Barbara Kallaur, traverso
Christopher Verrette, Baroque violin
Elizabeth Macdonald, viola da gamba
Thomas Gerber, harpsichord
Special guest, Jerry Fuller, violone

Deuxiéme Recreation de Musique, Op. 8 (1737)
                                                                  Jean-Marie Leclair
Ouverture: Gravement                            (1697-1764)

Sonata #1 in D Major (1701)               Carlo Ambrogio Lonati
                                                                   (1645-c. 1710)

(Toccata)                                        
Largo
Sostenuto
Largo
Presto

Les Nations                                             Armand Louis Couperin
                                                                    (1727-1789)

L’Italienne
La Francoise

Troisiéme Suite from Premier Livre de Pieces (1708)
                                                                    Jacques Hotteterre
                                                                    (1674-1763)

Allemande, La Cascade de St. Cloud
Sarabande, La Guimon
Courante, L’indiferente – Double
Rondeau, Le Plaintif
Menuet, Le Mignon
Gigue, L’Italienne

Sonate a tre, Op.5, No. 2 in E minor (1745)
                                                                   Pietro Locatelli
                                                                    (1695-1764)

Largo--Andante
Allegro
Allegro

Sonata VIII à Trios                                Jean-Marie Leclair

Adagio
Allegro
Sarabanda
Allegro assai

program subject to change

Program Notes

Music and music making in the Baroque Era were highly colored by the differences in national styles of composition and performance and by the lively debate over their relative merits. No such rivalry was more intense that between France and Italy. In this concert, Ensemble Voltaire celebrates this spirited competition both in music and in the words of "ear witnesses" from the time. The sonata by Lonati exhibits Italian violin music in its purest form, which was imitated around Europe by composers like Purcell. A suite for flute by Hotteterre shows us the essence of the French idiom and the work of a family who manufactured and improved Baroque woodwind instruments as well as composing for them. Two harpsichord pieces by a lesser-known member of the Couperin dynasty attempt to illustrate the two nationalities side-by-side. We frame our concert with music by the French violinist Leclair, who participated in a kind of exchange program between the two styles: he went to Italy as a young man to teach French dancing there and was able to study Italian violin playing and composition in the process. It was perhaps on his way home that he encountered the Italian virtuoso Locatelli. The two were heard together on one occasion and the Frenchman was said to play like an angel, the Italian like a devil. Vive la difference!