Veronika Skuplik, Jorg Jacobi Violino 2 Catena Bohemica

The famous British Library in London owes one of it's musical treasures to an English tennis player: A manuscript - probably written on the continent - with violin music around 1680 from faraway Vienna. Virtuoso sonatas by and from the circle of the devil's violinist Johann Heinrich Schmelzer. Veronika Skuplik, "prima donna" in the baroque violin firmament, has worked out some of these musical stories with virtuosity and incomparable sensitivity. Without going with the zeitgeisty fashion of lush continuo, she is accompanied by Jorg Jacobi on the historic organ of the Laurentiuskirche in Langwarden.

Produced by Jean-Baptiste Mersiol and Jacques Viret, Emeritus Professor of Musicology at the University of Strasbourg and a Gregorian chant specialist, this 3-album set highlights historic recordings dating from 1930, restored to a sound quality that is almost contemporary and gathered together for the first time in their entirety, and with their original running order. Solesmes Abbey was then the world’s great specialist in Gregorian palaeography, and its chants aroused an admiration that was unanimous and went beyond musicological considerations. A genuine cornerstone of Western music, the universal splendor of this monodic singing with a thousand-year history is invaluable evidence that grace is obtained through beauty.