Major Thomás

It was only after his death that Franz Schubert’s symphonic works made an impact in music history. In fact, the first public performance of any of Schubert’s symphonies took place at a memorial concert held a few weeks after the composer had passed away, on 19th November 1828. The work that was heard at that occasion was Symphony No.6, D589, the ‘Little C major’, while the two undisputed master works of the series – the ‘Great C major’ and the ‘Unfinished’ – had to wait until 1838 and 1865, respectively, before being performed.

Violinist Théotime Langlois de Swarte and lutist Thomas Dunford illuminate aspects of the elusive amalgamation that is the 17th-century English notion of melancholy. The inconsolable 'Mad Lover' of the album title is reimagined as a character from the reign of Charles II. This tale is told through music from the pen of such violin virtuosos as the prodigiously gifted Nicola Matteis. Heightened by the exuberance and abandon common to those musicians transplanted from Italy, the beguiling nuances of this language of yearning and loss continue to echo in the popular music of our time.

Baroque works for oboe have long been fertile ground for transcription to the trumpet and there are several examples here of this refashioning. The sequence of concertos and sonatas include examples from Handel’s Italian years, and from Johann Gottfried Stölzel, who was strongly influenced by Vivaldi. Telemann’s marvellously inventive Concerto in D major is performed on the modern flugelhorn. In addition, there is the only known surviving work from Johann Michael Fasch, younger brother of the more famous Johann Friedrich.