Joseph Marchand: Suites

Description

In 1707, Joseph Marchand published his seven Suites of mixed pieces and sonatas for violin and bass. If we have completely forgotten him today, he was one of the bass violinists of the prestigious Royal Chapel, the Grande Bande, and the Petits Violons. A renowned professor, a musician with a "very singular style," his suites are the first in the repertoire to employ the perilous double trill. While he reflects certain aspects of the Italianization of musical taste, Marchand, through the abundance of his musical ideas, the beauty of his harmonies, the virtuosity of his parts, particularly the bass, and the care he takes in balancing forms and voices, is less an Italian epigone than the heir to the art of Marais, Sainte-Colombe, or Couperin. Sometimes on the violin, the pardessus de viole, the positive organ, the viola da gamba, or the harpsichord, the {oh!} trio, bringing together Martyna Pastuszka, Krzysztof Firlus, and Anna Firlus, thus rediscovers one of the musical achievements of the early 18th century, in all the poetry and refinement of its expression.