Tilman Spengler

This is a stupendously good recording of a notoriously troublesome instrument to realistically and authentically capture and project. It positions the listener's perspective in front of the keyboard, with the higher treble strings emanating from the right speaker, the lower bass strings from the left, and the mid range right down the middle. And if you play it loud enough, you can feel the vibrations from the lowest bass strings rumble through the floorboards. The instrument used in this recording is a 1981 two-manual harpsichord based on 18th century French models, built by Tilman Skowroneck's father, Martin Skowroneck. If it's anything like his other instruments, it's built using bird quill and beryllium copper strings instead of brass. It's blessed with a full-bodied and resonant sound, far removed from the sonic characteristics of "plinky" and metallic sounding harpsichords.

Tilman Skowroneck writes: This recording was initiated by Bengt Nassen, the owner of the harpsichord by Martin Skowroneck (1926-2014) that is featured here. Initially, I was planning to play music by Bach and Handel on this German instrument, which is based on early eighteenth-century models, but after acquainting myself with the instruments possibilities, I was led in a different direction. Its sound is located somewhere between Italian brilliance and a more intimate vocal character. Some French builders of the seventeenth century made instruments whose characteristics were quite similar, even though they arrived at these results by different constructions. And so the idea was born to use this sound to retrace the connections between the Italian and French sound worlds of the late seventeenth century.

Publié pour la première fois en 1918, ce livre est considéré comme l'oeuvre principale du philosophe de la révolution conservatrice. A contre-courant de l'éloge de la modernisation, Spengler affirme le déclin de l'Occident, dont l'exode rural, la pollution industrielle, l'aliénation par le travail, les méfaits psychologiques de la vie urbaine ou l'augmentation des migrations seraient les signaux. …