Bálint Bakfark
[2] a) Fantasia 1 á 4 VBOO 1 - 3' 03''
[3] b) Non dite mai - Gagliarda VBOO 42 - 2' 19''
[4] c) Or vien qa vien (Chanson ä 4) VBOO 10 - 3' 38''
(Clément Jannequin után / after Clément Jannequin)
RENESZANSZ TANCOK I. SZVIT / RENAISSANCE DANCES - SUITE NO.1
[5] a) Pietrobono: La Maydalena (Bassa Danca) - 2' 17''
[6] b) Matthäus Waissel: Táncok / Dances - 4' 26''
[7] c) Ismeretlen szerzö I Anonymous: Danza - 1'37''
RENESZANSZ TANCOK II. SZVIT / RENAISSANCE DANCES - SUITE NO.2 - John Dowland
[8] a) Mellancholy Galliard P.25 - 2' 18''
[9] b) My Lady Hunsdons Alimande P.54 - 1'27''
[10] c) Luis de Milán: Fantasia (Pavana) del 4 (1536) - 2' 10''
[11] d) Luys de Narváez: Diferencias sobre ,Guärdame las vacas' (1538) - 1'41''
Johann Sebastian Bach
[12] Sarabande - 3' 06'' (a c-moll gordonka szvitböl BWV 1011 / from the Solo Cello Suite No.5 in C minor)
'ARIE E CANZONI IN MUSICA' (1574) Barokk szvit Bottegan keziratäböl / Baroque Suite from the Bottegan Lutebook
[13] a) Ismeretlen szerzö / Anonymous (Cosimo Bottegan?) - 1'26'' Mi parto, ahi sorte na!
[14] b) Cosimo Bottegan: Dapol ch'un orsa - 1' 06''
[15] c) Giulio Caccini: Fillide mia - 1'20''
[16] d) Cosimo Bottegan: Monicella mi tarei - 0' 53''
Antonio Vivaldi
[17] Andante - 4' 45'' a G-dür mandolin kettösversenyböl RV 532 / from the Double Mandolin Concerto in G major
[18] Fernando Sor: Andantino Op.60 - 4' 36''
[19] Mafleo Carcassi: Studio (A-dúr / in A major) 2' 11''
Dániel Benkö
[20] Goa, Goa 4' 01''
[21] Riói emlék / Souvenir from Rio - Bossa nova 3' 45''
A felvétel a CÉH Egyesület Stüdiójában, Budapesten készült 1991-ben.
Recorded at the CÉH Society of Early Arts and Research Studio, Budapest, 1991.
"Once again 1 have ventured to make a record. Why do 1 subject the
innocent, unsuspeoting public which expects something new for its money
to new trials? And yet what 1 play 15 something old. OId because it is
Renaissance, Baroque or Romantic music, and old because leamt the
pieces a long time ago. Some 1 have been playing for ten years, and
some 1 began practising two weeks ago and forgot again a week ago.
However, the record does indude two new odd bods, which 1 composed
myseif. One 15 a bossa fiGYs (which 1 hope you will torgive me for),
,,Souvenir trom Rio" (No.21). If Bälint Bak-tark were alive and
working today, he would be composing bossa novas and cha cha chas, not
galliards. And let me add that 1 have never been to Rio. The other is
,,Goa Goa" (No.20), where 1 have been, and the song is so sad because 1
am not there any longer 1 just mentioned Bakfark, whom 1 adore as my
very own teacher, from a distance of 400 years. We often grappled with
each other over the past tifteen years. 1 have kept plundering hirn
maliciously, and he has yielded to pressure and permitted lt. have
thought a great deal about the best way to itlustrate Baktark's
achievement. 1 ended up taking a pinch ot this and a pinch of that. Ot
course there was no leaving out ,,Fantasia" (No.2), tor Bakfark
perfected the artform almost atthestandardofthetugue. Buthe rewrotewith
the same mastery the famous hits ot his day: chansons, madrigais and
motets. One of my fa-vourites is the madrigal intavolatura ,,Or vien ca
vien" (No.4), which he based on Jannequin. The other Bakfark work is a
rarity, the only authentic dance to come down to us: ,,Gagliarda - Non
dite mal" (No.3). The maestro may forgive me for the performance, in
which an account of the original is followed by a somewhat riotous 2Oth
century version, born of the high spirits ot the Bakfark Consort.
Butperhapsitistimetostartagainandtakethe pieces in order The order 1
have chosen is chronological, apart from the opening work, a ,Romance"
by Vincente Martinez Gomez (No.1), which is a hit played by every
guitarist and welcomed by everyone fond of guitar music. Alongside
Baktark's works, 1 have managed to retaln some other Renaissance works
in my repertoire. Anyone who takes up period instru-ments is presented
with a wealth of material which has not yet been fully explored, since
the pieces were written down in tablature notation. have always enjoyed
playing Hungarian works, orworkswith a Hungarian reterence. Pietrobono
is supposed to have been a musldan at the court of King Matthias, one
of whose noted works is the dance suite ,,La Maydalena (No.5).
Matthäus Waissel worked in East Prussia in the l6th century, and a
copy ot one ot his collections (Tabulafura, 1573> strayed info the
Bärtta (Bart-feld) Collection. 1 have compiled a medley of his
Dances (No.6). (This Tabulafura has another Hungarian reference in that
lt is the onty surviv-Ing source of a motet arrangement by Bakfark.)
Then our attention turned to two distant parts of this continent. The
English composers ot the late l6th and l7th century Elizabethan age
have survived. John Dowiand galned fame and a knighthood in his own
lifetime, and his madri-gals are still in the repertoire ot many
choirs; his instrumental pieces are de rigeur for lutenists. I am
playing them on the orpharion, with its harp-sichord sound and metal
arch (Nos.8, 9). Around the same time, or even some years ear-lier,
vihuelists were highly esteemed among court musicians on the Iberian
peninsular The vihuela is an old instrument strung and played like the
lute, but with a body resembling the gui-tar, familiar only on the
peninsula, and subse-quently replaced by the guitar Of the works of the
most famous vihuelists-Pisador, Valderra-bano, Mudarra, MilAn and
Narvflez-I have cho-sen a piece each by the last two (Nos.10, 11).
After the Renaissance comes the Baroque, and who else should lead if
not J S. Bach? Although Bach did write a tew pieces for the Baroque
lute, I have here tried to transcribe one of his "Sara-bands",
originally written for the cello (No.12). Then follows a chronological
detour back to the early 17th century and the beginning of the
Ba-roque, to Italian composers (Pen, Caccini, Mon-teverdi) who were
beginning to turn out operas at that time and showing a penchant for
the aria with instrumental accompaniment. This gave rise to the
publication of many volumes, to the, great profit of publishers and the
joy of ama-teurs. I have taken a bouquet of them from a manuscript, and
even though I make no attempt to sing them, I have taken some rare
instruments out of my collection (the chitarrone, bandoura and Baroque
guitar), and by alternating and admixing their sound, I have managed to
play both the melody and the accompaniment of pie-ces from Bottegari's
Lutebook (Nos.13, 14, 15, 16). Vivaldi originally scored the concerto
that features here for two mandolins and a string or-chestra, but itcan
be played equallywell on two Spanish quitars if a mandolin does not
happen to be available. The studio could not provide me with one, so
that is what I did (No.17). Next we arrive at the Classics,
orrathertheclas-sics for the guitar: the one justifiably held in
greatest esteem is by Ferdinand Sor, the Mozart of the guitar His
"Andantino" (No.18) marked a new departure in my musical career for it
kept me from straying into light music at the times of the Shadows and
the Beatles. Matteo Carcassi, another favourite composer with all
guitarists, marks a transition to the Ro-mantics. His "Etude in A
major" (No.19) is an-other of my favourits. Looking over the programme
and listening to the whole collection, I have do adult that it has
turn-ed into a collection of miscellanea. But never mind, that is what
I intended it to be in the first place. Following in the wake of so
many records, in which I either selected from the works of one composer
(Vivaldi, Bakfark), concentrated on a particular musical period
(Classics on the Gui-tar, Renaissance Pop), choose from a single
cul-tural complex (Spanish Guitar, Guitar Romance, Hungarian Recruiting
Music), or played my own compositions and arrangements (1000 Years on
the Guitar), it is time for something more way-ward. In this way I may
be able to draw a more comprehensive picture of my own wayward
dis-position. It is with these thoughts in mind that I present this CD
and cassette to listeners, and I must ad-mit that by the time it
reaches the shops, I will be preparing further surprises."