Recordings for lute and related instruments

[Vinbrulé]

Hello from Italy !!   Unfortunately, it seems that Mauricio Buraglia's recording doesn't exist in 'physical' CD , only for download.
I own another CD with Buraglia playing (impeccably) two extended suites, or sonatas, by Weiss :  CD produced by Societè Francaise de Luth .
I miss Buraglia playing Charles Mouton :  on the other hand both Hopkinson Smith and Anders Ericson are more than satisfying , with Ericson adding a final emotion to his performance allowing the microphones to catch , during the last piece , the extra music of the rain beating on the wooden roof of the small chapel in Stockholm where the recording took place !!

[Vinbrulé]

Found this on Amazon Unlimited, called the Golden Age of the French Lute and which has a number of tracks of both Gaultier's:



Steven Stubbs is a new name to me (but I don't listen much to lute recordings).   I like the instrument he is using.

Found it (used) on Amazon , arrived just yesterday , and immediately put on the cd player : it took me a minute or two to get used to the registered sound (1998) but then I found myself easily in love with Stubbs' way of playing : la Gigue du vieux Gaultier (track 4) is conveyed at a truly "jig" speed and the same with the famous  'la Poste' , but the real surprise are the pieces by 'le Comte de Logis' ( Jan Antonin Losy, a nobleman from Bohemia, skilled lute player, great estimator of the french style )  ,  nine tracks in total , delightful music even at repeated listening.
Generally I don't like discs  that are not devoted to a single composer, but this is an exception (alongside the Rolf Lislevand compilation "La belle homicide" on Naive) 

[Mandryka]

When I first started to listen to classical music I remember a friend saying to me that the sign of a great musician is that he can play silence. (We were talking about the first movement of Klemperer's Brahms 1!)

If that's right, then Toyohiko Satoh proves himself to be a great musician in this recording of music by Esaias Reusner. For once this music does not purr contentedly and sleepily in the background, it jolts gently. And between every  phrase is a vision of eternity - just enough silence to reflect on the sound of one hand clapping. I don't think it's racist to say that Satoh's Reusner is Zen.

And it's Zen like a Japanese garden too: minimal, controlled, expressive. The music is laid bare, it's essence is exposed .

Satoh resolves paradoxes: he is both dancing and contemplative at the same time. Dances for the soul.

The instruments is old (1611) and fabulous and works in the music.

Reusner, by the way, is very like Froberger I'd say.  And Satoh's lute would appeal to people who have a predilection for harpsichord. What I'm trying to say is that this is a recording harpsichordphile lutophobes may like.

[Mandryka]

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Luís Gasser plays fantasies by Lluís del Milà (Luys Milan)  These are the best performances of the untranscribed instrumental pieces I have ever heard. The poetry and gentleness and humility of what Gasser does is sensational - his approach leans towards the contemplative,  but in my opinion there's nothing contrived or baroque (in the pejorative sense) about his style.

A lot of the credit is due to the beauty of Gasser's vihuela, and the sound take. The ambience is never forceful or dramatic, always quiet and intimate. This is a contrast and a revelation compared to the feeling that Hopkinson Smith and the sound engineers for Astrée created with the same music. Evidently not all vihuelas are the same! I would also say that Gasser's approach is is less preoccupied about creating effects than Hopkinson Smith's, less stylised.

I just wonder if Lluís del Milà isn't a sort of peak, a summit of the Renaissance. There's something natural, peaceful, at ease with itself,  about his music. His art is touching, without the slightest hint of sentimentality. The music is directly  communicative without ever being naive.

[milk]

Did I post this already? Sorry, I'm getting confused. But this is a fantastic collection of music: tuneful stuff, lovely instrument and performance.

[Mandryka]

Did I post this already? Sorry, I'm getting confused. But this is a fantastic collection of music: tuneful stuff, lovely instrument and performance.

Toyohiko Satoh is, IMO, the greatest of lutenist.

[milk]

Toyohiko Satoh is, IMO, the greatest of lutenist.

I'm in love with Spanish and Italian plucked stuff lately. But, I just got two of Satoh's de Visee recordings. I'm not sure what I think of it yet.

[milk]

I've been on a tear lately with buying lute/theorbo/vihuela/baroque guitar music. This one is a winner: very sensitive and soporific (in a good way). de Bethune is definitely a relaxant. I did not know him.   

[Mandryka]

I'm in love with Spanish and Italian plucked stuff lately. But, I just got two of Satoh's de Visee recordings. I'm not sure what I think of it yet.

I sometimes wonder if there's something really Japanese about Satoh's approach to style brisé, the slowness and stillness, and the tone of the lutes he likes. Listen to things like Visée's G major chaconne and the C minor Tombeau,

[milk]

I sometimes wonder if there's something really Japanese about Satoh's approach to style brisé, the slowness and stillness, and the tone of the lutes he likes. Listen to things like Visée's G major chaconne and the C minor Tombeau,

I have to focus on those. I have the two recordings but I've been more into the fantastic Spanish one he did. I'm a little skeptical of this kind of thing because, living in Japan, I often see a bit of a gap between what people imagine about the country and its reality. But I also don't want to Pooh Pooh it. I don't know if he's into the koto or other kinds of Japanese music. The whole Zen thing is very American in a way because most Japanese people don't know much about it, at least consciously. Pure Land Buddhism seems much more popular in Japan. And, they didn't have Zen popularized and romanticized the way Americans did. On the other other hand (I'm almost done), the tea ceremony and temples and stuff have a Zen influence, though it's often hidden in Japan. I guess I'm saying I don't know. If he's from a wealthy family he might have had more exposure to fine culture than the average Japanese person and might take inspiration from some aspect like Zen.

[milk]

I sometimes wonder if there's something really Japanese about Satoh's approach to style brisé, the slowness and stillness, and the tone of the lutes he likes. Listen to things like Visée's G major chaconne and the C minor Tombeau,

Honestly, my first impression of the Visee album devoted solely to lute was that it's was a bit banjo-y sounding. But let me listen again. The Moreno album on the theorbo, on the other hand, really caught my attention for its mellowness and beauty.

[Mandryka]

Honestly, my first impression of the Visee album devoted solely to lute was that it's was a bit banjo-y sounding.

Yes exactly, the instrument is muscular and doesn't sustain long. And it's not mellow, but it I still serene and meditative.  It's an old lute, which gives the lie to an idea that you read in one of Anthony Bailes's essays, that old French lutes sustain. The clarity of the Satoh lutes seems to me to really fit French music, Style Brisée.


Louis Pernot chooses similar types of instrument, also authentic.  I like Louis Pernot too.

[HIPster]

Rolf Lislevand's three ECM releases are worth hearing.  This one is good starting point:

[asin]B000E0LB9K[/asin]

Interesting liner notes too.

[bioluminescentsquid]

Yes exactly, the instrument is muscular and doesn't sustain long. And it's not mellow, but it I still serene and meditative.  It's an old lute, which gives the lie to an idea that you read in one of Anthony Bailes's essays, that old French lutes sustain. The clarity of the Satoh lutes seems to me to really fit French music, Style Brisée.


Louis Pernot chooses similar types of instrument, also authentic.  I like Louis Pernot too.

His lute does reminds me of a koto or a guzheng. I remember that my piano teacher first tried to explain what a lute was to me a long time ago by switching a yamaha organ to "Koto" and telling me that it sounded similar to a lute.

Louis Pernot's lute also sounds like that. Part of the reason why you like it?

[milk]

Rolf Lislevand's three ECM releases are worth hearing.  This one is good starting point:

[asin]B000E0LB9K[/asin]

Interesting liner notes too.

I think these are great too!

[milk]

But my wife listens to this nonstop!

[Vinbrulé]

His lute does reminds me of a koto or a guzheng. I remember that my piano teacher first tried to explain what a lute was to me a long time ago by switching a yamaha organ to "Koto" and telling me that it sounded similar to a lute.

Louis Pernot's lute also sounds like that. Part of the reason why you like it?

The effect Pernot obtains from his lute is absolutely deliberate, and probably he chooses the recording location that fits better to the sound he wants convey to the final listener.
Listen the Pernot CD devoted to Dufaut's music : yes, at the very start of the first piece you could be surprised, the sound is tough and 'muscular' and not really pleasing, but almost immediately you get in tune with it.  This muscular sound is just the ideal for clarify the sometimes intricated textures of the so-called Style Brisè .
( I'm not sure it's correct refer to the DeVisee's  writing as 'style brisè'   .... but surely Dufaut's style is )
Listen for a comparison the Dufaut cd by Sigrun Richter : it is a more recent recording realized in a very good acoustic  in a medieval church in Italy , the registered sound is not tough as that of Pernot , but it's rather similar ......and the outcome is simply electrifying !   
But in my shelf there is room for mellower sounding lutes, of course !!

[San Antone]

I sometimes wonder if there's something really Japanese about Satoh's approach to style brisé, the slowness and stillness, and the tone of the lutes he likes.

I love this recording, which I think is an example of what you describedd in the above post.

[Mandryka]

The effect Pernot obtains from his lute is absolutely deliberate, and probably he chooses the recording location that fits better to the sound he wants convey to the final listener.
Listen the Pernot CD devoted to Dufaut's music : yes, at the very start of the first piece you could be surprised, the sound is tough and 'muscular' and not really pleasing, but almost immediately you get in tune with it.  This muscular sound is just the ideal for clarify the sometimes intricated textures of the so-called Style Brisè .
( I'm not sure it's correct refer to the DeVisee's  writing as 'style brisè'   .... but surely Dufaut's style is )
Listen for a comparison the Dufaut cd by Sigrun Richter : it is a more recent recording realized in a very good acoustic  in a medieval church in Italy , the registered sound is not tough as that of Pernot , but it's rather similar ......and the outcome is simply electrifying !   
But in my shelf there is room for mellower sounding lutes, of course !!

Yes I knew I was wrong about Visée and Style Brisé as soon as I posted it, but I had to rush out to work so couldn't make any changes.

You're absolutely right about Sigrun Richter's Dufaut. Though I prefer Pernot I think, and even Satoh - I've only heard one Dufaut suite by Satoh. Both Pernot and Satoh seem to articulate the music more incisively, and let more air in between the notes, and this is something I very much like!

This may be very naive, I haven't really thought about it very deeply, but Visée makes me think of François Couperin's harpsichord music, I guess they knew each other.

Another artist worth thinking about for this tougher lute style is Anders Ericson, in Mouton and in one Dufaut suite. His latest recording, 12 string lute, I have but it's so far proving difficult to "get into" for me.

[Vinbrulé]

Yes I knew I was wrong about Visée and Style Brisé as soon as I posted it, but I had to rush out to work so couldn't make any changes.

You're absolutely right about Sigrun Richter's Dufaut. Though I prefer Pernot I think, and even Satoh - I've only heard one Dufaut suite by Satoh. Both Pernot and Satoh seem to articulate the music more incisively, and let more air in between the notes, and this is something I very much like!

This may be very naive, I haven't really thought about it very deeply, but Visée makes me think of François Couperin's harpsichord music, I guess they knew each other.

Another artist worth thinking about for this tougher lute style is Anders Ericson, in Mouton and in one Dufaut suite. His latest recording, 12 string lute, I have but it's so far proving difficult to "get into" for me.

Anders Ericson , incredible artist : baroque lute player and hard metal rock guitar player ( Doctor Jekyll ? ) and he's also a rotary equipment tester for the railways in Sweden (and a proud owner of incredible mustache !!!  see photo on his Facebook page ! )
His Mouton CD is one of my preferred discs in the lute compartment :  I would be happy to listen to a Mouton recording made by Louis Pernot , as well , and compare it with Ericson's .
The third CD made by Ericson ( Lyra Sonora , I think is the title) is of course interesting, but ..... it misses something for achieve the level of the previous two CD ( Relic and Mouton)