マラン・マレ: サント=コロンブ氏のトンボー

ヴィオラ・ダ・ガンバの擦弦の感触までもが
なまめかしくも美しいマレ作品集

17-18世紀の音楽を中心に演奏するアンサンブル「ラ・レヴーズ」の最新盤は、マレ。このアンサンブル名は、マレの作品からとられているだけあって、彼らのマレに対する思い入れは格別なものがあります。ヴィオラ・ダ・ガンバの楽器の音色がう美しいのはもちろん、その音と音の間に流れる静謐な空気までもが高貴さに満ちた演奏。かと思うと、楽しげな舞曲では居酒屋の喧騒が聴こえるような、美しい変化に満ちています。マレの精神的な師(サント=コロンブ)、マレの友人(ヴィゼ)らの作品も交え、マレの音楽に様々な角度から光をあてた1枚です。
キングインターナショナル

This release by the small chamber ensemble La Reveuse, essentially bass viol player Florence Bolton and theorbist/guitarist Benjamin Perrot with an expanded continuo group as needed, takes its title from the final movement of Marin Marais Suite pour viole et bass continue in E minor, in which Marais paid tribute to his teacher, the reclusive and mysterious M. de Sainte-Colombe made famous by the film Tous les matins du monde. Boltons annotations here are informative and delightful in sketching out the Parisian milieu in which this music arose. However, the music also speaks for itself, and the program as a whole is also a kind of tribute to Sainte-Colombe, showing just how influential his music was and how Marais development of his style was crucial to the French High Baroque. Sainte-Colombe himself is represented by several pieces here, and one can hear the lines of influence particularly clearly in a pair of pieces representing bells, one by Sainte-Colombe and one by Marais. More generally, it seems to have been Sainte-Colombe who originated the idea of the piece de caractere; Marais picked up this idea and ran with it, with profound consequences for the music of the next century and beyond. Bolton and Perrot are smooth, rather deliberate players who dont lean into the mystery in this music, which is probably a good thing. Sample and decide, but hear the concluding Voix des humaines of Marais, which provides a nice meditative conclusion. Harmonia Mundi delivers exemplary sound from a Beguinage -- a home for lay, non-cloistered nuns in Sint-Truiden, Belgium. ~ James Manheim