Joseph Baldassarre is a professor of music
history and classical guitar at Boise State University. He
has a web site at http://www.drjoeb.com/.
One’s familiarity
with the lute generally begins with three composers of renaissance
and baroque vintage: Bach, Weiss, and Dowland. The lute had
had a long history prior to that point, however; a history
we get a taste of in this recording. Actually, though the
lute figures prominently on this album (and its title), given
the variety of compositions and instruments employed, it might
be better to think of this more generally as “troubadour music.”
Saltarello is
a solo piece that begins with a simple melody that is then
repeated with ornamentation and percussive effects.
Guaçelm Faidit
was a troubadour, in service to French and English courts,
and possibly a participant to the Third and Fourth Crusades. The Chant
e deport Baldassarre chooses to play without lyrics on
the citole, a descendent of the lyre popular in the 13th and
14th centuries.
Je’ porte membrement brings
together a number of instruments to create an easy-paced stomp
or march. Con lagrime bagnando me is a duet for two
woodwinds (no lute), a recorder and a tenor flute. Jacopo
da Bologna was among the leading Italian court composers who
shaped the music of the “trecento,” the fourteenth century.
The simple piece Under
den Linden contains, according to the notes, improvisation
by Baldassarre. It attests to his faithfully to the style
that I had difficulty telling where the original music ended
and the improvisation began.
The Estampie and
second Saltarello are two dances for several instruments. Both
are from the fifteenth century, the first from France and the
second from Italy. Besides lutes and flutes we find a riq,
an Arabic form of tambourine, and in the Saltarello a
doumbek, which is a type of drum, and a douçaine, an early
double-reed instrument. Der Mai is another two-woodwind
piece, though the high-voiced recorder and the deeper, reedy
douçaine are vastly dissimilar—and therefore effective—conversation
partners.
Baldassarre sings
in Quant je voy yver, in both Old French and modern
English. He has a slightly gruff, unstudied voice that suits
this music perfectly.
After another estampie
for multiple instruments (La quarte estampie real) we
move to “the crux of the program,” Kalenda Maya by Raimbaut
de Vauieras. Baldassarre’s spoken introduction (which is a
bit much for repeated listening—perhaps it should have been
relegated to the written liner notes) tells Raimbaut’s story:
a musician scorned by the higher-born woman he is wooing, and
now she inspires him to make music again, the music we hear
here. The music combines insistent rhythmic pattern with a
gentle melancholy accentuated by the Occitan language in which
it is sung.
Another lively Estampie with
sparser instrumentation is followed by a short “planh,” a troubadour
funeral lament. Played on the solo citole, this work by Gauçelm
Faidit honors the death of Richard the Lion-Hearted. John
Barleycorn is another fine folk-vocal performance, accompanied
by hand-drum, sung here in modern English. Johannes Ciconia’s Non
al suo amanta was a vocal duet, but is transcribed here
for two lutes. In this form it sounds like a fine short sonata. In She
Moved through the Faire, Baldassarre again accompanies
his singing. This time the symphonia accompanies a lover’s
lament. The combination of male voice and buzzy symphonia
is less compelling, more taxing to the ear, than others on
this disc.
Of the two short
works that round out this disc, the last, Munda Maria,
is a round for two douçaines with various instruments accompanying.
The liner notes
could be more informative for newcomers to this music, particularly
regarding the composers (when their identity is known) and
the unfamiliar instruments. Recording quality is high. Most
pieces involve Baldassarre recording multiple tracks to play
the separate instruments, but they combine into well-integrated
wholes.
Fans of early instrumental
music should check this out. It is not only an important introduction
to a piece of music history, but fun to listen to as well.
Brian Burtt
AVAILABILITY
jbaldas@boisestate.edu
Joseph Baldasarre
(lute, citole, oud, symphonia, vielle, recorder, flute, soprano
flute, douçaine, crumhorn, tar, riq, tambourine,
doumbek, vocals) 
