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Buxtehude: Sonatas Op. 1 - L'Estravagante

Buxtehude: Sonatas Op. 1 - L'Estravagante

Arts Music  47731-8

Stereo/Multichannel Hybrid

Classical


Buxtehude: Sonatas Op. 1

L'Estravagante

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Review by John Miller - July 19, 2008

Although Buxtehude is renowned for his considerable legacy of fine organ music, he also wrote 21 chamber works. The Opus 1 Sonatas (1694) are really trio sonatas, for violin, viola da gamba and harpsichord, which the North German composers preferred to the brighter tone of two violins and continuo beloved of their Italian counterparts. Opus 1 and its companion volume Opus 2 each comprise seven sonatas, with the number seven having cabalistic and numerological significance in Buxtehude's circle. JS Bach also gave considerable attention to numbers in various ways in his compositions, as we are reminded in the detailed and scholarly booklet notes by Gianluca Capuana.

The sonatas are all quite brief, the longest being just over 10 minutes. Each is formed from a series of short sections, sometimes only a few seconds long, often alternating slow and fast tempi. There is thus considerable variety not only of speeds but of moods, from brief, pensive and emotional recitatives to virtuosic dance movements of French and German style, which often involve imitative tossing of tunes from violin to gamba. Generally the movements are cheerful, sometimes joyful, but in the minor key sonatas there are many sections which are contemplative or plaintive.

L'Estravagante are a group of players who are members of a number of well-known Baroque period instrument orechestras, such as Il Gardino Armonico, Europa Galante and Les Talens Lyriques. The ensemble is tight and the playing deft and agile, although for me somewhat understated. I had expected a little more passion, attack and rich tone from this Italian group, who are perhaps paying their dues to the allegedly more sober North German origin of the music. The violin tone often seems rather thin and neither instrument shows the full range of their tone colour, although this is partly due to the music, which is somewhat 'middle of the road'. The centrally-placed harpsichord, a copy of a Vater instrument from 1733, doesn't have a great deal to do in its continuo role, but the playing is self-effacing and suitably supportive. I also felt that some of the brief slow sections were often stretched out far more than their simple material warranted. Overall, the performances, even after several auditions, failed to capture and hold my full attention for long, although many individual sections had considerable charm.

The 5.1 PCM recording is quite immediate with good timbral detail and the odd breathing sound from the players, but does not have any distinctive ambience from its "Baroque Hall" in Italy, although there is plenty of output from the surround speakers. Since there is almost no deep bass from the instruments in the narrow range of Buxtehude's writing, the provision of a separate subwoofer channel is perhaps spurious. The multichannel sound gives a pleasantly intimate chamber listening experience, but is only subtly more effective than the stereo RBCD layer.

This music was written for playing rather than passive listening, and certainly Buxtehude would never have expected anyone to listen to all of the sonatas in one sitting, as one can now do with discs. If you already have one of the many excellent versions of these sonatas on RBCD, there is no need to replace it with this version. However, it is well played and recorded and thus of interest to those collecting baroque music on SACD.

Copyright © 2008 John Miller and HRAudio.net

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