Baroque
nouveau
'Nuove Musiche' out on CD
by
Jason
Victor Serinus for Bay Area Reporter
Norwegian-born
lutenist and guitarist Rolf
Lislevand has committed what amounts to heresy. On his new
recording Nuove Musiche (ECM New Series), the professor of lute
and historical performance practice at Trossingen Musikhochschule
has, in a sense, reinvented orthodoxy.
Playing
archlute, baroque guitar, and theorbo, Lislevand makes his instruments
swing as much as they sigh. Taking his cue from authentic baroque
music performance of the 1600s, he and his supporting musicians
bring a distinctly modern improvisatory spirit to his arrangements
of baroque melodies. Instead of attempting to play Kapsberger,
Pellegrini, and Piccinini as one might have played them in the
17th century, the ensemble treats the composers as if they were
still living, writing, and expecting musicians to improvise
on the spot. The results are most unusual: period instruments
played according to knowledge gleaned from period sources, but
with a distinctly modern sensibility.
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