(The) Nightingale and the Butterfly
Thorby and Kenny are a true partnership in this imaginative programme
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: François Couperin, Robert de Visée, Anne Danican Philidor, Charles Dieupart, Louis de Caix d'Hervelois
Genre:
Chamber
Label: Linn
Magazine Review Date: 13/2010
Media Format: Hybrid SACD
Media Runtime: 77
Mastering:
Stereo
DDD
Catalogue Number: CKD341
Tracks:
Composition | Artist Credit |
---|---|
Deuxième Suite |
Louis de Caix d'Hervelois, Composer
Elizabeth Kenny, Lute Louis de Caix d'Hervelois, Composer Pamela Thorby, Recorder |
Passacaille |
Robert de Visée, Composer
Elizabeth Kenny, Lute Robert de Visée, Composer |
Sonate pour le flûte à bec |
Anne Danican Philidor, Composer
Anne Danican Philidor, Composer Elizabeth Kenny, Lute Pamela Thorby, Recorder |
(6) Suittes divisées, Movement: No 1 in A |
Charles Dieupart, Composer
Charles Dieupart, Composer Elizabeth Kenny, Lute Pamela Thorby, Recorder |
Suite |
Robert de Visée, Composer
Elizabeth Kenny, Lute Robert de Visée, Composer |
Livres de clavecin, Book 3, Movement: 14th Ordre (D major-minor) |
François Couperin, Composer
Elizabeth Kenny, Guitar François Couperin, Composer Pamela Thorby, Recorder |
(6) Suittes divisées, Movement: No 6 in F minor |
Charles Dieupart, Composer
Charles Dieupart, Composer Elizabeth Kenny, Lute Pamela Thorby, Recorder |
Author: Julie Anne Sadie
This is very much a duo recital. Kenny provides delightful theorbo solos by the 17th-century virtuoso Robert de Visée as well as enchanting accompaniments to Thorby’s recorder playing. There is a wonderfully improvised feel about the Prélude to the D minor Suite, delightfully ornamented with understated cadences. She elucidates Visée’s hierarchies within the musical textures of the Courante and uses silence artfully in the Sarabande. In the Passacaille she makes the theorbo sound like a Spanish guitar (an instrument she takes up to accompany Couperin’s Le rossignol-en-amour). Best of all are her delicate, understated phrase-endings, which are a hallmark of the French style. When accompanying, she is nimble in the quick movements and elegantly conversational in the slower ones.
Thorby is less at home here in the French style. She produces a consistently bright, remarkably unmannered tone, often when another player might employ a greater range of intensity and volume. She also opts for longish and even elided phrasing, when shorter-breathed, more rhetorically inspired phrasing seems to be called for. Unlike Kenny, she specifically draws attention to the ends of phrases and improvises ritards at final cadences. Thorby is at her best in Caix d’Hervelois’s restless Papillon and the sinuous La lionnoise, and in Couperin’s masterful Le rossignol vainqueur.
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