Hille Perl / Lee Santana / Steve Player LOS OTROS

 

LOS OTROS

Jean-Guihen Queyras VIVALDI Sonatas for Violoncello & Basso

“I think that in immersing myself in the world of these sonatas, I’ve probably taken a stroll down memory lane. We all carry within ourselves significant events that have structured our childhood, our imagination, sometimes our doubts, and when we decide, as performers, to concentrate our attention on a specific repertory, we’re often setting out in search of a part of ourselves that calls for new light to be shed on it. […] This music enveloped my everyday life, in a totally natural, familiar and almost organic way.” (Jean-Guihen Queyras) 

“These cello pieces, composed in the grip of the greatest inspiration, remind us of the extent to which the extravagant and emotional brilliance of Vivaldian (and Venetian) art reposes above all on a direct sensibility of the elements in their simplest, even crudest form. Pisendel once submitted an attempt at a concerto to his teacher. Vivaldi immediately divested it of half its notes: one must know how to leave enough space for the miracle to filter through.” (Olivier Fourés)

Hille Perl / Freiburger Barockochester CONCERTI

The last decades of my life I had the privilege to travel the world playing concerts and recording CDs due to the loyalty of the audience, who has granted us the honour of coming to our concerts, of buying our CDs and thus made it possible for us to keep playing our music.  I feel deeply grateful to each one of you out there for participating in this incredible trip. I feel responsibility towards the past and the future to keep this kind of music alive and participate in my way in the cultural wealth that history has provided for us. It is important to have contents that are totally void of monetary relevance, such as music, which is as fleeting as smoke and as eternal as the skies. (Hille Perl)

Hille Perl is one of today's most brilliant and versatile gambists. She delivers excellent performances of Abel's solo pieces and is an engaging soloist in the concertos. Her cadenzas are technically impressive but especially stylish. The collaboration with the Freiburger Barockorchester is immaculate, and the result is a compelling disc of some of the best music for her instrument from the mid-18th century. I liked her performance of the Graun concerto more than that of Vittorio Ghielmi of another of his concertos. There is no lack of drama here, but there is also elegance and refinement, something I sorely missed in Ghielmi's recording. 

If your are a gamba aficionado, don't miss this disc. (Johan van Veen)

John Potter JOSQUIN / VICTORIA Secret History

Josquin Desprez (c. 1450/1455-1521) and Tomás Luis de Victoria (c.1548-1611) lived and worked, for the most part, in different countries and perhaps shared little in terms of abstract compositional style. Yet throughout Europe, generations of musicians came to recognize them as kindred spirits, and tablature versions of their masses and motets circulated amongst lutenists. For John Potter, this is “the secret life of the music – in historical terms its real life.” In this characteristically creative project, Potter explores “what happens to music after it is composed.”

As John Potter explains in the liner notes: “We don’t usually think of Josquin being a major influence on Victoria, and for most modern listeners and performers, one is ‘early renaissance’ and the other is ‘late’. But the musicians of four hundred years ago made no such distinction: for them a new choral work by a great master was another source of inspirational material to add to the stream of music from many previous generations which they constantly re-invented. The music of their past was also the music of their present. The original manuscripts, commissioned for purely vocal performance in church, were quickly transformed by lute players into instrumental and vocal pieces that then took on a life of their own, constantly re-worked over many generations. (…) Time and geography meant very little to singers or players who could make the music their own in the moment.”

The project developed out of an idea by Potter and Ariel Abramovich to perform pared-down duet versions of Josquin’s motets, “in keeping with our belief that the pristine ‘early music’ a cappella performance of Franco-Flemish polyphony has misrepresented the way the music was mostly performed. This then evolved into a plan to use two vihuelas and two voices, so we asked Anna Maria Friman and Lee Santana.” Viola da gamba player Hille Perl attended the Josquin sessions in St Gerold, contributing to two pieces. For a session devoted to the music of Victoria, Jacob Heringman, another outstanding lutenist, was drafted in. Heringman also contributes five improvised preludes to the programme. (ECM Records)

Hille Perl / Dorothee Mields HÄNDEL

Hille Perl is the most successful viola da gamba player of our time. Now she has found a fabulous combination of musician friends for her new Handel album: Dorothee Mields, one of the best baroque sopranos, along with lutenist Lee Santana and the redoubtable La Folia Barockorchester. The repertoire chosen includes Handel’s Cantata “Tra le fiamme,” while the rarely recorded “cantata spagnuola” and the cantata “La bianca rosa” are combined with two chaconnes, the famous hornpipe and other smaller pieces. An impressive recording full of musical colour, dynamism, virtuosity and compositional diversity. (Presto Classical)

Hille Perl / Christine Schornsheim / Lee Santana BACH Sonatas for Viola da Gamba and Harpsichord BWV 525 - 530

Hille Perl is widely regarded as one of the leading viola da gambists in the world. Because of the prominence of her instrument in the Baroque era, her repertory is rich in works from that period, with the names, J.S. Bach, Telemann, Marin Marais, Sainte-Colombe, and other 17th and 18th century composers headlining her concert programs and recordings. Perl also plays the treble viol, the seven-string bass viol, Baroque guitar, Lirone, and Xarana. She often performs with her husband, lutenist Lee Santana, in duo repertory, and together the pair have formed two other ensembles: Los Otros, with guitarist Steve Player, and the Age of Passions, with violinist/conductor Petra Mullejans and flutist Karl Kaiser. Perl has also appeared with some of the leading Baroque ensembles in Europe, like the Freiburger Barockorchester and the Harp Consort. She has made numerous recordings, many of them available from Deutsche Harmonia Mundi.

Maurice Steger & Ensemble VENEZIA 1625

Swiss recorder virtuoso Maurice Steger is one of the most exciting specialists on his instrument to come along since the late and lamented David Munrow, and he was already becoming an established touring artist in Europe while still a student. Having previously delivered two fine discs of Telemann and Giuseppe Sammartini chamber works, Harmonia Mundi's Venezia 1625 finds Steger as leader and coordinator of a large group of instrumentalists, though not all play at the same time; larger configurations of the ensemble dominate the first half of the program. What ties it all together is the concept, which centers on the early Baroque chamber sonata (or sinfonia) as practiced in Venice around 1625, a time and place that nearly signify the declaration of independence for Western instrumental music. Publications of that era tend to be so vague in terms of instrumentation that nearly any combination is conceivable to realize a given piece, and Steger takes full advantage of this in making his ensemble choices and taking them apart again, not to mention the observing convention that anything written for violin then could also pass for the recorder. The backdrop supporting Steger is different literally from track to track, and this helps provide variety, though the latter half of the disc is geared more toward pieces of modest of dimensions. 

Steger certainly knows how to pick players; some of these folks are the crême de la crême of the early music movement in Europe; the quality of their playing and inherent ensemble blend would have caused Venetian jaws in 1625 to drop. Hille Perl, whose gamba can be heard on most of the tracks, makes a big difference in the Tarquinio Merula Ciaccona, rolling continuo lines around on her viol in passagework worthy of what's in the solo parts. When Christian Beuse's dulcian comes in on Fontana's Sonata IV, you take notice, for it's a new instrument and picks up ones ears in the wake of the lively Merula Ciaccona. The first half of the disc is great; its balance of pacing and material makes for a terrific spring-summery mix that keeps on moving forward. After about midpoint, however, Venezia 1625 begins to drag, owing to a concentration of slow pieces and small forces; it's rather like the wind got knocked out of it. 

Nevertheless, Steger is a dazzling player, in every way able to match the violin as to flexibility and speed, and for passages requiring double stops he has a couple of additional recorder players to pitch in a little assistance. Venezia 1625 will be a wonderful disc for the car, and for the kids, who respond well to the sweet piping sound of the recorder; if you are looking to take a summer outing and want something other than the Beach Boys to listen to, then at least the first half of Harmonia Mundi's Venezia 1625 will be perfect for that; perhaps the second half is for the drive home. (Uncle Dave Lewis)

Lee Santana BACH - SANTANA - WEISS A Song Of Divine Love

Lee Santana was born into a musicians family in Florida at the end of the baby-boomer era. Into his youth he played a lot of jazz-rock music, and a little classical on the side, from the age of 16 on, classical music grew on him. As a boomer-anything is possible- youth, his role models went from fusion composer-players to classical composer-players. As a guitarist-lutenist these role models became earlier and earlier and has rested in a life long dynamic discussion with player-composers of the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries. 

    In order to better ,follow his star‘, Santana moved to Europe in 1984. There he met the gamba virtuose  Hille Perl, and an intense creative process began which continues to evolve thirty years later. 

    After many journeyman‘s years, working for many of the best ensembles, conductors and soloists, Lee has become the projector of his own concepts and plans, working as soloist or with Hille, or with their groups The Age of Passions, Los Otros or Sirius Viols. As a team, Hille and Lee also enjoy working with their friends Dorothee Mields and Maurice Steger.

 As a composer, Lee is presently concerned with a large Requiem for the Nuclear Age, as well as music for a video/performance "Love’s Beginnings" which will be shown in Feldkirch Austria next year. Stylistically, he has taken his own path, refusing to bog down in the expectations and clichés of the post modern „new“ music movement.

    His forthcoming solo CD is entitled "A Song of Divine Love" and is a kind of extended light-meditation, with works from J.S.Bach,Lee Santana und S.L.Weiß. His present work reflects a growing conviction in the fundamental goodness and interconnectedness of just about everything, and a deep gratitude for the privilege of music making, and for the love and support of family and friends.

Hille Perl DOULCE MEMOIRE Glosas, Passeggiati & Diminutions around 1600

The art of improvisation was for much of musical history one of the most formidable weapons in the arsenal of performers. But in the 19th century it became largely lost (virtuoso pianists like Liszt and organists being notable exceptions) as the concept of the “sacrosanct score” gradually took root. In “art music”—to use a poor term to distinguish it from jazz—it is only with the revival of early music during the latter half of the last century that a reawakening of interest in improvisation has emerged, with performers as diverse as Robert Levin and Andrew Lawrence-King reviving long lost techniques and pushing back the boundaries of timidity.

No period lends itself more readily to such extemporary music-making than the late Renaissance or the early Baroque, a period during which countless treatises dedicated to providing examples for both vocal and instrumental embellishment appeared. For instrumental players, such improvisatory techniques specifically involved one of two kinds of process: either the use of one of the many bass patterns or ostinatos over which the player improvised a set of variations (or glosas), or the embellishment of a tune (frequently vocal in origin) by means of filling it with passage work or diminutions, as they were known. A couple of years back, I reviewed a Jordi Savall disc which took its point of departure from a collection of written-out variations (glosas) on ostinato basses, but also included some formidable examples of Savall’s own improvisatory prowess (Fanfare 25:4).
A key figure in Savall’s collection was the great Spanish composer and gambist Diego Ortiz (1525–c. 1570), whose hugely influential treatise Tratado de glosas appeared in 1553. Ortiz also looms large on this new disc with Hille Perl and what is largely Lawrence-King’s Harp Consort, but here the emphasis is different, the collection concentrating to near exclusivity on a variety of instrumental realizations of madrigals and chansons. One measure of the popularity of such vocal pieces was the number of times they appeared in transcription, or were accorded glosa treatment. It is therefore not surprising to find three different and widely varied versions of one of the most famous and beautiful of all chansons, Pierre Sandrin’s Doulce memoire. In one, Ortiz has ingeniously added a fifth part, while his glosa of it is extraordinarily sensitive, beautifully dovetailing the variants to maintain the dignified mien of the original. No such reserve is found in the version by Girolomo Dalla Casa, a cornettist at St. Mark’s, Venice from 1568, whose flamboyantly virtuosic jazzing up of the chanson elicits some appropriately dazzling playing from Perl. Equally fascinating is the comparison between the straight transcription for viols of Cipriano de Rore’s four-part madrigal Ben qui si mostra (1561) and the version with subtle vocal diminutions by the singer Angelo Notari. The establishment of basso continuo provided yet a further way of treating vocal pieces, as the arrangement of Willaert’s expressive chanson Jouissance vous donneray by Vincenzo Bonnizzi readily demonstrates. The only true improvisation is Lawrence-King’s rich extravaganza on Trabachi’s madrigal Ancidetemi pur (1603).
In sum, this beautifully performed disc provides a fascinating insight into the way instrumentalists established a repertoire of their own from vocal models. Judging from the cover illustration (an arty black and white photo of Perl posed in a cornfield) and the gambist’s new-age comments on the music (“This piece makes you want to leave just so you can return”), I suspect that some kind of crossover market is being aimed at. And why not? It’s all a darn sight more enjoyable than those abominable discs of opera stars singing Broadway songs. (Brian Robins)

Hille Perl / Lee Santana / Marthe Perl BORN TO BE MILD

Hille Perl is widely regarded as one of the leading viola da gambists in the world. Because of the prominence of her instrument in the Baroque era, her repertory is rich in works from that period, with the names, J.S. Bach, Telemann, Marin Marais, Sainte-Colombe, and other 17th and 18th century composers headlining her concert programs and recordings. Perl also plays the treble viol, the seven-string bass viol, Baroque guitar, Lirone, and Xarana. She often performs with her husband, lutenist Lee Santana, in duo repertory, and together the pair have formed two other ensembles: Los Otros, with guitarist Steve Player, and the Age of Passions, with violinist/conductor Petra Müllejans and flutist Karl Kaiser. Perl has also appeared with some of the leading Baroque ensembles in Europe, like the Freiburger Barockorchester and the Harp Consort. She has made numerous recordings, many of them available from Deutsche Harmonia Mundi (DHM).

 Hille Perl was born in Bremen, Germany, in 1965. Her father Helmuth was a harpsichordist, organist, and musicologist. Hille began playing the viola da gamba at five. She had studies with Niklas Trüstedt (Berlin) and with Pere Ros and Ingrid Stampa (Hamburg). Perl earned a degree in 1990 at Bremen's Academy for Early Music, where she studied with Sarah Cunningham and Jaap ter Linden.

Perl steadily built her career, and soon began appearing on recordings. Among the earliest was a 1997 Deutsche Harmonia Mundi CD, Spanish Gypsies, with Santana, Player, Andrew Lawrence-King, and other notables. Perl and Santana formed Los Otros (The Others) in 2001 and their first recording, Tinto, a collection of works by Kapsberger, Corbetta, and others, appeared on RCA Special Imports in 2003. From 2002, Perl has taught viola da gamba at the University of the Arts in Bremen, while remaining busy both in the concert hall and recording studio. (Robert Cummings)

Dorothee Mields / Hille Perl / Lee Santana LOVES ALCHYMÏE

Hille Perl is widely regarded as one of the leading viola da gambists in the world. Because of the prominence of her instrument in the Baroque era, her repertory is rich in works from that period, with the names, J.S. Bach, Telemann, Marin Marais, Sainte-Colombe, and other 17th and 18th century composers headlining her concert programs and recordings. Perl also plays the treble viol, the seven-string bass viol, Baroque guitar, Lirone, and Xarana. She often performs with her husband, lutenist Lee Santana, in duo repertory, and together the pair have formed two other ensembles: Los Otros, with guitarist Steve Player, and the Age of Passions, with violinist/conductor Petra Müllejans and flutist Karl Kaiser. Perl has also appeared with some of the leading Baroque ensembles in Europe, like the Freiburger Barockorchester and the Harp Consort. She has made numerous recordings, many of them available from Deutsche Harmonia Mundi (DHM). 

Hille Perl was born in Bremen, Germany, in 1965. Her father Helmuth was a harpsichordist, organist, and musicologist. Hille began playing the viola da gamba at five. She had studies with Niklas Trüstedt (Berlin) and with Pere Ros and Ingrid Stampa (Hamburg). Perl earned a degree in 1990 at Bremen's Academy for Early Music, where she studied with Sarah Cunningham and Jaap ter Linden. Perl steadily built her career, and soon began appearing on recordings. Among the earliest was a 1997 Deutsche Harmonia Mundi CD, Spanish Gypsies, with Santana, Player, Andrew Lawrence-King, and other notables. Perl and Santana formed Los Otros (The Others) in 2001 and their first recording, Tinto, a collection of works by Kapsberger, Corbetta, and others, appeared on RCA Special Imports in 2003. From 2002, Perl has taught viola da gamba at the University of the Arts in Bremen, while remaining busy both in the concert hall and recording studio. 

In 2004 Perl appeared on one of her most acclaimed recordings, Marais' Pour La Violle, with Santana, on DHM. Perl and Santana's daughter, Marthe Perl, is also an acclaimed viola da gambist. She joined her parents on a highly praised 2010 DHM CD entitled Loves Alchymie.

Perl's busy concert schedule includes appearances at many of the major Baroque festivals. She performed with Santana and harpsichordist Patrick Ayrton to great acclaim at the May 2011 Lufthansa Festival of Baroque Music, held at St. John's Smith Square in London. Their performances in an all-J.S. Bach program were later broadcast over BBC Radio 3. (Robert Cummings)