A colleague of Sigiswald Kuijken—one of the first group of early music specialists from Holland—violinist and violist Lucy van Dael is, as the successor of Jaap Schröder at the Amsterdam Sweelinck Conservatory, mentor to a further generation of Dutch Baroque string players. Although based in Amsterdam, van Dael is also known internationally as a teacher with visiting professorships at institutions in Berkeley, Stanford, Basle, Hamburg, Oslo, Jakarta and Melbourne. In 1981 she co-founded the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century with recorder player and conductor Frans Brüggen, and her involvement in this and other period ensembles has defined her career in recreating the spirit of the Baroque. Her interests also stretch into the Classical and Romantic eras and she has contributed to a number of period-instrument recordings of such works, notably with the ensemble L’Archibudelli (lit. ‘bow and gut strings’).

Lucy van Dael’s playing exhibits all of the characteristics one now has come to associate with Baroque violin playing: a clean, predominantly senza-vibrato sound, enlivened by a carefully- considered use of bow articulation and nuance, with attention to bringing out accented dissonances and reacting rhetorically to harmonic changes. Her 1996 recordings of the Bach solo violin works are remarkably consistent in quality and approach. Arguably, she can be a little hesitant or self-conscious in some places and too emphatic in others, but there is much that is well-shaped and the delivery is generally lively and exciting. Bach’s Sonatas for Harpsichord and Violin (1999) evidence similar characteristics, underpinned by intelligent and tidy harpsichord playing by Bob van Asperen; the same pairing can be heard in a suitably more emotive vein in Corelli’s Op. 5 Sonatas (2002) with van Asperen at the organ, although this recording is slightly marred by ambient noise in the background.

Of greater interest perhaps is Uccellini’s Sonata ‘La hortensia virtuosa’ (2003, performed on a 1646 Amati violin) which is enlivened by some interesting upward portamenti near the start and which, in many ways, feels a rather more relaxed and spontaneous performance of this otherwise little-known seventeenth-century Italian composer.

All of van Dael’s performances are worthy off erings, epitomising the conscientious approach of present-day Dutch period performance. Perhaps precisely because of this, they can be rather lacking in fire, but nonetheless transmit these important Baroque works faithfully and intelligently.

© Naxos Rights International Ltd. — David Milsom (A–Z of String Players, Naxos 8.558081-84)