Jordi Savall, viol player, conductor, expert in early music performance practice, and founder of the ensembles Hespèrion XXI and La Capella Reial de Catalunya is responsible for what must be one of the most creatively and sumptuously packaged recordings ever produced. This two-SACD set gathers vocal and instrumental music from the era of Cervantes' Don Quixote, some of it directly related to the novel. Savall and Manuel Forcano selected and adapted sections of the novel and interspersed the music and readings, allowing the listener to follow the events of the novel accompanied and surrounded by appropriate music.
Elisabeth Jacquet (Couperin’s senior by three years) was a remarkable girl. A member of a family of musicians, at the age of only five she attracted the benevolent attention of Louis XIV by her harpsichord playing, and subsequently was taken under the wing of his favourite, Mme de Montespan. At 18 she married the organist Marin de la Guerre and became famous for the concerts she gave at her home, in which her powers of improvisation were greatly admired. She wrote trio sonatas, an opera (the first one by a woman to be produced in France), violin sonatas that include double-stopping, and two books of Cantates francaises on Old Testament subjects.