Weiss: Sonatas for Lute, Volume 3
In his day, Silvius Leopold Weiss (1686-1750) was one of the most famous musicians in Germany. An exact contemporary of Bach, he lived and worked in luxury in the ducal court at Dresden. However, when, after he died, his instrument (the lute) and the tablature method of writing for it descended into obsolescence, his reputation dwindled too. He wrote some 600 works for the baroque lute, almost all of them dance suites, although they were titled either sonatas or partitas. They were for the mind and not for the feet to dance to. Unlike the Renaissance lute, the baroque instrument is tuned to a chord (D minor). It resonates richly and booms with a variable number of unfretted bass strings. The three sonatas, which the brilliant Canadian lutenist Robert Barto plays with barely a squeak on this Naxos disc, span the composer's career. The early period Sonata in D major is distinguished by a freely rhythmic, unbarred Prelude. Weiss's mid-life Sonata in C minor is marked by a wonderfully doleful minuet. By the time Weiss wrote his profound Sonata in D minor in later life, his movements had become extended and absorbing intellectual journeys. Barto renders Weiss's elegantly circuitous trail with absolute logic.--Rick Jones