All right, just who the heck was Wenzel Ludwig Edler von Radolt? He was a lutenist from Vienna, born in 1667 to a noble family; whether Radolt was a full-time professional lutenist, who rescinded his right to property, or amateur gentry is unclear, though he did state that he was "so allured by [...] music as to dedicate my whole life to her." He is known by a single publication, containing 12 "concertos" for lute, strings, and continuo, appearing at Vienna in 1701, Der Aller Treüeste Freindin (To All My Trusted Friends). ...
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All right, just who the heck was Wenzel Ludwig Edler von Radolt? He was a lutenist from Vienna, born in 1667 to a noble family; whether Radolt was a full-time professional lutenist, who rescinded his right to property, or amateur gentry is unclear, though he did state that he was "so allured by [...] music as to dedicate my whole life to her." He is known by a single publication, containing 12 "concertos" for lute, strings, and continuo, appearing at Vienna in 1701, Der Aller Treüeste Freindin (To All My Trusted Friends). This is not some obscure print fished out from the depths of a repository of musical arcana, but was a reasonably well-known publication still in print more than 20 years after Radolt died in 1716. This excellent Challenge Classics recording, featuring lutenist Hubert Hoffman with the Ars Antiqua Austria under Gunar Letzbor, is the first of anything from this print, and while it doesn't include all of the work, it provides a more than ample sampling of Radolt's effort to provide a...
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