MusicWeb International One of the most grown-up review sites around 2024
60,000 reviews
... and still writing ...

Search MusicWeb Here Acte Prealable Polish CDs
 

Presto Music CD retailer
 
Founder: Len Mullenger                                    Editor in Chief:John Quinn             


Some items
to consider

new MWI
Current reviews

old MWI
pre-2023 reviews

paid for
advertisements

Acte Prealable Polish recordings

Forgotten Recordings
Forgotten Recordings
All Forgotten Records Reviews

TROUBADISC
Troubadisc Weinberg- TROCD01450

All Troubadisc reviews


FOGHORN Classics

Alexandra-Quartet
Brahms String Quartets

All Foghorn Reviews


All HDTT reviews


Songs to Harp from
the Old and New World


all Nimbus reviews



all tudor reviews


Follow us on Twitter


Editorial Board
MusicWeb International
Founding Editor
   
Rob Barnett
Editor in Chief
John Quinn
Contributing Editor
Ralph Moore
Webmaster
   David Barker
Postmaster
Jonathan Woolf
MusicWeb Founder
   Len Mullenger

REVIEW
BARGAIN OF THE MONTH


Advertising on
Musicweb


Donate and keep us afloat

 

New Releases

Naxos Classical
All Naxos reviews

Chandos recordings
All Chandos reviews

Hyperion recordings
All Hyperion reviews

Foghorn recordings
All Foghorn reviews

Troubadisc recordings
All Troubadisc reviews



all Bridge reviews


all cpo reviews

Divine Art recordings
Click to see New Releases
Get 10% off using code musicweb10
All Divine Art reviews


All Eloquence reviews

Lyrita recordings
All Lyrita Reviews

 

Wyastone New Releases
Obtain 10% discount

Subscribe to our free weekly review listing

 

 

 

alternatively
CD: MDT AmazonUK AmazonUS
Sound Samples & Downloads

Pieter BUSTIJN (c.1649-1729)
IX Suittes pour le Clavessin (1712)
Suitte I in D minor [6:40]
Suitte II in D [9:03]
Suitte III in G [8:23]
Suitte IV in C [8:48]
Suitte V in G minor [8:05]
Suitte VI in A minor [9:27]
Suitte VII in E [7:31]
Suitte VIII in A [11:23]
Suitte IX in D [9:29]
Alessandro Simonetto (harpsichord)
rec. OnClassical.com Studio, Pove del Grappa, Veneto, Italy, 2010. DDD
BRILLIANT CLASSICS 94187 [78:52]

Experience Classicsonline



Not much is known about Pieter Bustijn - not even for sure where his family came from or what language he spoke. The CD booklet reproduces the original frontispiece from the first publication in 1712 of this volume of Suittes, his only known works, which gives his name as 'Pierre Bustin'.

What is certain is that this is a disc that no lover of Baroque or harpsichord music in general should be without: nearly eighty minutes of enormously appealing, high-octane invention superbly rendered by Alessandro Simonetto on a magnificent reproduction Ruckers instrument, brilliantly captured by the sound engineer - all that at Brilliant's bargain price!

Five of the Suittes are in five movements, one in six, two in seven and one in eight. The basic pattern is Preludio - Allemanda - Corrente - Sarabanda - Giga, sometimes with a Variatio tagged onto the end, with or without an inserted Aria, and a Gavotta occasionally replacing the Giga. Listening to eighty minutes of solo harpsichord is not always recommendable, but many will surely find themselves unwilling to press the Stop button - either that, or time will fly past unnoticed. Only one movement of the 53 in total is three minutes long, and many come in at well under a minute - there is no time to lose interest! Instead the listener is swept along on the tide of Bustijn's imagination.

According to the notes, these Suittes were well known in northern Europe in the 18th century, and Johann Sebastian Bach may have been familiar with them. There are similarities here and there with Bach's keyboard music, but Bustijn is a generation older than Bach, and his style is in any case original and distinctive. Simonetto's tempi are almost universally on the fast side, which only adds to the thrill of Bustijn's ravishing music.

As well as being an accomplished harpsichordist, Simonetto is also a sound engineer - this disc was recorded and mastered by him - and he is founder of OnClassical.com, KunstderFuge.com and ClassicaLand.com, all worthy online art music projects.

Apart from the recording details, which had to be mechanically recovered from OnClassical.com, where a download-only version of the disc is available, the booklet is as informative as it can be about the Suittes and their elusive composer, given the dearth of reliable historical data. The harpsichord is a 2008 model by William Horn based on a mid-17th century Johannes Ruckers instrument made in Antwerp - the booklet says in 1638, the website 1643. Two of these Suittes have been recorded previously: no.5 by Bob van Asperen (Sony Classical Vivarte 46349, 1991), and no.6 by Jacques Ogg (Globe 5101, 1993) - but this superlative recording by Simonetto is the one to get.

Byzantion

Collected reviews and contact at reviews.gramma.co.uk

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


EXPLORE MUSICWEB INTERNATIONAL

Making a Donation to MusicWeb

Writing CD reviews for MWI

About MWI
Who we are, where we have come from and how we do it.

Site Map

How to find a review

How to find articles on MusicWeb
Listed in date order

Review Indexes
   By Label
      Select a label and all reviews are listed in Catalogue order
   By Masterwork
            Links from composer names (eg Sibelius) are to resource pages with links to the review indexes for the individual works as well as other resources.

Themed Review pages

Jazz reviews

 

Discographies
   Composer
      Composer surveys
   National
      Unique to MusicWeb -
a comprehensive listing of all LP and CD recordings of given works
.
Prepared by Michael Herman

The Collector’s Guide to Gramophone Company Record Labels 1898 - 1925
Howard Friedman

Book Reviews

Complete Books
We have a number of out of print complete books on-line

Interviews
With Composers, Conductors, Singers, Instumentalists and others
Includes those on the Seen and Heard site

Nostalgia

Nostalgia CD reviews

Records Of The Year
Each reviewer is given the opportunity to select the best of the releases

Monthly Best Buys
Recordings of the Month and Bargains of the Month

Comment
Arthur Butterworth Writes

An occasional column

Phil Scowcroft's Garlands
British Light Music articles

Classical blogs
A listing of Classical Music Blogs external to MusicWeb International

Reviewers Logs
What they have been listening to for pleasure

Announcements

 

Community
Bulletin Board

Give your opinions or seek answers

Reviewers
Past and present

Helpers invited!

Resources
How Did I Miss That?

Currently suspended but there are a lot there with sound clips


Composer Resources

British Composers

British Light Music Composers

Other composers

Film Music (Archive)
Film Music on the Web (Closed in December 2006)

Programme Notes
For concert organizers

External sites
British Music Society
The BBC Proms
Orchestra Sites
Recording Companies & Retailers
Online Music
Agents & Marketing
Publishers
Other links
Newsgroups
Web News sites etc

PotPourri
A pot-pourri of articles

MW Listening Room
MW Office

Advice to Windows Vista users  
Questionnaire    
Site History  
What they say about us
What we say about us!
Where to get help on the Internet
CD orders By Special Request
Graphics archive
Currency Converter
Dictionary
Magazines
Newsfeed  
Web Ring
Translation Service

Rules for potential reviewers :-)
Do Not Go Here!
April Fools






Untitled Document


Reviews from previous months
Join the mailing list and receive a hyperlinked weekly update on the discs reviewed. details
We welcome feedback on our reviews. Please use the Bulletin Board
Please paste in the first line of your comments the URL of the review to which you refer.