Nils Monkemeyer – Baroque (2018) [FLAC 24bit/88,2kHz]

The liner notes aren’t very clear, so here are the details of this most singular recording, which focuses especially on Bach. Violist Nils Mönkemeyer and lutist Andreas Arend have chosen to perform, in a single “double” suite – BWV 995 and 1011 – the two preludes to the suite, and then the two allemandes etc. – in the knowledge that the BWV 995 is transcription for solo lute made by Bach himself of his own Suite for Cello n°5 BWV 1011… But here, we hear BWV 995 re-written by our two soloists, for viol and lute. As for the Suite BWV 1011, originally written for solo cello, Mönkemeyer has given it over to solo viola, without making any changes to the discourse. At every turn, movement by movement, the juxtaposition shows off the “developed” harmony that Bach gives to the lute, more inferred than really written out, just as in the version for the solo instrument. Mönkemeyer and Arend round off the programme with other examples of the very ancient and widely-practised baroque-era habit of transcription, with pieces by Robert de Visée and Michel Lambert (who were themselves models for Bach when he wrote “à la française”) and the famous lutist Leopold Weiss, a friend of Bach’s, whose Rondeauwas long thought to be a work of Bach’s before musicologists credited its true composer.

Tracklist:
1. Pièces de théorbe et de luth: Suite in F Minor : Pièces de théorbe et de luth: Suite in F Minor: I. Allemande, “La Plainte”
2. Pièces de théorbe et de luth: Suite in F Minor : Pièces de théorbe et de luth: Suite in F Minor: II. Courante
3. Pièces de théorbe et de luth: Suite in F Minor : Pièces de théorbe et de luth: Suite in F Minor: III. Gigue
4. Suite No. 5 for Viola and Theorbe in G Minor, BWV 995: I. Prélude
5. Suite No. 5 for Viola Solo in C Minor, BWV 1011: I. Prélude
6. Suite No. 5 for Viola and Theorbe in G Minor, BWV 995: II. Allemande
7. Suite No. 5 for Viola Solo in C Minor, BWV 1011: II. Allemande
8. Suite No. 5 for Viola and Theorbe in G Minor, BWV 995: III. Courante
9. Suite No. 5 for Viola Solo in C Minor, BWV 1011: III. Courante
10. Suite No. 5 for Viola and Theorbe in G Minor, BWV 995: IV. Sarabande
11. Suite No. 5 for Viola Solo in C Minor, BWV 1011: IV. Sarabande
12. Suite No. 5 for Viola and Theorbe in G Minor, BWV 995: V. Gavotte 1 & 2
13. Suite No. 5 for Viola Solo in C Minor, BWV 1011: V. Gavotte 1 & 2
14. Suite No. 5 for Viola and Theorbe in G Minor, BWV 995: VI. Gigue
15. Suite No. 5 for Viola Solo in C Minor, BWV 1011: VI. Gigue
16. Rondeau in C Major for Viola and Lute, BWV 1025, No. 4
17. Airs de cour: Vos mépris chaque jour
18. Airs de cour: Ombre de mon amant
19. Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland, BWV 659 (Arr. for Viola and Lute)