Reviews by the editorial staff of Early Music America. Have a new recording or book? Submit it for consideration.
BOOK REVIEW: How Leipzig Fared Post-Bach
Jeffrey S. Sposato has carefully constructed a narrative that threads together a wealth of political, social, and musical history, bringing clarity to a topic deserving of such attention.
CD REVIEW: Keyboards Galore Played By An Engaging Artist
Byron Schenkman's recent recording, "The Art of the Harpsichord from Cabezón to Mozart," released on his own label, features performances on eight instruments in the vast collection at the National Music Museum in Vermillion, SD.
CD REVIEW: English Concert’s C.P.E. Bach Sparkles Anew
A listener could enjoy this disc for years without ever finding out (or caring) that it is a reissue of a 1979 Archiv LP. Trevor Pinnock and The English Concert’s contributions to early music and historically-informed performance are now the stuff of textbooks, yet nearly 40 years later these performances continue to crackle with energy and insight.
BOOK REVIEW: Cousser: An Obscure Musician No Longer
This wonderful and much-needed monograph not only provides the essential information about Cousser’s life and career, but also allows us to examine the contents of a precious little book, pocket-sized, that Cousser kept and wrote in from the 1690s until his death.
CD REVIEW: Exploring 16th-Century Consort Works
The pieces range from (largely untexted) Magnificats, motets, and anthems to French, Italian, and English secular music and more than 60 instrumental works.
BOOK REVIEW: Sorting Out Keyboard Quandaries
The Eighteenth-Century Fortepiano Grand and Its Patrons from Scarlatti to Beethoven. Eva Badura-Skoda. Indiana University Press, 2017. 492 pages. By Peter Sykes BOOK REVIEW — What’s in a name? Before
A Well-Tempered Clavier Full Of Character
Rebecca Pechefsky makes an engaging addition to the catalog with confident, characterful interpretations of Bach’s “other” 24 preludes and fugues composed in all major and minor keys.
Madrid Ensemble Embraces Baroque Love Music
For its debut CD, the Madrid-based ensemble L’Estro d’Orfeo has assembled an attractive collection of 17th-century instrumental works by Monteverdi, Marini, Uccellini, Cavalli, Merula, and Rognoni, naming the recording after a madrigal from Monteverdi’s Eighth Book.
Stile Antico Brings Radiance To Victoria Responsories
Stile Antico was made to sing this music. Their commitment to bringing musical texts to life by pushing dynamic boundaries and unapologetically, even defiantly exploring the gamut of human emotion meets its soulmate in Victoria’s dramatic settings of these heart-wrenching texts.
Eybler Quartet Beguiles In Beethoven Quartets
The ensemble plays with a warm sound, discrete use of vibrato, clear articulations, and impeccable intonation. And above all, tempos make sense.
