Three from 17th century France

I. La Mascarade (Rolf Lislevand, baroque guitar& theorbo). ECM 2288.

In this wonderful solo album, Norwegian early music performer Rolf Lislevand turns his attention to the music of two composers from the court of Louis XIV: Robert de Visée (c. 1655-1732) and the Italian-born Francesco Corbetta (c. 1615-1681), and plays their masterpieces with historical awareness and an inventiveness which belongs to the tradition. De Visée wrote about playing what the instruments themselves called for, advice Lislevand takes to heart, adding improvised introductions to passacaglias from both composers. He uses two contrasting instruments here, the small Baroque guitar with its sparkling, crystal-clear sonorities and the theorbo, the dark-toned and earthy king of the lutes. In his fascinating liner notes, Lislevand reminds us that 17th century instrumental performance was often an intimate affair, with lutenists frequently playing to a dozen privileged listeners. The physical presence of the instruments and that sense of intimacy are recaptured by Manfred Eicher’s production of La Mascarade, made at Lugano’s Auditorio Stelio Molo.

From Music Web International: I’m already a big fan of Rolf Lislevand, having massively enjoyed his ECM albums Nuove musiche, and Diminuito. Unlike these semi crossover ensemble recordings, La Mascarade is Lislevand’s first solo recording for ECM, focusing on two composers from the court of Louis XIV: Robert de Visée and the Italian-born Francesco Corbetta. While having much of that improvisatory freshness of approach heard previously from Lislevand, these performances take into account what De Visée wrote about performance and are therefore scholarly as well as making for a very pleasant listen indeed: indeed, the booklet notes look into both teaching and learning about this music and its instruments in both contemporary and modern environments, and how close these seemingly disparate worlds can be.

The contrast between the two instruments used could hardly be greater. Where the Baroque guitar has no bass register the theorbo can be seen as a bass lute: “Together these instruments create a chiaroscuro in music, an image in sound of the Baroque theory of that magic tension that exists between light and darkness.” Lislevand opens with the deep thrum of the theorbo, balancing these darker textures against performances on the lighter and more silvery sounding Baroque guitar. This 17^th century predecessor of the modern guitar is smaller in size, with five pairs of strings tuned in unisons and octaves. Lislevand’s reading of historical examples mean that he avoids inventing the wheel for a second time: “Musicians of four centuries ago had already developed the instrument’s playing style to explore all the possibilities of surprising strummed rhythms and harmonies, often very modern-sounding to our ears. Moreover the instrument’s many different tunings prefigure the experimental tunings used by improvising musicians today… It seems that guitar players of the seventeenth century did exactly what guitar players have done ever since: compose music with the guitar on their knees by listening to the exciting new sounds that unexpectedly occurred when they put their fingers on new and unusual places on the fingerboard.”

These composers are not such household names, but are key figures in the world of ‘early’ plucked string instruments. Francesco Corbetta came to attention as a virtuoso outside his native Italy, Lislevand telling us that he became the darling of the circle of Charles II in London, “and left a whole court strumming on small Baroque guitars.” Robert de Visée was a student of Corbetta at Versailles, going on to become one of the Sun King’s composers as well as his guitarist and theorbo player. Lislevand informs us that “de Visée played his own music at court, occasionally in the king’s bedroom, while the monarch was taking supper. On request he would play his guitar walking two steps behind the king during the daily royal promenade of the gardens of Versailles – the first Walkman in musical history.”

Interpretation of these pieces is highly personal, and Lislevand’s personality shines through every note. With regard to improvisation, Lislevand is very candid: “I only develop what the material implies, everything must be contained within the piece. Why then was it hidden until now? My usual reply is that we just change the proportions – a very Baroque technique.”

The results are gorgeous, developing tracts of fantasy in music that creates worlds of narrative. Take Francesco Corbetta’s Caprice de Chaconne that opens with a free extemporization over the chaconne chord progression. Played on the Baroque guitar, the notes come thick and fast, creating stunning arabesques while compensating for the instrument’s shorter sustain. Rhythm coalesces around the notes, and before we know it we are dancing in the corridors of Versailles, the notes spinning around our ears for a brief minute before further variations take us in a different direction – the earthly and the heavenly contrasting and combining in a piece that lasts less than five minutes. Sensitive programming puts this up against Robert de Visée’s Chaconne en sol majeur played on the theorbo, but starting on the upper strings so that there is the illusion of a seamless transition. The long strings of the theorbo allow the chaconne bass line to lay out its foundation over which melodic elaborations can take shape, working with the greater heft of the instrument but still with an energetic forward momentum and minor/major key changes that bring new energy each time.

In short, if you have relished Rolf Lislevand’s ensemble recordings but are a bit wary of an entire solo programme fear not – this recording has masses of contrast and content, and reveals more precious secrets the closer you listen. The recording is both detailed and blessed with Manfred Eicher’s plentiful resonance, an effect that suits this music perfectly to my ears – preserving every detail but giving a true sense of space and air which makes extended listening a delight.

Dominy Clements

II. Dolce Concento (La Palatine/Guillaume Haldenwang, harpsichord & dir.). Harmonia Mundi HMN 916120.

From Gramophone: It’s strange how rarely the title of an album is translated. ‘Dolce concento’ is a phrase from one the cantatas here, given in the booklet as ‘sweet harmony’. No problem with the sub-heading, ‘Les Italiens à Paris’, but here we are offered more – or is it less? – than it seems. It’s stretching a point to describe Campra, born in Aix-en-Provence, as Italian; on the other hand his friend Jean-Baptiste Stuck, though of German descent, was born in Leghorn. Like Lully (born in Florence), Stuck was christened Giovanni Battista; and it was Lully who dominated music at court until his death in 1687. This enjoyable recording starts and finishes with Lully, the programme divided into three ‘acts’, chronological rather than dramatic.

La Palatine, founded in 2019, is a flexible ensemble named after Liselotte, the German princess married to ‘Monsieur’, the king’s brother. The line-up here consists of single strings and percussion, with a continuo group of, variously, harpsichord, theorbo, guitar and triple harp. Fourteen of the 25 tracks are instrumental, many of them lasting a minute or less. Some of the pieces, vocal or instrumental, are taken from stage works; others are from collections of cantatas or arias.

Lully composed the ballet music for a staging of Cavalli’s Xerse, mounted at the Louvre in 1660 as part of the celebrations of Louis XIV’s wedding. The album begins with a sturdy account of the Overture, followed by an aria from the opera itself. This is sung by Amastre, who enters, disguised as a soldier, in search of her errant betrothed, Xerxes. There’s a bittersweet lilt to the minor key ‘Fiamma che accesa fu’ that Marie Théoleyre catches well. The Air and Rigaudons from Scylla by Theobaldo di Gatti are enlivened respectively by castanets and drum. In ‘Où vais-je? Qu’ai-je fait?’, Scylla is remorseful at betraying her father. Both here and in the recitative and aria from Paolo Lorenzani’s Nicandro e Fileno, the intensity of the string ensemble is not quite matched by the singer’s bright tones. In ‘S’armi pure invitta e fiera’ by Giovanni Antonio Guido, Théoleyre’s coloratura is mightily impressive; and Josef Žák’s violin is kept equally busy.

The booklet fails throughout to identify the characters. But a bit of digging has revealed that the excerpts from the Prologue to Stuck’s Méléagre are both sung by the allegorical figure of Italy. ‘C’est ici le brillant séjour’ is accompanied only by the continuo; while ‘Divin Père de l’harmonie’, slow, rapt and richly scored, is beautifully done by singer and players. The aria section of the cantata Pur ti connobbi is introduced by the expressive viola da gamba of Noémie Lenhof. ‘Pleurez, mes tristes yeux’ from another cantata, Héraclite et Démocrite, features suspensions in the violins over a walking bass.

This is a well-executed, tantalising glimpse of unfamiliar pieces. I would certainly like to hear more of di Gatti, Lorenzani and Stuck. As I said above, the album ends, as it began, with Lully: a bawdy song about the composer’s reputation.

III. …pour passer la mélancolie (Andreas Staier, harpsichord). Harmonia Mundi HMC 902143.

From Music Web International: Andreas Staier’s harpsichord recital Pour passer le melancolie is typically eclectic, diverse and smartly programmed. For one thing, it is not monotonously focused on a single mood: this is not an hour of sad or self-pitying music. Staier’s note explains that he was trying to find a number of different ideas, such as “meditative spaces”, “the passing of time”, the inevitability of fate — passacaglias and chaconnes, driving restlessly forward — even that melancholy is associated with thoughtfulness and intelligence.

So you can spend quality time with this album without getting in a bad mood. Indeed, the reverse is true, because there is so much outstanding music. The “ostinato conception of the frequent chaconnes and passacaglias”, which Staier connects to “ineluctable fatality”, are always highlights, whether by J.C.F. Fischer, Louis Couperin, Jean-Henry d’Anglebert, or Georg Muffat. No, there’s no Bach; he was a teenager when the last of these pieces was written. Staier really digs into those repeating bass lines and drives the pieces forward with desperate determination. I wonder if I’d love an all-ostinato solo album or if it would get too repetitive.

The single biggest piece is Muffat’s Passacaglia in G minor, from 1690. It acts as a hypnotic, can’t-turn-your-ears-away culmination of all the albums themes, after which Staier offers only a brief encore.

There is great stuff even among the non-ostinato pieces. Couperin’s Suite in F keeps things from getting too heavy, at least at times - it has some laments tucked within. Seventeen minutes of music are in the famously dramatic key of D minor, most of it from d’Anglebert.

Not surprisingly, the production is superb. Staier plays with his usual authority and genius, on a French instrument built in 1749 and carefully restored by Laurent Soumagnac over 2,500 hours of labor. When Soumagnac restored it, the instrument was “a wreck…which had no stand, no strings, no stops, and no action.” The booklet is excellent, and so is Harmonia Mundi’s sound, in my lossless digital download. There is a photo of the harpsichord enclosed, but it’s a pretty bad one. I guess no release can be perfect, even if some, like this one, come pretty close.

Brian Reinhart