Jadran Duncumb, Accademia Strumentale Italiana, Alberto Rasi
Release Date: 07 July 2023
Label: Challenge Classics
Packaging Type: Slip Sleeve (CD or Vinyl)
No of Units: 1
Barcode: 0608917293821
Genres: Classical Chamber Music
Description
Alberto Rasi and his prestigious Accademia Strumentale continue their journey through the masterpieces of the European Baroque music with this of works by John Dowland.
After Bach's Kunst der Fuge (CC 72842) and Rameau's Pieces de clavecin en concert (CC 72905), here they join forces with the young star of the lute, Jadran Duncumb, to confront another Baroque milestone: John Dowland's Lachrymae. For the first time, the players are recorded around a table where the printed music lies.
From 1598 to 1606, Dowland entered the service of Christian IV of Denmark as court Lutenist. Having had the opportunity to absent himself by traveling to England both for the musical needs of the court and on his own business, he was in London from the summer of 1603 until the summer of 1604, and during that stay he published Lachrimae, or Seaven Teares (1604), a collection he dedicated to Anne of Denmark, Christian IV's sister, wife since 1589 of the new King James I.
Lachrimae is Dowland's only publication of consort music, and the only collection for a string consort and lute. It is scored in five parts for a consort of viols (or violin-family instruments) and one part for lute in tablature. All parts are not printed in separate scores, as was customary, but on a single folio: all six performers could read their part from two facing pages by sitting around the table with the book placed in the middle. That 'book-singing' is par excellence that of polyphony says a lot about the decisive function that also in terms of performance takes on the graphic arrangement of the music on the charts containing it.
The most unique of the graphic solutions devised for polyphonic music is the 'table' layout adopted by John Dowland for the publication of Lachrimae or Seaven Teares. The six parts of the music are printed on two adjacent large-format (folio) sides and arranged in such a way that, with the open book in the middle of a table and the musicians distributed on its sides, each has his or her part facing the right way. The ideal performance condition, where possible, remains today that with the 'book' of music open on a table and the performers arranged around it in the positions envisaged by the author, so as to faithfully recreate the original sound conditions of this music, for a listening experience that brings together the visual and auditory aspects of the concert in a single, more intense perceptive sensation.
"All the playing here is on an international level: beautifully balanced, marvellously flexible in phrasing and tempo, with much well-judged space in the phrasing." – Gramophone
Listeners are spoilt for choice in this music, but what makes this new recording stand out, apart from the striking excellence of the recorded sound, is the nimble playfulness of Duncumb's lute playing and the warm Italian sun which Rasi and friends shine upon Dowland's inspiration." - MusicWeb International
Tracklisting
Narratio Quartet
Piano Duo Scholtes & Janssens
Matteo Cicchitti, Musica Elegentia
Cappella Pratensis, Stratton Bull, Sollazzo Ensemble
La Sfera Armoniosa, Oscar Verhaar, Mike Fentross
Simona Marchesi, Bartolomeo Dandolo Marchesi
Ben Kim, Concertgebouw Chamber Orchestra
Stavanger Symphony Orchestra, Jan Willem de Vriend
Narratio Quartet
Beau Soir Trio
Martin Rummel, Stefan Stroissnig
Hanspeter Oggier; Marina Vasilyeva
Antje Weithaas, Denes Varjon
Piano Duo Scholtes & Janssens
Matteo Cicchitti, Musica Elegentia
Ensemble Agamemnon, Francois Cardey
