Lucie Horsch (25), a natural talent in more ways than one, for she not only plays the recorder masterfully, but also sings and plays piano excellently. A musician who performs on a world scale and has already brought a number of jewels to her discography.
On this new Decca album, it's all about the recorder, the instrument with which many began their first music lessons and which musicologist and sociologist Cas Smithuijsen rather dismissively referred to as 'something you buy at HEMA'.
It took a musical giant to breathe new life into this instrument that had been buried by time. That was Frans Brüggen (1934-2014) who succeeded brilliantly. In his book Reveil en Revolte, Smithuijsen tells of the founding of Sour Cream, the recorder ensemble established by Brüggen and Kees Boeke in 1971, which devoted itself to recorder literature from the Renaissance and Early Baroque, but also did not shy away from the (then) contemporary repertoire and made arranging, experimenting and improvising into something of a life principle, alongside a stylistic purity that was virtually unknown at the time when it came to music from the Middle Ages, Renaissance and Baroque. Unfortunately, it came to an end in 1990, when Boeke moved to Zurich to teach at the University of Theater and Music in his specialization: the recorder and early music.
Brüggen had founded, nine years earlier, in 1981, together with Lucy van Dael and Sieuwert Verster the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century with the main aim of stylistically pure interpretations of the works of eighteenth-century composers (which, however, did not stop there); this within the defined framework of historically informed performance practice.
Brüggen was more than a musician: he scoured libraries in search of interesting material for not only the recorder but later also the orchestra, just as he also collected historical recorders. It yielded a number of centuries-old specimens, fifteen of which Lucie Horsch was able to play thanks to the enthusiastic cooperation of Brüggen's widow and art historian Machtelt Brüggen-Israëls. Although the playing time had to be limited of necessity, because the instruments had become extremely fragile over the years as a result of the effects of breath and environmental moisture. This was the only, but important limitation that Lucie Horsch had to impose on her playing. This also meant that suitable repertoire had to be found, because on most instruments it was really over after about three minutes of continuous playing. The stopwatch was therefore carefully monitored and there was no hesitation in warming the instruments as it were close to the body. Also the inevitable corrections afterwards were necessarily time-bound, which certainly did not make the exercises as a whole any easier. But she did have an enthusiastic 'audience', for besides Machtelt Brüggen-Israëls there was the Japanese recorder maker Furmitaka Saito who assisted Horsch with advice and action.
For Horsch it was a fascinating adventure that gained extra relief from the fact that she could now for the first time play on original instruments, instead of copies. She had developed a preference for replicas by the French maker Peter Bressan (1663 - 1731), but thanks to this Brüggen Project she now held two genuine recorders by this famous maker for the first time. That felt very special for her, and especially because she was now for the first time in a position to compare the original sound of it against that of the copy.
For the listener too, it must be a wonderful experience to hear these original recorders for the first time, not only acting alone, but also together with other musicians, including that equally magnificent Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century, for this very special occasion under the direction of Lucie Horsch. Much attention has also been paid to the recording, whereby the sound of both these recorders and of the ensemble comes to life in an equally special way.