douzaine Archive

Back Before Bach: Musical Journeys = Music by 16th & 17th century German and Franco-Flemish composers – Piffaro/ Joan Kimball /Robert Wiemken – Navona 

Back Before Bach: Musical Journeys = Music by 16th & 17th century German and Franco-Flemish composers – Piffaro/ Joan Kimball /Robert Wiemken – Navona 

Back Before Bach: Musical Journeys = Music by sixteenth and early seventeenth century German and Franco-Flemish composers – Piffaro/ Joan Kimball & Robert Wiemken, artistic co-directors – Navona Records NV6106, 61:03 (9/1/17) *****: The six members of Piffaro—the Philadelphia-based, self-styled “Renaissance band”—return with four guests in an all-instrumental album designed to show the musical precedents that set the stage for German Baroque and Bach. Conceived in the manner of a Renaissance consort, Piffaro play their arrangements in various enticing configurations of the group’s assembly of lute, guitar, shawms (including a schalmei), harp, bagpipes, dulcians (and even a douçaine), recorders, crumhorns, percussionists, and sackbuts. Because the disc’s 38 tracks have been assembled as if they were the proof of a post-graduate thesis – including seven different settings of “Christ ist erstanden” by Bach and six of his predecessors, and four of “Innsbruck, Ich müss dich lassen” – could listening all the way through at one sitting could be a transformative experience for those so inclined and steeped in history; however, there are a few gems for audiophiles seeking demo tracks. The haunting beauty of Bach’s “Christum wir sollen loben schon” chorale, is followed by an Allemande by Scheidt featuring incredibly nuanced […]