Toccata Press

The only complete survey available of the keyboard music written by a forward-looking contemporary of Monteverdi.

Born in New York in 1946, Swiss-American lutenist Hopkinson Smith graduated from Harvard with Honors in Music in 1972. His instrumental studies took him to Europe where he worked with Emilio Pujol, a great pedagogue in the highest Catalan artistic tradition, and with the Swiss lutenist, Eugen Dombois, whose sense of organic unity between performer, instrument, and historical period has had lasting effects on him. He has been involved in numerous chamber music projects and was one of the founding members of the ensemble Hespèrion XX. Since the mid-80’s, he has focused almost exclusively on the solo repertoires for early plucked instrument, producing a series of prize-winning recordings for Astrée and Naïve, which feature Spanish music for vihuela and baroque guitar, French lute music of the Renaissance and baroque, English and Italian music of the 16th early 17th century and music from the German high baroque.

Recorded for Calliope between 1975 and 1991, André Isoir’s version of the complete organ works of Johann Sebastian Bach was an exceptional undertaking that received unanimous acclaim from press and public alike. La Dolce Volta here reissues this set, unavailable since 2008, on 15 CDs at a highly attractive price. These interpretations which have achieved legendary status for their magical touch and ornamentation, their supremely elegant and inward sculpting of phrases, are now enhanced by stylish new presentation (remastered sound, luxury packaging, recent interview with the artist, full details of the instruments).

August Gottfried Ritter (1811-1885) is no household name, but to organists he one of the most significant figures in the history of their instrument; while his three-volume method of playing Kunst des Orgelspiels becoming a source of reference in Germany and elsewhere, his Geschichte des Orgelspiels compendium established his renown through bringing to light composers from the Renaissance and the Baroque periods, some of whom had already been forgotten by the time it was published in 1884. Today he is regarded as the founder of the modern German organ school. Placing a selection of rare works alongside his more famous organ music, this collection forms a unique tribute to the German composers genius. The four Organ Sonatas are first to be presented, pieces which are all cyclical in nature, with Op.23 forming his largest composition for organ, a work of vast proportions that was dedicated to Liszt and which includes Ritters debut use of organ toccata form.