Sun, 06 Jul 2008
Virginal -Susann van Soldt
various, The Susanne van Soldt Virginal
Book,
Guy Penson, Ricercar
A virginal, in case you were wondering, is in
this context at least, a musical instrument and
was quite popular in the Low Countries at the
time of the late Renaissance.
This very pleasant and quite sprightly CD is
taken from a manuscript dated 1599 which
belonged to Susanne van Soldt and consisted of
an anthology of tunes of the time and which
included a fair number of Psalms in Dutch.
The virginal sounds a bit like a thickened
up harpsichord. This particular one is a
"mother and child" which ingeniously incorporated
a smaller instrument inside the larger one which
extended the upper end of the instrument's
reach. It is well played here by Guy Penson
and the result is quite pleasing.
(Baron K)
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