Composer: Annette KRUISBRINK

If, like me you might have recognised only a very small handful of the [composers] names then you might be expecting to find a treasure trove of unknown delights awaiting you. To be fair, there are quite a few that are really worth playing.
There are an interesting four pages of notes about the composers. They are then presented in chronological order, beginning with Mlle Bocquet who was writing after 1660, and is here presented by four quite short, rather ornate, and beautifully done little pieces, that could form a nice little suite even though two are in D minor, one in D major and one in A minor. That said these are little gems and sound really well on the guitar, written as they were for the lute, of course. The Prelude No. l by Giuliani's daughter looks rather ordinary until you play it. It consists entirely of sextuplet semiquavers and is ostensibly a 4/4 piece in E minor. However it starts on a G#m chord going to C# major, then to F#m, and B7 before finding the home chord only on bar 5. Other excursions into very foreign territory then occur, that leave you wondering how you are ever going to get back to E minor again, but get back you do and most successfully. Madame Knoop (1st half of 19th century) is here presented by a nice pair of Spanish-flavoured pieces including her take on the ever present Jota Aragonesa and another work L'Alhambra, full of swooping thirds and slightly overused diminished chords. Then there are a couple of pieces by Madame Sidney Pratten which although very Victorian parlour in style, are nevertheless very appealing, if at times a little over sentimental, with titles such as Forgotten and Sadness. Madeleine Cottin's one piece Andantino also manages to elude the obvious even though it is an arpeggio-based idea, and could have been hackneyed in the hands of a lesser writer. As it is, it is a lovely miniature and great for the less advanced players. Maria Rita Brondi's piece, with a top string D and a fifth string G manages to write a piece that sounds like a precursor of the 20th century's slide guitarists of the modern era, using block major chords as she does in a style very reminiscent of their playing.
All in all, a very worthwhile publishing exercise that proves that there were some good female player/composers in past times. Worth getting.