gambist

George Mason University Libraries has acquired and digitized the only extant holograph score by Dutch-born cellist, gambist, and composer Johan Arnold Dahmen (1766-1812).

The duo played dances from the opera-ballets and comedies lyriques: "Les Indes Galantes," "Platee," and "Les Fetes d'Hebe" as well as the serious ruminations in "L'Indiscrete." A typical turn on a word/name was the selection from "Pieces de Clavecin" called "La Marais," which could refer to a swamp, a section of Paris, or the composer's colleague and gambist Marin Marais.

The players are dressed in Oriental costumes that would have been outrageous to Rembrandt's contemporaries; a viola da gambist wears a colorful turban and bright tunic; a young harpist stares at the viewer as if annoyed by an intruder.

Starting at Berkeley '98, in the canary-yellow First Congregational Church, the masterful viola da gambist Jordi Savall--with the raven-haired soprano Montserrat Figueras and a band of Spanish players from Hesperion XX (Savall's group) and La Capella Reial de Catalunya--performed a program of Catalan music drawn from the twelfth to the seventeenth centuries.

More experimental again is the rendition of Mudarra's Claros y frescos rios in which the chordal vihuela accompaniment is transferred to the gambist. Fifteenth-century pictures of vihuela de arco players clearly suggest something along these lines, but I have never come across the practice in a recording of this music before.