More on Close Beauty

Close Beauty is officially released today. More on that here.

From Stereo Review May '74

RECORDING OF SPECIAL MERIT

JAN AKKERMAN: Tabernakel. Jan Akkerman (guitar); orchestra. House of the King; Javeh; Lammy; A Pavan by Thomas Morley; and six others. ATCO SD 7032 $5.98, 0 TP 7032 $6.98. © CS 7032 $6.98.

Performance: Lovely

Recording: Excellent

Jan Akkerman. the guitarist with Focus, has brought out one of the most interesting albums of the year. On a variety of guitars, (acoustic, bass, electrical), his playing suggests that the pop Julian Bream has arrived. If it were only on the basis of his work in the traditionally inspired material, such as John Dowland's Britannia or Morley's Pavan then I might be tempted to judge him as a gifted technician with a peculiarly Seventies approach to the classics. But when he shifts gears into one of his own compositions, such as House of the King, with its rock beat and his vital performance on electric guitar, and proceeds to produce some of the most elegant sounds that I've ever heard in rock, then I know that I'm listening to a real artist. Akkerman is still developing, but all of the preliminary sketches for what will come are clearly there: the technique, of course, the compositional ability, the beauty of the sound he draws from his instrument, and the sheer order of his musical conceptions I don't mean order in the Teutonic sense of one must and one will; instead he seems to sense the truth of the French dictum that it is impossible to achieve true elegance without order. (Imagine the park of Versailles planted in blue spruce, or finishing off a dinner at Caravelle with a Hostess Twinkie. or Catharine Deneuve accenting her Givenchy with patent-leather high heels and turned-over athletic socks, and I think you'll get an idea of what I mean. Akkerman already knows all the components that go into a pleasing musical experience, and he displays them with the assured grace of a great gourmet ordering a dinner for you. If all this strikes you as a mite too civilized, too unspontaneous to be representative of true rock, then let me remind you that rock is well into its third decade, stagnating faster and faster, and could use the dynamism of an obviously trained musical mind. In fact, if rock is to be saved at all, it is people like Akkerman who will do it, not a soon-to-be-old Mick Jagger going through his over-rehearsed paces some time in the I980's with all the aplomb of a Ruby Keeler. "Tabernakel" is the kind of straw-in-the-wind album that makes reviewing fun.

Peter Reilly

New Album Out October 25 2019

Provenance

Provenance is a 2011 enovel by Robert S Field which one could say was inspired by Tabernakel. The author, who played classical guitar, discovered the lute through Akkerman's album and went on to discover also Julian Bream and to play himself.
Regarding the novel we are told

A lute of exquisite workmanship and beauty is crafted in Italy in the dark age of the mid 15th century by a master luthier, Francesco Ippolito da Cremona the Renaissance musician fated to play it to great acclaim, the bulk of his musical legacy composed upon it. But this lute is more than mere musical instrument; it is a memorial to love lost in a brutal tragedy. By the passion invested in it by its maker, and its embodiment of the relics of tormented love, it is imbued with the power to enchant, its enchantment released by the hands of its destined player. 

Against the evidence of history, the lute survives to the present day and along with a rare manuscript of Francesco Ippolito lute tablature, falls into the hands of Bob Roberts, an incurably romantic middle-class professional whose escape from a deeply unromantic life is to immerse himself in the lute music of the Renaissance. The lute is an unexceptional wreck when Bob acquires it, but he commissions its restoration and gradually its provenance is unveiled, the final revelation astonishing. 

The lute and Ippolitos music exert a powerful influence upon Bobs life that hints of deep unrest and a vague connection with lives long gone, as if lute and tablature combine in a conduit through which spiritual energy moves from past to present. 

This is a story of music across the ages, of obsession and betrayal, of destiny and, above all, of true love.

Lutes

This article on lutes is from the atlaas of plucked instruments here.

Lutes belong to the oldest plucked instruments. Lute-like instruments have been found in archeological remains in the Middle East and the Far East from as long as 4000 years ago. 

In Europe lutes were the most popular instruments for a few hundred years, especially from 1400 to 1800. This can be seen from the large volume of books and manuscripts from that period. 

The lute (both the instrument and the name) derives from the Arabian lute, the Ud("El Ud" - or Oud), which is still much played (see Middle East). The instrument probably reached West Europe from the Middle East via the Moors in Spain, or was brought home by the Crusadors.

Music for it was always written in tablature - a way of music notation specially for plucked stringed lute-like instruments, where not the pitch is notated, but which string on which fret has to be plucked. Several different systems were in use (Spanish, French, Italian and the most complicated: German), but all on the same basis: string + fret.

The lute era ended around 1750, when music (especially Bach's) became too complicated to be played by non-professionals on the lute, and was played more easily on keyboard instruments, like the then popular harpsichord and pianoforte.

The number of strings on a lute slowly increased from about four courses on early medieval lutes to theorbe lutes with many extra bass strings, fitted to extra long necks, reaching finally a total of 14 (double) courses, or 26 strings in total. Since the Middle Ages there were always double strings in a course.