GOTTLIEB MUFFAT Componimenti Musicali per il Cembalo
Mitzi Meyerson
GCD 921804
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Performing artists
Mitzi Meyerson, harpsichord
Production details
Recorded in Berlin-Karlshorst (Kirche Zur frohen Botschaft), Germany, in October 2006 Engineered and produced by Maria Suschke Executive producer: Carlos Céster Design: Valentín Iglesias Booklet essay: Boris Kehrmann English - Français - Deutsch - Español
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GOTTLIEB MUFFAT (1690-1770)
Componimenti Musicali per il Cembalo (c.1736)
CD I [72:21]
01-08 Suite V09-16 Suite III17-25 Suite VI
CD II [77:46]
01-08 Suite I09-16 Suite II17-25 Suite IV26 Suite VII (Chaconne)
About this CD
Mitzi Meyerson’s insight into (and experience with) the harpsichord literature is such that when she makes a visit to the recording studio, one knows that something rare, fascinating and illuminating will emerge.
Her latest exploration beyond the mainstream of Baroque music sees the Chicago (born and honoured) performer turn to the Componimenti Musicali of Gottlieb Muffat –not the Georg Muffat who studied in Paris with Lully but his son–, almost the only surviving score of a musician now forgotten but active at the Imperial Court in Vienna in the middle of the 18th century. Across a collection of six suites (and a final innovative Chaconne) full of contrasting moods, Mitzi Meyerson explores the eclectic and distinctly unacademic world of Muffat, by way of all manner of variations, dances – from Courantes, Sarabandes, Menuets and Allemandes to Gigues –, improvisations as well as character pieces reflecting a range of national styles.
A recording which captures the joy and dash of the Baroque and which leaves one asking, like, Mitzi Meyerson, “Why did Gottlieb Muffat get lost in the shuffle of time?”
Mitzi Meyerson has been delving of late for Glossa into unjustly forgotten keyboard repertory from the Baroque. Praised by no less a critic than Nicholas Kenyon for her recording of Gottlieb Muffat’s Componimenti Musicali per il Cembalo (“Eureka! I’ve known these wonderful pieces for years, having bought an old edition of the music, but have never heard them properly performed. So it’s a joy to hear Mitzi Meyerson’s glorious realisation of these 18th-century suites, which lie at the heart of the high baroque style...”), Meyerson now turns her attention to the shadowy figure of Englishman Richard Jones. [read more...]
There are keyboard players whose names adorn books of technical exercises – Carl Czerny, Charles-Louis Hanon and JB Cramer spring to mind – but Mitzi Meyerson, Glossa’s very own expert in sumo wrestling, social work and a Persian cat named Yofi, is cast from a somewhat different mould. It will not just be piano and harpsichord students who will have cause to recall the Chicago-born artist but any number of her fellow citizens (including non keyboard-playing cabbies) now that the ‘Mitzi Meyerson Way’ has officially been opened outside the main entrance to Roosevelt University on downtown Wabash Avenue in Chicago’s 2nd Ward. [read more...]
Mitzi Meyerson’s insight into (and experience with) the harpsichord literature of the Baroque is such that when she makes a visit to the recording studio, one knows that something rare, fascinating and illuminating will emerge. This has been the case in recent years with both the Claviersuiten by Georg Böhm and the Musique de Salon of Claude-Bénigne Balbastre (which have also appeared on Glossa); the latest exploration beyond the mainstream undertaken by Mitzi Meyerson – Muffat’s Componimenti Musicali – is charged with the same character and sense of expectation. This is not the Georg Muffat who studied in Paris with Lully but his son, Gottlieb (also known as Theofilo), who spent much of his career in Vienna and whose set of six harpsichord suites Componimenti Musicali appeared towards the end of the 1730s. [read more...]
Mitzi Meyerson signals her return on Glossa with a further example of her ability to seek out entertaining music that for too long has been ignored and perform it with all the subtlety, charm and musical skill that such music demands. For her new Glossa release she presents a demonstration of the compositional joys provided by one of the lesser-known French keyboard masters – Claude-Bénigne Balbastre. In her substantial discography there are already recordings given over to other bypassed talents such as Jacques Duphly, Georg Böhm, Antoine Forqueray and even the Fourth Book of François Couperin. [read more...]