Orlando Gibbons - Complete Keyboard Works (2007)

Orlando Gibbons - Complete Keyboard Works (2007)
Daniel-Ben Pineaar - piano

classical | 2cd | eac-flac-cue-log-cover | 320MB

Deux-Elles

Allmusic:
Pianist Daniel-Ben Pienaar, an English performer and educator of South African origin, is one of the few individuals to have played the Renaissance organ and virginal music of Orlando Gibbons on a modern piano. One of the others was Glenn Gould, from whom Pienaar takes pains to distinguish himself in his own booklet notes. He strives for a more pianistic approach in contrast to Gould's abstract (Pienaar's word is "arid") playing, with a good deal of pedal and a light, feathery treatment of the quick runs that emerge from Gibbons' basically chordal textures. In various other ways, Pienaar takes Gibbons' music merely as a creative starting point. He groups most of the music into heterogenous sets of from three to five pieces, creating suite-like configurations that Gibbons wouldn't have recognized. It may be that, on a piano, Gould (who named Gibbons, not Bach, as his favorite composer) better complements the complex, serious style of Gibbons' music; Pienaar comes off as frilly and a bit sentimental in comparison. But the real choice is between piano and the instruments for which Gibbons wrote the music. Hear the recording of a program similar to Pienaar's by John Toll, playing a small organ, on the Linn label; how the focus stays on the contrapuntal structure of the music, how the rapid runs complement that structure instead of seeming like an exotic effect, how the serious, intellectual quality of Gibbons' keyboard music, the perfect counterpart to his refined madrigals. There's no doubting the elegance and the technical facility of Pienaar's performances. The only doubt arises when one considers the question of their necessity.

Tracks
cd1
01 - Fantasia MB10
02 - Pavan MB17
03 - Galliard MB24
04 - Ground MB26
05 - Mask The Fairest nymph MB43
06 - Fantasia MB14
07 - Alman MB35
08 - Galliard MB25
09 - Ground The Italian ground MB27
10 - Mask Lincoln’s Inn Mask MB44
11 - Prelude MB2
12 - Alman MB37
13 - Alman MB36
14 - Fantasia MB6
15 - Fantasia MB5
16 - Galliard Lady Hutton MB20
17 - Galliard MB23
18 - Galliard MB21
19 - Fantasia MB9
20 - Pavan MB16
21 - Ground Whoop, do me no harm, good man MB31
22 - Ground Peascod time, or, The hunt’s up MB30
cd2
01 - Fantasia MB7
02 - Alman MB33
03 - Coranto French Coranto MB38
04 - Coranto MB39
05 - Mask Welcome home MB42
06 - Prelude MB1
07 - Versus MB4
08 - Fantasia MB11
09 - Alman MB34
10 - Coranto MB40
11 - Fantasia MB13
12 - Mask The temple mask MB45
13 - Ground The Queens’s command MB28
14 - Ground The woods so wild MB29
15 - French Air MB32
16 - Prelude MB3
17 - Fantasia MB8
18 - Pavan MB15
19 - Galliard MB22
20 - Mask Nann’s mask or French Alman MB41
21 - Pavan Lord Salisbury MB18
22 - Galliard Lord Salisbury MB19
23 - Fantasia MB12

 sample & buy: Orlando Gibbons: Complete Keyboard Works