The Italianate influences of vocal idioms are well understood but less so is the alliance of English and German traditions in the emergent and not so prolific world of instrumental music in early seventeenth-century Germany. Scheidt’s Ludi Musici – of which only the first of four collections from between 1621 and 1627 survives complete – reflects just this fusion and is a mouth-wateringly diverse and inventive mixture of dance, canzona and variation, distilled from the fount of English genres as they had become disseminated. These are works which brim over with character and nonchalantly brilliant craftsmanship. The Paduanas are less morose than Schein’s more mannered, if no less atmospheric, examples from Banchetto Musicale (which Hesperion XX recorded wonderfully for EMI Reflexe, 8/86 – nla), and Scheidt has that rare knack, for the 1620s and 1630s, of sustaining an instrumental piece for more than two minutes without bombarding us with a new idea every ten bars; the longer pieces such as the Paduanas and the brilliant Canzon a 5 ad imitationem Bergamas angl, with it thrilling close, convey admirable long-term direction amid a concentrated love of ephemeral effect.
This is a cocktail which Hesperion XX relish. The Pavans are, are you would expect from Jordi Savall, eventful. It is all too easy here to wheel out the stock line that Savall’s expressive language is too ‘mannered’ for the Anglo-Saxon temperament, whatever that means. There are indeed moments when an indulgence from Savall’s treble viol stifles the potential for a more reflective allusion, but the overriding effect is of a performer striving to find a meaningful discourse, not content just to ‘let the music play itself’; the colour and shape he brings to line and texture is often beguiling (disarmingly poignant in the stillness of the final Paduana), at times too much of a good thing but always engaging. This is a recording where individual artistry leads me, unashamedly, to Scheidt’s trough. No anodyne bet-hedging homogeneity here. Warmly recommended.'