Elisabeth Joyé harpsichord
62:00
encelade ECL2202
This recording grew out of a Covid lockdown project in which Joyé recorded a series of videos of very short pieces covering the whole of the early keyboard repertoire for sharing with students and friends. The CD is a collection of the earlier pieces from that project, many of them very short indeed. It includes music by major 17th-century keyboard composers and makes for a varied and informative programme. Perhaps because of the nature of the project, I found much of the playing to be rather too careful, correct but not very exciting, especially in some non-imitative pieces which would have benefitted from some more panache. I did enjoy her rendition of the Capriccio cromatico by Tarquinio Merula, with some nice uneven semitones, and some similar chromaticism in a Pavan by Orlando Gibbons and a Froberger Fantaisie. The playing does come more alive in some chaconnes by D’Anglebert, Johann Caspar Ferdinand Fischer and Georg Böhm. Most of the programme is played on an Italian virginal by Jean-François Brun after an anonymous instrument of 1626. She also uses a polygonal spinet at low pitch by the same maker, after an anonymous instrument of 1560, and a 4’ harpsichord by Amadeo Castille after Pisaurensis 1543, also made in the Brun workshop. All are recorded quite closely and produce a satisfactory sound. Something of a mixed bag, then, but worth listening to, nevertheless.
Noel O’Regan