Jan DeGaetani - Early Music Recital

Jan DeGaetani - Early Music Recital

• (The) First Book of Songs or Ayres, Who euer thinks or hopes of loue for loue
• (The) First Book of Songs or Ayres, Can she excuse my wrongs with vertues cloake (= The Earl of Essex Galliard)
• (The) First Book of Songs or Ayres, Deare if you change ile neuer chuse againe
• (The) First Book of Songs or Ayres, All ye whom loue or fortune hath betraide
• Consort Music, Sorrow stay
• (The) Second Booke of Songs or Ayres, A Sheperd in a shade his plaining made
• Sovran uccello se'fra tutti gli altri
• De tous bien playne
• Amors amors
• Aura soave
• Amarilli mia bella
• Belle rose porpurine
• Stand auf Maredel
• (Der) Mai mit lieber Zal
• Ach, senleiches leiden
• Du, auserweltes schöns mein herz
• Wer die augen wil verschüren
• Fröleich geschrai so well wir machen
• Filles a marier

Buy from Amazon

If you were to judge by her previous recorded oeuvre you might approach Jan DeGaetani’s singing of pre-baroque music with some trepidation. If so, you would be misguided, for this is no less than a stunning recording. Hers is a marvellously flexible voice, with a wide range of timbre, able to deliver themost florid of flourishes with clarity and insouciant ease. Moreover, her background of later music stands her in good stead when it comes to reacting to the texts, which she does in a less restrained (but no less convincing) way than most ‘conventional’ early-music singers.
Dowland’s sorrow doth indeed stay, Amarilli’s beauty is portrayed most delicately, and Donatus’s bird flies with graceful freedom. The six songs of Oswald von Wolkenstein are in themselves worth the price of the disc: the mischievousness of Stand auff Maredel, the joyous celebration of spring in Der Mai mit lieber Zal, the sombreness of Wer die Augen and the sheer exuberance of Frohleich geschrai contribute to the whole tour de force, and evoke an appropriate audience response, for this is a live recording – for once, I don’t find the applause disturbing.
DeGaetani’s is a remarkable voice, served by sensitive control, adaptable to all the stylistic variety herein, sweetly floating or forthright with a nasal tang, as appropriate, with an agile tongue and excellent pronunciation of ‘foreign’ languages. The instrumentalists provide enhancing and splendidly executed changes of backcloth. Here is artistry with which I have fallen in love – and probably would have done even if it had not been so very well recorded. Only one slight niggle: translations of the texts, not least the archaic German ones, would have been welcome even to those who are not entirely linguistically challenged.JD