One might, at first, find “rembrandt!” a curious title for a recording of lute and ensemble music, but, in the disc’s liner notes, lutenist/conductor Alon Sariel (Israel/Germany) clarifies his reasons for the very specific collection of pieces performed here by him, and in most cases, with members of Concerto Foscari, of which he is the director. Indeed, the disc is Sariel’s personal homage to Rembrandt van Rijn and the Dutch Golden Age, an era when the lute was the most popular instrument, evident by the fact that lutes (with their associations to harmony, love and the act of serenading) are seen in many paintings of the period. To some of the pieces, Sariel has added more instruments - instruments prevalent in the music-making of the Dutch Golden Age. Sariel mentions the fact that much musical terminology originates from the visual arts. He also draws the listener’s attention to the role of improvisation, a “very important element in the music of the time”.
To today’s listeners, some of the composers represented on the disc will be unfamiliar names. Nicolaus à Kempis (c.1600-1676), organist of St Gudule, Brussels, for many decades, wrote domestic music and music for church use. Possibly coming from Italy, Kempis’ Symphonia à 2 Op.3, with its characteristic small contrasting sections, lays claim to the fact that he was the first musician to import the Italian viol style and techniques of Frescobaldi, Uccelini, Fontana and Castello to the southern Low Countries. Then there is the Sonata Terza in D minor from “Orpheus Elianus a Carmelo in orbem editus” for 2 violins, basso viola and basso continuo, Op.8 (1698) by German-born priest Benedictus (Buns) à Sancto Josepho (c.1642-1716), indeed, considered among the most important composers in Holland in the second half of the 17th century. Most of his oeuvre consists of liturgical music, with Op.VIII comprising only instrumental music. Regarding Buns’ style, as exemplified here, Sariel talks of “a rich blend of the Italian and French styles” achieving “wonderful harmony between those diverse musical elements.” Although hardly known outside of The Netherlands, there are scholars who estimate that Carel Hacquart (c.1640-c.1701) was the most important Flemish musician in the latter half of the 17th century and the last of the great Franco-Flemish composers. In 1679, he settled in The Hague, where he tutored many wealthy patricians, also organizing concerts with support of the influential Constantijn Huygens (see below), who referred to Hacquart as no less than a “grand master of music." Of Hacquart’s two surviving collections of instrumental music, Sariel and the five other members of Foscari perform Sonata sestra à tre from the three- and four part works of “Harmonia parnassia” (1686). Harmonically exploratory and abounding in a fast flow of different rhythmic ideas (some possibly drawn from the country dance music the composer would have known from his native Bruges) the artists highlight the score’s individual instrumental roles. They also indulge in a zesty round of improvisations on “Paul’s Steeple” (Playford’s Division Violin) quoted by Hacquart in the piece. Dutch composer Johannes Schenck (1660-c.1720), however, is about as obscure a figure as you could come across. Or is he? Schenck, a virtuoso on the viola da gamba, it turns out, published an impressive array of sacred and secular works and served as performer and composer at the Düsseldorf court of Elector Johann Wilhelm II, the Duke himself a player of the gamba. Arguably the finest of Schenck’s works, “Il Giardino armonico” Opus 3 (1691), twelve sonatas dedicated to the violin, is represented here by Sonata No.3 in G minor. The instrumentalists’ sensitive reading of this sonata da chiesa, enhanced by some lute trimmings, highlights its Italianate style in plangent melodiousness and eloquence, displaying its play of tonality and dissonances, then bowing out with a fugal, dancelike and vividly-contrasted Allegro.
Well represented on this disc is Flemish composer and lutenist Emmanuel Adriaenssen (c.1554-1604). In mid-16th-century Antwerp, lute music had already been central to the city's musical culture for several decades. But it was Adriaenssen who put the city's lute players on the international map, in particular with his “Pratum Musicum” - a Renaissance compendium of some of the greatest works written in lute tablature and a much-studied source for Italian madrigals, motets, chansons, canzonets, villanellas, galliards, corantos, preludes, fantasias, Neapolitan songs and German and English lute pieces by the most renowned composers of the late 16th century; the pieces appear "freely transcribed" by Adriaenssen. Sariel gives a personal, unmannered reading of a Canson Englesa and Altra Canson, then taking inspiration from a simple, drone-based Volte de France to add some Middle Eastern flair to his improvisation of the middle section, a reference to the orientalism present in many of Rembrandt’s portraits and biblical paintings. For track 12, Sariel plays an uncluttered Saltarello Englesa on the lute by Adriaenssen, then inviting his fellow players to let their hair down freely in an exhilarating performance of Joachim van den Hove’s “Canarie” from “Delitiae Musicae”. From the latter collection, Sariel is joined by recorder player Elisabeth Champollion for a sympathetic rendition of a Courante. Flemish lutenist, composer, arranger of music, intabulator and teacher van den Hove (c.1567-1620) is thought to have been a pupil of Adriaenssen. The Delitiae Musicae’s decidedly international anthology contains van den Hove’s own compositions, folk melodies and works by other composers arranged or intabulated by van den Hove himself.
In his choice of works, Alon Sariel draws attention to the substantial influence of English composers on the composers and music scene in the Dutch Golden Age. Peter Philips (1560-1628) settled in Antwerp in 1590, in 1597 entering the service of Archduke Albert, regent of the Spanish Netherlands, as organist to the chapel. Philips is represented here by Trio de la Cinquième Mode (Fitzwilliam Virginal Book), performed on bowed instruments, with the players giving poetic expression to the composer’s smooth, non-contrapuntal instrumental style of writing. Also, in Antwerp, an English colleague of Philips, John Bull (562/3-1628), took employment as organist at Antwerp Cathedral in 1617, remaining there till his death. On the disc, Bull’s Spanish Paven (Fitzwilliam Virginal Book) has been texturally and harmonically “fleshed out” for six players, the theme and variations emerging variously coloured, with the solo focus moving from instrument to instrument. On the disc, Sariel also includes works bearing recognizable musical associations with English repertoire familiar in Europe. From “Le Secret des Muses”, an instruction book for the lute, influential French-born Dutch lutenist, composer and publisher Nicolas Vallet (c.1583-1642) takes inspiration from John Dowland's doleful song "Fortune my foe" for his “Fortune Angloise”, here arranged for two recorders and lute. Antwerp musician Louys de Moy (1600-?), known for his lute compositions and the “Le petit Boucquet Orientale” anthology, makes no secret of basing his “Paduana d’Aurick” on the harmonic scheme of John Dowland’s Lachrimæ pavan (Flow My Tears), its reading here given a “fragrant” and transparent rendition on violin, viol and lute. Composer/poet Adriaen Valerius (c.1570-1625) presents Dowland’s Lachrimæ pavan in its entirety; we hear it performed in unmannered eloquence with a touch of ornamentation, but minus Valerius’ own outspoken political lyrics. Jacob van Eyck’s “Lachrymae”, its theme also taken from the same Dowland Lachrimæ, is performed in all its intricate journey by Claudius Kamp on recorder, his playing evoking the Dutch carillonist and recorder player’s spontaneity and invention as notated in “Der Fluyten Lusthof” (The Flute's Pleasure Garden) - van Eyck’s 144 sets of variations on melodies popular in Renaissance Holland. Indeed, the van Eyck pieces on the disc will certainly appeal to the recorder players among us.
In his liner notes, Sariel makes mention of Constantijn Huygens (1596-1687), the dedicatee of van Eyck’s above-mentioned anthology. A composer, poet and diplomat, Huygens was renowned as a lutenist performing in various European courts and salons. Drawing together the threads of the CD, Sariel points out that Huygens, a true Renaissance man, also served as Rembrandt’s business agent. Track 21 offers the first recording of Huygens’ only surviving instrumental piece, an Allemande written for the viol, with Fredrik Hildebrand’s rich, well delineated and engrossing playing of it surely one of the highlights of this disc.
In a rich variety of music from the Dutch Golden Age, Alon Sariel and Concerto Foscari members Elisabeth Champollion (recorder), Fredrik Hildebrand (viol), Claudius Kamp (recorder/dulcian), Pawel Miczka (violin/viola) and Leopold Nicolaus (violin) present the listener with a fascinating collection of works, many of them rarely heard, and belonging to a category not considered standard lute repertoire. Their playing is fresh, stylish and informed. The disc’s liner notes make for interesting reading. “rembrandt!”, recorded in France in 2019 for the querstand label, offers performance and repertoire to attract the curious and discerning listener.
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