Rating: 5/5
Review:
A terrific disc
This is a terrific disc – as you’d expect from these two
brilliant players. It consists of duets for viola da gamba from
17th-Century England by Christopher Simpson and John Jenkins, plus a
single Ayre by Simon Ives. It is a delight; Simpson and Jenkins
were two masters of the instrument and wrote charming and thoughtful
works for it which have real musical merit, too.
Paolo Pandolfo and
Robert Smith have rather different styles, in spite of Smith having
been Pandolfo’s pupil, and Pandolfo’s freer, more flamboyant
playing goes really well with the more sober approach taken by Smith.
I think the combination is an absolute joy to listen to and the
overall sound of the two gambas, excellently recorded by Resonus, is
quite thrilling. (Do try listen on good speakers or headphones to
get the full effect.) It’s a wonderful disc throughout; I love it
and can recommend it very warmly indeed.
(I can also heartily
recommend both Smith’s and Pandolfo’s recent recordings of the
newly discovered Telemann Fantasias for Viola da Gamba, Phantasm’s
two superb discs of Jenkins’s Consort Music and the much missed
Sophie Watillon’s disc of Simpson’s The Seasons.)
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