Eruya Shalev

A truly beautiful and unique tracklist with rarities including Víkingur Ólafsson’s new arrangement for piano of a Bach Cantata, rare transcriptions for guitar, for mandolin and even String Quartet; alongside familiar Bach masterpieces, all played by the world’s greatest classical artists, curated and presented Deutsche Grammophon.

These works, often thought of in terms of being ‘immature’, are currently under recorded. This is a pity because although lacking in the depth of Vivaldi’s next opus, the masterwork ‘L’Estro armonico’, these sonatas are sophisticated and artful studies.

Franz Benda (1709-1786) worked for much of his life at the court of Frederick the Great. He was a prolific composer but very few of his works were published. His brother Georg (1722-1795) received a similar education as choirboy, violinist and harpsichordist. Il Gardellino was founded in 1988 and its members are specialists in performance on early instruments.