Les Maîtres du violon: Livestream Edition

August 30, 2020

Elisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre by Teresa Cabanillas Gutiérrez. Click image above to watch the concert replay.

Click the link to watch: https://youtu.be/Cgzo_jzOjkQ
or search for Guts Baroque on YouTube

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One of the great silver linings of this time for us has been putting together an entirely new-to-us program every month. It is unprecedented in the history of our ensemble to have the time available to prepare that much new material so quickly! Another wonderful thing is our ability to reach listeners who are far away from any of our previous in-person concerts, and even to see old friends reconnecting with each other across geographic divides in the live chat of our YouTube streams as they enjoy our music.

Our August livestream revisits our beloved program “Les Maîtres du violon: The Rise of the French Violin Sonata,” which we performed last year in Maine and throughout Southern California. We are hoping to record these beautiful works as our debut album in the future, and look forward to revisiting them and sharing them with our online listeners!

Right around the beginning of the eighteenth century, a change was beginning to happen in the music of France. The graceful dance suite of Lully’s time, so beloved by the late Louis XIV, was slowly being supplanted by the Italian sonata. The great Italian composer and violinist Arcangelo Corelli had enriched and expanded the capabilities of the violin. His collections of sonatas had become staples in the repertoire of every violinist in Europe, and his students had become the dominant violinists of Italy. Many French violinists and other musicians traveled to Italy to study with the great masters, then returned to France, bringing with them Italian aesthetics and musical forms. As a result, the solo music written for violin gradually shifted towards the Corellian sonata, while still retaining the sublimely intricate and delicate ideas of the French Baroque. This program shows the gradual development of the genre of the French violin sonata.

Program:

François Francoeur: Sonate 2 in e from Sonates à violon seul, Livre I
Jean-Marie Leclair: Sonate 3 in Bb Major from Premier Livre de Sonates
Elisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre: Sonate 2 in D from Sonates pour le viollon

Here’s the program! Available as a full booklet or 1-page PDF:

Full PDF program with notes!
One-page PDF program