Rachel Podger: The Muses Restor’d
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Genre:
Chamber
Label: Channel Classics
Magazine Review Date: 06/2024
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 81
Mastering:
DDD
Catalogue Number: CCS46324
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 |
Author: Charlotte Gardner
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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