Ur Musig (1993) Cyrill Schläpfer, Rees Gwerder, Jakob Alder, Jakob Duesel

In 1991 lutenist Jakob Lindberg bought a very special instrument – one of the rare extant lutes by Sixtus Rauwolf, built c. 1590. The restoration of the lute took several years and was rather painstaking: for some repairs they even used ancient wood from the library in the Palazzo Pitti in Florence. Considering the great age of the instrument it was nevertheless in good shape and is now probably the only one in the world that, retaining its original soundboard, is in playable condition.

“Fans of Alice Coltrane and Arthur Verocai will find succour in his ancient/modern arrangements.” 4/5 - Mojo

The acclaimed British soprano Louise Alder returns for her second recital on Chandos, joined once again by star pianist Joseph Middleton. Enthusiastic praise was widespread for her Chandos début, Lines Written during a Sleepless Night: The Russian Connection, which earned significant accolades in the USA and continental Europe in addition to the UK. For this recording the pair explore a rich and varied selection of French songs from the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Louse Alder writes: 'I have always held French song very dear to my heart and when we settled on this wildly varied programme, I quickly grew excited at the prospect of exploring the art form in virtually all its styles. From Ravel to Yvain, I hope we paint pictures of a French evening, of mystery, intrigue, discovery, seduction, love, and blissful night.'

In what Et’cetera has described as Volume I, Pavlo Beznosiuk couples three of Westhoff’s suites for solo violin from 1696 with six items from Walther’s scherzos from 1676. His program opens with Walther’s Sonata VIII, offering a startling initial barrage of signature chords and double-stops, giving way to flurries of rapid notes and studded with brilliant staccatos, beside which the demands of Corelli’s solos about a generation later pale, and the Sonata closes with fireworks that make a greater cumulative effect than the works of Locatelli, often identified as the precursor of Paganini’s technical demands.

The final instalment in a celebrated three-part series by Contrapunctus, directed by Owen Rees, exploring the music of the Baldwin Partbooks, a remarkable treasure-house of Tudor sacred polyphony, some of which is not found anywhere else.

12 years after his album entitled ‘Italian Virtuosi of the Chitarrone’ (BIS-1899), Jakob Lindberg returns to his magnificent theorbo, specially built for him by the luthier Michael Lowe, based on an instrument preserved in the Musée de la Musique in Paris. One of the most spectacular instruments of the early baroque owing to its length and great number of strings, the theorbo was originally designed to accompany the voice, but is also ideally suited to solo performance. For this disc, Lindberg has chosen pieces by Robert de Visée, one of the great French masters of the lute, theorbo and guitar repertoire and a favourite of Louis XIV. The recording features dances as well as character pieces, including a moving ‘Plainte’ in memory of his two deceased daughters.