Lute Music From Scotland and France

Albumbeschreibung

Originally released in 1982, this was among the first recordings of the rather unusual repertory it covers, and it helped kick off a period of wider interest in the various lute traditions of Europe. It still sounds good, right down to the failed politesse of the useful instruction in the booklet: "The listener is kindly requested TO DECREASE THE GAIN ON THE AMPLIFIER when listening to the lute. If not, all the nuances disappear and the resulting timbre is most incorrect." And it's true; the lute is a quiet instrument, and some of the problems with contemporary recordings of it result from levels that are too high all the way through the process. The joining of lute music from Scotland and France in the program is not arbitrary; the French style was the model for Scottish lute music of the seventeenth century, and there was a good deal of musical interchange. The Scottish collections, however, had their own style, drawing on the distinctive melodic content of Scottish folk song. Lindberg shows a clean, elegant style that nevertheless recognizes the fact that this was entertainment music, rooted in popular song (such as I long for thy virginitie from the Straloch Lute Book, track 2) and dance. The sound quality, right at the dawn of the CD era, is a bit cold, but the lute was essentially well-recorded. Notes are in Swedish, German, French, and English, with differences in word lengths in these languages made up simply by adjusting the line spacing as needed. On the design plus side, however, are some breathtaking photographs of Scotland.

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