Note d’oro

Jan Antonín Losy (c. 1659-1721) was that very rare thing: a wealthy musician. When his father, the first Count of Losinthal, died, Jan inherited both his title and his money. Which meant he could devote his life to the lute and didn’t have to make money by publishing his music. Much of it, however, it has been preserved in a series of manuscripts. Jakob Lindberg has selected 36 of these 200 or so surviving pieces—arranged into six dance suites—and coaxes out their glorious combination of French classical elegance (the “Sarabande” from the Lute Suite in F Major) mixed with a little of Losy’s own instinct for Italian lyricism (the “Gigue” from the Lute Suite in G Major). The extraordinary delicacy and sustaining power of Lindberg’s late-16th-century Rauwolf lute makes it the perfect instrument for the rippling French figuration (“style brisé”) at which Losy excelled, and which Lindberg turns into liquid gold in the great “Courante” from the Lute Suite in G Minor.