Rachel Podger: The Muses Restor’d

Record and Artist Details

Genre:

Chamber

Label: Channel Classics

Media Format: CD or Download

Media Runtime: 81

Mastering:

DDD

Catalogue Number: CCS46324

CCS46324. Rachel Podger: The Muses Restor’d

Tracks:

Composition Artist Credit
Sonatas for Violin and Continuo, Movement: No. 7 in D, HWV371 (Sonata XIII) George Frideric Handel, Composer
Brecon Baroque
Rachel Podger, Violin
(8) Fantasia-Suites, Movement: D William Lawes, Composer
Brecon Baroque
Rachel Podger, Violin
Ground John Blow, Composer
Brecon Baroque
Rachel Podger, Violin
Little Consort in Two Parts for Severall Friends Matthew Locke, Composer
Brecon Baroque
Rachel Podger, Violin
Sonata for Violin and Continuo Henry Purcell, Composer
Brecon Baroque
Rachel Podger, Violin
Lachrime pavaen Johann Schop, Composer
Brecon Baroque
Rachel Podger, Violin
(8) Fantasia-Suites in four parts, Movement: A minor John Jenkins, Composer
Brecon Baroque
Rachel Podger, Violin
The Division Violin, Movement: Prelude Thomas Baltzar, Composer
Brecon Baroque
Rachel Podger, Violin
(A) Collection of Old Scots Tunes, Movement: Lochaber Francesco Barsanti, Composer
Brecon Baroque
Rachel Podger, Violin
A New Irish Tune (‘Lilliburlero’) Henry Purcell, Composer
Brecon Baroque
Rachel Podger, Violin
A Curious Collection of Scots Tunes, Movement: Alloway House James Oswald, Composer
Brecon Baroque
Rachel Podger, Violin
Two Airs for a Violin or German Flute, Violin, Cello & Harpsichord Francesco (Xaverio) Geminiani, Composer
Brecon Baroque
Rachel Podger, Violin
Chamber Air's for a Violin (and Thorough Bass) Richard Jones, Composer
Brecon Baroque
Rachel Podger, Violin

Handel, Lawes, Blow, Locke, Purcell, Schop, Jenkins, Baltzar and Jones; sonatas, suites, concerts, grounds and popular tunes … this exploration of post-1660 English music and its influences from Rachel Podger plays out as a veritable cornucopia of musical shapes and languages. Also as a very intimate offering, given this is a body of repertoire which, for all its variety, rarely expands beyond three parts – meaning Podger is joined by just four of her Brecon Baroque colleagues: Reiko Ichise (six-string bass viol), Felix Knecht (violoncello), Elizabeth Kenny (archlute, theorbo, lutes, Baroque guitar) and Marcin Świątkiewicz (harpsichord, organ).

Intimacy of forces is mirrored by intimacy of approach, Handel’s Violin Sonata in D opening as a flowing, gently congenial conversation between two equals, Podger’s silvery tone fluctuating appealingly between puritan dryness and greater chime, to S´ Świątkiewicz's similarly airily silvery Flemish ravelement two-manual harpsichord (after Ruckers) – fireside Handel between friends. After this the variety comes thick and fast, starting with Lawes’s Fantasia-Suite in D, whose more involved counterpoint and quiet sobriety sound arguably more Germanic than London’s bona fide German has just done – and through the prism of an entirely new set of colours, keyboard continuo now coming from organ, joined by viol, violoncello and Italian-modelled theorbo.

I mentioned Johann Schop (1590-1667), and what a charmer this Hamburg violinist-composer’s intricate, gossamer-weight take on Dowland’s Lachrimae is, Podger in close-knit duet just with Kenny on a 10-course lute. Further pleasures include the many shapes of seductive curve to Podger’s articulation across Purcell’s Sonata in G minor, Z780, and the palpable conviviality across Locke’s Little Consort in Two Parts for Severall Friends in C minor‑major V, not least its chirpy, perky, airy, earthy, blink-and-you-miss-it inner Saraband.

I could go on, but it’s not necessary. Just tune in and enjoy.

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