Jean Rondeau - Melancolia (CD)

2021 release. Melancholy Grace is a poetic collection of keyboard music from the 16th and 17th centuries by composers from Italy, the Netherlands, England and Germany. The French harpsichordist Jean Rondeau has conceived the album as a sombre, but eloquent dialogue between two contrasting voices: melancholy conveyed through chromaticism and melancholy conveyed through the musical expression of tears and weeping. Among the eight 'chromatic' composers are Frescobaldi, Luigi Rossi, Luzzaschi and Sweelinck, while the 'weeping' composers are Dowland, Bull, Gibbons, Valente and Scheidemann (who has an anonymous piece attributed to him). Dowland's Lachrimae Verae (True Tears) closes the program, but in some senses forms the conceptual starting point for the Melancholy Grace.

Track List:

Disc: 1

1. Toccate e partite d'intavolatura, Libro II: Toccata settima
2. Fantaisie de Monsieur de Lorency
3. Passacaille del seigneur Louigi
4. Capricci da sonare cembali, et organi, Op. 4, Pt. 1: Toccata quarta per l’elevatione
5. Fantasia cromatica, SwWV 258
6. Intavolatura di balli d’arpicordo: No. 5, Ballo alla polacha con il suo saltarello
7. Melancholy Pavan
8. Melancholy Galliard
9. Pavana lachrymae, WV 106 (Formerly Attributed to Heinrich Scheidemann)
10. Intavolatura di balli d’arpicordo: No. 5, Ballo alla polacha con il suo saltarello (Alternate Version I)
11. Il transilvano, dialogo sopra il vero modo di sonar organi ; istromenti da penna, Pt. 1: Toccata del quarto tuono
12. Selva di varie compositioni d'intavolatura per cimbalo ed organo: No. 22, Recercar di legature
13. Toccate e partite d'intavolatura, Libro I: Toccata quarta
14. Toccate e partite d'intavolatura, Libro I: Toccata prima
15. Intavolatura di balli d’arpicordo: No. 5, Ballo alla polacha con il suo saltarello (Alternate Version II)
16. Intavolatura de cimbalo, Book I: Sortemeplus, con alcuni fioretti (Sortez mes pleurs)
17. Fitzwilliam Virginal Book: Pavana No. 292 in A Minor - Lachrimae, or Seven Tears: No. 7, Lachrimae verae