Sweelinck Collection?

Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck (portrait painted in 1606 by Gerrit Pietersz Sweelink, from a Wikimedia Commons Web page, public domain)

This morning I listened to the last of the ten CDs in the Brilliant Classics release, Sweelinck Collection - Complete Keyboard Music & Psalms. The title of the final album is Music from the Golden Age of Rembrandt. There are thirteen tracks, only four of which are devoted to Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck. To be honest from the very beginning, none of the names of the other composers on the CD are familiar to me: Cornelis Schuyt, Nicolas Vallet, Cornelis Thymanszoon Padbrué, Herman Hollanders, and Pieter Cornet.

Pieter-Jan Belder alternates between harpsichord and organ, leading the Musica Amphion ensemble and four vocalists, one in each register: Caroline Stam, soprano, Dorien Lievers, alto, Nico van der Meel, tenor, and Bas Ramselaar, bass. I suppose that this final CD was created to provide the context in which Sweelinck composed his own works. However, after having listened to 9 CDs of Sweelinck’s music, both instrumental, and vocal, I have to confess that this attempt to capture that “Golden Age” was not very successful.

Nevertheless, I was still able to enjoy Belder’s account of the “Lachrimae pavane,” the instrumental version John Dowland’s lute song “Flow, my tears.” The solo harpsichord account on the album is an arrangement by Sweelinck, but it definitely does justice to Dowland’s source. I just wish the arrangers behind this album had done better justice to that “Golden Age!”