Franz Raml - Scheidt: Tabulatura Nova, Vol. 2 (2008)

Samuel Scheidt's Tabulatura Nova, published in three parts in the early seventeenth century, is one of those checkpoints that music history students have to learn. It was a collection of keyboard music with mostly instructional intent, making up a compendium of North German polyphonic techniques. The Tabulatura Nova was an early example of the exhaustiveness of musical thinking that became one of Bach's key characteristics, and it pointed to Bach as well in its density and overall conservatism. This double disc, covering the second of the Tabulatura Nova's three volumes, includes early fugues, fantasias, dances, an impressive toccata, and pieces intended for sacred use, including several based on chorales. It's certainly historically significant, but for the casual listener it's pretty tough going when heard in its entirety despite individual pieces that carry some of Bach's sense of total polyphonic mastery. Part of the problem here is the stolid playing of south German organist Franz Raml, which has a plain, mechanical quality. Raml uses an organ for the sacred pieces and a harpsichord for those with no sacred content. Positive points include the sound, recorded in two different locations but consistently clear and immediate, and the instruments, a contemporary harpsichord and a church organ exactly contemporary with Scheidt's music. The entire sound design, as is often true with Germany's MDG label, comes close to what one imagines were the music's original surroundings. This ongoing Tabulatura Nova set may be of interest to individuals and libraries cultivating basic collections of Baroque keyboard music, but it's not likely to make new converts to the music.