Release Date: 01 January 2000
Label: Naxos / Naxos Classics
Packaging Type: Jewel Case
No of Units: 1
Barcode: 636943435021
Genres: Classical
Composer/Series: WEISS
Description
Silvius Leopold Weiss(1686-1750)Sonatas for LuteVolume 3No. 2 in D major; No.27 in C minor; No. 35 in D minorSilvius Leopold Weissis just beginning to be recognised as one of the most important Germancomposers of the first half of the eighteenth century. The delay is perfectlyunderstandable: a composer whose ceuvre is confined to a single genre, solo lutemusic, is bound to be thought of as interesting to specialists only. Yet in hisday this lutenist, an exact contemporary of J.S. Bach, was regarded with awesimilar to that accorded the great Leipzig organist by listeners andfellow-composers alike. The two were even compared by contemporary writers,especially for their legendary skill in improvisation, and Weiss was honouredas the highest-paid instrumentalist in the glittering musical establishment atthe Saxon Electoral and Polish Royal Court at Dresden, and lived there in somecomfort and security. Bach, whose by no means comfortable job in Leipzig was adaily grind of teaching and composing to order, also held a largely honoraryposition in Dresden as Court Composer, although he did not make regularappearances there as a performer. As far as posterity is concerned, Weiss'sprincipal misfortune is to find himself in the company of a figure now universallyacclaimed as perhaps the greatest of all composers. Bach casts a long shadoweven over contemporary talents as remarkable as Domenico Scarlatti, Handel,Telemann, Rameau and Fran?ºois Couperin, to name but the most prominent. Whatchance against such competition in the music-history stakes is there for acomposer whose output is exclusively for an obsolete instrument? To makematters worse, Weiss's music is entirely preserved in lute tablature, an arcaneform of notation that, outside the domain of purely academic study, demands thereconstruction of historically-accurate instruments and the relearning ofplaying techniques that are only hinted at in contemporary documents andtreatises. Only now, perhaps, with the steady progress in lute-playing (andlute-making) that has gone on since the 1970s, can the listener begin toappreciate what is most special in the music of this highly imaginative andsensitive composer. This is music that, like that for keyboard by Scarlatti orCouperin, or for solo violin or cello by Bach, is not only technicallydemanding and utterly idiomatic for its instrument, but often highlyexpressive, with some wonderful and characteristic dramatic gestures.Weiss's music differsfrom Bach's in some significant ways. The most immediately striking disparityis in the length of the movements. In this he strayed much further than Bachfrom the classic French models that one might expect from a lutenist raised inthe seventeenth century tradition, basically a French one. Weiss, however, hadone great formative experience denied to Bach he spent the years 1708-14 inItaly in the service of the Polish former royal family, at a time when Italianmusic was in the ascendancy, and Italian opera in particular wa
Tracklisting
Dariia Lytvishko
Baltimore Symphony Orchestra; Marin Alsop
Alice Di Piazza; Basel Sinfonietta; NDR Bigband; Titus Engel
Anna Alas i Jove; Miquel Villalba
David Childs; Black Dyke Band; Nicholas Childs
Zenz:Cathariou:Iacovidou
Zahir Ensemble
Yun-Yi Qin
