Paolo Pandolfo, Thomas Boysen - Sainte Colombe: Pieces de viole (2005)

Welcome to the mysterious world of Monsieur de Sainte-Colombe, the French Baroque composer who perfected the art of playing the viola da gamba and inspired a generation of virtuosos but left so little of his own music behind -- so much of it in a fragmentary and disorganized state that putting together a program requires not only a bravura technique, a rich tone, and a poetic soul, but a skillful application of musical intelligence. Fortunately, these are all qualities with which Paolo Pandolfo is generously endowed. On this Glossa disc of 28 pieces grouped by key into four suites, Pandolfo not only soars through Sainte-Colombe's most treacherous writing and plumbs the depths of his most expressive writing, but also successfully completes his incomplete continuo writing in a quarter of the works. Accompanied by the agile Thomas Boysen on either theorbo or Baroque guitar, Pandolfo's Sainte-Colombe disc nearly rivals the pioneering recordings of his teacher Jordi Savall from 30 years ago and sets the standard for Sainte-Colombe discs for years to come. Glossa's digital sound is clear, warm, close, and quite intimate.