Fête champêtre

With the music of Louis de Caix d’Hervelois, Marin Marais and François Couperin

He was particularly sensitive to the tone colour of the seven-stringed French viol and gave birth to a poetical style taking advantage of all the possibilities of the instrument. The pièces de caractère in his two last books, are portraits, descriptive landscapes, and small scenes as seen by a painter, and are still unequaled as the summit of the viol’s repertoire during the Regency period.

This programme can be played with or without harpsichord.

Florence Bolton, viola da gamba
Benjamin Perrot, theorbo
Carsten Lohff / Loris Barrucand, harpsichord

or

Florence Bolton, viola da gamba
Benjamin Perrot, theorbo

This programme is available in a concert-reading version based on Watteau’s work, with Benjamin Lazar, actor (texts by Marivaux, Verlaine, Baudelaire, …).

The disc

label Mirare 2018 | distribution Harmonia Mundi

« This exceptional recording will surely rank among my contenders for recording of the year »
Julie Anne Sadie, Gramophone

« This is a splendid recording of some very exciting music, and a window into a fascinating repertory that deserves to be better known »
Richard Rastall, Viola da gamba society (UK)

“La Rêveuse provides on this CD a very fine program with Marais works, which are really impressive in their atmospheric intensity and inner force. Florence Bolton’s playing is highly sensitive and moving.”
R. Franck, Pizzicato

« (…) Incomparable delicacy and sweetness, like a small miracle»
Guido Fischer, Rondo Magazin (D)

Extract