BACH: Sonatas & Partitas
Hopkinson Smith makes such a good case for Bach's Sonatas and Partitas on the lute that his recording is arguably the best you can buy of these works - on any instrument
Read MoreRecordings: Bringing New Life to the Baroque Lute
Sylvius Leopold Weiss probably did not worry much about posterity; few 18th-century musicians did. And posterity duly ignored Weiss, partly because there was nothing suitable on which to play his music. It was tailored for the Baroque lute, a sonorous but difficult instrument that largely disappeared within a generation of his death.
Read MoreHopkinson Smith réinvente les Sonates et Partitas de Bach
On attendait avec impatience cette intégrale des Sonates et Partitas par Hopkinson Smith. Transcription complète de l'œuvre pour violon seul, elle marque L'aboutissement d'une profonde familiarité avec l'oeuvre de Bach dont Hopkinson Smith gravait il y a vingt ans l'intégrale des pièces pour le luth. Elle marque aussi l'apogée d'un art sans équivalent.
Read MoreHopkinson Smith: master of the strings
"THE LUTE IS CERTAINLY the most personal of instruments and perhaps the most perfect," said Stravinsky. In the hands of Hopkinson Smith, it is both. To hear him perform Bach or Weiss or Gallot is to hear a poet of the personal, a conjurer of ideally intimate sounds. He plays the lute like it never went out of style.
Read MoreHopkinson Smith: Lute
Hopkinson Smith plays the lute like it never went out of style. His virtuosity goes beyond physical facility to realize a rare metaphysical poetry, and in the process he brings these age-old inventions to life. Anyone thinking the preceding claim verges on the hyperbolic should audition Smith's latest issue, an Astrée album of Partitas by the great Baroque lutenist/composer Sylvius Leopold Weiss (1686-1750).
Read MoreQuiet, Please
The lute is not an instrument meant to be played in major concert halls: unwrapping a cough drop while a lutenist performs could drown out an entire fantasia. In general, live performances are superior to recorded versions, but--unless you're privy to a recital in some royal chamber--recordings of lute music may be the best way to appreciate it fully. Certainly, the two discs most recently released by Hopkinson Smith '70 reward close, repeated listenings
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