"la Rêveuse"

In the Seventeenth Century, Buxtehude and his contemporaries composed an innovative sacred repertory for solo voice, nurtured by Italian cantatas, rhetoric and drama, which brought renown to the Hanseatic cities of north Germany and inspired the young Bach.

Marin Marais possesses the grace, elegance and wit so appealing in the goût français of the eighteenth century. The character pieces of his last two books depict portraits, landscapes and little genre scenes in painterly fashion, and are an unsurpassed highpoint of the viol repertory.

Sébastien de Brossard, an enthusiastic collector of music, pedagogue and author of the first dictionary of music, was also a very talented composer. This champion of Italian music and great connoisseur of the music of Carissimi probably took the Roman master as the model for his two oratorios. Leandro, a dramatic work in Italian, is a miniature masterpiece and one of the earliest cantatas by a French composer.

In this new album, Florence Bolton and Benjamin Perrot revisit the composer who gave their ensemble its delightful name, ‘La Rêveuse’. Drawing on his heritage (Sainte-Colombe), his friendships (Robert de Visée) and his own visionary genius, Marin Marais blazed new trails for his instrument in his second book of viol pieces (1701). Alongside the customary dances and sets of variations, he invented the ‘character pieces’ that were to become so popular in the eighteenth century.