Keyboardist
Jean-Marc Aymes offers fresh recordings of
Girolamo Frescobaldi's music that help enliven the virtues of this masterly but difficult composer. Instead of playing through
Frescobaldi's publications in sequence, he uses multiple instruments -- here a period harpsichord and organ -- and rearranges the works into new groupings, much as a keyboardist of
Frescobaldi's time might have done. Whether such a keyboardist would have switched off between harpsichord and organ is debatable, but
Aymes' readings are lively; together with his enthusiastic booklet notes (in French and English, unlike an earlier French-only release in the series), they clarify the innovations and stylistic issues in
Frescobaldi's music. The two CDs in this release are each devoted to a single publication. The first, a 1627 book titled The Second Book of Toccatas, Canzonas, Versets, Hymns, Magnificats, Gagliardas, Courantes, and Other Scores for Harpsichord and Organ, sets off daring quasi-improvisatory toccatas against brief (30- to 45-second) dances that marked a new emancipation of keyboard music from vocal models. The second disc features music that has never been definitively attributed to
Frescobaldi, but
Aymes' notes and playing argue in favor of such an attribution. After a variety of contrapuntal and dance pieces,
Aymes groups together a number of pieces entitled "Canzoni alla francese" (French canzonas). Apparently written late in
Frescobaldi's life (he may have left the set unfinished), these are strict contrapuntal essays in the old canzona form of the Renaissance, but in each of them the counterpoint is interrupted by a little explosion of toccata-like, improvisatory music. It's a stunning, tight effect, and
Aymes prepares the listener to appreciate it. Highly recommended for fans of Baroque keyboard music, this disc bodes well for further releases in
Aymes'
Frescobaldi series.