New Classical Tracks: Nuove Musiche

"I'd actually go out and buy this CD!" That's what several of my colleagues said when I shared this new recording with them. One of the joys of working in classical music is being surrounded by great music day in and day out. When I first heard this new release by Norwegian guitarist Rolf Lislevand, I was mesmerized by what he and his colleagues had done with this early Baroque music.

Lislevand's latest recording, "Nuove Musiche," takes something from the past and gives it a voice in the present by adding fresh new elements. It's a contemporary re-imagining of work done in Florence in the early 17th century. In those days, a group of scholars, scientists and musicians decided they wanted to revise the music from the previous century and come up with something completely new as a reaction to the dense polyphony of the 16th century. While the "old" music featured many voices and a complex structure, the Florentines determined that this new music, or "Nuove Musiche," would be simpler and more expressive, with new instruments and a new palette of colors. The title of this recording comes from two collections of works titled "Nuove Musiche," compiled by 17th-century Italian composer Giulio Caccini.

In Italian, the word "toccata" means "to touch." It refers both to the musician's touch on the instrument as well as the how the music touches the hearts and minds of the listener. Rolf Lislevand felt that magical energy when he and his friends gathered to improvise on a toccata by Giovanni Kapsberger. Improvisation was an essential skill for a performer of the 17th century. Lislevand and his musical colleagues are all improvising musicians, which is one reason this new release is so outstanding. Their performance of the toccata begins with a few trickling notes on the arch lute. Gradually, more instruments are added to mold and shape a new toccata, one that Kapsberger could only have dreamed about.

For nearly 20 years, Lislevand has been living in Verona, Italy where he's been trying to reconstruct this early style of playing. Most 17th-century composers for lute and guitar left behind several pieces based on the passacaglia, an improvised set of variations over a descending bass line. Eventually, composers like Domenico Pellegrini turned these simple exercises into challenging masterworks. Lislevand uses some of Pellegrini's pieces as the foundation for many of the works that appear on this recording. After listening several times, I can tell these pieces are carefully crafted because they continue to pique my interest. Tracks six through nine are each based on the passacaglia, but each has its own unique flavor.

One of the most pleasant surprises on "Nuove Musiche" is the inclusion of soprano Arianna Savall. Savall is the grown daughter of viola da gamba specialist Jordi Savall and soprano Montserrat Figueras, co-founders of three early music ensembles. (Rolf Lislevand is a former member of one of those ensembles, Hesperion XX.) Savall's crystalline voice does have shadings of her mother's, and her small renaissance harp gives her sound an added, celestial quality. When she begins to soar over the string instruments on the first track, the door is immediately opened to a unique listening experience that overall is very spiritual and serene.

The work of the percussionist, Pedro Estevan, adds a great groove and esthetic throughout the disc. Plenty of other unusual instruments add to the energizing atmosphere of this recording, including the theorbo, the colascione, and the nyckleharpa. Unfortunately, the liner notes are so vague we don't know exactly when we're hearing them.

Rolf Lislevand believes intimacy of sound is what allows the transmission of musical emotions. Lislevand and the musicians on "Nuove Musiche" have woven together that sense of intimacy through their technical mastery, their ability to improvise, and their courage to break the rules. As a professor of historical performance practice in Germany, Lislevand knows the rules, and yet he's quite comfortable stretching beyond the sketchy original scores to conceive something that's elegant, graceful, and quite compelling. He is always true to the music.

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