Description
“… a powerful plea for Tobias Hume” (De Volkskrant)
Tobias Hume – music for solo viola da gamba
To the gamba player Hume’s music offers a rare sense of liberty. On the one hand almost nothing is known about his person, but on the other hand every one of his pieces is baptized with a little descriptive title pointing to its origin. This combination -at least to me personally- leads to a wonderful sort of openness, where a few words from an otherwise unknown person are the only things to go on – apart from the music score or tablature itself, obviously. In any case, it was Hume’s music that lured me into the realm of the viola da gamba as a solo instrument some 20 years ago. It has been a regular part of my solo performances ever since.
This recording was made in the chapel of the Franciscan Convent in Utrecht, where a spent so many hours meditating, praying, and playing. The recording was carried out in a fully analog fashion. The only way to really do justice to the analog process is the vinyl record. For convenience, however, we used a parallel digital channel in order to make it available on cd as well. It is the latter channel that you find on this cd.
The analog recording technique does require that the recordings be made in one take. So this recording has absolutely no editing whatsoever. Everything you hear is exactly the way it sounded in the chapel. I don’t think Captaine Hume would have wanted it any other way. For me as a player, this involved a unparalleled concentration that felt very much like the thrill of a live concert.
