Lauten-info 1/20/12 (Deutsche Lautengesellschaft) – Joachim Lüdtke : I hope that one or more of these interesting pieces will soon find their way to concertperformances and I can definitely recommend them to all who want to deal with new rewarding lutesongs.
IL Liuto (Società Del Liuto) – Gian Luca Lastraioli : We wellcome this new publication. It will not probably reach the levels of popularity (and sales) as the songs of Lennon & McCartney,but we hope that it represents a significant contribution to the development of a repertoire for the lute and voice, which seems now be “dead” but is waiting only to be revitalized
LGS Newsletter (Lute & Early Guitar Society Japan) Nov. 2011: The music is accessible, but technically demanding at times, because Gilbert uses quite different chords than what e are used to in Renaissance music. The singer, too, will find the music challenging, as the melodies have a wide tessitura, are rhythmically intricate, often dissonant with the accompaniment and full of leaps. The lyrics are by Marcus Cumberlege, and are really attractive, talking about everyday observations in a light way. I like the lute parts, as they are active and fit with the melodies in a complimentary way, but in the vocal parts I had occassionaly some trouble fitting the words comfortably to the melodies, and was tempted to change some rhythms to fit the word accents better.For those lutenist working with singers and looking for attractive music to expand their repertoire, I can recommend this new edition.
Le Joueur De Luth, December 2011 (Société Française du Luth) :Voici un nouveau receuil de 10 chansons contemporaines pour voix et luth renaissance à 6 choeure. Il s’ouvre sur ‘Just For A Day’,pièce aux accords agréables, sonores, faciles à jouer, légèrement dissonant qui altèrent avec de beaux arpèges résonnants. La mélodie,souple et riche en triolets, oeuvre un ambitus assez large. La seconde chanson exploite davantage le dialogue entre voix et luth, d´autres vont plus loin dans la dissonance ou la difficulté technique, il y en a donc pour tous les goôts ! Une de nos préférées est ‘Time’, dont la régularité des croches fait bien sûr penser au tic-tac d’une horloge. Les paroles, toutes simples, nous disent : Time is not made of minutesor seconds, hours and years: Time is made of missing you. A découvrir sans laisser le temps passer, donc….