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Reviewer:
David Vickers Frescobaldi’s first book of Toccate e partite d’intavolatura di cimbalo (1615) was published in Rome during his first stint as organist at St Peter’s – although Christophe Rousset’s selection of pieces draws from an enlarged later edition (1637) that includes extra balletti, passacaglias and chaconnes, as well as variations that had been added to an intervening reprint in 1628. He compares Frescobaldi’s ‘strange harmonies, painful dissonances, and subtly drawn melodic lines’ to Caravaggio and Gentileschi, and accordingly his beguiling playing exploits the vividness of an anonymous and lavishly painted late 16th-century harpsichord (extended in range in 1736 but now restored by David Ley to its original state). Nowhere is the marriage of sensational instrument and perceptive musician more apparent than in Rousset’s beguiling playing of the colossal Cento partite sopra passacagli – an 11-minute tour de force bursting with daring chromaticism. Rousset’s experienced interpretations display an unerring sense of contrapuntal direction that conveys madrigalian freedom and soulful melodicism; for example, the melancholic sixth toccata that wrings out every spicy nuance of the instrument’s historical tuning. Extended variations on an aria ‘della Romanesca’, an aria ‘di Monica’ and an energetic galliard (‘La follia’) are performed with sure-footed rhythmical fantasy and dexterous virtuosity. This superbly engineered album is an enriching alternative to a complete account of the entire collection (in its 1637 form) by Rinaldo Alessandrini (Arcana), who also explores the title-page’s suggestion of using either harpsichord or organ as the player desires. |
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