Shaun Ng | Echoes of Love and Loss: French Baroque Lute Masterpieces

This CD of French baroque lute music is a new release on the A415 Music label (CD009) from the Sydney-based player Shaun Ng.  

Shaun performs professionally around Australia on instruments of the violin, da gamba and lute families, while also running a successful music teaching studio in Sydney. 

As an amateur musician myself, I can only wonder at the dedication and hard work it must take to reach a professional standard on several different instruments; two of which – the gambas and lutes – have completely different playing techniques!

This album introduces us to 17th century French lute music, with four composers: Ennemond Gaultier, Jacques Gallot, Francois Dufault and Pierre Dubut, none of whom (I am ashamed to admit) I had previously heard of. Listening to their music was something of a revelation – Shaun Ng is certainly a persuasive advocate for their works. 

Most lovers of early music will be familiar with the English school of lute music: John Dowland and his contemporaries. They used a lute tuned mostly in fourths, with the six highest strings running from G to g’. The significant development in French Baroque lute music was the introduction of the accord nouveau (new chord) with the addition of an extra bass string and the six highest strings now tuned to a D minor chord (A-d-f-a-d’-f’). This innovation allowed the player to produce a chord from the open strings and some expressive new harmonic combinations.

The 20 pieces on this disc are mostly the dance movements familiar to us from the Baroque suite e.g., Prelude, Allemande, Courante, Sarabande, Gigue etc. with a couple of Chaconnes and a monumental Tombeau de Mezangeau [sic], a musical eulogy for the lutenist René Mésangeau, who is believed to have been Ennemond Gaultier’s teacher. This piece is the earliest known example of the tombeau, a genre that would later be embraced by both lutenists and viola da gamba players as a means of musical commemoration.

The playing is exemplary throughout, clearly and crisply recorded. If you are interested in Baroque instrumental music and want to extend the range of your listening, please consider this CD – there are many gems here. My own favourites were the Gaultier Chaconne, Dufault‘s Sarabande, and the Sarabande and Chaconne of Dubut. 

The record label (A415 Music), was established by Shaun Ng, and the name refers to the pitch of a1=415, which gambas and lutes often perform at. The album can be streamed from all the usual places or purchased as a CD or a download in high-resolution audio from Shaun Ng’s website >>

Review by Clive Lane