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Reviewer: Bradley
Lehman
Giulia Nuti has chosen representative pieces from the Bauyn manuscript, a
collection copied by an unknown scribe in the mid- 1670s. About half of the
music is familiar pieces by Louis Couperin, Chambonnieres, and Froberger.
The rest of it is less-recorded music by Jacques Hardel, Jean-Henri
d’Anglebert, Rene Mesangeau, and Germain Pinel. The harpsichord is by Louis
Denis, Paris 1658. Its tone is beautiful, with a mournful quality and
percussive attacks. It sometimes sounds like a virginal. The close recording
exposes some uneven voicing of notes in the middle register. I get the sense
that Nuti is listening closely to savor the harpsichord’s tonal bloom—and
letting her phrasing be guided by that resonance. I like the patient
tenderness she brings to the dances by Chambonnieres. Few other pieces by
Jacques Hardel exist. Karen Flint recorded them all on a 1627 Johannes
Ruckers harpsichord (Plectra, 2014, not reviewed). She made Hardel’s music
sound like a series of decorated harmonies. Nuti’s performance makes the
same scores sound like flowing melodic lines with a clearer projection of
dance rhythms. As a nearly-complete Hardel album, and for the gorgeous
instrument and performance, Giulia Nuti’s work pleases the heart and the
ear. Jane Chapman recorded all of the Bauyn manuscript on a 1614 Andreas
Ruckers harpsichord. Most of her tempos are faster than Nuti’s, and the tone
of that harpsichord is smoother. Chapman’s 1994 recording was on three
Collins CDs (not reviewed and deleted).
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