Recordings of early guitar music often mix traditions and composers, looking for a pleasing balance, but this one is atypically in-depth. It may not be the disc to choose for the casual buyer looking for an hour of guitar music -- for one thing, the program contains music performed by various ensembles, some of them including a vocalist. But it's a godsend for guitarists, serious lovers of the instrument, and students of history, musical or otherwise. Francesco Corbetta, born in Pavia, did indeed make his way "across Europe"; his students included both France's King Louis XIV and Britain's Queen Anne, as well as French lutenist and guitarist Robert de Visée. He was, in short, foundational to the development of music for plucked stringed instruments in the Baroque period, yet he remains almost unknown and unrecorded. This attractive disc by the Italian historical-performance ensemble
La Ghirlanda Mosicale tries to rectify the situation with an overview of Corbetta's long career. That career extended from Italian publications in the early 1630s that retained aspects of the popular roots of the instrument; some of the pieces on the first part of the more or less chronological program are vigorous dances or songs that seem to call for terpsichorean accompaniment (like the Folia, track 3). The sober Sarabande: Tombeau de Madame, from 1671, is a restrained piece of French court music. Both pieces are songs, but no texts in any language are given. Most of the program is instrumental, however; solo guitar pieces interspersed with a few works for several instruments, of which the Sinfonia à 2 (track 4), actually performed on guitar, archlute, and theorbo, is especially arresting and meditative, with a wandering, artfully improvisatory feel. Various players are featured on the solo pieces;
Michele Pasotti is superb in the sequence of French pieces at the end. Despite the wide range of styles in his music, Corbetta has a recognizable personality throughout: he is serious and reflective, and his reflections have echoed down through the history of guitar music. Recommended not only for guitar buffs but for anyone interested in the roots of an instrument that today is as familiar as water.