"...Pour Passer La Mélancolie"

One of the first few classical CDs I took a shine to, back in the mid-to-late '90s, was a disc of Domenico Scarlatti's keyboard sonatas performed on harpsichord by Andreas Staier. For twenty years it was just about the only recording of baroque music I owned. Not long after turning fifty, it occurred to me to seek out some more compositions for harpsichord. Staier's name being one I knew, I looked up his other recordings, of which this one in particular caught my eye: ...pour passer la mélancolie, a 2013 release on the Harmonia Mundi label.

It's an excellent recital, bringing together works by six different French and German composers dating from between the mid-17th century and the first decade of the 18th. It's loosely-themed around notions of melancholy: there are laments and tombeaux in commemoration of the departed, along with sombre passacaglias and other plaintive pieces. The disc's title comes from an opus by Johann Jacob Froberger supposedly written in the midst of a particularly dismal sojourn in London.

Staier plays a painstakingly rebuilt & restored harpsichord retaining a late-17th-century heart. It has a wonderful tone and is tuned to an unequal temperament, with a variety of sweet & sour harmonies the result. The packaging is handsome; the booklet notes (by Staier himself and by Melanie Wald-Fuhrmann) are informative; the recording has great presence & clarity. The well-judged choice of pieces means the overall feel of the album, though often dark-hued, never becomes flatly oppressive.

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