Search - Bernardino Balletti, Francesco (da Milano) Canova, Giacomo Gorzanis :: La Serenissima 2

The instrument of intimacy

Stephen A. Haines | Ottawa, Ontario Canada | 02/22/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Listening to lute music provides an intimacy few instruments enjoy. With the CD in the player and your eyes closed, the sensation of the performer in the room, playing for you alone, is easily evoked. A feeling of being transported in time and place by the music comes readily. You might be one of the Venetian aristocrats who commissioned or sponsored this music. The music surrounds you with a seductive power, its magic conveying you away from the mundane to fantasy's realms. Listening to this CD gives credence to Pied Piper myths. The right music rendered by the right performer can lead you down some unexpected paths.A talent as fine as Jakob Lindberg's enhances the sensation of the performer playing for you alone. This collection of late 16th Century pieces from Venice represents a prime source of lute music for the period. By this time, the lute was firmly established across Europe as the vehicle of solo music expression. Venice, wealthy as a Mediterranean trade centre, attracted many talented composers and performers as the Renaissance flourished. These are not the wandering minstrels of an earlier time, but serious scholars and innovators. Lindberg's notes are a useful summary of biographies of these men, adding a fine academic touch to this CD.You don't buy CDs for their academic worth, however. It's music that lifts the spirit and the music of this album earns high marks for achieving that enrichment. Lindberg is peerless among lutenists, and this album a superior expression of his talent. This CD may be listened to in sequence while you read the notes on the composer's role of that time and place. Or you simply leave it on random and hear Lindberg's excellent renditions and interpretations of the music. Either way, his mastery as a player come through without impediment. As with the first of this pair of CDs, Lindberg gives the instrument its finest voice. It's a treasure to listen to at any time."