It is not only an album of very beautiful music that the lutenist Esteban la Rotta offers us, but also a fascinating lesson in the history of the beginnings of solo lute music in Europe, somewhere around the end of the Middle Ages\/beginning of the Renaissance. It was the Germans who, at that time, developed the modern technique of lute playing, allowing the expression of multiple voices in polyphony. The Germans themselves had actually been inspired by Italian innovations, which they would later redistribute, enriched, to the Italians to create the pan-European style of the Renaissance and Baroque. Fascinating story, which the lutenist Esteban La Rotta recounts in detail in the interview I conducted with him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Almost no lute scores from that era have survived. It is known from testimonies that German lutenists\/composers were admired for their impressive abilities. One of them is known only by his nickname: Orbus ille Germanus, the \u2018\u2019Blind German\u2019\u2019. He was apparently astounding, displaying exceptional technique, a genius for improvisation, and memorable musicality. Musicological research allows us to think that the one who hid behind this pseudonym was a multi-instrumentalist named Conrad Paumann. This Paumann, although excellent on the lute, was above all an organist, and as such, he left behind a few scores that are documented today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n