Instrumental Pick of the Month, BBC Music Magazine
5 Stelle, Musica
"Some of the most intensely personal music-making I've ever been stopped in my tracks by. Too good to be true." International Record Review; "This is one of the most polished, most refined, and most state-of-the-art Weiss recordings one could wish to hear. A magnificent treat." American Record Guide; "As an evocation of the lute's magical qualities, this deserves to achieve cult status." Goldberg Magazine
In 1991 lutenist Jakob Lindberg bought a very special instrument – one of the rare extant lutes by Sixtus Rauwolf, built c. 1590. The restoration of the lute took several years and was rather painstaking: for some repairs they even used ancient wood from the library in the Palazzo Pitti in Florence. Considering the great age of the instrument it was nevertheless in good shape and is now probably the only one in the world that, retaining its original soundboard, is in playable condition. Once upon a time, probably in 1715, this lute was equipped with a new neck allowing for a greater number of courses. This makes it perfect for the lute works of Silvius Leopold Weiss (1687-1750), famous among his contemporaries as the finest lutenist of his generation. (There is some reason to believe that Bach composed a couple of his works for solo lute after having met Weiss in 1739.) Weiss was also the most prolific of all lute composers: some 600 pieces have survived, which may amount to half of his entire production for the instrument. Most of the pieces on this disc are early works, grouped in suites – or Sonatas as Weiss himself termed them – by the composer himself or, in some cases, by Jakob Lindberg. Included are some of Weiss’s best-known works, e.g. the Fantasie in C minor as well as one of his rare fugues for lute.
