Dan Laurin

Sonates & Suites

Anna Paradiso

Domen Marincic

I. Vivace

II. Fuga da Capella: Alla breve

III. Largo

IV. Allegro ma non presto

I. Lentement

II. Fugue

III. Courante

IV. Les note egale et detachez

V. Fugue

I. Ouverture

II. Allemande

IV. Sarabande

V. Gavotte

VI. Menuet

VII. Gigue

Pieces de viole, Book 2: Couplets de Folies (arr. D. Laurin for recorder)

I. Prelude: Lentement

II. Allemande: Gay

IV. Grave

V. Gigue

I. Adagio

II. Allegro

III. Aria gratioso: Allegro ma non troppo

I. Andante e spicato

III. Minuetto: Variations 1-2

I. Gravement

III. Chaconne: Moderato

Höör Barock

In 1728, the recently appointed court Kapellmeister Johan Helmich Roman was approached by Count Golovin, the Russian ambassador in Stockholm. Golovin was organizing a celebration of the recent coronation in Moscow of Tsar Peter II, and naturally wanted music to add to the festivities. His six years in London – where he made the acquaintance of Handel among others – and subsequent experience as assistant court Kapellmeister, made Roman the obvious choice for the count. The result was Golovinmusiken (The Golovin Music), an autograph score consisting of 45 movements of varying lengths. These are the facts as we know them, and everything else is conjecture: Roman’s manuscript lacks vital instructions regarding instrumentation, dynamics or tempi, and although the first three movements are in four parts, the rest are in three parts or (in a few cases) two. When a performing edition was being prepared in the 1980s, the editors came to the conclusion that the material was in fact incomplete, and a second violin part was added. It was also deemed that the order of the movements was probably not the one in which they would have been performed. The edition in question formed the basis for a partial recording of the work, comprising 22 movements. 290 years after Count Golovin’s feast, as Dan Laurin and his colleagues in Höör Barock recorded the complete work, their approach was a different one. Making use of a total of 18 different instruments – from sopranino recorder and oboe da caccia to bassoon, strings and baroque guitar – and featuring highly imaginative continuo playing from Anna Paradiso at the harpsichord, their performance sounds as full and varied as one might wish for, without any added parts. Laurin’s performing version also follows the order of Roman’s score, creating a number of smaller suites out of this greater whole that a wider audience now can enjoy for the very first time.

Johan Helmich Roman: Golovinmusiken, BeRI 1

Peter Olofsson

Gävle Symfoniorkester

The genesis of this disc was Dan Laurin’s idea to commission a concerto for recorder and symphony orchestra. He had performed a number of such works already, but felt that the new, more powerful ‘Eagle’ recorder developed by the maker Adriana Breukink could help with avoiding the usual problems with balance between soloist and orchestra. Having interested the Gavle Symphony Orchestra in the project, he then approached the Italian composer Vito Palumbo – and the ball was set in motion! In 2013, after an intense collaboration between composer and soloist, the concerto was finished – a single movement almost thirty minutes long, and according to Laurin ‘by far the most difficult piece I have ever encountered’. The ‘Eagle Concerto’ is here coupled with two earlier concertante works by Palumbo, featuring Dan Laurin’s close chamber music partners, harpsichordist Anna Paradiso and cellist Mats Olofsson. All three works differ greatly in style, forming a complex portrait of the composer. Palumbo himself describes the lightly scored Concerto Barocco as ‘a reappropriation of the baroque style’, while the large-scale Cello Concerto is intended as a tribute to Shostakovich. The Recorder Concerto, finally, is in the words of its creator ‘a large poetic fresco that to my mind is truly operatic’.

Sonates & Suites

Song List

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