Robert Barto (lute) Naxos 8.572680*****

It was the English composer and guitarist John Duarte who once quipped that "Baroque lute music often sounds like an archbishop delivering a solemn sermon". And it was in the context of exculpating Silvius Leopold Weiss (1687-1750) from sermonising solemnity that he made the remark. American lutenist Robert Barto has been working his way through Weiss's copious output of sonatas for nearly 15 years now. In all the discs I've heard from the series, it's sounded like the proverbial marriage made in heaven. One of Weiss' greatest 18th-century fans was none other than Johann Sebastian Bach himself. And Barto plays Weiss with faithfulness and imagination, and no mean technical aplomb. This current volume, featuring Sonatas 30, 39 (a grand, nearly half-hour affair) and 96, is fully up to the series' high standards. url.ie/af6o.