12 May, 2021

Jean Rondeau Melancholy Grace Ho Fan 何藩

Letter from Shenzhen (21-12): Melancholy Grace
Streaming Classical Music (21-2)


Just today NML loaded an album that is hot off the press, Harpsichordist Jean Rondeau's Melancholy Grace (Erato). Oh my, it hits me on several fronts.

First, the music. This is an album of exclusively slower music, as in Lachrimae, and when well done, whether here or by a viol consort, I am a sucker. Rondeau plays two harpsichords, one an antique and the other a more powerful modern replica. The playing is irreproachable - over its considerable length the coloristic playing and subtle shadings kept one's interest and form a coherent whole.

Rondeau, with his forward-looking glance and wild look that could have hearkened from a Harley-Davidson clan, is an unlikely hero. He is the only harpsichordist that has as a high a profile is the DG artist Mafan Esfahani, who is supposedly more intellectual, but my own listening in the same repertoire favors Rondeau (I am not the only one). And, in this album, the annotation by Rondeau is highly sophisticated; I don't pretend to understand everything he writes about temperament, but he is eloquent and obviously of considerable intellect.

There is more to this album. The cover art is by Fan Ho (Ho is the last name; 何藩), an older legendary photographer who hailed form China/Hong Kong, whose black and white photos have won awards all over the world (later he also became famous for his film acting and direction). Google and images and tributes are all over the place, but this blog (in Chinese) I think is particularly informative. Ho Fan and his wife were fervent and highly sophisticated classical music listeners (early Mahler admirers to boot!) and he admitted to the influence on him in the dark room.

This disc is an example of music, notes and cover art to all come together to provide total immersion, and why "metadata" is of such importance.


8 comments:

  1. A great recommendation, thanks. I have not used NML in a long time. I am working on getting a very old macbook as a digital source for an upstairs system. Tidal is unlikely to work but NML does, I will have to check new releases out more frequently.

    I return a harp recommendation, although it is new ambient, not classical. Marry Lattimore's Silver Ladders

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cq8pnHgWYZI

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  2. Thanks for the recommendation Doc! Apart from music, photography is another of my interest, if not an even bigger hobby / interest of mine! Ho Fan was my hands down favorite Hong Kong photographer. But let me think about how Mahler's music had an influence on him in his darkroom, the linkage of the two is a very interesting thought!! I shall also check out the above music while looking at Ho's photos!

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    1. understand. maybe the adagio of No. 5 and 10 would work with that...

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  3. Nice post! I love the Fan Ho pics, and am a big fan of Jean Rondeau.

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  4. as i am a photographer too and my favorite type is black and white (like 98 percent of my photos are BW) this Fan Ho photos really look great...and talking about photography is not at all out of music context - music is inspiration or "starting point" for some of my work and for sure during work is always there...like a carpet that i am standing,or walls of my room around me - it is always there.

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    1. Same for me. Music suffuses everything.

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  5. A great album indeed. Not exactly the music I listen to for most of the time.
    What struck me really was the quality of the recording. I think it is the best harpsichord recorded sound I've ever heard. Almost. I have an old Pierre Verany vinyl with a very different, very sharp sound. I will compare the two someday. When I put together a proper vinyl reproduction system. But here we're at a very, very high quality level as far as I can tell.
    Last remark: not to downgrade this to background music but I did work while playing this over BT in an ultra-cheap installation and it was very fine, my productivity was improved to good effect. Not surprising since the atrabilious have a good reputation as to intellectual performance. I was told it was Albert Einstein who said melancholy is good for creativity in thinking.

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