Rolf Lislevand

Rolf Lislevand – Diminuito (2009/2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 58:24 minutes | 993 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © ECM New Series

On “Nuove Musiche”, his highly successful ECM debut released in spring 2006, Norwegian master lutenist led his own group of international early music virtuosi. The album presented ravishing and most unorthodox accounts of mostly Italian instrumental music from the early Baroque. Based on Italian Renaissance sources from the 16th century – madrigals, chansons and virtuoso lute music – the new programme goes even further back – from the “seconda pratica” of monophonic expressiveness to the “prima pratica” of polyphonic complexity.

Once again putting a strong emphasis on improvisation, Lislevand and his colleagues disclose the astounding modernity and emotional wealth in the music of composers such as Giovanni Antonio Terzi or Joan Ambrosio Dalza. Most of the music stems from the Veneto region of Italy where, at that period, strong influences of oriental and eastern music could be felt. Lislevand’s group translates this with a lush scoring for deep instruments, both stringed and plucked. The album title “Diminuito” refers to the praxis of virtuosic ornamentation of vocal lines, the “diminution” of larger rhythmic and harmonic units in most agile runs, scales and arpeggi. The album was recorded in St. Gerold with line-up including the delightful sopranos of Anna Maria Friman and Linn Andrea Fuglesth.

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Rolf Lislevand – La Mascarade – Music for Solo Baroque Guitar and Theorbo (2016)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 48:29 minutes | 822 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © ECM New Series

The Norwegian early music lutenist and guitarist Rolf Lislevand has pooh-poohed the idea of historical authenticity, but it may be that the lovely program here would have appealed to listeners in the court of Louis XIV, for which the music was intended. Lislevand examines pieces by a pair of late 17th century composers, Robert de Visée (a rondeau by whom, plus some rather murky booklet ruminations by Lislevand, give the album its title) and the sparsely heard Francesco Corbetta, choosing slow, quasi-improvisatory pieces and dances — preludes, chaconnes, sarabandes, passacaglias — from each, and adding some improvised introductions. The music alternates between a very deep-voiced, many-stringed theorbo and a small, crystalline Baroque guitar. The result is an extremely reflective concert, dividing up a common stock of musical ideas in several subtle ways, that, as Lislevand points out, would have been played for a small group of connoisseurs in its own time. ECM producer Manfred Eicher is nonpareil as a recorder of music like this, but here, working in the Auditorio Stelio Molo in Lugano, he outdoes himself, evoking the “musica callada,” the music that has fallen silent, of Mompou. He draws the listener into a rich communion with a remarkable player.

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