Viol/Viola da gamba

The latest album from the Les Basses Réunies ensemble takes us deep into the phantasmagorical world of the Trattado De Glosas (literally "Treatise Of The Glosses") published by Diego Ortiz, a unique testament of the instrumental music of the Spanish Renaissance mixing poetry, profundity, innovation and virtuosity. Published in Rome in 1553 in both Spanish and Italian, this treatise offers a series of variations for several instruments. In the second volume, recorded here in its entirety, we find a succession of Ricercares (a typical 16th century musical form based on a process of imitation) of rare melodic and rhythmic richness, whose roots lie in then-popular dance pieces such as passamezzo antico and passamezzo moderno, the Ruggiero, the folia and the romanesca. The performance of this second book alternates the two main musicians, Bruno Cocset and Guido Balestracci, who are joined by bass viols, organs, harpsichord and vihuela (Spanish baroque guitar). The Basses Réunies’ work of re-reading this repertoire is closely linked to organology, through the rediscovery of instruments which were lost and then recreated for the occasion. These restorations relied on the use of period paintings (in particular the works of Greco) and a collection of engravings representing musicians and rare instruments, which have often unfortunately survived to the present day in a rather pitiful state. The pioneering and visionary work of the instrumentalist, composer and theorist Diego Ortiz contains a foreshadowing of the art of "diminution" (ornamentation of a melody) that would go on to reign supreme over all Italian music of the Renaissance. © François Hudry/Qobuz

The music of Marin Marais is now a part of the repertoire of all viola players, and here is graced with a royal visit, from Jordi Savall, on the opening track. This music displays all the melancholy of the closing years of the 17th Century, through the lens of the many pieces composed by Marais for the Chambre du Roi for which he was responsible. This Deuxième Livre de pièces de viole presented in the new album, recorded between 2015 and 2018, dates from 1701, well after the death of surintendant Lully, and during the bleak and final years of the reign of Louis XIV, who by then had become and austere religious zealot. In the Deuxième Livre, Marin Marais presents a whole catalogue of the human condition and renders moving homage to his departed masters, Lully and Sainte-Colombe. This voluminous Deuxième Livre contains no fewer than 142 pieces, ordered by key, allowing musicians to construct their suites as they please. The overall spirit is of grandeur and the monumental, with often very daring harmonies, as if Marin Marais wanted to drop them on his young competitors in the small Parisian world of viol da gamba. François Joubert-Caillet plays viola and leads the Belgian ensemble L’Achéron, made up of a bass viola and a rich continuo created by a harp, a theorbo, a guitar and a harpsichord. © François Hudry/Qobuz

Three L’Oiseau-Lyre albums of chamber music by Couperin, newly remastered and compiled together for the first time, including material new to CD.During the past half-century, Francois Couperin ‘the Great’ has indeed come to be regarded among the great European composers. Where once he was dismissed with faint praise as the confector of trifles to amuse the Sun-King and his court, we now see him more in the round, balancing devotional psalms with bitingly observant galleries of men and women from high and low stations, as keenly interested in the view from his Parisian window as the glitter of Versailles. Dart and his colleagues recorded the pair of ‘Suites de violes’ in 1957, the scores having only been rediscovered around 40 years previously, but they were enthusiastically promoted by the musicologist Wilfred Mellers, who declared them to stand as a highlight of Couperin’s chamber music. This album supports the contention of H. C. Robbins Landon, writing about Les Nations in 1973: ‘Unlike many musicologists, who are poor performers, Dart was a wizard at any keyboard. He was also an excellent director, as the present records attest’. Landon singles out his immaculately crisp rhythmic sense for special praise, as well as his scholarly attention to ornamentation, without which the French Baroque idiom soon dies. Couperin’s cosmopolitan nature is nowhere more evident than in the four-volume collection of Les Nations, published in 1726 but composed during the previous 35 years. French and Italian styles mingle freely in these suites for trio-sonata ensemble. Made in London and 1958 and 1962, this was their first complete recording, and it was welcomed by critics as displaying all the facets of Couperin’s masterly contrapuntal writing with easy authority, and in an ensemble of two violins accompanied by a continuo of harpsichord and viola da gamba that would have been familiar to Couperin himself. In a 1965 interview, the director of L’Oiseau-Lyre was proud to point out that Dart and Marriner had spent two years editing the score of Les Nations for this recording. (© Decca Music Group Limited / Universal Music Australia Pty Ltd.)

Popular madrigals and chansons of the 16th century served as models for richly embellished “alla bastarda” versions on the viola da gamba. In this recording, the vocal originals are presented together with the extremely virtuoso instrumental versions which represent the first and hardly surpassed apex of solo literature for viola da gamba. For 25 years, Paolo Pandolfo has been one of the leading viola da gambists of his generation, researching and promoting the repertoire of his instruments in all directions. The thorough knowledge of all aspects of the viola da gamba repertoire becomes clear in his extensive discography. Not only has he recorded the most important works of the viol literature, but also very personal musical statements in which he combined the youthful experiences as a double bass player and guitarist with compositions and improvisations that are just as influenced by jazz as they are by the historical repertoire. With the “bastarda” diminutions, he now proffers an early milestone of the solo viol literature in which the exuberant virtuosity serves to present enchantingly beautiful music. On this very special project, with instruments built ad hoc, he is joined by some of the finest continuo players of the early music scene (Boysen, Granata, Chemin, Pedrini) and the exquisite vocal ensemble La Pedrina, together producing what definitely will be considered as a key recording of repertoire for the viola da gamba. © Glossa