Search - Claudio Cavina :: Emanuel Adriaenssen: Love Songs and Dances from "Pratum Musicum"

Well Done!

Leslie Richford | Selsingen, Lower Saxony | 04/14/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Emanuel Adriaenssen (c. 1554 - 1604): Compositions and intabulations from Pratum Musicum. Performers: Marie-Claude Vallin, soprano; Claudio Cavina, altus; Max van Egmond, baritone; Liuto Concertato [Sabine Dreier, transverse flute; Petra Manz, viola da gamba; Lutz Kirchhof, lute]; dir. Lutz Kirchhof. Recorded in November 1994 in St. Osdag's Church, Mandelsloh, Germany. Producer: Wolf Erichson. Engineer: Stephan Schellmann. First published in 1995 as Sony Vivarte SK 66263. Total playing time: 72'53".



"Tis wel gedaen!" - "It is well done!": Thus the happy ending of the neapolitan chanson, written in Italian and Dutch, in which a hot-blooded Latin lover tries to persuade his cool Flemish beloved to give in to his entreaties. "Well done!" is what I, too, would like to say after listening to this wonderful lute CD on which Lutz Kirchhof, one of the leading lute virtuosos of our time, presents compositions and intabulations from Antwerp at the end of the 16th century. That the lute solo pieces are absolutely top class is only what I have come to expect from Lutz Kirchhof (his recordings of Bach and Weiss have, in my opinion, never been equalled), but here he has assembled a team that is able to match his own high standards: Marie-Claude Vallin, soprano singer in Paul van Nevel's Huelgas-Ensemble; Claudio Cavina, altus und founder-member of La Venexiana; and Max van Egmond, whose silky baritone betrays nothing of the fact that at the time of this recording his career as a singer was all of 35 years old! Sabine Dreier and Petra Manz, too, play their part in this lovely-sounding mix, and the result is an extremely entertaining 70 minutes with plenty of variety in soft serenading mood. Apart from his own compositions, Adriaenssen (we know very little about him other than that he lived in Antwerp) re-worked for lute and vocal ensemble pieces by Lassus, di Rore, Abrahan, Conversi, Gombert, Gastoldi, Ferretti and Marenzio. Lutz Kirchhof writes in his notes of "17th century charts songs", and he may just be right about this. The sung texts are printed in the booklet in the original language and in English translation and are not particularly profound, sometimes slightly erotic (but without ever being "explicit"); they are sung now by a solo voice, now by two or three voices together. And in between the glorious sound of the lute over and over again! My advice to lute music fans would be: "Get this while you can!""