Realsamples has released German Lute-Harpsichord – Edition Beurmann, a sample library featuring the Lute-Harpsichord – or Lautenwerck, one of Johann Sebastian Bach’s favourite instruments.
Despite 50 Lautenwerck builders in Germany, not a single instrument survived throughout the centuries. When the instruments had vanished, the awareness had gone as well: Only a couple of decades ago, musicologists found out that such an instrument had existed, solving the mystery of scores mentioning being written for Lautenwercke. Until then, one would have guessed that the composer meant a regular lute instrument by that notion.
Back in the days of harpsichords and spinets, the lute-harpsichord offered a much warmer, soft and intimate yet defined tone. While having been built to imitate a lute on a keyboard instrument in the first place, it brings a consistent attack to the table (due to not being touch-sensitive, just like a harpsichord) and also by allowing for full decay of all notes due to missing dampers. This allows for a vibrating, reverberant yet still transparent sound.
Just like harpsichords and spinets, the Lautenwerck is not touch-sensitive. However, even if the differences are minuscule, not any given note will sound exactly the same due to different resonances of body and strings. In order to pay tribute to the instruments’ variances, every note was captured with 8 different samples.
German Lute-Harpsichord – Edition Beurmann features
- 8 different samples of each note.
- 4 different release sounds of each note.
- Ready to play HAlion/Kontakt2/EXS24 or GigaStudio3 presets.
- Wave format (except GigaStudio version).
- No mastering applied.
- Recorded in 192 khz/24 bits resolution and downsampled.
- DVD or CD set.
- License-free applicable in your music.
The German Lute-Harpsichord – Edition Beurmann is available to purchase for $139.95 USD excl. VAT and postage.
More information: Realsamples / German Lute-Harpsichord – Edition Beurmann
