Corbetta / Visée: La Mascarade – Lislevand

   in Early Music Today (Sep, 2016)
Rolf Lislevand, a true original, has contributed many important and, at times, controversial discs to the canon of recent early music recordings. Regarded within the context of Lislevand’s own discography, La Mascarade is unusual for being an entirely solo disc. The disc itself is beautifully engineered, its presentation simple and eye-catching. It is a shame that details regarding Lislevand’s instruments were not given in the rather rambling personal, romantic and poetic programme notes.

The disc combines guitar and theorbo works by Francesco Corbetta and, his probable student, Robert de Visée, with a heavy emphasis on Passacalles and Chaconnes. Rather than being organised into separate halves, the guitar and theorbo recordings …