A VIOL AND A VIOLIN IN SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY ENGLAND
The Duo Coloquintes draws on the virtuoso repertoire of the English virginalists, offering previously unpublished transcriptions of this repertoire originally written for keyboard.
Almost all the works chosen are taken from a compilation, The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book. This book, kept at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, contains almost three hundred pieces written by different composers for performance at the Elizabethan Court and later at the House of Stuart on a virginal (small keyboard instrument with plucked strings from the harpsichord family). The diversity and quality of the works inspired the duo to transcribe them and discover new colours.
The works follow each other in a thoughtful alternation of proud moments, often very danceable or gentle, even quite caressing. Alongside pieces from the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book, we hear the moving Captaine Humes Lamentations by violist Tobias Hume, as well as suite taken from the Manuscript of Susanne van Soldt, a young woman who learned to play the keyboard in England at the end of the sixteenth century...
