Bradford Tracey, Cembalo (Cembalo nach Ruckers von William Dowd, Paris, aus der Sammlung Fritz Neumeyer, Bad Krozingen)
Released 1978 by Harmonia Mundi IC 065-997891
Aurnahmeort: Schloss Bad Krozingen
Aufnahme: P. Dery
Technik: Sonart
Ubersetzung : A. Rausch
Titelbild : Dowd·Cembalo
Photo: Daniela·Maria Brandt
Gestaltung: B & M Wiesinger
Thanks to Daniël, who let me browse the famous Daniël Beuman harpsichord collection

SEITE 1
JOHN BLOW (1649-1708)
00:00 Praeludium in G
03:06 Ground in G
Lessons in d
08:02 Ground
11:06 Round
12:01 Minuet
Lessons in a
13:18 Almand
16:03 Corant
18:02 Saraband
19:37 Jigg
Lessons in g
20:46 Praeludium
21:51 Almand
24:35 Saraband
26:47 Ayre

27:45 Chaconne in F

SEITE 2
WILLIAM CROFT (1678-1727) Suite in c
34:30 Prelude
36:16 Almand
38:26 Corant
39:46 Sarabanda
41:30 Air
42:20 Ground
45:32 Minuet
HENRY PURCELL (1659-1695) Suite for “The Indian Queen”
46:35 Overture
50:04 Air I
51:30 Air II
52:40 Air III
53:38 Trumpet Tune
WILLIAM CROFT (1678-1727) Suite in A
54:30 Almand
56:42 Corant
58:15 Saraband
59:50 Ground

Dr. John Blow’s full significance as composer and master of-the keyboard is yet to be appreciated fully. Although one of the most active of English composers of the middle Baroque, he is’ perhaps least known. One of the main reasons for this anomaly, no doubt, is that he was greatly overshadowed by his friend and pupil, Henry Purcell. Another, which is equally important among those who follow music anq its history closely, may be traced to Dr. Charles Burney’s destructive criticisms, indeed to his diatribe against Blow and his “Crudiiies.” (Burney, A General ,History of Music, Frank Mercer, ed., New York, 1935, vol. 2, pp. 350-356). In the whole account, Burney had very little good to say about Blow’s music. Speaking of Blow as a “confused and inaccurate harmonist”, who was, moreover, guilty of “unwarrantable licentiousness, as a contrapuntist,” Burney goes on to list “Specimens of Dr. Blow’s Crudities.”
When we turn to examine these “crudities,” however, we find that they are not only characteristic of Blow’s personal style, but of the style of many of his contemporaries – and, most notably, of that of Henry Purcell. When examined in an objective light, these “crudities,” like similar musical infractions of Claudio Monteverdi, seem quite expressive and attractive. In virtually every case, Blow was applying principles similar to those of Monteverdi’s famed “second practice.” Burney’s criticisms in fact sound so much like those which Giovanni Maria Artusi leveled at Monteverdi’s fifth book of madrigals nearly two centuries earlier. For conservatives like Artusi and Burney, such uses of dissonant combinations for spontaneous expressive effect were not to be allowed.

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