Bernhard Hofstotter - Dresden Moscow - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Walter Mnatsakanov - Film Series Music from the Film Alone [COMPACT DISCS] date 03/30/2010

There is a positively international flavor to these Petrucci collections, as recognized composers took popular melodies and incorporated them into a more refined contrapuntal texture. In this way a robust tavern song such as Zenner, greiner (track 6) could find itself mixing in much more elevated company after transformation by two of the foremost German composers of the day, Heinrich Finck (track 7) and Paul Hofhaimer (track 8). Similarly, by the time such songs as Wir zogen in das feld (track 18), Alle furf (track 26)and Canto dei lanzi allegri (track 27) had found their way into printed collections, now in contrapuntal dress, they had come a long way from the camps of the mercenary soldiers who, perhaps many decades earlier, had been the first to sing them.

For the first time the large clavicytherium of the Germanisches Nationalmuseum (Nuremberg) - a kind of vertical harpsichord built by an anonymous German master during the late sixteenth century - is recorded here on album. The present instrument is undoubtedly a pinnacle of the art of instrument making, with unusual timbres and an astonishingly complex action. Bernhard Klapprott, a former pupil of Bob van Asperen and today Professor of Harpsichord in Weimar, has selected appropriate music for this rare instrument to be heard are delicate polyphonic works as well as full-voiced adaptations of popular songs of the time by South-German composers such as Hassler, Erbach, Paix, and Staden. The unique instrument and the special repertoire are described in detail in the extensive booklet. In addition, Bernhard Klapprott explains the special background of the historical ornamentation employed.