Visée: Pieces de Théorbe, et al
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Fred Jacobs
Pieces de Théorbe, et al
Robert de Visée
Label: Metronome Recordings Ltd
Catalogue No: METCD 1072
Discs: 1
Pieces de Théorbe, et al
Robert de Visée
Label: Metronome Recordings Ltd
Catalogue No: METCD 1072
Discs: 1
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A recording of baroque French theorbo music from Louis XIV’s court by Robert de Visée has been several years in the making: in 2004, Fred Jacobs commissioned a new instrument from Michael Lowe, the celebrated English luthier. An instrument very similar to the one played for Louis XIV's court. No original large theorbo is known to have survived, but there is considerable iconographic evidence from which Michael Lowe has re-created this instrument and its subtle soundworld.
Michael Lowe is one of Britain’s leading musical instrument makers. A note on the French theorbo written by him is included in the recording booklet where can also be found Fred Jacobs’ own note on the composer and the music recorded.
After a period of settling down, the recording was made in 2007. It provides us with the opportunity of hearing the work of de Visée, a composer well known to guitarists and lutenists alike as the most important French baroque composer for plucked instruments.
Robert de Visée, whose exact dates of birth and death remain unknown, is one of the most important composers for plucked instruments in France at the end of the 17th century. He is responsible for almost 200 pièces for guitar, theorbo and lute, as well as many arrangements for these instruments of works by Lully, Marais, Couperin, and Forqueray. With these last two composers he would play in La chambre du Roy to divert the king and the Duke of Burgundy and Madame de Maintenon among others. He also dedicated two books of guitar music to the king.
Fred Jacobs is familiar in the UK as a key continuo member of the Gabrieli Consort and Players and the Parley of Instruments. He teaches lute and theorbo at the Conservatoire of Amsterdam where he was formerly a student of Anthony Bailes. As accompanist he has worked with Carolyn Watkinson, Michael Chance, Johannette Zomer and Maarten Konigsberger.
Michael Lowe is one of Britain’s leading musical instrument makers. A note on the French theorbo written by him is included in the recording booklet where can also be found Fred Jacobs’ own note on the composer and the music recorded.
After a period of settling down, the recording was made in 2007. It provides us with the opportunity of hearing the work of de Visée, a composer well known to guitarists and lutenists alike as the most important French baroque composer for plucked instruments.
Robert de Visée, whose exact dates of birth and death remain unknown, is one of the most important composers for plucked instruments in France at the end of the 17th century. He is responsible for almost 200 pièces for guitar, theorbo and lute, as well as many arrangements for these instruments of works by Lully, Marais, Couperin, and Forqueray. With these last two composers he would play in La chambre du Roy to divert the king and the Duke of Burgundy and Madame de Maintenon among others. He also dedicated two books of guitar music to the king.
Fred Jacobs is familiar in the UK as a key continuo member of the Gabrieli Consort and Players and the Parley of Instruments. He teaches lute and theorbo at the Conservatoire of Amsterdam where he was formerly a student of Anthony Bailes. As accompanist he has worked with Carolyn Watkinson, Michael Chance, Johannette Zomer and Maarten Konigsberger.
"The sound is quite wonderful: clear, rich and sonorous, with a piquancy and flavour all of its own.
Combine this with Jacobs’s masterly playing – which features the tasteful use of expressive devices such as notes inégales, and subtle attenuation of appoggiaturas to the point where each more resembles a vocal port de voix – and the full extent of Visée’s genius for simply expressing great and sometimes melancholy truths is all too evident. This is a superb release."
(Gramophone)
"The playing on this recording is also excellent, and follows very clearly the stylistic conventions of French music at the beginning of the 18th century. This music is written very idiomatically for the theorbo, and is unique and distinctive in sound quality and the way the strengths of the instrument are exploited, sounding very different to the lute compositions of the previous decades. The quality of the recording also brings this out [...] It would be difficult to find another recording of this music that is more faithful to its sources and the instruments and playing styles of the period."
(The Lute Society Magazine, October 2008)
Combine this with Jacobs’s masterly playing – which features the tasteful use of expressive devices such as notes inégales, and subtle attenuation of appoggiaturas to the point where each more resembles a vocal port de voix – and the full extent of Visée’s genius for simply expressing great and sometimes melancholy truths is all too evident. This is a superb release."
(Gramophone)
"The playing on this recording is also excellent, and follows very clearly the stylistic conventions of French music at the beginning of the 18th century. This music is written very idiomatically for the theorbo, and is unique and distinctive in sound quality and the way the strengths of the instrument are exploited, sounding very different to the lute compositions of the previous decades. The quality of the recording also brings this out [...] It would be difficult to find another recording of this music that is more faithful to its sources and the instruments and playing styles of the period."
(The Lute Society Magazine, October 2008)