Luogo e data di registrazione		Ecangelische Kirche, Séon (Svizzera) - 4-7 dicembre 1978
	Registrazione: live / studio		studio
	Producer / Engineer		Gerd Berg / Johann-Nikolaus Matthes
	Prima Edizione LP		EMI Electrola "Reflexe" - 1C 065-45 645 - (1 lp) - durata 44' 20" - (p) 1979 - Analogico
	Prima Edizione CD		EMI "Classics" - 8 26520 2 - (1 cd) - durata 44' 20" - (c) 2000 - ADD
	Note		-

LAUTEN-GALANTERIE In comparison with the lute music of the Baroque era which, under the influence of the French school of the seventeenth century, offers us an art that is precious in the double sense of the word - triumph of refinement and of the unsaid - the music of the preceding periods, which originated from the renaissance of polyphony, on account of its solidly established structures and its logic discourse would seem to be infinitely more accessible to the public and equally more rewarding for the interpreter. With the exception of the remarkable works and the movement led by Hans Neemann (1901-1941) which championed the cause of the Baroque repertoire in the first quarter of our century, the music of the “Renaissance”, eagerly propagated by the guitarists, seems to have held the field almost exclusively However, it looks as though the balance has been re-established during the past ten years thanks to the joint efforts of musicologists, musicians and instrument-makers. Yet how many unexplored fields, holding neglected treasures, do there still remain - a fact which is due to our indifference rather than to a lack of meticulous studies! This is particularly true with regard to the rococo period which saw the decline of the lute in the Germanic territories, the last place of refuge of an instrument that was unfit to survive the aesthetic upheavals of the pre-classical era. After the esoteric art of the Pièces de Luth (EMI 1C 063-30 938 2) and after the surpreme mastery of Silvius Leopold Weiss (EMI 1C 065-30944 2) the present Lauten-Galanterie imparts a slightly melancholy note to the musical history of the period of German “Empfindsamkeit”. Western Europe, where the lute had first become established, had long ago turned toward new horizons. As though quite exhausted by the task of providing the basso continuo, which had been their function for more than a century, the lute and its cousins, theorbo and chitarrone, were hardly able to fire the composers imagination or attract the publics interest any longer. In France, where until recently its literature had been in full flower, the lute by the beginning of the eighteenth century had become an anachronistic instrument which found favour only in the form of the vielle (hurdy-gurdy) to the greater pleasure of a society which was in the throes of a craze for rustic amusements. On top of that, in this Age of Reason the instruction in the tablature notation was regarded as “pernicious” even by the masters of the instrument themselves. In the preface to his collection of Pièces de Théorbe et de Luth mises en Partition, Dessu et Basse (Paris, 1716) Robert de Visée declares sadly but with perspicacity: “Some authors might perhaps have wished that I had put a third staff underneath the score, or that the piece had been engraved in tablature notation: but the number of those who understand the tablature is so small that I did not think I should needlessly let my book increase in volume. Besides, one will find me quite prepared at any time to give the pieces in that manner to those who want them that way. The aim of the present edition is the clavecin, the viol, and the violin, on which instruments they have always been played.” Half a century after this, at the time when Rameaus life was drawing to an end, Wenzel Joseph Kohaut (whose exact relationship with the Prague family of lute players of that name we do not know), Ordinaire de la Musique de S.A.S. Monseigneur le Prince de Conty and composer of comic operas which were successfully staged in Paris, made another attempt at getting the lute out of the street and the drawing-room where it had been confined to. Jointly with the violoncellist Jiean-Pierre Duport he made two appearances at the Concert spirituel in 1765 and 1764. But the audience at the Tuileries, totally absorbed in its passion for the symphony, only paid them an attention that was a mixture of surprise and noble boredom. It was not purely by chance that it was a musician from Central Europe who made this “Gothic” instrument sound forth for Parisian ears. Various printed collections and a large number of manuscripts prove that, beyond all changes of taste, the tradition of the lutenists had remained alive in those parts of Europe and did not decline until at the end of the century when the fortepiano was increasingly gaining ground. In this period, it seems, the intimate and refined art of the lutenists was more in keeping with the cultural aspirations of the Germanic civilization and its immediate neighbours than with the more individualistic temperament of the Latin mind who is inspired with the desire to shine, and to whom music is synonymous with entertainment. Imbued with the feeling of the dignity of their mission which was “to conquer the hearts, to excite or calm the passions, and to inspire the listeners now with this emotion, now with that” (Quantz, 1752), the 18th century musicians, and above all the German musicians of the age of Empfindsamkeit, developed a musical rhetoric which required as much subtlety on the part of the instruments as on that of the interpreters. In that period the clavichord, the lute and, later, the glass harmonica became the favourite instruments of Germanic music on account of the rich sonority of their harmonies, their expressive resources and their wide range of tonal nuances. So the lute, far from being chucked away to the musty junk of an archaic society adapted itself gracefully to the accents of the new language, the earliest manifestations of which begin to make themselves felt about 1720. Textural lightness, rhythmical variety, brevity, articulation and periodicity of the phrases, a taste for parenthesis and ellipsis (the literature of the period is typified by the same traits) - they become the chief characteristics of the rococo music which was born, so to speak, with the death of J. S. Bach in 1750. The lute players whose works are presented on this record all belong to the first generation of the eighteenth century and therefore are contemporaries of such progressive modernists as Johann Adolf Hasse, Johann Stamitz, Wilhelm Friedemann and Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach. Yet even so they all persisted with the traditional tablature which, although much maligned by the progressists, had proved to be much more suitable for the purposes of the lute than the abstract system of notation: “The reason why we do not write our galanterie pieces, e.g. concertos, suites, in notes but in our special tablature”, Baron writes, “lies in the fact that the tablature enables us to distinguish the ‘tonos unisonos’ in the most judicious manner, which is impossible if one employs the signs that are commonly used for the other instruments, although a master should have command of that system, too.” Their repertoire is markedly different from that of the musicians of the preceding generations: the lute pieces of dance-like character, which were grouped into ‘suites’ according to their tonality are succeeded by sonatas, concertante music, free fantasies and other "à la mode pieces" such as minuets, marches, polonaises and airs. Freed from the severe rules of counterpoint these worls display a remarkable simplicitiy of style which lends itself particularly well to the cultivation of the elegant ‘cantabile’ without which this bourgeois style, which we call ‘galant”, is quite inconceivable. The growing refinement of sensitivity no doubt has also determined the last modifications which the lute underwent during the rococo period. The pieces here recorded were all written for a lute with thirteen strings tuned according to the ‘ton nouveau ou extraordinaire’ (A-1 - B-1 -C1-D1-E1-F1-G1-A1-D2-F2-A2-d3-f3) which had become established since the first third of the seventeenth century. On account ofits corpulent body the lute is distinguished by the wide range of its low register which the covered (gimped) strings (their invention about 1764 is attributed to the French bass viol player Sainte-Colombe) endow with an extraordinarily sumptuous sonority. Like the clavichord, the lute became an essentially Germanic instrument when Paris and Venice began to neglect the making of lutes. The great number of instruments preserved in the museums demonstrate the great zeal and virtuosoship with which the lutemakers East of the Rhine carried on the tradition of an art which ]oachim Tielke in Hamburg, Martin Hoffmann and his son ]ohann Christian in Leipzig or Thomas Edlinger in Prague were to bring to the peak of perfection. Ernst Gottlieb Baron was born on 17th February 1696 in Breslau, the capital of Silesia, where the tradition of the lutenists was still very much alive, since it was here that, among other celebrities, Johann Kropffganss and S. L. Weiss had come into the world and the works of Reussner Senior and Junior as well as of Le Sage de Richée had been published. After his first musical instruction, which was obtained from the Bohemian lutenist Jacob Kohaut, he studied law and philosophy at Leipzig University. A two years stay at Jena from 1720 onwards offered him the opportunity to receive profitable instructions from Jacob Adlung and to earn the most flattering eulogies for his playing. In 1727, while staying in Nuremberg, he published the work which was to perpetuate the memory of his name: the Historical, Theoretical and Practical study of the Lute (Historisch-Theoretisch und Practische Untersuchung des Instruments der Lauten). In this epoch, which did not take much interest in its own past, it is a highly remarkable Hitt that Baron with this publication gives us a summary of first-hand knowledge which, even though it is not always marked by an absolutely irreproachable exacrness, represents an invaluable source of information on the history, construction, music and playing of the lute. in writing this study, Baron had intended to respond with a concise treatise to the sarcastic attacks Mattheson had again and again directed against the lute. The argument continued with diatribes from either side, and either side persisted in its opinion. Baron resumed his activities as a touring virtuoso, and some stages of his travels were of decisive importance for his further career: there was Dresden where he met Weiss whose influence was to hold strong throughout Barons musical existence; there was Rheinsberg, the residence of the Crown Prince of Prussia (the future Frederick II), where in 1735 the title of "Cammertheorbist" was conferred upon him; and finally there was Berlin where he spent the rest of his life beside C. P. E. Bach, Quantz and Graun as ‘Koniglicher Cammermusicus’ (Royal chamber-musician). The great reputation which he enjoyed secured him a place in the “Parnassus of German musicians”, Telemanns Getreuer Music-Meister (1728) as well as the honourable task of illustrating the fascicle which Immanuel Breitkopf published in 1757 “as a specimen of a new method of printing music for the lute by means of typographic characters”. During the course of his active career Baron also found time to contribute to publications of Marpurg and to translate several French works which dealt with aesthetic matters. He was one of the most ardent advocates of the doctrine of emotional expression ("Affektenlehre") applied to music. In this context we feel unable to resist the pleasurable temptation to quote a charming anecdote told by Gustav Schilling (Encyclopädie der gesamten musikalischen Wissenschaften, Stuttgart, 1835) which throws interesting light on the character and ideas of our musician: "In Jena he had met with the kindest reception, not only on account of his admirable lute playing, but also on account of his amiable manners. Une peculiarity which offered the students plenty of opportunity for many a jest and practical joke was the extremely high conception he had of the beauty and the power of his own art. He insisted that all the ancient myths of Arion and Amphion etc. be regarded as events that really may have happened, and there was nothing that would infuriate him more than the assertion that the more recent music could not boast the same power and impact which the ancient music was said to have possessed. This once happened at a social gathering with numerous guests, one of whom was J. Ch. Günther who later became a famous poet. Baron was asked to play so that he might prove his assertions. Baron sends for his lute, takes his seat right in the middle of the circle of the attentive listeners, plays (like Antigenides hut Alexander), and by exploiting all possible means and devices tries to express the emotion of love. And lo and behold!, the impact of his playing upon the listeners who are crowding round him seems to be miraculous, all-powerful indeed: they were tenderly embracing one another and their faces reflected the most pleasurable feelings. Then, by enharmonic changes, he suddenly passes to highly bizarre melodies, and bringing the whole range of his ability into play, he depicts wrath and ire with powerful chords. Soon all the listeners jump from their seats; the longer he plays, the wilder grows the frenzy; chairs, tables, glasses, pipes - everything is smashed to pieces, épées are unsheathed, a scuffle arises. Baron is highly delighted at this result of his playing, but his lute gets broken and he has to take to his heels. On gaining the street he hears roars of laughter. He returns and learns to his utter dismay that the whole affair had been prearranged by the wanton students who for once wanted to make fun of the credulous Baron, this good-natured and trusting Orpheus who thought no end of the importance of his own art. Baron went home, full of shame and indignation, but on the following morning he was presented with a lute incomporably more beautiful and better than his last instrument had been. Despite this adventure Baron in Jena and everywhere else was regarded as a highly cultured artist and as the best lute player of his day.” As a composer he has left behind him solo pieces for the lute and some concertante works which have remained in manuscript and are scattered all over Europe. His style is always limpid and melodious, his phrasing direct and free of extravagant features, as is demonstratecl by the Aria and the Tempo di Menuetto which form the concluding movements of the Partie in B flat major written about 1730. The autograph is preserved in the Bibliothèque Royale at Brussels. When Baron died on 12th April 1760 in Berlin, there were still numerous zealous disciples of the lute left, among them Falkenhagen and J. B. Hagen. We have very scant biographical information of the two musicians, no doubt, but the record in hand largely compensates us for this shortcoming by offering a comprehensive musical documentation. Adamo Falkenhagen first saw the light on 26th April 1697 in Gross-Dalzig not far from Leipzig. The dictionary of Johann Gottfried Walther informs us that he received instructions ‘in literis et musicis’ from a parson of the neighbouring village of Knauthain. This was the native place of Johann Christian Weyrauch who transcribed works by Bach for lute tablature which hir a long time were believed to be original compositions for the lute. After Falkenhagen had perfected himself through studies with Johann Jacob Graf a pupil of Weiss, and after having received further instructions from Weiss himself during a stay at Dresden, he embarked on a carreer similar to that of Baron, travelling from court to court, until an invitation from the Margrave of Brandenburg-Kulmbach in 1734 made him stay at Bayreuth to the end of his days (1761). He met with a very friendly reception at the Margrave’s court, the more so since the Margrave’s wife Wilhelmine, the favourite sister of Frederick II, was an able musician herself who off and on would play the lute instead of the keyboard. It was to her that Falkenhagen dedicated the products of his ‘picciol talento’: his Opera prima comprising the six Sonate di Liuto Solo which were published at Nuremberg between 1736 and 1742. These sonatas, the Sei Partite Op. 2 and a collection of varied chorales (Erste Dutzend Erbaunungsvoller gestlicher Gesänge auf die  Laute...) represent the whole of his known publications which have come down to us. In addition to his printed works there circulated numerous of his pieces in manuscript form. Several of these belong to the concertante category but their accompanying parts, it seems, are irretrievably lost today In the preface to his Opus 1 Falkenhagen points out to his patroness that he “endeavoured to work in the modern taste which today meets which general approval in the field of music”. The sonatas, all of them in three movements, show a design which depends on whether they are written in a major or a minor key: slow - mode-rate - quick in the Sonatas in E flat major, B flat major and F major; slow - lively - moderate in the Sonatas which are in the respective relative minor keys of C minor, G minor and D minor. The Sonata I in C minor is characterized by a touch of noble reserve. The opening Largo creates this atmosphere by employing the “Scotch snap” with its inverted order of dotted notes and by the measured tread of the bass. The composer is at pains to diversify the musical discourse by making use of the dynamic indications for:[te] and pia:[no]; the conclusion with is descending chromaticism admits of a suspension of the tempo just before the beginning of the Allegro un poco in which short phrases alternate with colourful arpeggios. The final movement is a minuet, the theme of which is partly reminiscent of an analogous movement by Weiss, but the pulsation of the ornaments and the progression of the rhythm animate it with a tender liveliness. By comparison, the Sonata V the design of which admits of a rising dramatic gradation, strikes us as less conventional. The first movement takes the form of a free fantasy which at that time was cultivated especially by C. P. E. Bach. A conspicuous feature are the cadenzas Falkenhagen provides for each of the repeats, the first soaring upwards to the highest registers of the instrument. After a robust Allegro instrumental virtuosoship carries the day in the Vivace which has a Telemannian flavour about it. The successor to Falkenhagen in Bayreuth was the lute player Joachim Bernhard Hagen from Hamburg of whom we have regrettably scant personal information. He is said to have been the pupil of the Capellmeister Johann Pfeiffer who died at Bayreuth in the same year as Falkenhagen. In 1766 he got an official appointment to the court of Frederick, the last Margrave of Brandenburg-Kulmbach (died 1771), whose Concerto for Lute and Strings, which is mentioned by Mendel, may well have been written for his new 'Cammermusicus'. These are the only known facts of Hagen's biography; everything else is pure guess-work. This is the more to be regretted since we are in the presence of a composer who shows great talent and indubtable originality. Strangely enough, none of his works appears to have had the honour of being published in print, although the 1769 Supplemento to the catalogue of the publishing firm of Immanuel Breitkopf lists nine pieces for the lute as being in his posession. But the bulk of his surviving music forms an essential part of an important collection of manuscripts which is preserved in the Library of Augsburg. In this collection he takes his place alongside his predecessor Falkenhagen, the Sigr. Pfeiffer, S. L. Weiss, Carl Kohaut and Joseph Haydn, the latter as likely as not “adapted for the lute” by Hagen himself. His chamber music with lute as well as his pieces for solo lute present us an imaginative and resourceful composer who displays a strong gift for movements tinged with tender lyricism, as is also to be inferred from his predilection for such indications as `cantabile’, ‘amoroso’, `gustoso', ‘affettuoso'... The Sonata di Liuto in C minor, one of eight which are contained in the above-mentioned collection, exhibits the tripartite design slow - lively - moderate which, as we have learned from Falkenhagen's works, is characteristic of pieces in minor tonality. The first movement brings to mind the clavichord meditations which Hagen's contemporaries put at the beginning of their sonatas. Its rapid passages and its hesitations reveal a passionate character which asserts itself also in the Allegro. It shows a more conventional construction, but is animated by the irresistible pulsation which emanates from the flow of the semiquavers. After this tearaway vehemence the breathless theme of the Allegrctto and the surging arpeggios are twice interrupted by the descending scale - a reference to the tonic key which heralds at pcueeliil conclusion. Through the works of F. W. Rust (a direct forerunner of Beethoven) and Christian Gottlieb Scheidler (died c. 1815) who was Germany's last lute player and first guitarist, the tradition of the galant lutenists extends to the brink of the new Century. However, this is not a melancholy leavetaking, for at the dawn of the Romantic age Scheidlers lute bids farewall to us with Mozart Champagnerlied. Claude Chauvel Transaltion by Jürgen Dohm
EMI Electrola "Reflexe"