Corbetta - La Guitarre Royalle
Izhar Elias, (Baroque Guitar)
Brilliant Classics: 95587
Reviewed 14th December 2018
That superb label Brilliant Classics have a long history of producing recordings of the guitar, lute and their families, and here the rarer Baroque Guitar gets an outing via Dutch performer Izhar Elias. Specialising as he does in both early music and new music, he has recorded this CD of the music of Francesco Corbetta, who wrote for the Baroque guitar, an instrument with five courses sometimes with a single top string that existed in various tunings. The booklet goes into lots of details regarding the problems players have nowadays of interpreting exactly how to play this music from the tablature, as four hundred years have gone by and some performing details have got lost over time, and every player has to make certain decisions.
Writing for Louis XIV and his court meant that Corbetta’s music is full of elaborate detail and stylish sounds admirably suited to the way of life in 17th Century France, and so the twenty four pieces on this CD, including two major Suites (in Am and Cm), have many ornamental details, and much use of strumming patterns that make this music so original and so unlike anything else from this time. The other separate pieces include two Chacones, a Caprice, a Follie, and a wonderful Passacaille in Gm, to name but a few.
Elias produces a superb sound and this CD is a fine example of how to play this somewhat elusive instrument.
Chris Dumigan
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