(The) Medici Harpsichord Book

Advantages: fantastic dance music
Disadvantages: getting a copy

...I seem to be making a habit of finding rare and obscure books or music, Well this is no exception. This is Tielman Susato, Dansereye 1551. Tielman Susato was a cathedral musician and a copyist. He also played in the town band. He set up a publishing shop in Antwerp. He published many of the Chansons and Motets of the day. He also published this book of dance in 1551. There was music in Church. Organ and vocal, catholic and Protestant both. There was music at Royal court. Here as church bishop you could afford to keep several professional musicians. There was the town band, The Waits, professionals who could play in church and at important civic functions. The alehouse usually had something like a violin hung on the wall for anybody to play, though the pitch and tuning can only be wondered at. A major Fayre could attract some... Read review

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Advantages: The mixture much as before - but why not?
Disadvantages: One or two dull moments

..."Smiler" was the last of Rod Stewart's homegrown albums, recorded in the UK before the bland, US tax exile era. It's been much maligned as a pale shadow of its predecessors, and while it may not reach quite the same heights, it's much better than the rock reference books might tell you. Any album that starts with a dog barking over the first few seconds of a rousing version of Chuck Berry's "Sweet Little Rock'n'Roller" and then switches into folk mode with a harpsichord lament "Lochnagar", which segues into the brilliant, poignant "Farewell" (cue acoustic guitar, mandolin and violin on a song just as good as the classic "Mandolin Wind") can't be bad. "Let Me Be Your Car", an Elton John-Bernie Taupin composition much in the mould of his then current hit "The Bitch Is Back", with Mr Dwight sharing lead vocals, is so good that you wonder... Read review

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Advantages: Wonderful transcriptions of JS Bach's majestic music; sensitive, tender, vivacious, effortless and fluid playing.
Disadvantages: Nil.

...Her latest CD from EMI Classics, ‘Bach/Works for Trumpet’, already tops zerbine28's list for Classical CD of the Year. (I know, I know, it's only April as I post this, but that's how strongly I feel about this recording.) Readers, if you please, do welcome young British trumpet player Alison Balsom, who now joins the ranks of Mssrs Miles Davis and Herb Alpert in my teeny-tiny list of favourite trumpeters. No, I never heard of her, either, before yesterday, when I first sampled her CD at the local Borders book and music shop. Released just this past January, the CD is an absolute stunner. The title is a little misleading, because Johann Sebastian Bach never wrote pieces specifically for the instrument (discounting the Brandenburg Concerto No. 2, of course). Besides which, the ‘trumpet’ in Bach’s time... Read review

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