Notes and Editorial Reviews
A virtuoso recorder ensemble ranges across the centuries in a rewarding programme
Even with a snappy title, 70 minutes of four-part fugues played on recorders might not be everyone’s idea of fun. Yet the Amsterdam Loeki Stardust Quartet take great steps to ensure that it is a rewarding experience, using 37 instruments, at three different pitch levels, for instance, to suit the character and range of each piece. Then there’s the standard of performance.
The group’s admirers will know about its wonderfully pure intonation, its virtuosity, and the confident way it assumes different stylistic identities, ranging from 14th century Spain (O virgo splendens – rather remote, this item, from the later concept of
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fugue, though sounding affectingly grave and devotional) through various Baroque idioms, to Romantic and 20th century music.
In a programme most of whose items originated as organ pieces, the biggest gains are in the way the parts, played by separate musicians, have an increased individual expression. And in the livelier fugues – the E minor Handel, the well-known G major Bach, and the Mendelssohn, the playing seems to generate a communal energy. Several items are especially memorable: the sombre beauty of the Jullien, with finely played French ornamentation, Stefan Pohlit’s Gurez, (the single original work for recorder consort), and the Brahms, sounding extraordinarily rich and mysterious. Only the Vivaldi/Bach came as a disappointment; it’s one thing to be denied Vivaldi’s thrilling string writing, but to lose in addition his contrasts between tutti and solo is too much. And only one of the concerto’s movements is a fugue!
-- John Duarte, Gramophone [11/2003]
This is a hybrid Super Audio CD playable on both regular and Super Audio CD players.
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Works on This Recording
2.
Fugue for Organ in G minor by Gottlieb Muffat
Orchestra/Ensemble:
Loeki Stardust Quartet Amsterdam
Period: Baroque
Written: 18th Century; Germany
Venue: Baptist Church, Deventer, Netherlands
4.
Fugue a 4 in E minor by George Frideric Handel
Orchestra/Ensemble:
Loeki Stardust Quartet Amsterdam
Period: Baroque
Written: 18th Century
Venue: Baptist Church, Deventer, Netherlands
8.
Fugue for Organ in A flat minor, WoO 8 by Johannes Brahms
Orchestra/Ensemble:
Loeki Stardust Quartet Amsterdam
Period: Romantic
Written: 1856; Germany
Venue: Baptist Church, Deventer, Netherlands
10.
Fugue in G major, BWV 577 "Gigue" by Johann Sebastian Bach
Orchestra/Ensemble:
Loeki Stardust Quartet Amsterdam
Period: Baroque
Venue: Baptist Church, Deventer, Netherlands
Notes: This work is no longer believed to have been composed by J.S. Bach.
11.
Premier livre d'orgue: Fugue "Grave" by Gilles Jullien
Orchestra/Ensemble:
Loeki Stardust Quartet Amsterdam
Period: Baroque
Written: by 1690; France
Venue: Baptist Church, Deventer, Netherlands
12.
Fugue a quattro in D major by Arcangelo Corelli
Orchestra/Ensemble:
Loeki Stardust Quartet Amsterdam
Period: Baroque
Written: Rome, Italy
Venue: Baptist Church, Deventer, Netherlands
13.
Gurez by Stephan Pohlit
Orchestra/Ensemble:
Loeki Stardust Quartet Amsterdam
Period: 20th Century
Venue: Baptist Church, Deventer, Netherlands
14.
Caça "O Virgo Splendens" by Anonymous
Orchestra/Ensemble:
Loeki Stardust Quartet Amsterdam
Period: Medieval
Written: 14th Century; Spain
Venue: Baptist Church, Deventer, Netherlands
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