Carrie Krause & John Lenti: Sonata Tramontana
Black Bear Records

A vast spatio-temporal divide separates present-day Montana from seventeenth-century Italy, yet the music performed by Baroque violinist Carrie Krause and theorbo player John Lenti on their hour-long debut Sonata Tramontana makes said distance vanish. Much as Baroque music flourished during the 1600-1750 period, so too does it flourish in Bozeman, the southern Montana city where Krause founded Baroque Music Montana (BaMM) in 2015 and oversees its operations as Artistic Director. Testifying to the vitality of the company and its music, thirty-eight artists, including Krause and Lenti, are currently listed at the organization's site, many of them Baroque specialists who play on period instruments.

Connecting with the community, BaMM musicians perform in concert halls but also intimate settings such as houses, churches, barns, backyards, and parks. That this replenishing music would be presented amongst the wide-open spaces of Montana with the Rocky Mountains as a backdrop seems wholly apropos when it breathes such pure air. Consistent with that is the title Krause and Lenti chose for the release, as Tramontana (across the mountain) directly references the setting they call home. She attended Carnegie Mellon University, the Cleveland Institute of Music, and Juilliard, but lives in the foothills of the Gallatin mountain range and, when not performing and teaching violin students, revels in the outdoor activities the setting offers. Lenti is credited with theorbo on the duo recording, but the South Carolina native also plays lute and baroque guitar and, when not collaborating with Krause, performs and records with his own groups (Wayward Sisters, the I-90 Collective, Ostraka) and as a guest with other ensembles.

The music featured on the recording transcends the era in which it was written, and its timeless character is bolstered by the fact that the acoustic instruments involved sound much the same in 2023 as they did hundreds of years ago. In fact, it would be hard to pinpoint the recording date were it not for production values that capture the performances with such pristine clarity. In featuring two instruments only, the music also exudes a pronounced intimacy; that's further effected when three pieces feature Krause and Lenti individually, the former on Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber's Passacaglia in G minor and the latter on Guilio Caccini's Amarilli, mia Bella and Bellerofonte Castaldi's Lusinghevole passeggio. Workshopped during tours of Montana, the material wasn't recorded outdoors but rather at Reynolds Recital Hall at the School of Music, Montana State University, though it feels no less alive as a result.

Setting an early tone of intimacy is the Sonata “La Monella Romanesca,” Op 4 (1660) by Giovanni Antonio Pandolfi Mealli, which couples Krause's sweetly singing expressions with Lenti's graceful picking. A second Pandolfi piece, the light-hearted Sonata “La Sabbatina,” Op 3 (1660), also appears, this one found by Krause in the Case Western Reserve Library and cobbled together from bits of copies to produce a playable version. The majesty of the Gothic cathedral in Strasbourg where Philipp Friedrich Böddecker played is evoked by the regal rendering the duo give his Sonata from Sacra Partitura (1651). Choosing to end the recording with a beguiling treatment of Johann Heinrich Schmelzer's lilting Sonata Quarta from Sonatae unarum fidium (1664) is merely one more smart move of many.

September 2023