Silvius Leopold Weiss : Arranged for guitar by Michel Cardin
Doberman – Yppan : 84 pages
When we get to volume 4 of the massive original volume that is The London Manuscript, we have previously had 26 large suites in the first three Doberman – Yppan books (see elsewhere for reviews), and we now get the remainder of the solo works, that being a collection of 37 individual pieces, these being a collection of dance movements usually, for example: Menuet, Gavotte, Courante, Bourree, Prelude, Fuga, Fantasies, to name but a few.
As before there is a huge, extremely detailed introduction, and then the actual pieces, many having to be moved to different keys, owing to the Baroque Lute’s original tuning of a Dm chord, which means that various keys that work really well on the Baroque Lute, really don’t work well in that key on the guitar. However that is not to say that the arrangements are in some way inferior, far from it because Michel Cardin has had these massive works under his fingers for decades on both instruments as his marvelous Baroque Lute recordings show.
Nothing in these books is easy, but a relatively good player will get a great deal from them, bearing in mind that notes and octaves had to be moved a large part of the time, owing to the Lute’s very large tessitura, but the result on the guitar is nevertheless extremely satisfying. This is yet another marvelous book of music from one the Baroque’s very greatest composers. Definitely a set worth getting for lovers of this era of music.
Chris Dumigan
Comments