Beethoven: Irish Songs Ricercar Consort & Philippe Pierlot

• Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 - 1827):
• 1Beethoven: The pulse of an Irishman, WoO 154 No. 402:39
• 2Beethoven: O soothe me, my lyre, WoO 153 No. 703:35
• 3Beethoven: The morning air, WoO 152 No. 402:30
• 4Beethoven: My bonny laddie has my heart04:46
• 5Beethoven: En midsommarafton02:36
• 6Beethoven: Lilla Carl, WoO 158 No. 1704:33
• 7Beethoven: Since greybeards inform us, WoO 153 No. 401:41
• 8Beethoven: Thy ship must sail, WoO 153 No. 2002:07
• 9Beethoven: Open the door softly - I would rather than Ireland03:49
• 10Beethoven: By the side of the Shannon, WoO 157 No. 802:18
• 11Beethoven: The Miller o' drone - St. Kilda wedding - Port-a-Beul02:38
• 12Beethoven: On the massacre of Glencoe, WoO 152 No. 507:08
• 13Beethoven: From Garyone, WoO 154 No. 703:50
• 14Beethoven: The elfin fairies, WoO 154 No. 102:34
• 15Beethoven: Gu ma maith thig an crùn dha Tearlach (Well may Charlie wear the crown)03:57
• 16Beethoven: Di-moladh an Uisge-bheatha (In dispraise of whisky)01:53
• 17Beethoven: The parting glass04:12
• Total Runtime56:46

Info for Beethoven: Irish Songs

This recording includes an excellent selection from Beethoven’s many settings of Irish folksongs, with imaginative new arrangements of his accompaniments, rescored for more traditional instruments than the original piano, violin and cello.

His settings are interspersed with more conventional versions of Irish and Scottish folk tunes taken from other sources. These help to highlight his remarkable ingenuity, which preserves the original character of the folksongs while elevating them to a much higher level of interest.

Maria Keohane, soprano
Ricercar Consort
Philippe Pierlot, direction

Philippe Pierlot
was born in Liège. After teaching himself the guitar and the lute, he turned to the viola da gamba, which he studied with Wieland Kuijken. He is active in the fields of chamber music, oratorio, and opera, and divides his activities between viola da gamba and conducting. He has edited and revived a number of operas, including Monteverdi’s Il ritorno d’Ulisse (given at the Théâtre de la Monnaie in Brussels, Lincoln Center in New York, the Hebbel-Theater in Berlin, the Melbourne Festival and La Fenice in Venice, among other venues) and the Sémélé of Marin Marais, as well as Bach’s St Mark Passion. With his ensemble Ricercar Consort he records for the French label Mirare. His most recent CDs have been devoted to Purcell’s Fantazias for viols, Bach cantatas, and music for viol by Couperin. Philippe Pierlot is a professor at the Conservatories of Brussels and The Hague.

Ricercar Consort
In 1985 the Ricercar Consort made its first concert tour with Bach’s Musical Offering. The ensemble soon acquired an international reputation, notably in the domain of German Baroque cantatas and instrumental music. It gave many concerts with such singers as Henri Ledroit, Max van Egmond and James Bowman and recorded some fifty discs, among them the complete works of little-known composers like Nikolaus Bruhns and Matthias Weckmann. Today the ensemble is directed by Philippe Pierlot. Alongside large-scale productions such as, in recent years, operas by Provenzale (La Stellidaura), Monteverdi (Il ritorno d’Ulisse) and Telemann (Don Quichotte) and sacred works including Bach’s Passions and cantatas, Handel cantatas and Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater, it also performs chamber repertoire focusing essentially on music for consort of viols. In 2006 Les Folles Journées of Nantes, Lisbon and Bilbao invited the Ricercar Consort to perform Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas. The ensemble then accompanied the soprano Céline Scheen to Tokyo to perform Mozart’s Exsultate, jubilate, and gave a Marin Marais programme at the Opéra Royal de Versailles. It returned to the same venue in 2007 to perform motets by Dumont and Charpentier with Collegium Vocale Gent. After appearing at the Brussels Bach Académie 2007 in cantatas by Bruhns, the group went on to record a second volume of early Bach cantatas. Its disc of Bach’s Magnificat and Mass in G minor, released in the autumn of 2009, won the prestigious prize of the Académie Charles Cros the following year.

The Ricercar Consort receives support from the Communauté Française de Belgique. It performs at leading festivals such as Boston, Edinburgh, Utrecht, and Tokyo and Warsaw (Handel opera arias). It recently gave the St John Passion at the Collège des Bernardins in Paris.

Booklet for Beethoven: Irish Songs