The Violin's delight, A garden of pleasure : Musique allemande virtuose pour violon du 17ème siècle

Description

Despite the English title - The Violin’s Delight - this is indeed about Austro-German music, even if the world of the baroque violin in the 17th century is ultimately very European. This Stylus Phantasticus, entirely focused on a form of free improvisation, is above all experimental music, highly virtuosic, that breaks the rules. Biber and Johann Walter are naturally called upon here, but this recording, one of the most beautiful we have recently had the pleasure of hearing in this repertoire, shines a light on almost unknown composers and also demonstrates that the organ masters Johann Kaspar Kerll and Georg Muffat were also capable of writing for the violin. With several works making their world premiere recording, this album is equally essential due to the quality of its performers: Bulgarian violinist Plamena Nikitassova, a student of Chiara Banchini, is of course in her element on her splendid Jakobus Steiner from 1659, but we must highlight the exceptional coherence of the ensemble formed with theorbo player Julian Behr and continuo player Jörg-Andreas Böttcher… not to mention the violone of Mathias Müller. The album fully deserves its subtitle "A Garden of Pleasure." To miss out on yours would be pure folly! (Yves Kerbiriou)