Expressive strokes on an Olde English canvas
Mahan Esfahani blows the dust off virginalist classics, and Kate Bolton-porciatti is impressed
Works by Bull, Byrd, Dowland, Farnaby, Gibbons, Inglot and Tomkins
Mahan Esfahani (harpsichord)
Hyperion CDA68249 77:43 mins
The Passinge Mesures roams through England’s musical landscape around the time of Shakespeare, John Donne and Sir Thomas More. It’s a compendium of keyboard works by the so-called ‘English virginalists’ – Bull, Byrd, Farnaby, Gibbons, Inglot and Tomkins – whose music speaks with a quiet power. There are pastoral evocations of fair Albion alongside darker suggestions of its ‘woods so wild’, dances by turns stately and sprightly, daringly inventive fantasies, and brooding streams of consciousness that capture the melancholy spirit of the age. These works have sometimes been handled as trifles or decorative miniatures, but Iranianamerican harpsichordist Mahan Esfahani treats them as profoundly expressive and introspective works. ★ere measured, there free, his readings highlight the ebb and flow of their poetry and prose; phrases are rhetorically articulated. Esfahani’s muscular technique enhances the robust rhythms of popular dances like the galliard, jig and romanesca, and his response to Byrd’s hexachord fantasy is visceral rather than cerebral.
We hear two instruments here: a copy of an English virginals from 1642, its sound alert and transparent, and a double-manual harpsichord based on a German original of 1710. The latter brags a palette of colours and timbres not available to
Byrd and his contemporaries, allowing Esfahani to heighten the harpsichord’s orchestral potential – most strikingly in the works by Tomkins, with their painterly hues. Though the choice is anachronistic – the instrument beefing up what would have been a more intimate soundworld – Esfahani’s performances are so persuasive that it is hard to raise any strong objection.
PERFORMANCE
RECORDING
Hear extracts from this recording and the rest of this month’s choices on the BBC Music Magazine website at www.classical-music.com
Esfahani heightens the harpsichord’s orchestral potential