Hubert Hoffmann: From Heaven on EarthHubert Hoffmann From Heaven on Earth

Hubert Hoffmann had actually only wanted to look at the old lutes in the archive of Kremsmünster Abbey in Upper Austria. There he came across lute tablatures in tiny writing, full of long cycles of variations. They were written by Father Ferdinand Fischer, a monk of the abbey whom its chronicles name as a master of lute playing. Much of it is found in no other manuscript, Hoffmann says in the booklet.

Whether Fischer also composed the pieces himself can only be inferred from the style. In the booklet, the musicologist Rudolf Flotzinger considers it likely. Hoffmann has selected three partitas. At the centre is a passacaglia of just over fourteen minutes, which Fischer developed from a violin sonata by Heinrich Ignaz Biber. The lute that Father Fischer probably played is still kept at the abbey today.

Hoffmann, who is also a member of Ars Antiqua Austria, plays an eleven-course lute after an instrument by Joachim Tielke from 1696. Bert van der Wolf recorded the album in November 2015 at Galaxy Studios in Mol, Belgium.