ACD 2562 Cover

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The Balcarres Lute Book

Sylvain Bergeron, baroque lute

ACD2 2562
Sylvain Bergeron has been featured on at least 10 previous ATMA Classique recordings, as well as other labels; now at last, a solo disc!   Bergeron is cofounder and artistic director of La Nef, and professor of lute, baroque guitar and continuo at both McGill University and Université de Montréal.   For ATMA he has recorded with Suzie LeBlanc, Les Voix humaines, Meredith Hall and Charles Daniels.

The Balcarres lute manuscript is probably the single most important source of Scottish lute music; certainly it is the most extensive, containing well over 200 pages of music.   A priceless snapshot of popular Scottish music at the turn of the 18th century, a feature of Balcarres is the elaborated and often extended nature of the settings, as compared with the earlier Scottish lute manuscripts mentioned.   This is clearly due to the violinistic origin of many of the settings, and increases both the interest and difficulty of the music.

  1. -   4. The Laidie's suite     [ 7:28 ]
  5. -   8. The King's suite     [ 10:11 ]
  9. - 12. The French suite     [ 5:40 ]
13. - 16. Suite “Imperial sweetnesse”     [ 9:03 ]
17. - 21. Suite “Jock the laird's brother”     [ 10:37 ]
22. - 24. Suite “Adieu to the pleasures”     [ 6:11 ]



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