Audio CD review:
Robert (ii) Ballard, John Dowland, Antony Holborne, Luis de Milan, Francesco Canova da Milano, Simone Molinaro, Alonso de Mudarra, Luys de Narvaez, Hans Neusidler, Peter Philips - The Renaissance Album

Robert (ii) Ballard, John Dowland, Antony Holborne, Luis de Milan, Francesco Canova da Milano, Simone Molinaro, Alonso de Mudarra, Luys de Narvaez, Hans Neusidler, Peter Philips - The Renaissance Album

Band: Robert (ii) Ballard, John Dowland, Antony Holborne, Luis de Milan, Francesco Canova da Milano, Simone Molinaro, Alonso de Mudarra, Luys de Narvaez, Hans Neusidler, Peter Philips Title: The Renaissance Album Rating: Release Date: 13 June, 2006 Media: Audio CD Tracks: 1: Fantasia Que Contrahaze La Harpa En la Manera De Ludovico 2: Pavana De Alexandre 3: Gallarda 4: Chromatic Pavan (Pavan Dolorosa) 5: The Galliard To The Chromatic Pavan 6: Fantasia In F Major 7: Ricercare In G Minor 8: Fantasia In C Major 9: Fantasia In C Minor 10: Fantasia In F Minor 11: My Lady Hunsdon's Allmande 12: A Piece Without Title 13: The Shoemaker's Wife: A Toy 14: Wer Gnad Durch Klaff 15: An Italian Dance: The Queen's Dance 16: Ach Elslein 17: In Love's Ardour 18: An Italian Dance With After-Dance 19: Mr. Dowland's Midnight 20: Sir John Smith, His Almain 21: Always Dowland, Always Doleful 22: Ballo Detto 'Il Conte Orlando' - Saltarello Del Predetto Ballo 23: Fantasia Of Chords And Scale Passages 24: Pavana V & VI 25: The Song Of The Emperor 26: Four Variations On 27: Forlorn Hope Fancy 28: Hartes Ease 29: The Fairy Round 30: Village Dances 31: The Right Honourable Ferdinando, Earl Of Derby, His Galliard 32: The Most Sacred Queen Elizabeth, Her Galliard 33: A Fantasia 34: My Lord Chamberlain His Galliard

Customer Reviews Nice recital, academic performance Thanks to his status as DG lead guitar player, Sollscher still releases at a rate of one album every one or two years. Although recording the guitar should not have the same purse strings attachment that has all but obliterated the past steady stream of classical orchestral recordings, the golden times in which the likes of Bream, Williams and Yepes each released stellar albums are reason for guitar nostalgia. While my perspective may be a little different from my fellow reviewers, I join them in not being blown away by this album. Bream and Yepes were instrumental in bringing the lute and vihuela works from the once forgotten British and Spanish past to a broader audience and both made seminal recordings, many of which can still be bought at great value. In this album, Sollscher revisits many of their venues. Here he stays clear from most of the highly manieristic trappings of the so-called "authentic" movement to give a rather plain performance on an 11 string guitar that has a timbre that approaches that of the renaissance lute well, yet allows unamplified use in recitals in the average modern concert hall. While all is stylish, musical and technically well executed many of the performances are bland compared te recordings by the aforementioned greats. I will give two examples. The recital starts with Mudarra's "Fantasía que contrahaze la harpa en la manera de Ludovico" that was popularized by Sollscher's DG colleague Yepes. In the latter's hands this piece, which was written as an hommage to the then unsurpassed harp virtuoso Ludovico, has loads of tension that gets released in the harp passage work at the end of the piece. In Sollsher's hands, this colorfull piece is plain vanilla and would make many novices wonder why this composer should still be played after many centuries. More or less the same applies for what John Dopwland described as his musical autobiography "Semper Dowland, Semper Dolens" (always Dowland, always sad). In Bream's hands this piece becomes a dramatic gem with the same power as a late Brahms intermezzo. Here it's gentle and chaste, but something of a waste. Fortunately, some other works like Dowland's celebrated Fantasy sound more convincing, but never does this album reach the strength of Sollscher's previous 11-string Baroque. PS. Without too much knowledge of music history a bunch of "authentics" are polluting much of the Amazonian discourse with their uninformed critiques. Such is also the case here. While Dowland played the renaissance lute, other composers included in this album, among them Mudarra, performed their music on a vihuela. Those interested in the original instrument and the himalaya's of musical interpretation need not look any further than the great Julian Bream. . Master of lute music Transcriptions from the Renaissance lute (and its cousin, the vihuela) formed a staple of the guitar repertory from the advent of Segovia (which is to say the 1920s) well through the 1960s; to the extent that few guitar recordings (and even fewer recitals) did not start with a few such pieces. This album takes the playing of Renaissance music on the guitar to a new level. These transcriptions were considerably facilitated by the facts that the lute until around 1580 had six or fewer courses (string pairs), and its tuning could be simulated by merely tuning the third string of the guitar down a semitone (although Segovia, characteristically, didn't bother). Around the start of the 17th century, however, the lute started acquiring extra bass strings, so that the resulting pieces can no longer be played on a standard guitar without mutilation. This, and more particularly a strong revival of interest both in the lute itself (spearheaded by Julian Bream) and in historical "authenticity", has resulted in the almost total eclipse of Renaissance lute music in guitar recitals. Until Göran Söllscher, that is. For Mr Söllscher is one of the few guitarists in the World to play an 11-string alto guitar constructed by Georg Bolin; and the result of that combination, whether Greensleeves or Bach, is simply magnificent. The present album is a tribute to the late Per-Olof Johnson, the Julian Bream of Sweden and the artist's teacher. He it was who in the 1960s collaborated with Bolin to develop the alto guitar, explicitly to explore the lute repertory. Söllscher's playing does in fact remind me of Bream's brilliant but now-aging recording's from the 60s -- and properly so, for no one understood this music like Bream. For me, this was easily the best release of 2005 in any genre: well over an hour, and not a single bad track. When it comes to lute music, you can't go wrong with Söllscher. P. S. For Dowland fans, the particular Fantasia played here is P. 1, and "A Piece Without Title" is P. 78. Really, Really Bad Sollscher's 11-String Baroque CD. I got this after enjoying Mr. However, the sound on this CD is not as good, and the interpretations of this music leaves a lot to be desired - a LOT! In general, lute players offer much better interpretations of Renaissance and Baroque music than guitar players, and this CD proves it. It sounds to me like this CD was mainly made as a commercial opportunity, with very little care given to the music. Save your money or shop elsewhere, as this is a very unsatisfactory CD. . You can see a complete list of all Robert (ii) Ballard, John Dowland, Antony Holborne, Luis de Milan, Francesco Canova da Milano, Simone Molinaro, Alonso de Mudarra, Luys de Narvaez, Hans Neusidler, Peter Philips discography, or go back to the Robert (ii) Ballard, John Dowland, Antony Holborne, Luis de Milan, Francesco Canova da Milano, Simone Molinaro, Alonso de Mudarra, Luys de Narvaez, Hans Neusidler, Peter Philips tabs