Dan Laurin & Masaaki Suzuki • Early Italian Chamber Music (CD)

When Dan Laurin and Masaaki Suzuki joined forces in Händel’s recorder sonatas (BIS-CD-955), the reviewers waxed lyrical: "The allegros sparkle like fire-works and the dizzyingly fast runs are like strings of pearls” wrote the critic in Fono Forum, and in Spanish magazine Ritmo the interpretations were described as “beautiful, impassioned, muscular and imaginative”.

Now the same team is back, this time in a programme of Italian works from the early seventeenth century, which amply demonstrates the abundance of ideas and fancies typical of the musical output on the cusp between the renaissance and the baroque. Sonatas, ricercatas, canzonas and sinfonias follow each other in a kaleidoscopic procession, the sonic variety helped by the fact that Suzuki changes between organ and harpsichord, and that the programme also includes solo works for both recorder and for keyboard. 

Disc contains music by Castello, Fontana, Montalbano, Cima, Merula, Bassano, Berardi, Conforti, Frescobaldi & Mealli.

Dan Laurin recorder
Masaaki Suzuki organ and harpsichord