Sunday, June 2, 2019

Sunday morning music


A couple of weeks ago, I put up a classical guitar video.  It seems to have been favorably received, so I thought I'd combine two loves - baroque music, and medieval/Renaissance stringed instruments - and devote a Sunday morning music post to them. Here are four pieces that caught my fancy.

First, using a replica of a baroque guitar with 9 strings made by Peter Biffin of Australia, here's Miguel Rincón playing "Fandangos", a piece by Santiago de Murcia from his Codice Salvidar.





Here's the same artist playing two pieces, both titled "Passacaglia", on a medieval lute.  The first is by Robert de Visée;  the second is by Giovanni Girolamo Kapsperger.





Next, here's Jordi Savall, renowned for his revival of the medieval viol, an ancestor of modern stringed instruments such as the cello and double bass.  He teams with lute player Rolf Lislevand to play a medieval version of, and variations on, "Greensleeves".





Finally, to end on an upbeat note, here's part of the L'Arpeggiata ensemble performing "Tarantella Napoletana" by Athanasius Kircher, a polymath who in his day was compared to Leonardo da Vinci for the depth, range and scope of his interests.





Lovely pieces, aren't they?

Peter

5 comments:

urbane legend said...

Excellent playing of good music. Thank you for sharing this.

TheAxe said...

I really liked today's selections.

Old NFO said...

Those lutes have an odd, Almost atonal sound to me. of course that COULD be my lousy hearing too...

CGR710 said...

Listening to Greensleeves reminded me of Rainbow's "16th century Greensleeves" and I found a relatively recent live version I think you may like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VQvuu7F3WA

John Ray said...

It's Monday morning as I listened. Lovely stuff. A great way to start a week, Peter. Thanks.