Track Listings (30) - Disc #1| All Artists: Anthony Holborne Title: Lute Music for Witches and Alchemists / Lutz Kirchhof Members Wishing: 1 Total Copies: 0 Label: Sony Release Date: 3/21/2000 Genres: Special Interest, Classical Styles: Opera & Classical Vocal, Chamber Music, Historical Periods, Baroque (c.1600-1750), Classical (c.1770-1830), Instruments, Strings Number of Discs: 1 SwapaCD Credits: 1 UPC: 074646076729 |
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Search - Anthony Holborne :: Lute Music for Witches and Alchemists / Lutz Kirchhof
 | Anthony Holborne Lute Music for Witches and Alchemists / Lutz Kirchhof Genres: Special Interest, Classical
The mellow German lutenist Lutz Kirchhof advises listeners not to turn the volume up too high on his latest Sony solo disc. The delicate lute tone charmed 16th- and 17th-century listeners by its simple acoustic beauty. The... more » |
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Amazon.com The mellow German lutenist Lutz Kirchhof advises listeners not to turn the volume up too high on his latest Sony solo disc. The delicate lute tone charmed 16th- and 17th-century listeners by its simple acoustic beauty. The gentle plucked notes could affect the mood, altering one's emotional state. Kirchhof suggests that such potential made music invaluable to witches and alchemists, who were held in high regard in the irrational centuries before the Age of Enlightenment. This theory enables Kirchhof to make an eclectic selection of 30 short pieces covering 200 years and four different lutes--renaissance lute, vihuela, baroque lute, and theorbo. He does not claim that any of the items were actually put to any alchemical or satanic use, but he does not need to. The Presto and Galanterie by S. L. Weiss speak for themselves. Dufaut's Suite in A minor might not otherwise have reached the public; Hagen's Sonata in C minor would have remained obscure; and Holborne's The Fairy Round Galliard waited in vain for the revival of alchemy as a science. An eccentric disc all-round. --Rick Jones Similar CDs
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CD ReviewsBeautiful, Stately Music By A Master M. Hori | Urayasu, Chiba Japan | 01/02/2003 (5 out of 5 stars) "Sorry folks, but the title of this CD might be a bit misleading. You will not hear Halloween sound effects, or "A Night on Bald Mountain" Disney-style. Instead you will be treated to meditative music based on the theories of Ficino, Agrippa, and others. Kirchof does us all a favor by fleshing out what has previously been locked away in archives and rare publications and allowing us to hear each composition as it was originally meant to be heard. A good book to buy with this CD would be D.P. Walker's classic Spiritual and Demonic [as in Socrates' daemon, not the kind from the uh-oh place] Magic (Pennsylvania State University Press, 2000). This music is meant to heal and not to hurt; meant to uplift and enlighten the mind and not to drown it in darkness. And besides all that folks, it's just plain pleasant to drink wine and eat cheese to. In addition, Lute Music For Witches and Alchemists has great liner notes that give the low-down on each Hermetic ditty. M & M it's not, thank Plato, Plotinus. Ficino, and the stars!" Nothing bad, nothing special. Gary J. Wright | San Francisco, CA United States | 06/11/2003 (3 out of 5 stars) "Kirchhof invariably finds interesting repertoire to entice us, but just as his jangly Bach pales next to North's, and his Weiss can't compare to Smith's, here he ends up trailing again. While this disc might be attractive to newcomers to the lute and its magical attractions, I am sure that most who are familiar with the skills and taste of the other aforementioned artists will know that plenty of the music on this disc can be found, sounding better, elsewhere. There's nothing bad about this disc, but nothing special, either." NOT dull at all! M. Hori | 06/12/2001 (5 out of 5 stars) "I can't agree with the above reviewer, whose dislike of this CD seems out of proportion. I too have a huge collection of lute records built up over the years, and used to play the lute (though not well enough for the public stage). Therefore I also have a strong basis of comparison between this and other similar works, and can't see what such negative judgment is based upon. The repertoire itself? This album contains a good representation of the periods it covers, the playing is exquisitely clean and spirited, the recording quality is clear with a "big" sound, and the instruments Kirchhof uses are obviously high-quality ones, with both resonance and brightness. I can't make the adjective "sad" compute at all, and wonder if the local 11-year-old's expectations were influenced by other more familiar types of music? Renaissance and baroque lute take some getting to know. They are not the sort of thing kids are over-exposed to, and must compete in their minds with a lot of more popular forms. In fact there is plenty of life in this beautifully played 73-minute album. Hear it and judge for yourself."
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