Silvius Leopold Weiss (1687-1750)
Sonates pour luth (trans. pour luth-clavecin de W. Rübsam)

Wolfgang Rübsam, luth-clavecin

Si l’exécution faite par Robert Hill au Clavecin Luth de pages essentielles de Bach était compromise (l'instrument, la prise de son, le jeu monotone), fastidieuse et à la longue inaudible (La partie faible de l'anthologie Hänssler) l’approche du musicologue, et claviériste polyvalent Wolfgang Rübsam semble en revanche, dans cet album de transcriptions de pièces de Silvius Leopold Weiss, d'une fraîcheur et d'une pertinence bienvenue. On a souvent comparé le génial luthiste du 18e siècle, auteur de six cent pièces pour luth, à son contemporain organiste dans sa faculté d'inventivité mélodique et d'improvisation infinie (J.F. Reichardt, 1805). La parenté avec Bach ne s'arrête pas là puisque ce dernier possédait et utilisait lui-même au moins un Clavecin Luth, instrument hybride qui se distingue du clavecin par ses cordes en boyau. L'instrument du facteur-luthier Keith Hill choisi par Rübsam possède une sonorité riche et fruitée, agrémentée d'effets et de nuances propres au clavecin. L'admirable Cantabile dont fait preuve l'interprète tout au long de ces six sonates choisies parmi les plus belles, rappelle en revanche le subtil pincé des cordes du luth. En témoignent les doucereux arpèges des Allemandes et des Sarabandes, la noblesse de l'ouverture de la SW 61 et la verve contagieuse des Danses. Une magnifique réalisation. (Jérôme Angouillant)

Silvius Leopold Weiss (1687–1750) was a German composer and arguably the master lutenist of the 18th century. In addition to being one of the greatest players of all time, he was one of the most important and most prolific composers of lute music in history. He wrote around 600 pieces for lute, most of them grouped into ‘sonatas’ (not to be confused with the later classical sonata, based on sonata form) or suites, consisting mostly of Baroque dance movements. This recital features some of Weiss’s sonatas (he called them ‘Suonate’) for solo lute. They have come down to us in a variety of tablature manuscripts, and many are missing their preludes, which were usually improvised. Weiss’s music is characterised by a unique understanding of the capabilities of his instrument, its strengths and its weaknesses. Like J.S. Bach’s, his music represents the culmination of a high Baroque style a little at odds with the more progressive aspirations of his younger contemporaries. The cantabile style of playing heard in these marvellous performances is directly inspired by the instrument, a lute-harpsichord built for Mr. Rübsam in 2015 by the acclaimed American instrument-maker Keith Hill. It consists of one manual with one set of gut strings at eight-foot pitch, and two sets of jacks which pluck the strings in two produces a more nasal timbre. A different places. One, positioned farther from the nut, produces a flutey sound, and the other, closer to the nut, second set of strings, made of brass at four-foot pitch, produces a halo-effect by resonating with the eight-foot register played by the performer. It gives the rather dry sound of the gut strings a much more singing quality of tone. Wolfgang Rübsam is internationally known through over a hundred highly acclaimed recordings of organ repertoire from the Baroque and Romantic periods and his recent recordings of Bach on the lute- harpsichord.