Matthew Wadsworth - Masters of the Lute - Dowland, Kapsberger, Piccinini, de Visée & von Biber (2018) [Hi-Res]

Tracklist
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01. Preludium
02. Forlorn Hope Fancy
03. Lachrimae Pavin
04. Lachrimae Galliard
05. My Lord Willoughby's Welcome Home
06. The Right Honourable Robert, Earl of Essex, His Galliard
07. Greensleeves-Francis Cutting
08. Toccata Arpeggiata
09. Kapsberger
10. Toccata X
11. Chiaconna in Partite Variate
12. Prélude
13. Allemande
14. Courante
15. Sarabande
16. Gigue
17. Chaconne des Harlequins
18. Passacaglia


Blind lutenist Matthew Wadsworth's last release was devoted to lute songs by the intriguing but not essential English composer Philip Rosseter. Here, Wadsworth gets his chance to do the grand tour of seventeenth century European lute composers (he uses a lute and a theorbo), and the results are stunning. The disc works well as an introduction to some composers who show up on lute recordings, but not often enough for the general listener to feel familiar with them. Wadsworth samples the Baroque-surfaced theorbo music of the German-Venetian Girolamo Kapsberger, with its virtuosic trills and arpeggios; the exquisitely decorated music of France's Robert de Visée, the lutenist opposite number of Couperin; and the expressive, primarily chordal creations of northern Italian chitarrone virtuoso Alessandro Piccinini. Yet the disc can also serve anyone, from new listener to lute fanatic, as a way into the intricacies of the greatest lute composer of them all, John Dowland. Wadsworth offers a half-dozen famous Dowland pieces, including the Lachrimae Pavan, plus Francis Cutting's version of Greensleeves. They have hardly ever been so arrestingly played. Wadsworth doesn't do anything radical; he simply brings out each gesture in a stately way that brings Dowland's melancholy profundity to an expressive peak. Channel Classics' SACD sound (auditioned on a good conventional stereo) is intimate but not overbearing, meaty yet clean. Strongly recommended, as a first lute disc or as part of a large collection of them. Wadsworth's own booklet notes are as expressive and evocative as his playing.

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