Rare Early Baroque

The recording I'm listening to now is another rare treasure, first heard on Galaxie Baroque radio and then downloaded from Naxos.

The album is simply titled Das Partiturbuch.  All the music in it comes from a volume known as the Partiturbuch Ludwig after Jacob Ludwig, who compiled it.  The music in this collection was first performed at various minor and major courts in Germany and Austria in the mid 1600s.  Almost half of the pieces recorded here are identified with the Italian term ciaccona, meaning a piece composed over a short repeating bass pattern (in French it's "chaconne", and the term passacaglia is widely used with the same meaning).  The repetition of the bass invites a treatment as a series of variations, but a couple of these pieces instead become an exercise in the endless extension of a melody over the bass.

This is the Baroque era long before the arrival of Bach and Handel on the scene, and the music reflects a style still in transition.  Textures are very light, really chamber music rather than orchestral, and gentle-toned instruments like the bass lute known as a theorbo are very much to the fore.  Indeed, most of the pieces use the theorbo rather than a keyboard instrument for the bass.

The result is a collection of Baroque music like nothing else I have ever heard before.  Solemn it certainly is not!  This was courtly music, and its lightness becomes positively playful at times.  When I listen to it, I picture sunny palace rooms with tall windows overlooking formal gardens.   

Five stars to Ensemble Echo du Danube for these beguiling performances of absolutely delightful music that never deserved to be forgotten!