Supreme Art of Cantabi le Style Lute Music of Lauffensteiner

Some of the early works of Lauffensteiner were composed in the French Style brisé and in the
Gallant style, but it is clear he soon moved on to the Cantabile style. Many of his works are in
bright, major keys and he wrote even in E-major, a key rarely found in music for baroque lute.
Most of his solo pieces are for 11-course lute. His harmonic modulations and melodic changes
sometimes surprise us, or make us smile, but in general his pieces are cheerful, merry and lovely.
From their nowing and singing character, they really might be called supreme works of art in the
Cantabile style.
The first Suile in c-moll (Nos.1 - 6) is in the Style brisé. It starts with a Tombeau which is a
symbolic piece for this whole suite. It is a sombre piece, all the more so because it is in c-minor.
But the other pieces are not gloomy. Being in the French style, the Couranle is slow. This suite is
from a manuscript at Brno ( Ms. Inv. 4081 I A 13.268) in what is now the Czech Republic .
The next Suite in F-Dur (Nos. 7 - 12) is definitely in the Cantabile style. The manuscript in
G6tweig (Ms. Nr. I) contain s all the pieces except the Allemande and Sarabande on this
recording. which are taken from another manuscript in Brno (Ms. Inv. 746 I A. 372). There 's no
evidence that this Sarabande in the Brno manuscript is by Lauffensteiner, but the Allemande
before it (the same as in Göttweig Ms. Nr. I where it is attributed to Lauffensteiner) is in the
same hand and they are similar in their abundant use of scales. Unlike the Couranle in the Suile
in c-moll, this suite has an Italian ' running ' corrente. The other pieces are equally lively.
The next three pieces, (Nos . 13 - 15) are in A-major, The Menuel and Gay are from a
manuscript in Munich (Ms. 5362) from ca 1740. The Sarabande is from the Suite in A-Dur kept
in Göttweig (Ms. Nr. I) in Austria. No. 16 is Prelude in d-moll from a manuscript kept in Vienna
(Ms. 7763 I 92). I put it on the CD to make the transition from A-major to B-flat-major more
smooth. This prelude is exceptional in that it places much emphasis on the bass notes ,
The last suite is in B-nat-major (Nos. 17 - 22). The manuscript containing these six pieces is
from the Harrach Collection (Vol. 14) in New York . The first AIlemande is not like the original
slow and grave allemandes, but, in character with the tempo marking ' poco Allegro', we find
nowing scales and arpeggios throughout the piece. We could interpret this as an early indication
that the allemande would change into a ländler, a dance with twisting and turning movements
and fashionable in Vienna around 1800, and finall y would become a lively waltz in the 19'h
century. The Courante in this suite is also a lively piece, with its dotted notes, and the Bourée
and Menuet are equally cheerful pieces. The Sarabande is the only dark piece in this suite and it
has some interesting harmonies, peculiar to Lauffensteiner. The last piece, a Gigue, reminds us of
the old Frcnch canary, in which the jumping of a goat was imitated.
For this recording an origina l lute by Greiff was used , strung completely in gut, of course. This
is the fourth rccording on this instrument, following Style brise (Channel Classics CCS8795),
Weichenbeger a "Galant Master" (Nostalgia 0401) and Cabinet der Lauten (Noslalgia 0701).
The lute was made probably as a ten-course Renaissance lutc by Laurentius Greiff in 1610 when
he worked as court lute maker at Ingolstadt. In 1673 it was changed into an 11-course French
(baroque) lute and left in Southern Germany until 1990 when it came into the hands of Toyohiko
Satoh. It took four years for Dutch lute maker Nico van der Waals to restore it. Ingolstadt is an
old city with a university which was founded in 1472. It is located some 70km of Munich where
Lauffensteiner spent many years of his life and where he died. This makes me feel there is a
bond between Greiff and Lauffensteiner, though they are separated in time . All strings are by
Gamut from the United States, except for the first string which is by Kathedrale from Germany.
Toyohiko Satoh
Wolff Jacob Lauffensteiner: a Cantabile Master
During the 17th century works of a circle of dynastic Parisian lutenists led by Denis Gaultier
and his contemporaries dominated transalpine lute music of the Baroque. Towards century 's end,
however, a craze at Versailles for Louis Le Grand 's favourite instrument, the guitar with its
fashionable bucolic assoc iation, rendered the lute and its practitioners so passé that virtually no
lute music of French provenance exists after 1700. Thus in the 18th century the instrument's
centre of activity shifted to Austro-Bohemian lands where the instrument saw its last flowering
in the hands of musicians such as Sylvius Leopold Weiss, one of the instrument's most prolific
masters and reputedly its greatest player. He and his Silesian-born compatriots provided a
substantia l repertory that was to sustain the instrument in central Europea n lands for nearly a
century. In a waggish comment Thomas Janowska observed in 1701 that there were so many
lutes in Prague, that if gathered together they would cover the roofs of all the palaces. Later
during a sojourn in Prague around 1718, Weiss encountered the ' splendid instruments ' (as he
called them) of the luthier Thomas Edlinger, the you nger. His 13-course instruments filled out
the bottom diapason with two extra courses, permitting a newer cantabile style of galanteries
that drew heavily on the lyricism of Italian opera. One of Weiss ' contemporaries was our Wolff
Jacob Lauffensteiner, who is mentioned as a composer of ' many fine things' in Ernst Gottlieb
Baron 's Untersuchung des Instruments der Lauten (1727). Although much of Lauffensteiner's
music is lost or incomplete, nevertheless over 100 chamber and solo works survive in
manuscripts scattercd through Austro-Bohemian libraries, including thosc at the Silesian abbeys
of Seitenstettin, Kremsmünstcr and Grüssau. That his works arc somctimcs misattributcd to
Weiss is a tcstamcnt to their cxcellence. In 1761 thc influential Lcipzig music publisher
Immanucl Brcitkopf advcrtiscd a posthumous collection of works by Lauffensteiner, Musico di
Cammera d'Elettore di Baviera: six Sonate à Liuto solo and four Sonate à due Liuti.
Lauffensteiner was a leader in a flourishing community of both amateur and professional
lutenists in the first few decades of the eighteenth century. Wolff Jacob Lauffensteiner, the elder,
father of our lutenist, was Thurmmeister, a civil servant in charge of instrumental music, in the
central Austrian city of Steyr an der Enns. After a short , childless union with Eva Maria
Cranstorfferin, he married Anna Susanna Werfferin in 1668, who during the next twenty years
would bear him fifteen children, among these Wolff Jacob, the younger, born on April 28, 1676.
When Wolff Jacob was six years old , his father petitioned the city council to support formal
musical training for both Wolff Jacob and his brother Georg Adam, then aged four. But as their
father's duties for the city included composing, directi ng and performing music , it is likely the
boys had already received musical instruction at home. Georg Adam became a chamber servant
and musician at the Abbey of Kremsmünster, playing bassoon, flute and timpani . In 1709 a
lutenist by the name of Lauffensteiner is documented as residing in Graz. This is most likely
Wolff Jacob, the younger, living in the city where perhaps he had attended the university. From
1712 the Bavarian court employed him as music tutor and valet for four Bavarian princes during
their political internment in Graz. Sons of Maximilian II Emanuel , Elector of Bavaria, they were
allowed to attend the University. When released in 1715, one of them Duke Ferdinand Maria
Innocenz, an accomplished traverso player and known for his love of music, retained
Lauffensteiner as confidant, music instructor and keeper of musical instruments. s a valet de
chambre, he accompanied his employer on his travels, including four military campaigns.
Lauffensteiner was also paid to compose the music for performances at court, which exp lains his
many chamber works. Regretfully, many of these are now lost or incomplete. After the death of
Duke Ferdinand in 1739, Lauffenste iner, then 62 years o ld , was pensioned, and died in Munich
on March 26, 1754 . From a letter written the following year by Lauffensteiner 's daughter Maria
Anna, we learn that Ferdinand 's brother, Duke Klemens August , Archbishop of Cologne, had
appointed Lauffensteiner titular Hofkammerrat for his services to the Bavarian court.
Arthur Ness and David van Ooijen
 1971
- 0 1973 2005
1983

CD 2000

Toyobiko Satob

Toyohiko Satoh made his debut in 1971 , when he recorded the world 's first baroque lute solo
LP in Switzerland . In 1973 he became professor at The Royal Conservatory in The Hague where
he taught young lutenists from all over the world until 2005. In 1983 his performance at
Carnegie Hall received a rave review in the New York Times. He has recorded numerous CDs
and won various awards including the Edison Award in The Netherlands, the Art Festival Award
in Japan , and twice the Record Academy Award in Japan (the second time in 2008). He took part
in music festivals in many countries as a performer as well as a composer, and also released CDs
of hi s own compositions. In 2000 he founded the Lute and Early Guitar Society of Japan. He
continues his career all over the world, integrating the spirit of Japanese tea ceremony into his
music.