William Gray Beyer

Rosenmüller, a prodigiously talented German musician and composer, found himself imprisoned in Leipzig for obscure ‘sex offences’: had his presence there become embarrassing? But he managed to escape to Hamburg, then reached the free and ‘Most Serene’ Republic of Venice, where he eventually taught at the Ospedale della Pietà, long before Vivaldi.

Francois Couperin 1668-1733. Gli incogniti, Early Music Ensemble, Amandine Beyer (violin). When he published his two Apotheoses in memory of two great masters of music in 1724-25, Couperin was asserting his desire to promote a meeting of the French and Italian styles, from a very Gallic point of view, naturally. The idea was to convince the French muses that henceforth one could say sonade and cantade in their language, a strategy already persued in the much earlier La Sultane and La Superbe. But, far from blindly imitating his idols, Couperin takes inspiration from their styles and adapts them to his own brio. The results is a delight for all to share with the musicians of Gli incogniti and Amandine Beyer who's debut Harmonia Mundi label recording this is.

Transcriptions of Bach's Chaconnes from the Partita for solo violin in D minor Bwv 1004 by three composers, as well as a timeless interpretation of the original.