The discovery of this and related albums brought a big smile on my face… The combination of musical beauty and taste, together with sheer purity of sound, make these albums a standout.
Wolfgang Rübsam was born in 1946 in Germany, where he studied piano and organ with Helmut Walcha at the Musikhochschule in Frankfurt. He did additional studies with Marie-Claire Alain in France and Robert T. Anderson in Dallas. In 1973 he won several prestigious prices as interpreter, and only a year later, at the age of 28, was appointed as professor of sacred music and organ at Northwestern University. He counts with more than 130 recordings and is an internationally respected expert for the music of Bach.
Fast forward to 2016, when the well-reputed American instrument maker Keith Hill made for Rübsam a one-manual Lautenwerk, very much as Bach is known to have owned. From the linked description by Keith Hill:
That brings me to the present Lautenwerk used in this recording. It has only one manual, with one set of gut strings and two sets of jacks to pluck the same 8’ set of gut strings in two different places: one, positioned farther from the nut, for producing a flutey, hooty sound and the other, closer to the nut, for a more nasal timbre. This present lautenwerk also has a brass 4’ set of strings that are there purely for the sympathetic vibration, similar to the effect heard on a Viola d’Amore. That set of 4’ brass strings adds the aliquot “halo” effect because it causes the rather dry sound of the gut strings to have much more of a singing quality. Thus one might be tempted to call this lautenwerk a “Lautenwerk d’Amore”.
Since 2017, Wolfgang Rübsam has released a series of albums playing on this instrument, from which I have selected Bach’s French Suites. These pieces with their dance movements I find particularly well adapted for the sound of the Lautenwerk. Rübsam also has released recordings with transcriptions of the violin sonatas and partitas and cello suites, amongst several more. These are recordings well worth exploring…
