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André Lislevand’s name will most probably be new to at least the majority of Gramophone readers, but if you’re remotely disposed towards the viola da gamba repertory, then this (and indeed also his 2021 debut recording, ‘Forqueray Unchained’, which won him a Diapason découverte) should be added to your listening pile forthwith.
Verona-born, to lutenist parents, Lislevand studied privately with Jordi Savall as a youngster. From the age of 16 he was already collaborating with directors such as Sigiswald Kuijken, Andrea Marcon and Paul McCreesh. On to ‘Galanterie’, and the impression is of a musician whose instrument sounds like an extension of his body, it’s played with such seemingly weightless nimbleness and natural sense of song. All of which sits perfectly with this exploration of German repertoire from the viola da gamba’s mid-18th-century twilight years, combining pieces that either straddle or cross the border between Baroque counterpoint and simple galant melodicism. A further boon is the attractive combination of timbres and fantastic chamber dynamic brought to the table by fortepianist Emil Duncumb and his brother, lutenist Jadran Duncumb.
One of the programme’s first really ear-pricking moments comes towards the end of the first movement of CPE Bach’s Gamba Sonata in C major – an early work, over which the quirkiness of his rhetoric is low-level but already distinctly audible. Lislevand treats us to a beautifully shaped and embellished cadenza-like passage, after which the brothers’ re-entry – Emil via a rippling ascending scale, Jadran with a delicious upward glissando roll from his lute’s deepest belly – comes brilliantly weighted and paced; then onwards into an Allegretto alive with sparky dialogue. Another treat is JS Bach’s only suite-shaped small chamber work, the lesser-known BWV1025 in a version for viola da gamba and concertante lute, which here has an enjoyably even balance between the two instruments.
Impossible also not to mention the other much later CPE Bach work and Emil Duncumb’s solo fortepiano turn, the Rondo II in C minor, because Duncumb here is a master of gently theatrical timing, dashing off its rapid rhetorical flourishes, outbursts and U-turns with elfin dexterity and tongue-in-cheek charm.
In a nutshell, genuinely interesting repertoire (and I haven’t even mentioned Abel’s recently rediscovered Sonata in A minor), performed with easy, elegant freshness. Most enjoyable. |
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