Jones Meyerson

Listeners wouldn't think that after 40 years of the Baroque keyboard revival that there existed high-quality music that even Baroque specialists haven't heard of. But that's just what German harpsichordist Mitzi Meyerson, a specialist in neglected Baroque repertoire, has unearthed here. English composer Richard Jones has apparently suffered from an almost total lack of information about his life; just a few of his works other than these sets of harpsichord "lessons" have survived, and there is no biographical information to hang them on.

For her ninth recording project on Glossa, the Berlin-based American harpsichordist Mitzi Meyerson is joined by her Finnish colleagues Kreeta-Maria Kentala (violin) and Lauri Pulakka (cello). With this same setup which they are keen to call the Jones Band they have previously unearthed works for the label by Richard Jones and Giovanni Battista Somis. The new recording is centred on François Francur, a celebrated member of the Vingt-quatre Violons du Roi and of Le Concert Spirituel in France, and co- director, later in his career, with François Rebel, of the Paris Opéra. The ten violin sonatas on the present double album represent the complete Premier Livre de sonates à violon seul et basse continue, published in Paris in 1720.