Alpha Productions
2005
Captain Tobias Hume: The Passion of Musick
About This Album
More Tobias Hume can never be a bad thing. In an age of odd composers -- Carlo Gesualdo was, after all, his almost exact contemporary -- Hume still stands as one of the oddest composers of his time or any other. He was, after all, surely the only composer who spent his life as a mercenary and one of the few composers who died in the poor house. Nevertheless, Hume's music, while no doubt odd, can also be witty, funny, affecting, and even profoundly poignant in the right hands. Unfortunately, Nima Ben David's hands are not quite the right hands. While she is a fine musician and a superb gamba player, Ben David does not quite have the depth of soul to touch the bottom of Hume's music. In the second half of this disc given over to solo gamba works from Hume's Musical Humors from 1605, Ben David just misses the whimsy of Beccus a Hungarian lord his delight, the despair of Deth, and the joy of Life and earlier recordings by Jordi Savall and Paolo Pandolfo easily surpass hers. In the first half of the disc given over to songs and chamber music from Hume's Poeticall Musicke from 1607, however, Ben David and her singers and players have nearly no recorded competition and their performances, while not better, are at least more welcome. Alpha's sound and production values remain among the best in recorded classical music. ~ James Leonard, All Music Guide
Track List

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