With this first volume, Les Voix Humaines members Margaret Little and Susie Napper embark on a very ambitious cycle to record all of Sainte Colombe the Elder’s 67 “Concerts a deux violes esgales” (concerts for two bass viols). On evidence of the first 18 offered here, the interpretations are consistently quicker and noticeably sunnier compared to the few other recordings of several of these pieces. For example, in the famous Gavote La ferme (featured prominently in Alain Corneau’s film Tous les matins du monde) their tendency to accent the endings of phrases gives the piece a lift that Jordi Savall and Wieland Kuijken (Astrée) downplay. Both interpretations are interesting, though at times Little and Napper’s livelier approach seems at odds with the dour if not misanthropic temperament of the composer. After all, by this time Sainte Colombe not only continually obsessed over his adored deceased wife, but he’d also become a notorious recluse and likely penned most of these works strictly for his final students–his two sequestered young daughters.
Three other works included on the program–Le changé, La conférence, and Les Couplets–have previously received excellent performances by viola da gambist Hille Perl on Deutsche Harmonia Mundi. While Perl’s tempos are more akin to Savall’s and Kuijken’s, she often takes instrumental liberties that share a similar playful spirit with that conveyed in Napper and Little’s performances. In Le Couplets for example Perl enlists Andrew Lawrence-King to perform the role of second gamba (or bass viol) on harp.
Atma’s sound is very good, its realistic presence owing to the fact that microphones are sensibly placed–no in-your-face, inside-the-instrument ambience we often get from today’s period-instrument recordings. Francois Filiatrault and Jonathan Dunford’s informative notes discuss all 18 Concerts while featuring numerous entertaining anecdotes.
