Erfreuliche Lautenlust (2005)

This "delightful lute-pleasure" (the title comes from a publication by Esaias Reusner, one of the composers represented here) offered on this album may be most delightful for lutenists and their friends, but it has charms for general listeners as well. It consists of German lute music from the late seventeenth century and the beginning of the eighteenth, in other words, from one or two generations before the genius of the German lute tradition, Sylvius Leopold Weiss. The music here has neither the Bachian contrasts of ... Read More

This "delightful lute-pleasure" (the title comes from a publication by Esaias Reusner, one of the composers represented here) offered on this album may be most delightful for lutenists and their friends, but it has charms for general listeners as well. It consists of German lute music from the late seventeenth century and the beginning of the eighteenth, in other words, from one or two generations before the genius of the German lute tradition, Sylvius Leopold Weiss. The music here has neither the Bachian contrasts of virtuosity and polyphonic intensity found in Weiss, nor the florid decoration of the French suites on which most of these pieces were modeled. Virtuoso artistry is demanded by the passacaglia arrangements that open and close the program, one from an ensemble sonata by Muffat, and the other of a Biber violin sonata -- and virtuosity is provided in abundance by lutenist Joachim Held, a remarkably clear and arresting player. The suites of French dances that make up the bulk of the program... Read Less