Rolf Lislevand: Libro Primo

NOTE: All of the music on this program is from the recording Libro primo  (Rolf Lislevand, baroque guitar& theorbo).  ECM 2848.

On his newest recording for ECM’s New Series, lute virtuoso Rolf Lislevand turns to the revolutionary Baroque literature for archlute and chitarrone, interpreting 17th century lute composers’ works largely found in their first printed books – their respective libri primi. In striking solo performances, the Norwegian explores the progressive nature of pieces by the Italians Johann Hieronymous Kapsberger, Giovanni Paolo Foscarini and Bernardo Gianoncelli as well as two Recerercadas of Spaniard Diego Ortiz. Lislevand takes historically informed liberties in his interpretations, improvising frequently, as was custom at the time, and even contributes his own personal study of the challenging Passacaglia form with his “Passacaglia al modo mio”. The modernity of this music’s melodic and rhythmic sensibility throughout can be surprising, substantiating Lislevand’s deeper dive into this repertoire. “The new style marked a departure from traditional Renaissance polyphony,” he writes in the performer’s note accompanying the disc. The so-called nuove musiche gave “rise to unusually dissonant and bold harmonic idioms as well as an altogether newfound ability to express the emotional content of text accompanied by previously unheard notions of rhythmical intricacy.” Lislevand’s own expressive approach to the music brings it thoroughly into the present. The album was recorded at Moosestudios, Norway between 2022 and 2023, mixed in Munich in 2024, and produced by Rolf Lislevand and Manfred Eicher.

Nearly a decade after his last appearance on ECM, early music specialist Rolf Lislevand returns to the New Series with another solo program, shifting focus now from the court of Louis XIV to 17th-century Italy. The album’s title is a nod to Il libro primo, a musician or writer’s first volume of works that, as Lislevand notes in the album’s booklet, “can often hold the most inspired and radical creations of an artist.” Like the more formalized Opus primum, it carries a certain creative charge, affording listeners a glimpse into the artist’s most foundational thoughts in a realm of lively experimentation and recalibration of existing rules.

It’s also an exciting realm to explore for proving that the lutenist’s repertoire is far more vast and varied than the fairweather listener may mistake it to be. Take, for example, the program’s two opening works by Johann Hieronymus Kapsberger (c. 1580-1651) and Giovanni Paolo Foscarini (c. 1600-1647). Whereas the former’s Toccata terza greets the dawn like eyelashes fluttering into wakefulness, the latter’s Tasteggiata is its nocturnal other, revealing a strikingly modern atmosphere that Lislevand likens to the French impressionists and even to Carla Bley. Neither characterization is misplaced, given the improvisational elements incorporated into the present renderings, which allow for something ethereally raw to spring forth.

And what of the fantastical arpeggios that open Kapsberger’s Toccata sesta, added by Lislevand and seemingly drawn from the same well? In them is the promise of life and love, all unraveled with a meticulous sort of freedom. The mid-tempo feel of Kapsberger’s Toccata quinta strikes that same balance of flourishing and nourishing, never letting go of the Baroque’s architectural sensibilities.

A highlight is the Corrente con le sue spezzate of Bernardo Gianoncelli (d. c. 1650). Despite being the latest work on the program in terms of publication, dating to the end of his life, it is a veritable flower of a tune. With a clear bass line as pistil and sparkling ornamentations as petals, it sways to the wind of Lislevand’s organic touch. It also epitomizes the nuove musiche approach of the times, which went against the polyphonic grain of the Renaissance by favoring deeper rhythmic interplays through which staid motifs were recontextualized. One might liken such a movement to Hollywood’s propensity to remake its own cultural products, an impulse that (profit motives aside) points to the seemingly universal need to repackage the past in the aesthetics of the new so that audiences can connect to the same emotional content on more immediately relatable terms. 

Thoughtful inclusions are to be found in two Recercadas by Diego Ortiz (c. 1510-1576). Despite their spatial and temporal differences, Lislevand places Ortiz and Kapsberger on the same shelf for their syncopations and expressive colorations. Each spins increasingly complex relationships from deceptively simple beginnings, growing fractally with every reiteration.

Yet the pinnacle for me is Lislevand’s original Passacaglia al modo mio, which is at once a distillation and loving expansion of the passacaglia form. It combines many of the elements found in its surroundings, including a robust “left hand” in the bass and a lithe “right hand” in the overlying melody. It also changes faces multiple times from start to finish, its improvisational layers paying homage to Barbara Strozzi, Bach, Beethoven, and Keith Jarrett. All the while, it maintains a haunting sense of familiarity, especially in the concluding progression, which invites us into its circularity like a child comforted by a mother’s embrace.

Special mention must be made of the recording, captured in a barn in northern Norway by Lislevand himself, engineered by Michael Hinreiner, and mixed by both Lislevand and Hinreiner alongside producer Manfred Eicher in Munich. Although the archlute is primary, some of the pieces originated on the Baroque guitar and chitarrone (or theorbo), which is also played here and distinguished by its darker, more rounded tone. Instead of enveloping these instruments in a wash of artificial sound, the reverb draws out their inner essence with tasteful details of wood and strings.