is a wide
variety here from the intense to the genial – and all of it is very enjoyable
indeed. Anthony Bailes plays a
twelve-course lute with great skill and sensitivity to the music. He produces a
lovely, resonant tone which is beautifully recoded here, so I find the whole
disc a pleasure to listen to. Bailes's
notes are very full and extremely interesting (I genuinely learned a lot from
them) and the packaging is attractive.
If you're a lute devotee like me or just have an interest in music of
this period, I can warmly recommend this disc; it's a beauty.
No comments:
Post a Comment