Tarquinio Merula (1594-1665)
Canzon
La Ghiradella [2:27]
Canzon
La Merula [3:34]
Gioseffo Guami
(1591-1607)
Canzon
La Bastina [2:56]
Canzon
La Brillantina [2:56]
Canzon
La Gentile [2:32]
Girolamo Frescobaldi
(1583-1643)
Capricco
sopra la Spagnoletta [5:26]
Canzon
Decima detta la Paulini [2:16]
Ricercare
terzo [3:34]
Capriccio
V sopra la Bassa Fiamenga [4:47]
Giovanni Battista Conforti
(fl.1550-1570)
Ricercare
del quarto tono [5:11]
Giovanni Pierluigi da
Palestrina (c.1525-1594)
Lamentationes
Hieremiae [4:46]
Giovanni Maria Trabaci (1575-1647)
Canto
fermo Primo del Primo Tono [2:39]
Canzone Francese Quinta sopra Dunque Credete Ch'io [2:44]
Canzone
Francese Terza [3:15]
Ricercare
secondo tono con quattro fughe [3:40]
Giovanni Paolo Cima (1570-1622)
Canzon
la Capriccio [2:46]
Claudio Merula
(1533-1604)
Dum Illuscescente
Beati [1:58]
Iste est
Joannes [1:58]
O Gloriosa
Domina [1:56]
Concerti
di Flauti2
Johann David Heinichen
(1683-1729)a
Concerto
à 8 in C [7:26]
Johann Christian Schickhardt
(c.1681-c.1760)a
Concerto
in D minor for four recorders and continuo [9:58]
Georg Philipp Telemann
(1681-1767)a
Concerto
in A minor for two recorders, strings and continuo [8:46]
Alessandro Marcello
(1669-1747)a
Concerto
in G major for 2 flutes [4:43]
Georg Philipp Telemann
(1681-1767)a
Concerto
on B flat for two recorders and strings [8:23]
Johann Christian Schickhardt
(c.1682-c.1762)a
Concerto
in G for four recorders and continuo [7:23]
Antonio VIVALDI (1678-1741)a
Concerto
‘in due cori’ con flauti obbligato in A, RV585 [9:51]a
Baroque
Recorder Music3
Johann Sebastian BACH (1685-1750)
The Art
of Fugue, BWV1080: Contrapunctus I [3:30]
The Art
of Fugue, BWV1080: Contrapunctus III {3:08]
Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck
(1562-1621)
Mein junges
Leben hat ein End [6:03]
Johann Sebastian BACH (1685-1750)
Fugue
in G, BWV550 [3:18]
Henry Purcell
(1659-1695)
Fantasia
No.8 in A minor, Z. 739 [1:41]
Joseph Bodin de Boismortier
(1689-1755)
Sonata
in C minor, Op. 34 No. 6 [8:45]
Matthew Locke
(1621-1677)
Suite
No.3 in F [9:20]
Samuel SCHEIDT (1587-1654)
Fantasia
on ‘Io son ferito lasso’ [10:28]
Johann Sebastian BACH (1685-1750)
Fantasy
and Fugue ib C minor, BWV537 [9:08]
Extra
Time4
Errol GARNER / Johnny BURKE
(arr. P. Leenhouts)
Misty
[4:08]
Johann Sebastian BACH (1685-1750)
Brandenburg
Concerto No.3 in G, BWV1048: III: Allegro [4:26]
Fugue
in B flat, BWB+V560 [1:31]
ANON (Coimbra Manuscript)
Batalla
Famossa [5:45]
Henry MANCINI (arr. P.LEENHOUTS)
Loeki
the Lion on the Trail of the Pink Panther [3:06]
Johnny MANDEL / Paul Francis WEBSTER (arr. P.LEENHOUTS)
The Shadow
of Your Smile [2:45]
John LENNON / Paul McCARTNEY
(arr. Daniël BRÜGGEN)
Michelle
[2:58]
Johann Christian Bach
(1735-1782)
Allegro
[6:20]
Rondo
grazioso [4:41]
Antonio VIVALDI (1678-1741) (arr. D. BRÜGGEN)
Concerto in D. Op.7 No.12 [7:56]
Nikolai RIMSKY-KORSAKOV (1844-1908) (arr. Karel van Steenhoven)
Nocturne
[3:14]
Paul LEENHOUTS (b.1957)
When Shall
the Sun Shine? [4:03]
Charlie PARKER (1920-1955) (arr. P. LEENHOUTS)
Scrapple
from the Apple [2:06]
Peter SCHOTT (arr. P. LEENHOUTS)
Aan de
Amsterdamse Grachten [2:29]
Ludwig van BEETHOVEN (1770-1827) (arr. P. LEENHOUTS)
Für Elise [1:20]
Samuel
Pepys, that indefatigable lover of music, and of women not his
wife, recorded in his diary for 8 April 1668 that he had visited
the premises of Drumbleby the flageolet maker in the Strand
and had there bought himself a recorder “which I do intend to
learn to play on, the sound of it being of all sounds in the
world most pleasing to me”. No doubt Mr. Drumbleby’s shop offered
its customers a healthy choice of instruments, but the proprietor
surely didn’t stock or make quite the range of recorders that
the Amsterdam Loeki Quartet have in their armoury, “a unique
collection of over a hundred Renaissance, Baroque and modern
recorders, ranging from an 8-inch sopranino to a sub-contrabass
measuring over nine feet”, to quote from their website. I don’t
know how many of those instruments are to be heard on this reissued
set of four of the Quartet’s early recordings, but the range
of tone and timbre is certainly considerable – the work of the
Loeki Quartet is never lacking in colour and variety or, indeed,
in virtuosity and imagination. It would be reasonable to say
that where the balance between creativity and ‘authenticity’
is concerned, the Loeki Quartet have always been prepared to
put the greater emphasis on the former.
The
music to be heard on Italian Recorder Music is, for the
most part, rather sober, often possessed of a melancholy dignity.
The opening pieces by Tarquinio Merula have a limpidity that
sets a pattern for what follows – it is a real treat to hear
the polyphonic conversations of this music with such a degree
of clarity. The four pieces by Giovanni Maria Trabaci are especially
lovely, less thickly-textured than, for example, the canzone
by Guami, and nicely varied in tempo. Elsewhere the four items
by Frescobaldi are full of subtle touches and not without their
unexpected twists and turns. The sensitive performance of three
pieces by Claudio Merula bring to a close an attractive programme,
a programme which is beautifully served by the purity of tone
and perfection of intonation which the Loeki Quartet bring to
their performance and by a fine recorded sound.
Concerti
di Flauti unites the Loeki Quartet with Christopher Hogwood
and the Academy of Ancient Music in a programme of baroque concerti,
mixing the music of major figures such as Vivaldi and Telemann
with that of a lesser-known figure such as Johann Christian
Schickhardt. Schickhardt was a much-travelled oboist and player
of the recorder; although German in origin he worked extensively
in the Netherlands and Scandinavia, as well as in Hamburg, Weimar
and Cöthen. His two concerti heard here make it clear that he
knew his way around the instrument very well, but are in no
way remarkable or especially individual. As so often, it is
to Telemann that the listener can turn in confident – and rewarded
– expectation of real quality. His two concerti are works of
the highest craftsmanship and graced with at least a few moments
of inspiration. The opening movement of the A minor concerto
(‘gravement’) is a thing of considerable beauty and the same
concerto’s closing movement is a model of charm and elegance,
played here with winning vivacity. In the B flat concerto (whose
four movements are marked grave-vivace-tendrement-gayement)
there is nothing that disappoints and much that engages the
mind and the ears very satisfactorily. RV585 is hardly major-league
Vivaldi, but its three brief movements make very pleasant listening.
Again the recorded sound is good.
Baroque
Recorder Music is a misnomer in any strict sense. Little
of this music was originally written with the recorder - let
alone a quartet of recorders - specifically in mind though some,
such as the thoroughly attractive sonata by Boismortier were
written for transverse flutes. What we have includes two organ
works by J.S. Bach (BWV 50 and 537), a set of keyboard variations
by Sweelinck and consort music by Locke and Purcell. And two
contrapuncti from the Art of Fugue. But transcriptions such
as these, and the attitude that underlies them are perfectly
‘Baroque’ in spirit, in tune with the habits of the period.
And they are all played beautifully. At times, indeed, there
are clear bonuses, given the clarity with which contrapuntal
lines are delineated, with just enough variety of tone to help
that clarity but not so much as to rob the results of unity.
There is a great deal to enjoy here on a disc full of subtle
touches and perceptive music-making.
The
joy of transcription runs wild on the last of these four discs!
There can’t have been too many CDs of any kind which found house-room
for both Erroll Garner and Johann Christian Bach, Rimsky-Korsakov
and Charlie Parker, Henry Mancini and Beethoven. And fewer still
on which the only instruments to be heard were members of the
recorder family! I wonder what Pepys would have made of it.
There’s no need to take any of the pieces here too solemnly;
relax into them and there’s much to enjoy. Parker would, I hope
and believe, have loved Paul Leenhouts arrangement of Scrapple
from the Apple; I am less sure what Beethoven would have
thought of the same arranger’s version of Für Elise as
a Piazzollan tango! I wonder if Bach would have been as amused
as I am by the “crazily fast” - Daniël Brüggen’s phrase - performance
of the Allegro from Bach’s third Brandenburg? Lennon
and McCartney’s Michelle works delightfully. There’s
plenty of wit and verve everywhere on the disc – surely only
the most mean-spirited of musical puritans who find much to
disapprove of here though it isn’t a disc one would choose to
listen too often, if only so as not to spoil some of the surprises!
This
Newton box has a interesting retrospective note on the Amsterdam
Loeki Stardust Quartet by Daniël Brüggen – at one point he observes
that “everything had to be selected, tested, arranged and orchestrated;
we occasionally looked with envy at string quartets! We, however,
could switch roles in ways that they couldn’t: each of us could
play the bass part in a certain piece and the top part in another”.
Brüggen’s note makes clear the sheer fun that the members of
the ALSQ had in the first half of the quartet’s existence; the
remarkable thing is how much of that fun leaps off these CDs,
even when more than a little of the music is quite sombre in
mood.
Glyn
Pursglove
Amsterdam Loeki
Stardust Quartet (Daniël Brüggen, Bertho Driever, Pail Leenhouts,
Karel van Steenhoven (recorders)); a with The Academy
of Ancient Music/Christopher Hogwood.
