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.