‘The Muses restor’d’

Rachel Podger has put together a delectable programme of captivating violin-led chamber music from Jacobean to early Georgian England ranging from the gentle intimacy of consort idioms to the full-blown instrumental virtuosity of the evolving Baroque period. Apart from Handel and Purcell, the glories of English instrumental music of the 17th and early 18th centuries are largely unknown. There is a rich tradition of intimate chamber music where the violin joins a selection of keyboards, lutes, gamba and cello creating sonatas, fantasies, suites, grounds and popular folk tunes. Again this was a time when folk and Baroque music had but a thin dividing line between them.

Programme:
Purcell - Sonata in G minor Z.780
Locke - Little Consort in two parts For Severall Friends in C minor-major
Blow - Ground in G minor
Handel - Sonata in D major Op.1 No.13 HWV 371
Schop - Lachrimae
Jones - Chamber Airs for a violin and Thorough Bass Op.2 No.4
Barsanti - ‘Lochaber’ from A Collection of Old Scots Tunes
Purcell - Lillibullero ‘A new Irish Tune’
Oswald - 'Alloway House' from A Curious Collection of Scots Tunes
Geminiani - 'Airs for a violin or German flute, violin cello and harpsichord' from A Treatise of Good Taste in the Art of Musick 'Auld Bob Morrice' Affetuoso - Allegro