Weiss: Lute Sonatas Nos. 38 And 43

Description

Silvius Leopold Weiss (1687-1750)Lute Sonatas, Volume 5In the years during which this series of recordings has been appearing, Silvius Leopold Weiss has begun at last to be recognised as a major figure in German eighteenth-century music. During this time research into his life and his music has not stood still. A few new biographical facts have emerged, in particular about his early career before 1717, when he joined the dazzling musical establishment of the King of Poland and Elector of Saxony in Dresden. Most importantly, Frank Legl was the first to recognise the significance of a short posthumous notice published about the famous lutenist in Johann Christoph Gottsched’s Handlexicon oder Kurzgefaßtes Wörterbuch der schönen Wissenschaft und freyen Künste (Leipzig, 1760). This reveals that Weiss was in fact born in 1687, a year later than was previously thought, in the small town of Grottkau (today called ‘Grodkow’ in Polish) south-east of Breslau (Wroclaw), the capital of the province of Silesia, rather than in the city itself, as had hitherto been assumed by music-historians. The reliability of the new evidence is supported by the fact that Gottsched’s wife, Luise Adelgunde Victoria Gottsched (1713-62), identified as the author of this dictionary entry as well as others on musical matters, was herself known as a fine lutenist well acquainted with the composer, who visited her at home in Leipzig on at least one occasion. Also emerging from Luise Gottsched’s contribution to her husband’s Wörterbuch, this time in the entry on the lute, is confirmation of a common assumption, that Silvius Weiss was the main instigator of two essential modifications to the classic French form of the lute. These were: first, the addition, some time around 1717, of two extra pairs of bass strings, turning the eleven-course lute that had been standard for over half a century, into the thirteen-course instrument; secondly, probably around 1732, a further modification which involved mounting the bass strings on a second pegbox in a theorbo-like extension to the lute’s neck. This gave additional power and definition to the bass strings, while giving the instrument additional resonance, thus aiding the production of the legato or ‘cantabile’ style of playing for which Weiss was famed. In fact, for most of his pieces, we can usually determine which of the three forms of lute Weiss was writing for. Technical features of the music sometimes render it unperformable, exactly as written, on the ‘wrong’ instrument, and there are passages where the music seems to have been modified, not necessarily by Weiss himself, to take advantage of a later form of the instrument; bass notes are sometimes found written a note lower than is strictly necessary, or have sometimes even been added in the lower octave. Of the three works on this recordings, only one has a precise date (the Hartig Tombeau), but